(talking to myself too) Going over time while giving a talk/presentation is rude. Few of us have so many important things to talk about. 15 minutes mean 15 minutes.

Iran fired 1200+ projectiles at 5 countries in the first 48 hours. Most were drones. These saturation attacks aim to overwhelm air defenses and drain interceptors. $20-50K Shaheds vs. $4.19M air defense interceptors put US partners on the wrong side of the cost curve.

Yoon is sentenced to life imprisonment. While the sentence itself is not much surprising, Judge Ji (whose political neutrality has been in question all along) pointed only to the deployment of troops to the National Assembly, not really highlighting all other aspects of the failed insurrection. 1/2

Some of the 🥘 I made in the past week.

Assigning this gem by @mcopelov.bsky.social & @tompepinsky.com to my grad class. Sold on the title alone. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington Post says one-third of its staff across all departments, not just the newsroom, is being laid off.

Cooked almost all lunches and dinners in the past 6 days. Exhausted the repertoire now.

In many (not sure if most) cases of democratization, the major opposition party joins the resistance very late in the process. Just an empirical statement.

When it seems like something happened and yet the post has been deleted:

In sentencing former Prime Minister Han to 23 years, a South Korean court clearly defined Yoon’s actions as an *insurrection*. There is now no need to refer to it euphemistically as ‘the martial law case,’ if you ever wondered.

What to know as a national security trial for former organizers of Hong Kong's Tiananmen Square vigil opens Thursday.

We are so not okay.

The first of these has been rolled out. For obstructing arrest, Yoon is sentenced to five years, which is half of what the SP asked for. Word on the ground is that it is too lenient given that he has shown no repentance at all. First of many, anyway. I probably need to keep track of this. #SKorea

Special prosecutors demand a death sentence for Yoon on insurrection charges. Under Korean law, insurrection entails either the death penalty or life imprisonment. It seems that his consistent refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing led to the former.

Comment sections of news posts in FB are bad. So bad that your confidence in humanity is challenged.

I guess StackOverflow is done.

Things I remain shocked by: -People in industries like journalism and education that are going to be turned upside down by AI who barely use or understand it -People in those industries (often the same ones) who still feel comfortable making sweeping claims about AI's capabilities and limitations

Anybody interested in S. Korean politics or policy might have already been watching this -- the Korean government is currently hosting the National Policy Report Conference. Almost all government branches, government-sponsored projects, institutes, and public firms are subject to it. 1/3

Seems bad www.cnbc.com/2025/12/17/m...

What a week it has been. No, really.

14. Far too much literature is unnecessarily abstract, difficult, and defensive. There is, of course, a massive alternative literature, "critical" and "interpretive", which can be a good antidote. But it often also has a lot of jargon or is too fundamentalist in its anti-positivist position.

My latest on the AI bubble in finance: 6 charts that tell the story in ways that are hard to put into words. 1. U.S. data-center build-out. Notice the explosion in 2025. That's the permitting gold rush happening now. Would be shocking if 1 in 20 of these get built, but they factor into projections.

so inflation really does matter.

What is the opposite of doom-scrolling? As in, 'scrolling with hope.' Joy-scrolling?

Politicians should probably get on Bluesky to get better in touch with the American electorate.

Look at the distribution of z-values from medical research!

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Absolutely nowhere near my primary research area, but I somehow stumbled upon the project (w/ Dae Young Kim). It was a tough learning experience, but I am glad to see it's out in a reputable place now.

This has proven to be a hard message to deliver in classroom. Starting with the data of Nordic countries didn't really help either.

I am pleasantly surprised to learn that a lot of people still care about baseball.

‘I know, right?’ to all the remarks here.

It's a very niche one, but NYT's The Daily today on WH demolition had a strong Chosunilbo energy.

Nothing drastically new here. But at least now I have famous people to cite when I want to use 'sudden stop' on Chinese lending to less developed countries.

Want to follow along a close read of this? Thread. www.wsj.com/opinion/jens...

For a second, I was like: 'sure, post-doc really is a crime.' 😅 . . . It's a NBER postdoc opportunity if you're interested: www.nber.org/calls-papers...

Journals should accept HTML files. #Quarto #Rstats

Watched the Martian again, now with my teenager. It was devastating to be reminded for two hours straight that a) science and humanity are beautiful and b) we are now killing both.

The new ggplot2 4.0.0 is here! 🎉 This major update includes a foundational rewrite of S7 and user benefits such as smarter labeling and a revamped theming system. Check the details: www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/09... BONUS: Join the release party on Oct 3, 3pm ET. bit.ly/join-gg-extenders #RStats

Every morning, checking some news video clips. But PARTICULARLY this morning.

Every once in awhile, I run into these people who cannot accept an Asian as an authority figure and bring out ‘let me talk to your manager’ card. A perennial life challenge, I guess.

One example would be emails. I noticed an uptick of unnecessarily long emails in the past 2 yrs or so. Perfect grammar and no typo but could be rewritten into just a couple sentences.

NEW: Hours before a new entry ban is supposed to go into effect, the federal government officially acknowledges for the first time that the restrictions do NOT apply to people who currently have H-1B visas. Link: www.uscis.gov/sites/defaul...

Whoa—my book is up for pre-order! 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭 & 𝐌𝐋 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 #Rstats 𝐚𝐧𝐝 #PyData The book presents an ultra-simple and powerful workflow to make sense of ± any model you fit The web version will stay free forever and my proceeds go to charity. tinyurl.com/4fk56fc8

Call it a stretch, but I think this is a case for APSA/ISA in Detroit/St. Louis/Indianapolis :)

I am dumbfounded that some people believe we are capable of indoctrinating young minds. Much of our job involves getting students to care about course readings and talking them out of using LLMs. Sometimes we even have to fight to get them to come to class. Maybe I am not doing this job right.

When reading int'l news/explainers, it is important to consider that 'area specialists' offering them, particularly those from the region, tend to have a privileged background. So the narrative is not always 'neutral,' although they're portrayed as underprivileged in a Western society.

Skipping #APSA2025 for a multitude of reasons. But hope those going have tremendous fun in Vancouver!

At long last, I can post my team's summer project: applied modules to teach how ML/AI tools are changing social science and humanities research: ubcecon.github.io/praxis-ubc/ Highlights: LegalBERT to analyze anti/pro-immigrant sentiment in 19th c. BC law: ubcecon.github.io/praxis-ubc/d... 🧵1