Paddy Maher
@paddycm.bsky.social
Professional psych nerd; PhD studying personality, friendship and mental health @goldsmithsUoL.bsky.social. Writes sometimes. Funnier on instagram
Do skill +xG players have finishing ‘profiles’? Can they be spotted from the variance +xG players?
December 7, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Do skill +xG players have finishing ‘profiles’? Can they be spotted from the variance +xG players?
Underrated issue with politics in the UK today is that the policies tommy robinson is congratulating Labour for will not even solve any of his problems
The basic problem with the temporary refugee status policy - especially one lasting up to 20 years - is it leads to very few removals (based on Denmark's experience) but does significantly worsen integration.
November 18, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Brexit was also understood as a ‘solution’ to immigration, so everyone stopped talking about it [for a few years]
Policy and politics are things you sometimes have to trade off, the idea isn’t to choose the absolute worst of both
Policy and politics are things you sometimes have to trade off, the idea isn’t to choose the absolute worst of both
November 18, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Brexit was also understood as a ‘solution’ to immigration, so everyone stopped talking about it [for a few years]
Policy and politics are things you sometimes have to trade off, the idea isn’t to choose the absolute worst of both
Policy and politics are things you sometimes have to trade off, the idea isn’t to choose the absolute worst of both
Genuinely surprised by the anger being directed towards data. It’s a map, it’s an ugly map, i don’t like it, this is where we are, what do we do now
November 15, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Genuinely surprised by the anger being directed towards data. It’s a map, it’s an ugly map, i don’t like it, this is where we are, what do we do now
I have a half-drafted email to you asking whether you’d had any updates on grants. Good luck!!
November 14, 2025 at 2:42 PM
I have a half-drafted email to you asking whether you’d had any updates on grants. Good luck!!
Why did they back off the 2p swapping of NI/income tax? Was it actually about the OBR’s definition of ‘working people’ or never real to begin with?
November 14, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Why did they back off the 2p swapping of NI/income tax? Was it actually about the OBR’s definition of ‘working people’ or never real to begin with?
I’d also note that people don’t ask about fictional characters’ nationalities/ethnicities to the same extent as they do about those of real people
November 12, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I’d also note that people don’t ask about fictional characters’ nationalities/ethnicities to the same extent as they do about those of real people
I think it’s down to a desire to categorise, and age doesn’t come with clear categories? I also think categories are less salient for fictional characters than real people whose motives we’re trying to guess. Mario has zero agenda beyond princess-saving, so we don’t try and triangulate him
November 12, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I think it’s down to a desire to categorise, and age doesn’t come with clear categories? I also think categories are less salient for fictional characters than real people whose motives we’re trying to guess. Mario has zero agenda beyond princess-saving, so we don’t try and triangulate him
Alex Salmond/Nicola Sturgeon held onto popularity so well through the 2010s that it’s always made me think that having a neighbour to 🖕 at is good for national cohesion
November 7, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Alex Salmond/Nicola Sturgeon held onto popularity so well through the 2010s that it’s always made me think that having a neighbour to 🖕 at is good for national cohesion
My favourite example is when they took Beethoven’s DNA from a hair sample, and found that our best genomic methods would have put him in the bottom 10% for musical aptitude
Polygenic scores are great in large samples! Maybe not so great for selecting embryos
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Polygenic scores are great in large samples! Maybe not so great for selecting embryos
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Notes from Beethoven’s genome
Rapid advances over the last decade in DNA sequencing and statistical genetics enable us to investigate the genomic makeup of individuals throughout h…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:12 PM
My favourite example is when they took Beethoven’s DNA from a hair sample, and found that our best genomic methods would have put him in the bottom 10% for musical aptitude
Polygenic scores are great in large samples! Maybe not so great for selecting embryos
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Polygenic scores are great in large samples! Maybe not so great for selecting embryos
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
In personality (and cross-rater surveys, ref.d in the text) we always have to emphasise to ourselves and each other how medium correlations are great across large datasets, and mostly ~useless for an individual
@renemottus.bsky.social even made an app to visualise it:
apps.psych.ut.ee/TACT/
@renemottus.bsky.social even made an app to visualise it:
apps.psych.ut.ee/TACT/
TACT: Trisect And Cross-Tabulate to understand and visualise correlations
apps.psych.ut.ee
November 6, 2025 at 11:03 PM
In personality (and cross-rater surveys, ref.d in the text) we always have to emphasise to ourselves and each other how medium correlations are great across large datasets, and mostly ~useless for an individual
@renemottus.bsky.social even made an app to visualise it:
apps.psych.ut.ee/TACT/
@renemottus.bsky.social even made an app to visualise it:
apps.psych.ut.ee/TACT/
What’s the price? ie what happens if Trump gets a de-filibustered senate til at least the midterms
October 31, 2025 at 11:29 AM
What’s the price? ie what happens if Trump gets a de-filibustered senate til at least the midterms
You immediately came to mind when i saw this
October 29, 2025 at 12:37 AM
You immediately came to mind when i saw this
Curious about China’s outlying here but can’t place exactly what the X axis is
October 25, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Curious about China’s outlying here but can’t place exactly what the X axis is
A line I’ve used is that more houses = tenant power, few houses = landlord power
October 24, 2025 at 11:30 PM
A line I’ve used is that more houses = tenant power, few houses = landlord power
"The total word count of the W3C specification catalogue is 114 million words"
drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/R...
drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/R...
The reckless, infinite scope of web browsers
drewdevault.com
October 22, 2025 at 3:25 PM
"The total word count of the W3C specification catalogue is 114 million words"
drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/R...
drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/R...
I remember ~5(?) years ago there was a piece about how it’s now ‘literally impossible’ to build a new from-scratch web browser because the documentation of modern web browser requirements is 200,000 pages long, too long for any humans to digest. So this all makes perfect sense
October 22, 2025 at 3:21 PM
I remember ~5(?) years ago there was a piece about how it’s now ‘literally impossible’ to build a new from-scratch web browser because the documentation of modern web browser requirements is 200,000 pages long, too long for any humans to digest. So this all makes perfect sense
been thinking about the ‘but X is non-negotiable’ pushback to this, to which the response (in the US) is ‘gaining a D senator in Oklahoma advances many leftist causes & harms none’
Yet it really does feel wrong to have the D establishment endorse idk a staunch anti-vaxer. How do we navigate that
Yet it really does feel wrong to have the D establishment endorse idk a staunch anti-vaxer. How do we navigate that
October 21, 2025 at 6:49 PM
been thinking about the ‘but X is non-negotiable’ pushback to this, to which the response (in the US) is ‘gaining a D senator in Oklahoma advances many leftist causes & harms none’
Yet it really does feel wrong to have the D establishment endorse idk a staunch anti-vaxer. How do we navigate that
Yet it really does feel wrong to have the D establishment endorse idk a staunch anti-vaxer. How do we navigate that
It really seems like Truss’s only real legacy is locking austerity in for ever and ever
October 14, 2025 at 12:17 PM
It really seems like Truss’s only real legacy is locking austerity in for ever and ever
It’s insane how much political capital they’ve spent on everything except their very early interest in bread and butter abundance policies
October 14, 2025 at 12:15 PM
It’s insane how much political capital they’ve spent on everything except their very early interest in bread and butter abundance policies
I do not know how Labour gets out of this one
October 14, 2025 at 12:12 PM
I do not know how Labour gets out of this one
Great work but I do think it didn’t do much to explain away the fact that agreement with those vague statements has increased and is higher on the left vs the right. The question may be loose, but I’d like to know what that shift means, if not concrete intent to harm
October 7, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Great work but I do think it didn’t do much to explain away the fact that agreement with those vague statements has increased and is higher on the left vs the right. The question may be loose, but I’d like to know what that shift means, if not concrete intent to harm
Fascinating! Especially as someone who loves the idea of (RI-/)CLPMs. If we treat them as only providing evidence of temporal sequentiality, would we not expect a reasonable proportion (although maybe not 98%) of random correlates to have this property?
October 2, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Fascinating! Especially as someone who loves the idea of (RI-/)CLPMs. If we treat them as only providing evidence of temporal sequentiality, would we not expect a reasonable proportion (although maybe not 98%) of random correlates to have this property?
to really nitpick, loneliness is also the wrong word. If you ask people to rate someone they know, women are consistently scored as lonelier than men. (Also true for self-ratings but people wave that off as stigma)
Men are ofc higher on suicides but it’s been surprisingly hard to link to friendship
Men are ofc higher on suicides but it’s been surprisingly hard to link to friendship
September 25, 2025 at 9:51 PM
to really nitpick, loneliness is also the wrong word. If you ask people to rate someone they know, women are consistently scored as lonelier than men. (Also true for self-ratings but people wave that off as stigma)
Men are ofc higher on suicides but it’s been surprisingly hard to link to friendship
Men are ofc higher on suicides but it’s been surprisingly hard to link to friendship