Global supply chain

... But the luumu are already ripe, and cost 1.49 e at the Tokmanni checkout.

Bean review notes

hairysquid.net has suggested substituting Bean for the (crash-prone) Word component of MS Office 2011 for drafting text. Over the next two weeks, I will be writing a manuscript using Bean "A word processor for OS X": http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

These are my ongoing notes.

1. Split view being a menu option rather than a UI pulldown is awkward, but minimizes clutter.

I had hoped that the "Move to Separate Window"/"Move to Grouped Window" option would provide multiple windows with different views of the same document (this would be killer for big/long/complex documents), but it just breaks the document's tab free from the others.


2. File format fun:

Apparently, Bean saves Microsoft Word .doc files as .rtf files instead.

This might go badly for .doc files that have interactive features, such as form controls and headings. The Bean website notes that "Bean has some limitations: it doesn't do footnotes or use stylesheets and is only partially compatible with Word's file formats. Also, it allows in-line graphics, but not floating graphics."


3. Styles? We don't need styles!
 Paragraph styles from the original Word document:

Paragraph styles after opening and saving the file with Bean, and opening with Word:

The detail to note is that Bean apparently ate all of the styles in the Word document when saving to RTF, so that when it's reopened, Word supplies the default styles.

(Left: styles in the original document. Right: styles after Bean.)

4. Links, tables, images
Here are some before/after shots.

This first shot shows mangled hyperlinks.

This second shot shows a mangled image.

Here's a de-formatted table.

Here we've lost some paragraph formatting (note dots on the original document on the left)

Finally, note that all the headers have been missing, but one copy survives at the foot of the Bean document. 

Headers and footers work as expected within Bean, despite documentation to the contrary about older versions of Bean that only allowed selecting from a list of pre-formatted headers and footers. Bean's headers and footers just don't work with Word's headers and footers.

 

To be fair, Bean shows you that it mangles the headers and formatting...

... and graphics and tables, but Bean provides no warnings when saving over a carefully formatted Word document.

These formatting concerns wouldn't be an concern if Bean didn't advertise itself as a word processor:

More discoveries to come as I continue to use Bean as a text editor that is pretty, rather than a word processor.

5. Document tabs lack context menus

The bauble closes the tab (it becomes an 'x' when hovered). There is no easy way to rearrange tabs. Breaking a tab off requires a trip through the topline menu or cmd+D, and documents broken off the main window must be free-floating, they cannot be grouped into another tabbed window.

Also, tabs cannot be dragged to reorder documents within the main document window, nor dragged off the window into a new window.

6. Crash recovery

Bean just displays any files that were open but not saved at the time it unexpectedly quit. (I had planned to force-quit Bean after the 1.0 minute autosave interval, but Chrome decided to soak up all the free space on my root volume through the pagefile, which made the computer unusable, forcing a hard reboot.)

7. Horizontal scroll bar

I find your lack of horizontal scroll bar disturbing...

8. Highlights

Most highlighting is fully justified regardless of the text justification for lines that wrap. Except for some highlighting. The highlight toolbar item is a bit clumsy, requiring a trip through the drop-down menu to remove a highlight, rather than working as a toggle:




9. Search and replace

Bean enables search and replace without losing the split view. More importantly, it's possible to copy and paste into the search box, without wrecking document text at the current cursor position.


Concluding remarks [July 18, 2012]

Having used Bean for two weeks to draft and revise a 10-page manuscript, I will gladly use it again for drafting. Printing from Bean is uneventful. Headers, margins, etc. just work. As is evident from the screenshots above, I've tried several toolbar configurations, landing on show invisibles, highlighting, and 'Inspector' which is basically the omnibus text formatting palette.

 

Bean's toolbar lacks a zoom widget (this is useful for changing text size on screen when changing one's viewing distance from the monitor), but a zoom widget is available directly in the 'view' menu, and it works far more intuitively than the one in Word's menu.



Having drafted many manuscripts in BBEdit, emacs, vi, gedit, Bluefish, Windows Notepad, InDesign, and a 200-page document in LaTeX (never again), I find Bean to be an unobtrusive text editor with limited word processing features. I get to spend more of my time thinking and writing with Bean, rather than fighting the interface and the stream of unending and noisy auto-format gimmickry in Word.

Unfortunately, Bean's inability to do document styles required me to finish the final formatting in Word, which reminded me of Word's search and replace clumsiness above. Bean's inability to do document styles also meant that once my text was in Word, using Bean and then getting it back into Word would require re-styling copied and pasted text.

I hope these notes have been helpful. Please let me know what you think.

Scary movie

Industrial Food Machine of the Day: Automated Lamb Boner

The lack of human narration in the accompanying video is both surreal and fitting. In other 'how it's made' videos, the narrator explains not only what is happening, but also why the manufacturing is done in a particular way.

Here, we watch eviscerated lamb carcasses (shortly after they've been mounted to a conveyor) being mindlessly disassembled into optimal pieces calculated with precision, without understanding why the cuts are being made. Through every 'whrrrr' of a saw cutting through cartilage and bone, the automated system tells the same story whether it's on screen or not. For the machine and its long red eyes, every cut is the same. Some parts fall to a secondary conveyor and go one way, others are shoved off in the other direction.

And then there's the tool at 4:40 that jabs itself into the hindquarters, roots around a bit, parts the pieces, and then sends the tailbone off with a love tap.

All of this is overseen by one human operator, who presumably also gets to debug this production line should some flesh or cartilage break unexpectedly, or in case one of the dozens of blades hits a tumor or pocket of pus or liquid or something.

(Also, it's apparently easier to get an X-ray for a lamb carcass than for a human...)

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-06/industrial-animal-processing-video-o-day-automated-lamb-boning

Smaksatt kvarg

Smaksatt kvarg (roughly flavored curd) is a slightly fluffier version of the cream cheese layer of cheesecake, but still almost as rich. It's sold here in 200 ml containers as a breakfast item alongside yoghurt.

After digging in assuming that it was just a variety of yoghurt, I discovered that four teaspoons of the stuff nicely flavored two slices of bread.

I don't think I'd want to consume half a pound of light cream cheese in one sitting on a regular basis. This container's waxpaper lid is designed to be less re-sealable than those on tubs of yoghurt, which suggests that I am breaking with tradition by saving the rest for later.

(There's at least one holiday each month during which major retail shops close. A day or two before that, perishables with expiry dates are sold at 30 or 50% discounts. Valio smaksatt kvarg citron is regularly priced at (e)0.80, but I purchased this one a day before the midsummer holiday.)

Sardines in tomato sauce, like the cans

The Next Graduate: Progress

We met in the afternoon to discuss editing and comments about his methods section. Before lunch, I emailed a scanned copy of the chapter with my comments. The student was concerned that much of what he had written would need to be discarded. In reality, we consolidated two redundant sentences with their neighbours, and my substances questions generated replacement sentences of approximately the same length. (The student is being evaluated on the word length of the thesis in his home country.)

As we worked through the text, on several occasions we strayed far from my suggested edits since the student had made good suggestions when I pointed out the issues. This is good. (I had forgotten the usual "this catches my attention, please address it in some way, but not necessarily in the way I have suggested" that I inherited from my previous supervisor.)

We worked on singular/plural agreement, in/definite articles, it[']s (he was taught they were the same, but was himself looking for the distinction), shorter/clearer sentences, and formal and informal writing. (We also covered some technical details of writing about equipment and terminology from the field. I pointed out that he would have to learn some of that from the literature and from his proper supervisor. Even though I studied in the same discipline as the student years ago, our specializations do not overlap enough that I would catch everything specific to his specialization.) I pointed out that some of of his sentences ordered clauses in ways that followed the taught rules of English and would have been commonplace perhaps a few centuries ago, but which we don't deploy presently.

He showed me his notes (in his own language) taken while reading papers since our last meeting. He says that note-taking helps him connect and remember ideas among papers! This is good. He is now distinguishing between writing text from notes about literature for this thesis, and saving writing and notes that would be relevant for his next phase of research.

The student reports success taking notes about important passages (from English texts) in one of his other languages, and then successfully paraphrasing from those notes into English. He would like to do an all English process. I will need to devise or Google some possible techniques to help him with this.

As a start, we worked on some composition. Since our last meeting, he learned some more details about a potential source of experimental error. I had him write (first on paper and then on the computer) a sentence connecting the observation, inference, and consequence of the potential error. (I'm ramping up to the formal warrant argumentation structure.)

We repeated the exercise for a tricky part of the procedure that I did not fully comprehend (he explained in person that the experiment branched). His revised text made more sense to both of us, and was shorter! Hopefully some of those idea to writing skills will help him with paraphrasing. I think that asking/teaching him to take good notes in English will complete the circuit.

I suggested that we meet his local supervisor here. He mentioned a name I did not recognise (my fault for not being great with Finnish names...).

The student mentioned differences between writing up his methods section (easier because it's from memory) vs. the literature review (easier because someone else already did the research). I'm glad he recognises some differences there. He expects that his review chapter will get fewer red marks (I used blue!). Of note, the student tried to take notes about English as we reviewed his text. I pointed out and explained the usage notes I had included in my comments ("it's", etc.) so he didn't take that many notes. I might not write in the usage notes details the next time I provide comments, and instead relay them verbally so that he has the opportunity to take notes and learn from doing so.

We used online translation dictionaries several times to ensure that new words that I was suggesting meant what the student had intended. It appears to be a great way to learn new vocabulary. I wish I had thought of that last year.

I've also been thinking about formalities. I recognize that because I will have no role in evaluating this student's thesis, I have the opportunity to be differently critical of the writing and perhaps of the research. I don't know what to do with this yet.

The Next Graduate: International collaboration

Assorted information:

The student has approximately a year left in his program. It is formally split between his university in his home country, and this university in Finland. He is approximately eight months into his research. Although there are other supervisors involved, his primary supervisor is at this university. The student will return to his home country for the summer within the month. Before the student leaves, I would like to have a meeting with him and his supervisor.

The student had asked about paraphrasing. He does that successfully in several other languages. He was frustrated with trying to paraphrase another author's write-up of (basically) a CRC Handbook entry for a compound, and a paragraph from another author's literature review. His approach was to reword texts rather than to rewrite them in his own words. I suggested that he take more/better notes (he acknowledges that he does not remember in detail some articles he read in the fall), and paraphrase from those notes the points that relate to the research and arguments he is reporting. I also pointed out that simply rephrasing a review section could mean that he's missing out on details that the review author did not pick out, because the review was written from a different approach for a different purpose. He will try some different approaches this week.

The student has ambitions to do PhD research after completing this degree. I pointed out that it would be undesirable for him to miss important papers via his shortcut through review. I will possibly show him Booth, Williams and Colomb re: argumentation next week.

I've read and returned the student's methods section. It's good but incomplete. Prepositions are a concern, as is repetition, but the ideas are clear. The student uses a foreign version of Word, which apparently lacks English spell-check. Because the student will complete the writing from a different country, I will have to provide feedback via PDFs with scanned pages of my hand-written comments (we're trying this today), or annotated PDFs from his source files (we'll try this later this week). We should figure out a Skype thing also. Interestingly, at least half my comments are about the science.