Visual Ideas

» World History Timeline: One Thumbnail for Every Year

I went looking for a world history timeline and was somewhat disappointed with the results. First, the life span of important people is not of interest to me (just when they did what they did). Second, I wanted a way to grossly oversimplify culture, science, and politics to the point that I might be able to “look around” a bit in history .

What began a simple inquiry into the order of events became less of strict learning tool and more a reflection tool. I eventually settled on these scope-limiting rules:

• One thumb per year, no more, even though Chernobyl and Challenger were in 1986.
• No durations, no birthdays, and year of death only when it was an event.
• Only events with a somewhat distinct time involved. For art, this is sometimes the date of the completion or publication. For inventions, it might be a patent, since inventions often evolve. And most importantly,
• only things that can be represented with a thumbnail.

» Earth is to Planets as Penny is to...

Once again I was looking for context, finding it strange to have no real concept of the size of the sun. This graphic is an extended analogy with the Earth corresponding to a penny, and everyday objects at equal ratios. Instead of showing size relationships literally, with a tiny sliver of the sun glimpsing the page, this graphic displays all objects at the same size, using objects so familiar that sizing is unimportant. While Earth, as far as I know, is not flat, I think the diameter gets the idea across quite clearly.

Text Ideas

» The Everything Dashboard

I started to notice that the analogies I was using for making sense of my world had common threads. Most often, the simple idea was that perception can be wrong, as in The Emperor Has No Clothes and The Matrix. That analogy list turned into a thought list, and no thought list would be complete without collecting eponymous axioms (i.e. Smith– s Law). Then I noticed that a lot of eponymous axioms are eloquent restatements of truisms, so I added those along with a few other topics that broadly address everything.

The intent is that this will always be a work in progress.

» The Undeniable Truth

I took a philosophy class in college will a great professor named William Knorp. I haven’t stopped thinking about a lot of the topics – free will and the knowable, in particular.

I’m also intersted in the idea of a sort of anti-webpage designed to present fewer words with even fewer distractions. I don’t know how people write philosophy books, I’ve been collecting my half-page on the the undeniable truth in life for a few months.