when making a new graph/chart/whatever you really have to ask yourself these two questions imo 1) is this chart/map better than a table 2) is this chart/map better than a bar chart

want to compare two numbers? Bar chart. Add more numbers? Bar chart. Want to add another category of numbers to sit alongside the first? Believe it or not: bar chart.

the unfortunate truth re: data visualisation is that you really do gotta hand it to bar charts

Is the MLB pitch clock the greatest modern rule change of any professional sport?

that’s right, I’m back on Bluesky, you’re welcome

when did we decide, as a society, that “cohort” is just a synonym for “group” rather than specifically a group that shares some time-invariant characteristic(s)

Always take sentences using “the Cloud” or “the Internet” and try replacing those phrases with “A shed in Virginia” to see how they hold up. “Our service is fully based in a shed in Virginia”; “All my files are in a shed in Virginia”; “A shed in Virginia was designed to survive a nuclear war”, etc.

I have, alas, forgotten my golden rule: Never Post

Someone always takes things a step too far

probably my most deeply-held belief: it is not possible for a slide deck to be both (1) a good presentation aide; and (2) a standalone document that can be read and understood in isolation.

after spending a couple of weeks in Japan, I continue to be amazed that NYC is the world’s only large, dense city with a subway system

this bit lives in my brain youtube.com/shorts/850Vk...

Impossible to read this passage in Seeing Like a State and not picture Canberra from above

@rhtebooks.bsky.social u theonion.com/man-always-g...

Got a day off in Kyoto. How many times can I sing 🎶 “daaaay off in Kyotooo” 🎶 before my family kills me? Let’s find out

most people come home from Japan thinking “I wish we had their high speed trains” or whatever. Me? I want Japan’s approach to rating things on Google Maps. 3/5 = fine, 3.5 = pretty good, 4 = exceptional. Instead we’ve got the American “everything is awesome” style, where <5 stars is an insult

@noamross.net {redoc} is coming back!? This is *extremely* exciting to me

one thing I’ve learned from Online is that Americans seem weirdly obsessed with special, comfortable Travel Clothes. Just wear normal stuff, it’s fine

I love the FT, but who is asking for Martin Wolf on the sounds of summer

my favourite type of post: shows how to use public data to produce something interesting with just a few lines of R code

Abundance has generated more bad and weird takes online than any book since Piketty’s Capital

I made some good PPTX slides when I was at Grattan Institute

what happened to the positive visions of the future from my youth (Cher’s clothes computer in Clueless)

Jony Ive is truly an inspiration to bald men everywhere. We, as a group, need some wins

there’s a certain normcore matplotlib chart style that now screams “ChatGPT made this”

if you’re an Australian economist interested in public policy and the labour market, come work with me! dewr.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm...

🚨 Job alert! 🚨 There's a couple of economist roles going at the Australian Public Service and I hear that #rstats is a desirable skill for the role! Senior Economist/Assistant Director: tinyurl.com/2dk99y85 Economist: tinyurl.com/3bhzpvww #econsky

if you’re an Australian economist interested in public policy and the labour market, come work with me! dewr.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm...

@mattcowgill.bsky.social aims to govern in just a few lines of R code

weird and bad take

I’m Wolfmaxing

shots fired

my favourite type of coding is spitecoding If you ever want me to code something up, simply say “I bet R can’t do [x]”

I’m seeing a lot more insane, unhinged takes on this app lately, which makes me think Bluesky is gonna stick around

In my opinion you should get a blog

MY TAKE ON AN IMPORTANT RECENT ISSUE: I thought White Lotus s3 was pretty terrible. 2 stars

telling my son “no, the caretaker conventions do not allow me to do that” when he asks me to play Pokémon battles

it’s cool that Dell laptops have like 13 minutes total battery life, that’s all you really need anyway

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: it’s still possible to use your phone as a phone. You don’t need to turn on speaker mode and then hold your phone up to your ear. This is, in fact, silly.

Baby boomers love(d) Eric Clapton, subsequent generations mostly… don’t. Has there been any artist that’s suffered a bigger inter-generational decline in average views re: quality?

still looking for #Rstats users’ views re Databricks

I love to read old conference volumes, they’re fascinating period pieces

big yikes

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

if someone wrote a critique this comprehensive of my work, I think I would shrivel up into a ball www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

great to introduce the kids to applied econometrics at an early age

[to the tune of Blitzkrieg Bop] Chúc mừng! Năm mớ!

It’s been weeks — perhaps months — since a random stranger asked me how to do something in a few lines of R code. Sad

I’m begging organisations that release data to please speak to at least one (1) person who uses that data

why would you not let a columnist like Krugman publish as often as he liked in newsletter form www.cjr.org/analysis/pau...