Eamon

Union data scientist and working parent. Interested in reproducible research methods (#r13y), #RStats, #JuliaLang, living sustainably (bicycling, walking, reducing, and reusing), being outside, and many nerdy hobbies (#TTRPG, #HamRadio).

Public Key

npub156jc9p3y6dmxzpdxtyg35t5fs35zpv75n08cws40l09m6hwfyzvsza744l

NIP-05 Address

eamon@social-coop.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2dfvzscjdxanpqkn9jyg696ycg6pqk02fhnu8g2hlhjaathyjpxgl4pvpw

Author Public Key

npub156jc9p3y6dmxzpdxtyg35t5fs35zpv75n08cws40l09m6hwfyzvsza744l

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Last Notes

2024-12-23 04:38:30

Who started teaching people to sign emails "respectfully"?
If you were taught this I suggest you stop. Whoever told you that this was a good way to sign emails to customers, instructors, managers, etc. was giving you bad advice. Older people don't do this. Rich kids don't do this. And while you shouldn't aim to emulate rich kids in general, this closing is not doing you favors in your correspondences. If you're worried that "Best" might come across as curt, "Sincerely" is still fine.

2024-11-01 19:01:07

I'm planning to participate in #WritingMonth this November. I set a modest goal to write 500 words/day of fiction.
Exactly 20 years have passed since I last attempted a month-long writing challenge (I didn't finish, but I made friends in the attempt). A few years before that, I was writing often, but my life got complicated and I lost my knack for it. So now I'm finding out if I can find a groove again after all this time.

2024-10-26 21:43:11

Is there anything more menacing than a helium-filled mylar balloon that has deflated to neutral buoyancy?
I'm being shadowed through my own home by a silent stalker.

2024-10-10 23:21:47

This information is too much for most people to hear, but the easiest way to achieve and maintain Inbox Zero is to accept that you can just delete 99% of your emails within 0-5 seconds of opening them.

2024-10-04 06:04:45

My blistering hot take is that workers should be guiding the decisions about how automation is incorporated into their work, not their bosses.

2024-10-03 17:29:13

I just noticed that it's Week 40: a great time to get your flu vaccine if you haven't already.
This is a terrific time to be a respiratory illness in the United States, as we've decided that the decision to wear a mask or not is a political statement.

2024-07-10 18:04:45

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@npub16n8…d2l7 I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, but annoying and baffling my friends and colleagues with idiosyncratic word choices is a source of joy for me.

2024-07-10 17:49:49

When I'm writing, I treat "data" as plural because I'm a snooty snob. But I'm not such a snooty snob to actually use it that way in my mind or in casual conversation—this is a total affectation, and I'll own up to that.
Anyway, because of this discordance I sometimes struggle with grammar. My trick to getting things right when I'm proof-reading is to mentally replace every occurrence of "data" with "datums" as I read.

2024-06-28 22:14:45

The thing I hate about hype cycles is that, once the current one ends, the hypesters never admit that they got that one wrong. They just move seamlessly to the next grift and everyone (at least everyone whose opinion seems to carry weight in this society) gives them another pass.
I get it: "it's not that they're bad at the job of predicting the future, they're good at the job of selling bs." But it just really pushes my buttons, as a fool irrationally committed to "justice" and "fairness".

2024-06-25 15:46:57

Ok, I'll be real: I personally stopped masking for Covid a while ago. I know that some people don't have this luxury, but I'm willing to take the risks, which I perceive to be fairly minimal.
But mask BANS are among the dumbest shit I've ever heard of. EVERYONE who is suffering from ANY respiratory illness should mask EVERY time they're out in public. There was basically NO FLU in the 2020-2021 season! We can do that every year!

2024-06-07 14:24:48

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@npub18wv…tj6e love this post and agree with everything you say. I'm curious if I can read more about what you'll be doing for your grant (and congratulations on that, by the way)?

2024-05-30 20:03:26

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@npub1l3g…vu48 I guess the translation is still under copyright? Because the original text sure ain't.

2024-05-30 17:37:09

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@npub1l3g…vu48 bookshop.org

2024-04-25 18:39:55

I've been arguing for a while that Google has chosen not to suppress spammy sites because spammy sites are full of the ads that Google is selling. But I was just a man on the internet... opining. Ed Zitron brought receipts: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

2024-04-12 21:16:58

Which ebike should I buy?
My spouse and I are on track to drive under 6,000 miles in one year between us (two drivers and two cars). I'm convinced that the best way to bring that down further in our suburban neighborhood is to replace some errands by car with ebike rides.
Cargo space is a plus but I don't have, like, xtracycle or bakfiets needs. I mainly want a bike that uses as many standard/replaceable bike parts as possible, and I need really bright lights for night rides.

2024-03-07 17:40:57

I genuinely wonder how much of the reason that Things Are Bad is because a few people really want bad things, and how much is because most people don't bother imagining how things could be better.

2024-02-03 22:34:47

I'm kinda interested in trying out #Wargaming, but I'm not interested in starting a miniature-buying habit. Is there, like, and indie wargame ruleset designed for conventional Lego-style bricks?

2024-01-29 22:18:27

What if a browser plugin displayed an unobtrusive little badge on on a web page to indicate that it was free of ads and affiliate links (and therefore less likely to be a scam, "botshit", or of otherwise dubious quality)?

2024-01-03 18:36:46

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@npub1j46…3gm7 here's one from me; I, in a sleepy haze, had poured a scoop of coffee beans onto the transparent lid of my grinder one too many times. I recently picked up some spray primer that would probably adhere to this plastic, so I might decorate this a bit more fancifully. Or at least use some cool stickers.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/111/693/452/772/221/867/original/b250180f0bff98b7.jpg

2023-09-23 23:56:45

I enjoyed this post from @npub1j46…3gm7 about the sad state of text editing on mobile devices. https://jenson.org/text/
I find it interesting (and disappointing) that the universal response to a bad text editing experience wasn't to complain until designers improved it, but rather to simply avoid writing the kinds of text that benefits from editing. Given that people use mobile devices for the majority of their time online, what is this doing to our writing (and thinking) skills more generally?