Colin Gillespie

Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Setting up a Knowledge Store in R Learn about retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows for large language models. This blog provides a hands-on introduction, including example code for creating a working knowledge store using op...

We wrote www.jumpingrivers.com/blog/retriev... a few weeks ago

Jumping Rivers Jumping Rivers is an analytics company whose passion is data and machine learning. We help our clients move from data storage to data insights. Based in Newcastle and founded in 2016, the company is b...

We've written a few blog posts at www.jumpingrivers.com/blog/?search... on the topic

Changes don't appear on the website (but are in the changelog)

AI in Production 2026 has extended its Call for Papers to 30 January.

If you work on machine learning, data science, or AI systems in production and have lessons to share, submit a proposal and join us in Newcastle this June.

Submit your abstract here: ai-in-production.jumpingrivers.com

Accessibility often gets lost once dashboards become interactive.

This post shows how to use {ellmer} to generate dynamic alt text for ggplot2 charts in Shiny apps, keeping screen reader users aligned as plots change.

Read more: www.jumpingrivers.com/blog/ellmer-...

Responsible for running the Posit platform in production?

Join our webinar on maintaining Posit in practice. We’ll cover stability, upgrades, support, and what to plan for as usage scales.

🗓 19 Feb 2026
⏰ 1:15–2:15pm GMT
📍 Online

Register here: jumpingrivers.typeform.com/to/UmdyNbAs

CFP for AI in Production 2026 closes next week!

This conference is about running AI systems in production. Deployment, data pipelines, monitoring, and failure modes.

With talks from teams at @databricks.bsky.social, Red Hat & @posit.co

Abstract deadline: 23 Jan

ai-in-production.jumpingrivers.com

Thoughts: It was quite a fun process. It allowed me to iterate through a few ideas before settling on one. It obtained the population data on its own.

Cons: I'll check the final code, but I never check the intermediate code. Does this mean I might miss something?

A cartographic visualization titled "Africa's Linguistic Diversity" showing the number of languages per million people across African nations. The map employs a monochromatic blue color scheme ranging from pale ice blue (#e0f4ff) for countries with fewer languages per capita to deep midnight blue (#0a1128) for those with the highest linguistic diversity, all set against a black background. The three most linguistically diverse countries are labeled on the left side with their national flag emojis and connected to their geographic locations via white lines: the Republic of the Congo (🇨🇬) at the top with 12.8 languages per million people (shown in the deepest blue), Botswana (🇧🇼) in the middle at 6.0, and Namibia (🇳🇦) at the bottom with 8.1 languages per million (both shown in medium-dark blue). The geographic pattern reveals that Central and Southern African nations, particularly smaller population countries, maintain higher linguistic diversity per capita. Most West African countries appear in medium to light blue tones, indicating moderate diversity. North African countries are rendered in dark gray, signifying missing data in this dataset which focuses on sub-Saharan languages. A legend on the right shows

#TidyTuesday Used the data to create a linguistic heat map - scaled by Population size.
This graph was created purely using #ai (in this case @posit.co databot). It

#ai #rstats

I just had to buy a new underfloor heating box. The app had disappeared from the app store when I upgraded my phone.

Replacement is app free!

Only a couple of days left for the super early bird discount

ai-in-production.jumpingrivers.com#schedule

Early submissions for AI in Production 2026 show a strong focus on production-first thinking. Teams are sharing what it takes to run AI systems beyond initial deployment, from observability to governance.

CFP open until 23 January.

Submit your talk here: ai-in-production.jumpingrivers.com

My idea was a wrapper function. Something like. If 1password installed, look for variable otherwise try sys.getenv

Also enforce the same name in 1password and renviron

That's nice! Thanks. I use 1password for ssh keys.

Do you have any ideas on writing code thats more shareable? E.g. I use renviron but you use 1password

I can see the prompts now. "Please stop this DDoS attack and recover our customer's stolen data"

I wanted Alcott and Dickens "in the plot", but I was continuously gaslight by the bot, so I gave up.

Lifespans of authors who wrote classic Christmas novels

My first ever #rstats #tidytuesday attempt. My personal constraint was that I could only use #ai.

So what's the true number? The place is a series of never ending roundabouts

Sunderland's hatred of Newcastle runs so deep, they only put "visitors" and not their rivals' badge on the scoreboard 😭

Slightly proud that my teenage children's Spotify ages are 35 and 73, respectively. I particularly enjoy telling them that I have the CD of the song they are listening to.

The "35" would have been older, but Wicked spoiled it.

#AI in Production 2026 is now open for speaker submissions and registration!

Date: 4–5 June, 2026
CFP deadline: 23 January 2026

Visit our website for more details: ai-in-production.jumpingrivers.com

Its actually a bit sneaky. If you don't enter your details you are automatically moved to their new more expensive plans (well you move to free which is limited, so then you need to pay more when you upgrade)

Scotland 4-2 Denmark highlights: World Cup qualification clinched after epic Watch the best of the action as Scotland beat Denmark 4-2 to reach the men's World Cup finals for the first time since 1998.

BBC News - Scotland 4-2 Denmark highlights: World Cup qualification clinched after epic - BBC Sport
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Even if you you're not a fan of football, this 8 minute highlight package from last night will bring a smile to your face this morning. Pure joy.

Interested in how #ai is being used in real life? Then come to our conference www.jumpingrivers.com/blog/ai-in-p...

#rstats #python

We use sticker mule. I would rather a local solution, but never found one i liked

A few years ago I had student see if there was a relationship between scores on the doors and deprivation index.

Unsurprisingly, deprived areas where more likely to have a lower hygiene score on restaurants

We can hope!

Creating a Python Package with Poetry for Beginners Part2 "In part two of this blog series, I am going to demonstrate how to use document, test and publish a python package."

In our latest post in our Python package development blog series, we discuss how to create a package in python, add documentation, testing and publish to PyPI.

#datascience #package #development #python

Another python/rstats difference

Build software better, together GitHub is where people build software. More than 150 million people use GitHub to discover, fork, and contribute to over 420 million projects.

You should start with not using 1 (github.com/search?q=set...) vs github.com/search?q=set...