Michael Ralph

No better full series arc for a couple. I hope they don't screw it up in March...

Pretty sure this video explainer in a survey I'm taking is using an AI-based text-to-voice technology... and it's got this weird dissonance that sounds like 2 voices speaking with slight misalignment.

I'm taking massive psychic damage right now.

Last night one of my students asked me earnestly 'How do I get to be like [big famous scholar in his field]?' and it's been living rent free in my head ever since...

Man, you are asking a guy who has made pretty much every single decision possible to avoid that. Hell if I know.

108 Personalize or Differentiate and Inquiry Classrooms - Podcast Episodes - Two Pint PLC Dr. Zhang joins to discuss adjusting course content for students and we read a course description emphasizing philosophical coherence.

I produce and co-host an education research podcast that releases new episodes on the 12th of every month.

Dr. Zhang joins to discuss law and policy around teaching adjustment, and we read a case study of a class focused on inquiry & growth. #EduSky

twopintplc.com/podcast-epis...

It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.

I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

Welp... we will be having an AI talk in my class much earlier this year than last year.

That is disappointing... but also, this is the place to learn and it is exactly my job to teach them.

We can do this.

To be clear, kids get hurt and I'm not mad at all.

I just immediately thought of when I did sports med in high school. You have X-ray vision? You don't know... and the fact you feel the need to say so tells me something real happened.

So... let's limit our claims to our evidence friends.

When I got to aftercare pickup this afternoon, Cam was sitting out and crying. The first thing they told me was 'she hurt it, but it's not broken'.

Guess what.

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

A brown dog sleeping on a couch in the sunlight coming from a nearby window.

I had to go through my camera roll to find some photos I took for work and I am realizing that it's like... over 50% photos of a sleeping dog.

It's too much and I am embarrassed... but also, look at this sleeping boy!

Bluesky Map Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

That Seattle blitz is just a nightmare. Good for them.

Who do you name MVP in a Super Bowl with zero touchdowns?

"Ms. Hart doesn’t disclose her use of A.I. ... she requested anonymity because she still uses her real name for some publishing"

'Will you put your name on this use of AI' remains undefeated as the perfect litmus test.

Can +1 this comment.

I was full time staff in my previous role - not only teaching staff, but with a variety of responsibilities - and almost nobody took our team seriously.

Even years after the whole team got cut (and I finished my terminal degree) I STILL catch grief from faculty.

Stress waking up early on a Saturday because I have grading that students really need back by now.

The semester is truly under way!

The Board of Governors decided, unilaterally, that no published textbook in the field of sociology could be used in compliance with the law for an Intro to Sociology class. None. Victor: There's not a single existing textbook on the market that could be used that would qualify under state law? Zachary: Correct. Victor: I'm sorry, that's kind of funny. Like, the absurdity of not a single sociology textbook getting past the censors. I mean, it makes me kind of proud of our colleagues, but...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors.

Great work everyone.

a picture of a person in the water with the words call of the deep below it ALT: a picture of a person in the water with the words call of the deep below it

More on NSF funding data

A deeper dive into the numbers of awards by Directorate.

1/9

At no point did I know what would happen next in this story. Ever.

Ten Thousand

And if you were feeling a little embarrassed or left out for not getting that first reference, here's another XKCD that I hope gives you some peace.

I love XKCD.

xkcd.com/1053/

Dependency

Sharing for those who may not get the reference:

xkcd.com/2347/

I teach my methods students to use a paper notebook, too. Anyone have good references or guides like what Hadley requests? #AcademicSky

For as much attention that academics pay to citations of papers, it is wild to me how incompatible academic writing is to citing anything else...

Turns out photos have dates too.

I get this very very intensely.

The sad irony is that it is one of my wife's favorite types of television... And I often have to leave the room entirely.

Lolsob indeed

OctoPrint.org OctoPrint is the snappy web interface for your 3D printer that allows you to control and monitor all aspects of your printer and print jobs, right from your browser.

Oh, and make sure it works with OctoPrint. That print server is amazing and (once again) way better than proprietary interfaces.

octoprint.org

That's a pretty different use case than what I do, but get something with open hardware. The proprietary extruders and stuff are so expensive, always break, and are basically impossible to repair/mod.

Open source and easy replacement are the way.

Our hyper-lawful dwarven fighter just stole something, and the party is in absolute disarray.

I'm the rogue and even I'm like "dude, wut"

That's awesome, thank you!