Announcing #RStats package ggcube, now on CRAN -- make 3D #ggplot2 figures using `coord_3d()` matthewkling.github.io/ggcube/

[cries in Torontonian]

I know this describes a lot of people on here.

Living with Ghosts: How Physical Traces of the Past Shape Cultural Trauma in Chinatowns American Sociological Review, Volume 91, Issue 2, Page 286-312, April 2026. Cultural trauma refers to how past experiences of harm can fundamentally transform a community’s shared identity, po #sociology link

Sociology's Evolving Discourse A computational analysis of over a century of sociology journal articles open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

This is really quite good. Short and to the point.

Family-friendly policies include: affordable housing and child care programs, after school care, funding for health care, k-12 and post-secondary education #ONPoli www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

From trackers to gummies and CCTV, society has been gripped by sleep hysteria | Alice Gregory

recently mapped knowledge of french and english in montreal -- (bit of a tri-variate viz experiment) higher-res here: jamaps.github.io/maps/montrea... #montreal #maps #languages #geography

First, assume a strait-opener

Very pleased to see the first article from my PhD thesis published in Planning Theory and Practice. In the piece, I leverage the concurrent adoption of bicycle equity policies in Mexico City and Toronto to compare how intra-urban differences shape efforts to address infrastructural inequalities.

Govt’s Pride in Place targets areas with economic deprivation and weaker social infrastructure. Yet, our analysis reveals 2 challenges. We find 430 doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods in England (home to approx 3.5 million people) are unfunded, incl many ranked as facing the greatest challenges 1/3

I ran a simple model with new public data then used 1 prompt to make ChatGPT guess what the model would produce. With 10 seconds of "thinking," it was very close. The implications of this are catastrophic. The American Sociological Association should do something about this but it doesn't care to /1

Fascinating that this counts as an unpopular opinion in North America. Turning right on red should be banned outright.

Unpopular opinion but turning right at a red light should not be legal in San Francisco (or anywhere else). Right on red makes horrors like this all too possible. sfstandard.com/2026/03/03/m...

U of T’s Maps and Data Library recently published a blog by Jeff Allen our Data Viz Lead, on a tool he built for viewing historial aerial imagery of Toronto collected from various sources. https://ow.ly/rqu150YfERX

I just whipped up this little #QuartoPub site last week that demonstrates how I teach p-values/hyp-testing through simulation both with live OJS and with #rstats, and I think it's super neat! It has examples for diff-in-means, diff-in-props, and regression slopes nullworlds.andrewheiss.com #statsky

The Toronto Population Network @tpn-uoft.bsky.social Seminar Series is happening this semester, with a great line-up, including @lucampesando.bsky.social, Orsola Torrisi, @mdhayward.bsky.social, and @jnobles.bsky.social! Starts next Tuesday. If you're in Toronto please come along!

For social scientists interested in LLMs for text classification/coding, the process here is potentially very helpful (even if you don't use the product itself). Their core technique: Contradictory Example Training Their training method: Binocular Labeling More details in the linked post below.

Announcing spopt-r: spatial optimization for regionalization, facility location, and market analysis in R. My all-time favorite Python package is PySAL's spopt - and until now, it did not have an R equivalent. Get started here: walker-data.com/spopt-r

Yo what the fuck short form videos are bad Short-Form Videos Degrade Our Capacity to Retain Intentions arxiv.org/pdf/2302.03714 Ht: HowTown

The Cities of Care conference aims to bring together academics, practitioners & decision-makers to deepen interdisciplinary research and foster a richer understanding of water, food and waste systems, thus enhancing pathways between evidence and practice https://ow.ly/R30V50XGAcf

Studying the long-run effects of a large public expansion of pre-primary education in Argentina, from Samuel Berlinski, Guillermo Cruces, Sebastian Galiani, Paul Gertler, and Fabian Gonzalez www.nber.org/papers/w34552

Today, I launch my Podcast, “Pluriversal Threads,” as a supplement to my book. If you want to know more about the Pluriverse and its relationship with language, communities and our place in the world, I invite you to join me and listen to. open.spotify.com/show/5qeySLi...

You forgot to load the packages 734 times Your most loaded package was tidyverse You got "this package is not available for R version XXXX" 374 times You hit "remind me later" for R updates 7492 times

Updated Urban Greenness data out from StatCan is out today, quantifying the "average greenness" on a 250m grid. Data is annual and goes back to 2000 and allows for some comparison (although some caution is advised).

🏛️ ¿Por qué seguimos obsesionados con resucitar ciudades que ya no existen? Lima necesita futuro, no nostalgia. No te pierdas la reflexión de Natalia Sobrevilla. 🧃Clic aquí: tinyurl.com/3vrbyyk4

A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women 🧵

Inside the world of Kenya’s ‘shadow scholars’ paid to write essays for UK students

The right sets the terms of our political discourse in so many ways, one of which is the idea that there isn't enough "debate" and "free speech" on campus. We need to push back on this. The truth is (speaking for myself as a history prof), I don't really emphasize debate much in my classes/

The biggest sporting event in the world is happening in our backyard. But most New Yorkers will be priced out of watching it live. Sign our petition calling on FIFA to put game over greed: zohranfornyc.com/gameovergreed

JOB ALERT FOR #SOCIOLOGIST: Come work with me. We have FOUR Assistant Professor positions in the Sociology Department at the University of Calgary. careers.ucalgary.ca/jobs/1672106...

Amazing first time teaching @utsc-humangeo.bsky.social in the new Sam Ibrahim building @utsc.utoronto.ca Looking forward to this semester!

"I recommend SUDS as the perfect opportunity to gain research experience, experience life in the #DataScience workforce, and possibly even get published!”–Elise Corbin @uoftdsi.bsky.social datasciences.utoronto.ca/data-science...

A highlight of this summer: supervising Elise Corbin (UofT) and Abdulmohseen Al Ali (KAUST) during their Summer Undergraduate Data Sciences program at @uoftdsi.bsky.social. They did amazing expanding `piccard`—a Python package we've been developing—and prepared a fantastic presentation and poster!

“Given the ongoing genocide in Gaza…we call on Sport Canada and Tennis Canada to forbid Canadian athletes to compete against Israeli athletes at the Davis Cup and all other international events.” - 413 🇨🇦 academics, athletes + sports journalists, inc 3 former UN special rapporteurs + an Olympic 🥈ist

💯 We need this kind of courage and initiative in Toronto as well. Right on red should be banned outright in any dense urban area. #topoli

Our department at the University of Toronto is hiring an assistant professor of sociology of race / ethnicity this fall. I'm not on the hiring committee but am very happy to talk to you about the position if you are interested. You can email, DM, or find me at ASA. jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

I’m delighted to share that the August 2025 special issue of Sociological Methods & Research on Generative AI is out now. Along with my co-editor, Daniel Karell, we put together this issue to build on the conference we organized last year. Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:

my similar boomer opinion is that i think “home economics” or whatever the equivalent is ought to be mandatory for students in middle and high school.

The idea that "thinking is writing and writing is thinking" would have probably appalled Socrates. I suppose he might have thought that "thinking is talking and talking is thinking." But probably better is: thinking is thinking and thinking is thinking. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

🚨 Job alert: The Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto is hiring an Assistant Professor in the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-... I'll be at ASA and would be happy to chat with interested candidates. Please share widely! #Socsky

A lot of how we think about AI comes from disciplines that study the individual mind. AIs are already social and plural, however, and only becoming increasingly so. Can sociology provide models for Artificial Social Intelligence ? #sociology #ASI open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Made this map of the #Ciclovia in #Bogota using the #RStats function I wrote to rotate maps using ad-hoc oblique Mercator projections. #GIS #Cartography

Thrilled to see this piece from my former student Mike Glass and @brentcebul.bsky.social in the JAH. Check it out!

Created a quick function to rotate maps in #RStats. Helpful for mapping cities that are usually represented with an angled North--e.g., Toronto maps are usually tilted 15ish degrees to align the map borders with the grid. github.com/fcalderonfig... #geosky #AcademicSky #GIS

It's shocking that Stalin eliminated his adversaries from official photos, but how does it feel to know that a whole country was completely erased from our education? Marilen Llancaqueo tells the story of Mapuche Country in her latest book. Wrote an essay about it 👇 elpais.com/america-futu...

Inbox pitch: "As a person who has done a TON of research - without AI - it drained what felt like years from my life—time, Alex. Time that could be spent on more fun stuff…" Research IS the fun stuff, my guy. It is the sauce.

A new Texas ruling (Little v. Llano County) says the public can’t sue if libraries pull books for political reasons. It confirms what we found in our new study: most Americans don’t want book bans. It’s political elites—like in Texas—who are cutting off public access. ⬇️

A couple of days ago I gave a guest lecture on an Introduction to Bayesian Demography. The materials are here if people are interested! Includes a few examples using R and Stan: mjalexander.github.io/bayesian-dem...