Dear potential contributors to ANY software. Please do not just open PRs entirely generated by an AI thingy. Clean them. I just had a pretty good feature PR opened to my main repository, adding support for RTL languages (Arabic, Hebrew, etc). BUT, it’s impossible to review on a volunteer basis:

This is amazing

How doing Computational Social Science with R sometimes feels

Can AI-generated images work as visual vignettes in survey experiments? I argue yes - and discuss how . in my new @sscratsage.bsky.social paper: doi.org/10.1177/0894...

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ Shutdown on Capitol Hill — what remains of the lawmaking ability of U.S. Congress amidst one of its most dire political crises in over two hundred years? www.hendrik-erz.de/post/shutdow...

This is what you get if all you want are citation counts, and a magic box appears that does exactly that. I fully understand this decision. Write your papers yourself, goddamnit!

Of course, it’s France.

As an analytical sociologist, this is my secret guilty pleasure

Something seems to be shifting. Not at all a sign of relief yet, but maybe signs of small pieces of backbone slowly migrating back to Capitol Hill.

Tom Moran: Why Democrats will not yield to Trump on the shutdown - NJ.com #health#trump administration#donald trump#trump

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ I finished my PhD, which means that now I can again do completely nerdy stuff with zero bearing on my actual work. Today's menu: Monads! www.hendrik-erz.de/post/i-think...

Dream: Update CV real quick Reality: 20min updating, 4 hours fixing random errors on GitHub Actions.

This is why we have anti-corruption rules, transparency, and more generally checks and balances. Every day a new atrocity. I sincerely believe that U.S. democracy may not survive a full year under this administration.

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ It is time! After almost exactly five years, I have finished my PhD education. I am now "Dr. Hendrik Erz." Time for some initial, first reflection on the journey. And a big thanks to all who joined me along the way. www.hendrik-erz.de/post/phdone

I’m in the news! My university has produced an excellent write up of my thesis! liu.se/en/news-item...

Come around, it’s going to be a great talk!

In the past 24 hours I’ve received so many congratulations from so many excellent people, thank you all for this! It means a lot to me ❤️

❤️

The enshittification of GitHub continues: Copilot just generated commit messages automatically without asking me, and it was difficult to find the setting disabling that slop. Using Microsoft-products really has become an exercise in being faster at disabling their trash than they auto-enable it.

Shoutout to the people who helped me achieve this amazing milestone: Prof. @eollion.bsky.social and Jacob Habinek! You’re simply the best! 🤘

PhDone!

Yeah, sure.

Less than 24h remaining *Final Countdown plays*

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ What is analytical sociology? After having struggled for two weeks in writing a potential answer up, I have to confess: I don't really know. www.hendrik-erz.de/post/what-is...

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ What is theory, and how do the goals of a paper influence the choice of style for your theory part? I show that theory always needs to match the methods, and this can be quite hard. www.hendrik-erz.de/post/between...

I am convinced that most of this administration is clinically delusional. It is bewildering to observe how these people feel at the same time existentially persecuted, and continue to smash into existing norms and institutions with a brutality on par with police violence.

It appears Denmark has found a simple solution to its drone problem. (Seen at Copenhagen main station)

And the second nailing is done — I’m just 93 theses apart from my Martin Luther memorial badge!

Cool: the new iPhone I got supports “visual intelligence.” Not so cool: it only allows you to use ChatGPT. But using shortcuts, one can recreate this with Apple’s own models. Bonus: it detects events pretty easily. Whenever I want to know something, a single click on the action button suffices.

Now that I'm finally out of Lightning-land, I decided to give it a shot and connect my external backup drive directly to my phone, and … I don't know what I expected. Of course it works, but it's still … mind blowing. And that's what I'm saying as a not too illiterate person!

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ Studying five years of U.S. Congress: What remains? Reflections on my PhD Thesis www.hendrik-erz.de/post/five-ye...

I nailed it! — quite literally! Må spiknas!

Finally! Proof that, when your printer complains about missing yellow, it’s lying! (Seen at my university printing office)

It's finally real — my printed thesis has just arrived! Isn't it beautiful? 😍 (Link to Open Access: doi.org/10.3384/9789...)

Every time economists discover occupations exist, a sociologist dies

Look, people rarely agree about what “antifascism” entails, but if someone aims to ban an ideology (“Antifa” is not an organization), this sends a clear sign as to what is about to happen next.

Microsoft has started to use its AI to review code and it’s going approximately as expected. (Explainer: macOS is on version 26, but the Darwin kernel, which it uses, is on version 25.)

I wanted to disable, not use, Copilot in VS Code, and Microsoft pulled a classic Microsoft.

My thesis is now published! liu.diva-portal.org/smash/record...

I did it! I just completed and submitted my first own grant application as a PI. Now we have to wait what the reviewers say … 👀

Recommended read by Steven Levitsky and Filipe Campante on the similarities between Trump and Bolsonaro, and what Brazil is doing against it. (no paywall) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/o...

I just approved the print proof of my thesis. Now there's no turning back anymore.

We're hiring in wonderful Copenhagen 🇩🇰 Two or more open rank sociology professorships (tt assistant, associate with tenure, or full prof with tenure). You'll join a leading sociology department in Europe with many core fields represented! #sociology More 👇 jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...

Those Apple bingo cards that were passing around in the last 24 hours should've included an "at the atomic level" — the amount of times this has been said in the previous and current Apple ads it's a safe bet

Why does one always miss one of the sixteen regional parliaments in Germany, and why is it always the Saarland?

LaTeX at the limit: Introducing load-bearing spaces.

My preprint was not available for the last 4 days due to a problem, but that has been resolved and you can now finally read it! I’m happy about each and all feedback!

Final proof reading! #PhD

+++ NEW PREPRINT +++ I have decided to make one of my PhD thesis chapters available as a preprint on #SocArXiv: Policymaking in Times of Crisis: Discursive Dynamics in U.S. Congress, 1960–1990. You can read it here 🎉 doi.org/10.31235/osf...