Welcome!
This is the personal site of Dominic Ricottone.
You can also find me on GitHub, GitLab, SourceHut, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Here are my most recent blog posts.
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A Series on SEM - Part 2, posted on 2025-12-04
This is part of a series on structural equation modeling (SEM). Specifically, bumbling around with SEM to try and fit a random effects regression, because people smarter than I have said they can be equivalent.
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A Series on SEM - Part 1, posted on 2025-11-21
Earlier this year, while reading Paul Allison’s Fixed Effects Regression Methods for Longitudinal Data Using SAS, I came across a peculiar claim. “It is now well known (Muthén 1994) that a random effects models such as the one in equation (6.1) can be represented as a structural equation model (SEM).”
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September, a month for debates on philosophy of governance, posted on 2025-10-10
Open source software communities have been having a tough time with governance lately. September saw several crises, namely:
- The community-maintained projects under the RubyGems umbrella were taken over by Ruby Central, a corporate entity entirely beholden to a single sponsor.
- The Nix community imploded over power clashes between the steering council and moderation team.
I can recognize up-front that there’s a lot of nuance in these situations. I’ve only wandered into these debates, not really caring about either community personally. But I want to comment on a recurring theme I’ve run into on these wanders: who has the democratic mandate? This is most evident in the Nix community, where a call for clean slate elections has collected substantial support. (Ordinarily, only four of seven seats on the steering council are up for election. There is an additional seat up for election now due to an early resignation.) I’ve seen assertions that resigning early is a betrayal of constituents, accusations that confidence has been lost among the polity, and so on… and above all else: a baseless assumption that a democratic mandate is required.
I occasionally post on Bluesky, mostly about concerts and music.
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Now listening to
re6ce and ThxSoMch
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Now listening to
Thotcrime, Cocojoey, Full Body 2, and Anamanaguchi, all live at Metro
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Now listening to
Joywave, live at Uptown Live
My most listened to music of the last 30 days. See more on LastFM.
- In The Night by Mr.Kitty
- Mercury by Sub Urban
- The Ex by Billy Talent
- Farrah Fawcett Hair by Capital Cities
- City Song by Gia Margaret
Articles from around the internet I would recommend reading.
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From: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Date: December 4, 2025
Subject: When the numbers don’t look right, check them! (Mississippi education update)
Part 1: Reading what different sources say The other day, as part of a long discussion about the estimated effects of Mississippi’s education plan, I quoted some education researchers, Wainer et al., who wrote: The 2024 NAEP fourth-grade mathematics score…
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From: Posts on Andrea Bergia's Website
Date: December 4, 2025
Subject: Turning 40
Today I am turning 40 years old. Which, while not exactly great, is better than the alternative, so kudos to me for still being alive! 🎉 I am a pretty lucky person. I was born in one of the best, richest countries of the world. I feel safe, I have a good …
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From: Mitchell Hashimoto
Date: December 3, 2025
Subject: Ghostty Is Now Non-Profit
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