Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 23h

Thanks to the interesting {capybara} R package, I just came across this nice Hadley Wickham quote:

> “He who gives up code safety for code speed deserves neither.”

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Reposted by Ben Schneider

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 1d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 2d

There was a great post by someone saying that choosing to use an LLM for coding is always like choosing to be the hare in the 'hare and tortoise'.

You set off quickly but inevitably run into problems. Eventually your counterfactual tortoise self - who did by building knowledge - walks past.

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Nic Crane @niccrane.bsky.social · 2d

A delightfully concise history of #rstats from @colinfay.bsky.social at Shiny in Production 🔥

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Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 3d

I have my students watch this now-classic video to get them to come to office hours for intellectual vibing (but so few come 😭)

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Andrew Mercer @awmercer.bsky.social · 4d

Terrific piece from @gelliottmorris.com this morning.

Whenever you ask if something “might” happen or “may” be necessary, it’s very easy for respondents to think of scenarios where the answer is yes, no matter how unlikely.

Why most polls overstate support for political violence

Misperceptions about the popularity of violence increase public support for it — but you can help change that.

www.gelliottmorris.com

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 4d

I dare not

Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 5d

Learning about your statistics software’s quantile definitions is like learning about your knee cartilage or your house’s plumbing. You only find yourself learning about it if something’s gone wrong.

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 5d

Even back when it was airing, it was obviously an unrealistic fantasy of how persuasion works in politics and government. There are many reasons why Veep is viewed by politicians and staffers as the more true-to-life series. www.thewrap.com/obama-aides-...

Obama Aides Say 'Veep' More Accurate Than 'West Wing,' 'House of Cards'

"You guys nail the fragility of the egos, and the, like, day-to-day idiocy of the decision-making"

www.thewrap.com

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 5d

It’s not a physical paper, but The Banner does good local reporting for MoCo and Maryland.

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 6d

There has been basically no (public) reckoning with the democratic strategists who said that "raising the salience" of immigration/deportations in ~March would help Trump, which was obviously wrong at the time and has been proved wrong over the last 6 months www.gelliottmorris.com/p/kilmar-abr...

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 7d

Incredible @perrybaconjr.bsky.social interview with Chris Van Hollen

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 6d

Excellent reporting and data visualization in this story

Waldo Jaquith, but Spooky @waldo.net · 6d

The Trump administration has cancelled 4,304 deliveries to food banks so far this year, refusing to deliver 94 million pounds of contracted-for food. Food banks simply can’t feed people enough anymore. Millions of Americans are going hungry as a result.

Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived.

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...

projects.propublica.org

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 7d

There’s no rule of journalistic neutrality that requires you to say something is “unclear” when that is objectively untrue. It would be illegal. There’s absolutely zero ambiguity about that fact. Saying it’s unclear is making a false statement in your reporting.

Eric Lipton NYT @ericlipton.nytimes.com · 7d

It is not clear that Mr. Trump’s image can be featured on a coin. An 1866 law enshrined a tradition that only deceased people could appear on U.S. currency to avoid the appearance that America was a monarchy. Trump admin is planning to do it anyway.
By Alan Rappeport

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...

Treasury Plans to Mint $1 Commemorative Trump Coin

www.nytimes.com

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Mattan S. Ben-Shachar 🎗️🇮🇱🇺🇦 @mattansb.msbstats.info · 8d

House, PhD -

A drama, about a brilliant arrogant medical statistician and his team of graduate students - every week receives a new case: collected clinical data. Their job: to 'diagnose' what the research question is.

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Reposted by Ben Schneider

Isabella Velásquez @ivelasq3.bsky.social · 8d

In June, I gave a webinar at @amstatnews.bsky.social GASP 2025, "Quarto--To Tell Your Story with Data"

and the recording is now online!

🕸️ #RStats & #Python materials: ivelasq-gasp2025-quarto.share.connect.posit.cloud
📹 Recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Yf...
🐙 GitHub: github.com/ivelasq/2025...

Quarto To Tell Your Story with Data GASP 2025

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 9d

Every few months now I re-read this "Who Goes Nazi?" piece from 1941 and am blown away by how it captures the people we are dealing with 80 years later.

harpers.org/archive/1941...

Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson

harpers.org

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Rebekah is Pro-Choice @rebekahwriter.bsky.social · 9d

Imagine saying that you’re mad at a dad for requesting sidewalks to keep his disabled son safe. Just…saying it. Out loud. To a reporter.

www.thebanner.com/community/lo...

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 10d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Natalie Alms @almsnatalie.bsky.social · 10d

NEW: At least 10 watchdog websites are dark after OMB withheld funds from a watchdog council, removing access to thousands of watchdog reports and required whistleblower links.

OMB's move to withhold funds - which has received Republican pushback - is separate from the shutdown.

Government watchdog websites go dark as OMB withholds funds from IG committee

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency is funded largely through a no-year revolving account, rather than the regular appropriations that lapsed Oct. 1.

www.nextgov.com

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 10d

Essentially, you might have categories “a”, “b”, “c” (unordered) or “low”, “medium”, “high” (ordered). For the former you would set ordered=FALSE, for the latter you might want to set ordered=TRUE, so that certain R functions know that your categorical variable is ordinal.

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 10d

Factors are meant to represent categorical variables, and ordinal categorical variables are a special case. Section 16.6 in the book “R for Data Science” explains the distinction between unordered and ordered factors:

r4ds.hadley.nz/factors.html...

16 Factors – R for Data Science (2e)

r4ds.hadley.nz

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The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 11d

Excited to introduce Vibes from Meta. Eat your slop, piggies!

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 11d

Yeah, exactly. That's the right tool for this.

The following R code:

library(dplyr)
library(forcats)

# Order the `species` levels by frequency
penguins2 <- penguins |>
mutate(
species = fct_infreq(factor(species))
)

# Check levels before reordering
penguins$species |> table()

# Check levels after reordering
penguins2$species |> table()

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Theresa Kim, PhD, MS @tyk314.net · 11d

Many of you have asked about gifts to us during a shutdown, mainly doordash types of things. No. Instead, donate to local food banks like Manna in MoCo, Capital Area Food Bank in DC, Find Food in PGC, and Food for Others in Fairfax. These serve everyone. Please repost. #fedstrong #shutdown

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Ben Schneider @bschneidr.bsky.social · 11d

Yep. It’s very common and reasonable in social surveys. For instance in NHANES or NHATS where sensitive detailed information is used in weighting but can’t be shared without greatly risking respondent confidentiality.

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