Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 6d

If you like yelling about misuse of the passive voice, THIS IS IT.

CNN @cnn.com · 7d

Adults and children alike were pulled from their Chicago apartments, crying and screaming, during a large overnight raid that has left tenants and neighbors shaken. https://cnn.it/4pPCXIt

37 people arrested and American kids separated from parents after ICE raid at Chicago apartments | CNN

Adults and children alike were pulled from their Chicago apartments, crying and screaming, during a large overnight raid that has left tenants and neighbors shaken.

www.cnn.com

65 2.3K 8.2K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 8d

Weird ggplot thing that got me this week with the update to 4.0 - it supports new ink and paper arguments (www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/09... ) and they've changed how transparency works! If you a transparent bg, you can control it with theme_*() now #rstats

library(ggplot2)

# Doesn't work anymore!
ggplot(data = mtcars, aes(x = hp, y = mpg)) +
geom_point() +
theme_minimal()
ggsave("not-transparent.png", bg = "transparent")

# This works!
ggplot(data = mtcars, aes(x = hp, y = mpg)) +
geom_point() +
theme_minimal(paper = "transparent")
ggsave("yes-transparent.png")

3 8 64

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

NPR @npr.org · 10d

Today marks the first day in public media’s history without federal funding. And we’re not going anywhere.

Listeners like you keep our mission alive. Protect one of the last places where America comes together to hear itself.

Stand with us today. Donate at this link: n.pr/46wamAj

690 9.7K 31K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 10d

The person who did all of these things was called a “tyrant…unfit to be the ruler of a free people” in 1776.

Yup.
Give it a read…

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 10d

Just gonna keep tapping the sign*

*𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

9 180 480

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 10d

Everything is so stupid.

5 10 93

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 10d

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 12d

⚠️ Chinese researchers have invented bone glue that mimics how oysters stick to surfaces underwater.

The adhesive can reportedly repair orthopedic fractures in 2-3 minutes, even in blood-rich environments, and is bioabsorbable.

interestingengineering.com/science/chin...

China's oyster-inspired 'bone glue' bonds fractures in minutes

A new oyster-inspired Bone-02 adhesive can revolutionize bone repair without metal fasteners.

interestingengineering.com

170 6.4K 17K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 11d

I have never seen such a blistering rebuke of a President by a federal judge. He is telling us clearly to stand up for our liberty against a dictator. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

130 2.8K 8.9K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Dave Vanness @djvanness.bsky.social · 11d

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 12d

30% drop year over year!

Amid visa restrictions, international freshmen enrollment plummets at UW-Madison

This year’s number of international freshmen is the lowest recorded since at least 2015.

www.jsonline.com

82 1.7K 5.9K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Kelly Bodwin @kellybodwin.com · 17d

Another week, another magical #rstats gift from Emil.
🥰

Emil Hvitfeldt @emilhvitfeldt.bsky.social · 17d

I'm exited to announce a new resource about making slides with quarto and revealjs. This book is the combination of all the work I have done in this area, reordered and polished up

There isn't a lot of new information yet, but this format allows me to add more easily

slidecrafting-book.com
#quarto

Screenshot of first page of slidecrafting-book.com website

2 11

Tyson Barrett @healthandstats.bsky.social · 21d

Love this show! And Hober.

1

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 21d

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion.

Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

740 4.8K 13K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Chris Warren @chrisvvarren.bsky.social · 22d

Trying to keep my professional chill but I’m SO excited Carnegie Mellon is launching a cluster hire in computational humanities—MULTIPLE JOBS!

1. Asst Teaching Track Prof in Computational Humanities - apply.interfolio.com/173622
2. Asst Tenure Track Prof in CH - apply.interfolio.com/173626

3 42 84

Tyson Barrett @healthandstats.bsky.social · 23d

I’m guessing those of us who know you and your work all figured that was the case 😅

1 2

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Sharon Machlis @smachlis.bsky.social · 24d

One of my favorite #PositConf things, from @hadley.nz : the Pac-Man inclusiveness "rule"
#PositConf2025

Alt text from ChatGPT: This is a photo of a presentation slide projected on a screen in front of an audience. The slide has a dark blue background and features a large yellow Pac-Man figure on the left. Text inside the "mouth" of Pac-Man reads: "LEAVE SOME SPACE HERE." On the right side of the slide, the heading says: "Remember the Pac-Man Rule" with "Pac-Man Rule" in yellow. Below it, white text reads: "Invite new people into your groups, make new friends, and build a community full of people who feel included."

8 23

Tyson Barrett @healthandstats.bsky.social · 24d

I will find you eventually

3

Tyson Barrett @healthandstats.bsky.social · 24d

Yay! Will be looking for you!

2

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Malcolm 朝精 Barrett @malcolmbarrett.malco.io · 26d

"It places you in a powerful state of extreme empathy — that our user’s code is our responsibility"

Emily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 26d

Really insightful post from Julie Tibshirani (spotted in LinkedIn, can't find on Bsky) reflecting on #rstats 's unique governance structure and what can be learned for other languages

jtibs.substack.com/p/if-all-the...

If all the world were a monorepo

The R ecosystem and the case for extreme empathy in software maintenance

jtibs.substack.com

1 6

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 28d

The new {marginaleffects} release for #RStats (0.30.0) comes with two new vignettes:

1. Speed up computation with automatic differentiation (often 10x gains) marginaleffects.com/bonus/perfor...

2. Power analyses with {marginaleffects} and {DeclareDesign}. marginaleffects.com/bonus/power....

37 Performance – Model to Meaning

marginaleffects.com

3 34 150

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · Sep 7

By request: Same #rshiny app → native #electron desktop app workflow now on #Windows11

shinyelectron::export() → #rshinylive → installer → app.exe

[Worth the Parallels license to record this from my Mac]

Still no #rstats dependencies for end users. Living the cross-platform life (virtually).

7 14 45

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · Sep 6

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

230 9.8K 12K

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · Sep 4

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪

From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

40 900 1.8K

Tyson Barrett @healthandstats.bsky.social · Sep 1

Love that your hex tat is nicely displayed with its other hex friends

1 4

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

David Keyes @dgkeyes.com · Aug 28

I gave the keynote at Cascadia R Conf 2025: “25 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do with R.”

R isn’t just for stats — it’s great for visualization, mapping, automation, and more.

Watch the talk + get all the resources here: buff.ly/6svaIME

Hope you learn something new!

#rstats

Twenty-Five Things You Didn't Know You Could Do with R

Explore 25 novel ways to utilize R, including pulling data from various sources, data visualization, mapping, using Quarto for reporting, automating tasks,.

rfortherestofus.com

2 8 38

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · Aug 25

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?

Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

Models as Prediction Machines: How to Convert Confusing Coefficients into Clear Quantities

Abstract
Psychological researchers usually make sense of regression models by interpreting coefficient estimates directly. This works well enough for simple linear models, but is more challenging for more complex models with, for example, categorical variables, interactions, non-linearities, and hierarchical structures. Here, we introduce an alternative approach to making sense of statistical models. The central idea is to abstract away from the mechanics of estimation, and to treat models as “counterfactual prediction machines,” which are subsequently queried to estimate quantities and conduct tests that matter substantively. This workflow is model-agnostic; it can be applied in a consistent fashion to draw causal or descriptive inference from a wide range of models. We illustrate how to implement this workflow with the marginaleffects package, which supports over 100 different classes of models in R and Python, and present two worked examples. These examples show how the workflow can be applied across designs (e.g., observational study, randomized experiment) to answer different research questions (e.g., associations, causal effects, effect heterogeneity) while facing various challenges (e.g., controlling for confounders in a flexible manner, modelling ordinal outcomes, and interpreting non-linear models).

Figure illustrating model predictions. On the X-axis the predictor, annual gross income in Euro. On the Y-axis the outcome, predicted life satisfaction. A solid line marks the curve of predictions on which individual data points are marked as model-implied outcomes at incomes of interest. Comparing two such predictions gives us a comparison. We can also fit a tangent to the line of predictions, which illustrates the slope at any given point of the curve.

A figure illustrating various ways to include age as a predictor in a model. On the x-axis age (predictor), on the y-axis the outcome (model-implied importance of friends, including confidence intervals).

Illustrated are
1. age as a categorical predictor, resultings in the predictions bouncing around a lot with wide confidence intervals
2. age as a linear predictor, which forces a straight line through the data points that has a very tight confidence band and
3. age splines, which lies somewhere in between as it smoothly follows the data but has more uncertainty than the straight line.

48 280 940

Reposted by Tyson Barrett

Will Saletan @saletan.bsky.social · Aug 22

For those of you who like a bit of socialism with your nationalism. truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...

39 82 350