Sharon Machlis

Kyle Walker: “Lots of new features landing in R's mapgl package as it approaches an 0.5.0 release. Today's drop:

- An interactive color ramp picker for your legends
- Native bivariate choropleth mapping”

https://walker-data.com/mapgl/articles/map-design.html

#RStats #RSpatial #GIS

After almost 2 years, it's finally feeling like retirement *is* my life . . . and not just an absence of work.
My latest Next Chapter Retirement blog post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-05-05-second-spring-in-retirement/

#NextChapter #Retirement

After almost 2 years, it's finally feeling like retirement *is* my life . . . and not just an absence of work.
My latest Next Chapter Retirement blog post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-05-05-second-spring-in-retirement/

#NextChapter #Retirement

ggplot2 theme in Associated Press style:
https://github.com/associatedpress/aptheme

#RStats #ggplot #ggplot2 #dataviz

Elite women running through #Framingham, about 6.5 miles into today's Boston Marathon. Red arrow should point to eventual winner Sharon Lokedi.

If you use @Vivaldi (Vivaldi browser), JR Raphael has some cool tips and tricks you might not know about. Check out his #Computerworld article:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/4148888/8-advanced-ways-vivaldi-boosts-your-productivity.html

"Quarto 2 will include a built-in collaborative editor. . . . The design of those integrations is still taking shape. It is very early in the project. . . . We don't expect to have a public release of Quarto 2 for at least 6 months."
https://quarto.org/docs/blog/posts/2026-04-06-whats-next-quarto-2/
#QuartoPub

You *can* improve -- physically and cognitively -- as you age, Yale study shows.
In other words: Improving with age isn't just for wine and cheese 😀
My latest #NextChapter post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-04-06-you-can-improve-physically-and-cognitively-as-you-age-yale-study-shows/
#Retirement

More time in retirement plus super capable AI coding tools has led me to work on LOTS of new software projects! My latest Next Chapter retirement blog:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-03-30-building-software-things-in-retirement/

#NextChapter #Retirement

“If you like podcasts and computer-assisted investigative journalism you might enjoy this podcast feed of audio recordings from the 2024, 2025, and 2026 NICAR conferences.” - @john
https://github.com/bcks/nicar
#NICAR26 #DDJ

From @kleinmatic: “I'm launching a site and newsletter to track and celebrate open-work culture in news. I'll be posting bi-weekly updates on the best new open source projects from the 350+ newsrooms we track. First issue is here: “
https://openjournalism.news/2026/03/15/open-journalism-update-march-1-14-2026/
#DDJ #OpenSource

It was different attending the #NICAR26 data journalism conference this year now that I'm retired! And kind of strange not returning home to a newsroom.
My latest #NextChapter post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-03-15-attending-a-conference-as-a-retiree-this-time-with-former-peers/
#Retirement

Now both the front end and back end for Investigative Reporters & Editors' new semantic-searchable archives -- unveiled at #NICAR26 -- have been open sourced 🎉🎉
Front end (SvelteKit): https://github.com/ireapps/ire-archive-frontend
Back end (FastAPI): https://github.com/ireapps/ire-archive-backend
#DDJ

25 free resources, presentations & tip sheets so far added to my searchable table of #NICAR26 materials, including
10 Things you Didn't Know You Could Do in R
AI Glossary for Journalists
Decoding Deportation Data
https://apps.machlis.com/shiny/nicar20_resources/
Plus lots from prior yrs
##RStats #Python #GenAI #DDJ

R folks listening to this morning's #NICAR26 session on extracting data from documents and - importantly! - how to check your results: You can set up and run evaluations of LLM results with the {vitals} #rstats 📦
https://www.infoworld.com/article/4130274/how-to-choose-the-best-llm-using-r-and-vitals.html #DDJ

RE: https://mastodon.palewi.re/@palewire/116176285413735482

This looks like it will be a very cool resource for data journalism ⬇️⬇️⬇️
You need to be an Investigative Reporters & Editors member to access. Announced at the #NICAR26 data journalism conference #DDJ

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: https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-02-22-returning-to-an-old-hobby-in-retirement/

(Hint: #HamRadio #AmateurRadio 😀 )

Added the all-important hex logo to my censuschat #RStats 📦😀 [censuschat lets you ask natural language questions about US Census data, it returns answers and the tidycensus R code that generated its response] #Census #USCensus
https://github.com/smach/censuschat
[logo via Nano Banana Pro]

Seen online: ProPublica is hiring a data reporter, 5 yrs data journalism exp req'd. Salary $110K-$135K. Knowledge of Python or #RStats.
US remote or option to work in NY, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix or Berkeley
More info:
https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/propublica/jobs/4646966006
#DDJ #JournalismJobs

It's taking some effort to limit my social media use in retirement, now that my free time has expanded. But it's worth it!
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-01-18-grappling-with-social-media-and-news-in-retirement/
#NextChapter #Retirement

The ebb and flow of a calendar year feel different when you're no longer working. But they're definitely still there.
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2026-01-04-the-rhythms-of-a-year/ #NextChapter #Retirement

This incredible stat sums up the entire #NYGiants 2025 #NFL season ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Some thoughts on what can help make a (reasonably) happy retirement, a year and a half into this new stage of my life.

https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-12-21-what-makes-a-reasonably-happy-retirement/ #Retirement #NextChapter

I'm feeling a different winter vibe in this 2nd year of retirement than I did last year! My latest #NextChapter installment:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-12-14-rethinking-winter-in-retirement/ #Retirement

Going through old R folders on my PC, I found a couple of "Intro to R" presentations from the 2011 NICAR data journalism conference. Before RStudio was generally available. Before dplyr. Pretty different from how most journalists use #RStats today! 😅
From Peter Aldhous #ddj

Boundaries between being "at work" and having "time off" were never firm for all types of jobs. But that boundary became blurrier ever since it was possible to check email on vacation. So I guess it makes sense that while retirement was an abrupt end to my full-time career, it hasn't (yet) ended all my professional activities. My latest #NextChapter #Retirement blog post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-11-30-retirement-isn-t-always-a-work-on-off-switch/

This stage of life often needs to balance gratitude for life's blessings with grieving the loss of more loved ones as we age. It's an odd juxtaposition at times. My latest #NextChapter post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-11-23-gratitude-and-loss/

After days of family, friends & feasts, wouldn't it be fun to attend an R-Ladies meetup about AI and R? 😀
Join me at 10 am ET / 4 pm CET Sunday of US Thanksgiving weekend at an R-Ladies Paris virtual meetup! (Sadly I will not be in Paris….) #RStats #GenAI #RLadies
https://www.meetup.com/rladies-paris/events/312083756/

My election data-and-reporting retirement project turned out to be surprisingly intense -- and rewarding! I missed having a team like I did when I was working, but I definitely didn't miss the higher stress. My latest #NextChapter post: "Work-Adjacent Projects (Cont.):

https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-11-16-work-adjacent-projects-cont/

#Retirement

Don't know where to start with all these #PositConf2025 videos? There's a chatbot you can query to find sessions that might interest you. (Then search for those sessions in the YouTube playlist.)
https://posit-ai-posit-conf-agenda-chat.share.connect.posit.cloud/
#RStats #Python #PositronIDE #QuartoPub https://masto.machlis.com/@smach/115510276625740131

The talk by @andrew and Gabe Osterhout on "Election Night Results with R and Quarto" that inspired my #RStats code is now on YouTube! Well worth a watch if you're interested in posting ANY frequently updated data online at scale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCloM4GcfVY&list=PL9HYL-VRX0oTixlfDPCS5RW_F1pccERRe&index=19
#QuartoPub #Positconf2025

Videos from September's posit::conf data science conference are already live on YouTube! 🎉🎉🎉See the full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9HYL-VRX0oTixlfDPCS5RW_F1pccERRe

So many interesting talks you can now watch free, on topics like #RStats #Python #GenAI #LLMs @Posit 's #PositronIDE #QuartoPub

I've started my biggest work-adjacent hobby project yet 😀
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-11-02-career-adjacent-hobby-projects/
#Retirement #NextChapter

If I render my Quarto blog post, even with draft: true in the YAML, it seems to change some _site files. This causes issues when I have a draft I'm working on for a few days, because I have another version of my blog repo on a cloud server that updates events listings daily with a cron job. git conflicts! Is there some Quarto or git setting I'm missing? Or is doing this with multiple machines a bad idea altogether? Details here: https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/discussions/13628 #QuartoPub #Quarto

When you're retired and no longer being reviewed and measured in the workplace, might you want to come up with a few goals of your own? #Retirement #NextChapter
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-10-26-setting-and-achieving-goals-in-retirement/

I typically use ellmer when coding with LLMs in R, but it's nice to see what else is out there. You can learn about the {axolotr} #RStats 📦 in this useR! talk. By Dr Matthew Hirschey, Duke Univ School of Medicine:
Video: https://youtu.be/QY2fU1uEvNA?si=L2jFDNQcbVc59LBh
📦 website: https://github.com/heurekalabsco/axolotr
#GenAI #user2025

After four full seasons of retirement, I'm ready to move from 'newly retired' to whatever stage comes next. Time to start planning!
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-10-13-retirement-rhythms-moving-into-my-next-phase/
#Retirement #NextChapter

Does it make sense to travel to a professional conference after you've retired? I decided to find out! How it went at the #Positconf2025 data science event in Atlanta last week:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-09-28-does-traveling-to-a-professional-conference-make-sense-if-you-re-retired/

#NextChapter #Retirement

Florent Daudens at Hugging Face shared a notebook from his workshop on open source AI and journalism. It "walks through extracting entities from text, transcribing interviews, identifying objects in images, spinning up a demo with Gradio, etc" #GenAI #Python #ddj
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1n75iB6_0rw5eI0LBgfts1mTOcYHSj-Ca?usp=sharing

From Matt Boggie, CTO: "The Philadelphia Inquirer has released an open-source version of our internal archive tool 'Dewey', a RAG-based application built for exploring our deep historical archives and tuned for newsroom use. For some complex reporting tasks, this tool can take days out of a weeks-long research process."
https://github.com/Lenfest-Institute/ai-collab-dewey-ai
#GenAI #DDJ

This week's European Data & Computational Journalism conference was livestreamed. If, like me, you missed it live, some is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/ANPotC39zHA #ddj

Travel in retirement: I don’t need a vacation from my vacation anymore! After a ton of sightseeing, I no longer have to worry about heading back to work tired from a trip. 😀 #NextChapter #Retirement
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-09-07-no-more-need-for-a-vacation-from-my-vacation/

I've been retired a full year now!! 🎉🎉 How my retirement has changed compared with after the first 6 months.
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-08-10-a-year-of-retirement/
#Retirement #NextChapter

How you balance planning vs spontaneity may change when more of your time is your own #Retirement #NextChapter

https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-07-27-planning-vs-spontaneity-in-retirement/

Do retirees need a Sabbath - that is, a day to refrain from work and chores? My latest #NextChapter post:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-07-13-retirement-and-the-sabbath/

#Retirement

I think it's (finally) time to update my retirement morning routine!
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-06-29--rethinking-my-mornings-almost-a-year-into-retirement/

#Retirement #NextChapter

Retirement is prompting me to look at stages of life in different way. https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-06-15-stages-of-life/
#Retirement #NextChapter

I have more time for fun tech projects like coding a generative AI chatbot for my blog now that I'm retired 😂
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-06-08-blog-chatbot-fun/
#Retirement #NextChapter

Retirement seems like a good time to get rid of some things that I no longer need in my new life. But decluttering has been harder than I'd hoped - no matter how much I want less stuff in my home.
Latest #NextChapter:
https://nextchapter.machlis.com/posts/2025-06-01-decluttering-baby-steps/
#Retirement

What ID can you use to get data for a specific topic in the US Census 1-year American Community Survey? I made an experimental Custom GPT where you ask a natural language question and get a response. Free ChatGPT account needed.
https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67c7c1012ea081918c52c6f25480af2b-find-american-community-survey-1-year-variable-ids
#USCensus #Census #GenAI #DDJ