The importance of typography

In early forestry publications in some journals, prior to today's typographical fireworks, articles could be confusing. This is because we use the term "log" to refer to... well... logs.

What does this mean to you?

"A relationship between the above-ground biomass and the diameter of trees has been demonstrated by Shinozaki et al. (1964),  Kira and Shidei (1967), Newbould (1967) and, in English Oaks, by Bunce (1968). A regression of the form log mass = 2.13 log diameter- 0.23 (r =0.96, p <0.01) was calculated...."

Hilton, G.M., J.R. Packham, and J. Willis. 1987. Effects of Experimental Defoliation on a Population of Pendulate Oak (Quercus rober L.). New Phytologist 107, 603-612.

If you didn't know that Pipe Model was an exponential scaling form (say, if you were a forester who isn't into ecological models),you might just think that mass was linearly related to diameter. Logically, this isn't correct, and you would soon figure out that your log did not have a mass of about 2 x its diameter, but it certainly could be confusing.

Sorry, that's not a tip or trick.

Later I'll have one for you. Probably related to .e00 files and geodatabases. I do think about those a lot.
For those who "social network" I have started Twitter for GeoTweeting. I want to catch my location as much as possible and see how I move.