iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I've been helping set up another charity book fair over the last couple of days and came back with another five new second-hand books. Three of them are Wodehouse! 👌🏼

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This is *super* interesting. I've wondered whether #AI writing might have a detectable macro structure like this. 🤔

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Sometimes the gold is buried deep in the thread: 😂

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

When ChatGPT was first released I had a theory that one of the reasons it worked so well (particularly for code) was that language provides a compressed structure that defines how humans reason, which LLMs can generalise from. Anyway, I now have to update my #rstats blog post about learning to code

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I have comments on their ranking, but I just want to note that I was ridiculed on threads when I suggested that 'The Good Life' was terrible, but... ... I've been shamelessly rewatching Community recently, so am not one to judge. 😬

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I've got a solid first draft that now includes @hadley.nz's post answering the same question (that I just found today 🤦🏼). Anyway, if you're willing to provide feedback feel free to send me a DM. I'll update it based on feedback either way, but I'm very open to inputs on the draft. #rstats

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I'm currently writing a blog discussing whether it's still worth learning to code. I was already thinking about this myself, but part of my motivation comes down to hearing "glad I didn't learn to code" one too many times. Writing it has been carthatic. #rstats

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Reposted by Giles

Michel Nivard @michelnivard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Maybe psychological sciences is entirely safe from AI takeover, nothing is verifiable 🥹

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Who doesn't love a good heatmap!? Another #rstats post on the O*NET. In this one I test whether you can proxy similarity scores with occupation descriptions and classification distance scores. You can! And better than I'd expected. www.gilesd-j.com/2026/09/21/o...

gilesd-j.com

O*NET ratings, job descriptions and classification codes as measures of occupational similarity - Giles

The last post identified potential transition pathways for truck drivers based on how closely other occupations matched them on skills, abilities and knowledge. This post follows the same basic approa...

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Absolute banger of a website: #databs

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#Bluesky needs community notes except they explain the context behind a post. I have no idea what most of you are talking about.

static.klipy.com

Homero Cancelado: No Homers Club

Alt: Homero Cancelado: No Homers Club

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#AI *improving* #rstats ranking on the index wasn't on my 2026 bingo card. 😲

R has improved on the tiobe index by 8 ranking points since the same month last year.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I've now got a solid draft of the sequel to this blog. It has been quite the slog to get to the final draft as I had to do several different cuts of the analysis, but the results answer some of my lingering questions about the O*NET.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

*Resisting the urge to vibe code an app that automatically books gym sessions the moment the schedule is released.*

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Probably not the best use of Fable 5.1:

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

One thing I will say, is that for all their faults LLMs are incredibly helpful as a freelance consultant / researcher. Both the rule of law and O*NET #rstats blog series have been greatly improved by having a model I only *partially* trust to work with. ...

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Just finished "Messy Jobs' by Jin Li, Yanhui Wu and Luis Garicano. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Out of five) Great book on #AI and jobs. It's one of the few books I've read that has a solid theory for how AI is likely to impact the labour market and firm dynamics. I now need to track down a summary to keep on hand.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Working with Claude #AI for #rstats has just enough benefits to overlook its constant gaslighting.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

It's really weird to me that Claude was able to half the #rstats code for this data cleaning script by me asking it to 'make the code simpler'. 🤨

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This also tracks with Amodei's call to be exempt from Antitrust law: "...Amodei had requested the government enable competing AI companies to work together on standards without breaching antitrust law, either by participating in discussions or issuing a waiver for the companies involved."

wired.com

AI Leaders Are Calling for a Slowdown. Trump’s Team Says It’s on Them

Sam Altman and Elon Musk backed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s weekend plea for regulation. The White House seems unlikely to oblige.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I still have bets on Google making up lost ground. They've been building a suite of useful tools in the background and already have a solid ecosystem of products that could benefit from better #AI integration.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Every couple of months I post the same thing in the hope it will become antiquated: OneDrive is terrible. Alas, it's still true. But, now that my subscription is almost up, there's next to no sunk cost* switching back to google drive. (*Noting I should ignore sunk costs as an economist.)

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

One of my current #rstats projects is building a local #AI model for intelligently extracting financial information from public budget documents. It's early days, but I just got to the stage where it successfully extracted the data and identified an error from the MoF. 😎

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Things I didn't expect, 1 of n:

AI flagged papers appear to be harder to read.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Just saw The Odyssey. ⭐⭐⭐ (Out of five) It's really good, but the ending felt dragged out / out of place (at least, it didn't land with me). So, I'd rate the first 2/3 higher. Overall, it's entertaining and a sight to behold on the IMAX.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I heard someone say "Glad I didn't bother learning to program now that LLMs can do it." And my first thought was "Wait, wouldn't that same argument apply to learning to read too?" 🤨

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Sometimes I'm not at beach.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

When I was on threads I asked if other people emailed themselves to remember papers, ideas and websites. The post was pretty popular as it turns out a lot of people do it. Anyway, today I built a filing system with the help of my new #AI Orchestration system. 😲 (This is the database log.)

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Update: I now have a beta Orchestration system with a Kanban board for initiating projects for agents to tackle. 😎 (Reposted as I didn't add the board.)

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

My custom skills have greatly improved the quality of Claude's outputs, But using the web interface requires too much hand-holding so I'm back to using Claude code. But, this time I've figured out how to work with Claude code directly in #rstats in RStudio with git versioning. 😎 #rstats

static.klipy.com

Laptop Hacking

Alt: Laptop Hacking

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Just building on this: I spent more time building and refining my skills. In particular, I built one that has Claude write code like me using technical blogs as examples. Had it output a blog post today in Quarto format and fable did an outstanding job of mirroring how I structure posts. 😲

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

It's nuts to me that Google Gemini can't natively create forms, but it can write the code to create a form via a script. 🤔 #AIsky

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I just found out my decaf coffee #rstats blog was featured on a podcast. It wasn't the JRE, but super cool that the host thought it warranted a mention. 😂 This surely is a sign that I shouldn't put effort into my blog posts.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

😂 "...The shift in attitude has meant I’ve stopped wearing them in public as much, given the weird looks and occasional uncomfortable questions about whether I’m recording...." ...

smh.com.au

My smart glasses were brilliant. Now people think I’m a creep

Meta’s Oakleys are the best thing I own for running and filming my toddler. They’re also, increasingly, the reason strangers look at me sideways.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Generic shot 2026 edition 1 of n:

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I've been leaning *really* hard into using skills with Claude #AI. I've developed most skills from custom project instructions, but a couple come from github gems I've come across including this gem that converts markdown to epub so it looks good on ereaders. Link below for the benefit of #AIsky:

github.com

GitHub - smerchek/claude-epub-skill: A Claude Skill for converting markdown documents, chat summaries, or research reports into a downloadable epub file that can be sent to kindle

A Claude Skill for converting markdown documents, chat summaries, or research reports into a downloadable epub file that can be sent to kindle - smerchek/claude-epub-skill

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Okay, so I have another #rstats blog done and scheduled to come out next Monday. This one involved calculating similarity scores with the O*NET, which is similar to work I did last year for India. ...

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

🎵Gotta put a little dirt under your pillow for the dirt man...🎵

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

This is a short read: Best Laid Plans by Sean Turnell ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Out of five) I worked as an economic advisor in #Myanmar during the reforms, but left before the coup. But, this was a painful read to revisit how much was selfishly torn down by the Junta. The country deserves more.

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Bought a set of the Hifiman Ananda Stealth headphones the other day. I'd consider myself pretty sceptical of the whole audiophile thing, but after listening to them all I can say is: HOLY #-@&! I'd forgotten how enjoyable properly listening to an album is. 😲

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

*ZING!* "... Your recent article about me, “The world’s most influential economist is oddly unconvincing” (August 17th), was striking less for its hostility towards my work than for the weakness of its claims...."

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Okay, now I have read their takedown article: TLDR: huh? Was this really worth an article? They asked why he hadn't defined institutions, an illusive idea that predates Acemoglu. And then made vague claims about the productivity benefits of AI. ...

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

"...Stagnant economies, by contrast, tend to be more focused on internal divisions. They are less concerned about military attacks or imports of essential goods and suffer more from deep conflicts over class, race, geography, or religion...

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Remember when MGK released a weird diss track of Eminem? The economist publishing their takedown of Acemoglu feels like the #econsky equivalent. 🙄

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Ha! Reading Wikipedia's entry on Grokipedia: 😂

en.wikipedia.org

Grokipedia - Wikipedia

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Giles @gdeejay.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

One of the handy results of having converted my custom #rstats project into a skill, is that Claude now applies my objecting and code style guide across all my chats. It's also no longer defaulting to python. 👌🏼

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