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Rob Davies

@robayedavies.bsky.social
659 followers 1.2K following 352 posts

Reads, runs, looks out for birds, teaches data analysis methods in Psychology at Lancaster University, researches individual differences in reading and language; he/him/his

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Reposted by Rob Davies
Heather Urry @heatherurry.io · 6h
Psychology people: If you haven't seen them yet, check out these upcoming special issues at Psychological Science. Submissions invited.
psychologicalscience.org
Upcoming <i>Psychological Science</i> Special Issues
Psychological Science is seeking submissions for the following special issues:Advancing Psychological Science Using Large Language ModelsFrom Lab to Life: Psychological Science in the Real WorldCenter...
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Solomon Kurz @solomonkurz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Beta regression is underused in psychology. Back in the day, it was hard or impossible to do with software. Things have changed and you can now do it for free and with about as much ease as any other GLM. Whether you need description, prediction, or causal inference--beta regression can do it all.
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
So cool. Looked up the font thanks to your reference and found this: github.com/propublica/w... — think it’s great it’s CC shared. I was trying to work out how to produce a grid of person shaped icons generatively earlier this week, to make a point about sampling. These look much nicer
github.com
GitHub - propublica/weepeople: A typeface of people sillhouettes, to make it easy to build web graphics featuring little people instead of dots.
A typeface of people sillhouettes, to make it easy to build web graphics featuring little people instead of dots. - propublica/weepeople
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Michael Friendly @datavisfriendly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I hope people appreciate the work @albertocairo.com does to advance the entire profession of #dataViz #dataVisualization #infographics #dataJournalism The image here uses a "weepeople" font that Alberto invented to make mere numbers more human. You can see this here in this schematic for the topic.
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JsonGeller @jgeller1phd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
New tutorial finally in press with @rmkubinec.bsky.social @chelseaparlett.bsky.social and @matti.vuorre.com. It has everything you could possible want: Quippy headings, a whole lot of beta, bayesian analyses and frequentist analyses side by side in harmony. link.springer.com/article/10.3...
rdcu.be
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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Whitley Bay, August 1980, photo by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (via Amber/@sidegallery.bsky.social).
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 28/09/2026
I’m looking into the literature on the effects of marriage on well-being 👀 if you have any favorite studies, please let me know! My main interest is on the causal inference side of things, but I’ll take anything that is interesting 😋
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Ben Fulcher @bendfulcher.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today I'm releasing the "1000×1000 collection": a unified place to learn about dynamical structure. 1000 simulated time series (1000 samples each) spanning 133 dynamical processes. Have a play? 🐛 #timeseries #dynamicalsystems #complexity #opendata dynamicsandneuralsystems.github.io/1000x1000/
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Wow no hands cartwheel
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
So good on so many levels
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dorian @doriantaylor.com · 24/09/2026
lol is that what this is youtu.be/fU-wH8SrFro
youtu.be
Adriano Celentano canta "Prisencolinensinainciusol" da "Formula due" del 1973
YouTube video by Rai
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It's great to see tailoring accommodate such extreme movement today. This level of tailoring was a bit more common in the past, as you can see in old films featuring Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, but many modern suits will lift off the wearer's neck even when they're just walking.
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
In the past week I have been quoted in a lot of pieces and the titles are all over the map: “humanities researcher,” “technologist,” “tech critic,” “artist (derogatory)”…My fave was “respected AI researcher” in The New Yorker last year. None of these are really wrong, but none are really correct.
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
David Quammen's essay in The New York Times today closes with this paragraph. It's both a scientific falsehood, and an incredibly dangerous narrative. If you're willing to give me five minutes of your time, I'd like to explain why.
The Ebola virus doesn’t need to spill back. It abides in its reservoir host, and awaits its next opportunity. A virus can’t climb out of a bat or a monkey and fly off in search of human prey. It can only spill over. If humans left the reservoir host alone — not hunting it, not capturing it, not eating it, not exporting it live, not disturbing its forest habitat — the virus wouldn’t re-emerge in humans. It would remain where it is, harming no one. But of course that’s not what happens. And when viruses spill, they often spill into us, because the human population is such a big, busy target.
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - Nature
Emerging infectious disease&nbsp;outbreak risks&nbsp;are ubiquitous&nbsp;worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ...
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Dan Quintana @dsquintana.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
2. These materials provide a long-term record for researchers *themselves*. People move institutions all the time and lose access to files. If it’s on OSF/Zenodo, researchers can access their own materials in the future
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Alex Holcombe @alexh.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Consequences of the flood of AI manuscripts: "An early-career researcher at an unbranded institution loses the one mechanism that ever let them be read on merit — anonymous review of the work itself, however badly it functioned in practice.
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Dan Quintana @dsquintana.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
New preprint! 🎉 I analysed 1660 papers from 4 psychology journals and found materials sharing went from 9% of papers in 2015 to 82% in 2025, and these materials *do* get downloaded — a median of 135 times each. BUT shared code is often hard to run. doi.org/10.31234/osf... Let's walk through it 🧵
Two-panel figure. Panel a is a flow diagram tracking 1,611 empirical psychology articles from publication year (545 in 2015, 552 in 2020, 514 in 2025) to repository-link type: 785 link an OSF project, 85 link another platform, and 741 link no repository. Of those with an OSF link, download counts were retrieved for 670 and not retrieved for 115. Panel b is a line chart of the share of empirical papers linking OSF across 2015, 2020 and 2025. The overall rate, shown as a dashed black line, rises from 9% to 57% to 82%. All four journals rise steeply and end close together: Psychological Science 92%, JESP 89%, JML 83%, Cognition 76%, with Psychological Science highest throughout.Three-panel figure. Panel a: ridgeline plot of downloads per file by material type on a log scale, with the percentage never downloaded labelled for each — archive 16% of 545 files, documents 20% of 2,970, code 12% of 3,471, other 17% of 1,646, data 21% of 10,051, media 35% of 2,120, images 35% of 4,102. Most files cluster between 1 and 10 downloads, with long right tails past 100. Panel b: ridgeline plot of downloads per paper by journal, log scale, with dashed median lines; Psychological Science is highest, then JESP, JML and Cognition. Panel c: stacked bars showing, for documents, data and code separately, the share of papers by download band (0, 1–10, 11–100, more than 100) in 2015, 2020 and 2025. The share exceeding 100 downloads falls sharply over time in all three types, from roughly two-thirds in 2015 to a quarter or less in 2025, as the 1–10 band grows.Four-panel figure. Panel a: statistical languages detected among 333 papers with retrievable code — R 88%, SPSS 12%, Stata 4%, SAS 1%. Panel b: code red flags among those 333 papers — 34% hard-code an absolute path, 40% reference a missing file — above documentation among 672 OSF-linked papers — 21% have a README, 30% are documented by README, description or wiki. Panel c: among 562 Elsevier papers with no repository link, 44% (245) host at least one journal supplementary file but only 14% (77) host data, code or an archive. Panel d: composition of those 448 hosted files — documents 52%, data 21%, media 9%, other 7%, archive 6%, code 3%, images 1%. The code panels are green, the journal-supplement panels blue.Coefficient plot (download predictors)

Dot-and-whisker plot of three standardised predictors of OSF download volume, each with a 95% confidence interval. Repository size (number of files) has the largest effect at about 0.76, citations about 0.38, and altmetric attention about 0.12. All three intervals sit entirely above zero, so each predicts more downloads, with repository size roughly twice the effect of citations and six times that of attention. X-axis: standardised effect, −0.2 to 1.0.
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Pam Davis-Kean, PhD @umpamdk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
My newest Presidential Column for @psychscience.bsky.social addresses the issue of psychologists' dominant use of convenience samples for their research. Can our science stop being WEIRD if we don't consider how we sample? www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
psychologicalscience.org
Is It Too Convenient to Stay WEIRD?
APS President Pamela Davis-Kean outlines her plenary topics for the 2027 APS Annual Convention in Seattle, Washington.
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Caræsten 🇵🇸 @cara.city · 13/09/2026
for two months, I've been flying drones over Flock cameras to situation them in space and geography; I even got my commercial drone license in order to do it. I'd like to share this project with you all: it's called Records Of Enemy Surveillance: recordsofenemysurveillance.com
image of a residential intersection with one red car driving across it and a baseball field in the backgroundblack and white dithered image of two red squares around the flock cameras in the previous image, on either side of the intersection
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Even without wind, these towers act as solar chimneys, pulling hot air out of the top floor & drawing cool air in from the subterranean levels. Add a porous clay jar filled with water in the wind column & you can add extra cooling for very hot days. Passive, desert-powered air conditioning.
Iran's ancient windcatchers.   From AFP.  It's a diagram showing wind movement in a badgir equipped home.
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
We've learned about Persian desert-powered ice pits, now let's learn about Iron Age Persian AIR CONDITIONING. How did people live in the hottest part of the world before you could dial down the thermostat & hope your electric bill gets lost in the mail? Let's learn about 'badgirs' or wind towers.
Yazd - Badgir - Windcatcher, a tower with poles sticking out at odd angles, decorated in geometric figures atop flat roofs.
CREDIT: Alireza Javaheri
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Ruben C. Arslan @ruben.the100.ci · 11/09/2026
An interesting thing is happening to me at the moment. I have a standing bug bounty policy for my first authored scientific work. That means, I've committed to pay people who report bugs in my code, up to 750€ for severe errors. Since GPT-6 Astra came out, I'm now getting several bug reports daily.
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I have had some really interesting conversations about AI adoption this week and can't help but notice all the emotional conflict ppl feel about using AI at work. There's a feeling of resigned imperative and I think that says a lot about so much work culture being about volume of output
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
All the comments about length and detail are true but you get to moments like the (genuinely thrilling) explanation of how Johnson manages the passage of civil rights dreams into laws, or the unpicking of what actually happens on the plane in Dallas after JFK is shot, and well … it’s stupendous
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Very forceful statement by Terry Tao about AI and math. terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a... Note, he is not claiming the models aren't real and powerful. He's talking about how that power should be used. This, I believe, is what all AI discussions should center.
terrytao.wordpress.com
A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics
I am proud to be among the list of 25 initial signatories — all Fields Medallists — to the declaration below, which grew out of discussions between ourselves over the last week. We have…
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Ana Martinovici @anamartinovici.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Workshop done 😀 since I anyway put together a list of resources, I'm going to share it in this thread. So here we go, my top recommendations for how to improve computational reproducibility of your work
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Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Have you gotten your FREE (for non-commercial uses, including Butlerian Jihad) copy of Bayesian Workflow? The second half of the book is detailed case studies. avehtari.github.io/Bayesian-Wor...
4. Case studies

Coding a series of models: Simulated data of movie ratings
Prior specification for regression models: Reanalysis of a sleep study
Predictive model checking and comparison: Clinical trial
Building up to a hierarchical model: Coronavirus testing
Using a fitted model for decision analysis: Mixture model for time series competition
Posterior predictive checking: Stochastic learning in dogs
Incremental development and testing: Black cat adoptions
Debugging a model: World Cup football
Leave-one-out cross validation model checking and comparison: Roaches
Model building and expansion: Golf putting
Model building with latent variables: Markov models for animal movement
Model building: Time-series decomposition for birthdays
Models for regression coefficients and variable selection: Student grades
Sampling problems with latent variables: No vehicles in the park
Challenge of multimodality: Differential equation for planetary motion
Simulation-based calibration checking in model development workflow
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
You've been hearing the story about how Dolly Parton turned down Elvis when his people demanded a chunk of her royalty rights in exchange for recording "I Will Always Love You". That reminded me of something I've wondered about for a long time. The guy who actually put the ask on Dolly was a ...
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Lev Parikian @levparikian.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
A few people expressing surprise at the numbers of birds migrating in a single night. But this is just the beginning of the season. On 8th October last year Birdcast recorded 1.25 billion birds in one night.
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I accidentally preordered it twice! I’m going to give one away as a class prize or something
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Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
All four books I've co-authored are freely available online for non-commercial use: - Bayesian Workflow at avehtari.github.io/Bayesian-Wor... Links to other three books are in the quoted post 👇 (too many books to fit in one post!)
avehtari.github.io
Bayesian Workflow book: Website – Bayesian Workflow book
Website for the Bayesian Workflow book by Gelman, Vehtari, McElreath, et al. — case studies, code, and exercises in R and Stan.
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David Sumpter @soccermatics.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
One chapter debugs a model of World Cup football, one on golf putting. Andrew Gelman, @avehtari.bsky.social and @rmcelreath.bsky.social have put their Bayesian Workflow book online free. Writing down the tacit knowledge papers leave out. avehtari.github.io/Bayesian-Workflow/
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simine vazire @simine.com · 28/08/2026
Psych Science (the journal) is broader than you might think! Do you do descriptive research? Or research w/ underrepresented populations or cultural frameworks? Or research on AI/LLMs for psych? Or research testing lab findings in the real world? We have a special issue for that!
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Josh Grubbs @joshuagrubbsphd.com · 28/08/2026
2/43 Please share widely! This is (hopefully) a really accessible introduction to behavioral addictions and a blueprint for the field moving forward. Preprint is here (pending moderator approval): osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026
[Exit Queen.]
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 25/08/2026
This girl I used to waitress with in Austin, we moved to New York together in 2003 on a literal Greyhound bus. Shared a fifth floor walk-up studio that, when it rained, had more leaks in the ceiling than we had pots and pans. We used to get drunk and smoke off the fire escape and do “sad-offs.”
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Andrew Gelman et al. @statmodeling.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Bayesian Workflow free pdf! statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/08/25/b...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
Bayesian Workflow free pdf! | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
It’s a plainly stated sensible set of thoughts. Thanks for sharing. I’m looking forward to reading the papers; they’ll be relevant to a graduate course I’m teaching
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I didn't follow through on muting the name in question because apparently I'm still interested in the conversations despite the pain caused by awful reasoning demonstrated all around. This thread on the non-trivial distinction between academic freedom and freedom of speech is an absolute gem.
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D. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
This is an incomplete understanding of academic freedom, and partly confuses academic freedom with freedom of speech. (🧵 adapting some things from this paper, esp. §5: philsci-archive.pitt.edu/28499/. Highly recommend the papers by Dea and Kronfeldner that I cite there!)
philsci-archive.pitt.edu
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Beautifully written piece
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 15/08/2026
"Watching ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN in 2026 provokes a gentle aching because it documents an ecosystem of institutional faith that no longer exists—that truth, once uncovered, possesses the power to shift the world."
brightwalldarkroom.com
All the President's Men (1976): Remember When You Were Hungry?
Watching All the President’s Men in 2026 provokes a gentle aching because it documents an ecosystem of institutional faith that no longer exists.
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Beck
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Out for a run this morning and passed a heron fishing in the neck. It was standing very still but its eye flicked at me when I stopped to take the photo so I moved on
Image shows a grey heron, standing on rocks in a stream bed
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Went for a walk from Bessie Bank Lane to Arnsbarrow Tarn, east side of Coniston Water #cumbria. Heather was in bloom everywhere. Saw at least a dozen different kinds of butterflies. And one mad looking yellow #caterpillar: would love to know what it is
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Thanks for sharing this.
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
If I was still teaching a critical data course I’d add this to the syllabus. All about the importance of what is left unmeasured, despite being essential to “the description of the thing itself, rather than its variation.” www.thebeliever.net/on-descripti...
thebeliever.net
On Description - Believer Magazine
Not long ago, I was reading, in a magazine profile, a physical description of a person “who has a prodigious white beard, wavy gray bangs, and dark, beetling eyebrows.” A photo of the person was inclu...
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Here it is! www.reanimationlibrary.org/pages/wpmatt...
A screenshot of an article titled “Bureaucracy’s Playthings,” depicting, a woman standing by a growing stack of files, published by the Reanimation Library
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Rob Davies @robayedavies.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Thanks! Excited
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