Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ashburn somethingmore quotes

# b: 1

DNA on 10th — street art, wayfinding and font

# data visualization + art

If you like space, you'll love my 2017 Pi Day art which imagines the digits as a star catalogue. Meet the Quagga and Aurochs—the Constellations in this sky are extinct animals and plants.

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— Viorica Hrincu

Sometimes when you stare at the void, the void sends you a poem.

# Universe—Superclusters and Voids

The Universe — Superclustesr and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters (blue), superclusters (magenta) and voids (black) within a distance of 6,000 million light-years from the Milky Way.

The average density of the universe is about $10 \times 10^{-30} \text{ g/cm}^3$ or about 6 protons per cubic meter. This should put some perspective in what we mean when we speak about voids as "underdense regions".

A variety of color schemes are available.

For each poster, I show an image of a close crop of the region near Ursa Major.

The Universe — Superclusters and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters, superclusters and voids within a distance of 6 billion light-travel years from the Milky Way.. Magenta theme. (BUY ARTWORK)
(ZOOM) The Universe — Superclusters and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters, superclusters and voids within a distance of 6 billion light-travel years from the Milky Way.. Magenta theme. (BUY ARTWORK)
The Universe — Superclusters and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters, superclusters and voids within a distance of 6 billion light-travel years from the Milky Way.. Blue theme. (BUY ARTWORK)
(ZOOM) The Universe — Superclusters and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters, superclusters and voids within a distance of 6 billion light-travel years from the Milky Way.. Blue theme. (BUY ARTWORK)
The Universe — Superclusters and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters, superclusters and voids within a distance of 6 billion light-travel years from the Milky Way.. Grey/blue theme. (BUY ARTWORK)
(ZOOM) The Universe — Superclusters and Voids. The two supergalactic hemispheres showing Abell clusters, superclusters and voids within a distance of 6 billion light-travel years from the Milky Way.. Grey/blue theme. (BUY ARTWORK)
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# Quantile regression

Sat 01-06-2019
Quantile regression robustly estimates the typical and extreme values of a response.

Quantile regression explores the effect of one or more predictors on quantiles of the response. It can answer questions such as "What is the weight of 90% of individuals of a given height?"

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Quantile regression. (read)

Unlike in traditional mean regression methods, no assumptions about the distribution of the response are required, which makes it practical, robust and amenable to skewed distributions.

Quantile regression is also very useful when extremes are interesting or when the response variance varies with the predictors.

Das, K., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Quantile regression. Nature Methods 16:451–452.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2015) Points of significance: Simple linear regression. Nature Methods 12:999–1000.

# Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue

Sat 30-03-2019
Robust regression generates more reliable estimates by detecting and downweighting outliers.

Outliers can degrade the fit of linear regression models when the estimation is performed using the ordinary least squares. The impact of outliers can be mitigated with methods that provide robust inference and greater reliability in the presence of anomalous values.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue. (read)

We discuss MM-estimation and show how it can be used to keep your fitting sane and reliable.

Greco, L., Luta, G., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue. Nature Methods 16:275–276.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2016) Points of significance: Analyzing outliers: Influential or nuisance. Nature Methods 13:281–282.

# Two-level factorial experiments

Fri 22-03-2019
To find which experimental factors have an effect, simultaneously examine the difference between the high and low levels of each.

Two-level factorial experiments, in which all combinations of multiple factor levels are used, efficiently estimate factor effects and detect interactions—desirable statistical qualities that can provide deep insight into a system.

They offer two benefits over the widely used one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) experiments: efficiency and ability to detect interactions.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Two-level factorial experiments. (read)

Since the number of factor combinations can quickly increase, one approach is to model only some of the factorial effects using empirically-validated assumptions of effect sparsity and effect hierarchy. Effect sparsity tells us that in factorial experiments most of the factorial terms are likely to be unimportant. Effect hierarchy tells us that low-order terms (e.g. main effects) tend to be larger than higher-order terms (e.g. two-factor or three-factor interactions).

Smucker, B., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Two-level factorial experiments Nature Methods 16:211–212.

Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2014) Points of significance: Designing comparative experiments.. Nature Methods 11:597–598.

# Happy 2019 $\pi$ Day—Digits, internationally

Tue 12-03-2019

Celebrate $\pi$ Day (March 14th) and set out on an exploration explore accents unknown (to you)!

This year is purely typographical, with something for everyone. Hundreds of digits and hundreds of languages.

A special kids' edition merges math with color and fat fonts.

116 digits in 64 languages. (details)
223 digits in 102 languages. (details)

Check out art from previous years: 2013 $\pi$ Day and 2014 $\pi$ Day, 2015 $\pi$ Day, 2016 $\pi$ Day, 2017 $\pi$ Day and 2018 $\pi$ Day.

# Tree of Emotional Life

Sun 17-02-2019

One moment you're $:)$ and the next you're $:-.$

Make sense of it all with my Tree of Emotional life—a hierarchical account of how we feel.

A section of the Tree of Emotional Life.

# Find and snap to colors in an image

Sat 29-12-2018

One of my color tools, the $colorsnap$ application snaps colors in an image to a set of reference colors and reports their proportion.

Below is Times Square rendered using the colors of the MTA subway lines.

Colors used by the New York MTA subway lines.

Times Square in New York City.
Times Square in New York City rendered using colors of the MTA subway lines.
Granger rainbow snapped to subway lines colors from four cities. (zoom)