A triangle following the contours of a circular plot. #MathArt
Sean Mackinnon
@seanpmackinnon.bsky.social
Instructor at Dalhousie University. Personality, statistics, mixed methods
The other day my cat stepped on my mouse/keyboard while I had an open google sheet and somehow clicked Gemini's "analyze this" button (which can't be disabled) that in turn drastically changed the whole spreadsheet. I wonder how long before a cat accidentally makes an AI go seriously off the rails
Hey #stats nerds, a confidence interval question. Say you have one person with 60 repeated measurements; you want an estimate of just that person's "true" score. Could you calculate a confidence interval using traditional frequentist formulas for 60 different people and have it be meaningful?
I have found a great new #stats teaching hack to find new open datasets for teaching. I've been going to the Collabra: Psychology journal website, and typing in an analysis type (e.g., logistic regression) into the search bar. Both quick and high-quality data! online.ucpress.edu/collabra
People keep telling me that lectures need to be like short 5min bursts because kids these days have no attention span. If so, someone please explain hbomerguy The long-form lecture isn't dead, lots of people still crave a passionate deep-dive into a topic.
I have an important announcement. You know the giant pile of miscellaneous wires you keep in a box indefinitely, right? Well, I just used one of them (my router's wireless seems to have busted so using an Ethernet cable). It's not junk, I am now forever vindicated for keeping all those wires.
I watched this for an embarrassingly long time rooting for the little cube to make it without looking at the timer
852dude@852dude.bsky.social · 4w ago
Oldie but goodie: great tips on how to (not) design things. uxdesign.cc/the-worst-vo...
The worst volume control UI in the world
A group of bored developers and designers has decided to start a thread on reddit to figure out who can come up with the worst volume…
uxdesign.cc
Some thoughts on AI and teaching, looking for input: Asynchronous online courses remain valuable, especially for non-traditional students. However, it is no longer possible to determine if assessment (i.e., grades) is valid for students without synchronous or in-person proctored assessment 1/3
I was once invited as a keynote speaker to British North America Philatelic Society (stamp collecting) despite never collecting a stamp in my life. It was a talk on the psychology of collecting. They mailed me cool stamp-shaped coasters and a thank you letter with vintage stamps on the envelope
Gail Simone@gailsimone.bsky.social · 4w agoOkay, my QUESTION OF THE DAY is… What is your weirdest actual accomplishment? Not the biggest necessarily…but the weirdest?
David Bessis had a great article about how AI is affecting Math. davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-o...
The fall of the theorem economy
How AI could destroy mathematics and barely touch it
davidbessis.substack.com
Truly unhinged idea that surely is just based in trying to humiliate people, but at least it has decent psychometrics compared to every mandatory training course I have ever been made to take by my employer.
Claire E. Aubin@ceaubin.com · last mo.A real - actual - I swear to god - argument happening over on Twitter right now is whether or not faculty should be regularly forced to retake the GRE
I have to work now But Rstudio updates always must update
The AI doom is strong in university teaching. Just resist. Fight. Keep trying new shit and sometimes something will stick, you'll reach some minority of students. I don't care if I am on the losing side of the AI war on education, I'll get a few students to learn something despite everything.
Kieran Healy@kjhealy.co · last mo.If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.
I find the story of Hegelochus unreasonably funny. Imagine dying and the only trace of you millennia later is the time you accidentally said you saw a weasel in a tragic play in front of a packed audience, because people mocked you about it for centuries. (Thread for ease)
Hegelochus: The Ancient Greek Actor We Only Know About Because He Really, Really Fluffed Up His Line
Around 400 BCE, Hegelochus really messed up his line. We only know about the actor because he was mocked about it for centuries.
iflscience.com
1. You can run Doom on any computer. 2. You can’t run Doom on the brain. C. The brain isn’t a computer.
I know I have complained that researchers don't have a research question in the past, but this is still not really a viable research question: "Are any of these 100 variables associated with Y?"
Introducing {rdoom} - Play Doom in #RStats (in time for #UseR2026 !) github.com/coolbutusele... This is a demonstration that {tigerfb} + {nara} can do realtime interactivity in R! Includes: keyboard & mouse control, audio, cheat modes!
The shape of this distribution is kind of fascinating, negative skewness with a large zero inflation but also way fewer 10's than expected. I've always been curious about how the data generation process differs for all those excess zeroes seen often in political charged polling.
I juat read Ursula Le Guin's book Lathe of Heaven and ... wow, its incredible and prescient in the face of modern technocracy. This quote will live in my head rent free forever: "The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means."
My biggest pet peeve is that there's a ton of scam websites that are "Free QR Code Generator"s then the QR code stops working after a few days and then redirects you to ask you to PAY to re-activate it. I made a page on website for making ACTUALLY FREE QR Codes. Enjoy. konig.games/QRCodes/ #QRCodes
I wish I were more clever, but seeing this machine and the golden goose presentation in the same day feels like I am on the cusp of some economic revelation. If only some economist could explain it to me in such profound clarity as the SoftBank presentation.
Ed Zitron@edzitron.com · 2mo agoSoftBank’s investor presentation is one of the greatest things ever made. I’ve been thinking about it all day. These are the real slides shown in a speech where Masayoshi Son said he wouldn’t retire for at least another decade. The goose stuff is truly demented. Bravo group.softbank/media/Projec...
I was visiting a Spanish beach. beach. I heard thundrous party music approaching. Three large shirtless men were carrying a boombox. They were dressed the same, with gold chains, gold baseball hats, and shorts depicting a pig with sunglasses. I'll never know if they were famous or just flamboyant.