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Data Elixir

@dataelixir.com

660 followers 830 following 67 posts

Data Elixir is a weekly newsletter with curated data science picks from around the web. Subscribe at dataelixir.com and follow us here for selections between issues. Covering machine learning, data visualization, analytics, and strategy.

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Reposted by Data Elixir

Crystal Lewis @cghlewis.bsky.social · 1d

Data dictionary template: osf.io/ynqcu
Project summary template: osf.io/q6g8d
Dataset level README template: osf.io/tk4cb

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 20h

"Silicon samples" - using LLMs to generate fake survey responses instead of recruiting humans. Sounds efficient until you realize small model tweaks completely flip your results. Shortcuts in research usually aren't.

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention

Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research.…

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 1d

Your ggplot2 charts work fine, but are they memorable? Real color engineering: brightness first (strongest differentiator), then hue, finally saturation. Most people get this backwards and wonder why their viz falls flat. www.chartography.net/p/color-engi...

Color Engineering

The tool that snaps mercurial design into mechanical focus.

www.chartography.net

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

bsky.app/profile/libb...

Libby Heeren @libbyheeren.bsky.social · 16d

Tell me something you do when you code that other people would tell you that you shouldn't do.

Tell me the rules you break!

I'll go first: I work in untitled files in the wrong project directories all the time. Like, all the time. Yes, I do tend to lose things 😂 #databs #rstats #python

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

nrennie.rbind.io/talks/wombat...

Designing for decision-making: How to build effective data visualisations – Nicola Rennie

In this talk, I’ll showcase why you should visualise data, present some guidelines for making more effective charts, before discussing examples of good and not so good charts.

nrennie.rbind.io

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

benharrap.com/post/2025-09...

Joining strings with missing data together in R – Ben Harrap

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

www.quantamagazine.org/to-understan...

To Understand AI, Watch How It Evolves | Quanta Magazine

Naomi Saphra thinks that most research into language models focuses too much on the finished product. She’s mining the history of their training for insights into why these systems work the way they d...

www.quantamagazine.org

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

overreacted.io/open-social/

Open Social — overreacted

The protocol is the API.

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

blog.djnavarro.net/posts/2025-0...

Some notes on survey weights – Notes from a data witch

An area of statistics in which the author is not strong, and really needs to up her game

blog.djnavarro.net

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 9d

Tuesday Picks!...

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-...

How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner - annie's blog

“Hello! I am a developer. Here is my relevant experience: I code in Hoobijag and sometimes jabbernocks and of course ABCDE++++ (but never ABCDE+/^+ are you kidding? ha!)  and I like working with ...

anniemueller.com

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

www.chartography.net/p/clarity-un...

Clarity Unbound

Restoring Radiance to Information Design

www.chartography.net

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

github.com/AzulGarza/Ti...

GitHub - AzulGarza/timecopilot: TimeCopilot: the GenAI Forecasting Agent. Built on LLMs and Time Series Foundation Models, it lets you forecast, cross-validate, and detect anomalies using multiple fou...

TimeCopilot: the GenAI Forecasting Agent. Built on LLMs and Time Series Foundation Models, it lets you forecast, cross-validate, and detect anomalies using multiple foundation models through a sing...

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

sedona.apache.org/latest/blog/...

Introducing SedonaDB: A single-node analytical database engine with geospatial as a first-class citizen - Apache Sedona

Apache Sedona is a cluster computing system for processing large-scale spatial data. Sedona extends existing cluster computing systems, such as Apache Spark, Apache Flink, and Snowflake, with a set of...

sedona.apache.org

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-of-...

The Math of Climate Change Tipping Points | Quanta Magazine

Tipping points in our climate predictions are both wildly dramatic and wildly uncertain. Can mathematicians make them useful?

www.quantamagazine.org

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

slidecrafting-book.com

Making beautiful slides with reveal.js and Quarto

slidecrafting-book.com

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · 14d

We're going to get back into sharing useful posts for the week. Here's this week's shortlist...

Reposted by Data Elixir

Emily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · Jul 27

Technical writing is hard bcs "writing is thinking" but we often should tell our story not in the order we worked. Solution? I wrote a quick post on how @quarto.org 's embed shortcodes can reframe technical writing as reproducible evidence curation

www.emilyriederer.com/post/quarto-...

🧵 (1/n)

How Quarto embed fixes data science storytelling | Emily Riederer

Literate programming excels at capturing our stream of conscience. Our stream of conscience does not excel at explaining the impact of our work. Notebooks enable some of data scientists’ worst tendenc...

www.emilyriederer.com

Reposted by Data Elixir

Max kuhn @topepo.bsky.social · Jul 25

We've released 4 new chapters of Applied Machine Learning for Tabular Data.

Includes: Bayesian optimization, feature selection, model comparisons, classification metrics, calibration, #rstats computing sections, and more

blog.aml4td.org/posts/2025-0...

Part 3 is Finished, Part 4 Started – Applied Predictive Modeling Blog

blog.aml4td.org

Reposted by Data Elixir

Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 @davidimiller.bsky.social · May 5

🧪 If you had your NSF grant terminated, I'd *highly* recommend going to this Friday's webinar.

Friday May 9 at 2-3 pm ET

Will talk about both the appeals process, in addition to allowable closeout costs. Share widely.

Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Webinar on Responding to NSF Grant Terminations

Join the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) on Friday, May 9th, at 2:00 PM ET for an informative webinar on responding to NSF grant terminations. We will discuss the rules, procedures and available options for grantees who have had their grant terminated.

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · May 2

A huge barrier to learning RL has always been the technical setup. This new browser-based RL Playground removes all the friction. You can experiment with Q-Learning, SARSA, and more with just a few clicks. Open source too if you want to tinker.

awjuliani.medium.com/the-beginner...

The Beginner’s RL Playground: A Simple Interactive Website for Grokking Reinforcement Learning

Almost a decade ago, I spent a year writing a series of articles teaching the basics of Reinforcement Learning (RL). What was exciting to…

awjuliani.medium.com

Data Elixir @dataelixir.com · Apr 15

The 2025 AI Index shows a field leveling up fast: small models now rival giants, costs are plummeting, and China is closing the performance gap. AI use in business & healthcare is exploding, but so are harms. Here's a data-packed snapshot of the current state of AI:

hai.stanford.edu/news/ai-inde...

AI Index 2025: State of AI in 10 Charts | Stanford HAI

Small models get better, regulation moves to the states, and more.

hai.stanford.edu

Reposted by Data Elixir

Rafa Cereceda @rafacereceda.bsky.social · Apr 15

Ladies, gentlemen, this outstanding piece of #climate information is out.

Welcome to the European State of the Climate 2024 #ESOTC2024

Explore it, bookmark it, come back to it and then come back again, because there’s more in it than you can imagine.

climate.copernicus.eu/esotc/2024

Reposted by Data Elixir

John Kutay @jkxosound.com · Mar 19

This was actually my longest podcast ever at over 70 minutes. Not sure I could have made it any shorter because nerding out on databases with Andy Pavlo was too fun.

John Kutay @jkxosound.com · Mar 18

Was super fun chatting with @andypavlo.bsky.social
to kick off the new season of What's New in Data. We dive into vector databases, text to sql, trends in data infrastructure, and Andy's awesome (and open) database course.

youtube.com/shorts/tjLmx...

Andy Pavlo on Vector Databases

YouTube video by Striim

Reposted by Data Elixir

Sarah Lotspeich @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social · Mar 14

🆕 I'm excited to share our recently completed work on "Overcoming data challenges to measure whole-person health in electronic health records," for which Joe Rigdon and I received one of the first intercampus collaborative grants from Wake Forest University and Wake Forest School of Medicine.