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 5, posted on 2026-03-19
This is the final part of a series on structural equation modeling (SEM). Previously I came to the conclusion that replicating my reference model in lavaan will require declaring some covariances to be zero. This is essentially an inappropriate assumption that the variables are independent. There had already been some suspicion that Stata was making assumptions like this implicitly.
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LinkedIn Project URLs, posted on 2026-02-05
LinkedIn has removed the ability to associate a ‘project’ with a URL. It seems the new flow that they want users to adopt is to associate ‘media’ with projects. These media items can have a URL or a static file.
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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.
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.
- Hiraeth by Sub Urban
- Queen of Venus by Flavor Foley
- 555 by Sub Urban
- cOmPuTeR LoVE by re6ce
- Machine Love by Jamie Paige
Articles from around the internet I would recommend reading.
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From: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Date: March 26, 2026
Subject: Why and how to do Bayes for clinical trials: Our comments on the recent FDA draft guidance, and reactions to two comments by others
The Journal of the American Medical Association recently contacted me to ask for a comment on a recent Draft Guidance for Industry from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the use of Bayesian methodology in clinical trials of drug … Continue reading →
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From: Drew DeVault's blog
Date: March 25, 2026
Subject: A eulogy for Vim
Vim is important to me. I’m using it to write the words you’re reading right now. In fact, almost every word I have ever committed to posterity, through this blog, in my code, all of the docs I’ve written, emails I’ve sent, and more, almost all of it has pas…
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From: Just the social facts, ma'am
Date: March 24, 2026
Subject: Whose idea was that?
A lot of the commentary after Paul Ehrlich's death said that his ideas were popular among liberals and/or "elites." For example, Nicholas Eberstadt writes: "In retrospect, what may look most amazing about Ehrlich’s career is the company …
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