Sign in

Benjamin Hlina, PhD

@benjaminhlina.bsky.social
250 followers 381 following 117 posts

Postdoctoral Fellow @DalhousieU working on spatial ecology and food web dynamics Gulf of St.Lawrence | 🇺🇸🇨🇦 | benjaminhlina.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Current scientific peer review process: 1. Submit original paper for peer review 2. Get back two reviews with review 1 having submitted your paper to AI and the entire review being AI generated. Review 2 minimal comments. Huh, so I guess that’s what we are doing now.
100
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Charlie Gao @shikokuchuo.net · 18/09/2026
I'm super glad to report that mori is now part of r-lib. mori.r-lib.org
mori.r-lib.org
Shared Memory for R Objects
Share R objects across processes on the same machine via a single copy in POSIX shared memory (Linux, macOS) or a Win32 file mapping (Windows). Every process reads from the same physical pages through...
0397
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Katie O'Reilly @drkatfish.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This year's crop of wild rice/manoomin in Wisconsin has been better than average, due to both stable weather conditions during the growing season and the efforts of tribes to restore and protect wild rice-growing waters www.wpr.org/environment/...
wpr.org
Wisconsin's wild rice harvest is expected to be up this year
Wild rice, or manoomin in the Ojibwe language, is culturally significant to northern Wisconsin tribes, and Wisconsin regulators are anticipating an increased wild rice harvest this year.
1448
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Barret Schloerke @schloerke.com · 15/09/2026
🎤 Just presented “shinyreact: Building Custom Shiny UI with React” at posit::conf(2026) 🤔 Ever written JS or CSS inside an R string? shinyreact moves your UI to React: two hooks on the client, reactive_output() on the server. 📚 bit.ly/posit-2026-shinyreact #rstats #shiny #reactjs
The shinyreact hex logo — Shiny’s swoosh with a React atom in its tail.
0214
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 25/08/2026
"I was not shocked that he helped somebody. My shock is that he was murdered. And no one has given us the complete truth or anyone has been held accountable. And it's been 7 months! ... there was more effort in vilifying him than pursuing justice" -- Alex Pretti's parents
474236458096
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Max Woolf @minimaxir.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
actual lol
1775575
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Phil Swatton @philswatton.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Two brief thoughts on why I think it's still worth keeping LLM use out of introductory programming for stats/data science: - You need to be a good programmer to get good code out of an LLM - You need to be a good programmer to evaluate the code you get out of an LLM
26510
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Brian Hayden @drhaydo.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Training got a refresh at Atomic Ecology recently: new courses, new rates and new ways to learn - www.atomicecology.com/training
atomicecology.com
Training | Atomic Ecology
"From atoms to ecosystems....."
075
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center @maisrc.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Protecting our waters depends on good information, but valuable data are often scattered across orgs. In this pub, MAISRC researchers highlight an interesting solution: P.I. Charter, a web-based tool that brings decades of aquatic plant survey data together onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
P.I. Charter: A Shiny Application for Collecting, Cleaning, Compiling, and Communicating Point‐Intercept Aquatic Plant Data
When ecological data are collected by many entities for different purposes, they can be difficult to locate and integrate; web applications can address this by standardizing submission, automating cl...
052
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Jon Pye @jdpye.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Getting ready to hang out with some fish telemetry folks in a very chill open-floor Zoom environment. Check out our guest speakers for this month, a Q+A with Edward Lavender mid July and a deep dive into the work of the Smithsonian's own Beth Bowers! Join us Thursday afternoons if you're interested!
031
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
ProfColinBean @profcolinbean.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The OTN Data Centre: enabling reliable acoustic telemetry data through a global cooperative data exchange. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. Just-IN doi.org/10.1139/cjfa...
doi.org
The OTN Data Centre: enabling reliable acoustic telemetry data through a global cooperative data exchange
Acoustic telemetry is a powerful tool for aquatic animal movement studies, and to enhance its potential to inform management and conservation, sound data management and quality control structures are ...
022
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez @frodsan.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
#StatsPubs No matter how many times you read it, this paper on hierarchical GAMs keeps giving. Clear model explanations together with R code (mgcv). So useful! doi.org/10.7717/peer... Thanks for writing @ericjpedersen.bsky.social, D. Miller, @gsimpson.bsky.social @noamross.net
In this paper, we discuss an extension to two popular approaches to modeling complex structures in ecological data: the generalized additive model (GAM) and the hierarchical model (HGLM). The hierarchical GAM (HGAM), allows modeling of nonlinear functional relationships between covariates and outcomes where the shape of the function itself varies between different grouping levels. We describe the theoretical connection between HGAMs, HGLMs, and GAMs, explain how to model different assumptions about the degree of intergroup variability in functional response, and show how HGAMs can be readily fitted using existing GAM software, the mgcv package in R. We also discuss computational and statistical issues with fitting these models, and demonstrate how to fit HGAMs on example data. All code and data used to generate this paper are available at: github.com/eric-pedersen/mixed-effect-gams.
216252
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Tom Smith @analyst42.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Sooo #rstats, I built a thing... Deploying R shiny to your own cloud server is still too hard in 2026. Lightbulb.is is my answer - connect to your digital ocean account, click to create a server, and point it at a shiny GitHub repo. That's it - spend the time you save making your customers happy!
lightbulb.is
Lightbulb.is
3349
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Eric Pedersen @ericjpedersen.bsky.social · 08/09/2023
Hi #stats folks! Curious about how GAMs work behind the scenes? I've put together a shiny app to demonstrate how changing the coefficients for basis functions for a smooth affects the final fitted smooth and the penalty. Looking for any feedback on the UI! 206.12.100.5/gam-basis-de...
206.12.100.5
Demo: Basis functions, coefficients, and penalties
32913
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Katie O'Reilly @drkatfish.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
While Congress ultimately sets budgets, the president's budget request is a signal of priorities - and unfortunately for the #GreatLakes, the current proposal would zero out several critical NOAA programs such as the Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) www.interlochenpublicradio.org/ipr-news/202...
interlochenpublicradio.org
Great Lakes researchers worry about federal cuts to NOAA
The President’s proposed budget would cut funding to efforts that improve public safety, the maritime economy and health on the Great Lakes, researchers say.
02012
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
📣 Check out Great Lakes Aquatic Tissue Analysis Repository (GLATAR) - a repository containing energy density, proximate composition, stable isotope, thiamine, fatty acid, and contaminant data for fish and aquatic inverts in the Great Lakes and North America. Link below: GLATAR.org #ecology #rstats
glatar.org
Great Lakes Aquatic Tissue Analysis Repository (GLATAR)
030
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
📣 the Great Lakes Aquatic Tissue and Analysis Repository (GLATAR) - a data repository containing energy density, proximate composition, stable isotope, thiamine, fatty acid, and contaminant data for fish and aquatic inverts in the Great Lakes and North America. Check it out at GLATAR.org #ecology
glatar.org
Great Lakes Aquatic Tissue Analysis Repository (GLATAR)
031
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
JD Long @jdlong.cerebralmastication.com · 28/05/2026
A lot of folks aren’t distinguishing clearly between “AI figured X out” and “AI helped write code that enabled us to figure X out”. They are very very different.
34610
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Jason Gantenberg @jrgant.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
The R install you never knew you needed #rstats
reddit.com
From the rstats community on Reddit: R on a Flip Phone
Explore this post and more from the rstats community
0121
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Danielle Ferraro @dferraro.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Did #TidyTuesday this week for the first time in many years 🥹 and posted about it over on @weare.rladies.org!
091
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Thomas Lin Pedersen @thomasp85.com · 20/04/2026
I am excited beyond description to lift the veil on what we have been working on in 2026: Please meet ggsql! A new extension of the SQL language for creating visualisations using the grammar of graphics. Read all about it in the blog post or visit the website at ggsql.org
opensource.posit.co
ggsql: A grammar of graphics for SQL
Introducing ggsql, a grammar of graphics for SQL that lets you describe visualizations directly inside SQL queries.
1338886
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
I have a shiny app that uses fnct that have {cli} outputs. Prior to wrapping the ui, server, and shinyApp() as a fnct, the app would dump {cli} outputs into the console. Once wrapped, all {cli} outputs are logged but not displayed until app process is closed. How do I restore this behaviour? #rstats
000
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Eric Pedersen @ericjpedersen.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
I've been working with NCV this last week; it's a powerful tool for modelling data with dependencies that are poorly/inefficiently modelled via stochastic process priors like cov functions or low-rank smoothers. However, it's a complex topic, so I thought I'd summarize the key ideas in a thread 1/n
2224
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Wisconsin Sea Grant @uwiscseagrant.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Why should you support us on Day of the Badger? Because we’re a good investment. Wisconsin Sea Grant funds research, education and outreach projects that keep our Great Lakes healthy now — so we can avoid big, expensive issues later. dayofthebadger.org/campaign/aquatic…
011
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 04/04/2026
I got native dev containers working in Positron! Blog post forthcoming, but for now, here's a minimal repo showing how it works: it uses Quarto and Typst and Docker to make a little PDF report github.com/andrewheiss/... (Positron documentation: positron.posit.co/dev-containe...) #rstats
Screenshot of Positron in macOS opened inside a Linux-based Docker container, with a rendered Quarto HTML file that says it was built on Linux
3426
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 03/04/2026
I wonder if the MadTV writers thought this skit would be completely applicable 20 years later.
youtu.be
Apple presents the iRack
YouTube video by MadtvOnFox
175
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Yannis Papastamatiou @dr-yannis.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
New paper out today! Using accelerometers to generate thermal performance curves in great hammerhead sharks. Their low activation energies may explain why they can perform well across seasons.
22511
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Eric Pedersen @ericjpedersen.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
I'm excited to see this out! It's also a nice coincidence, as @gsimpson.bsky.social and I just got phylogenetic smoothers working (for BM and OU processes) in our MRFtools package. I'll definitely be pointing people to your book for background. gam-mafia.github.io/MRFtools/art...
gam-mafia.github.io
Getting started with the MRFtools package
1113
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Brian Hayden @drhaydo.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
If stable isotopes are part of your research, they should be one of your strengths — not something you “sort of” understand. That’s why I built this course.
atomicecology.com
Online Courses | Atomic Ecology
Online training in the application of stable isotopes to ecological and environmental research
023
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Miles McBain @milesmcbain.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Alright class, #rstats #dataabs, a question, and this will be on your exam: Code quality, in particular readability, and the management of complexity is *much* more important in data analysis than software engineering in general. Why?
10327
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Jacob Harris @jacobharr.is · 06/03/2026
Hey all, I decided to write up some of my thoughts in more detail about why I don't vibe code, in case it's interesting to any of you jacobharr.is/personal/i-d...
jacobharr.is
Why I Don’t Vibe Code
A “brief” accounting of various reasons why vibe coding has just never clicked for me personally as a developer.
1211031
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Bergen Telemetry Network @bergentelemetry.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
We’ve completed our second season with chimaera tagging! And we caught something very cool 👀🦈 Curious about what? Find out here www.bergentelemetry.com/post/trackin... #SOSF_GhostTrack #NFR_PUFFINS
bergentelemetry.com
Second tagging campaign for ghost sharks
When late November 2025 arrived, we headed out again to try to tag more chimaeras. Divers tend to spot chimaeras in the shallow bays during winter, often at 30 meters or less. We didn’t catch any indi...
0113
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Brian Hayden @drhaydo.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Most isotope users were never formally trained in isotope ecology. They learned just enough to get by. That gap shows up later — usually during interpretation. That’s exactly what my course is designed to fix.
atomicecology.com
Online Courses | Atomic Ecology
Online training in the application of stable isotopes to ecological and environmental research
094
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
MC Stan @mc-stan.org · 28/02/2026
Help to test new progress bar in CmdStanR by @josswright.bsky.social, see more at discourse.mc-stan.org/t/help-us-te...
Progress bar  showing 2800/8000 35% ETA: 4m
0188
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Ben Harrap @bharrap.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Given the recent spicy #rstats threads, an important reminder: There's no single right way to code If it works for you, that's all that matters really Be good to your fellow coders
6567
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
James A Campbell @rtbecard.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Here's my take on a Linux wrapper for Innovasea's Fathom Connect software. Seems to work fine on Ubuntu 24.04 for converting vdat files to csv. gitlab.com/RTbecard/fat... Shout out to @obrien.page for discovering that Fathom Connect works in wine. #AcousticTelemetry
Screenshot of the linked gitlab repository readme.
252
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
FYI for those that want work with this person @john-coene.com
230
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 25/01/2026
Walz: "To Americans who are watching this, I've got a question for you: What side do you want to be on? The side of an all powerful federal govt that can kill, injury, menace, & kidnap its citizens off the streets? Or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing witness to such govt?"
8714997914600
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Aaron Stewart-Ahn @badideas.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
A video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son.
10054690218038
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Mathew Wells @efdtoronto.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Frozen ships in -22°C in to Toronto harbour
Frozen Toronto harbour
163
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
JD Long @jdlong.cerebralmastication.com · 24/01/2026
We kidnapped a kid. But his parents didn’t do exactly what we asked so we fed the child. As you can see, we, the kidnappers, are clearly the good guys. We will not take any questions.
171
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/01/2026
437832
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
That’s just not right…
010
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Stephen Wild @stephenjwild.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
media.tenor.com
bob 's burgers bob and tina are sitting at a desk talking to each other
Alt: bob 's burgers bob and tina are sitting at a desk talking to each other
1133
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Ocean Tracking Network @oceantracking.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
What are your ins and outs for 2026? ✨🌊
011
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Great resource on spatial analysis
020
Benjamin Hlina, PhD @benjaminhlina.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
I am building a shiny app that interacts with a pgSQL db this is hosted on AWS RDS with the app being deployed on an AWS EC2. I have made dockerfile and GHA that build GHCR and deploy the app but stumbled upon {golem} a bit after the fact. Do ppl have examples of usage of {golem}. #Rstats #Rshiny
210
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
All the material for my Bayesian Data Analysis course is available online, including the lectures, which we re-recorded this fall (some of them by @aloctavodia.bsky.social and Noa Kallioinen while I was on vacation). The video links are listed in the schedule at avehtari.github.io/BDA_course_A...
avehtari.github.io
Bayesian Data Analysis course - Aalto 2025 – Bayesian Data Analysis course
08231
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
There's been much talk about the "Just a Job" piece in Nature Human Behavior — absent an ability of many to read it. The author is here, @laraffington.bsky.social. In the post below, she shares a link available to all.
2177
Reposted by Benjamin Hlina, PhD
Katie O'Reilly @drkatfish.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Travel from the comfort of your own home this #25DaysofFishmas as we explore fishes from all across the US each day in December. Best part? No sleeping on air mattresses in guest rooms! The road trip kicks off with fishes from the southeastern US on Monday Dec. 1!
A map of the United States split into 4 differently-colored regions; clockwise from top right: Northwest, Northeast/Great Lakes, Southeast, and Southwest
1217