Data analysis, photography, and the occasional thought.
Look I hope Count Binface wins today in Clacton. Far right grifters are much worse for a healthy democracy than satirists, and Count Binface has been an excellent lens to show the world who someone like Nigel Farage really is.
Absolutely incredible quote to end this article: The firm then enlisted planners to find a new route that avoided the supposed grave. “A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead] and Dobby’s happy.” In the end, he said, “we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby’s grave”.
I’m excited to be attending PolicyLink Summit 2026: “We Are the Founders: Writing the Unfinished Story of Our Democracy.” I’m passionate about how data, social science, and policy can work together to liberate us and create a society that flourishes. So I’ll be listening and learning with others August 24-28 in DC eager to be inspired and find new ways to contribute. If you’re going get in touch…
The Census of Governments is the only nationwide source for what US state, county, municipal and township governments actually raise and spend. It is also a frustrating public dataset to work with. uscogdata is an R package that reads a cleaned, harmonized version of it — FY1967 through FY2024, 46,148,034 rows — with no configuration and no credentials. install.packages("uscogdata", repos =…
I used a stack of Windows, RStudio, MSOffice, and Chrome to do my work from 2011 or so until 2024. 15 years! Now I use Linux, Zed/Positron, NextCloud, and Firefox/Zen for everything - a complete overhaul in the last 2 years. Will it stick as long? 🫣🤔
I am so interested in attribution science and its applicability to social science as a complement (and perhaps corrective) to the obsession with isolating causality in a complex and multi-causal world. Great rundown by Ars Technica.
Pretty in-depth reporting here on what the near-term incentives are for Iran in the war with the US. Not as cut and dry as I thought and I appreciated the depth and breadth of sources in this one.
I’m going to see the Odyssey finally this evening. So I guess get ready for my very late contributions to the discourse around it. Or maybe I’ll just be pleasantly entertained in an air conditioned room for 3 hours!
This is a really cool explanation of Pareto efficiency (which sounds boring I know) using interactive data viz and clear storytelling. It’s a great example of how a concept becomes more approachable when transported into a familiar domain in a friendly and thoughtful manner.
I knew when I took this photo of Taroko Gorge in Taiwan it was special to me. Today I hung it as my first diptych and first metallic print of my work. Very pleased to have it hanging in my home studio.
Biking to the beach will never not give me delight. Don't ask how far it is or how many treacherous interminable stoplights it took and spoil the fun. 🫣😄
A great public servant and great man, Kurt Kiefer, passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer this week. He was 65, far too young. Kurt was a boss, mentor, and friend to me when I started out my career. I have long been grateful for the wisdom, patience, and kindness he showed me. I worked for Kurt from about 2011 to 2016 when I worked for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.…
The greens and blues of a New England seaside August day.
East Boston Adventure
I really enjoyed this entry inHadley Wickham’s series on LLM coding tools. It is a level-headed look beyond the hype and hate at what works, what doesn’t, and working through conflicted feelings about how LLMs are changing statistical software practice.
This is a detailed look into the computation behind weather forecasting and how climate science is being integrated. The layering of models and the choice between ML and equation-based modeling always fascinates me. Social science has a lot to learn from these approaches.
Aphids are more interesting and varied than I knew. These little yellow guys were wiggling and jiggling in the early evening sun. A real challenge to capture.
Hi. Welcome to my new home on the internet. I’m glad you’re here. 👋 Why a personal site, in 2026. # I have two motivations: first to share my photography. I am an avid photographer and I am trying to deepen my practice by curating and sharing more of my work.
This is bad. I use open models all the time - for simple coding, chores, and sensitive data. The open models are really good and super efficient. This move to squash them with regulation instead of competition is the proof. Innovation should be done in the open, like with OSS.
Caught this look at the sun during the wave of wildfire smoke we had in Boston this summer. The upside was gorgeous sunsets, this one near Harvard Square.