Lauren

Trying to replicate the results of an older paper using the supplied supplementary data, and I'm being rudely reminded that while I do a lot of Complicated Stuff in #rstats, I rarely use it for its original intended purpose. Having to re-read, like, ?t.test is embarrassing 🤦‍♀️

Oh wait, he does have an account here! @humus-rocks.bsky.social Anyway its a shit time to be a US federal employee in the environment space so his efforts are doubly appreciated.

#rstats package 'mpspline2' got its first CRAN update in a good long while today 🎉 This is thanks largely to the efforts of Andrew Brown at the USDA-NRCS, who has added the super useful ability to spline multiple variables in one call. cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

Atkinson Hyperlegible Font - Braille Institute Read easier with Atkinson Hyperlegible Font, crafted for low-vision readers. Download for free and enjoy clear letters and numbers on your computer!

periodic reminder of the existence of Atkinson Hyperlegible, a free font available from the Braille Institute designed to improve readability for people with low vision

I use it in talks because it's pretty and also because, as an audience member, I am perpetually squinting at people's slides

tmap vs. ggplot2 for mapping – Geospatial Stuff For me at least the choice between ggplot2 and tmap is an ongoing question. Here are my latest thoughts on the subject (with code).

tmap or ggplot2 for maps? 🗺️

David O’Sullivan breaks down the trade-offs in a blog post.

URL: dosull.github.io/posts/2024-1...

#RStats #RSpatial #Maps #tmap #ggplot2

Physical Sample Curation - ESIP

Physical samples are vital elements of study in many disciplines, including earth and environmental sciences, biological sciences, archaeology, and beyond.

Meet the ESIP Physical Sample Curation Cluster 👋

The group meets monthly and is led by Andrea Thomer & Natalie Raia (University of Arizona).

A screen cap of the Trimble map viewer refusing to accept a shape file upload while claiming to support the format. Nope! It's KML only. This is actually the least of this interface's problems...

I'm really liking the Trimble catalyst hardware so far, but the software can absolutely get in the bin. The whole interface and workflow pattern appears to have been designed as a form of mass revenge by someone who was treated cruelly by a GIS tech in the past.

Standard rock names are often either too general or too specific but the vocabulary still needs to be broadly compatible with geological descriptions, and mixed materials are challenging.

Yes, its tricky to come up with a good schema for parent materials that highlights the important details. I think recording mode of deposition, parent rocks (weathering sources), and mineralogy (weathering products) separately helps. The 'parent rocks' list is the hardest to formulate well...

What's this particular loess made of?

The USDA system separates the two concepts relatively well, so you may not have encountered this.

because the residual-soil terms carry information about material's mineralogical composition but the transported-soil terms don't. So when I see a term like loess, I get a lot of info about grain size distribution and I can make inferences about permeability and structure etc from that but also:

A thing that I've noticed in some soil description systems (e.g. WRB) is that a 'parent materials' list is supplied but that it lists rock names for residual soils and then switches to particle size and mode of deposition for anything transported. Putting these two concepts in one list is wrong imo,

Now I get to air my pet peeve about how terms for particle size and mode of deposition aren't lithologies!

Soil Horizons Issue 32, October 2023. This issue of Soil Horizons presents recent research on soil carbon, impacts of climate change on erosion, irrigation, measuring drainage losses, farm-scale mapping, predicting...

This year's issue of Soil Horizons is out! Lots of updates about what's been happening in the soiley parts of the new BSI @bioeconomyscience.bsky.social www.landcareresearch.co.nz/publications...

Nice bit of NZ soil content from @jamiemorton.bsky.social at @newsroom.co.nz, newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/22/s...

Oh super, Microsoft started blocking access to the Internet Archive at work and now I have to have a Conversation with IT.

The Majority AI View - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!

All roads lead to The Arena.

Microbes are collectively one of the biggest forces shaping Earth, and yet undergraduate #geology students typically receive little training in microbiology. My new open access textbook seeks to help. “Microbiology for Earth Scientists” is freely available here newprairiepress.org/ebooks/53/

Moving mountains: grazing agents drive terracette formation on steep hillslopes Terracettes, striking, step-like landforms that stripe steep, vegetated hillslopes, have puzzled scientists for more than a century. Competing hypotheses invoke either slow mass-wasting or the relentl...

New favorite preprint, both for the topic and the figures arxiv.org/abs/2504.17496 #geomorphology #terracettes #landscapemodeling

Good gravy. You don't see this tack from a conservation department very often 🤣 www.instagram.com/reel/DPKvKTV...

Speaking of which, look what just arrived from my library today. 1979 babey

Exploring {ggplot2}’s Geoms and Stats – Stat’s What It’s All About

New blog post!

Ever wonder what geom_histogram is actually doing? How about geom_boxplot?

In celebration of the release of #ggplot2 4.0.0 (ggplot8?), I explore the relationships between the “geoms” and “stats” offered by the core {ggplot2} functions.

#rstats

Anyone in #rstats #quartopub #quarto land know of any good instructional content about making custom callout blocks using Lua filters for absolute Lua noobs? I have a mighty need.

Gould was absolutely right about this. For a sobering thought, how many people on the planet now are competent taxonomists for any group of organisms? Certainly fewer than 10,000. 🧪🌍🌿⚒️🐟 #TeamFish

Woohoo, big new SMap update is out! smap.landcareresearch.co.nz/maps-and-too... we've all been working our butts off on this one.

If you need me, I'll be clicking around the web map and second guessing myself at every turn 🙃 #pedology #nzsoils #solmapping

Christ, it's even worse after getting into bed.

An Art. Orange gradient background highlights an entirely black, turtlenecked figure with perfectly spherical head and...a checkerboard halo? Is it the shade of Steve Jobs? Who knows. Both soulless and unsettling in the context of a mid range hotel room. I don't care for it.

I'm sure this won't have me shrieking in alarm when I wake up for a 4am doomscroll.

Announcing Withdrawal of NSF Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems Proposal In September 2024, The Carpentries submitted a proposal to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) Program. This project would position The Carpentr...

ICYMI: In September 2024, The Carpentries submitted a proposal for 1.5 million USD to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) Program, and were extremely pleased to learn that the proposal was recommended for funding.

However...

Image of NZ Post's upcoming release of soil themed stamps. The four stamps highlight key ecosystem services and are super cute.

Soil stamps alert! collectables.nzpost.co.nz/soil?page=1 #soilscience #philately