At next week's RSS conference I'll be presenting a poster (a first for me...it's about time!) "Tetraplot displays of UK General Election results" shows how to graph GE 2024 vote shares across 4 parties in a useful way. Full PDF poster at: github.com/DavidFirth/t...

Poster, and #rstats package for drawing tetraplots, are at github.com/DavidFirth/t...

Following the dismissal of Erika McEntarfer as US Commissioner of Labor Statistics, we've released a statement of concern. At a time of global economic uncertainty, we stress the importance of the independence of statistical institutions and the protection of the integrity of official statistics.

Last book I read was the eminently enjoyable "Three Shades of Blue" by James Kaplan. Been years since I read a Miles biography sonice to get back to all this--with superb related context about all this jazz. And #chicago folks: This Friday Fitzgeralds in Forest Park has a 'Kind of Blue' tribute.

Lalo Schifrin (June 21, 1932 – June 26, 2025)

I am very happy to share our new paper "Consistent and Scalable Composite Likelihood Estimation of Probit Models with Crossed Random Effects" with Ruggero Bellio, Swarnadip Ghosh and Art Owen. Thrilled that the paper will be published in the prestigious Biometrika academic.oup.com/biomet/artic...

"Il nostro paese, negli ultimi anni, ha fatto grandi passi avanti, peccato che tutti gli altri vanno in macchina."

Ah, muoiono più donne? Ma dai!

Ever wondered why some charts are more effective and engaging than others? I’ll be going through all the theory, evidence and principles behind compelling data storytelling from this Wednesday. Free to watch for anyone who is interested: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-fundam...

On this date. Richard Feynman born 1918 in New York. “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

One of my favourite #ggplot tricks is wrapping long axis labels so they don't take up so much space on your chart Image 1 - Without wrapping Image 2 - With wrapping Image 3 - Code #rstats

Miles Davis, backstage at Shrine Auditorium, 1950

lol who did this

Libertà!

#rstats folks: If you have a habit of updating your library after an R upgrade by copying the old one and run update.packages(). --> DON'T DO THAT <-- Especially not with 4.5.0. You will overwrite base packages with ones from a previous version and as these are not on CRAN, things go bad.

The Economist is into counting remaining days too:

Great to hear that 𝘿𝙖𝙩𝙖 𝙎𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙎𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 has been accepted into Scopus!! An excellent new journal, worth checking out! @tandfresearch.bsky.social @amstatnews.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/journals/uds...

The consummate bassist Paul Chambers was born 90 years ago on this day April 22, 1935. In the late-1950s Mr. P.C. made 3 excellent Blue Note leader dates including "Bass On Top" featuring Hank Jones, Kenny Burrell & Art Taylor. Listen & get the Tone Poet Vinyl Edition bluenote.lnk.to/PaulChambers...

How I wish I could go back in time to listen to you play live!

Earlier this year, our climate change task force published a guide to official UK climate stats Here, task force member Paul Allin writes for @rmets.org ts.org on what to expect from the guide—and why reliable and relevant data is key to tackling climate change @andygarrett.bsky.social

Journalists quite often get emails written in exactly this style, often sent to scores of recipients on multiple publications, and the sadly reliable assumption is that the irate sender is miserable, paranoid and probably unwell.

Bella puntata di Presa Diretta. Tra le altre cose si parla anche di paradisi fiscali. Vorrei ricordare che non esiste l’espressione paradisi fiscali se non in italiano, perché è un errore di traduzione. Heaven/Haven (hevn, heivn) sono due parole diverse: paradiso e rifugio.

Quite wonderful find by this FT team. A Chinese small business that makes MAGA merch on.ft.com/4cAH6tE

NEW 🧵 The number of people travelling from Europe to the US in recent weeks has plummeted by as much as 35%, as travellers have cancelled plans in response to Trump’s policies and rhetoric, and horror stories from the border. Story: www.ft.com/content/6dc1...

Another great statistics event at Ca' Foscari! On 28 April, Alan Agresti will talk about the evolution of statistics in textbooks, from pioneering contributions of Fisher and Neyman to the era of data science. The seminar will take place in the magnificent Ca’ Foscari’s 15th-century Gothic palace.

Exciting news! In June we will host a course on GAMs with R taught by Simon Wood, the author of mgcv! This is a great opportunity to learn about flexible statistical modelling! All info at www.unive.it/gamswithr

Not satisfied with purchasing a Presidential Election to become co-President, Sissy SpaceX now wants to buy himself a Supreme Court judge in Wisconsin. You can end his shopping spree, Wisconsinites! 🚫 💰 #VoteForJudgeSusanCrawford 🗳️ ✅ 👍 This is super important.

Today, 340th birthday of JS Bach "Anybody can play weird, that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple - awesomely simple - that’s creativity." Charles Mingus (1977)