Charts for a study
The wall beside a desk is prime reference space. Whatever hangs there gets consulted without a browser tab, without a search, and without the several minutes a search usually turns into.
What suits it is the material used mid-task: status codes and CSS properties, the working areas of Git, unit prefixes and paper formats, Morse and the phonetic alphabet, the Greek letters that turn up in every formula, and the size conversions wanted the moment something is ordered from abroad.
A4 is usually enough at desk distance. Print on white, on whatever printer is already in the room — that is what these files are built for.
CONSTELLATIONS BY SEASON
the northern evening sky through the year: 28 constellations per the Yale Bright Star Catalogue, latitude 40° N, evenings near 9 pm
METEOR SHOWERS
the twelve principal showers of the year · periods, peaks and ZHR per the IMO calendar
MARS
size, distances and time — computed from rotation, orbit and mass
SPRING AND NEAP TIDES
the Earth–moon–sun geometry that makes the tides swing — after NOAA
BLOOD PRESSURE CATEGORIES
the six AHA categories · 2025 guideline · the higher of the two readings decides
CPR AND CHOKING
the 2025 American Heart Association algorithms, step by step — bystander, trained rescuer, and choking at three ages
DRESS CODES
six lines that turn up on an invitation, and what each one actually asks for — after Debrett’s
THREE HAND STITCHES
backstitch · running stitch · whipstitch — what shows on the face and what the thread does underneath
THE CHILD IMMUNIZATION SCHEDULE
Table 1 of the CDC schedule, by age: all twenty rows from birth to 18 years, United States, 2025
LAUNDRY CARE SYMBOLS
the 28 symbols of the everyday clothing tag per ISO 3758:2023: five treatments in a fixed order, sharing one set of modifiers
MAGNESIUM COMPOUNDS
the share of magnesium in the salt, computed from the formula · and what human trials measured
NAIL SHAPES
eight shapes at one scale · what tells them apart in millimetres
SIZE CHARTS
shoes, tops, bottoms — and a centimetre under every grid
SERUM ACTIVES
when to apply, what to keep apart in time, what the season changes
THE STAGES OF SLEEP
light, deep and REM as honest shares of the night — and the 90–110 minute cycles it is built from
STAIN REMOVAL
five stain classes and the method for each — per publication H.E. 2-840 of the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension
AI MILESTONES
ten tasks, the year of each, the system, the figure — and the human it was measured against
THE ASCII TABLE
all 128 positions: the column is the three high bits, the row is the four low ones
AUDIO FORMATS
who published each standard, when, what it does to the sound, and how many bits per second it allows
THE BASE32 ENCODING
forty bits to a quantum: five bytes, eight characters and five padding cases
THE BASE64 ENCODING
three bytes become four characters: the alphabet, the tail, and what the "=" at the end is for
BIG-O NOTATION
the seven growth classes: how many steps, how long they take and how far each one lets you go
THE CRON EXPRESSION
the five schedule fields: what each one means, what values it takes, and how to read stars, lists and steps
CSS GRID
the container properties and the item properties per the css-grid-2 specification — and what each does to the layout
BITS, BYTES, KILOBYTES
two scales · 1000 and 1024 · why a drive looks smaller
THE DMX512 PROTOCOL
512 channels down one serial wire, and why a full universe cannot refresh faster than 44 times a second
EAN-13
how thirteen digits become 95 modules of bars and spaces
THE EXIT STATUS
One byte from a command to the shell: what the standard assigns in it, what it leaves to the system — and why “128 + signal number” is nowhere in the standard
FILE DESCRIPTORS
Three levels between a number and a file: what two numbers of one description share, what two descriptions do not — and where the offset lives
FILE LOCKS
A lock lies on a range of bytes, it has two different kinds of owner, and it guards no byte at all
FILE PERMISSIONS
Nine bits in three triads, three special bits — and why r and x on a directory are different powers
CSS FLEXBOX
main axis and cross axis · which property belongs to which
A NUMBER IN 32 BITS
sign, exponent and significand: what actually sits in a float and what does not
FLOWCHART SYMBOLS
10 shapes, and one algorithm drawn with them
GIT WORKING AREAS
four areas · the command that moves code between them
![FILENAME EXPANSION: *, ?, […]](/api/img/cmsp2eg3h001q2dpdnyxkt8mu)
FILENAME EXPANSION: *, ?, […]
A leading dot and a slash disappear only in filename expansion: the same pattern “*” is seen by case, but not by expansion itself
GO vs RUST
seven questions, the same to both, and the document each answer is written in
HERE-DOCUMENTS
The body reaches the command as a single word, and one quote in the delimiter decides whether it arrives as typed
HTTP METHODS · 2026
ten methods per RFC 9110, 5789 and 10008: which are safe, which are idempotent, which can be retried
HTTP STATUS CODES
five classes · twenty codes you meet every day
IFS AND FIELD SPLITTING
Two kinds of delimiter: white ones merge into one, non-white ones each cut on their own — and the same value gives one field or four
SPECIAL-PURPOSE IPv4 BLOCKS
14 blocks that belong to no host on the internet — 13.8 % of the address space, of which exactly one eighth is multicast and reserved
IPv6 ADDRESS NOTATION
eight groups of sixteen bits, the double colon, and one canonical spelling out of thousands
JAVASCRIPT vs GO
seven questions, the same to both, and the document each answer is written in
JAVASCRIPT vs RUST
seven questions, the same to both, and the document each answer is written in
KANBAN
the board, the limit on work in progress, and the four metrics that measure flow
LANGUAGE CODES
487 rows in ISO 639-2; 183 languages also have a two-letter code and 20 have two three-letter ones — and the tag is always the shortest
LIFE CYCLE MODELS
the same steps arranged five ways: the document, the year, and what one turn of the loop covers