Stand-up mathematician Matt Parker did a comedy routine about spreadsheets. Hmm….why not create a post about this? How can I make it interesting? My quest to find an interesting angle led me to….well…creating a YouTube Transcript spreadsheeet!
YouTube Transcript Spreadsheet?
Yes I did. This is how it happened….
I started to watch the video to find quotes to make an interesting post. I wrote down a couple of quotes but realized this would take forever! There had to be a better way!
YouTube Transcript
Ah! There’s a transcript! I could copy/paste the interesting parts into my post but this would also take forever! So…I copy/pasted it into Excel and added some features!
What Can My Spreadsheeet Do?
Features
- Type in approx minute & second part of video. Press Hyperlink to jump to that part of transcript!
- Use drop down list to add a flag. I put an “x” but you might have different categories.
- A slicer filters the transcript to what you’ve flagged. Then, copy the quotes!
(Download my Excel template in this post)
Matt’s Comedy Routine About Spreadsheets
So, what was Matt’s video about?
When I show you my all time favourite, we are talking absolute number one here, top favourite spreadsheet. Some of you may have your own favourite spreadsheets!
That’s true. I have hundreds of favorite spreadsheets!
But would you believe, there are some people out there who don’t use spreadsheets recreationally and I’m astounded at this! Apparently there are people who say spreadsheets are just for work. Right, people who say “yes, if you’re in the office then spreadsheets are great. Because you know you can add numbers up, you can take averages, you can grab a table and just pivot that sh-“
I am definitely not one of these people!
But those same people, when they go home after work they don’t turn into a spreadsheet or two to help them to relax. And I think that’s outrageous. So I have a campaign to change people’s minds about spreadsheets.
Here comes Matt’s big revelation…
In fact if you zoom out again, you can see this is a spreadsheet of a picture of Yes! Ladies and gentlemen I have really Excelled myself! …So, the reason I did this is I wanted to show people that all digital photographs are actually just spreadsheets.
Matt took a picture of himself and put it in Excel.
Whenever you take a photo on your camera the sensor in your camera, each little bit, when the light hits it, it measures the amount of red, green, and blue light contacting it, and it scores it on a scale of 0 to 255. 255 being the largest value you can have with an eight digit binary number. Yes! Alright, and then it put those three values into three cells of a spreadsheet. And so each group of three cells is one pixel.
Although this is not hilarious in itself Matt’s way of explaining it was very funny.
Can I convert myself into numbers and put it in Excel?
Thanks to Matt I can! You can too!
If you go to the website…There’s a button that says spreadsheets. If you click on that button you can upload any photograph you want, and immediately download it as an already formatted spreadsheet. It is literally ones of hours of fun right there. And the whole point of this is: all digital displays are just showing you spreadsheets. Whenever you take a selfie you’re actually taking an excelfie.
Go here and upload a picture! —> http://think-maths.co.uk/spreadsheet
This is me as 39936 numbers inside of an Excel spreadsheet—> pixel-spreadsheet (Kevin 2009)
This is me with Cali & Fenton as numbers inside of Excel—> pixel-spreadsheet (Kevin Cali Fenton)
Matt Parker
Quotes from Matt’s website http://standupmaths.com/ explaining what he does!
Possibly the only person to hold the prestigious title of London Mathematical Society Popular Lecturer while simultaneously having a sold-out comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Matt is always keen to mix his two passions of mathematics and stand-up.
Mathematician and comedian! Such a unique combination of skills!
Originally a maths teacher from Australia, Matt now lives in the UK and works both as a stand-up comedian and a maths communicator. This involves spreading his love of maths via books, YouTube videos, radio programmes, TV shows, school visits and live comedy shows. Matt is also the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London.
Check out Matt’s Math Gear! Matt also wrote a book: Things to Make and Do in the Forth Dimension!
Get in touch with Matt: matt@standupmaths.com
Follow Matt on Twitter: @standupmaths
Watch Matt on YouTube: youtube.com/standupmaths
About Me
This is a screen shot of me as numbers inside of an Excel spreadsheet. I guess we really are just numbers after all. That’s why it’s important to have awesome Excel skills!
Subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn more!
I’m been a data analyst and technical administrator since before data was cool.
Zoom into me and see the numbers!
