Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch

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Explaining the world one sketch at a time

John Muir quote illustration with a Sierra Nevada lake and distant mountains with a mountain chickadee bird on a branch in the foreground and the quote "As soon as we take one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."

Hitched to everything else in the universe

It all matters. Be it one person, one bird, or one tree. We are all connected. As John Muir wrote in My First Summer in the Sierra: "As soon as we take one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." — John Muir Take care of each other. The sketch is Heart Lake in his beloved Sierra Nevada, and one of my favourite ever spots to camp. A related thought: "Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." — Henry David Thoreau I updated this sketch into a two-page spread (along with many others) for my book Big Ideas Little Pictures Related Ideas to Hitched to Everything Else in the Universe Also see: Going Out Was Really Going In—John Muir Time Hierarchy The Overview Effect…It all matters. Be it one person, one bird, or one tree. We are all connected. As John Muir wrote in My First Summer in the Sierra: "As soon as we take one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." — John Muir Take care of each other. The sketch is Heart Lake in his beloved Sierra Nevada, and one of my favourite ever spots to camp. A related thought: "Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." — Henry David Thoreau I updated this sketch into a two-page spread (along with many others) for my book Big Ideas Little Pictures Related Ideas to Hitched to Everything Else in the Universe Also see: Going Out Was Really Going In—John Muir Time Hierarchy The Overview Effect

8 Nov 2020

Halloween

Perhaps when you first dressed up as a ghost and went round the houses asking for sweets you thought to also ask what the meaning of Halloween was? In case, like me, you didn't, I can share for you that Halloween is a smush together — or portmanteau — of hallow, of old English origin meaning Saint, and e'en, a contraction of the Scots word even meaning eve. So it's really the night before All Hallows or All Saints' Day on the 1st of November when Christians celebrate the lives of past Saints and martyrs. It's also part of the season of events called Allhallowtide including All Souls' Day on the 2nd of November and sometimes days beyond. The other Halloween traditions come from a mix of sources over hundreds of years that are both complex and somewhat disputed. I did like that the Jack O'lantern, before transferring itself to a pumpkin in the US, was originally carved out of turnips. And I also read that a mighty one quarter of candy sold in the US is sold for Halloween. Some of the better, sources, explaining the origins of Halloween. Also see, Boxing Day.…Perhaps when you first dressed up as a ghost and went round the houses asking for sweets you thought to also ask what the meaning of Halloween was? In case, like me, you didn't, I can share for you that Halloween is a smush together — or portmanteau — of hallow, of old English origin meaning Saint, and e'en, a contraction of the Scots word even meaning eve. So it's really the night before All Hallows or All Saints' Day on the 1st of November when Christians celebrate the lives of past Saints and martyrs. It's also part of the season of events called Allhallowtide including All Souls' Day on the 2nd of November and sometimes days beyond. The other Halloween traditions come from a mix of sources over hundreds of years that are both complex and somewhat disputed. I did like that the Jack O'lantern, before transferring itself to a pumpkin in the US, was originally carved out of turnips. And I also read that a mighty one quarter of candy sold in the US is sold for Halloween. Some of the better, sources, explaining the origins of Halloween. Also see, Boxing Day.

31 Oct 2020

Idling

An average car, sitting idling, can produce exhaust emissions to fill 150 balloons. That's a lot of balloons to imagine puffing away out of the cars idling outside a school for a pickup, say. Other tests have found (pdf) that for any time over 10s, fuel use and emissions are always greater when idling than turning off the engine and restarting. Spread the word. I did draw 150 balloons, but a few of them didn't fit on the page.…An average car, sitting idling, can produce exhaust emissions to fill 150 balloons. That's a lot of balloons to imagine puffing away out of the cars idling outside a school for a pickup, say. Other tests have found (pdf) that for any time over 10s, fuel use and emissions are always greater when idling than turning off the engine and restarting. Spread the word. I did draw 150 balloons, but a few of them didn't fit on the page.

26 Oct 2020

The haversine formula

It might seem straightforward to pull out a map and measure the distance between two distant points, however, the larger the distance the bigger the distortion caused by traveling on the curved surface of the Earth as opposed to flat 2D space. So while the distance you measure to your neighbouring town won't be too bad, if you're measuring between London and Rio the curvature of the Earth will make a big difference to the distance that you'll travel. To help figure out the correct distance there's the haversine formula. The haversine formula allows you to calculate the shortest distance between two points on a sphere using their latitudes and longitudes — this will be the arc between them on the great circle that includes both points. A great circle is a circle on a sphere with the same centre as the sphere, like the Equator. The haversine formula isn't perfect in practice, as Earth isn't a perfect sphere — see the 3 tallest mountains. It was invented around two hundred years ago, together with tables to speed any calculations, to help sailors navigate. Also see, the Mercator projection …It might seem straightforward to pull out a map and measure the distance between two distant points, however, the larger the distance the bigger the distortion caused by traveling on the curved surface of the Earth as opposed to flat 2D space. So while the distance you measure to your neighbouring town won't be too bad, if you're measuring between London and Rio the curvature of the Earth will make a big difference to the distance that you'll travel. To help figure out the correct distance there's the haversine formula. The haversine formula allows you to calculate the shortest distance between two points on a sphere using their latitudes and longitudes — this will be the arc between them on the great circle that includes both points. A great circle is a circle on a sphere with the same centre as the sphere, like the Equator. The haversine formula isn't perfect in practice, as Earth isn't a perfect sphere — see the 3 tallest mountains. It was invented around two hundred years ago, together with tables to speed any calculations, to help sailors navigate. Also see, the Mercator projection

18 Oct 2020

The goal-gradient effect

Have you ever noticed the pull of completing the last few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? Or maybe it’s the last clue of a murder mystery, the final chapter of your book or the ultimate mile of a marathon. Being close to our goal can motivate us to get to the end. That’s the goal-gradient effect at work. What is the Goal-Gradient Effect? The goal-gradient effect—also known as the goal-gradient hypothesis—may be part of why getting started is sometimes the most challenging part and may cause us to over-prioritize near-term goals to the detriment of later ones. In the example in the sketch, Oleg Urminksy and coauthors found that as people approached the final stamp of a loyalty card towards a free coffee, they were more likely to buy coffee faster. And when issued with a new card, the rate of purchase dropped. The urgency diminished with the blank card and the perk once again distant. The researchers also found that it wasn’t the absolute distance from a goal but the perception of distance that mattered. People who started with a 12-stamp card with two stamps already completed tended to complete the card faster than those who started with an empty 10-stamp card, even though they had the same number of stamps to the goal. This related quirk of behavior is known as the endowed progress effect or the progress illusion. Read more in Katy Milkman and Kassie Brabaw's Scientific American article, Why Feeling Close to the Finish Line Makes You Push Harder. Related Ideas to The Goal-Gradient Effect Katy Milkman also educated me about the fresh start effect The Peak-End Rule What Drives Us: Autonomy Mastery Purpose The 3 bricklayers Public commitment pledge This sketch appears in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures…Have you ever noticed the pull of completing the last few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? Or maybe it’s the last clue of a murder mystery, the final chapter of your book or the ultimate mile of a marathon. Being close to our goal can motivate us to get to the end. That’s the goal-gradient effect at work. What is the Goal-Gradient Effect? The goal-gradient effect—also known as the goal-gradient hypothesis—may be part of why getting started is sometimes the most challenging part and may cause us to over-prioritize near-term goals to the detriment of later ones. In the example in the sketch, Oleg Urminksy and coauthors found that as people approached the final stamp of a loyalty card towards a free coffee, they were more likely to buy coffee faster. And when issued with a new card, the rate of purchase dropped. The urgency diminished with the blank card and the perk once again distant. The researchers also found that it wasn’t the absolute distance from a goal but the perception of distance that mattered. People who started with a 12-stamp card with two stamps already completed tended to complete the card faster than those who started with an empty 10-stamp card, even though they had the same number of stamps to the goal. This related quirk of behavior is known as the endowed progress effect or the progress illusion. Read more in Katy Milkman and Kassie Brabaw's Scientific American article, Why Feeling Close to the Finish Line Makes You Push Harder. Related Ideas to The Goal-Gradient Effect Katy Milkman also educated me about the fresh start effect The Peak-End Rule What Drives Us: Autonomy Mastery Purpose The 3 bricklayers Public commitment pledge This sketch appears in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures

10 Oct 2020

The Swiss Cheese Model

The Swiss Cheese Model helps explain why, despite all our best intentions, accidents happen. Analysis of accidents in large complex systems such as power stations or plane crashes led to an understanding that "no one failure, human or technical, is sufficient to cause an accident. Rather, it involves the unlikely and often unforeseeable conjunction of several contributing factors arising from different levels of the system." James Reason's Swiss Cheese Model is a memorable visual metaphor that illustrates how each safeguard may contain a latent flaw or hole and that an unfortunate circumstance may result in these holes lining up to disastrous effect. It's also a nice reminder that multiple layers of defence will be more effective, but even with our best efforts, there's still potential for something to go wrong. Excerpt from Revisiting the "Swiss Cheese" Model of Accidents (pdf), Reason, Hollnagel and Paries, 2006. Coronavirus example from the Cleveland Clinic. I learned recently that it's sometimes called the "cumulative act effect". This sketch, updated and polished, features with a number of others in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures. Also see: Dracula sneeze Flatten the curve…The Swiss Cheese Model helps explain why, despite all our best intentions, accidents happen. Analysis of accidents in large complex systems such as power stations or plane crashes led to an understanding that "no one failure, human or technical, is sufficient to cause an accident. Rather, it involves the unlikely and often unforeseeable conjunction of several contributing factors arising from different levels of the system." James Reason's Swiss Cheese Model is a memorable visual metaphor that illustrates how each safeguard may contain a latent flaw or hole and that an unfortunate circumstance may result in these holes lining up to disastrous effect. It's also a nice reminder that multiple layers of defence will be more effective, but even with our best efforts, there's still potential for something to go wrong. Excerpt from Revisiting the "Swiss Cheese" Model of Accidents (pdf), Reason, Hollnagel and Paries, 2006. Coronavirus example from the Cleveland Clinic. I learned recently that it's sometimes called the "cumulative act effect". This sketch, updated and polished, features with a number of others in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures. Also see: Dracula sneeze Flatten the curve

3 Oct 2020

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