Ben Bolker
@bbolker.bsky.social
Ecology, evolution, epidemiology, statistics (mixed models). McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario https://math.mcmaster.ca/bolker
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Stoked about the new Replication Studies section in Behavioral Ecology? Me too!
Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts!
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...
Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts!
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...
The value of close replications and how to get more of them: interview with Kate Laskowski
Welcome to our latest interview with the author of a recent interesting paper. Today’s interview was conducted by email with behavioral ecologist Kate Laskowski, first author ofLaskowski et a…
dynamicecology.wordpress.com
February 17, 2026 at 5:02 PM
Stoked about the new Replication Studies section in Behavioral Ecology? Me too!
Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts!
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...
Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts!
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...
Reposted by Ben Bolker
#rstats RIP, John Fox
@yihui.org just published this lovely tribute to John Fox and his work
yihui.org/en/2026/02/j...
@yihui.org just published this lovely tribute to John Fox and his work
yihui.org/en/2026/02/j...
R.I.P., John Fox - Yihui Xie | 谢益辉
Last November, I learned the very sad news from Michael Friendly that John Fox had passed away. That brought my memory back to 2006 when I emailed John for the first time asking for his help on a &hel...
yihui.org
February 12, 2026 at 2:05 AM
#rstats RIP, John Fox
@yihui.org just published this lovely tribute to John Fox and his work
yihui.org/en/2026/02/j...
@yihui.org just published this lovely tribute to John Fox and his work
yihui.org/en/2026/02/j...
Has anyone tried vibe (LLM) translating Matlab to Julia? How did it go?
February 9, 2026 at 8:56 PM
Has anyone tried vibe (LLM) translating Matlab to Julia? How did it go?
I was going to ask someone to remind me of the magic "resize quarto figures interactively, then insert the figure size parameters back into the quarto document" plug-in; I managed to find it, so here it is again for anyone who didn't hear about it the first time: github.com/EmilHvitfeld...
GitHub - EmilHvitfeldt/quarto-revealjs-editable: Repositioning and resizing of images and text directly in quarto revealjs slides
Repositioning and resizing of images and text directly in quarto revealjs slides - GitHub - EmilHvitfeldt/quarto-revealjs-editable: Repositioning and resizing of images and text directly in quarto...
github.com
February 2, 2026 at 11:11 PM
I was going to ask someone to remind me of the magic "resize quarto figures interactively, then insert the figure size parameters back into the quarto document" plug-in; I managed to find it, so here it is again for anyone who didn't hear about it the first time: github.com/EmilHvitfeld...
for lazy Firefox users like me who want to suppress Google's AI responses to search with the least amount of effort ... addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefo... (I didn't count, but I think it was fewer than 5 mouse clicks)
udm14 – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-CA)
Download udm14 for Firefox. Adds a Google search engine that includes the udm=14 parameter
addons.mozilla.org
January 28, 2026 at 11:06 PM
for lazy Firefox users like me who want to suppress Google's AI responses to search with the least amount of effort ... addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefo... (I didn't count, but I think it was fewer than 5 mouse clicks)
Reposted by Ben Bolker
check it out: datamint.ing
datamint.ing
datamint.ing
January 28, 2026 at 6:30 PM
check it out: datamint.ing
annals of yak shaving: troubling remembering the name of the amazing github.com/cynkra/const... pkg (human-readable `dput()`). I remember (1) I have it installed (2) the names starts with "c" and (3) is an English word ...
January 20, 2026 at 7:08 PM
annals of yak shaving: troubling remembering the name of the amazing github.com/cynkra/const... pkg (human-readable `dput()`). I remember (1) I have it installed (2) the names starts with "c" and (3) is an English word ...
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Anyone have a good resource in comparing bootstrapping and permutation testing? They both do some resampling, but their philosophies are very different.
January 15, 2026 at 6:11 PM
Anyone have a good resource in comparing bootstrapping and permutation testing? They both do some resampling, but their philosophies are very different.
Hey @visnut.bsky.social @hadley.nz were you aware of this prior art on graphical diagnostics à la github.com/dicook/nulla... ? Schruben 1980 doi.org/10.1177/0037... (didn't see it in refs of Buja+ 2009; found ref in Brillinger+ 2008 projecteuclid.org/euclid.imsc/...; they call it a 'Turing test')
January 8, 2026 at 12:19 AM
Hey @visnut.bsky.social @hadley.nz were you aware of this prior art on graphical diagnostics à la github.com/dicook/nulla... ? Schruben 1980 doi.org/10.1177/0037... (didn't see it in refs of Buja+ 2009; found ref in Brillinger+ 2008 projecteuclid.org/euclid.imsc/...; they call it a 'Turing test')
#rstats anyone remember where dates of the CRAN holiday closure are posted/announced? (This feels like the sort of thing that could go on the R-announce mailing list, but it's not there ... stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-... ) Also looked briefly here: github.com/MichaelChiri... ...)
The R-announce 2025 Archive by thread
stat.ethz.ch
January 5, 2026 at 9:24 PM
#rstats anyone remember where dates of the CRAN holiday closure are posted/announced? (This feels like the sort of thing that could go on the R-announce mailing list, but it's not there ... stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-... ) Also looked briefly here: github.com/MichaelChiri... ...)
Reposted by Ben Bolker
PhD position (London, UK)
Real-time modelling of infectious disease outbreaks.
with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social
at @epiforecasts.io @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social
More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2440
Real-time modelling of infectious disease outbreaks.
with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social
at @epiforecasts.io @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social
More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2440
January 2, 2026 at 6:29 PM
PhD position (London, UK)
Real-time modelling of infectious disease outbreaks.
with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social
at @epiforecasts.io @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social
More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2440
Real-time modelling of infectious disease outbreaks.
with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social
at @epiforecasts.io @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social
More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2440
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Yes, my wedding has a website
Yes, I have also included modelling of the expected temperature on the day
Yes, I did this by fitting a Bayesian model to 45 years of temperature data
Yes, the wedding website has an easter egg with a little link to find a writeup of how I got the numbers
Yes, I have also included modelling of the expected temperature on the day
Yes, I did this by fitting a Bayesian model to 45 years of temperature data
Yes, the wedding website has an easter egg with a little link to find a writeup of how I got the numbers
December 29, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Yes, my wedding has a website
Yes, I have also included modelling of the expected temperature on the day
Yes, I did this by fitting a Bayesian model to 45 years of temperature data
Yes, the wedding website has an easter egg with a little link to find a writeup of how I got the numbers
Yes, I have also included modelling of the expected temperature on the day
Yes, I did this by fitting a Bayesian model to 45 years of temperature data
Yes, the wedding website has an easter egg with a little link to find a writeup of how I got the numbers
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Help me Hive Mind!
This Haydn sonata has a riff, first presented in the very first measure, that was borrowed by Beethoven (a Haydn fan and pupil) in one of B’s great piano works.
Which, of course, I can’t place. And which, of course, is driving me crazy.
Any help?
youtu.be/jfsSFGDpFbw?...
This Haydn sonata has a riff, first presented in the very first measure, that was borrowed by Beethoven (a Haydn fan and pupil) in one of B’s great piano works.
Which, of course, I can’t place. And which, of course, is driving me crazy.
Any help?
youtu.be/jfsSFGDpFbw?...
Haydn Sonata in C Major, Hob XVI 48 – Alfred Brendel
YouTube video by Zhanna Gumenyuk
youtu.be
December 24, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Help me Hive Mind!
This Haydn sonata has a riff, first presented in the very first measure, that was borrowed by Beethoven (a Haydn fan and pupil) in one of B’s great piano works.
Which, of course, I can’t place. And which, of course, is driving me crazy.
Any help?
youtu.be/jfsSFGDpFbw?...
This Haydn sonata has a riff, first presented in the very first measure, that was borrowed by Beethoven (a Haydn fan and pupil) in one of B’s great piano works.
Which, of course, I can’t place. And which, of course, is driving me crazy.
Any help?
youtu.be/jfsSFGDpFbw?...
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Hear ye! Hear ye! 🇨🇦 Canada’s universities have new money to recruit international scholars.
Here is McMaster’s call for applications: research.mcmaster.ca/home/support...
Here is McMaster’s call for applications: research.mcmaster.ca/home/support...
Canada Impact+ Research Chairs Nominees - Research & Innovation
[...]Read More...
research.mcmaster.ca
December 23, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Hear ye! Hear ye! 🇨🇦 Canada’s universities have new money to recruit international scholars.
Here is McMaster’s call for applications: research.mcmaster.ca/home/support...
Here is McMaster’s call for applications: research.mcmaster.ca/home/support...
Reposted by Ben Bolker
is there a good citation discussing recent Gelman/Vehtari/etc style choices of prior? like what's on the Stan wiki but in the form of an academic paper? github.com/stan-dev/sta...
Prior Choice Recommendations
Stan development repository. The master branch contains the current release. The develop branch contains the latest stable development. See the Developer Process Wiki for details. - stan-dev/stan
github.com
December 22, 2025 at 12:22 AM
is there a good citation discussing recent Gelman/Vehtari/etc style choices of prior? like what's on the Stan wiki but in the form of an academic paper? github.com/stan-dev/sta...
God damn them all, I was told ...
December 21, 2025 at 12:06 AM
God damn them all, I was told ...
Reposted by Ben Bolker
This is a really cool project, I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate.
news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...
news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...
McMaster research team digitizes more than 100 years of Canadian infectious disease data
The new, publicly accessible database contains more than a million infectious disease incidence counts dating back to 1903.
news.mcmaster.ca
December 18, 2025 at 5:41 PM
This is a really cool project, I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate.
news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...
news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Since I can’t get it out of my head, I wrote up my thoughts on @kevinbaker.bsky.social's critique of AI-automated science and the logical end of processes that can't self-correct.
December 15, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Since I can’t get it out of my head, I wrote up my thoughts on @kevinbaker.bsky.social's critique of AI-automated science and the logical end of processes that can't self-correct.
Reposted by Ben Bolker
Looking for a postdoc in 2026? The Ewel fellowship at UF provides $70K salary and $20K research support for 2 yrs. I'm happy to sponsor a postdoc interested in microbial ecology of Florida coastal ecosystems (seagrass, coral, mangroves, springs). 🦠 Due 1/11/26
postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/current-post...
postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/current-post...
postdoc.aa.ufl.edu
December 13, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Looking for a postdoc in 2026? The Ewel fellowship at UF provides $70K salary and $20K research support for 2 yrs. I'm happy to sponsor a postdoc interested in microbial ecology of Florida coastal ecosystems (seagrass, coral, mangroves, springs). 🦠 Due 1/11/26
postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/current-post...
postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/current-post...
2-3 days to "analemma day", earliest northern-hemisphere sunset of the year ... gist.github.com/bbolker/1bb9... (I could have vibe-coded this into a Shiny app with reverse geocoding for the user's choice of location, etc etc but couldn't be bothered ...) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemm...
December 5, 2025 at 10:14 PM
2-3 days to "analemma day", earliest northern-hemisphere sunset of the year ... gist.github.com/bbolker/1bb9... (I could have vibe-coded this into a Shiny app with reverse geocoding for the user's choice of location, etc etc but couldn't be bothered ...) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemm...
This just popped up in my feed; I read it quickly, but it seems thoughtful and clear.
link 📈🤖
What the Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox Really Is: Correcting a Persistent Misconception (Lovric) The Jeffreys-Lindley paradox stands as the most profound divergence between frequentist and Bayesian approaches to hypothesis testing. Yet despite more than six decades of discussion, this paradox
What the Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox Really Is: Correcting a Persistent Misconception (Lovric) The Jeffreys-Lindley paradox stands as the most profound divergence between frequentist and Bayesian approaches to hypothesis testing. Yet despite more than six decades of discussion, this paradox
December 1, 2025 at 7:11 PM
This just popped up in my feed; I read it quickly, but it seems thoughtful and clear.
Reposted by Ben Bolker
#rstats
It is with profound sadness I heard that my long-time friend and colleague, John Fox passed away this week.
He was the author of {car}, {effects}, {Rcmdr}, ... and numerous influential books. I will miss him greatly.
www.john-fox.ca
It is with profound sadness I heard that my long-time friend and colleague, John Fox passed away this week.
He was the author of {car}, {effects}, {Rcmdr}, ... and numerous influential books. I will miss him greatly.
www.john-fox.ca
John Fox: Books and Software
www.john-fox.ca
November 28, 2025 at 3:26 PM
#rstats
It is with profound sadness I heard that my long-time friend and colleague, John Fox passed away this week.
He was the author of {car}, {effects}, {Rcmdr}, ... and numerous influential books. I will miss him greatly.
www.john-fox.ca
It is with profound sadness I heard that my long-time friend and colleague, John Fox passed away this week.
He was the author of {car}, {effects}, {Rcmdr}, ... and numerous influential books. I will miss him greatly.
www.john-fox.ca
A colleague is looking for an open-source/online (pref. peer-reviewed) reference for properties of probability distributions. Any ideas? (NIST gives *very* basic properties e.g. www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handb... but I think they're looking for something more complete ...)
November 25, 2025 at 3:17 PM
A colleague is looking for an open-source/online (pref. peer-reviewed) reference for properties of probability distributions. Any ideas? (NIST gives *very* basic properties e.g. www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handb... but I think they're looking for something more complete ...)