ergative

ergative, 9 days ago to Julia

I find it WILDLY FRUSTRATING implementing contrast coding in Julia.

If I use ContrastCoding(), I can specify my own contrast matrices (yay!) but I can't label them. So the regression output just reuses my actual factor levels to label an actual model term that means something like, say, 'mean of levels A and B vs. mean of levels C and D'. Or whatever. To interpret my model, I must make physical notes on a piece of paper about what each term means.

1/2

#psycholinguistics #julia #rstats

ergative, 10 days ago to calligraphy

What an odd, uninformed article about #calligraphy. I am delighted that it's experiencing a revival, but it gets so many things wrong!

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/style/calligraphy-handwriting-revival.html

1/?

ergative, 11 days ago to SF

Hey, friends, I wrote a review of Foundation (the book--the OG!) for Nerds of a Feather.

(Don't click through if you love this book. I didn't much care for it.)

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/05/first-contact-foundation-by-isaac-asimov.html

#SF #BookReview @bookstodon #sff

ergative, 17 days ago to fountainpens

I'm rather charmed by the community convention on r/fountainpens where people tag pictures of mangled nibs NSFW.

#fountainPens

ergative, 26 days ago to random

I've had a pair of students who've taken every class I've offered all year and started out really struggling. Like, a lot. Like, getting Cs and Ds in their writing assignments. But they worked super hard, came to office hours, showed me lots of drafts, and their MA dissertation proposals are super good! Well-structured, well-written, showing evidence of really strong learning in both writing and technical experimental design skills. Proper A level work. I'm so proud!

#academicChatter

ergative, 1 month ago to fantasy

Dear book publishers everywhere:

Hire this artist to do your covers!

https://www.instagram.com/superstarfighter/

#fantasy #publishing #artists @bookstodon

ergative, 1 month ago to animals

FYI, friendos, if you have a UK-based Netgalley account, this MASTERPIECE of title + cover design is now available:

(I haven't read it yet, but I'M GOING TO!!)

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book/379156

@bookstodon #sff #catsofmastodon #sciencefiction

ergative, 1 month ago to random

A propos of #dogsAtPollingStations, here is a photo that Mr Absolutive found, of all places, at the Daily Mail (ptooey).

(please don't infer anything untoward about him; he checks all the newspapers on election day now that twitter is gone)

ergative, 1 month ago to random

Look, just click through for the pictures of the wee miceys.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68788690

ergative, 1 month ago to random

oh, no, AI is taking young finance bros' jobs!

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/business/investment-banking-jobs-artificial-intelligence.html

ergative, 2 months ago to random

My sister, who is a few weeks away from being a registered RN told the following story about a very Good Boy.

A patient with schizophrenia suffered from periodic hallucinations of people who weren't there. He got himself a service dog, and one of the service dog's chores was to go up and greet people on command.

So: if the dog went up to greet a person, the person was real. And if the dog did not greet a person when commanded, the person was a hallucination.

Service dogs are all goodbois.

ergative, 2 months ago to fantasy

Hey, Mastodon, I'm halfway through book four of Libba Bray's 'Diviners' quartet, and it is really good! Just super-solid, well-plotted, well-paced 1920s magical flappers who have to save the world from ghosts. The ensemble cast is effortlessly diverse, and the mood does a brilliant job of capturing that breathless optimism of 1920s America without losing sight of all the darkness lurking underneath it all. A tiny bit purple at times, but super-good.

@bookstodon #fantasy #bookRecommendations

ergative, 2 months ago to random

I can tell exactly who on mastodon is in Europe because they're all complaining about time changes this morning.

ergative, 2 months ago to SF

I'm reading Foundation for the first time, in preparation for an upcoming review for @NerdsofaFeather , and I'm torn between 'Asimov is doing something brilliant' and 'Asimov is doing something very silly'. I really hope it's the former. I can see how it could be. But I fear it's going to end up being the latter, because in my experience reading Golden Age #SF, writing in that era doesn't tend to do the thing that needs to happen for the former.

We'll see!

(No spoilers, please)

ergative, 2 months ago to random

Once on a forum for #FountainPen fanciers, someone posted that anyone who uses an ink colour other than black is trying to hide the fact that they have nothing serious or worthwhile saying. Modern tendencies for atrocities such as glittery inks are a sign of the degredation and downfall of civilization, unlike the good old days when monks were SRS BUSINESS and used only BLACK.

1/..

ergative, 2 months ago to fountainpens

I'm reading a book that mentions inherited #FountainPens, but also is set before railways to Inverness opened, so I'm doing a bit of research into relative timelines to see if this is even possible.

Turns out it is, just barely: First railway to Inverness opened 1854, while eyedropper fountain pens were patented in 1809. So if this takes place 1850, fountain pen is 30 years old, it's possible. (But not if pen is self-filling, patented in1832.)

Did the author check dates, or just get lucky?

ergative, 2 months ago to bookstodon

Hallo, friendos! I have a review of a vintage body-swap book up at @NerdsofaFeather this morning: Strange Journey, by Maud Cairnes.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/03/review-strange-journey-by-maud-cairnes.html

#bookReview @fantasy #sff @bookstodon

ergative, 2 months ago to bookstodon

Dannnng, @chloroform_tea 's review of Grace Curtis's book 'Floating Hotel' really makes me want to read it.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/03/review-floating-hotel-by-grace-curtis.html

#bookReview @bookstodon #sff

ergative, 2 months ago to random

I'm please to report that my Make America Kittens Again browser extension is doing its job. What a lovely combination to greet my eyes.

ergative, 3 months ago to fountainpens

Bwah, the Lamy Dark Violet kerfuffle has made the NYTimes!

#fountainPens
#FountainPenInk
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/style/lamy-dark-lilac-ink.html

ergative, 3 months ago to ukteachers

Hey, Mastodon! Indiana's attorney general has created an anti-teacher snitch portal for people to report school teachers for being too woke. It allows you to upload files and everything!

There appears to be no safeguard against entering any text you want in any of the boxes, and no location/residence checking.

Dare I ask you to do your thing?

https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/education-liberty/

Boosts welcome!

#academicChatter #education #bts #taylorSwift

ergative, 3 months ago to random

TIL that the counterpart of nibling is entle, and I think that is just the best word.

ergative, 3 months ago to random

TFW you encounter a super-simple algorithm for converging on a Sierpinski gasket through randomly sampling from one of three perturbations of a random starting point on the plane, and realize you can spend 10 minutes in R and simulate it yourself:

#rstats

ergative, 4 months ago to random

Hey, friends, a quick reminder that although Make America Kittens Again (MAKA) has been blocked from Chrome, it still works on Firefox:

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/make-firefox-kittens-again/

(MAKA is a browser extension that replaces all images whose metadata includes the word 'Trump' with a creative-commons picture of a kitten. Here's what it did to the front page of today's NYTimes for me.)

ergative, 5 months ago to fantasy

Hey, #DecRecs isn't quite over yet! I haven't been doing it so much recently because the Absolutive house got hit with covid, but things are improving, and I just observed that Owen King's extremely interesting book about an ill-fated proletariate revolution in a fascinating magical city is on sale for 99p on uk amazon today.

I wrote a review of it on my blog here, if you want to know more

https://dampskunk.wordpress.com/2023/11/05/the-curator-2023-by-owen-king/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Curator-Owen-King-ebook/dp/B0BG4N1LVK

@bookstodon #BookReview #fantasy #sff