Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I can see why this feature happened (programming languages can have nested columns!) Counterpoint: nesting columns often creates more problems than it solves. Tidy data caught on because one value per cell generally beats "this cell could have any number of values good luck" 110
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 25/09/2026What if "mistaking genes for a date" but with *checks notes* every kind of data 192
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyLisa DeBruine @debruine.bsky.social · 25/09/2026❇️ I've updated Data Skills for Reproducible Research to v6.1. The Iteration & Functions chapter has been split in two and I've added some material on unit testing. It's a living textbook, so please submit issues if you find a mistake or something unclear. psyteachr.github.io/reprores-v6/... 12010
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyTiger Tang @tigertang.bsky.social · 24/09/2026📘 It’s official: my first book, Work Automation with R, is published! I started with a simple belief: you don’t need to be an R expert to build useful automation with R. I certainly wasn’t one when I started. 📖 www.routledge.com/Work-Automat... 1/5 #RStats #RProgrammingroutledge.comWork Automation with RWork Automation with R provides a solid framework on how to automate tasks and workflows in the workplace with R. This book introduces the most common components used in R automation, one by one, and ... 6416
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Most of my materials from my academic days are like what's described here. Open beats closed, and open ≠ usable 011
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I had the same experience in reverse, next time for sure! Was bummed my talk was at the same time as yours, looking forward to catching the video when it's up 010
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Was great to meet a bunch of folks at Posit conf! Here's me pictured with all the new lightbulb ideas I'm having from people's talks + convos (Not AI, it's a super cool exhibit at Houston's Museum of Fine Art called Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity) 1130
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyKelly Bodwin @kellybodwin.com · 16/09/2026From @mcmullarkey.bsky.social at #positconf2026: {blendtutor} for popping up R/python exercises with AI-driven feedback! Love the hyper minimal YAML structure to create simple exercises. 061
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026This keynote by @christinezhang.bsky.social starts off strong by casually showing us that squaring a circle is mathematically impossible "How to be clear when you can't be certain" is also just a great talk title #positconf2026 020
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Absolutely! And sometimes the frustration with that need to catch up gets translated to "wait, this new process isn't accelerating our deliverables, why??" And to the first part, true! The second part is: measurement was always hard, we could just paper over issues more easily 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026"If you don't talk to people, AI is a great way to automate misunderstanding" - @tcash21.bsky.social A theme across talks: building natural language tools exposes ambiguities that can otherwise hide Aligning on definitions + standardizing processes matters more now than ever #positconf2026 173
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026"Competing on molecules, not on code" - Last slide from Isabel Glauss' #positconf talk on why they open sourced their modular framework Davinci Open-source is trickier than ever, and this mentality works. Find a moat that isn't code (easier said than done!) and share back what you can 010
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyDanielle Navarro @djnavarro.net · 15/09/2026In her ongoing quest to convince #rstats users to stop invoking the cursed "rm(list=ls())" incantation at the top of their analysis scripts, she has released sessioncheck 0.2 on CRAN. Mostly unchanged, some bug fixes, some new reporting features that are most useful in the regulatory contextblog.djnavarro.netRelease: sessioncheck 0.2 – Notes from a data witchIn which the author realises she doesn’t know how to write package release posts 4439
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Absolutely yes! I also don't remember the context but I'm no less intrigued 001
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 11/09/2026This person noted some of their uptick in bug bounty submissions seemed to stem from a class assignmentx.comgavin leech (Non-Reasoning) (@gleech) on XOther considerations: timing suggests some Stanford teacher gave the class the assignment "get a bot to make some money". The messages are uniformly polite and read the small print 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Will be my first Posit conf, very excited! If you see me please say hi 190
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyEmily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 10/09/2026We could save years of education across data science and data engineering by just printing t-shirts that say "know what makes a row" 1408
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 09/09/2026This is so cool! When you say background tasks, what kind of stuff we talking? 101
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 03/09/2026His (even more impressive?) trick is doing that without boring subject matter experts I think he pulls it off because "here's the most basic unit of a topic, let's build from there" is an interesting way to explore an area, even one where you're familiar Maybe we teach folders + files like that? 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 03/09/2026I think a lot about how @matt-levine.bsky.social writes Money Stuff so any curious person can understand what's happening Lots of "here's the most basic unit of this topic -> here's how we expect that basic unit to work -> here's how those expectations can break down in weird, fascinating ways" 130
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyLisa DeBruine @debruine.bsky.social · 03/09/2026So much this! How do we solve it? Is there an existing good explainer (for Mac and PC) especially for new coders? Should we make one if there isn’t? This is how we address it in the #PsyTeachR Applied Data Skills book: psyteachr.github.io/ads-v3/02-re... 282
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyLaurieWired @lauriewired.bsky.social · 31/08/2026I’ve alway’s thought it’s a shame that WebAssembly has the word “web” in it. Gives it a connotation that it’s “only for browsers” or something. Meanwhile, NASA’s over here with a flight-compliant derivative (SpaceWASM) intended for spacecraft! 1035744
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyRafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 24/08/20261 single norwegian commando destroyed all the heavy water that the nazis could have used for their uranium enrichment exercises. ONE GUY. i learned this and then i was like, how the f is this not a movie. well it is a movie, in norwegian. AND THE GUY PLAYED HIMSELF en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Ha...en.wikipedia.orgKnut Haukelid - Wikipedia 316838
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyRichard McElreath 🐈⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 22/08/2026there are two wolves inside you. one is a bear 0386
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyAndrea Howard @drandreahoward.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Enjoyed talking to @psychscience.bsky.social about my group’s new(ish) paper for the Observer. I’ve talked about this on here at an earlier stage. In 4 studies, we found no evidence that asking young adults to cut back on their social media improves well-being. Small thread 🧵 follows:psychologicalscience.orgFor Young Adults, Limiting Social Media Use Doesn’t Improve Well-BeingWhat happens when young adults are asked to slash their social media use to 30 minutes a day? In a new set of studies, most did not follow through, and those who did cut back … 46625
Reposted by Michael MullarkeyGOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 20/08/2026i swear to god, asking: “what is the problem you are trying to solve? followed by: “what information or data do you need to solve this problem?” are like, some of the single most important questions you need to ask a stakeholder on all kinds of projects, and so many people skip it 541647232
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 21/08/2026I like cultivating generalist skills. I think generalists can bring needed perspectives to fields where niche expertise already exists. And "being a generalist" ≠ "posts confidently about a ton of unrelated topics" When someone does that they will get important stuff wrong + come off weird at best 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 20/08/2026I resemble that remark! Was lucky enough to have a postdoc where I could *grind* getting better at coding. And initial industry interviews were still really rough. Took me ~5 months of active applying which I've since heard was on the low end even at the time 020
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 20/08/2026I focus on the practices + systems because I think they're the driving force. And professors who who tell students (or themselves) they already have all the skills they need for a coding-type job? Giving out of date info at best 140
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Every how-I-went-to-industry talk I give includes a version of "the gap between the median code quality practices in industry and academia is 10x larger than most academics think" 160
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 19/08/2026I'd started to poke around hypothesis but haven't done a deep dive into the docs, thanks for the pointer! That sounds like a super helpful use case for Quarto 2. I need to think harder about what the "big win" versions look like in my projects 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 19/08/2026I am trying to do this more! Any favorite resources? 110
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 19/08/2026Wrote about boring wins and how context-dependent "boring" isbuttondown.comFind the boring winsThey might not be so boring to others 001
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Calling everything a measurement problem flattens out other difficulties too much And guessing "measurement problem" every time works better than it should 020
Reposted by Michael MullarkeySanjay Srivastava @sanjaysrivastava.com · 18/08/2026Data de-duplication 0152
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Within the past day we've gotten: - A ~Fable level model at ~Haiku level pricing (GLM 5.3) - An ~Opus 4.6 level model runnable on local hardware (Qwen 3.8 Max 27b) I switched to an open model stack as my daily driver after GLM 5.2 dropped. That move felt like a risk, and so far it's paid off 0112
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Given the OSF news (shout out to them forever, they made what felt impossible possible for a long time) If you could summon a software tool to help you deal with the upcoming changes, what would it be? I promise nothing + know there are great existing tools. I'm just curious where gaps might be 041
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 12/08/2026I wrote about the Last of Us and grappling with which details matterbuttondown.comWhich details matter?The answer can't be all of them 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 12/08/2026The interoperability of OpenCode feels amazing. Umans (understandably) ending their founding member unlimited tokens plan was a blip for me instead of a crisis 010
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 09/08/2026I might substitute this one for "large boulder size of small boulder" 120
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Don't you put that evil on me (You're 100% correct) 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 05/08/2026People use a ton of tools already. Convincing them to add something you built to their stack means fighting uphill Wrote about how creating drop-in replacement tools can level that playing field "Rewrite in Rust to make tool go fast" is only part of the story!buttondown.comThe unreasonable effectiveness of drop-in replacementsBuilding a better tool is not enough 000
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 31/07/2026Totally! To fold in another discourse, mental health problems having elements of social construction doesn't make the suffering any less real Same with coding taste. I think it's socially constructed + real. We should just be clear which component of taste we're talking about vs having people guess 140
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 31/07/2026Agreed all around. I think "it's all arbitrary" is just as useless as "just use your taste." It's not that taste doesn't exist, more like "if we can't identify which component of taste we're talking about, we're far less likely to get anywhere useful" 120
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 31/07/2026If you write code for a living you've probably heard a lot about "taste" This newsletter post dives into what to do if everyone is talking about something but no one quite agrees what it means 010
Michael Mullarkey @mcmullarkey.bsky.social · 31/07/2026Thank you! I've had a version of this cooking in the back of my mind for a while, glad it translated 110