Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch

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Listen with passion

So often do we talk about speaking with passion, much rarer do we think about listening with passion. Conversations are two-sided, they only work if one person is listening while the other is talking. Unfortunately, we tend to have a greater innate interest in making sure others know the smart, interesting and important things that we think than truly absorbing what someone else has to say. So I love this quote from Harriet Lerner: Listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard. If we all could do this routinely with our colleagues, friends, family, children, and partners I’d guess it’d make quite a difference. I learned about it from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead.…So often do we talk about speaking with passion, much rarer do we think about listening with passion. Conversations are two-sided, they only work if one person is listening while the other is talking. Unfortunately, we tend to have a greater innate interest in making sure others know the smart, interesting and important things that we think than truly absorbing what someone else has to say. So I love this quote from Harriet Lerner: Listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard. If we all could do this routinely with our colleagues, friends, family, children, and partners I’d guess it’d make quite a difference. I learned about it from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead.

26 Apr 2020

3,500 Lifetime reads

How many books will you read in a lifetime? If you’re a pretty dedicated reader, you may be able to get through one book a week, so roughly 50 books a year. Over 70 years of reading at that pace, you’d read around 3,500 books—counting comfort rereads like Harry Potter for the third time. I only know a few people who actually manage to read like that, so presumably, for most of us, the likely book reads we will manage is much less than that. To put that number in context, your local bookstore has around 30,000 books. So if you were to use your entire life’s reading in that store, you’d still only be a bit over 1/10th of the way through. That’s a lot of books you didn’t even get a chance to start. I won’t deny that 3,500 books is a lot of books, but whatever you do, there will be far more books that you just don’t have time to get to than those you do find time for. So, like for movies, I think it seems wise to be at least a little thoughtful about what books you choose to pick up, and what books you decide to go on to finish. As the author James Joyce said: "Life is too short to read a bad book." P.S. In the course of making this, I learned that in 2010 the Google Books team estimated there were around 130 million books to choose from.…How many books will you read in a lifetime? If you’re a pretty dedicated reader, you may be able to get through one book a week, so roughly 50 books a year. Over 70 years of reading at that pace, you’d read around 3,500 books—counting comfort rereads like Harry Potter for the third time. I only know a few people who actually manage to read like that, so presumably, for most of us, the likely book reads we will manage is much less than that. To put that number in context, your local bookstore has around 30,000 books. So if you were to use your entire life’s reading in that store, you’d still only be a bit over 1/10th of the way through. That’s a lot of books you didn’t even get a chance to start. I won’t deny that 3,500 books is a lot of books, but whatever you do, there will be far more books that you just don’t have time to get to than those you do find time for. So, like for movies, I think it seems wise to be at least a little thoughtful about what books you choose to pick up, and what books you decide to go on to finish. As the author James Joyce said: "Life is too short to read a bad book." P.S. In the course of making this, I learned that in 2010 the Google Books team estimated there were around 130 million books to choose from.

19 Apr 2020

The liar paradox

A favourite of our kids is to play opposites day. It usually starts with something simple like where we say “No, they can’t have chocolate for breakfast,” and they then announce that it’s opposites day so that means they can have chocolate for breakfast. Then I say, but if it’s opposites day then that means you just said it’s not opposites day. Then they say, if it’s not opposites day then what they said is true so it is opposites day. After a while we end up being late for school. This is a version of the liar paradox, also known as the Epimenides paradox after a chap from Crete who is supposed to have announced that all Cretans are liars. There are a bunch of versions of the paradox including the simpler one: this sentence is a lie. Some other paradoxes: Jevon’s paradox the coastline paradox the Abilene paradox…A favourite of our kids is to play opposites day. It usually starts with something simple like where we say “No, they can’t have chocolate for breakfast,” and they then announce that it’s opposites day so that means they can have chocolate for breakfast. Then I say, but if it’s opposites day then that means you just said it’s not opposites day. Then they say, if it’s not opposites day then what they said is true so it is opposites day. After a while we end up being late for school. This is a version of the liar paradox, also known as the Epimenides paradox after a chap from Crete who is supposed to have announced that all Cretans are liars. There are a bunch of versions of the paradox including the simpler one: this sentence is a lie. Some other paradoxes: Jevon’s paradox the coastline paradox the Abilene paradox

11 Apr 2020

The Bullwhip Effect

How small changes in customer demand can produce considerable disruption upstream in the supply chain. For instance, a sudden surge in the buying of toilet paper may cause retailers to put in larger orders to make sure they can keep up with demand. Manufacturers, in turn, may put in even larger orders for raw materials to make sure they don’t get caught out. In the meantime, customers had bought all the toilet paper they ever needed and demand suddenly dropped causing retailers to cancel all their orders, manufacturers to halt production and suppliers to be left with big stockpiles of unwanted raw materials. I learned about the bullwhip effect from Tomas Tunguz where he considers economic effects of the coronavirus. He explains it with a brewery example in his article on proxy metrics for startups.…How small changes in customer demand can produce considerable disruption upstream in the supply chain. For instance, a sudden surge in the buying of toilet paper may cause retailers to put in larger orders to make sure they can keep up with demand. Manufacturers, in turn, may put in even larger orders for raw materials to make sure they don’t get caught out. In the meantime, customers had bought all the toilet paper they ever needed and demand suddenly dropped causing retailers to cancel all their orders, manufacturers to halt production and suppliers to be left with big stockpiles of unwanted raw materials. I learned about the bullwhip effect from Tomas Tunguz where he considers economic effects of the coronavirus. He explains it with a brewery example in his article on proxy metrics for startups.

5 Apr 2020

What is the scale of solar system distances explained: show how big is the solar system, what is an astronomical unit and the distances between planets

Solar system planets: how big is the solar system?

It’s pretty hard to get to grips with the scale of the solar system. It's really, really, really big. To help process the vast distances within our system, astronomers use Astronomical Units where 1 AU is the distance of Earth from the Sun. If you see Venus in the night sky, our closest neighbour just 0.7 AU from the sun, it looks impossibly far away. But the further out you go, the more the distances multiply. Earth and Venus are practically on top of each other compared to Uranus and Neptune. Neptune is a full 30 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Now think about the fact that our little solar system is over 250,000 AUs from our nearest star, which is, in turn, just one of many tucked away in a small corner of the Milky Way, which is only one of many galaxies that make up the known universe. It might be time to sit down. James O'Donoghue has made some brilliant videos about the solar system that explain this and more. This sketch, and plenty more in the Starry-eyed Surprises section, features in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures The original sketch of solar system sizes is on a paper background. Prints of the Paper background solar system sizes sketch Dark sky background solar system sizes sketch…It’s pretty hard to get to grips with the scale of the solar system. It's really, really, really big. To help process the vast distances within our system, astronomers use Astronomical Units where 1 AU is the distance of Earth from the Sun. If you see Venus in the night sky, our closest neighbour just 0.7 AU from the sun, it looks impossibly far away. But the further out you go, the more the distances multiply. Earth and Venus are practically on top of each other compared to Uranus and Neptune. Neptune is a full 30 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Now think about the fact that our little solar system is over 250,000 AUs from our nearest star, which is, in turn, just one of many tucked away in a small corner of the Milky Way, which is only one of many galaxies that make up the known universe. It might be time to sit down. James O'Donoghue has made some brilliant videos about the solar system that explain this and more. This sketch, and plenty more in the Starry-eyed Surprises section, features in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures The original sketch of solar system sizes is on a paper background. Prints of the Paper background solar system sizes sketch Dark sky background solar system sizes sketch

28 Mar 2020

Equinox

On the equinox there is nearly exactly 12 hours of daylight and night — the day and night are perfectly balanced. On these days the sun rises almost due East and sets due West. The Spring equinox and Fall equinox are the transition between the seasons of Winter to Spring or Summer to Fall, depending on if your days are getting longer or shorter. The other seasons transition at the solstices. Technically, the equinox is the instant “the plane of Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun.” (wikipedia) This usually happens around the 20 March and 23 September. The equinox exists due to the tilt of the Earth. Also see: Seasons Solstice…On the equinox there is nearly exactly 12 hours of daylight and night — the day and night are perfectly balanced. On these days the sun rises almost due East and sets due West. The Spring equinox and Fall equinox are the transition between the seasons of Winter to Spring or Summer to Fall, depending on if your days are getting longer or shorter. The other seasons transition at the solstices. Technically, the equinox is the instant “the plane of Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun.” (wikipedia) This usually happens around the 20 March and 23 September. The equinox exists due to the tilt of the Earth. Also see: Seasons Solstice

21 Mar 2020

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