2657 Productions News - Latest Comments

Re: The 'koboloader' package for R

Daniel Alvarado — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 22:35:16 -0000

Whe we add a type "repeat" in the form it create a new sheet for a .xls document, how can I select the sheets?

Re: A sample size calculator function for R

mrdwab — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 21:38:16 -0000

Thanks. I'm not sure that I'll end up putting it on CRAN, but I've been playing with Shiny a bit, and was thinking perhaps I would just create an app for it.

Re: A sample size calculator function for R

coip — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 16:24:28 -0000

This is fantastic--really shows the entire thought process that goes into programming R functions. And the absence of an attribute sample size calculator package in R had always perplexed me too: your functions fill that void. You should consider wrapping it up into a package and submitting it to CRAN. Good work.

Re: The Spaniard

mrdwab — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 00:38:44 -0000

Here it is:

-------------------

That day I told Anand's grandmother what he and Shirvan had seen. Without hesitation she said "The Spaniard".

There used to be a huge, ancient Governor Cherry tree where our house now stands: it was easily 40 feet tall and its branches spread as wide. The story went that when Christopher Columbus stopped to caulk his leaking ships at the Trinidad pitch lake, this Spaniard went to explore, and found this tree to rest under. The ships left, but the Spaniard remained, making garden in the mornings, resting in the trees' shade in the afternoons, and talking with the locals under its branches at night. He lived in the village until he was old, and died. Out of respect for this adopted stranger, the villagers started making an offering to him every year, of a plate of ground provisions, a freshly killed rooster, and a bottle of rum.

The land became the property of Anandas' great-grandfather, and he continued the tradition of offering food to the Spaniard each Pitr Pak. In time, Anand's grandmother took over this tradition.

When Anand's father was ready to build his own house, they decided it should be next door to his mother's. But the tree was too close to the road to put the house in front of it; and the land dropped behind the tree and would it be a lot of work to level the area. So the tree was cut down, and the house built in its spot.

For 3 or 4 years the grandmother continued to make the offering at the back of the house. But times were changing, and there were many young grandchildren in the two houses to keep the grandmother busy. When she would play with them, telling stories and singing Hindu bhajans, her sons would scold her for being old fashioned, and eventually, as she dropped these customs, she forgot about the Spaniard as well.

Now she went to the village pundit, Baldath Baba, for assistance. She was worried that the Spaniard had come for Shirvan because of his clear skin and green eyes: perhaps he mistook him for one of his own people. So Maa and Baba told the two brothers to go spend the evening in the lagoon with their older brother, then went to the back of Anand's house. They swept the yard and sprinkled water, removed all the laundry and washing tubs, till everything was clean and tidy. Then they took their offerings and performed a puja: there were the ground provisions, the freshly killed rooster, and the bottle of rum; there were flowers and incense and candles. These they lit, and sat down and spoke to the Spaniard, begging him not to hurt the children, apologizing for forgetting to "pay tribute". Then they told him how times were changing, and told him he would be better off finally leaving this place; that Shirvan's big brother, who he had seen that night, would look after the child, so the Spaniard was now free to return to the Old Country, because they would not be making this offering again.

And that was that.

Re: The Spaniard

mrdwab — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 01:19:17 -0000

Axle says she has her version of the story to share. Looking forward to it :-)

Re: What exactly is “elegant” code in R?

mrdwab — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:58:34 -0000

Fellow Stack Exchange user and co-author of "R for Dummies", Andrie, shared the attached comic as his answer. (Caption: The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.)

Re: Making an A6 booklet in OpenOffice.org the easy way

mrdwab — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 09:15:34 -0000

No problem. But A6 booklets are tiny and are probably not the best for printing manuals. A5 is much more appropriate for that.

Re: Making an A6 booklet in OpenOffice.org the easy way

Shantigupta211087 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:50:55 -0000

Thanks Ananda, This is well organised information for designing a booklet. Now I also need to print manuals so this is quite good knowledge for my skill.

Re: Stratified random sampling in R from a data frame

mrdwab — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 23:27:55 -0000

No problem! I hope you have also checked out the updated version at Stackoverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/a/... which makes use of the "sampling" package.

Re: Stratified random sampling in R from a data frame

Tanya Murphy — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:53:18 -0000

Thank you SO much for this. You've saved me so much work!

Re: Drop caps with OpenOffice.org Writer

Aceflux — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 08:33:48 -0000

tnx

Re: The new sample size calculator for R (already)

Sandeep Kumar — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:51:09 -0000

Thank you Ananda,
it really very useful for learning. I will try this example

Re: Tommy Strange: Waiting on the Corner

Bill Dunham — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:58:22 -0000

Thank you! I used to room with Tommy. We shard many a beer and thought together.

Re: Drop caps with OpenOffice.org Writer

1dolfinlover — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:26:24 -0000

didn't work for me nothing works for me :'(

Re: Stratified random sampling in R from a data frame

mrdwab — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:31:34 -0000

After almost a year, I've updated this function thanks to something I noted on StackOverflow:

See: http://stackoverflow.com/a/...

I'll probably post an update on this blog too.

Re: R is like a giant calculator for grownups

Rinki gupta — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:55:35 -0000

Yes, Ananda R is like a giant calculator. Thanks for writing articles because in lack of practice I have forgotten some of functions but here easily I can get the required basic functions. This works like on line tutorial for R.

Re: Spectrum: An exploration into open-source publishing

Rinki gupta — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:46:11 -0000

I have read this post many times but everytime with different dimension. This time I have read with intention to see the software and font has been used for designing. I am also mre interested to learn the skill of using open office and exporting file as a eps file for designing. Hope this time in MOCK 2, I will learn.

Re: Stratified random sampling in R from a data frame

mrdwab — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:26:05 -0000

Hi. I hope you have found the function useful.

It sounds like you've solved the problem you were having, but I'm not sure I understand your follow up response here. Do you have an example you can share?

Re: Stratified random sampling in R from a data frame

B Li — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:12:32 -0000

I think I've found the reason for that problem. The key thing is the sample() function used in this stratified() function. When there is only one numeric value (say, 10) to be sampled from, the sample() function samples by default from 1 to 10.
Sorry for the misleading message I posted earlier.

Re: Stratified random sampling in R from a data frame

B Li — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:33:21 -0000

There seems to be a bug for large data set with lots of groups. In my case, there are 24000 observations and 2089 groups. I used this function to sample one observation from each group. No errors and the total sample size is alway 2089, but there are always some groups that are sampled with 2 observations and some are sampled with 0 observation.
The sample size is very different from group to group in my case. Maybe that's what you mean in the NOTE of the function "NOTE: Not tested on datasets with LOTS of groups or with HUGE differences in group sizes. Probably INCREDIBLY inefficient." ?

Re: An interview with Ananda Mahto

Rinki gupta — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:24:14 -0000

Very informative interview Ananda!

Re: Am I inconsistent?

Akhileshwar Singh — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:04:44 -0000

Hi Ananda,

Greetings2You

Being a Academy student it is really difficult to understand your motive behind being sarcastic on students when they ask for some software (I can understand this after I came out of academy). I didn't had chance to went through your post earlier but as I went through, I couldn't stop me writing this reply. I (I believe all PDM 10) always had a special respect for you as a teacher and probably the reason for this was you values and energy for teaching student. I can bet that you are the only one in academy who never hesitated to teach (when you are approached by us) us.

There is nothing specific in this reply about the post. It is the memories of past which over shrouded me and led to memorize you through this reply. I would request you to forgive me (my friends) for all know, unknown mistakes I (we) might have done during the "TWO YEARS" period of time.

Yours Sincerely
Akhilesh

Re: Suckerpunch (10″ and split flexi with Born Against)

patrick — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:20:53 -0000

i don't think they ever made a east coast tour, and i too didn't have friends with cars. song for karl is one of favorites.

Re: Sometimes, I wish I could turn my editing eyes off

Kunj Mann — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:19:07 -0000

Interesting! I must mention that when I went to Nagapattinam, I saw exactly the same scene. For a moment, I wondered if I took this picture? If pictures usually depict a 'point of time' then Nagapattinam beach scene would be an exception. I guess, coming across such pictures may not have taken much time for you, or tell me if it is otherwise.

Re: Quickly reshaping data from “wide” to “long” formats in R

Omaransi — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:30:05 -0000

Hey guys,
I was looking for months someone to explain for me this topic, because I was trying to calculate the age range of household characteristic from one single variable.
It is VERY USEFUL topic and no body can know it unless s/he worked on it.

Many thanks for your effort.

Regards
Omar