iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Laurent Bergé

Joshua Goodman @joshua-goodman.com · 30/09/2026

Our "A Few Goodmen" paper now has some serious competition, coming from the many Katherines of the world. arxiv.org/pdf/2404.00732

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Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

A coauthor is someone who can introduce entirely new reasons for why the paper isn't ready

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Just found out a seemingly good website to learn how to program for beginners... And then there's a "using = is poor style" in the wild... I will die on that hill: using '=' is actually good! #Rstats

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Vicki @vickiboykis.com · 01/07/2026

Recommended reading if you feel you’ve lost your way , or if you’re having more fun than ever

Code that fits in your head by Mark Seamann

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭 v0.7.0 now available on CRAN 🎉 This is big release, with loads of new features. Same tiny footprint, though ;-) Short highlight thread below, borrowing examples from our gallery: grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/vig...

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/bubble-quakes.R

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/simpsons-paradox.R

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/barplot-meat.R

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/spineplot-titanic.R

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David Van Dijcke @packlesshepherd.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I coded up an open-source, not-for-profit AI paper reviewer that rivals the performance of @reviewer3com.bsky.social, Refine.ink, and Stanford Agentic Reviewer (according to Gemini 3.1). Costs <$2! Live @ coarse.ink. Plug in paper, @openrouter.bsky.social key, and email. #econsky

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Arthur Turrell @arthurturrell.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

This looks like a spectacular public good #econsky (Full disclosure: @packlesshepherd.bsky.social is a co-author but my main skin in the game is maybe we'll finally finish our paper together now...) github.com/Davidvandijc...

github.com

GitHub - Davidvandijcke/coarse

Contribute to Davidvandijcke/coarse development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Noah Greifer @noahgreifer.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

arg! I wish R packages had better error messages! Now they can, thanks to my newest #Rstats package, {arg}! 😉 {arg} produces clean, simple, error messages for checking function arguments, similar to {checkmate}, {dreamerr}, and {chk}, using {cli} formatting.

ngreifer.github.io

Clean and Simple Argument Checking

Checks function arguments, ideally for use in R packages. Uses a simple interface and produces clean, informative error messages using cli.

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Tyler Morgan-Wall @tylermw.com · 27/03/2026

JUMPSCARE! #RStats

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Alex @s3alfisc.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

I am very excited that PyFixest 0.50.0 is on PyPi, including a new graph-based solver for demeaning that makes fixed effects estimation in PyFixest significantly faster for "sparse" fixed effects structures.

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Peter Hull @instrumenthull.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Very excited for this Friday's Chamberlain Online Seminar, where we'll muse about "The Future of Econometrics." Check out this panelist lineup! Friday 3/27 at Noon ET. Come see! t.co/pE1gZCMI7a

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Hey #rstats & #econsky: fixest v0.14.0 is out! In particular, it fixes a very annoying, false positive, warning message regarding the positive definiteness of the VCOV (when clustered). Please update! github.com/lrberge/fixest cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

cran.r-project.org

fixest: Fast Fixed-Effects Estimations

Fast and user-friendly estimation of econometric models with multiple fixed-effects. Includes ordinary least squares (OLS), instrumental variables (IV), generalized linear models (GLM), maximum likeli...

0373

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

#rstats I've been testing out `arf`, a new R console written in Rust. Early days, but a v. smooth experience so far. Much simpler to install and link from VS Code than radian, for example, with better features too. github.com/eitsupi/arf

github.com

GitHub - eitsupi/arf: Alternative R Frontend — a modern R console written in Rust

Alternative R Frontend — a modern R console written in Rust - eitsupi/arf

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 30/01/2026

One of the most important statistical packages made in Econ in the last decade

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Sebastian Krantz @sebkrantz.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

I'm excited to share the release and rOpenSci publication of dfms 1.0 (docs.ropensci.org/dfms), a high-performance, feature-rich implementation of Dynamics Factor Models for R, supporting mixed-frequency estimation and news decomposition for nowcasting. See also blog post: sebkrantz.github.io/Rblog/

docs.ropensci.org

Dynamic Factor Models for R

Efficient estimation of Dynamic Factor Models using the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm or Two-Step (2S) estimation, supporting datasets with missing data and mixed-frequency nowcasting applic...

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Reposted by Laurent Bergé

Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Research Notes of the AAS in particular, which was set up to handle short, moderated contributions especially from students, is getting swamped. Often the authors clearly haven’t read what they’ve submitting, (Descriptions of figures that don’t exist or don’t show what they purport to)

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Things are grim. But in more frivolous news... @jamesbrandecon.bsky.social and I have been chipping away at `dbreg`, a 📦 for running big regression models on database backends. For the right kinds of problems, the speed-ups are near magical. Website: grantmcdermott.com/dbreg/ #rstats [1/2]

grantmcdermott.com

dbreg

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The R Foundation @r-foundation.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

We are responding to this call for evidence: ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet... Do you have concrete examples of the added value of #Rstats in the public or private sectors? Include the most important factors (risk, lock-in, security, innovation...) to assess the added value. Thanks!

ec.europa.eu

European Commission - Have your say

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Armin Ronacher @mitsuhiko.at · 18/01/2026

Weekend thoughts on Gas Town, Beads, slop AI browsers, and AI-generated PRs flooding overwhelmed maintainers. I don't think we're ready for our new powers we're wielding. lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/18/ag...

lucumr.pocoo.org

Agent Psychosis: Are We Going Insane?

What’s going on with the AI builder community right now?

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Reposted by Laurent Bergé

Margaux Saltel @margauxsaltel.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Happy anniversary to my most successful tweet in 2020 The creator didn't like it :D (RIP my account since)

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

At the beginning of my teacher's career I taught mostly for the best students in the class. As I get older, I can see I'm lowering my standards and teach more and more for the weaker students. I also grade more generously as time passes. => is this a common pattern? Or is it just me? I'm curious.

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Any good ressource for LEARNING PROGRAMMING for students who know NOTHING about programming (really nothing)? It would be great in R/python (final obj. is data analysis). Any help appreciated! Thanks! @andrew.heiss.phd @gmcd.bsky.social @kylefbutts.bsky.social @vincentab.bsky.social

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pikaole @pikaole.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

🦀🐚

Two-panel cartoon
1. A small hermit crab praises the shell of a Purple-ringed Topsnail.
2. A year later, a hermit crab, having grown larger and inherited the shell, is grateful.

The atmosphere somehow feels like a law of nature.

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Reposted by Laurent Bergé

Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Happy `tinyplot` v0.6.0 (codename "Thanksgiving") release day to all those that celebrate. Some new features, but mostly bug fixes and internal improvements. grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/NEW... #rstats

Example of dodged pointrange (tiny)plot, with aligned ribbons layered on top.

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Libby Heeren @libbyheeren.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Tell me something you do when you code that other people would tell you that you shouldn't do. Tell me the rules you break! I'll go first: I work in untitled files in the wrong project directories all the time. Like, all the time. Yes, I do tend to lose things 😂 #databs #rstats #python

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

`tinyplot` 0.5.0 is now available from CRAN & R-universe. Alongside bug fixes & internal improvements, this release includes some cool new features like bubble chart + dual legend support, element dodging, & ephemeral themes. Detailed changelog: grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/NEW... #rstats #dataviz

tinyplot bubble chart example with dual legend, using penguins data. Taken from https://grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/vignettes/gallery.html

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Susan Vanderplas @srvanderplas.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Sarcasm, but actually something brought up by one of the deans, that having statisticians around is *less* important in the age of AI because AI can just do experimental design and data analysis for researchers. No joke. #sendhelp

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Emily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Really insightful post from Julie Tibshirani (spotted in LinkedIn, can't find on Bsky) reflecting on #rstats 's unique governance structure and what can be learned for other languages jtibs.substack.com/p/if-all-the...

jtibs.substack.com

If all the world were a monorepo

The R ecosystem and the case for extreme empathy in software maintenance

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Important note for Mac users: make sure your installation properly exploits `fixest` multi-threading capabilities: 1. Follow @coatless.bsky.social's simple shell script and OpenMP instructions here: github.com/coatless-she... 2. Install from source: `install.packages("fixest", type = "source")`

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

#rstats #econsky fixest v0.13.0 is finally out! It's still about making OLS and GLM estimations easy. Some major changes: - *default* VCOV becomes iid always! - singletons are removed by default! See all the changes here: github.com/lrberge/fixe...

cran.r-project.org

fixest: Fast Fixed-Effects Estimations

Fast and user-friendly estimation of econometric models with multiple fixed-effects. Includes ordinary least squares (OLS), generalized linear models (GLM) and the negative binomial. The core of the p...

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

The EEA conference starts tomorrow in Bordeaux! I'll be around, so if you want to meet, just reach out! #rstats #econsky www.eeassoc.org/events/eea-b...

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

#rstats #econsky PSA: The next release of `fixest` will include some important changes (plus cool new features). E.g. Fixed-effects regs will now default to 'iid' SEs rather than clustered. github.com/lrberge/fixe... You can install and test drive the dev version from R-universe; see the README.

From the fixest NEWS file: the new default VCOV is iid for all estimations. To change the default to the way it was, place setFixest_vcov(all = "cluster", no_FE = "iid") in your .Rprofile.

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Announcing sircon: a new R console! (for Windows) It's in beta and actively developed (new patched version just released). I've been using it for a while now and I think it's rather bug free. But if you encounter some: let me know! github.com/lrberge/sircon

github.com

GitHub - lrberge/sircon: Simple R Console

Simple R Console. Contribute to lrberge/sircon development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Just gave a presentation a the REGIS summer school we organised in Bordeaux. Algorithms for empirical research Slides and material here: github.com/lrberge/2025... The conclusion is that, even in the age of AI, using your brain is still relevant! #RStats #EconSky

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Kyle Butts @kylefbutts.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

github.com/kylebutts/vs... If you are using vscode and stata, you should try out my extension. It uses interactive window which let's you write in a `.do` file but get a notebook type experience.

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Good post that generates discussions on student's use of LLMs. If you're a teacher, have a look!

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Reposted by Laurent Bergé

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 05/06/2025

Updated my "AI, LLMs, and bullshit" mini-lecture post in my dataviz class with a new section on vibe coding datavizs25.classes.andrewheiss.com/resource/ai-...

Vibe coding and learning
Remember that LLMs are (philosophical) bullshit machines. They don’t care if the answer if gives you is wrong or right. They don’t care if the code runs or not. All they care about is if the answer looks plausible.

That said, in part due to the massive amount of publicly available code that’s inside their training data, LLMs can work okay with code in limited circumstances. Think of them as fancy documentation—if a programming language or package has good documentation with lots of good examples online, the stuff that LLMs generate about it will generally have good coverage and won’t be completely made up.

They work well enough that a whole new approach to programming has emerged: vibe coding. When vibe coding, you essentially tell an LLM what you want it to make and then let it actually build the whole thing. Some code editors actually allow LLMs to create and edit files directly on your computer. Like, you can say

Make a website that has a login page where users can log in and then create and edit blog posts. Create a theme for it that is mostly blue, but with some nice contrasting colors, and use a warm, friendly sans serif font. Add some photos from Flickr too.

… and it will attempt to do that, creating all the necessary files and code. It feels neat and magical to code without coding.

If you know what you’re doing, and you mistrust everything the LLM spits out, and hand-check everything it says, vibe coding can save you some time. HOWEVER it is (1) potentially dangerous, and (2) bad for learning.

$Danger! Because LLMs are designed to make plausible looking code, they can reference external packages that don’t exist. For instance, you might want to make a lollipop chart, and it’ll say something like Certainly! First, run remotes::install_github("someone/gglollipop") and then run library(gglollipop) to load it. BUT GUESS WHAT. There is no package named {gglollipop}. It’s not a thing. Malicious actors also vibe code and look for the names of packages that LLMs think should exist, then they go and create those packages themselves, but include malware in those fake packages. If you’re using an editor that allows LLMs to make changes to your computer, it can run all this code without you knowing what happens and bad things can happen. Additionally, vibe-coded code can run well but be full of security vulnerabilities and issues and inefficiencies and bugs. The code it generates is essentially an average of all other code online—it will have bugs and security issues. It’s also incredibly easy to accidentally expose private information to LLMs, like feeding them passwords, usernames, private data, and so on, especially if you’re mindlessly generating and running code. Always distrust and be suspicious about all code that LLMs generate.$

Bad for learning!
Some people claim that vibe coding helps them learn how to code. This is most likely not the case—pure vibe coding likely hurts learning. Think of learning to code like learning a language. You could try to learn French by watching hours and hours of French movies, and you’d certainly pick stuff up, but you won’t learn nearly as well as you would by taking a dedicated French class.

You need the foundation first. If you take a few years of French classes and then watch hours and hours of French movies, you’ll learn a lot. If you jump right into a pure media-based approach to learning, it’ll be detrimental to learning the language.

Recent research explores this idea with LLMs:

Students who substitute some of their learning activities with LLMs (e.g., by generating solutions to exercises) increase the volume of topics they can learn about but decrease their understanding of each topic. Students who complement their learning activities with LLMs (e.g., by asking for explanations) do not increase topic volume but do increase their understanding. We also observe that LLMs widen the gap between students with low and high prior knowledge. (Lehmann, Cornelius, and Sting 2025)

Prior knowledge is essential if you want to do any code-related stuff with LLMs, and even then, LLMs are helpful when asking for explanations (e.g. “This code works, but I don’t know why! Can you explain what’s happening with geom_point() here?”), but far less helpful for learning than just generating plausible-looking answers.

I can typically tell when you submit code generated by an LLM; it has a certain vibe/style to it and often gives you extraneous code that you don’t actually need to use. Like this—this comes right from ChatGPT:

# Load the required libraries
library(dplyr)

# Read a file named cars.csv into the R session
data <- read.csv("data/cars.csv")

# Calculate the average value of cty by class
average_cty_by_class <- data %>%
group_by(class) %>%
summarize(average_cty = mean(cty, na.rm = TRUE), .groups = "drop")

# Show the results
print(average_cty_by_class)

The “tells”
Here’s how I can tell that that ↑ code comes from an LLM:

Comments at every stage
read.csv() instead of read_csv(),
The older %>% pipe instead of the newer |> pipe
na.rm = TRUE inside mean()
.groups = "drop" inside summarize()
Using print() to show the created object
In general, don’t ever just copy/paste from ChatGPT and hope it runs. If you do use these tools, use them to ask for explanations. Make sure you know what every line of code is doing. For example, if it spits out summarize(average_cty = mean(cty, na.rm = TRUE), .groups = "drop"), and you don’t know what those na.rm = TRUE or .groups = "drop" things mean, look at the help page for mean() and see what na.rm actually does so you can decide if you really need to use it or not, or ask the LLM why it included it.

I will call out code that looks vibe-coded in your assignments. Please don’t do it.

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Hadley Wickham @hadley.nz · 03/06/2025

At Posit, we love @typst.app: ⚡ Make PDFs in milliseconds, not minutes ✨ The power of LaTeX with today's technologies ✍️ Modern typography (including emojis!) 🧠 Clear mental model So I'm thrilled to announce that we're now supporting its development: posit.co/blog/posit-a... #rstats

posit.co

Posit

We’re happy to announce that we’re supporting Typst by funding one of their full-time engineers.

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Reposted by Laurent Bergé

Adrian Hill @adrianhill.de · 14/05/2025

I had to endure some teasing from my collaborators for choosing to write our NeurIPS submission in @typst.app – looks like I have one more reason to believe I made the right call... 😅

My BlueSky feed; filled with three mentions of Overleaf being down due the upcoming NeurIPS deadline.

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Gonçalo Pina @alvespina.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

This is a great article in the latest issue of the JEP for anyone teaching panel methods (any level). Love this history of economic terms and ideas feature. #Econsky pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

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SMT @pp0196.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

#rstats #SWE 2021 R Journal issue on software engineering practices in R dev community: journal.r-project.org/issues/2021-2/ Target paper calling for research : journal.r-project.org/articles/RJ-... Wonder if there are recent interventions on the state of SWE with R [beside great work by rOpenSci]

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Laurent Bergé @lrberge.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Blog post (fixest vignette) on "Collinearity": something everybody faces one day but for which there's not much guidance. Trying to clarify how econometrics software handle collinearity and what one should do about it. #RStats #EconSky Comments welcome lrberge.github.io/fixest/artic...

lrberge.github.io

On collinearity

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Alex @s3alfisc.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

PyFixest 0.29 is on PyPi! - We have updated how small sample adjustments are computed. PyFixest inference matches fixest now 100%, out of the box and all of the time! - We have added support for fully saturated event studies, which in turn enables @apoorvalal.com's DiD specification tests.

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Kyle Butts @kylefbutts.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

great little explanation on why to avoid passive voice refactoringenglish.com/chapters/pas...

refactoringenglish.com

Passive Voice Considered Harmful

Effective writing for software developers

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FX Coudert @nanoporous.net · 19/03/2025

French researcher, going to a conference in Houston, was forbidden entry to US; his work and personal electronics were both confiscated. Why? Because a “random search” of his cell phone revealed a negative personal opinion on Trump and the Trump administration. www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

lemonde.fr

Etats-Unis : un chercheur français refoulé pour avoir exprimé « une opinion personnelle sur la politique menée par l’administration Trump »

Le ministre de la recherche a dit sa « préoccupation », mercredi, après cette décision des autorités américaines. Le chercheur du CNRS aurait subi un contrôle aléatoire à son arrivée, avant que son or...

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Michael Friendly @datavisfriendly.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Graphic #rstats reminder that vaccines work 📊 www.databrewer.co/R/gallery/gg...

Heatmaps for eight infections diseases in the US: poilio, mumps, rubbella. hepatitis A, ...
Each one has the US states in rows and year in columns, with a thick black line showing the year that a vaccine against that disease was introduced. Cells are colored by the number of cases of that disease.

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Libby Heeren @libbyheeren.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Help me write a playbook of best practices for giving data-specific technical workshops or code-heavy talks. This isn't about bashing bad talks, it's about sharing experiences from which we can all learn. We'll all need slightly different things from a learning environment, so let's share. #databs

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Bordeaux Sciences Economiques / Bordeaux School of Economics @bsebordeaux.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

📣 Bordeaux School of Economics is pleased to invite you to participate in the 40th meeting of the European Economic Association @eeanews.bsky.social 📅 25-28 August, 2025 🔔 Submissions until Feb, 28 📍@bsebordeaux.bsky.social @univbordeaux.bsky.social @cnrsaquitaine.bsky.social ⬇️ Info eea2025.org

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