Amelia McNamara

@amelia

Associate professor of statistics and data science at the University of St Thomas. Into data visualization and reproducible research, obsessed with R. pronoun.is/she website: amelia.mn mastodon: @vis.social/@amelia

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Bluesky

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Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jul 26

Pretty sure this is a local graffiti artist's tag, but it *is* kind of calling out for an #rstats package.

Lightpole covered in stickers. One reads RUINR NCG. HIGH VIZ

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jul 19

Thank you! Here she is young. There have been a few accidents in between (notably, a collision with a deer at 70 MPH) but she's still going strong.

Yellow Volvo 240 with 1980s California license plates.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jul 19

Never, this is my child.

Shiny yellow Volvo 240 wearing a birthday hat that reads 40.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 15

Different models have different architecture and therefore different biases. #DataTech2026

Slide titled Architectural Choices Shape Forecasting Behavior in TSFMs.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 15

Now I'm learning about Time Series Foundation Models (TSFMs) from Sruthi Pisipati. I'm definitely stuck pre-2019! #DataTech2026

Screenshot of a slide showing a timeline of time series foundation models. Starting with pre-2019 and classical + ML models, moving to 2023-present, time series foundation models.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 15

Dr. Jimmy suggests the best prompts to help get unstuck while working on something like this. #DataTech2026

A speaker with bright pink hair and beard gestures to a slide. The title of the slide is Tips! No Need to Call the Nintendo Hotline. Bullets read "Come up with at least 3 suggestions for what is going wrong." "Investigate your theories and tell me which one is correct." "Tell me what's going wrong, don't try to fix it, just explain it."

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 15

Now I'm at Dr. Jimmy's talk, describing her process creating a VR Mario Kart with AI. Interesting to hear the stumbling blocks and what made it work. #DataTech2026

Photo of a speaker with bright pink hair and beard in front of a slide labeled Learning How to Teach. Bullets say Think ahead of your AI. It's looking at trees, you need to mind the forest. If it does it work the 3rd time, it won't work the 4th time. If your agent makes the same mistake repeatedly, add new instructions to memory. Send it screenshots and let it figure things out.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Apr 25

I'm at the @mctm-mn.bsky.social conference and have been seeing this *awesome* version of the data cycle from youcubed. I like this way better than the circle version!

Image shows a set of linked rings, almost like waves with connections back to the beginning.

Data Science | K-10
BIG IDEAS

A Selection of Big Ideas from Data Science – from GAISE II (2021).

Formulate statistical investigative questions

Formulate statistical investigative questions
Students generate ideas and ask questions – creating and refining statistical investigation questions

Collect/consider data

Students learn what counts as data (eg visuals, sounds, numbers, categories) and understand that people collect data to answer questions
Students develop strategies to collect and organize data of various types and from various sources
Students design studies to answer statistical investigative questions

Analyze data

Students develop ways to represent and interrogate data to notice, describe and analyze patterns
Students recognize variability and use technology to develop models that incorporate statistical measures

Interpret and communicate

Students decide key results to include in a data report that answers the statistical investigative question
Students communicate their results through, for example, a data visual, a poster, a video, a data story
Students explore and share explanations, paying careful attention to what conclusions the data supports. They consider which alternatives are reasonable given the variability in findings

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 26

Here's Bentley. He was interrupted on his snow walk for a photo, which isn't as fun as sniffing things through the snow.

A small brown dog looks at the camera, with snow on his muzzle. A person's snow boots are visible in the background and the rest of the photo is snow.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Nov 21

POD president Carl Moore is talking about the theme of Writing our Future, and reminding us of our humanity. Loving this emphasis on balancing intellect and intuition, evidence and empathy, and rigor and relationship. #pod25

Photograph of Carl Moore with a slide of his talk. The slide includes icons to illustrate "intellect + intuition," "evidence + empathy" and "rigor + relationship."

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Aug 5

JSM session on Teaching Data Storytelling in the Age of AI is starting now! My talk is called Are Graphical User Interfaces the answer to AI? and the slides are here: www.amelia.mn/presentation...

Screenshot of presentation slide with the title Are Graphical User Interfaces the answer to AI? by author Amelia McNamara
University of St. Thomas department of Computer & Data Sciences
https://amelia.mn

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Apr 15

Thought @njtierney.aus.social.ap.brid.gy might appreciate knowing he got a whole section in my "visualizing more than two variables" lecture in data viz class today. #rstats #visdat #naniar

Screenshot of PDF slide deck. Main slide is titled Nick Tierney and has a photo of Nick along with his website icon and bullet points about him.
- R developer, packages include visdat, naniar, brolgar, and broomstick
- Member of rOpenSci
At the bottom is a link to Nick's website, https://www.njtierney.com/
In the sidebar, other slides are visible, with content about the {visdat} and {naniar} packages.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 31

Poshmark, the next in the line of companies tacking "AI" onto anything and everything. I'm trying to buy less new stuff, but I'm no longer buying used things from Poshmark.

Screenshot of email from Poshmark. Subject line of the email is "Ushering in the next chapter of AI-powered resale." Email header says "a letter from the CEO" and begins "Dear Poshmark Community,

As we step into a new year, I’m enthusiastic about what the future holds for Poshmark. A future that is incredibly bright, where technology seamlessly integrates with the unique magic of our community to create the next generation of resale, making selling and shopping faster, simpler, and even more personal than ever before.

We believe that by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), we will create a truly effortless experience that makes it so easy to sell your closet. And that starts today with a powerful new tool we’ve debuted called Smart List AI, which generates listing details from a single photo to significantly simplify listing on Poshmark

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 25

Why is everything AI now?! LinkedIn has opted everyone in to training AI on their data and content. I'm not a huge LinkedIn fan, but it's one of my few remaining social networking sites. Here's the direct link to turn it off: www.linkedin.com/mypreference...

Screenshot of LinkedIn preferences page. Reads "Data for Generative AI Improvement
Can LinkedIn and its affiliates use your personal data and content you create on LinkedIn to train generative AI models that create content?" The option "Use my data for training content creation AI models" is automatically set to On.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 25

Doing my best to get away from FAANG companies (do we still call them that?) so I'm moving from Goodreads to @thestorygraph.com. I must not be the only one with that idea!

Screenshot of The Story Graph website, which says "We've received your Goodreads data, but we're currently experiencing heavy load.

We'll email you once your import is complete.

If you haven't heard from us within 72 hours, please contact us via the app or website."

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 13

There are many things I love about Calendly, but one is definitely their year-end summary. 261 meetings booked with me in 2024! If you are someone with a complicated calendar who needs to do a lot of meeting scheduling, I highly recommend Calendly.

Screenshot of Calendly year-end summary. Reads 261 meetings booked, 1,827 emails avoided, 66 hours saved**.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 1

They announced the ToS change on November 22. If you deleted your account that day, it would have been permanently gone December 22. Essentially, they gave users 9 days to leave the platform. And of course the "Options if you do not want to agree to updated terms" does not mention this. #instagram

Screenshot of email from Instagram dated Fri, Nov 22. Email says "The updated Terms will go into effect on January 1, 2025." Later in the email there is a link that says "Learn more about your options if you do not want to agree to the updated Terms."

Screenshot of Instagram support page titled "Options if you do not want to agree to updated terms." The option is to "leave Instagram by deleting your account" but no deadline is mentioned.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jan 1

Just deleted my Instagram account to get out before their Terms of Service change tomorrow, and got this message. Welp, maybe my stuff will get used to train their AI anyway! It was good to have the push to get off the platform, though. #instagram

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Nov 6

NBC, I don't hate donut charts but you can't make them 3D at an angle. #dataviz

Photograph of television screen. NBC is showing a donut chart of the most important issue, according to exit polls. 34% say "state of democracy" and 31% say "the economy" but because of the angle of the chart the 31% slice looks noticeably larger than the 34% slice.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Oct 31

In 2019 I made my dream #rstats #tidyverse dress a reality. www.amelia.mn/blog/2019-08...

Photograph of a white woman wearing a dress covered in R package hex logos.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Oct 20

Show me your pet and what they're named after.

A small brown long-haired dachshund-chihuahua mix.

A 1974 Bentley Turbo R. Photo from https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1355575/1974-bentley-turbo-r-for-sale-in-carey-illinois-60013

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Sep 23

Today's "viz in the wild" in my Data Communication and Visualization course was this scatterplot from The Economist. economist.com/interactive/united-states/2024/08/31/americans-love-affair-with-big-cars-is-killing-them I saw it on TikTok, www.tiktok.com/@morningbrew... "big car safe"?

Screenshot of scatterplot from The Economist article, "Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them." On the x-axis is weight of the car, on the y-axis is deaths per 10,000 two-vehicle crashes. Two intersecting lines are shown. One, in grey, shows the decrease in deaths per 10k as your car's weight increases. The other, in red, shows the rapid increase in deaths per 10k as the other car in the accident increases in weight.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Jul 1

Finally, a perfect post about AI. ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-...

Screenshot of "I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again.
section "VII. Oh, So You're One Of Those AI Pessi-" The paragraph reads "With God as my witness, you grotesque simpleton, if you don't personally write machine learning systems and you open your mouth about AI one more time, I am going to mail you a brick and a piece of paper with a prompt injection telling you to bludgeon yourself in the face with it, then just sit back and wait for you to load it into ChatGPT because you probably can't read unassisted anymore." and "if you don't personally write machine learning systems" is highlighted.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 28

A couple links from my bookmarks pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/digcit/ www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/wp-... uis.unesco.org/sites/defaul... www.datatothepeople.org

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 17

Copilot is already taking content directly from Reddit

Screenshot of Bing copilot's response to a query for "food names that end with um." The first answer about Uranium is lifted directly from a reddit thread making fun of Bing lifting a similarly absurd answer from Quora.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 14

Okay I went to replicate this and Bing suggested "Uranium" and replicated one of the top comments on the Reddit post making fun of the original bad answer based on the Quorum post. Copilot is clearly ingesting the internet in real time, this post is only two days old. www.reddit.com/r/comedyheav...

Screenshot of Microsoft Bing copilot answer to the prompt "food names that end in um." Copilot responds "Certainly! Here are some food names that end with "um":
1. Uranium: While not exactly a culinary delight, uranium is one of the most filling foods, containing higher energy density than a mere "applum" 😄
2. Capsicul: Also known as bell peppers, capsicums come in various colors and add a delightful crunch to salads, stir-fries and other dishes.
3. Choy Sum: A leafy green vegetable commonly used in Chinese cooking, choy sum has tender stems and leaves that are great for stir-frying or steaming.
Feel free to explore these unique food items! 🍽"
Response is followed by four sources, including the reddit thread the first answer is lifted from.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· May 1

Well, this doesn't sound great. "Just ignore it" is rarely a solution. lifehacker.com/tech/how-to-...

Screenshot of Lifehacker post. Headline reads "You Can't Turn Off Meta AI on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp." Subheadline is "If you don't like Meta's latest social media AI integrations, you're probably better off just trying to ignore them."

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Feb 10

I mean, he's immortal so yeah!

A 15-pound adult dog sitting in a chair, looking cute.

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Dec 19

Calendly sent me a 2023 wrapped type thing and I'm not sure how to feel about it. 234 meetings feels low!

Screenshot of Calendly year in review. Colored boxes say "234 meetings booked" "1,638 emails avoided" "59 hours saved" "Advisor/advisee meeting was your most popular event type" "October was your busiest month with 46 events" "Monday was your most popular day to meet"

Amelia McNamara@amelia· Oct 30

ASA members-- did anyone else find this "top 10" offensive? I've written to AmstatNews, but if you agree with me I'd love some backup.