Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 12hThe world transition to renewable power seems to be going very well. Basically once the tech became cost-effective, a whole lot of old debates became irrelevant. 1110
Reposted by Peter EllisBrady West @bradytwest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026A new version of the nonprobsvy package in R, and an article in JSS to boot! There is no better tool for the analysis of data from non-probability surveys, implementing all of the latest advances in this literature. If you analyze data from NP surveys, please read: www.jstatsoft.org/article/view...jstatsoft.org 1147
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 28/09/2026Is there a term for effective altruism that is still interested in eg evidence for different development interventions and maximising ethical outcomes Peter Singer style, and hasn't gone insane through longtermism and AI obsession? 250
Reposted by Peter EllisBart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves. 10381152812
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 21/09/2026The story in this thread is extraordinary and as far as I can tell, accurate. 010
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 20/09/2026A small #rstats blog post following up on last week's on sample size and the central limit theorem. How well does BCa bootstrap do in comparison to older methods for a confidence interval for the mean from a skewed population? Better, but not a magic fix. freerangestats.info/blog/2026/09... 081
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 20/09/2026It seems to me the AI companies could improve both their image and revenue if they poured billions of investment into working with experts on ethical, effective and people-friendly applications in a field like education, rather than solving maths problems and generating unneeded celebrities. 120
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 17/09/2026Wrote in a work email "we won't be sending anyone to the World Data Forum this year, partly because of budget, mostly because Riyadh is under a 'reconsider need to travel' advisory due to missile and drone attacks in the area", which seems kind of easy as management decisions go. 030
Reposted by Peter EllisPeter Nencka 📊 @peternka.bsky.social · 17/09/2026🚨 Announcing OpenCensus, a new project with @ezrakarger.bsky.social : We are transcribing the historical US censuses and releasing them as open data 2.6 million people so far in 1940, browse here: opencensus.us 25926
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 16/09/2026Inspired by a @f2harrell.bsky.social comment, I did some #rstats simulations about how big a sample needs to be for the central limit theorem to kick in and the sample mean be normally distributed for inference purposes. Yes, with skewed data the answer is "lots". freerangestats.info/blog/2026/09... 33315
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 16/09/2026What do we call this phenomenon, where we are assailed with the near-identical one line summary of something multiple times. Not to pick on Reuters at all, this is a much bigger systemic thing. Sometimes we can go through 5 or 6 layers of Russian dolls of the same sentence over and over again. 060
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 15/09/2026Is there an interesting history about why the "responsible" in a RACI matrix (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) as used by management consultants is so different from other traditions? In RACI, "responsible" means "does the work", rather than being responsible for decision or outcomes. 010
Reposted by Peter EllisMichael Friendly @datavisfriendly.bsky.social · 15/09/2026📊 #rstats #dataviz My ggCheysson package was just re-submitted to CRAN 🤞 @infowetrust.com Brings the graphic style of Émile Cheysson's Albums de Statistique Graphique (1880s) to ggplot2: authentic color palettes, hatching patterns, and hand-drawn fonts. 🔗https://friendly.github.io/ggCheysson/ 2255
Reposted by Peter EllisElise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 12/09/2026I think there's actually quite an easy and obvious way to solve the collective action problem of how to make the AI companies stop conducting risky research, and it's to make it very clear that they're legally liable for anything their models do. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...politico.comAnthropic CEO seeks immediate slowdown on AIDario Amodei warned that recent advances have begun to outpace the industry’s ability to fully understand and control the technology. 1286
Reposted by Peter EllisGiles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 12/09/2026aleximas.substack.com/p/will-ai-so... The best blog ever written on AI and growth, by a clear margin. By @aleximas.bsky.socialaleximas.substack.comWill AI soon lead to double-digit growth?Probably not. Here is why. 810334
Reposted by Peter EllisRobert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 12/09/2026This "going rogue" framing is nonsense. These are still just text analysis models. It's openAI that is "going rogue" by giving a computer program complete autonomy to make decisions without human oversight. That's a danger whether it's a fancy new LLM or an old-fashioned SQL database. 58617
Reposted by Peter EllisPeter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 11/09/2026I'm in a technical field that's not software engineering, so I don't know how far this transfers. My general experience of more senior tech roles is not that they have better technical skills but have accumulated judgement, wider view, understanding of process and context compared to the juniors. 082
Reposted by Peter EllisTerence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...mathandai.orgDeclaration — Math and AIRead the declaration and add your name. 422052927
Reposted by Peter EllisSaloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 05/09/2026This is interesting. You get assigned to being born at a random place and time in history, to see what a typical person's life might have been like then. Unfortunately I was born in 1403 in the valley of Mexico and died at age 4 from dysentery.anyhumanever.comAny Human EverOne life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived. 54547189
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 05/09/2026The games industry business model obviously doesn't incentivize this, but... are there computer games that, like chess, backgammon, poker or bridge, people are satisfied to just play this one game every week or day forever, gradually master, and never complain about needing new content? 430
Reposted by Peter EllisEmily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Sidenote: this all illustrates an recurrent fascination of mine -- how often the blocked to good work is never having gotten to see "what good looks like" like if you've never seen a of datamart or an orchestrator, this feels reasonable. And DE has far fewer public examples than DS 12/ 2132
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 04/09/2026Am half way through Henry James' The Wings of the Dove and really it is very tedious. Self absorbed characters with no interest in the world other than who has a crush on whom and playing games hiding stuff. Pages of repetitive introspection. Sentences and paragraphs way too long. What am I missing? 020
Reposted by Peter EllisOur World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 31/08/2026📊 New data: World Development Indicators, July 2026 release The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank’s compilation of statistics on global development. 1187
Reposted by Peter EllisBen Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 30/08/2026The overreaction to this Hugging Face thing is driving me nuts. Come flay me for being wrong but... 1/x 14436126
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 29/08/2026At a function last night someone asked how old I was and said 'you look pretty well for someone your age'. This clashes with my self image as a young man starting out in life. 060
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 28/08/2026I see Samoa's vaccination and measles record are in the news. Coincidentally yesterday I gave a talk with these relevant charts. Nasty spike in DALYs lost from measles along with the outlier low point vaccinations. 000
Reposted by Peter EllisMarc Kissel @marckissel.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Im Teaching a data science for anthropology class using #rstats. Most never coded before/worked w/ command line interface so I live demoed using one via playing Zork, the text adventure game. They were amused how excited I got when I found the sword :). Plus fun way to intro a CLI environment. 3254
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 19/08/2026There is sort of a law with this kind of technology that the writers are relying on, you can't know in advance how it will make something taste worse than fresh products, but you can be confident it will somehow. See also the Sirius Cybernetics Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser. 100
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 18/08/2026"SLR" is an acronym I get regularly confused by. In my work (but not my day to day work) it often means "sea level rise" but I can't help thinking either self-loading rifle or single-lens reflex, and having to look up "what do they mean by *that* here?". 120
Reposted by Peter EllisRichard D. Morey @richarddmorey.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Nothing in my experimental-cognitive/math-psych background could have prepared me for the unique horror of large-scale routinely-collected medical and educational data 810313
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 13/08/2026Thinking more about this. One thing I'd pay for is a subscription that gives me access to paywalled articles linked here, from dozens of publications I'd never otherwise subscribe to, with bluesky clipping the ticket on the way through. But I dont think this model works for the end publications. 150
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 13/08/2026I am interested in folks' take on the statement "the global pandemic outlook is worsening", both in terms of more frequent and damaging infectious disease outbreaks and world preparedness for the next big one. Is this true? Or is it More Complicated Than that? 000
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 12/08/2026US crude oil stocks recovered slightly in the latest weekly EIA data - little fishhook in the blue line in this chart. freerangestats.info/fuel-crisis/... 010
Reposted by Peter EllisSaloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 11/08/2026BIG NEW piece by me. A few years ago, if you asked me to summarize my entire worldview in one article, I would’ve said it was too broad and too difficult. But this year, I decided to do it.worksinprogress.coEvery disease is a policy failureFew people know how much medicine has progressed in their lifetimes. Fewer know how much faster it could be progressing. 1327189
Reposted by Peter EllisRobert Komaniecki @komaniecki.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Priest: And make sure to put the letter "M" at the beginning of the sheet music. Scribe: No problem boss. Priest: But just a normal "M." Nothing crazy. Scribe: Why did you say it like that 08614
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 11/08/2026A common experience for me is hybrid Teams meetings with a large group in one room and others at their work stations. When the room's sound is substandard it seems to be literally impossible to train people to only speak close to a microphone. Is there any trick to making this a social necessity? 121
Reposted by Peter EllisEva Vivalt @evavivalt.bsky.social · 10/08/2026What happens when someone receives $1,000/month for 3 years? The effects don't stop with the recipient. In this new NBER working paper, we examine what changed for partners, households, friends & family after 1,000 people received $1,000/month with 2,000 in a control group. 🧵1/ 27627
Reposted by Peter EllisBen Hanowell @hanowell.me · 10/08/2026I think Bick's got it right. www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-econo...stlouisfed.orgWhat’s Behind the Sharp Drop in Labor Force Participation?In the first half of 2026, the falling labor force participation rate was mostly due to a statistical correction and an aging population. But a sharp drop in prime-age workers also occurred. 183
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 10/08/2026I discovered today that sunscreen trutherism is a thing, and seems to come from a very basic causal/DAG/statistical misunderstanding. Some observational research shows people who put on more sunscreen get more skin cancer (obviously because 'going out in the sun' leads to both). 5222
Reposted by Peter EllisBranko Milanovic @brankomilan.bsky.social · 09/08/2026The 2026 version of All the Ginis is out: stonecenter.gc.cuny.edu/publications...stonecenter.gc.cuny.eduAll the Ginis (ALG) Dataset - Stone Center on Socio-Economic InequalityThis dataset, constructed by Stone Center Senior Scholar Branko Milanovic, represents a compilation and adaptation of income or consumption Gini coefficients (calculated across households or household... 1208
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 09/08/2026What's striking about this graphic is how unusual Clinton's popularity was; the only president to increase popularity broadly through his term it looks to me, and he did it even with the other party's supporters not just his own. Even more striking compared with his successors than his predecessors. 120
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 08/08/2026I have added to my little personal collection of fuel-crisis-monitoring charts a plot of the retail prices of petrol/gasoline and diesel, in USA and New Zealand (where filling your car, quite rightly, costs US$7 per gallon). Blog and #rstats code at freerangestats.info/blog/2026/08... 150
Reposted by Peter EllisEmi Tanaka @emitanaka.org · 06/08/2026📢🇦🇺 Australian National University is recruiting a continuing Senior Data Scientist 👩💻🧑💻 Bring your statistical expertise and help turn data into meaningful university-wide insights 📊 📅 Apply by 23 Aug 2026 23:55 AEST #Statistics #StatsJobs jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/senior-...jobs.anu.edu.auSenior Data Scientist - Canberra / ACT, ACT, AustraliaClassification: ANU Senior Manager 1 (Administration)Salary package: $141,637 - $148,403 per annum plus 17% superannuationTerms: Full-time, Continuing The Position Operating under broad strategic guid... 0117
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 05/08/2026US crude oil stocks (including Strategic Petroleum Reserve) arrested their downwards slide in the latest data. They are now 20 weeks of linear decline from reaching a theoretical stress point of 30 days refinery cover; an improvement from 19 weeks a week ago. freerangestats.info/fuel-crisis/... 121
Reposted by Peter EllisRob Hyndman @robjhyndman.com · 03/08/2026On Thursday, I'm giving the last of the 2026 Ihaka lectures on "Spotting the weird ones" (about anomaly detection using #rstats). It's an honour to speak at something named after Ross Ihaka. It will be live-streamed for those who can't be there. www.auckland.ac.nz/en/science/a...auckland.ac.nzIhaka Lecture Series – University of AucklandThe Ihaka Lecture Series is an annual event hosted by the Department of Statistics which presents the latest research about statistics and computer science. 0336
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 01/08/2026I couldn't find the exact annotated plot of total US oil stocks I wanted, so I had to make my own. At the rate of decline since its recent peak, there are 19 weeks left to having 30 days cover of refinery needs. Blog with #rstats code at freerangestats.info/blog/2026/08... 0133
Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 01/08/2026I guess the 'Infantino for UN Secretary-General' campaign has hit a snag. 020
Reposted by Peter Ellis👻Really Spooky Smith👻 @reallyseansmith.bsky.social · 28/07/2026"Guilty pleasure" presumes I feel any guilt about it. 2183
Reposted by Peter EllisJonathan Brewer @kiwibrew.bsky.social · 28/07/2026I've open-sourced a web service container that will give you a WorldPop population count anywhere on earth given a point (100x100m), a point + radius, or a geojson polygon. It's using R2025A at the moment, but can change as needed. github.com/InternetSoci...github.comGitHub - InternetSociety/wpopapi: API for accessing WorldPop dataAPI for accessing WorldPop data. Contribute to InternetSociety/wpopapi development by creating an account on GitHub. 163