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Peter Ellis

@freerangestats.info

2.9K followers 1.5K following 2K posts

Director, Statistics for Development Division, at the Pacific Community. Posts are personal views, and most likely to be about data and #rstats, maybe with bits of history, social science and philosophy thrown in. Blog is at https://freerangestats.info/.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 18d

Genuine life-changing opportunity to become the Programme Manager for the Pacific Data Hub. Based in lovely Nouméa, New Caledonia; responsible for driving regional data stewardship, innovation and sustainable impact. And free of income tax. careers.spc.int/xMiWgK/progr...

Programme Manager (Pacific Data Hub)

Noumea-based position Attractive expatriate package Join the principal development organisation in the region Description The Pacific Community (SPC) is the ...

careers.spc.int

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 7h

Looking at the actual list of winners and thinking that this must have been in 1996 or 1997 given how I knew him, I'm really not sure which group it was. Perhaps it was Amnesty after all.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 7h

I had a colleague in the 1990s who had "Nobel Peace Prize" listed on top of "Other awards" on their CV, with the explanation "Awarded in XXXX to Amnesty International (or some other similar group, not sure which one it was) and all of its members, including me!".

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Reposted by Peter Ellis

econmaett @econmaett.github.io · 8h

Ross Ihaka: The Open-Hearted Data Hero
#rstats
www.historyofdatascience.com/ross-ihaka-t...

“R changed my opinion of humanity to some extent, to see how people are really willing to freely give of themselves and produce something larger than themselves without any thought of personal glory.”

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 9h

This is incredible, great work. I would need multiple passes to produce something as neat and well-structured as this with a computer, never mind by writing by hand like an animal.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 1d

The only thing that makes this slow is not being in parallel. The "R doesn't work with for loops" has become practically a superstition. Yes, vectorised operations are much better in R than loops, but plenty of operations (like this modelling) don't lend themselves to vectorisation.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 1d

It becomes a safety issue if person in exit row refuses any instructions, do can't just fix up after.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 2d

I'm guessing about 100. I got 112 to my work email yesterday and only 6 to personal. But a huge amount of traffic has (rightly) moved to Teams (or Slack, or whatever one uses) these days.

Reposted by Peter Ellis

Guy Berger @econberger.bsky.social · 2d

Bajillionaires of the world, we don't need more employment growth nowcasts during the government shutdown.

But we do need a very-large-sample monthly survey of US households to determine employment / unemployment status.

macromostly.substack.com/p/we-dont-ne...

We Don't Need More Employment Growth Nowcasts!

Slack Nowcasts Are the Missing Piece

macromostly.substack.com

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 2d

This is a more senior role than a similar demography-focused analyst role I posted about a few months ago.

This is a regional leadership role, with significant stakeholder engagement and capability building role in addition to the technical work.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 2d

We're #hiring a demographer at Pacific Community-SPC to help Pacific Island countries and territories with their population statistics! Based in Fiji, we're seeking someone with a relevant Masters or PhD, 10+ years experience, and strong skills in #rstats or Stata. careers.spc.int/job/statisti...

Statistics Adviser (Demography)

Suva-based position (Fiji) Attractive expatriate package Join the principal development organisation in the region Description The Pacific Community (SPC) is...

careers.spc.int

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 2d

'No kings' is a terrible slogan for this as it distracts from the actual issue. Plenty of kings are well bound by constitution, law, and process, and plenty of presidents and dictators aren't.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 2d

To be fair to Cruz, I think these things genuinely are different. Politicians as legislators are obviously free to engage in public debate, including asking influential organisations to explain themselves. It's completely different when the executive does it.

Reposted by Peter Ellis

Jenn Dowd @drjenndowd.bsky.social · 3d

2/ but I think social media is a good place to practice clear & concise communication of work you think is important (your own & others). And of course it has the chance to amplify the reach & understanding of that science much more than the readership of academic journals.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 3d

I guess we should be grateful there's no sequels to E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 3d

Yes definitely, good addition.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 3d

The first Rocky really is gritty 1970s realism.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 3d

What movies are good, but badly tarnished by appalling sequels? Sequels that are not just 'not as good as the first movie', but bad enough to be basically a betrayal of the whole original concept. My list for starters: Jaws, Rocky, First Blood, The Matrix.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 3d

First cut of meeting notes.

Reposted by Peter Ellis

Prof Helen Bostock @oceanhelen.bsky.social · 4d

📣Calling all Pacific early career researchers📣

Want to gain experience working, living and conducting science at sea while exploring key issues affecting your region? 🚢🌊.

Applications for the Floating University 2026 voyage. ⏰Applications open until 30 November.

Apply here 👉 bit.ly/4nXODH6

Microsoft Forms

bit.ly

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 4d

Yeah every now and then I have a purge and de-follow a bunch such accounts, sometimes even mute some. A certain amount of political stuff is useful and i follow some for sure, but it finds its way to my feed enough without me clogging it up myself with accounts that just turn everything up to 11.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 4d

Pleased to say I have not heard of either.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 5d

Thread is worth reading.

Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 5d

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 5d

Yes, in my experience most people are Australians. This of course is what is wrong with Bluesky, where one gets the erroneous impression most people are from the USA instead.

Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 5d

The cat labelled 'leftward', from the perspective of its own head, is definitely curling rightwards (bending neck and head to its right), and vice versa. I don't understand what you mean.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 5d

The pictures are surely the wrong way around.