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Randy Au

@randyau.com

6.6K followers 4.4K following 5.5K posts

Hobby consultant, 💎🪚🎮🖥️🎙️🎹🎧👨‍🍳📷🪛➕ Quant UX Researcher @ GCP (posts are my own) Writes a data newsletter: https://www.counting-stuff.com/ https://linktr.ee/randy_au Languages: EN/JP/CN

www.counting-stuff.com

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Randy Au @randyau.com · Oct 30

So on here I talk about hobbies and crack snarky data jokes. But once a week I also write a very long form data science newsletter. at www.counting-stuff.com
#DataBS

Here's a thread of old posts that people liked [ugh no thread writing interface] (1/n)

Counting Stuff

A weekly newsletter about the important, mundane, parts of being a data scientist, UX researcher. With some extra fun about tech and hobbies.

www.counting-stuff.com

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Reposted by Randy Au

Crystal Lewis @cghlewis.bsky.social · 1d

I am so grateful for everyone who has subscribed (500 of you), liked, shared, promoted, and bought me coffee in support of RDM Weekly! Just knowing that people are reading is a huge win. I have really enjoyed putting this newsletter together over the last 3 months and look forward to continuing it!

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 1h

Update, I had to leave for about an hour. The cat -has- -not- -moved-

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2h

The cat has discovered that we sleep with electric blankets. It is not about to leave unless it's for food

A white/brown cat sitting on a grey fleece blanket, the blanket has a black button with an led light on indicating it is heating

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1h

nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2h

The cat has discovered that we sleep with electric blankets. It is not about to leave unless it's for food

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 19h

SOMEWHERE in this house I packed our heating pad and I CAN'T FIND IT T___T we have electric blankets but for working at the desk a pad is nicer

Randy Au @randyau.com · 21h

it's getting chilly in NY.... enough that i dragged out my fingerless gloves and hand sewed back the seam that blew out between two fingers

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

I want to make a pot of tea but I'm legally barred from doing so

Picture of a cat sleeping on a person's lap its head resting on the person's arm

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

I wish I knew. maybe it's from the beast wars timeline!

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

lol, I was toying with gemini to explain a bunch of LLM transformer background knowledge to me since it's way out of my self study depth and for no good reason at all it pulls a diagram of a literal electronics transformer at the end

screenshot showing a large image showing of an electronics transformer works including two wire loops, transformer core, AC power on a primary circuit and lightbulb on the primary circuit, with variables for power and voltage turns, cretited to getty images. Immediately above in text are mathematical formulae and a discussion of the billions of parameters in an LLM transformer model

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

Next time the mailman delivers the wrong mail to your address I want you to deliver it this way

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

Yeah but the exec rescheduled the last minute

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

🤣 this post could've been a meeting!!!

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

Man, one thing is clear, there are a lot more UX designer roles out there than research ones

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

All I do is count! 🤣🤣🤣
Oh, I also make trouble.

Randy Au @randyau.com · 1d

....... afk to fire up the sous vide to make some

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

I'd never choose to be caught up in a layoff, but compared to the other 3 times it's happened to me, we have a CAT this time and this warm little goofball seriously helps

head of a white cat with light brown patches of fur peek out from within a burgundy colored thick blanket. the cat is sleeping peacefully

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

There was a period during the Obama era where relations were improving and a lot of programs sprung up . But since then China has increasingly been portrayed as an adversary and that probably has influenced enrollment. foreign languages in general has been seeing less enrollment tho

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

ok,.... ONE DAY, not today, not until I get a solid job again, I'm gonna get a 6k grit finishing stone

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

hrm... while i'm irrationally stress shopping. I could really use a proper water sharpening stone.. I've been using a set of DMT diamond plates for the past decade but it'd be nice to have a proper set of stones to really finish things to 5k or 8k grit

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

as someone who knows people in the US who teach chinese at schools professionally, enrollment is declining but not completely dead, yet

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

ok for completely irrational, probably stress related actions, I might've impulse bought 1 cute olfa hobby knife... and then mayybe just impuse bought a second one in a different style... and a bunch of blades... and i'll probably use it to do something silly like paper cutting

Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

This week on Counting Stuff, a 'problem that I worry about' -> how do I know when I'm making stuff "Easier" that I haven't gone too far and just pushed friction out to some other system that will bite me in the ass later #dataBS Also still job hunting!

www.counting-stuff.com/in-ux-we-kee...

In UX we keep getting asked to bring a frictionless future... to nowhere

Thanks to the many people who have reached out with leads on available senior-y leveled data/ux positions or just connections to other humans! I'm working through things and starting to reach out to f...

www.counting-stuff.com

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Reposted by Randy Au

Crystal Lewis @cghlewis.bsky.social · 3d

Issue 16 of RDM Weekly is out! 📬

It includes:
- Data is Not Available Upon Request @ianhussey.mmmdata.io
- AI Generated Participants in Social Science @jamiecummins.bsky.social @science.org
- Why’s it Hard to Teach Data Cleaning? @randyau.com
and more!

rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...

RDM Weekly - Issue 016

A weekly roundup of Research Data Management resources.

rdmweekly.substack.com

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 2d

<_< someone rang the doorbell and since i'm not expecting anyone I carefully peak out a side window and... GASP.. it's frickin' renewal by andersen coming to try to fleece me over their shitty windows.

Randy Au @randyau.com · 3d

Packing the kid's lunch this morning and my Neurospicy brain is like "Stop everything! The milk box top is not square and it looks deliberate!!!"

And .. it was

Hand holding a Costco milk box up showing how the top with the plastic spout is slanted maybe 10 degrees