End-of-year posts are corny but, what the heck, I think I can let myself delve in to corniness once a year. The following code gives a snapshot of what and how was R for me in 2012.
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Category: meta (Page 4 of 6)
A post on high-dimensional arrays by @isomorphisms reminded me of APL and, more generally, of matrix languages, which took me back to inquisitive computing: computing not in the sense of software engineering, or databases, or formats, but of learning by poking problems through a computer.
I like languages not because I can get a job by using one, but because I can think thoughts and express ideas through them. The way we think about a problem is somehow molded by the tools we use, and if we have loops, loops we use or if we have a terse matrix notation (see my previous post on Matrix Algebra Useful for Statistics), we may use that.
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Publication incentives
(This post continues discussing issues I described back in January in Academic publication boycott)
Some weeks ago I received a couple of emails the same day: one asking me to submit a paper to an open access journal, while the other one was inviting me to be the editor of an ‘special issue’ of my choice for another journal. I haven’t heard before about any of the two publications, which follow pretty much the same model: submit a paper for $600 and—if they like it—it will be published. However, the special issue email had this ‘buy your way in’ feeling: find ten contributors (i.e. $6,000) and you get to be an editor. Now, there is nothing wrong per-se with open access journals, some of my favorite ones (e.g. PLoS ONE) follow that model. However, I was surprised by the increasing number of new journals that look at filling the gap for ‘I need to publish soon, somewhere’. Surprised until one remembers the incentives at play in academic environments.
Yesterday I accidentally started a dialogue in Twitter with the dude running The Setup. Tonight I decided to procrastinate in my hotel room (for work in Rotovegas) writing up my own Luis Uses This:
Since 2005 I’ve been using Apple computers as my main machines. They tend to be well built and keep on running without rebooting for a while and I ssh to a unix box from them when I need extra oomph. At the moment I have a 2009 15″ macbook pro and a 2010 27″ iMac; both computers are pretty much the default, except for extra RAM and they are still running Snow Leopard. I have never liked Apple mice, so I bought a Logitech mouse for the iMac. I use a generic Android phone, because I’m too cheap to spend money on an iPhone. I don’t have an iPad either, because I don’t have a proper use for it and I dislike lugging around gear for the sake of it.
Eucalypt earthquake memories
This week was the first anniversary of the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. Between that and the first week of lectures it has been hard to find time to write much about data analysis. Thus, if I owe you some analyses, some code or some text be patient, please. I’ll be back soon(ish).
I have never been much of a downtown person, so it is no surprise that I haven’t been in Hagley Park for a while. Today (Sunday in my part of the planet) was a a nice treat to spend some time there and see the interaction between city recovery and the Botanic Gardens, particularly in a Eucalyptus delegatensis surrounded by messages.