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• Questions while watching Netflix

  In 2022 28% of New Zealand’s total exports and 53% of the forestry exports (by value) went to China. China’s…
  7 Jul, '24

• There is value in better explanations

  I am often fascinated by people who can explain something that I already know but in a much better way.…
  30 Jun, '24

• Why are you complicating the analysis?

  Progeny trials (or progeny testing or genetic tests or whatever you call them) are a real money pit. They are…
  28 Jun, '24

• Have you visited the trials?

  I was having a chat with analysts that just had a project dumped on their lap. They were questioning previous…
  21 Jun, '24

• The AI House of Cards

  Many of the people pushing today for AI to be used in all organisations, particularly of the ChatGPT/LLM persuasion, were…
  20 Jun, '24

• Breeding: simple interfaces, complex strategies

  I found this text I wrote 20 years ago(*), part of a discussion document I prepared for a review of…
  14 Jun, '24

• Are PhDs a pyramid scheme?

  If you are a professor in academia you are supposed to form/train new PhDs. In the past, those new PhDs…
  6 Jun, '24

• Why is this trait I like getting worse in the breeding programme?

  The short answer: because the trait you like is not part of the breeding objective and, therefore, has not an…
  5 Jun, '24

• Last day of teaching

  …for this semester. I was really trying to keep my head above water, but gulp, glug, I kept on taking…
  31 May, '24

• Back of the envelope calculations: pulp mill

  Imagine that someone stops you on the street and asks “How many hectares of plantations do we need for a…
  12 May, '24