There's a wrong way and a right way to report this

I think I might be a robot. But I'm a level 16 robot at least.

Genuine life-changing opportunity to become the Programme Manager for the Pacific Data Hub. Based in lovely Nouméa, New Caledonia; responsible for driving regional data stewardship, innovation and sustainable impact. And free of income tax. careers.spc.int/xMiWgK/progr...

Only 1 person in the whole study went from identifying as trans to not identifying as trans. The 1/5 number came from youth going between the binary and non-binary spectrum. This headline and post are misleading on purpose to fit the economist's editorial bent on the political issue.

The rewarewa outside my cafe has gotten big enough to attract tūī. It's great that the council had a little fit of enthusiasm for rewarewa a few years ago.

Celebrities and venture capitalists throw millions at a company claiming it can breed fake dodos, which seems especially cruel given the dodo’s living relative., the Samoan tooth-billed pigeon or manumea, is on the brink of extinction for lack of money. news.mongabay.com/2025/09/fund...

Against my better instincts, I have written some notes on how human probability judgements work and what you should expect from surveys that ask people to guess what proportion of the population is transgender. I hope never to speak of this matter again

These data tell you nothing more than this: if you ask people a weird question that they can’t answer, they give you a weird answer using batshit heuristics. The end.

If we're talking about what the typical person who isn't a taxonomist or geneticist thinks a dodo is like, there's one literally proverbial characteristic

I think I need either a lot more or a lot less depth of field when trying to photograph kōwhai trees

Kōwhai in Cornwall Park #bloomscrolling

No prizes for guessing who wins this one

New this week! We’ve recently uploaded the “Handbook of forest trees for Victorian foresters”. The work of botanist Alfred Ewart, this book had an intended audience of forest officers & students of botany and forestry. Explore the volume here: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/65053311

NZ mentioned! (This is "AI" sensu 2020: deep convolutional networks to recognize predator species in traps.) www.npr.org/2025/09/18/n...

Returning soon - stay tuned! sites.google.com/view/monte-c...

Is good book

new zealand government reaching new heights of stupidity next year our public dollars will go more to AI grants ($70 million) than all investigator-initiated basic science combined ($56 million in the Marsden fund)

We've heard about the dire beagle and the dire emu. Next plan: the extremely dire pigeon. Take a Nicobar pigeon, mutate it so it can't fly, and call it a dodo.

Causing tomorrow's problems with numbers today?

The Peer Review Congress celebrates the life of Drummond Rennie. His intellect and vision created the Congress and the field of meta-research, and sustained both for over 40 year. He was a champion of inclusion, a consummate teacher, and a wonderful friend who enriched us all. Godspeed Drummond.

At any rate, if you know of any good stats departments that are looking for someone with a new #NSF #CAREER award starting Oct 1, let me know. I do #datavis and #forensics research and teach #statcomputing with #rstats and #python. I have a 2-body problem but open to many different locations anyways

SquidSim is the coolest package - it let's you build complex hierarchical data structures and then simulate data from the world you create. The best tool for doing proper power analyses and testing how well your models can uncover the 'truth'. I've been recommending it to everyone!

Is there anyone here at one of the universities in Wellington, NZ, who would want to host me to give a talk around November 10th?

How is it that Wellington parking meters need a good half minute to psych themselves up to allow someone to even start the process of paying for parking. What the fuck is going on. Is there some guy in there? Have I interrupted him on the toilet? What?

Because there's misinformation around, here's the most readable and precise guide to local-election STV in NZ thespinoff.co.nz/local-electi...

Really insightful post from Julie Tibshirani (spotted in LinkedIn, can't find on Bsky) reflecting on #rstats 's unique governance structure and what can be learned for other languages jtibs.substack.com/p/if-all-the...

This xkcd is utterly brilliant and should be shared more: Vaccine research: xkcd.com/2515/ Rollover text: Honestly feel a little sheepish about the amount of time and effort I spent confirming "yes, the vaccine helps protect people from getting sick and dying" but I guess everyone needs a hobby.

no notes

Shot, chaser Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

It's been a whole decade since the observation of gravitational waves by LIGO #FeelsOld

Wine-dark sea

Excellent deep dive into what the WellKiwis study and wastewater data tell us about how the number of symptomatic infections in Wellington has changed over time

"In cookware pits" #CrashBlossom #linguistics

The best chapter of "Abundance" is the one on research funding. Nobody really knows what works, but the approach of "more detailed pre-approval by funding bodies" has had a fair go and really failed to deliver the goods. And that's research that is.

Commit a social science! In Denmark!

7) Maureen McHugh was one of the most vital SF writers of the 90s & its weird to me that she's not in the pantheon for more people. 90% of her career between '89 and '01, no short story or novel worse than "very good" & the best were superb. Folio society editions! Critical attention! Please!

Did you think you were a ggplot expert? Not any more! [Seriously: congratulations, folks!! It looks like another big step]

Tonight at Unity Books Wellington, Elizabeth Knox launches her new YA novel, Kings of this World. 6pm, all welcome!

Love that she uses concern about differential non-response as a central orienting principle for public leadership

🦣🍖🧬 Fully funded 3-yr PhD in palaeogenomics & bioinformatics! Help me push non-model palaeogenomes beyond their limits @DTU in Denmark. Start: Feb 2026 (flexible) Application deadline: 24 Oct 2025 For details click here: tinyurl.com/BioExtPhD Reposts appreciated 😁

New post on a narrow question: is "are you sure?" as bad an LLM follow-up prompt as I think it is? mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/is-are-you...

"Mentimeter" is a workshop tool that (despite the etymology) isn't just for lies.

The first wave of the survey underpinning nonfarm payrolls has seen falling response rates, but in contrast to accusations the BLS has "failed to take corrective action" several targeted steps have kept 2nd & 3rd wave response rates at or above 90%--Gold standard data from dedicated public servants

NZ immigration since we've had censuses. Proportion of immigrants was at a minimum about 80 years ago, well before most of us (and nearly everyone in Parliament was born). It's been heading back up since then

960+ people. 4 days. 1 unforgettable conference. Thanks to everyone who made #RSS2025 such a standout event! Our president John Aston shares some reflections, including a timely reminder that transparency is key to trust in official stats 👉 rss.org.uk/news-publica...

A slide from my med school syphilis talk

Bat meters!

Always nice to confirm that mergesort works in real life for sorting exam scripts