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 4, posted on 2026-01-07
Building on the deep-dive into Stata’s structural equation modeling (SEM) facilities, I turn now to R.
There were a few hiccups to picking up lavaan. First and foremost, strictly exogenous latent variables (i.e., those on the right hand side only) are not supported. They all need to be defined by a measurement model. Somewhat annoying since
Alphais fundamentally an error term, but not really an issue since it is definitionally independent of all predictors. There’s really no difference between regressingAlphaonwagevs. regressingwageonAlpha. -
A Series on SEM - Part 3, posted on 2025-12-12
This is a relatively minor update on my saga of tacking the many-headed beast that is structural equation modeling (SEM).
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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.
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.
- I Still Remember by Bloc Party
- Becoming by Milky Chance
- Our Song by The xx
- Decades by 888
- Mary by Alex G
Articles from around the internet I would recommend reading.
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From: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Date: January 7, 2026
Subject: It’s open season on the unabashedly earnest
This is Jessica. In response to my post on slop, Thomas Basbøll shared a 1967 New Yorker essay by Jacob Brackman about the havoc wreaked by the emergence of the “Put-On” in 1960s (and slightly earlier) art and culture. True to its … Continue reading →
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From: Just the social facts, ma'am
Date: January 6, 2026
Subject: Guilty men (and women)
In 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote to a weak candidate, although the mysterious workings of the Electoral College gave him the presidency. During his first term, he never reached a 50% approval rating. In the 2020 election, despite having the a…
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From: Filippo Valsorda
Date: January 5, 2026
Subject: go.sum Is Not a Lockfile
In Go, go.mod acts as both manifest and lockfile. There is never a reason to look at go.sum.
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