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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 1d

kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

The Naming of Stats
June 19, 2023 • Obiter Dicta • R
The Naming of Stats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a stat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all are the names where usage is informal, Such as Median, Estimate, Average, or Range, Such as Variance, Quartile, or else Standard Normal All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names that may be better-tasting, Some for the frequentists, some for the Bayes:
Such as Skew, or Kurtosis, Metropolis-Hastings-But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a stat needs a name that's obscurer, A name that's misleading, and hard to construe,
Else how can it keep on confusing the reader, Or frustrate professors, or pass peer review?
Of names of this kind, there are many examples, Like Hierarchical, Robust, or Omega-hat,
Such as Marginal, Confidence, or just Weighted Sample, Names that always belong to more than one stat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess;
The thing that no human research can discover-
But THE STAT MIGHT JUST KNOW, and be made to confess.
When you notice a stat getting quite widely cited, The reason, you see, is whatever its flaws, Its user's engaged, or enraged, or excited
At the prospect of pinning the root of all laws:
That inviolable, friable
Unidentifiable
Deep and inscrutable singular Cause.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 1d

The simple joys of Mute Thread

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 1d

The overwhelming majority of responses to that skeet have of course been extremely hinged.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

Catfishing Bot has a poor understanding of jokes.

Esther @esther002.bsky.social • 3m
Protesting for a cause is one thing — dealing with reimbursements and paperwork is another entirely. Shows that even grassroots movements aren't immune to administrative frustrations.
• Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co . 6h
It's great to be paid for protesting and everything but let me tell you the whole antifa reimbursement process is just terrible

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

A couple of parking signs for anyone who wants to print them out for this coming Saturday.

Parking Signs

If you want to print out a poster for October 18th, here are two; fully-guaranteed countrywide but maybe especially suitable for in and around New York. No King Anytime sign ...

kieranhealy.org

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

It really is just impossible to even speak to a real person. They might as well not even exist, tbh. I was a lifelong opponent of unprecedented, illegal, and immoral overextensions of executive authority but thanks to this ridiculous process I’ll be shifting my allegiance to tinpot authoritarianism

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

It’s a disgrace, really; these expenses have been sitting on my credit card for weeks. But, like, good luck getting a supervisor on the phone. They’re all oh help resist authoritarianism but then it’s all we can’t process your file without a fully-completed form, but when you click the link it 404s

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

It’s great to be paid for protesting and everything but let me tell you the whole antifa reimbursement process is just terrible

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 3d

It’s striking how much this reeks of what the Thiel/Techbro crowd purports to despise, viz, the half-baked draft of an MLA paper, all disjointed summaries of possibly related texts, devoid of sustained argument or interpretation, relying wholly on the reader to provide the missing connective tissue.

Voyages to the End of the World - First Things

Francis Bacon dreamed of abolishing disease, natural disasters, and chance itself. He also dreamed of abolishing God.

firstthings.com

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 4d

The closing shot of “The Godfather”, with the door being shut on Diane Keaton.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 4d

Genuine lol

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 4d

John 18:38.

Comparative Calm or 'Hellscape'? In Portland, Depends on the Narrator.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 5d

This is what happens when people decide to kermit to the bit

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 5d

Here’s what happens when a smart guy has not had anyone say “Dude what the fuck are you talking about?” directly to his face since, like, the PayPal IPO.

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 5d

Here at the airport we’re all enjoying an additional forty five minutes in the security line courtesy of whoever controls the Presidency and both houses of Congress; I forget who that is again. Hunter Biden? Greta Thunberg? Antifa Girlfriend? Impossible to know, really.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 5d

White House staff should just make and show him an AI-generated video where he wins, fly him to Duluth and tell him it’s Oslo, and dare the New York Times to say anything more than “Experts disagree about whether Mr Trump was awarded the Nobel Prize”.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

Then it will once again be time for another round of “I can’t believe the Pope is Catholic”.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

Yeah let’s return to that simpler, better time when the Church wasn’t political [puts two fingers to earpiece] Sorry I’m just getting an update

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 6d

As Pope Leo begins to reveal some of his views on divisive issues, some conservative critics of his predecessor are rejecting the possible rise of another “liberal pope.”

As Pope Leo riles conservatives, some say ‘just focus on the church’

Conservatives who hoped that Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, would be more of a traditionalist instead hear echoes of his predecessor, Francis, in his public statements.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

where is Bobson Dugnutt

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

In the causal inference literature this inferential error is known as conditioning on a kleyner.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 6d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

Such a disappointment, after he specifically introduced himself to the Pope and everything.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

Which heretical fragment of Byzantine Orthodoxy, whose last remains are twenty monks tending goats on a hillside in the Carpathian Mountains, will be lauded as keepers of the flame by this writer who nevertheless would like to keep their condo in DC or their position at Harvard. Stay tuned!

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

Time for another round of “I can’t believe the Pope is Catholic”! Which American pundit—who converted to Catholicism as an adult, but in their bones remains an intellectually-embarrassed evangelical Protestant with a Yale BA—will gift us an outraged First Things or (dv) Atlantic essay this time?

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 6d

Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer. In his first teaching document Thursday, Leo confirms that he is in perfect lockstep with Pope Francis on matters of social injustice.

Pope Leo blasts economy that marginalizes poor while wealthy live in bubble of luxury

Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer.

bit.ly

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

bsky.app/profile/klap...

Ghoulius von Klaproth @klaproth.bsky.social · 10d

SWIFT: Trav, honey?
KELCE: (looks up from first edition Krazsnahorkai in original Hungarian) (pauses rare Steve Reich LP, Japanese pressing) Yes?
SWIFT: What rhymes with "thighs"?
KELCE: Hmm. "Belies," perhaps?
SWIFT: (under her breath) Oh for fuck's sake

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 6d

Having my annual routine medical checkup. (When I say annual I of course mean in Mercury years measured in Earth days.)

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