Gerald Rich

A red and white infographic with details on journalist safety trainings in February from ProJourn.

Journalists: Build your skills by signing up for a February session in ProJourn’s safety training series!

Co-presented by @theajp.bsky.social and IWMF, this virtual series helps journalists + newsrooms understand their legal rights and how to protect themselves while reporting.

RSVP links👇

steve…le…waaaahhh

Tons of police activity at 19th & Valencia, anyone know what’s going on? @missionlocal.org @kqednews.kqed.org @sfstandard.com @sfchronicle.com

vibe code more good things in 2026, folks! make small, helpful shit for neighbors!

2025 was interesting. It was my full year with diagnosed depression/anxiety, and also my first full year listening to my body. Looking forward to a happier, gentler, and kinder 2026 for all 💙 So glad I know more now than I did before

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

My new favorite pastime is watching Waymos get stuck. This one had an existential crisis when it saw someone had painted over the Slayer tee on the 20th St mural and just stopped for a half hour

Anyone know what's up with the helicopter circling Dolores Park in San Francisco?

It's pretty amazing that I've played more than 200 hours of Civilization VI (say nothing of previous versions) and am still incredibly shit at it

African Union backs campaign to replace Mercator map that distorts Africa's size Organizers behind the Correct The Map campaign say the Mercator map's shrinking of Africa minimizes the continent's global influence — and is just plain inaccurate.

Got to nerd out a little about world maps. www.npr.org/2025/08/21/n...

Oh FOR SURE

Superman (2025) gets extra journalism points for this. @mccartney.bsky.social punched each other and cheered when we saw separate buttons for "Copy Ready," "Web Ready," and "Publish" on The Daily Planet's CMS

Ryan Pitts joins Big Local News as managing director Data, tools and collaborations that empower journalists to better cover their community. A project at Stanford University.

Big news at @biglocalnews.bsky.social! So excited to be working with @ryanpitts.bsky.social biglocalnews.org/content/news...

Because this database is for everyone. Victims of police violence, law enforcement hiring officials, civil rights advocates, researchers, attorneys and journalists can now investigate these once-secret records for themselves. 6/

Hey! I helped make this and you should check this out. Interested in expanding this to your state? Reach out to @biglocalnews.bsky.social

a man with a beard is riding a motorcycle in the woods . Alt: a man with a beard is riding a motorcycle in the woods .

oh hell yes. nice work

Redwood City’s slogan of “Climate Best by Government Test” turns 100 years old this year and it still goes hard

Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US School attendance has hit record lows since the pandemic. More than a quarter of kids were chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year.

Great to see @sharonlurye.bsky.social’s incredible @apnews.com reporting on missing students across the US at the @biglocalnews.bsky.social conference projects.apnews.com/features/202...

Why extracting data from PDFs is still a nightmare for data experts Countless digital documents hold valuable info, and the AI industry is attempting to set it free.

Hello, it's me, talking about getting data from PDFs again.

arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/w...

Cutting-edge web scraping techniques at NICAR Here's the handout for a workshop I presented this morning at [NICAR 2025](https://www.ire.org/training/conferences/nicar-2025/) on web scraping, focusing on lesser know tips and tricks that became po...

Here's the handout for my "Cutting-edge web scraping techniques" workshop at #NICAR2025 this morning github.com/simonw/nicar...

Plus some extra notes on the custom software I built to support the workshop: simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/8/c...

Picture of conference room filled with data nerds

Kicking off #NICAR25 by learning more about @biglocalnews.bsky.social with @zstumgoren.bsky.social, @gerald.bsky.social & co

MAZEL TOV!!!

Things we learned about LLMs in 2024 A lot has happened in the world of Large Language Models over the course of 2024. Here’s a review of things we figured out about the field in the past …

I think everyone who has an opnion, good or bad, about LLMs, should read how @simonwillison.net has summer up what’s happened in the space this year. He’s the most credible, most independent, most honest, and most technically fluent person watching the space. simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/...

People won’t “like” you "Likes are one of the very few ways audiences send us signals across platforms and I don’t think we can count on those hearts in 2025."

"If you’re producing news, people aren’t going to like you. Like, literally," writes @juliachanb.bsky.social

jeez. @kissane.bsky.social shared this earlier and it's quite helpful www.sf72.org/hazard/tsuna...

Uhhh tsunami warning for the Bay Area?

Ted!

If you also did not know this, I highly recommend reading @oriion.bsky.social's incredible profile on Sarah McBride and Andy Cray. It is comprehensive, compassionate, and well worth your time: 19thnews.org/2024/10/sara...

still one of my favorite sessions that i share with colleagues often