January Weiner
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january3.github.io
January Weiner
@january3.github.io
570 followers 940 following 390 posts
Bioinformatician, biostatistician, science writer.

About me: https://january3.github.io/

All my photographs are completely free to use, public domain and CC0.

Blog o naukowych różnościach: https://january3.github.io/biokompost/
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january3.github.io
Zależy gdzie w Niemczech.
Ein leerer Anteil und Aufschrift: Helaaf! Karnevalszeit! Hier die Bahn mit den Leuten, die das in Berlin interessiert.
March 3, 2025 at 8:03 PM
january3.github.io
Eurasian coot / łyska – in Potsdam on Saturday. #birds #photography #potsdam
Eurasian coot / łyska / Fulica atra
January 13, 2025 at 7:45 PM
january3.github.io
I rather fancy this photograph (even though you can see the dirty smudges on my cameras sensor...). European herring gull. #birds #photography
Larus argentatus, mewa srebrzysta, European herring gull
December 30, 2024 at 11:50 AM
january3.github.io
Two weeks ago I was sitting on a bench enjoying my lunch when all of sudden I saw these cranes flying overhead. Right here, in the middle of Berlin, just next to the Hauptbahnhof. (Sorry about the quality of the photographs, I grabbed the camera without looking at the settings). #birds #berlin
Cranes over Charite, Berlin Mitte Cranes over Charite, Berlin Mitte cranes over the Charite in Berlin
December 9, 2024 at 1:25 PM
january3.github.io
I was just looking at some old photographs and found this one from 2008. Meet Uncle Willy, a street musician from Münster, Germany. In the little university town of Münster he was well known, and we used to spend some time listening to him every now and then. #photography #münster
Uncle Willy from Münster. He passed away in 2021.
December 8, 2024 at 3:30 PM
january3.github.io
Och, jak smutno.
Stanisław Tym portrait photograph
December 6, 2024 at 11:37 AM
january3.github.io
This day didn't start well. I hate computers. Computing, programming and bioinformatics would all be so much nicer if we didn't have to actually use computers (thinking of The Patrician from Terry Pratchett).
Besides, Lord Vetinari, the supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, rather liked music. People wondered what sort of music would appeal to such a man. Highly formalized chamber music, possibly, or thunder-and-lightning opera scores. In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got played. It ruined music, in his opinion, to torment it by involving it on dried skins, bits of dead cat, and lumps of metal hammered into wires and tubes. It ought to stay written down, on the page, in rows of little dots and crotchets all neatly caught between lines. Only there was it pure. It was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in. Much better to sit quietly in a room and read the sheets, with nothing between yourself and the mind of the composer but a scribble of ink. Having it played by sweaty fat men and people with hair in their ears and spit dribbling out of the end of their oboe… well, the idea made him shudder. Although not much, because he never did anything to extremes. -Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
December 6, 2024 at 8:11 AM
january3.github.io
At least sometimes I have something common with Darwin
a quote from darwin
December 5, 2024 at 9:12 AM
january3.github.io
Cool, you can use radian with nvim-R! #rstats

github.com/randy3k/radi...
neovim terminal shown running radian
December 4, 2024 at 7:17 AM
january3.github.io
I have a custom function for that (see alt text for the code of the function). Simply use fname <- uniqfname("myfile.txt") and it will create myfile.txt_0, myfile.txt_1 etc.
uniqfname <- function(filename, sep="_") { i <- 0 fname <- filename while(file.exists(fname)) { fname <- paste0(filename, sep, i) i <- i + 1 } return(fname) }
December 3, 2024 at 9:42 AM
january3.github.io
White-naped crane (Antigone vipio, żuraw białoszyi) from the Berlin Tierpark (2023). In Berlin, many things are double: there were the two airports (East and West), and there are two ZOOs: West ("Zoo") and East ("Tierpark"). I like the east one much more, it is large and spacy. #birds #zoo #berlin
a closeup on the head of the white naped crane
December 3, 2024 at 6:34 AM
january3.github.io
OK, this quick and dirty mockup works, provided you don't use `...n` as a name in your list :-D So not a proper solution really. But you can do ll(1, "b",) and get the appriopriate list (check alt-text to copy the code)
ll <- function(..., ...n) { call_list <- as.list(match.call()) if(is.symbol(tail(call_list, 1)[[1]])) { call_list <- call_list[1:(length(call_list) - 1)] } call_list[[1]] <- list eval(as.call(call_list)) }
December 2, 2024 at 7:28 PM
january3.github.io
Post a ship that's not star wars or star trek
Eagle from space 1999
November 29, 2024 at 6:53 PM
january3.github.io
A stunning paper on dinosaur poo. Scientists analysed fossil poo from late Triassic / early Jurassic period found in the Polish Basin using methods that allowed them even to visualize preserved beetles (photograph). They show an expanding and changing dinosaur diet.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 29, 2024 at 7:10 AM
january3.github.io
OK, spam aside (your guest looks like a rare, but still widely spread specimen of a species I too sometimes encounter under my posts), but I wasn't aware of Ford's book and that there are still people arguing for aquatic Brachiosaurs. (I too grew up with Zdenek Burian's book, but that was < 1980)
Zdenek Burian's depiction of Brachiosaurs as aquatic animals (basically rejected in the 1980's)
November 26, 2024 at 11:22 AM
january3.github.io
Hmmmm, that is an interesting insight I am getting to my own life. Miss the times when TB was my whole world.

shiny.rcg.sfu.ca/u/rdmorin/sc...
word cloud based on my research papers, highlighting tuberculosis, proteins, biomarkers and expression
November 23, 2024 at 12:06 PM
january3.github.io
I have to share that one with you.
A list of bands in order of efficacy: 3. Placebo 2. The Cure 1. Prevention
November 23, 2024 at 11:31 AM
january3.github.io
This image accurately describes my scientific work, especially gene set enrichments with my tmod package. Discuss #rstats #science #bioinformatics
Oglaf cartoon strip showing a king, an architect and supplicants. Supplicant 1: "Allow me to present you this enormous cheese." Architect: "Sire, I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese". King: "No, the kitchen will do fine!". Supplicant: "My master also sens his regards". Architect: "Sire! I will build a labyrinth to house the regards!" King: "What is it with you and this labyrinth?" Architect: "Labyrinths are awesome". Servant: "Sire! The queen has given birth to a monster". Architect [can't believe his happiness]
November 23, 2024 at 11:16 AM
january3.github.io
OK so I wrote this little script in Python when my screen drawing plugin for Gnome broke. It is for drawing on the screen, making screenshots and memes, it is a simple vector graphics editor and can even be used for presentations. I use it all the time. #python #drawing github.com/january3/scr...
Jaculus orientalis – example of drawing with my little script.
November 22, 2024 at 10:49 AM
january3.github.io
show me your pet and what they were named after
on the left, a dog named Bilbo. on the right, a hobbit named Bilbo.
November 22, 2024 at 8:03 AM
january3.github.io
I use the Nvim-R plugin: github.com/jalvesaq/Nvi... - I can open a terminal to run R, and there are several commands to pipe R code from the script or markdown to the console, as well as shortcuts for parameter lookup / tab completion.
Example of coding R in neovim.
November 21, 2024 at 7:34 PM
january3.github.io
Hmm, that looks a bit like a beeswarm. Beeswarms are used to show the distribution of samples, a bit like density plots, but they show individual data points. Points are not allowed to shift, though, and usually the visualization is symmetrical.
a simple beeswarm showing 100 normally distributed samples
November 21, 2024 at 11:05 AM
january3.github.io
OK, so it looks that the {atrrr} R package really works well. I guess I can back to writing my posts in (neo)vim ;-) #rstats #bluesky
November 21, 2024 at 10:02 AM
january3.github.io
Today I learned that combining a density plot with a jitter / dot plot is called a "raincloud" plot. And also discovered the {ggrain} package. Very nice, I remember doing it almost by hand in base R. #rstats www.njudd.com/raincloud-gg...
An example of the raincloud using the iris data set
November 21, 2024 at 8:54 AM
january3.github.io
I think it is a Geotrupes scarab beetle, but I am not sure. August 2023. #insects #macrophotography #photography
November 21, 2024 at 8:41 AM