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Rob Arthur

@robarthur.bsky.social
2.2K followers 338 following 196 posts

Data journalist, data scientist, freelancer published many places: WSJ, NYT, the Atlantic, the Guardian, etc. Before that: staff at FiveThirtyEight Before that: an evolutionary geneticist.

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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I think that's also a fair perspective! From that view, I think the title becomes "video games are becoming *high-quality art*" and partly because the reviewers are pushing them in that direction. But you can also see the quality coming through from their adaptations into other artistic media.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In fact, video game reviewers seem to talk more about plot, narrative, and artistic impact than movie reviewers, according to this Metacritic data. I'd argue both forms contain works of art, and both contain "functional" works meant to distract and waste time (schlocky action movies, etc.).
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Both game critics and users alike now seem to weigh the story of a game above almost all other criteria--including visuals, gameplay, etc.
Change in reviewer's score based on positive-negative mentions in each aspect of the game. Narrative elements have increased a lot in score.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
People have been arguing about "video games as art" for decades. In that time, gamers and critics themselves have started to care a lot more about games' stories and artistic impact, suggesting that the medium is evolving. no-little-plans.ghost.io/video-games-...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
Video Games Are Becoming Art
Roger Ebert once famously claimed that video games can never be art. Many game designers (and players) may beg to differ, but I think the early days of video games certainly don’t qualify as art. Pong...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Quick article at BP about how the landscape of Japanese talent flowing into MLB has changed. It was hard to translate and project from NPB based on outcome metrics; it's much easier with things like fastball velocity and bat speed. www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...
Chart showing a spike in Japanese-born players' playing time in MLB over the last couple of years.
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Baseball Prospectus @baseballprospectus.com · 23/09/2026
This Wave Of Japanese Talent Is The Beginning Of A Pipeline by Robert Arthur (@robarthur.bsky.social) www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...
baseballprospectus.com
This Wave Of Japanese Talent Is The Beginning Of A Pipeline | Baseball Prospectus
This time, it’s not just a few stars.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Another fascinating thing to me was that the culinary mix doesn't really vary much from large urban counties to smaller rural ones. American and Mexican food are the two dominant cuisines, with side helpings of Chinese, Italian, etc. Urban counties just have more distinct low-frequency flavors.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
An interesting side story from this was that the counties where immigrants move also develop restaurants from their home countries about 2 years later, like clockwork. But, the elasticity--how many more restaurants open in that county--varies tremendously across different origins.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
10 years ago, a Trump supporter named Marco Gutierrez declared that without policy changes, there would be "a taco truck on every corner." A decade on, tacos are the fastest-rising culinary format in the country, much to most everyone's delight. no-little-plans.ghost.io/a-taco-truck...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
“A Taco Truck On Every Corner” Is Coming True
When Marco Gutierrez, co-founder of Latinos for Trump, declared that “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner,” it read to some like a threat, to others a ...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Strangely, no one seems to be complaining about the additional taquerias 🧐
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Almost exactly 10 years since the famous warning that there would soon be "a taco truck on every corner," they are indeed the biggest increase in restaurant format in the US, per Foursquare's data. no-little-plans.ghost.io/a-taco-truck...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
“A Taco Truck On Every Corner” Is Coming True
When Marco Gutierrez, co-founder of Latinos for Trump, declared that “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner,” it read to some like a threat, to others a ...
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Saberseminar @saberseminar.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Thanks to all of our attendees and presenters for another successful Saberseminar! You guys are the main attraction and the community that makes our event welcoming, fun, and interesting, and we are so grateful to all of you. ❤️
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
they tried forcing science to align with ideology in the USSR. It didn't go well. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...
theatlantic.com
The Soviet Era's Deadliest Scientist Is Regaining Popularity in Russia
Trofim Lysenko’s spurious research prolonged famines that killed millions. So why is a fringe movement praising his legacy?
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Saberseminar @saberseminar.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
We'll be converting all ticket sales to *late registrations* (at a higher fee) soon. Buy your tickets now! events.ticketleap.com/tickets/sabe...
events.ticketleap.com
Saberseminar 2026 - At Illinois Tech
Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball is the premier baseball analytics event. We get front office insiders, scientists, scouts, and sabermetricians into the same room and have them talk...
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Saberseminar @saberseminar.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Excited about Saberseminar but not able to make it this year? Always wanted to buy a sweatshirt, mug, or hat with the logo? Check out our online store for another way of supporting the event. If there's any particular color/item combo you want, let us know. www.bonfire.com/store/sabers...
bonfire.com
Saberseminar | Official Merchandise | Bonfire
Check out Saberseminar on Bonfire and shop official merchandise today! Featuring limited edition custom apparel, printed with care in the USA just for you.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Using the DOJ's own data, I found that they're pursuing fewer criminal charges that aren't related to immigration. They're winning the cases they are pursuing less often, and at least in DC, it looks like they are declining to charge some serious offenses. no-little-plans.ghost.io/trumps-doj-i...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
Trump’s DOJ Is Pursuing Fewer Non-Immigration Criminal Charges
The Department of Justice is the federal government’s main law enforcement apparatus, and it has shed thousands of personnel since the beginning of Trump’s second term. There are fewer ATF (Alcohol, T...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is what happens when you lose 11% of the personnel at DOJ and task the remainder with investigating immigration cases: there's less time for investigating and prosecuting other kinds of crime. no-little-plans.ghost.io/2000-staffer...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
2000 Staffers Have Left the Department of Justice US Attorney Offices Since September 2024
DOJ’s EOUSA workforce shrunk by more than 11.5% from 2024-2025. Last week, a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer named Julia Le had a meltdown in court, telling a judge “The system sucks, my job sucks...
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Saberseminar @saberseminar.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Get your tickets now! blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/...
blogs.fangraphs.com
Saberseminar 2026 Is August 29-30 in Chicago!
Tickets are now available for the conference.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
This pattern is especially significant in some districts, like DC, where arrests by police are actually up, but criminal charges are down because the DC DA's office seems to be declining to prosecute some crimes, including those unrelated to the crackdown like fraud and sexual abuse.
Chart showing arrests and criminal charges in DC. Arrests are up, charges are down.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
An underappreciated aspect of Trump's immigration crackdown is that the DOJ has a lot less time to spend on what it used to do--prosecuting more serious crimes. We're starting to see the first impacts: a reduction in non-immigration-related charges. no-little-plans.ghost.io/trumps-doj-i...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
Trump’s DOJ Is Pursuing Fewer Non-Immigration Criminal Charges
The Department of Justice is the federal government’s main law enforcement apparatus, and it has shed thousands of personnel since the beginning of Trump’s second term. There are fewer ATF (Alcohol, T...
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 04/07/2026
1. A bit of evolutionary biology. I'm really intrigued by a new perspective piece from Steve Frank that explores connections between how natural selection creates systems that generalize and recent work in machine learning about the surprising capabilities of massively overparameterized systems.
academic.oup.com
Generalization as the great leap in evolvability: insights from machine learning
Abstract. Natural selection encodes learned information in the genome. Learned solutions may be tuned specifically to past challenges, failing in altered e
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
oh lord sorry I misread the year, duh
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Ken Morales @kbmorales.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
1/ I looked at 20 years of Supreme Court decisions and found that for the first time, all nine justices decided more cases by secret ballot — aka the “shadow docket” — than it did for cases argued in open court last term. 🧵:
A line chart shows the number of Supreme Court decisions on the merits docket versus the shadow docket from the 2003-04 term to the 2024-25 term. The merits docket decisions trend downward over time, ending at 56 decisions, while the shadow docket decisions rise sharply in the 2018-19 term and surpass the merits docket in the last term at 63 decisions.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Obviously hard to tell given this data, but I wonder how much of the reduction was the huge loss in personnel. Fewer people recovering guns -> fewer guns recovered. www.staradvertiser.com/2026/04/23/b...
staradvertiser.com
FBI, DEA, ATF staffing drops despite Trump crime crackdown pledge | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
WASHINGTON >> The Trump administration has cut more than 4,000 employees from some of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies, even as it vowed to crack down on crime, according to records obtained ...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
this is such great work from @bwd.bsky.social. He was kind enough to share some other emails where Sword et al. discussed my work, which was funny. Major props to Bradford for thinking to use public records law to get at some of this correspondence.
Email from Morgan Sword to Lloyd Smith and others asking about whether they've seen Rob Arthur's article.
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
This passage from @davidlat.bsky.social perfectly captures the false dichotomy you see so often from the Supreme Court's defenders: The Court is held out as "independent" because it doesn't *always* rule for Trump. That whitewashes (1) how often it *does*; & (2) its bad behavior in non-Trump cases.
Screenshot from David Lat's "Original Jurisdiction" newsletter that reads:

Runner-up for Judge of the Week: Chief Justice Roberts. The end of a Term brings with it evaluations of the Supreme Court—and, of course, the Chief Justice as its leader. For critiques of the current conservative Court—and, implicitly, Chief Justice Roberts—see the views of Professors Kate Shaw and Steve Vladeck in this spirited debate in The Times (gift link).

I call it a “spirited debate” because of the vigorous pushback that Shaw and Vladeck received from Professor Will Baude (who clerked for the Chief). See also this post at Executive Functions by Professor Jack Goldsmith—no fan of the Trump administration—titled “The Powerful, Resilient, Independent Supreme Court.” Or if Goldsmith is too conservative a commentator for your tastes, check out this staff editorial by The Washington Post (gift link), “The Supreme Court’s not-so-MAGA majority.”
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Bradford William Davis @bwd.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
In 2019, an MLB exec told Rawlings the league wanted its baseball to perform to what he called a ‘target leaguewide home run rate’ The next year, MLB started making and using two baseballs in at least three consecutive seasons. What could this mean for the 2026 rocket ball? issa new [eyeblack]
readeyeblack.com
Did you know about MLB's dinger quota?
eyeblack found a league executive's instructions to achieve a 'target leaguewide homeun rate.' Here's what it says about 2026's Juiced Ball 2.0
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Ken Arneson @kenarneson.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
The weather in this afternoon's game between France and Paraguay in Philadelphia will be interesting, so I made a video about it for the brand new @weatherapplied YouTube Channel. If you want to see us make more such videos, subscribe to the channel. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRA5...
youtube.com
WAM Weather Impact Preview: France v Paraguay, Philadelphia Stadium, July 4, 2026
YouTube video by Weather Applied Metrics
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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
In other "excellent news from religious bodies", the US Presbyterian General Assembly has formally voted to start the process to (correctly) declare white Christian nationalism a theological error incompatible with the teachings of Jesus: pres-outlook.org/2026/07/pcus...
pres-outlook.org
PC(USA) labels White Christian nationalism "Theological Error"
Calling White Christian nationalism incompatible with the teachings of Jesus, commissioners approved a proposed constitutional amendment and a new policy statement opposing the ideology.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
I like the metaphor, but what that model lacked was the recommendation algorithm that finds content you'll like and serves it to you over and over and over and...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Movie stars are looking younger and younger relative to their actual age, and this trend has been going on since at least the 1970s. no-little-plans.ghost.io/the-top-10-e...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
The Top 10% Effect: Why Movie Stars Are Aging More Slowly
I’m going to show you some pictures of famous actors and ask you to tell me what each pair has in common. Pretend you didn't just read the title. Ready? Go. Pair 1 Pair 2 And for some men: ...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
I did a deep dive on what might explain those exceptions. The strongest predictor *isn't* change in life expectancy or pollution or anything I expected when I started.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
It turns out it's not just limited to the US and Western Europe, either--pretty much across the world, from China to France to Iran to Indonesia, most countries' movie stars have been looking younger. But there are a few (interesting) exceptions.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Movie stars are looking younger and younger relative to their actual age, and this trend has been going on since at least the 1970s. no-little-plans.ghost.io/the-top-10-e...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
The Top 10% Effect: Why Movie Stars Are Aging More Slowly
I’m going to show you some pictures of famous actors and ask you to tell me what each pair has in common. Pretend you didn't just read the title. Ready? Go. Pair 1 Pair 2 And for some men: ...
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kelsie @kelsie.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
We had a really mean python at work and I gave him back to his owner and was like “he was trying to kill me” and his owner said “well, he only has so many ways to interact with the world. All he has is a face” and it Moved Me
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Steph @stephy.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I just bought my saberseminar ticket!
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Alan Nathan @pobguy.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Unfortunately I'll not be attending this year due to a conflict. But I encourage all my baseball followers out there to attend. Saberseminar has always been one of the great forums for learning about the latest baseball research and connecting with other like-minded people. Do not miss it!
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
This is exactly why DEI efforts are not anti-meritocratic, as some critics claim. The base playing field is *severely* tilted against people of color, so efforts to push against that preexisting bias effectively just make promotions more fair and more meritocratic. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/u...
nytimes.com
Secret Vetting and Blocked Promotions: Inside Hegseth’s War on Diversity
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Saberseminar @saberseminar.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Excited to announce that general ticket sales for Saberseminar 2026 are open now! We've got a great lineup of speakers that we'll reveal soon, but you can expect more of the fantastic research and discussions we've had in past years. events.ticketleap.com/tickets/sabe...
events.ticketleap.com
Saberseminar 2026 - At Illinois Tech
Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball is the premier baseball analytics event. We get front office insiders, scientists, scouts, and sabermetricians into the same room and have them talk...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
That's a shame. There was a lot of really good, sometimes academic-quality research on the site. (There was also some terrible stuff.) There's nothing to be gained by taking it offline.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
This is free to read, but if you enjoy reading it, you may also want to consider subscribing. Got some cool stuff coming up, some baseball, some more movies, some politics, and more.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
With a bit of statistical investigation, I found that for every year younger an actress can look, they can make about $2.5M more in their careers. Since many succeed in looking 5-10 years younger, we're talking $10+M more. That's a pretty hefty financial incentive to seem young.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
I found that actresses in particular appear to age remarkably slowly. When they're in their 40s, they look 36; when they're in their 50s, about a third of them still look like they're under 40 years old, an impressive feat. Male costars tend to look pretty much as old as they actually are.
Violin plots showing the distribution of actual and apparent ages for men vs. women.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
To get at how old people look, and not just how long it has been since they were born, I used an algorithm called InsightFace that can estimate a person's age based on a photograph with about as much accuracy as a human can: typically around 5-10 years off.
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
In my last post, I looked at how Hollywood discriminates severely and unreasonably against older actresses, in particular. In this post, I look at how actresses fight back: they look much younger than their chronological age. no-little-plans.ghost.io/for-hollywoo...
no-little-plans.ghost.io
For Hollywood Actresses, Looking Younger Pays Off
Every year they can shave from their appearance equates to millions of dollars in career earnings. I recently wrote about the blatant bias against aging female stars in Hollywood. I found that Hollyw...
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Saberseminar @saberseminar.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Just 3 DAYS LEFT to submit your abstract for Saberseminar 2026! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Saberseminar Abstract Submission Form
Thank you for considering presenting your work at Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball 2026. Because of your efforts, we have grown to be a national meeting known for showcasing new, or...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 23/04/2026
Still feel like "Musk and his crew of incels destroyed a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and thereby hastened the deaths of millions of children" did not get the public attention it warranted.
wired.com
USAID Whistleblower Says It Was Even Worse Than People Knew
Political appointees wanted a quiet drawdown, the whistleblower says. DOGE wanted an execution.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 22/04/2026
The acting head of the CDC has canceled the publication of a study that found that the Covid vaccine sharply cut the odds of hospitalizations and emergency visits last winter, a Health Department spokesman said.
nyti.ms
C.D.C. Cancels Publication of Study Showing Benefits of Covid Vaccines
The report found that the shots cut the likelihood of hospitalizations, but the agency’s acting head said it gave an inaccurate picture of the vaccines’ effectiveness.
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Stephen Sutton-Brown @srbrown70.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Which of y'all are submitting something for Saberseminar this year? Which of y'all are attending? Which of you hate baseball and knowledge and good hangs? docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Saberseminar Abstract Submission Form
Thank you for considering presenting your work at Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball 2026. Because of your efforts, we have grown to be a national meeting known for showcasing new, or...
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Rob Arthur @robarthur.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
And using deep learning models to predict movie popularity and quality (with surprisingly high accuracy). no-little-plans.ghost.io/how-to-predi...
Scatter plot showing actual vs. predicted movie popularity. There's a strong correlation (R2=0.584), indicating that the method is fairly accurate.
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