Grant McDermott

𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭 v0.8.0 now available on CRAN 🎉 grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/ This is another big release: new plot types, finer facet & axis control, smarter handling of categorical data, and lots more. Same tiny footprint, though. Short highlight thread below 🧵 #rstats

The world needs a high-quality, truly open language model. I wrote about why it’s necessary and why it’s easier to build than you might think.

#rstats A cool developer experience is seeing other people build on top of your projects. I recently learned of some nice `tinyplot` extensions here, including lorenz curves, frequency polygons, donut plots, and pie charts (not equally endorsed!) cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

We released rig 0.11.0, the #Rstats installation manager, this week (and 0.10.0 a bit before). New: a website at rig.r-lib.org, user mode R installations, R package management and R projects. First of three blog posts, on R installations: opensource.posit.co/blog/2026-10...

Hi all! I'm looking for people to try out my new collaborative writing platform. Think: Overleaf or GDocs for Mkdown LaTeX HTML Typst Quarto Free, open source, and full-featured. Many editors, chat, comments, track changes, history, AI, mobile, templates, etc Would ❤️ any feedback! librepaper.org

Missed this originally, but: jev + @duckdb.org ! duckdb.org/2026/09/29/jev

New post: paulgp.substack.com/p/ai-in-jour...

Remember when the Tesla valuation case was that their cameras were out collecting real-world data? Every top academic in the world is currently furiously typing their most cutting-edge thoughts into AI chat windows.

I mean? Incredible. (Opus 5.5) PROMPT: Here's a challenge: can you turn this post into a beautiful manim animation video (bonus points for narration). The post is not a perfect video transcript so make a transcript with edits if helpful. matthodges.com/posts/2022-0... use uv with a venv

A legit banger?

With that done, time to read my youngest a delightful allegory about the Springbok scrum and maul.

Leroy Carter with four try assists. (Two in attack, two in defence.)

What a half. I'm exhausted and I'm not even at altitude.

Obviously, Will Jordan is very, very good. But there's something Johnny Sexton like about the way defenders keep falling for the same trick. (Surely, he can't get away with it again? Makes 50m. Rinse and repeat.)

Flyovers out of fashion this week?

Big news! 🎉 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜 1.0.0 for #Rstats is out. It’s a big number and it feels like a big step. I wrote a blog on the challenges of interpreting statistical models, SPEED, cool new features, the future, and a 5 year package development and writing odyssey. arelbundock.com/posts/margin...

Would appreciate some #rstats feedback on a potential `tinyplot` change: github.com/grantmcdermo... Should we default to suppressing the (redundant) inner axes for faceted plots? We already do this for themes without a plot frame (box). But I'm thinking of enabling for framed plots too. #dataviz

Typos aside, forgot to tag #rstats #dataviz

`jgd` v0.1.1 is freshly baked & available on CRAN. Mostly doc updates, but includes an important Easter egg: VS Code integration is now baked directly into the main R extension (dev version). It should work out of the box if you grab the latest GitHub release: github.com/grantmcdermo... #rstats

Eff. It really is the hope that gets you.

Objective anthem rankings: 1. Wales 2. France 3. USSR <big gap> 4. Scotland 5. World in Union 6. Waka Waka ...

🎉 Announcing Calepin 🎉 A new tool to create computational notebooks and static websites, built on Typst. Write code and prose directly in your .typ files, then publish them as documents or as a full website. vincentarelbundock.github.io/calepin/ 1/6 🧵 #Rstats #Pydata #Typst

The 2026 Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics has been awarded to the R Project. #RStats www.rousseeuwprize.org/2026

Are GitHub Actions / CI jobs hanging for anyone else? (Specifically on Ubuntu.)

Gregor Mendel! Franz Kafka! Václav Havel! Martina Navratilova! Can you hear me, Martina?! Your boys took a hell of a beating*! YOUR BOYS TOOK A HELL OF A BEATING. * drawing

We're all agreed that the two PREM semifinals were the sporting highlight of the weekend, right? 🏉 <Puts ear to the ground. Ominous rumbling in the distance.>

In a new post, I pull data from four different sources --- arXiv, NBER working papers, SSRN, and the AEA --- to look at how much working paper growth and submissions have changed with the growth of AI. paulgp.substack.com/p/the-number...

Thoroughly enjoying ‘corteza’, to the point where I’ve configured my Claude config to automatically invoke it for #rstats workflows. github.com/grantmcdermo...

I’ve grown super worried about LLM agents w/ access to all my files and secrets. Existing sandboxes and containers felt hard to use day-to-day, so I built a small convenient utility to keep agents away from important stuff. It’s called “bulle” (for “bubble”). 1/2 vincentarelbundock.github.io/bulle

All we need now is Pieter-Stef du Toit to re-sign and the prophecy will be complete. www.planetrugby.com/news/predict...

Today we’re releasing OlmoEarth v1.1. It’s 3x cheaper to run than v1 while delivering the same state-of-the-art performance—and fully open. 🧵

Getting a good planning workflow was the single largest quality jump I've noticed when working with CC. The second one is a mindset thing: you have to accept that CC does not learn. Anything that goes poorly in a session will go poorly again, and you need to create a process to avoid it.

Daughter just threw up on the floor at the Consulate General while we're renewing our passports. How's your day going?