Happy holidays everyone! ;)

Academic Christmas: Last-minute paper submissions. It's 11:34pm on December 23, and I just hit "Submit" on a paper submission. Finally, no more work, just in time for Christmas! Happy Holidays! ;)

Formatting an R plot for a journal submission that requires points and millimeters is harder than it should be.

Automate the boring stuff 2.0: If someone provides me a list of keywords and tells me to pick from that list, I'm gonna ask my local Llama. (Pro-Tip: If you have a somewhat decent computer and a model with sufficient context, you can throw entire papers at that thing, and it'll work flawlessly!)

Me: Uses proper tools such as password managers to prevent typos and other human errors The journal submission system:

Great opportunity for B.A. and M.A. students around the world to submit CSS research!

„Ostdeutsch“ und „Westdeutsch“ als Zuschreibungen ist ein Tagungsbericht von Judith Nasdal, zu lesen in unserer aktuellen Ausgabe. Diesen und viele weitere Beiträge von Studierenden und Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen gibt es bei uns zu lesen soziologieblog.hypotheses.org/soziologiema...

📢 Analytical sociology is coming home! Call 4 INAS26 is open 🌍 1-3Jul26 @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social and @sociologyoxford.bsky.social (☔) ☢️ Deadline: 1Feb26 🦹 Organisers: @aksoyundan.bsky.social , @kasimirdederichs.bsky.social, D Kretschmer, @awaldendorf.bsky.social Info: tinyurl.com/yc2tusjx

PhD opportunity at the University of Oxford. The Morelli scholarship funds a doctoral student to work with me on on democratic backsliding, strategies of democratic defense and regeneration, or the rise of illiberalism. Deadline Jan 9. More information at users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0073/

Recently I saw some guy on YouTube explain that it takes only few videos until the algorithm starts filling it either with Shrimp Jesus and/or right-leaning content. Let YT on during sleep tonight, and it took 4 videos of my regular channels before some 10h Christian meditation music video started.

And that's why every social science dept should have a house philosopher who can slap us on our wrists

Being on the job market makes me realize: The traveling salesman was me all along!

This administration appears to have been so successful that they now have time for small things. Except they don't, because there is much more to come in the solidification of the unitary executive theory.

We have just released the possibly final beta release before we can move Zettlr 4.0 to stable! If you'd like to have a sneak peek to what we have in stock, take a look here 👇🏼 github.com/Zettlr/Zettl...

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

This looks yummy 👀

I'm always shocked how quickly eugenics is losing its “dirty” connotations these days, especially in scientific subdisciplines that broadly work with AI. And yes, this also includes my own related scientific fields.

Situation: Doing peer-review for a journal. Footnote in the proof starts with the words: “As we do in an earlier study (NAME and NAME, YEAR)…” Hach. The unavoidable pitfalls of peer review…

And thus it continues…! Looking forward to 2026!

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ Recently, I had my first encounter with a “vibe coded” PR. Vibe coding is performative production for the sake of production, detached from community and social norms. I argue why vibe coding is harmful from a social perspective. www.hendrik-erz.de/post/vibe-co...

I'm increasingly convinced the European model of scientific funding is a waste of time and talent and needs to change. Just one of many stories... 1/4

Today, I’m excited to be a guest at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where I will talk about my dissertation!

So @mims.bsky.social is doing some of the best work in the mainstream media on AI and data centers, and is one of the few who is asking the difficult questions rather than looking for convenient ways to back up market consensus, it’s nice to see

Shutdown, capitulation, and austerity: how Democrats failed to defend affordable healthcare - Peoples Dispatch #united states#access to health care#donald trump#affordable healthcare act

Excited! Looking forward to it! 🤩

Signs of an 8-hour workshop

John Mohr has once called interpreting topic model results a form of "Rorschach Test", and I agree. I just had a topic with completely odd word stems and had no idea what to do with them. And then it hit me. They were all (slightly butchered) names of Neural Network scholars.

I'm back in the phase of sitting idly in front of my computer while it works *sips tea* ☕️

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!