Matt Waite

Had? We're going with the past tense here?

World War I artillery shells with "To Willie with compliments" written on it.

Long history of soldiers writing on shells and bombs going back to at least the first World War. Probably further back than that.

Do the entire world a favor and pour the Malort on the ground right now. Saving just one soul from that experience is all you need do today. Tomorrow is another day.

I have gone through my phases with them all as well. Honestly maybe the most hot and cold with RHCP. I've liked nothing since Blood Sugar. Love Mother's Milk because it's so completely unserious. Blood Sugar is worth a relisten, because you can hear them go from Frat Party Band to Musicians.

1991 included Pearl Jam's Ten, Nirvana's Nevermind, RHCP Blood Sugar Sex Magik, A Tribe Called Quest's Low End Theory, Public Enemy's Apocalypse 91 and Metallica's Black Album, not to mention Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger. Like 4 of the 10 best albums of the 90s released within 6 weeks of each other.

The Funkadelic wing of Parliament said free your mind and your ass will follow.

We all know transfers rule college basketball … but to what extent? And how different is today vs. the past?

We quantified it by analyzing the careers of rotation players on every men’s & women’s NCAA tournament team since 2010. That’s 10,000 players!

Check it out (gift link): wapo.st/41By62h

Midwest living in 2025: it is 75 degrees out. The sun is shining. The school district just called. School is cancelled tomorrow because of the blizzard coming.

The National World War I museum has been on my list forever.

An R + LLM starter kit – Matt Waite’s Collection of Miscellany A blog about random fiddling with code and data.

For those who can't be in the room for my AI Starter Pack in R session, here's some notes/code examples we'll work through. If you can be there at 3:30, more demos in the session. #NICAR25 mattwaite.github.io/posts/r-llm-...

Skype is shutting down after two decades | CNN Business Microsoft is shutting down Skype, the internet-based phone and video service that was once the dominant way of staying connected in the mid 2000s.

Back in 2009, when I somehow convinced a Florida newspaper to let me move to Nebraska and work remotely, we used to have a computer with Skype running all the time in the small office my group worked in. We could just talk like I was still in the room. It was really nice. www.cnn.com/2025/02/28/t...

3. Why do I remember this photo? What evolutionary process conspired to put that into long term memory for me? And why is the name of the cat right on the tip of my tongue and I can't quite get there?

A simple example of AI agents(?) doing journalism(?) work – Matt Waite’s Collection of Miscellany A blog about random fiddling with code and data.

Best I’ve got is using the LLM to write custom headlines and summaries for map pop ups. Instead of stilted templates of results, you get a short narrative. mattwaite.github.io/posts/a-simp...

Paul's Boutique Samples Playlist · Benjamin Wintle · 91 items · 3.1K saves

Maybe my most favorite playlist: Paul's Boutique ... and all the songs they sampled to make Paul's Boutique all in one playlist. open.spotify.com/playlist/59F...

Black and silver prosthetic hand reaching out to touch a human hand in the style of Michaelangelo's The Creation of Adam.

Last week, the Nebraska R User Group hosted a presentation by Matt Waite (@mattwaite.bsky.social) on "Talking to LLMs through R". Check out a summary of the talk at neb-rug.github.io/posts/talkin....
#rstats #llms

Adding that this is all the great work of @jessicarwalsh.bsky.social who I wasn't sure was on this platform until just now. The search feature isn't super great just yet.

New report on the state of journalism in Nebraska: There are 9 counties without a single news organization in them. There are 16 county seats with no local news organization in them. More than half of the state's counties are covered by two or fewer journalists. newsmap.unl.edu

About 5 years ago, my daughter discovered that her car - my old car - had a cd player with the Beastie Boys still in it. So she starts digging through my old cds, repeating oooh that’s vintage. Oooh so vintage. And I said hey, not vintage. It’s my music. “Dad, these are 35 years old.” Still hurts.

Vger must have the information...

An AI generated image of a human face with no hair surrounded by futuristic looking circuitry.

A screen capture of Lt. Ilia from Star Trek the Motion Picture from 1979.

Asked AI for a header image for my AI + Journalism class to put into the LMS. Asked for something evocative of journalism's past and future, colorful and futuristic. What I got vs what my Gen X ass sees:

How big is the Palisades fire compared to where you live? This will tell you: calmatters.org/environment/...

For me, probably 80% of Lincoln is wiped out centering the fire on campus. Everything from far West O east past 84th Street, from Pioneers in the south to Cornhusker Highway in the north.

A screenshot of the LA Galaxy's email subscription preferences screen.

Go ahead. Make my day.

The semester here starts January 21. Two of my classes are required for graduation and both have wait lists. Those emails are coming.

Don't make me subscribe you to a dozen LA Galaxy Fan Email Newsletters as revenge. My inbox already looks like this: Meeting invite, meeting invite, email about work to do before a meeting, email about a meeting, meeting invite. I wish I was making that up.

You joke, but for the first time in 10 years, I have no classes before noon this spring. I think my bosses knew that at my age, the risk of a sprain was very high.

The two most painful parts of returning to campus: commuting, and actually having to pay attention to my inbox.

Nope.

The ability to reverse engineer a shitty agency's shitty website structure so I can make obviously public data usable is not the superpower I wanted, but it's the one I got.

Someone should help that poor malnourished child off the ground. Also tell him balance is much easier if he didn’t skip leg day for 19+ years.