Jon Minton
@jonminton.bsky.social
Senior Statistician. Eclectic public and population health background. Very reluctant Twitter refugee. Distant memories of academia. “Evidence informed contrarian”
I thought this was about whale oil!
The whale oil lesson markets shouldn’t ignore on.ft.com/4iQk9FX | opinion
The whale oil lesson markets shouldn’t ignore
As the transition from harpoons to hydrocarbons showed, shifts in energy systems take time and prices can be volatile
on.ft.com
December 12, 2025 at 6:26 AM
I thought this was about whale oil!
New experimental stats website (Alpha stage). Interactive tutorials for helping understand GLMs:
jonminton.github.io/glm-dashboar...
Please explore and make use of the bug and feature request options!
jonminton.github.io/glm-dashboar...
Please explore and make use of the bug and feature request options!
GLM Tutorials: Matching Models to Data
jonminton.github.io
December 12, 2025 at 6:25 AM
New experimental stats website (Alpha stage). Interactive tutorials for helping understand GLMs:
jonminton.github.io/glm-dashboar...
Please explore and make use of the bug and feature request options!
jonminton.github.io/glm-dashboar...
Please explore and make use of the bug and feature request options!
New blog post:
Claude Sonnet 4.5 reflects on reading and fact-checking the rest of my blog! (About 200k words!)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Claude Sonnet 4.5 reflects on reading and fact-checking the rest of my blog! (About 200k words!)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Jon Minton’s Blog - Claude Adds Footnotes: A Reflection
What happens when an AI systematically fact-checks 128 blog posts
jonminton.github.io
December 6, 2025 at 11:51 AM
New blog post:
Claude Sonnet 4.5 reflects on reading and fact-checking the rest of my blog! (About 200k words!)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Claude Sonnet 4.5 reflects on reading and fact-checking the rest of my blog! (About 200k words!)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
I wrote an essay comparing AI to the Maxim gun of the 19th century, then asked four LLMs to produce short ‘rights of reply’:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Jon Minton’s Blog - The Analytical Maxim Gun
Some thoughts about integrated AI and the future of knowledge
jonminton.github.io
November 29, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I wrote an essay comparing AI to the Maxim gun of the 19th century, then asked four LLMs to produce short ‘rights of reply’:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Given recent announcements of tougher asylum policies in the UK, I asked Claude AI to track down and summarise evidence on how much of an influence policy is likely to have on asylum claims as compared with other factors:
claude.ai/share/188b49...
(tl;dr: probably not much)
claude.ai/share/188b49...
(tl;dr: probably not much)
Safe third countries and asylum motivation
Shared via Claude, an AI assistant from Anthropic
claude.ai
November 17, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Given recent announcements of tougher asylum policies in the UK, I asked Claude AI to track down and summarise evidence on how much of an influence policy is likely to have on asylum claims as compared with other factors:
claude.ai/share/188b49...
(tl;dr: probably not much)
claude.ai/share/188b49...
(tl;dr: probably not much)
I’m now being overly sycophantic to Claude by suggesting its single letter substitution is actually a really clever shorthand for describing Vince Gilligan’s new TV show #pluribus
November 17, 2025 at 4:18 PM
I’m now being overly sycophantic to Claude by suggesting its single letter substitution is actually a really clever shorthand for describing Vince Gilligan’s new TV show #pluribus
As a stats in-joke I thought redesigning the “Breaking Bad” titles to say “Breaking Blind” would be fun, so I asked Claude to have a go at this. It helpfully pointed out that “Bl” isn’t a real element, but decided that “Bk” must be good enough as it’s just 1 letter away.
November 17, 2025 at 4:02 PM
As a stats in-joke I thought redesigning the “Breaking Bad” titles to say “Breaking Blind” would be fun, so I asked Claude to have a go at this. It helpfully pointed out that “Bl” isn’t a real element, but decided that “Bk” must be good enough as it’s just 1 letter away.
As a stats in-joke I thought redesigning the “Breaking Bad” titles to say “Breaking Blind” would be, so I asked Claude to have a go at this. It helpfully pointed out that “Bl” isn’t a real element, but decided that “Bk” must be good enough as it’s just 1 letter away.
November 17, 2025 at 4:01 PM
As a stats in-joke I thought redesigning the “Breaking Bad” titles to say “Breaking Blind” would be, so I asked Claude to have a go at this. It helpfully pointed out that “Bl” isn’t a real element, but decided that “Bk” must be good enough as it’s just 1 letter away.
As a stats in-joke I thought redesigning the “Breaking Bad” titles to say “Breaking Blind” would be, so I asked Claude to have a go at this. It helpfully pointed out that “Bl” isn’t a real element, but decided that “Bk” must be good enough as it’s just 1 letter away.
November 17, 2025 at 4:00 PM
As a stats in-joke I thought redesigning the “Breaking Bad” titles to say “Breaking Blind” would be, so I asked Claude to have a go at this. It helpfully pointed out that “Bl” isn’t a real element, but decided that “Bk” must be good enough as it’s just 1 letter away.
Two animated guides for understanding some key concepts in statistical inference:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Or at least for becoming curious enough about these concepts to want to learn more…)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Or at least for becoming curious enough about these concepts to want to learn more…)
Jon Minton’s Blog - Point estimates, Confidence Intervals and P-Values
Two simple statistical animations co-produced with Claude
jonminton.github.io
November 13, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Two animated guides for understanding some key concepts in statistical inference:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Or at least for becoming curious enough about these concepts to want to learn more…)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Or at least for becoming curious enough about these concepts to want to learn more…)
Reposted by Jon Minton
pkgdown 2.2.0 now out — tidyverse.org/blog/2025/11.... Main feature is new build_llm_docs() which makes your websites easier to understand by LLMs. (Which you can easily turn off if desired) #rstats
pkgdown 2.2.0
The latest version of pkgdown automatically builds markdown files that make it easy for LLMs to use your website.
tidyverse.org
November 6, 2025 at 1:45 PM
pkgdown 2.2.0 now out — tidyverse.org/blog/2025/11.... Main feature is new build_llm_docs() which makes your websites easier to understand by LLMs. (Which you can easily turn off if desired) #rstats
Reposted by Jon Minton
purrr 1.2.0 out now — mostly removing long deprecated functions but a few small performance nad parallel processing improvements. Learn more at www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/11... #rstats
purrr 1.2.0
This release tightens up the package by removing long-deprecated functions, making `map_chr()` and predicate functions more type-safe, and requiring a newer version of carrier to make `in_parallel()`...
www.tidyverse.org
November 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM
purrr 1.2.0 out now — mostly removing long deprecated functions but a few small performance nad parallel processing improvements. Learn more at www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/11... #rstats
Someone on ‘the other place’ just unearthed and reposted this data vis I made a couple of years ago. Such is the decline in engagement- there or here- that even 8 likes now looks impressive!
November 4, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Someone on ‘the other place’ just unearthed and reposted this data vis I made a couple of years ago. Such is the decline in engagement- there or here- that even 8 likes now looks impressive!
New blog post: Claude as a dialectical engine?
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Have LLMs now solved their sycophancy problem?)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Have LLMs now solved their sycophancy problem?)
Jon Minton’s Blog - Claude as a Dialectical Engine?
Accounts of two recent exchanges
jonminton.github.io
October 28, 2025 at 7:48 PM
New blog post: Claude as a dialectical engine?
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Have LLMs now solved their sycophancy problem?)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(Have LLMs now solved their sycophancy problem?)
D’oh!
October 20, 2025 at 7:31 AM
D’oh!
I’ve now experienced an LLM (Claude) start to ask me questions and push back on specific suggestions and assumptions I’ve made either implicitly or explicitly through the prompt. To me this suggests LLMs are moving from ‘Affirmation Engines’ to ‘Dialectical Engines’, a change I wasn’t expecting.
October 18, 2025 at 12:37 PM
I’ve now experienced an LLM (Claude) start to ask me questions and push back on specific suggestions and assumptions I’ve made either implicitly or explicitly through the prompt. To me this suggests LLMs are moving from ‘Affirmation Engines’ to ‘Dialectical Engines’, a change I wasn’t expecting.
Reposted by Jon Minton
Would any fluent speakers of Korean or Chinese have a couple of minutes to review some updated pkgdown translations at github.com/r-lib/pkgdow... ? These were generated by claude code, so they're probably ok, but I'd love a human to double check.
✨ Proofread translations ✨ by hadley · Pull Request #2926 · r-lib/pkgdown
with Claude code
cc @jayhesselberth @maelle
github.com
October 16, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Would any fluent speakers of Korean or Chinese have a couple of minutes to review some updated pkgdown translations at github.com/r-lib/pkgdow... ? These were generated by claude code, so they're probably ok, but I'd love a human to double check.
Climbing with Claude: understanding git/GitHub for collaborative version control:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Jon Minton’s Blog - Climbing with Claude: Understanding Collaborative Version Control
An Artificially Hand-drawn Analogy
jonminton.github.io
October 14, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Climbing with Claude: understanding git/GitHub for collaborative version control:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Here’s Claude’s scarily accurate summary of my 9 ideas:
Nine thoughts and ideas inspired by reading Tim Berners-Lee's This is for Everyone: (From Monetisation to Marriage Markets)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
lnkd.in
October 12, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Here’s Claude’s scarily accurate summary of my 9 ideas:
Nine thoughts and ideas inspired by reading Tim Berners-Lee's This is for Everyone: (From Monetisation to Marriage Markets)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
lnkd.in
October 12, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Nine thoughts and ideas inspired by reading Tim Berners-Lee's This is for Everyone: (From Monetisation to Marriage Markets)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Has the child prodigy who made the game Theme Park in 1994 ‘solved intelligence’?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_P...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_P...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
Theme Park (video game) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 10, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Has the child prodigy who made the game Theme Park in 1994 ‘solved intelligence’?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_P...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_P...
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
New blog post: the man who solved intelligence - Demis Hassabis and the Thinking Game:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(I’m not even sure the title is hyperbole…)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(I’m not even sure the title is hyperbole…)
Jon Minton’s Blog - The Man Who Solved Intelligence
Some thoughts on Demis Hassabis and The Thinking Game
jonminton.github.io
October 9, 2025 at 8:04 PM
New blog post: the man who solved intelligence - Demis Hassabis and the Thinking Game:
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(I’m not even sure the title is hyperbole…)
jonminton.github.io/jon-blog/pos...
(I’m not even sure the title is hyperbole…)
Reposted by Jon Minton
Devout tightarses take note: The Genius Myth is a kindle daily deal today, for £1.99.
www.amazon.co.uk/Genius-Myth-...
www.amazon.co.uk/Genius-Myth-...
The Genius Myth: The Sunday Times bestselling exploration of the dangerous allure of rebels, monsters and rule-breakers eBook : Lewis, Helen: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
The Genius Myth: The Sunday Times bestselling exploration of the dangerous allure of rebels, monsters and rule-breakers eBook : Lewis, Helen: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
www.amazon.co.uk
September 8, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Devout tightarses take note: The Genius Myth is a kindle daily deal today, for £1.99.
www.amazon.co.uk/Genius-Myth-...
www.amazon.co.uk/Genius-Myth-...
Jon Minton’s Blog - Remembering KGB: 1992’s subtly terrifying social poison simulator
jonminton.github.io
September 7, 2025 at 5:07 PM