In the beginning there was blogging software, and then I tried to shoehorn a blog in PmWiki: I failed. It is not transparent enough. So, I am back to the beginning, well, almost. I have moved most of the blog posts (a bit over 220) to Wordpress in a new subdomain: http://quantum.uncronopio.org.

Soon I will redirect the last few posts and it will be as it never happened.

Albahaca is the Spanish word for basil, which was borrowed from Arabic together with a large number of other words. I have discussed before when is the start of summer in the Southern hemisphere: if the first of December or the twenty something of December (solstice). Both of them are arbitrary dates.

I propose another — even more arbitrary — starting date: the first time of the year when one eats fresh albahaca. Last Sunday (25^th November) I had a potato salad with chopped albahaca: sublime and mouth watering.

Interestingly enough, basil (scientific name Ocimum basilicum) derives from Latin basilicum and Greek basilikon meaning royal or king. Related words and names: basilica (the buildings), basilisk (the creature), basilic (the vein), pesto (basil is the main ingredient of one of the foremost contributions to civilization).

Statement: any garden worth its salt must have albahaca planted in a sunny corner.

This is an extended version of my post in Spanish.

Keywords: Cotidiano, Language.

I think of my taxes supporting part of the programs and cry.

Keywords: Quotes, Cotidiano.

Drink cover in McDonald’s Papanui, Christchurch.

Keywords: Cotidiano, Photo.

Status number, half the inverse of average coancestry, can be a helpful expression of diversity of a breeding population. See, for example, Lindgren, D., Gea, L and Jefferson, P. 1996. Loss of Genetic Diversity Monitored by Status Number. Silvae Genetica 45: 52–59 .

Assuming that you have a dataset containing your pedigree, with the following columns: tree (your unique individual identifier), mum (mother identifier) and dad (father identifier), it is possible to calculate status number using the following code:

I have used it for pedigrees with 15,000 individuals without problems, although proc inbreed may take a while.

Keywords: SAS, Programming, Research.

There has been a proliferation of writing software, with many of the packages striving for recapturing simplicity lost long ago. We complain about distractions, but use tools that are designed to do many different (and non-essential) things at the same time. If I go back at my DOS times (second half of the 1980s), a computer would do one thing at the time: if I needed to write a document I would use Wordperfect, for a spreadsheet Quattro Pro, etc. It was not possible to use both simultaneously. There was no email, internet connection or music at the same time.

We are now like spoiled children: there are too many things claiming for our attention, but we can not turn them off. We are hooked into a permanent attention deficit disorder because we choose so. Then, we long for a tool that will fix our distraction but, maybe, we could just use programs maximising the windows (to fully occupy the screen) and, to avoid temptation, turn off our network connection.

On writing software

A big component of my work is writing documents. In my mind there is a clear distinction between the solitary endeavour (where I can use whatever software I like) and the shared document (with a large number of compromises). I do not have problems with Word as bloated software, because I use many of the non-basic (aka bloat) features: equations, footnotes, crossreferences, citing using referencing software (like Endnote), table of contents, tables, indexing, tracking changes, etc. However, I do have issues with stability (or lack of it), particularly when dealing with long documents.

I have had a look at several alternative programs, but none of them have enough mind share as to make it a reasonably popular alternative. Using something like LaTeX would probably cover most (if not all) of my needs. However, I do not work with anybody that has a clue about using LaTeX, and nobody has the time and inclination to learn about it. Yes, it has the advantage of working with plain text files, but it is huge (larger than Word) and there is no standard way of dealing with the revision process, short of installing a versioning system.

Other wordprocessing systems that do what I need are equally ‘bloated’: OpenOffice and Mellel have all the ‘distractions’ and, again, they are not perfectly compatible with the standard. Then, their only advantage is that they are cheaper than Word. Nevertheless, most people already paid for Word, so it is a sunk cost. Thus, the sad reality is that Word is a de facto standard.

At the end of the day, Word is good enough and there are no compelling alternatives. However, I do use other tools for writing early drafts to get the ball rolling. Once I have the basics I move the text to Word. So, what are the basic tools? Some times I use TextWrangler (free) or Journler, depending if I want to store the information in an individual file or don’t worry about that and leave it in a database.

I guess that if one is motivated enough, one can find nirvana even in Word — granted, with some work involved.

Keywords: Communication, Software.

Spotty posting is a clear symptom of either being sick with internet or just too busy in real life. In my case is mostly the second; this is the time when I have overlapping teaching of regression modelling and introduction to tree breeding. The other thing I have been doing is completing project reports (two gone!) and playing with some data for a journal manuscript. Overall, I have written more this month than at any other time that I can remember.

On the contrary, I have been posting very little to this site and a few posts to http://trendecarga.com. Stating the obvious, the more I write offline the less I write online; and I have been feeling the urge to complete a series of pending writing projects.

A few weeks ago I submitted a paper that has been in that limbo-like close-to-finish for three years. As soon as I finish teaching in three weeks time, I will complete a second paper and start writing a third one. This will take a toll on this site, but one does not get brownie points for blogging or playing with HTML.

There will certainly be some updates to this site (although most likely not in the blog part) as well as a new design for http://plustree.com. On the latter I have been slowly working in a new template and CSS file, aiming for a cleaner and simpler look.

Re-stating the obvious, real life has much wider significance, it is richer and more meaningful than any web site. Do not let anybody convince you of the opposite.

Keywords: Language, Meta, Cotidiano.

I am coming back to my always unpredictable posting pattern. Well, I have written nine posts in Spanish at Tren de Carga, but they treat other topics that do not quite fit in this blog.

Maybe I am trying to tackle the issue pointed by Khoi Vinh: by posting short posts with quick, short term benefits one is avoiding writing long-haul pieces, which have an unknown pay off in what appears o be a distant future. This time I went for finishing two confidential reports and submitting a paper for publication. I discovered that I have material for about three or four more papers; it is just a matter of putting the time and finishing things. Or, as The now habit puts it, it is a matter of starting, starting and keep starting.

I have also been following a large number of design news through Monoscope and linked sites. It is a nice change and it helps to think from a diferent point of view: it adds perspective. Sort of coming back to the quote often attributed to Marshall McLuhan:

Coming back to writing in Spanish, it is fraught with danger of living in the past. I realised that I have been emphasising writing ‘old memories’ because it is what I remember the most in Spanish. That is certainly a route to stagnation. Thus, I am switching now to cover more recent —as in today’s — events and see how do they fit with the rest of the blog.

Thinking about contrasts

Today: Weather was great today in Christchurch. Went to downtown, had a trip in tram (some months ago I bought a year pass), went to the beach, mowed the lawn, went for a ride in scooter, had an excellent meal, visited a friend that just had a baby.

Yesterday: started at 5:45 am, took a taxi to the airport, my flight was cancelled. There was no point on flying later and arriving after my meeting. Wasted $35 on taxis and endured 2 hours of phone conference. They are so hard to follow!

Overall a good week.

Keywords: Meta, Cotidiano, Language.

In my experience, people with the richest social life and level of satisfaction in real life practically ignore the net. Not long ago, one of my friends was asking me ‘What is a blog?’ For most people exploring the net that would be an unthinkable question, but he was quite honest. His perception of the net is absolutely utilitarian; there is email, access to research data bases (ISI web of science) and information on finance (his passion). Blogs, wikis, and other ‘strange names’ were absolutely a non-entity for him.

Unless one lives in places like Dannevirke (New Zealand), there should be plenty of opportunities to find ways of interacting in real life with people that share one’s interests. Then, why do so many people seem to reduce their social life to the web? Shyness, loneliness, feelings of not fitting anywhere else? How many times have you caught yourself starting an argument with a guy calling himself neo or another equally creative name? I know, some times is tempting to ‘pick up a fight’ in Slashdot telling people that Linux sucks, but shouldn’t one have something better to do?

May be one step to reduce time browsing — which I have to say is probably my greatest time waster — is to share real life with other people. It sounds corny, but if I look back at my most productive times they coincide with having my best friends. Simple: if I can spend time with great people why would I be arguing with neo? I am now trying to be as unsociable as possible; forget about comments, flame wars and the temptation to score cheap points in an internet forum. Point scoring is too costly: better spending time with people I really care about.

Then, what happens with all that web 2.0, social sites out there? We are still welcome to use them, but I doubt that our lives are much more productive or richer because we are sharing bookmarks using an AJAX interface. That is a nice solution to the wrong problem*.

(*)Maybe I am too old to ‘get it’ concerning online social networks. But, maybe, they are just tacky time wasters.

Keywords: Cotidiano, Web.

Some years ago I went to this ‘art cinema’ with a friend to watch ‘Fanny och Alexander’ (Fanny and Alexander), a film by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. We were patiently waiting in the queue to buy tickets when this couple or über-intellectual looking guys (UILG) came from the previous showing:

— Bergman is dropping the ball, I can’t believe it!, said UILG 1.
— Yes, how could he do such a simplistic movie…, replied UILG 2.

Gosh, they were talking about Bergman — one of the most painfully intellectual directors in the planet — as if he were some sort of Silvester Stallone making utterly simple movies. They were talking about one of the most boring movies I have seen in my life (it won four Oscars, which says a lot about my taste or about the Oscars). Actually I was able to stand only half an hour and left (having paid for a ticket), for the first time in my life. Simplistic movie… Who were they trying to impress? Then I was thinking, do I act sometimes like this couple of jerks? Answers: each other and yes, some times I behaved like them.

Whenever I start acting like the stereotypical arrogant UILG I remind myself of this movie. There is no point on trying to pass as extremely smart because I can stand more boredom than you can. The smart thing to do is build bridges towards people rather than burn them; to make complexity meaningful rather than a sign of superiority.

Four Oscars, what were they thinking?

P.D. 2007–07–31. I heard the news that Bergman just died. What a coincidence!

Keyword: Cotidiano.