Ben Harrap

Shoutout to @libbyheeren.bsky.social for getting so many great #rstats conversations going

I very much appreciate the community building!

The Infectious Diseases Epidemiology team at The Kids Research Institute Australia is looking for a Qualitative Researcher!
I've been in the #IDEpi team for three years and it's a great bunch of people to work alongside.
Happy to answer any questions
#jobalert #researchsky #episky

I'd really love to know when the "golden age of #rstats twitter" was, because I was active from ~2020 and, despite seeing a really vibrant and helpful community (just like here!!), not a month went by without someone reminiscing about the "good old days"

Tip for anyone who uses SMS eScripts - pin the conversation in your messages.

Saves you having to go digging for it when you get to the pharmacy!

raphael, one of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, wielding two sai

TBH the only use of this domain name should be to display images of pet turtles wielding sai

Haha OK I did think you were replying to me

Idk what to make of this, can you say more?

OH that was a lower-case L! I thought you were going to see a strange computer 😅

Validating LLM output by checking results from your google search is akin to using the same dataset for training and testing

I'm not aware of your context, but not having access to funding for statisticians is one of my issues!

I wanna say your post just crystallised several of my worries about LLMs and broader issues with academia, there's no animosity on my end ❤️

I clearly had a lot of thoughts/feelings from reading Terry's blog post, so I wrote one of my own

It ended up being a bit of a stream-of-thought post but I think it captures some of my worries

benharrap.com/post/2025-10...

#statssky #episky #academicsky

There's been several universities across Australia that closed their units. I can't recall which ones specifically but there were enough closing that it caused led to a lot of discussion with the Statistical Society of Australia

I'm not talking about your circumstance specifically. Reading your post just reminded me how difficult it can be being a statistician

Effective Business leaders: "It takes several months for new employees to become fully productive members of the team..."

Universities: EXCITING 6 MONTH POSITION REPLACING THE LAST PERSON WHO WAS HERE 6 MONTHS.

It always makes me sad to see non-statistcians so readily and happily replace actual human experts with LLMs

I get that academia is a resource constrained environment, but it's doubly painful to see this kind of thinking at a time when universities are defunding their statistical consulting centres

Yes, I did delete
LinkedIn
a waste of my time

😉

Sovereign computers, software and servers for home and office I talk with Tangata Tiriti Rob Elshire about his journey over decades setting up sovereign computers and data storage facilities.

Sovereign computers, software and servers for home and office. Come and join me for this live webinar with an Open Source expert, noon October 22, Nau mai, haere mai koutou!

sovereign-computers.eventbrite.co.nz

A few weeks ago I went to Canberra to receive the Moran Medal at the lovely Shine Dome of the Australian Academy of Science (@science.org.au). It was a huge honour, and wonderful to hear talks from all corners of science and to learn about the Academy's great work supporting science
- pics below!

Lmao I had this same problem - had to take the doors off both the house AND the fridge to get it in

I'm going to be giving an #rstats talk about functions in about 45 minutes - it's online!

The talk is called: "Practical Functions: Practically Magic", but could potentially be retitled, "Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction".

Join at: www.meetup.com/slc-rug/even...

Where did the name Midwest come from? As someone who knows nothing about USA history or geography, whenever I've seen the area referred to I assumed it was on the western side of the country

Removing the "discover" feed from my pinned list has been a great way to not see ragebait posts

Being chaotic good and telling my building strata that the hallway lights are not working by sending them a photo of the pitch black hallway

Stopped using "X" years ago and have finally made a switch. Hope to reconnect with folks and touch back in to the social land to share and talk about open science, research software, ecology, and public health. 🙌

That's German for "The p-value, The The The"

R-Ladies & SSA Melbourne Social Night: Happy 9th Birthday R-Ladies, Thu, Oct 16, 2025, 5:00 PM | Meetup **Happy 9th Birthday R-Ladies Melbourne 🎉** Come unwind and connect with like-minded people at a joint event with R-Ladies Melbourne and the Statistical Society of Austra

It's our 9th birthday and you're all invited to celebrate with us! 💜

We are partnering up with the Statistical Society of Australia to host a Social Night!

🔗 Register: www.meetup.com/rladies-melb...
📅 Thu 16 Oct, 5-7pm
📌 Father's Office

#StatSocAus #rladies #stats #rstats

Top statistician accuses government of spinning rock art science A scientist who quit a major study on WA rock art is accusing the government of downplaying findings linking damage to heavy industry.

Ok so "top statistician breaks silence" is up there with "worthwhile Canadian initiative" as a headline, but you still might want to read it
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Are you a student or early-career statisticians & data scientists in the Sydney area? Come hear from a diverse panel on their experience and career trajectories! Food and drink to follow

📅 9th Oct, 6-8pm Sydney time
📍 USyd

Registration required:
statsoc.org.au/event-6332903

#statssky #databs

australian street style, 1973