R users, How come R doesn't have a mascot? Linux has one and so does LaTeX, so shouldn't R? I personally think that associating a "friendly face" with R would be a good thing for R (one letter names can be quite intimidating). I apologize if this is addressed in the FAQ. I searched the FAQ as well as the mailing list archives and checked ?mascot but to no avail. ;-) Damian Damian Betebenner Educational Research, Measurement & Evaluation Lynch School of Education Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617) 552 4491
What about a Ray ? Take a look at: http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/ThumbnailsSummary.cfm?ID=15487 a shark family called "Rhinobatus rhinobatus" check http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/ThumbnailsSummary.cfm?ID=5016 ;-) regards EJ On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 16:12, Damian Betebenner wrote:> R users, > > How come R doesn't have a mascot? Linux has one and so does LaTeX, so shouldn't R? I personally think that associating a "friendly face" with R would be a good thing for R (one letter names can be quite intimidating). > > I apologize if this is addressed in the FAQ. I searched the FAQ as well as the mailing list archives and checked > > ?mascot > > but to no avail. ;-) > > Damian > > > Damian Betebenner > Educational Research, Measurement & Evaluation > Lynch School of Education > Boston College > Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 > > (617) 552 4491 > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 11:12 -0500, Damian Betebenner wrote:> R users, > > How come R doesn't have a mascot? Linux has one and so does LaTeX, so > shouldn't R? I personally think that associating a "friendly face" > with R would be a good thing for R (one letter names can be quite > intimidating). > > I apologize if this is addressed in the FAQ. I searched the FAQ as > well as the mailing list archives and checked > > ?mascot > > but to no avail. ;-)Well...curiously, O'Reilly has selected the Ram for the cover of an as yet unpublished work on R for Bioinformatics: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/059600544X What is interesting, is that the Ram (in a different pose) is already used for the well known Perl Cookbook: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596003137 Does that mean that O'Reilly is running out of iconic animals? Perhaps we need another graphics contest amongst the artistically challenged useR's for a mascot? < Sorry Paul :-) > Marc
Damian Betebenner <damian.betebenner at bc.edu> writes:> R users, > > How come R doesn't have a mascot? Linux has one and so does LaTeX, so shouldn't R? I personally think that associating a "friendly face" with R would be a good thing for R (one letter names can be quite intimidating). > > I apologize if this is addressed in the FAQ. I searched the FAQ as well as the mailing list archives and checked > > ?mascot > > but to no avail. ;-)A furry and cuddly inchworm? -- O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Blegdamsvej 3 c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics 2200 Cph. N (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907
Excellent replies, So a couple of questions about preferences for the mascot: 1. Does the mascot need to have a name that starts with R? Is that usually the way it works? So far the possibilities put forward are: Ray, Ram, Inch Worm, Rhinoceros 2. Should the depiction of the mascot be more "literal" like the O'Reilly Ram, or cartoonish like the Linux and LaTeX mascots? Or could there be multiple representations? Damian Damian Betebenner Educational Research, Measurement & Evaluation Lynch School of Education Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617) 552 4491
How about an R-madillo? Erin from Texas
Damian Betebenner wrote:> R users, > > How come R doesn't have a mascot?Perhaps someone with artistic flair could create a mascot based on this image? It would help to give newcomers to R-help the right idea: http://www.accesscom.com/~alvaro/alien/thepics/ripley1__.jpg Tim C -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 263 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20041203/bd28451b/signature.bin
I think "Ross & Robert" should be consulted... Tux was born because Linus happend to say in a forum that he was rather fond of penguins ;-) May be these guys have a favourite animal... and it would be cool if each had a different favourite animal and thus one mythic "beast" could be created from their junction... with emphasis on coolness. Just a thought... carry on.
I vote for R-madillo! Erin Hodgess wrote:>How about an R-madillo? > >Erin from Texas > >______________________________________________ >R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > >-- Kenneth Roy Cabrera Torres Celular +57 (315) 504 9339
Given R's origin in Auckland, NZ, perhaps something a little less North American than a raccoon might be appropriate. If a mascot didn't have to be animate, a pohutakawa flower (metrosideros excelsa) would be an excellent choice: - The Pohutakawa is called 'The New Zealand Christmas Tree', the flowers are red, the leaves are green, it flowers around Christmas, and R has been a real "Christmas present" to the world - The Pohutakawa tree is not a particularly beautiful tree, but it's pretty tough, thriving on coastal cliffs. They can grow fairly big, can be bigger than an oak tree. - The flower is a bottlebrush; think of it as a "vectorised" flower and its aptness for R is obvious. - The Metrosideros genus is wider spread (it's also in the Kermadec Islands, Australia, and Hawaii) and the Pohutakawa proper is now found in many parts of Australia. - An image of a Pohutakawa flower would just be so gorgeous.
David, you raise an interesting point. However, my wife reminds me that another reason to consider the use of the kangaroo is the popular story that the origin of the word, far from being the name of the animal, is the local dialect for "I don't know". The OED notes this origin in passing, along with a disclaimer that there is no evidence to support it. Andrew On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 03:04:52PM +1300, David Scott wrote:> As to an animal mascot, I think a New Zealand mascot is a must, and > suggestions of Australian ones would not be warmly received by New > Zealanders. (To clarify, despite the address, I am Australian.)-- Andrew Robinson Ph: 208 885 7115 Department of Forest Resources Fa: 208 885 6226 University of Idaho E : andrewr at uidaho.edu PO Box 441133 W : http://www.uidaho.edu/~andrewr Moscow ID 83843 Or: http://www.biometrics.uidaho.edu No statement above necessarily represents my employer's opinion.
On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 03:04:52PM +1300, David Scott wrote: >As to an animal mascot, I think a New Zealand mascot is a must, and >suggestions of Australian ones would not be warmly received by New >Zealanders. (To clarify, despite the address, I am Australian.) > >My suggestion is the Kea: inquisitive and intelligent. See: > >http://www.doc.govt.nz/Conservation/001~Plants-and-Animals/001~Native-Animals/Kea.asp Hello, I endorse David's comment that an Australian mascot chosen for R would not be warmly received by New Zealanders! But at the end of the day, Ross and Robert ought to give whatever choice the definitive yes or no. ps. Ross has Maori origins, so a native NZ animal is a better idea than usual. One good thing about the Kea is that another native NZ bird, called a Weka, is the name of a well-known machine learning software package (also free) which was developed about 100 miles south of Auckland, at the CS department of Waikato University. See http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ml However, having R indirectly associated with a similar free software package has its good and bad points. cheers Thomas Thomas W. Yee, Telephone: 64 - 9 - 3737599 extn 86857 or 85055 Department of Statistics, Fax: 64 - 9 - 3737000 or 3677149 University of Auckland, E-mail: t.yee at auckland.ac.nz Private Bag 92019, yee at stat.auckland.ac.nz Auckland 1001, New Zealand.
Ahh, to heck with all them animals. R is a system of interacting components, so I suggest Mr Gearhead as a suitable mascot. http://www.bitwrit.com.au/gearhead.png Jim
Ruud H. Koning
2004-Dec-04 19:56 UTC
[R] lattice graph with segments (erroneously posted earlier)
Hello, I have a dataset with three numerical variables, and two factor variables, one of which is shown:> deel1[,1:4]median ucl lcl coupon.period 1 10.894672 NA 14.255623 fixed0-1 5 12.536729 11.658164 13.341038 fixed1-5 9 10.616561 9.979676 11.039264 fixed5-7 13 8.457571 8.048390 8.723679 fixed7-10 17 7.537831 7.274149 7.895592 fixed10-15 21 4.392874 4.279858 4.586663 fixed15more Think of the data as six regression coefficients, with an upper and lower confidence limit. I would like to make a lattice plot, with the factor (fixed0-1,fixed1-5, etc) on the vertical axis, and the median on the horizontal axis. This is simple: xyplot(coupon.period ~ median,data=prepayment, panel=function(x,y,...){ panel.xyplot(x,y) } ) does the trick. Now I want to have a line extending from the dots representing the median, that run from the median to upper/lower confidence limit. How do pass the information of deel1$ucl and deel1$lcl to the panel function, and how do I make segments within the panel function? Thanks for any help, Ruud
Thomas Yee <t.yee at auckland.ac.nz> wrote: ps. Ross has Maori origins, so a native NZ animal is a better idea than usual. The native animals of New Zealand include no mammals except for - marine mammals in the coastal waters, such as the Hector's dolphin - a few species of bat which got blown over from Australia. Otherwise, there are birds, reptiles, insects, and a few oddballs. The most notable oddballs would be Tuataras, famous for their third eye. We have some onychophorans, of which it has been said that "Contemporary Onychophorans are able to predate organisms several times larger than themselves" (take _that_, SAS!).... Wetas are quite interesting; they are basically grasshoppers some of which played the ecological role of (and are about the same size as) mice. I suspect that only birds have the "cuddly" appeal required of a mascot. Perhaps it's worth pointing out that Kiwis are a kind of Ratite.
reposting...
-----Original Message-----
From: Rau, Roland
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 2:57 PM
To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: RE: [R] How about a mascot for R?
Dear all,
browsing through the suggestions, I have the impression that the general
direction is towards an animal from New Zealand (I guess because of the
roots of R). But since the R Foundation is now located in Vienna,
Austria. What about a typical Austrian animal? Is there one? Maybe a
"Wolpertinger". A Wolpertinger is a fantasy animal which is a rabbit
with the antlers known from deer and some wings from a bird. In addition
to the "Austrian headquarters", another reason for such an animal
which
does not exist in reality (or does it???) is that coding something with
R is sometimes so easy that it appears to be almost unreal.
What do you think about this idea?
Best,
Roland
P.S.
A picture of a Wolpertinger can be found at the bottom of the page:
http://www.einsamer-schuetze.com/krypto/fabelwesen/wolpertinger/wolpi.ht
ml
+++++
This mail has been sent through the MPI for Demographic Rese...{{dropped}}
Apologies for adding to this discussion so late. When the idea of a mascot was first raised, I recalled how in describing (and spelling) R to people in seminars, etc I would sometimes say, in my best pirate voice, "That's R, as in ARRRRRR!". The connection to something or someone criminal is perhaps not desirable, but I'm sure that there is someone in the R community who could be a model for the logo (long beard certainly, eye-patch or wooden leg even better). And then clicking on the logo would play the accompanying sound. I think this has plenty of appeal. ;-) Regards, Andrew C. Ward, Senior Analyst (Quantitative), Tel: +61 7 3864 0439 Queensland Studies Authority, Fax: +61 7 3229 3318 295 Ann Street, Brisbane Qld 4000, Australia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This email (including any attached files) is for the intended recipient(s) only. If you received this email by mistake, please, as a courtesy, tell the sender, then delete this email. The views and opinions are the originator's and do not necessarily reflect those of the Queensland Studies Authority. All reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure that this email contained no viruses at the time it was sent.