I made this over the break. Why would I do such a thing? Am I some sort of #phylogenetics dork? Well... yes, but that's not why. To fully explain I'll have to do one of those sewing-strings-wrapped-around-a-spool dealies. 1/ 🧪
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This is fantastic. See, back in the early '00s I worked at Sinauer Associates, and as part of my job I was the front-line phone and email support for PAUP. I do *not* know phylogenetic analysis; mostly once I got users to a successful installation, I was done. But that thing was a beast.
Such memories!! Thank you for sharing this; this bridges between my 3rd-grade self (the last time I did counted cross-stich) and my grad-school self, a gulf that oddly no one has tried to close before.
As incomprehensible as it sounds today, there was not a SINGLE PERSON at Queen's (let alone my lab) doing phylogenetics. There wasn't even a single course on the subject. So what was I to do? Well, I taught myself phylogenetics from scratch. 6/
In those days, there were no books by Felsenstein or Yang. No, there was a _chapter_, and it was glorious. Who, pray-tell, wrote said chapter? Why, a particular David Swofford, of course :) 7/
Instant follow. This time travel invite made me emotional. Which is unlike me… but well done. I will now spend some time on very niche patterns. Thanks a lot 😅
I am not usually such a sentimental fool :/
I joked with my wife that we could form a business making cross-stitches of individual figures from papers. But it would be far too niche (1 sale per figure) which would not be profitable.
I love that idea! I’d be the 1 sale here and there (I try to stick to one project at a time and Ove been working on a super detailed Frida for ages!) but I’ll keep an eye out 😅
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https://figshare.com/articles/presentation/PAUP_logo_cross-stitch_pattern/28104569 2/
JWB: What's that for?
Grad student: Oh, we keep that to run PAUP.
JWB: What does it do?
GS: It builds trees.
JWB: But HOW DOES IT WORK?
GS: Er... 5/
I joked with my wife that we could form a business making cross-stitches of individual figures from papers. But it would be far too niche (1 sale per figure) which would not be profitable.