Sketchplanations makes complex ideas simple with clear, insightful sketches. Explore topics from science, creativity, psychology, and beyond explained in pictures.
Dividing up money in your head. Nutmeg, where I work, is, among other things, designed to help out with this. PS
It’s been a long absence. A new child, moving house and all sorts of fun has happened. I’ll try to keep at it at a more leisurely pace. Thanks again for following.…Dividing up money in your head. Nutmeg, where I work, is, among other things, designed to help out with this. PS
It’s been a long absence. A new child, moving house and all sorts of fun has happened. I’ll try to keep at it at a more leisurely pace. Thanks again for following.WWW…
Desire paths: created by desire and use. Sometimes I find myself walking on the traces of one as a statement that ‘there ought to be a path here’ - voting with my feet. There’s the classic, perhaps apocryphal, story of the architect who didn’t build any paths on a campus until people had worn them in, showing where the paths should be. The phenomena has found use in technology with the phrase 'pave the cowpaths’. More detail from Dan Lockton: One emergent behaviour-related concept arising from architecture and planning which has also found application in human-computer interaction is the idea of desire lines, desire paths or cowpaths. The usual current use of the term (often attributed, although apparently in error, to Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1964)) is to describe paths worn by pedestrians across spaces such as parks, between buildings or to avoid obstacles—“the foot-worn paths that sometimes appear in a landscape over time” (Mathes, 2004) and which become self-reinforcing as subsequent generations of pedestrians follow what becomes an obvious path. Throgmorton & Eckstein (2000) also discuss Chicago transportation engineers’ use of ‘desire lines’ to describe maps of straight-line origin-to-destination journeys across the city, in the process revealing assumptions about the public’s ‘desire’ to undertake these journeys. In either sense, desire lines (along with use-marks (Burns, 2007)) could perhaps, using economic terminology, be seen as a form of revealed user preference (Beshears et al, 2008) or at least revealed choice, with a substantial normative quality. Architecture, urbanism, design and behaviour: a brief review, Dan Lockton, Sep 2011 Or see this very concrete example from UC Berkeley at peterme.com.…Desire paths: created by desire and use. Sometimes I find myself walking on the traces of one as a statement that ‘there ought to be a path here’ - voting with my feet. There’s the classic, perhaps apocryphal, story of the architect who didn’t build any paths on a campus until people had worn them in, showing where the paths should be. The phenomena has found use in technology with the phrase 'pave the cowpaths’. More detail from Dan Lockton: One emergent behaviour-related concept arising from architecture and planning which has also found application in human-computer interaction is the idea of desire lines, desire paths or cowpaths. The usual current use of the term (often attributed, although apparently in error, to Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1964)) is to describe paths worn by pedestrians across spaces such as parks, between buildings or to avoid obstacles—“the foot-worn paths that sometimes appear in a landscape over time” (Mathes, 2004) and which become self-reinforcing as subsequent generations of pedestrians follow what becomes an obvious path. Throgmorton & Eckstein (2000) also discuss Chicago transportation engineers’ use of ‘desire lines’ to describe maps of straight-line origin-to-destination journeys across the city, in the process revealing assumptions about the public’s ‘desire’ to undertake these journeys. In either sense, desire lines (along with use-marks (Burns, 2007)) could perhaps, using economic terminology, be seen as a form of revealed user preference (Beshears et al, 2008) or at least revealed choice, with a substantial normative quality. Architecture, urbanism, design and behaviour: a brief review, Dan Lockton, Sep 2011 Or see this very concrete example from UC Berkeley at peterme.com.WWW…
How to identify a douglas fir? I find identifying the sometimes subtle differences of tall evergreens rather difficult, but fortunately, that's not the case for the douglas fir. Identifying a douglas fir, a tall, straight and very impressive evergreen conifer is easy with this simple reminder if you find any cones. Normally, the cones are easy to find around the base of a tree. For such a large tree, like the redwood or sequoia, the cones are quite small. Douglas fir cones have many small 3-pointed tongues (or bracts) that emerge from the tight cones. Typically, they are of unequal lengths with the longest in the centre. After it came to mind to name each one Dougie, Douglas, and Doug, in turn, after the length of each point, I haven’t forgotten since and identifying a douglas fir is easy. Mature douglas firs typically have grey, tough and deeply-fissured bark to go with it. The douglas fir, one of my favourite trees, might even have grown above the tallest redwoods living today making the douglas fir one of the tallest known trees. The Douglas fir is named after Scottish botanist David Douglas and is not a true fir tree and so it's sometimes written Douglas-fir. Also see: Ponderosa pine fire protections, nurse log, phoenix trees…How to identify a douglas fir? I find identifying the sometimes subtle differences of tall evergreens rather difficult, but fortunately, that's not the case for the douglas fir. Identifying a douglas fir, a tall, straight and very impressive evergreen conifer is easy with this simple reminder if you find any cones. Normally, the cones are easy to find around the base of a tree. For such a large tree, like the redwood or sequoia, the cones are quite small. Douglas fir cones have many small 3-pointed tongues (or bracts) that emerge from the tight cones. Typically, they are of unequal lengths with the longest in the centre. After it came to mind to name each one Dougie, Douglas, and Doug, in turn, after the length of each point, I haven’t forgotten since and identifying a douglas fir is easy. Mature douglas firs typically have grey, tough and deeply-fissured bark to go with it. The douglas fir, one of my favourite trees, might even have grown above the tallest redwoods living today making the douglas fir one of the tallest known trees. The Douglas fir is named after Scottish botanist David Douglas and is not a true fir tree and so it's sometimes written Douglas-fir. Also see: Ponderosa pine fire protections, nurse log, phoenix treesWWW…
We sleep for around one third of our lives. If you live until you're 90 years old you will have slept for a remarkable 32 years.…We sleep for around one third of our lives. If you live until you're 90 years old you will have slept for a remarkable 32 years.WWW…
Not my invention. Most recently spotted via the excellent Eva-lotta Lamm.…Not my invention. Most recently spotted via the excellent Eva-lotta Lamm.WWW…
More value will likely be found through analogy than the shipping situation. Watch out for barnacles on your project. One by itself is nothing, but enough of them can cost you.…More value will likely be found through analogy than the shipping situation. Watch out for barnacles on your project. One by itself is nothing, but enough of them can cost you.WWW…
