Grant McDermott
@gmcd.bsky.social
Economics and data science | Former academic now working in the tech sector | Views my own | 🇿🇦 in 🇺🇸 | https://grantmcdermott.com/
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Grant McDermott
@gmcd.bsky.social
· Aug 23
A few months ago, I gave a workshop on “(Pretty) big data wrangling with DuckDB and Polars”.
Slides, notebooks etc. are all available here: grantmcdermott.com/duckdb-polars/
#EconSky
Slides, notebooks etc. are all available here: grantmcdermott.com/duckdb-polars/
#EconSky
Me, reading LinkedIn posts.
January 14, 2026 at 4:07 PM
Me, reading LinkedIn posts.
I see a lot of econ/socsci Bluesky asking for AI starter advice. IMO the highest impact, low cost tweak to your workflow is training an AI to follow *your* coding/writing prefs & habits.
Literally, tell Claude: "Look at <XYZ dirs>. ID common themes, styles & conventions. Write them to a .md file."
Literally, tell Claude: "Look at <XYZ dirs>. ID common themes, styles & conventions. Write them to a .md file."
January 12, 2026 at 9:14 PM
I see a lot of econ/socsci Bluesky asking for AI starter advice. IMO the highest impact, low cost tweak to your workflow is training an AI to follow *your* coding/writing prefs & habits.
Literally, tell Claude: "Look at <XYZ dirs>. ID common themes, styles & conventions. Write them to a .md file."
Literally, tell Claude: "Look at <XYZ dirs>. ID common themes, styles & conventions. Write them to a .md file."
Same for many African nations (and everywhere else, which is Juan's point of course). There is no exceptionalism to be had here.
January 7, 2026 at 10:24 PM
Same for many African nations (and everywhere else, which is Juan's point of course). There is no exceptionalism to be had here.
Moment 89 for me 🥹
An all-round, joyous and encompassing celebration of this game we love.
An all-round, joyous and encompassing celebration of this game we love.
2025. An incredible year for rugby union. We count down every moment that made it special, silly, strange and so much more in our definitive celebration of the 288 Greatest Rugby Moments of 2025...
youtu.be/7hVloJg_FsE?...
youtu.be/7hVloJg_FsE?...
The 288 Greatest Rugby Moments of 2025
YouTube video by Squidge Rugby
youtu.be
December 24, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Moment 89 for me 🥹
An all-round, joyous and encompassing celebration of this game we love.
An all-round, joyous and encompassing celebration of this game we love.
Reposted by Grant McDermott
`maketables` now has plug-in tooling - this means you can support maketables with your library without changing the maketables code base. This will hopefully be pretty useful for package developers, but also researchers developing their own estimators / in their own codebase.
December 20, 2025 at 2:01 PM
`maketables` now has plug-in tooling - this means you can support maketables with your library without changing the maketables code base. This will hopefully be pretty useful for package developers, but also researchers developing their own estimators / in their own codebase.
Reposted by Grant McDermott
🎉 Great news for #rstats users! If you love the native R graphics feel of #tinyplot AND you're a fan of the powerful #easystats #modelbased package, this is for you!
Thanks to @gmcd.bsky.social, we significantly enhanced the tinyplot integration.
🔗 Read more: easystats.github.io/modelbased/a...
Thanks to @gmcd.bsky.social, we significantly enhanced the tinyplot integration.
🔗 Read more: easystats.github.io/modelbased/a...
Plotting estimated marginal means with tinyplot
easystats.github.io
December 12, 2025 at 7:22 AM
🎉 Great news for #rstats users! If you love the native R graphics feel of #tinyplot AND you're a fan of the powerful #easystats #modelbased package, this is for you!
Thanks to @gmcd.bsky.social, we significantly enhanced the tinyplot integration.
🔗 Read more: easystats.github.io/modelbased/a...
Thanks to @gmcd.bsky.social, we significantly enhanced the tinyplot integration.
🔗 Read more: easystats.github.io/modelbased/a...
If you see this, repost with your model of positive masculinity.
December 6, 2025 at 10:02 PM
If you see this, repost with your model of positive masculinity.
#rstats Any sparklyr / Kubernetes experts able to help me with this issue? github.com/sparklyr/spa... 🙏
December 5, 2025 at 4:10 PM
#rstats Any sparklyr / Kubernetes experts able to help me with this issue? github.com/sparklyr/spa... 🙏
Reposted by Grant McDermott
Please enjoy this blog post based on my colleague Kyle Jensen's talk surveying different approaches to AI coding abilities
paulgp.com/ai-coding/20...
paulgp.com/ai-coding/20...
December 2, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Please enjoy this blog post based on my colleague Kyle Jensen's talk surveying different approaches to AI coding abilities
paulgp.com/ai-coding/20...
paulgp.com/ai-coding/20...
Hearts on the vine?
November 29, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Hearts on the vine?
Happy `tinyplot` v0.6.0 (codename "Thanksgiving") release day to all those that celebrate. Some new features, but mostly bug fixes and internal improvements.
grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/NEW...
#rstats
grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/NEW...
#rstats
November 27, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Happy `tinyplot` v0.6.0 (codename "Thanksgiving") release day to all those that celebrate. Some new features, but mostly bug fixes and internal improvements.
grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/NEW...
#rstats
grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/NEW...
#rstats
Extraordinary. Doris MoM by miles for me.
November 22, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Extraordinary. Doris MoM by miles for me.
What is the Irish word incredible courage combined with extreme stupidity.
November 22, 2025 at 6:40 PM
What is the Irish word incredible courage combined with extreme stupidity.
First 20 min of this game almost as intense as @kjhealy.co's posit::conf keynote.
November 22, 2025 at 6:09 PM
First 20 min of this game almost as intense as @kjhealy.co's posit::conf keynote.
"Great news, I booked a weekend away."
<Zen master: we'll see>
"Bad news. We have to miss Springboks v France."
<ZM: we'll see>
"Good news. The Boks get a first half red card, so we miss that at least."
<ZM: we'll see>
"So, about the actual result..."
<Zen master: we'll see>
"Bad news. We have to miss Springboks v France."
<ZM: we'll see>
"Good news. The Boks get a first half red card, so we miss that at least."
<ZM: we'll see>
"So, about the actual result..."
Zen master vibes as my farsighted wife booked family travel weeks ago, causing me to miss the second half. #FRAvRSA
November 9, 2025 at 1:50 AM
"Great news, I booked a weekend away."
<Zen master: we'll see>
"Bad news. We have to miss Springboks v France."
<ZM: we'll see>
"Good news. The Boks get a first half red card, so we miss that at least."
<ZM: we'll see>
"So, about the actual result..."
<Zen master: we'll see>
"Bad news. We have to miss Springboks v France."
<ZM: we'll see>
"Good news. The Boks get a first half red card, so we miss that at least."
<ZM: we'll see>
"So, about the actual result..."
The non rugby mind cannot comprehend these two images.
November 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The non rugby mind cannot comprehend these two images.
Reposted by Grant McDermott
🎨 How to create elegant #dataviz with base #rstats and the #tinyplot pkg
📈 useR! 2025 presentation by Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOB-...
📈 useR! 2025 presentation by Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOB-...
tinyplot: convenient and customizable base R plots - Grant McDermott
YouTube video by useR! Conference
www.youtube.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:38 AM
🎨 How to create elegant #dataviz with base #rstats and the #tinyplot pkg
📈 useR! 2025 presentation by Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOB-...
📈 useR! 2025 presentation by Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOB-...
Beyond dispute IMO.
And it's funny to see people twist themselves into knots trying to argue otherwise--including far too many of my fellow 🇿🇦 countrymen--for precisely the reason that Squidge points out: we all instinctively *feel* that they are the greatest.
And it's funny to see people twist themselves into knots trying to argue otherwise--including far too many of my fellow 🇿🇦 countrymen--for precisely the reason that Squidge points out: we all instinctively *feel* that they are the greatest.
Ten years ago today, Richie McCaw lifted the Webb Ellis Cup for the second time and, in the process, crowned the 2015 All Blacks as possibly the greatest team of all time. We dig into how Steve Hansen's side changed the game, and shaped everything that has happened since...
youtu.be/xQSi1tXJYdc?...
youtu.be/xQSi1tXJYdc?...
So were the 2015 All Blacks the Greatest Team of All Time?
YouTube video by Squidge Rugby
youtu.be
October 31, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Beyond dispute IMO.
And it's funny to see people twist themselves into knots trying to argue otherwise--including far too many of my fellow 🇿🇦 countrymen--for precisely the reason that Squidge points out: we all instinctively *feel* that they are the greatest.
And it's funny to see people twist themselves into knots trying to argue otherwise--including far too many of my fellow 🇿🇦 countrymen--for precisely the reason that Squidge points out: we all instinctively *feel* that they are the greatest.
Nice. Looks like my `tinyplot` talk from userR! 2025 is up on YouTube. youtu.be/MOB-QS-vMeY?...
#rstats
#rstats
tinyplot: convenient and customizable base R plots - Grant McDermott
YouTube video by useR! Conference
youtu.be
October 30, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Nice. Looks like my `tinyplot` talk from userR! 2025 is up on YouTube. youtu.be/MOB-QS-vMeY?...
#rstats
#rstats
Old ground, but I still cannot believe how poorly 🐍 plays with other languages. Okay, we're going to force you to do everything in a venv (b/c otherwise we break everything...) But that venv is going to auto instantiate and override any system level env vars or processes that you've set ☠️
September 30, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Old ground, but I still cannot believe how poorly 🐍 plays with other languages. Okay, we're going to force you to do everything in a venv (b/c otherwise we break everything...) But that venv is going to auto instantiate and override any system level env vars or processes that you've set ☠️
Successfully nerdsniped myself into writing a little script for this. gist.github.com/grantmcdermo...
(Longer than it probably needs to be bc of annoying Wiki table formatting, but I'm too lazy to find another source.)
(Longer than it probably needs to be bc of annoying Wiki table formatting, but I'm too lazy to find another source.)
September 30, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Successfully nerdsniped myself into writing a little script for this. gist.github.com/grantmcdermo...
(Longer than it probably needs to be bc of annoying Wiki table formatting, but I'm too lazy to find another source.)
(Longer than it probably needs to be bc of annoying Wiki table formatting, but I'm too lazy to find another source.)
No. (Carry on.)
September 28, 2025 at 9:30 PM
No. (Carry on.)