Nick Cave’s song Hollywood is quite potent, particularly given the recent death of his teenage son 😢🎧
RStats on iPad
Among the many good new features in iPadOS, “Desktop Safari” has proven to be surprisingly helpful for my analytical workflows.
RStudio Cloud is a great service that provides a feature-complete version of RStudio in a web browser. In previous versions of Safari on iPad, RStudio Cloud was close to unusable, since the keyboard shortcuts didn’t work and they’re essential for using RStudio. In iPadOS, all of the shortcuts work as expected and RStudio Cloud is completely functional.
Although most of my analytical work will still be on my desktop, having RStudio on my iPad adds a very convenient option. RStudio Cloud also allows you to setup a project with an environment that persists across any device. So, now I can do most of my work at home, then fix a few issues at work, and refine at a coffee shop. Three different devices all using the exact same RStudio project.
One complexity with an RStudio Cloud setup is GitHub access. The usual approach of putting your git credentials in an .REnviron file (or equivalent) is a bad idea on a web service like RStudio Cloud. So, you need to type your git credentials into the console. To avoid having to do this very frequently, follow this advice and type this into the console:
git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout 3600'
Thanks to Run the Jewels 3 for providing a much-needed boost on today’s run 🏃♂️
Fall has arrived
Thanksgiving weekend begins with the traditional excessively long and slow drive on the 401
With Category Theory, Mathematics Escapes From Equality - Quanta Magazine
Ultimately, you will build an infinite tower of equivalences between equivalences. By considering the entire edifice, you generate a full perspective on whatever objects you’ve chosen to represent as points on that sphere.
Thanks to a recommendation from @verybadwizards I read and very much enjoyed Ted Chiang’s short story “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”. Plenty of deep implications for free will and morality in a fascinating story.
After 20 years and four cars, the Darwin Fish on the back of our car has disappeared. Hopefully it wasn’t ripped off by a zealot!
Replacements are surprisingly expensive (~$50). But the car looks wrong without one.
An unexpected and welcome surprise in the latest Byword update #rstats
I enjoyed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Very inventive, though definitely some grim parts, as you might expect for the second book in a trilogy. The dialogue can be a bit clunky, so the emphasis is on the science. 📚
As Canada’s federal election campaign gets increasingly ridiculous, I’d like the political parties to know that I’ll vote for whoever has the most credible and ambitious climate change plan. This includes a carbon price, otherwise it isn’t credible 🇨🇦 🗳
Two great Mindscape episodes in a row about climate change overcast.fm/+S_7kXRI8…
I enjoyed Borderline by Mishell Baker. A good mix of fantasy and realism with compelling characters 📚
All Armed on Nils Frahms’ Encores 3 EP revived my (barely) dormant obsession with his music. His work rewards focused and patient listening. Hard to do these days, but worth the effort music.apple.com/ca/album/…
Our family data plan was close to the limit, so I called Rogers to temporarily add some data. They ended up offering unlimited data for $15 less per month! A nice surprise and good reminder to call every year or so to check on better deals.
The past, present and future of climate change from The Economist is a good overview of GHG emissions and what we should do about them. Some excellent graphics too.
One of my great hopes for Apple Arcade is that it will end the seemingly endless requests from my children to buy virtual gems
The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History is well worth a read. Really puts the dangers of cyber attacks in context.
Of Monsters and Men put on a great show in Toronto.
I declined an offer to provide a lecture on Transport Economics. I’m dissapointed, since I’ve enjoyed these opportunities before. However, it is a for-profit series and they’re looking for volunteer lecturers. This didn’t seem right to me. Hopefully, I’m not being short sighted.