Something lighter less serious, but still instructive: Staying within the xkcd frame of reference, I would say David O’Sullivan was successfully “nerd-sniped”1 by xkcd 3207 (explanation):
Using R, David tries to create the zero declination map proposed in the xkcd. That is, a map featuring a projection so that at each location on the Earth surface has a declination of 0°. In yet other words: … so that the magnetic north and true north are exactly aligned everywhere.
What follows is a (fun!) deep dive into different approaches to the problem. I enjoyed the somewhat whimsical premise, the joy of experimentation, the results (complete with code, for those interested!), and the lessons David draws from the exercise. I won’t spoil the fun by giving those away, but I will say that David’s article is a nice example of how to approach a problem through experimental iteration, and how to learn from the process.
Footnotes
See xkcd 356 and, if needed, its explanation. Looking at David’s postscript this seems to happen from time to time. Tip: xkcd explanations can always be found by adding
explainat the beginning of the URL, i.e.xkcd.com/356→explainxkcd.com/356.↩︎