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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 15h

[*] Not saying any of this is good practice. But I've seen it happen a lot [**]

[**] Now that almost-mystical management expectations of ML have been replaced by even vaguer expectations of AI perhaps it's the right time for somebody to write a concise study of its micropolitics and ethnography 6/6

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 15h

... avoiding multicollinearity as a poor man's feature selection to at least get some stable coefficients, whether or not they understand that those are not the indicators of impact they are looking for[*]. 5/

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 15h

... --most importantly, they don't want to deal with the fact that they are mostly messy, small, and/or *not* visible in the data business capture easily -- so analysts are cornered into fitting linear models instead, and... 4/

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 15h

... the intuition works here.

3. As usual, I believe the fear of multicolinearity --at least in business analysis contexts-- is driven by management expectations: managers want causal levers without understanding of wanting to invest what it takes to look for them... 3/

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 15h

... (what tells you something about what) it feels intuitive that having two information signals about something (the confounder) is always going to be better than one (as long as your specification is right, mind you). It's nice that... 2/

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 15h

This one went straight to my review-before-any-new-project list [updates faster than I learn new processes]. Two notes:

1. File under "a clear research question tells you what you need to worry about but also what you don't need to."

2. If you think of this in terms of information flows... 1/

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 1d

New blog post!

Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?

(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)

www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...

If you have two measures of the same confounder, you can just include both of them in your regression model

Sometimes, researchers worry about multicollinearity in situations where it’s actually a non-issue. Here’s one such scenario. Imagine a situation where you are interested in the effect of X on Y (X...

www.the100.ci

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 16h

I think of it as "#grindcore sprezzatura," which is a self-evident abomination.

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 22h

"Liam knew he could not be hearing a baby crying across the mile and a half of unbroken Hospital facilities between his timeshared office cot and the tiny and seldom-used pediatric wing..."

#ShortFiction #ScienceFiction #AdversarialMetanoia

Neonatal

Liam knew he could not be hearing a baby crying across the mile and a half of unbroken Hospital facilities between his timeshared office cot and the tiny and seldom-used pediatric wing but he still…

blog.rinesi.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 1d

#RisingOnArxiv (ignoring a lot of genAI stuff):

* Lindbladians
* ZKPs
* Algonauts 2025 Challenge

Rising on arXiv - 2025-10-10

A few of the ideas, topics, and commonplaces that have been gaining steam on arXiv during the last few months (yes, I do a lot of filtering to keep away most of the genAI stuff; explainer).

blog.rinesi.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 1d

I think it's a Trojan War situation: Caesar can't die until the conquest of Gaul is complete, but Asterix' village can't fall while its heroes are still active, so Caesar's biography, and by extension Roman history, is stuck until Asterix and Obelix complete their myth.

via @adapalmer.bsky.social

Major Clanger @majorclanger.bsky.social · 1d

Look, if Patrick O'Brian could make the War of 1812 last about six years from the point of view of Aubrey and Maturin, I think we can cut Goscinny and Uderzo a bit of slack.

Michel Lacombe @michellacombe.bsky.social · 2d

Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in 51 BC and died in 44 BC, therefore all of Asterix's adventures took place over the course of less than seven years, probably much less since Asterix's chieftain was at the battle of Alesia, were it is probable Asterix and Obelix's fathers died. In this essay, I will

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 1d

#RisingOnArxiv (ignoring a lot of genAI stuff):

* Lindbladians
* ZKPs
* Algonauts 2025 Challenge

Rising on arXiv - 2025-10-10

blog.rinesi.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 1d

"Programming is [also] an autotelic hobby like knitting, puzzles or amateur music" is a hill I'll die on. I post my short fiction w/o being a paid writer and *don't* post the weird things I code for myself while professionally being 50% coder, but the late night motivations for both are the same.

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 1d

The closest I have to a mental model is that most of them have been so socially privileged for so long that even after that one example they don't have the experiential framework to really believe the danger and/or the experience of being in danger and acting anyway.

via @gowder.io

Senate Gabe @senategabe.bsky.social · 2d

I really have yet to find a very good theory explaining why it is that both the Republicans and the Democrats have been so openly handing power to a guy who tried to murder them.

It is truly one of the scariest and most bizarre political events I've ever seen.

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 2d

"Liam knew he could not be hearing a baby crying across the mile and a half of unbroken Hospital facilities between his timeshared office cot and the tiny and seldom-used pediatric wing..."

#ShortFiction #ScienceFiction #AdversarialMetanoia

Neonatal

Liam knew he could not be hearing a baby crying across the mile and a half of unbroken Hospital facilities between his timeshared office cot and the tiny and seldom-used pediatric wing but he still…

blog.rinesi.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 2d

"Masked government officers kidnap people into unmarked vans, many of them to unknown locations" is normal authoritarian behavior, what's strange is that it's in the service of a racial purge rather than attacking the opposition, who wants to focus on healthcare premiums.

via @aaronsojourner.org

Michael Derby @michaelsderby.bsky.social · 2d

“The Sun-Times has documented four unmarked cars carrying federal officers without required plates, offering another way to shield their identities. Federal officials say they’re meeting regulations.”

Federal immigration officers wear masks, no name tags — now some drive cars without license plates

The Sun-Times has documented four unmarked cars carrying federal officers without required plates, offering another way to shield their identities. Federal officials say they’re meeting regulations.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 2d

"Liam knew he could not be hearing a baby crying across the mile and a half of unbroken Hospital facilities between his timeshared office cot and the tiny and seldom-used pediatric wing..."

#ShortFiction #ScienceFiction #AdversarialMetanoia

Neonatal

blog.rinesi.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 2d

Even odds in a few months somebody will try to bait Disney into --once more-- believing a bombed Jared Leto movie has achieved cult status and they should re-release it . My candidate for "It's Morbin Time" is "Let's Tron This Thing Up!" but I'm open to suggestions.

via @jjaron.bsky.social

Cosmic Marvel @dailycosmicmarvel.bsky.social · 2d

‘TRON: ARES’ has earned $14.3M in its opening day at the domestic box office.

For comparison, ‘MORBIUS’ opened to $17.3M.

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 2d

I *know* it's a mixture of incompetence and brutality, but I can't but help feeling at some level it reflects how implicit is US society's trust in its military - the most callous government wouldn't do this if an even passive military revolt were thinkable.

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 2d

To be fair, if you looked at the difference between the overall religious palette in the US vs Christian countries in Europe and Latin America you'd get more or less that, save for US-born movements.

Every country is weird. In some senses the US is *REALLY* weird.

via @llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 3d

“We should relentlessly pursue wealth and technological progress, and an antichrist is anyone who tries to stop you.” Uh huh.

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 3d

#RisingOnArxiv (ignoring a lot of genAI stuff):

* ICCV 2025
* Fermion sign problem
* Genuine multipartite entanglement

Rising on arXiv - 2025-10-05

A few of the ideas, topics, and commonplaces that have been gaining steam on arXiv during the last few months (yes, I do a lot of filtering to keep away most of the genAI stuff; explainer).

blog.rinesi.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 3d

The super-rich having weirder more short-term apocalyptic beliefs than overall society isn't exclusive but quite characteristic of the US and now it's more or less a global feature. I'm interested but not eager to see what happens when the eschaton fails to immanentize.

via @70sbachchan.bsky.social

George Pearkes @peark.es · 4d

I couldn't believe this but it's true, Thiel can't decide whether the antichrist is Greta or Big Yud. Positively reeling.

(Washington Post) -- Tech billionaire Peter Thiel recently warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of technology or artificial intelligence are "legionnaires of the Antichrist" in private lectures on Christianity that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future, according to recordings reviewed by The Washington Post.
In the four, roughly two-hour lectures, which began last month and culminated Monday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Thiel laid out his religious views to a sold-out audience told to keep the contents "off-the-record," according to an event listing. He argued that those who propose limits on technology development not only hinder business but threaten to usher in the destruction of the United States and an era of global totalitarian rule, according to the recordings.
"In the 17th, 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil crazy science," Thiel said in his Sept. 15 opening talk, according to the recordings. "In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It's someone like Greta or Eliezer," he said, referring to Thunberg and Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent critic of the tech industry's approach to AI.

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 3d

They aren't wrong in the observation (paraphrasing heavily) that if your model is misspecified (in a real world/causal sense) you're not very likely to be making the bet you think you're making, although that's probably fresher news for the mainstream investment community than for statistics folks.

Causality and Factor Investing: A Primer

<p><span>Factor investing is a foundational paradigm in quantitative asset management. Yet, despite the proliferation of factors and widespread institutional ad

papers.ssrn.com

Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 3d

I tend to think of immigration enforcement as meant for even wider internal political violence; it's already a pretty much arbitrary tool to disappear people from the street and the narrative is already in place to reframe "illegals" as "terrorists" and political opponents as "terrorist supporters."

Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 5d

US turning into Police State #NewsIfUSAWasAForeignCountry
WaPo: "Nearly a quarter of FBI agents across the country are currently reassigned to immigration enforcement.
The large number of reassignments reflect a vast reshaping of the agency and could put other priorities at risk."
wapo.st/4mXbrpJ

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 3d

As it has often been noted a blind spot in Americans' "folk international politics theory" is that countries and organizations outside the US have and will pursuit their own agendas and interests and in many cases there's little or nothing they can do about that.

via @gowder.io

Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 3d

So ... Catholic *traditionalists* want a pope who doesn't involve himself in global politics?

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Marcelo Rinesi @marcelorinesi.bsky.social · 3d

This is the Argentinean Chief of Staff (and main/only political operator in the government with good multi-party relationships) saying "I don't believe that part of the agreement with the US involves excluding China."

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