Sign in

Blas M. Benito

@blasbenito.com
2.4K followers 2.7K following 562 posts

🌍 Senior Data Scientist | Team Lead | 🌱 AgTech | PhD in Computational Ecology + MSc in GIS #rstats developer | geospatial engineering | soil microbiome and crop health mapping | product development github.com/BlasBenito - www.blasbenito.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Etienne Bacher @etiennebacher.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
#rstats new blog post! "Snapshotting error messages", where I explain why I think all testthat::expect_error() should be replaced by testthat::expect_snapshot(error = TRUE), and where I present an easy, automated way to do this transition. www.etiennebacher.com/posts/2026-0...
etiennebacher.com
Snapshotting error messages | Etienne Bacher
Usually, when we develop software, we know very well how to use it and how it works. This is not true for external users, people who will make mistakes and won't use your software correctly on the fir...
1205
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Fun fact, this was a verbatim reviewer comment: "The results look fake, and the images of plastics also look like these were created by AI. I sincerely hope that this manuscript was a test by these authors or a test of this journal, because this should not be published in any journal as it is" 🤡
38525
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 07/09/2026
Open models arent't there yet for the typical computers we have at home and the current prices of RAM and VRAM. But I reckon local models are improving fast, and hardware may become cheaper at some point in the next 20 years 👴🏻.
001
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 07/09/2026
IMHO, software creation was never limited by tech monopolies, and the open source community is a great example of that. The bottlenecks were knowledge and time. If you offset these using models provided by large tech companies, there's no moving away from them.
101
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 06/09/2026
You said LF isn't a great shooter, and that's factually wrong. There's nothing left to debate about that particular point.
100
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 06/09/2026
Yes, she did. Didn't make a dent in her 3pt percentage though.
010
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 05/09/2026
Fiebich isn't a great shooter: her 43% 3pt percentage (this year, WNBA) makes her an elite shooter. Besides, she has one of the best shooting mechanics in the league. But all good shooters miss, that's the game.
200
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Nahel Belgherze @wxnb.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
An incredibly well-timed Landsat 9 pass captured the effects of yesterday’s catastrophic glacier collapse near the Nepal–Tibet border. The event was so massive that it was detected by seismometers around the world.
211121561
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 26/08/2026
"Beyond recall and the illusion of competence" var0.xyz/posts/beyond... The key message of this post is "don't outsource the understanding", and I couldn't agree more. If an LLM does all YOUR work, you become its spokesperson, and your judgement and expertise get erased in the process.
var0.xyz
Beyond recall and the illusion of competence — var0.xyz
The important question about AI-assisted programming isn't who writes the code. It's who understands the system.
052
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 21/08/2026
This medley by Chick Corea and Hiromi Uehara is otherworldly: youtu.be/XaNk19CQfto?...
youtu.be
Chick Corea & Hiromi Uehara Medley上原ひろみ&チックコリア.flv
YouTube video by True Content
000
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Happy 10 year anniversary of the best mic drop on Twitter. Hard to believe it’s been so long! Congrats @astrokatie.com

Katie Mack @AstroKatie
16h
Honestly climate change scares the heck out of me and it makes me so sad to see what we're losing because of it.

Gary P Jackson (RAT) @gary4205
@AstroKatie Maybe you should learn some actual SCIENCE then, and stop listening to the criminals pushing the #GlobalWarming SCAM!

Katie Mack @AstroKatie
@gary4205 | dunno, man, I already went and got a PhD in astrophysics.
Seems like more than that would be overkill at this point.
121121312062
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
ArXiv Paperboy (Stat.ME+Econ.EM) @paperposterbot.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
arXiv📈🤖 Gratia: An R package for exploring generalized additive models By
arXiv:2406.19082v1 Announce Type: cross 
Abstract: Generalized additive models (GAMs, Hastie & Tibshirani, 1990; Wood, 2017) are an extension of the generalized linear model that allows the effects of covariates to be modelled as smooth functions. GAMs are increasingly used in many areas of science (e.g. Pedersen, Miller, Simpson, & Ross, 2019; Simpson, 2018) because the smooth functions allow nonlinear relationships between covariates and the response to be learned from the data through the use of penalized splines. Within the R (R Core Team, 2024) ecosystem, Simon Wood's mgcv package (Wood, 2017) is widely used to fit GAMs and is a Recommended package that ships with R as part of the default install. A growing number of other R packages build upon mgcv, for example as an engine to fit specialised models not handled by mgcv itself (e.g. GJMR, Marra & Radice, 2023), or to make use of the wide range of splines available in mgcv (e.g. brms, B\"urkner, 2017).
  The gratia package builds upon mgcv by providing functions that make working with GAMs easier. gratia takes a tidy approach (Wickham, 2014) providing ggplot2 (Wickham, 2016) replacements for mgcv's base graphics-based plots, functions for model diagnostics and exploration of fitted models, and a family of functions for drawing samples from the posterior distribution of a fitted GAM. Additional functionality is provided to facilitate the teaching and understanding of GAMs.
0246
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
USA TODAY Sports @usatodaysports.usatoday.com · 16/08/2026
Elena Delle Donne's Hall of Fame speech featured a moving tribute to her sister.
bit.ly
Elena Delle Donne honors sister in emotional Hall of Fame speech
Elena Delle Donne's Hall of Fame speech featured a moving tribute to her sister.
152
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 09/08/2026
She made it look easy, but the amount of skill required to do that is hard to grasp if one has never played basketball. She has the deeper bag in the league for sure
000
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 09/08/2026
This week I'll be gets-injured-installing-dishwasher years old.
030
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Alison Killing @alisonkilling.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This is wildly irresponsible of Google - allowing people to create AI generated satellite images. Satellite imagery has always been such a useful and reliable source because it came from reliable sources, but now Google is messing with it at source. www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-pla...
digitaldigging.org
How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran
The question is: what on earth is Google doing?
6277109
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 22/07/2026
Is that the best group of starters in the league? It looks it might!
010
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 22/07/2026
Him (triumphant): Hey, look, I made this very important thing with AI, and I didn't use my brain at all! Me (dying inside):
Jinshi, from The Apothecary Diaries, finding out something he never wanted to know.
040
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Jonah Maves @hunchojman.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Awa Fam denies Olivia Miles, Olivia Miles gives her five
2145152
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 20/07/2026
This guitar cover of 'Sparkle' (from the movie 'Your Name') is a beauty: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-tY...
youtube.com
INSANE cover of Sparkle - (Your Name OST) スパークル - Fingerstyle Guitar Cover by Edward Ong
YouTube video by Edward Ong
010
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 19/07/2026
Today I paid attention to the lyrics of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" for the first time (yeah, I know), and boy, it really blew my expectations up. This song has been misplaced by so many TV shows that I had no clue about what it really was about. Now I know! Do you?
020
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 17/07/2026
LinkedIn will not stop showing me data science jobs in Denmark, and I'm just here like 'I wish!'
static.klipy.com
Nick Jensen at European Athletics
ALT: Nick Jensen at European Athletics
000
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 17/07/2026
Joke's on you when your boss starts talking like this to you
000
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 14/07/2026
There are so many things wrong with this, but whatever, here it goes anyway: www.reflectorbital.com
reflectorbital.com
Reflect Orbital
Sunlight after dark
030
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Don’t know who to credit for this. But it is how I feel.
5497213012
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 11/07/2026
I'd love her to go somewhere else and have a more prominent role. She's super fun to watch, but doesn't play much in NY.
000
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Dirk Eddelbuettel @eddelbuettel.com · 11/07/2026
Norm Matloff (1948-2026) @matloff.bsky.social I was made aware of the post below made by his daughter. We lost another friend and valued long-time contributor the #Rstats community, gone far too soon, and sure to be missed. His memory will be a blessing.
Screenshot of post on X in the account of Norm Matloff in which his daughter announces his passing. Gone too soon, and sure to be missed.
313038
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 02/07/2026
Marine Johannes!
010
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
AlternativeTo @alternativeto.net · 29/06/2026
Git (by xkcd)
Two characters discuss using Git for collaborative projects, emphasizing memorization of certain shell commands for syncing work because no one really knows how it works.
802109278
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Four postdoc positions - Evolutionary Dynamics and Genomic Ecology (BCI EDGE)integrating population & evolutionary genomics, community ecology, metabolomics, & long-term forest dynamics to investigate the evolutionary processes maintaining tropical forest diversity stri.si.edu/story/bci-ev... 🧪 🌐 🌾
stri.si.edu
BCI Evolutionary Dynamics and Genomic Ecology project
02925
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 25/06/2026
static.klipy.com
Michael Douglas: That's The Sad Truth
ALT: Michael Douglas: That's The Sad Truth
010
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 25/06/2026
As sad as it sounds, this is also a good training for the transition to industry.
241
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Jakub Nowosad @jakubnowosad.com · 24/06/2026
🗺️ New in the development version of the {tmap} R package: blending modes are now available! This makes it much easier to create more expressive terrain visualizations. github.com/r-tmap/tmap/... #rstats #tmap #GISchat #rspatial
0134
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Ondrej Mottl 🌿💻📈🌍⏳ @ondrejmottl.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
For those who missed my talk at #IAVS2026. Here it is all online: 🔗https://ondrejmottl.github.io/BIODYNAMICS-vegetation-cooccurrence/Documentation/Website/outputs.html Rendered slides: 🖼️https://ondrejmottl.github.io/BIODYNAMICS-vegetation-cooccurrence/Documentation/Presentations/IAVS_2026/_output
1102
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Morten Frederiksen @seabirdmortenf.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Happy to announce a postdoc position with me and Jakob Strand, to work on data from the revamped Danish beached bird survey organised by DOF BirdLife Denmark. How many seabirds end up on Danish beached, where do they come from, and why did they die? #seabirds ecos.au.dk/en/about-us/...
ecos.au.dk
Postdoc in seabird ecology - Vacancy at Aarhus University
Vacancy at Department of Ecoscience - Arctic Ecosystem Ecology, Aarhus University
03037
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Thomas Lin Pedersen @thomasp85.com · 23/06/2026
Do you love maps? Of course you do! With the latest release of #ggsql we now support spatial plotting directly from your database. As a cherry on top, the release also provides powerful in-layer aggregation. Read all about it on the blog
opensource.posit.co
ggsql 0.4.1: Spatial plotting and in-layer aggregation
ggsql 0.4.1 adds support for spatial plotting and data aggregation within layers. Read all about the new features in this release post.
08122
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 24/06/2026
Such a beautiful city to enjoy! I hope the heat wave is somewhat bearable there.
010
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Emil Hvitfeldt @emilhvitfeldt.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Happy to finally announce the CRAN release of {debrief}, a new package to let AI agents better interface with the output of the {profvis} package Making it so you can work with you AI agent more efficiently to profile and write faster R code! opensource.posit.co/blog/2026-06... #rstats #dataBS
opensource.posit.co
Introducing debrief: profiling summaries for AI agents
debrief turns profvis profiling output into text-based summaries: hotspots, call trees, source context, and memory allocations, readable in the terminal and consumable by AI agents.
1377
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 21/06/2026
In between, I am enjoying Steins Gate: great scifi thriller, full of heart, and quite hilarious!
static.klipy.com
Steins Gate Anime Scene
ALT: Steins Gate Anime Scene
020
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 21/06/2026
Here's a little ranking of anime movies I've been watching during my holidays: - Your Name ❤️ - 5 Centimeters a Second 💔 - *** Weathering With You 🌦️🌈 - The Girl That Leapt Through Time ⏱️👩 - Summer Wars 🧓🤖 *** The studio was showing off here, the level of detail is mindblowing!
010
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I shared many global population density maps here before but never one in the style of an animal habitat map. So here is the habitat map of Homo Sapiens (Humans). As the Bloodhound Gang taught me, "you and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals". Source: buff.ly/sBjgHGU
14514
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Simon Goring @sjgoring.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
This show is fantastic.
121
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 18/06/2026
I'll check it out!
010
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 08/06/2026
Me too. This player is out there playing a different game than everyone else. And she's SO FUN to watch!
010
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Totoro @nigelsq.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
#Rstats Shiny really is great, but it's a lot. There are other tools for interactive graphs like crosstalk. If you have a static df, and need drop-down, radio and checkbox filters it may be all you need. Works great with Quarto. More here. intro2r.library.duke.edu/widgets.html
intro2r.library.duke.edu
R/Tidyverse/Quarto - get started - Easy interactive viz
072
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez @frodsan.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
{duckplyr} is amazing. Retrieve records from a large online database with several million rows in 1 second duckplyr.tidyverse.org #Rstats
Example of querying cloud database with duckplyr in R
2439
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Simon Goring @sjgoring.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Pride Month isn’t just about sexuality, it’s about representation, inclusion and human rights. It’s a time to celebrate and a call to action to do more for our friends, family and neighbours. Pride Month is the result of decades of hard fought victories, and a reminder that the fight isn’t over.
031
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Neil Richards @questionsindataviz.com · 28/05/2026
Hi to all followers and bluesky folks - it's been a long six months since I posted. It's hard to condense into 200ish characters, so I'll just say that redundancy and cancer hit one after the other. But we fight on - slowly venturing into the freelance space while prioritising health and recovery!
4123
Blas M. Benito @blasbenito.com · 28/05/2026
I am sorry to hear that, Neil... 🍀
010
Reposted by Blas M. Benito
Timothée Poisot @ctrlalttim.com · 27/05/2026
🎯🎯🎯
1102