Ryan Briggs
@ryancbriggs.net
Raising kids & bread & grant money. Cleaning data & diapers & fish. EA (bed nets, not light cone). Social scientist. typos. twitter.com/ryancbriggs
preparing some slightly deranged slides for last class
November 27, 2025 at 1:16 PM
preparing some slightly deranged slides for last class
Second half is advice, mostly around how to think about the academic job market and how to prepare for academic and non-academic jobs
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November 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Second half is advice, mostly around how to think about the academic job market and how to prepare for academic and non-academic jobs
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A student recently asked me for academic job market advice and I pulled up a slideshow from a few years ago. I don't think I've shared it, but it might be broadly useful. I think the advice almost entirely holds up.
First part is about my time on the job market
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First part is about my time on the job market
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November 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
A student recently asked me for academic job market advice and I pulled up a slideshow from a few years ago. I don't think I've shared it, but it might be broadly useful. I think the advice almost entirely holds up.
First part is about my time on the job market
1/3
First part is about my time on the job market
1/3
Some people are unaware but the ideal wok is made of steel and costs about $15 at your local Chinese grocery store. Every time you use it grows in power.
November 19, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Some people are unaware but the ideal wok is made of steel and costs about $15 at your local Chinese grocery store. Every time you use it grows in power.
Help me think of an engaging physical way to demonstrate the problem of selection on statistical significance. My best idea right now is to take a Galton board and drill holes in the bottom so some of the balls with |z| < 2 fall out.
November 3, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Help me think of an engaging physical way to demonstrate the problem of selection on statistical significance. My best idea right now is to take a Galton board and drill holes in the bottom so some of the balls with |z| < 2 fall out.
Snacking cakes by Yossy Arefi is the most dangerous cookbook. It’s entirely 1 bowl cakes that you can make in under 1 hour, like this chocolate sesame one. Perfect for when you need to eat cake at 9pm on a Sunday.
October 27, 2025 at 1:21 AM
Snacking cakes by Yossy Arefi is the most dangerous cookbook. It’s entirely 1 bowl cakes that you can make in under 1 hour, like this chocolate sesame one. Perfect for when you need to eat cake at 9pm on a Sunday.
It's also just such a weird coincidence given that Cohen explicitly arrived at 80% via a different route. I think it's at minimum neat.
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
It's also just such a weird coincidence given that Cohen explicitly arrived at 80% via a different route. I think it's at minimum neat.
This graph helps with intuition. Note this is all per SE (not n) so it's not always so relevant, but sometimes we can do things to reduce the SE without increasing n (better measurement, research designs, modelling) and in that case it's pretty reasonable to try to run up to 80% but not much over.
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
This graph helps with intuition. Note this is all per SE (not n) so it's not always so relevant, but sometimes we can do things to reduce the SE without increasing n (better measurement, research designs, modelling) and in that case it's pretty reasonable to try to run up to 80% but not much over.
I think this is kind of neat and I don't think anyone else has noticed it (I've looked and I can't find anyone who has) osf.io/preprints/so...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
I think this is kind of neat and I don't think anyone else has noticed it (I've looked and I can't find anyone who has) osf.io/preprints/so...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
Maybe I should back off "justification" language, but it's at least a remarkable coincidence. I still think someone else *must* have noticed it...
4. Stefan Faridani presented work measuring power from t-stats. The part in blue is the critical bit and it very much has my attention, even though tbh I do not yet fully understand how it works. t.co/mnBLu1WUz7
October 19, 2025 at 1:22 PM
4. Stefan Faridani presented work measuring power from t-stats. The part in blue is the critical bit and it very much has my attention, even though tbh I do not yet fully understand how it works. t.co/mnBLu1WUz7
2. David Slichter presented work testing if higher or lower rank journals have more bias in their estimates or standard errors. Turns out both look the same across matched literatures.
docs.iza.org/dp17960.pdf
docs.iza.org/dp17960.pdf
October 19, 2025 at 1:22 PM
2. David Slichter presented work testing if higher or lower rank journals have more bias in their estimates or standard errors. Turns out both look the same across matched literatures.
docs.iza.org/dp17960.pdf
docs.iza.org/dp17960.pdf
A very much non-exhaustive list of talks that I enjoyed at MAER-Net.
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
October 19, 2025 at 1:22 PM
A very much non-exhaustive list of talks that I enjoyed at MAER-Net.
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
1. Nikolay Kudrin's JMP on detecting and measuring p-hacking (in a way more disciplined way!). We're moving past "I dunno looks good in simulation." I need to spend time with this paper.
drive.google.com/file/d/1UmuE...
I love that Gelman’s lecture is no slides and chalk
October 18, 2025 at 1:53 PM
I love that Gelman’s lecture is no slides and chalk
I thought this was quite a nice (and appropriately pessimistic) discussion of our paper on power in political science. All that I would add is that we found a small minority of research topics with high power! podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/i...
October 17, 2025 at 2:29 AM
I thought this was quite a nice (and appropriately pessimistic) discussion of our paper on power in political science. All that I would add is that we found a small minority of research topics with high power! podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/i...
Apparently she said she was thankful for kaya toast but the teachers didn’t know what that was so they just wrote toast. Singapore wins again.
October 10, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Apparently she said she was thankful for kaya toast but the teachers didn’t know what that was so they just wrote toast. Singapore wins again.
I do a stats and coding exam in a computer lab with ethernet, and I just unplug the ethernet. Before I realized I could do that I was really worried about how I would test them, and it works well. the current test is just pen and paper. I have many more such tests now. no take homes.
October 9, 2025 at 1:36 PM
I do a stats and coding exam in a computer lab with ethernet, and I just unplug the ethernet. Before I realized I could do that I was really worried about how I would test them, and it works well. the current test is just pen and paper. I have many more such tests now. no take homes.
The pretty draft is now online.
Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....
Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....
Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
September 10, 2025 at 5:25 PM
The pretty draft is now online.
Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....
Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....
Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
Eggnog is just a kind of flip, which is a nice thing to realize because then you can riff on it very easily. This is an “Estonian eggnog,” where I added Vana Tallin to the base. 👌
September 10, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Eggnog is just a kind of flip, which is a nice thing to realize because then you can riff on it very easily. This is an “Estonian eggnog,” where I added Vana Tallin to the base. 👌
Going to EA events is weird
September 8, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Going to EA events is weird
Tried the wild blackberry simple syrup in blackberry metropolitans (split base brandy and benedictine, orange bitters). It has such a beautiful colour
September 7, 2025 at 1:06 AM
Tried the wild blackberry simple syrup in blackberry metropolitans (split base brandy and benedictine, orange bitters). It has such a beautiful colour
oh you do not need to apologize! Thanks for your work.
I wish I could inline R to do this (see screenshot). It's the only place in the paper where I need to remember to update numbers if data or analysis changes and I don't like that.
I wish I could inline R to do this (see screenshot). It's the only place in the paper where I need to remember to update numbers if data or analysis changes and I don't like that.
September 6, 2025 at 11:53 PM
oh you do not need to apologize! Thanks for your work.
I wish I could inline R to do this (see screenshot). It's the only place in the paper where I need to remember to update numbers if data or analysis changes and I don't like that.
I wish I could inline R to do this (see screenshot). It's the only place in the paper where I need to remember to update numbers if data or analysis changes and I don't like that.
Oh hey I crossed 3 million metres rowed
September 6, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Oh hey I crossed 3 million metres rowed