Sharon Machlis

* Interested
Ah, for an edit button....

Interest in posts about the NICAR data journalism conference March 5-8? This Bluesky feed collects posts with either the #NICAR26 or #NICAR2026 hashtag - plus searching for "NICAR" without a hashtag
bsky.app/profile/smac...
(Created with @blueskyfeedcreator.com ) #DDJ

You're right about that, but it's probably not fair to blame Shiny. I think it's more the way I decided to do the table than an issue with Shiny itself. At some point I probably ought to work with an LLM to make it more mobile-friendly, but probably not 5 days before the conference starts 😅

It's feeling like Constitutional law is pretty tenuous too 😞

In the US, only Congress has the power
"To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises . . .
"To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations; . . .
"To declare War" - US Constitution

Rule of law? Anyone?

Alt text by gemma3:12b running on ollama: "Presentation: Running LLMs locally! Aarushee Sahejpel & Dhrumil Mehta discuss at NICAR 26 (Indianapolis, March 5-8). Thursday, 3:45-4:45pm. Featuring race track graphic & speaker headshots."

Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 40 yesterday and 55 the day before.

Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Feb 27, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats

Thank you for the feedback. I typically just turn my phone sideways to landscape mode and it seems to work OK?

🎉🎉🎉I mean, the foot-plus of snow is lovely out there, but I'm ready to move on to the next season

[NICAR 2026 is a data journalism conference happening next week in Indianapolis #ddj ]

Dashboard-style web app titled "NICAR 2026 Posts on Bluesky from Jan. 13 to Feb. 26." At the top are three large summary tiles showing total posts, unique authors, and total likes. A left sidebar lets you select a date range and filter by authors (with checkboxes) and optionally show only posts containing external URLs, plus a button to download the current dataset. The main area contains a searchable, filterable table of posts with columns for timestamp, post text snippet, author, likes, reposts, replies, and tags; entries include links to open the original post. [Alt text by ChatGPT]

Browse, search, and filter all the NICAR 2026 posts on Bluesky R Shiny app collects all the posts with the #NICAR26 or #NICAR2026 hashtags
App: apps.machlis.com/shiny/nicar2...
#RStats code: github.com/smach/bskyconf
#RShiny
[Did this for Twitter years ago, now updated]

I worked at the mechanical engineering magazine Design News for a few years. Lots and lots of home design stuff!

Ha, thanks. We do! We never lost it after all 😀

Scraping Sports Data With R – Matt Waite’s Collection of Miscellany A blog about random fiddling with code and data.

All three notebooks in one giant blog post: mattwaite.github.io/nicar/2026-i...

GitHub - mattwaite/nicar-2026-scraping-sports-data-with-R: A short primer on using R to scrape sports data, from easy to hard A short primer on using R to scrape sports data, from easy to hard - mattwaite/nicar-2026-scraping-sports-data-with-R

Ooo just spotted on GitHub: Scraping Sports Data With R
"Three R notebooks with step by step instructions on how to scrape data when it's easy, when it's a little harder, and when it's the NCAA and is awful."
github.com/mattwaite/ni...
For a #NICAR26 #RStats workshop by @mattwaite.bsky.social

I'm so ticked about this whole thing that I just donated to Jasmine Crockett's campaign. Even though I really don't like getting involved in other state's primaries. But sheesh.

Black women are the base of the Democratic Party. It wouldn’t be a viable party if it weren’t for Black women. So many white candidates only get elected because of the hard work of Black women. But if a Black woman dares to run, then white Dems say she isn’t electable. This has to stop.

Bird in a snowy bush

#Noreaster #blizzard #photography

For anyone interested in metro #Boston weather: My #weather bot auto posts National Weather Service forecast updates. I just added auto-posting links to the NWS Boston office Facebook posts. And I manually post during most big weather events like the #blizzard 😀
bsky.app/profile/bost...

A bowl of vegetable bean soup with kale.

Update: With the blizzard warning now stretching west past Worcester, I decided to play it safe and make the soup tonight. If we still have power, I can always simmer it while it reheats!😊

That's inches, not centimeters

👋 de KC1YR

“SNOW FORECAST — Sunday night through Monday” (First Alert Weather) showing New England with color bands for expected snowfall totals. Northern/western areas near Springfield show 1–3" (light blue) and 3–6" (purple). New Hampshire/Maine area near Laconia, Rochester, and Concord is in a 6–12" band (lavender). Much of eastern/central Massachusetts including Lawrence and Boston is in 12–18" (bright magenta). A pocket labeled 18–24" (light pink) sits over parts of southern/central New England near Worcester/Providence area. City labels include Keene, Orange, Fitchburg, Worcester, Lawrence, Boston, Taunton, Providence, Plymouth, New Bedford, Barnstable, P’Town, Chatham, Vineyard, and Nantucket. [alt text by ChatGPT]

"Blizzard incoming. Intense snow bands, NE gusts 50-70 at the coast, coastal flooding, & 1-2 feet of snow. Get to your destination by 8pm Sunday, and stay there thru Tuesday morning." - Pamela Gardener NBC 10 Boston on Facebook
#Noreaster #MaWX

Returning to a Former Hobby in Retirement – My Next Chapter: A Retirement Journey Something else I wasn’t expecting after leaving work!

Much to my surprise, I've had the urge to return to a hobby I haven't done in a long time! My latest #NextChapter #Retirement blog post: nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-0...

(Hint: #HamRadio #AmateurRadio 😀 )

Years ago, we also lost power in every storm. Even just regular rain! They somehow fixed it eventually, though. Hope yours improves!

Yes that thought did cross my mind. I may end up making it tomorrow. Either that, or if the power goes off before it's ready, asking my neighbor with the generator if I could plug in my slow cooker there in exchange for giving him some tasty homemade soup 😅

Snow covered trail in the woods, with snow covered trees on either side

Afternoon walk along a neighborhood trail today #Winter #Snow #Photography

Ha we're already back from the grocery store with ingredients to make homemade soup tomorrow AND Monday. Because what's bombogenesis without soup simmering in the slow cooker?!

Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 52 yesterday and 44 the day before.

Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Feb 20, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats

I'd like the tariff $$ back that I've paid, please.

But I'm pretty sure any refunds the gov't may end up paying will go to companies that paid those tariffs, not to consumers if we paid either through increased prices or literal tariff line items (I paid one of those for an online order).