iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 2h

Tlvery clean and comfortable! But do not assume they will be on time, lakeshore line regularly delayed 20+ min.

Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I told my students the other week that lawyers have a collective delusion that law is "real", and they can "discover" the correct interpretation. But actually, if everyone knew this it make things worse, not better.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Maybe its a little overstated, but I see people make that claim all the time. "Writing is thinking", "struggling through the writing process is how we get our arguments clear", etc. I've never seen systematic evidence either way.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Gemini AI is inserting this strange ad into an actual article. Like at the end of multiple paragraphs. It offers a (bad) explanation and definition of what economic analysis is. Fronted by an ad. Maybe inserted by Chrome? Unless this is some feature by @thewalrus.ca? Seems weird and bad.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

That sounds like an interesting approach. What are the five types?

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Not sure why we would think this is "only" bluster. Its already called Gulf of America in Fox news coverage, in Google maps, government agencies like NOAA, etc. Could easily be part of trade negotiations, demanded by future Republican governments, etc.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Just a shout out to the reviewers at @cjps-rcsp.bsky.social The Canadian political behaviour community is excellent, people almost always accept. I can see that they're also really busy - just looked through 8 potential reviewers and all had reviewed this year. Thanks!

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Congrats! Honestly looks great. Kind of want to create a new course just to teach this....

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Yes! Some diehards still report pc partisanship dispite it not being offered.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

In case you were wondering, Canadian party identification 1988-2025

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Counterpoint: if weights made a dramatic difference in the results, they are probably wrong anyway.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Same for the Supreme Court. "Any powers the SC gives the President will be fully exercised by the next Democratic President. And if the SC treats Dem presidents differently, thats outrageous, undermine their legitimacy, and cause people to call for changes to the court". Its just working the ref!

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Its baffling to me why prominent Democrats aren't loudly and repeatedly saying "after we win the next election we are going to vigorously investigate everyone who give money to Trump". It works both ways, as deterrence and as campaigning.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Asked Claude to make a change in my code and it said "let me map the full blast radius first" The "this not that" phrasing is famous, but I find the wild metaphores to be even more striking.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Of course, it might tell us something about selection effects on who decides to study the senate...

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Reposted by Randy Besco

Chagai Weiss @chagaiweiss.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

🚨The Toronto Political Behaviour Workshop is back for its 12th edition! Join us on Nov. 13–14, 2026 @UofT! We welcome paper/poster proposals on any topic in political behaviour, broadly defined! 📅 Submission Deadline: July 11. Apply here: utorontops.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Congratulations! I like the cover.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Had Claude do a review of a draft paper and it referred to one problem as a "known kill-shot in peer review". Well then, guess I better work on that.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Congratulations! Looks great!

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

On my way to #CPSA_ASPC26 and Toronto Union really is a beautiful train station. If they would only finish that last bit of construction...

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Reposted by Randy Besco

🇨🇦 CPSA ACSP 🇨🇦 @cpsa-acsp.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

📬 Your #CPSA_ACSP26 participant INFO is here! We're thrilled to welcome you @uottawa.ca next week! Everything you need for the conference: programme, registration hub, Boutique Expo, quiet room, Wi-Fi & more. 🍁👉 conta.cc/4ecGFab @jplewis.bsky.social @alexmarland.bsky.social @jlisayoung.bsky.social

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Broke: my RA did the work. Woke: an LLM did the work. Bespoke: my RA did the work with an LLM.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

"And now, class, lets turn to the next example of a principle-agent problem"...

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Everyone needs to relax about the canvas hack. We all do that 2-factor authentication thing five times a day, so the data is safe now. Right?

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Again! Now I have to wait another five years for another chance.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

LLM just said "I appreciate you being direct". Are they getting passive aggressive now? It was bad enough when my printer started talking, not sure I can handle sass from my computer.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

A fun little update of the data from this book - this year possibly the highest number of floor-crossings ever (at least since 1990s)? For non-Canadians: multiple floor crossings to the Liberal Party recently, which is on the edge of a majority.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Literally just added a slide to my exam review saying WRITE NEATLY. But its hard for them, even if they try.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Can you say more about that? Is it just if the person exists, or also if the article is pure AI? I've noticed more than one recent op-ed (in other publications) by well known people that are just obviously AI written, and really downgrades the percieved quality of the publication.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

There is a partial second gen effect for sure. Basically everyone is more religious than White non-immigrants (CES data, zero is White non-immigrants). Also very possible there is a "religion vibes" change among young men though, would be really interesting to see.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The last few years have really made it clear that people (including academics) basically only have substantive preferences, almost no procedural principles at all. Majoritarianism? Sovereignty? Plain text of constitutions? All completely flipped ideologically. Even among experts!

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Congrats, glad to see this out! What do you mean by more "consistent" changes? Just less variation in effect size?

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

A few days ago a student was talking to me while standing up, holding his laptop and balancing a glass of water on the keyboard. I had to stop him and hold the glass myself, it was stressing me out too much.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

This is very good👍. The reason its annoying is that it seems like it was written/said by an author/person, which turns out to be false. If it was actually written by some RA, people would also react badly. There are objections about abilities, theft or whatever, but the authorship thing is easy.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

The fact that it affects correlations and not just levels was news to me! Getting people to use more reversed questions is very doable. SEM is a much bigger lift though.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

This seems like a key point in terms of actually convincing new people: that selection on sig is much higher than it "should" be.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Revising lecture slides, and I updated an example with a new new cross-tab. The next slide has some step-by-step calculations to show how it works. So, can AI update the slide? Powerpoint has built in Copilot! No. AI can't update numbers in a slide. But it will consistant lie that it has. WTF.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Interestingly, due the 2025 citizen reform, I think decendants would keep citizenship forever. Don't imagine they were thinking about separatism when drafting it.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Great idea! We should train an LLM on Aristotle and Kant and let it make IRB decisions. Pretty sure it actually doesn't say anywhere in the regulations that IRB members have to be humans...

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Oh yes I agree! I just meant we shouldn't look at the their percentage of nulls as correct/natural/unbiased or something, because its influenced by the behavior of other journals.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

They really do deserve a credit for a great journal. Although, probably some reverse selection on significance for submissions happening there too.

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

You're too busy and don't have time to do all the reviews? Easy step one, stop reviewing for Elsevier journals. Later you can also stop editing and submitting to them. (sorry to Electoral Studies, but this calls for market discipline, time to devalue those assets)

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

So LLMs have guidelines about discussing presidents? Trying out ChatGTP5.2, and it reasons: "OK, I’m thinking through how to respect guidelines on discussing influential politicians. Redirecting to general topics like race and elections research instead of focusing on Obama as an individual."

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Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Reviewing PhD applications for next year, and I can't believe the number and quality of them. We always have good applicants, but this year we could easily admit three full cohorts. And I suspect the acceptance rate will be really high too.

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