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James Balamuta

@coatless.bsky.social
1.2K followers 16 following 482 posts

omnipresent explorer of the unknown, fashionably caffeinated informatics phd, amorous cavalier. design, build, analyze. #rstats on #macos + #webr and #python with #pyodide

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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
webRoid 1.1.1 is on Google Play. The app that runs R on your Android phone or tablet moves up to R 4.6.0, and its charts are now the kind you’re allowed to poke. App: play.google.com/store/apps/d... Docs: webroid.caffeinatedmath.com #rstats #webr #android #webassembly
Promotional card for webRoid on a dark navy background, headed "Make interactive charts", with the line "Open a plotly chart from your Workspace, then zoom and pan it with your fingers." A tilted tablet in dark mode shows a plotly scatter plot titled Weight vs mileage, its points colored pink, green and blue for cars with 4, 6 and 8 cylinders.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
{webroid} v1.1.0 update is coming soon to the Play Store for review. This boosts the version up to R 4.6.0 (wasm). However, we are lacking the ability to handle curl requests despite webR advances on device due to limitations with AndroidView. issues.chromium.org/issues/40914...
issues.chromium.org
Chromium
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
{bibtex} 0.5.3 is on CRAN with better parsing of: 1. Comment lines 2. BibLaTeX dates and journaltitle Fun fact: base R 4.6 uses {bibtex} for its new \bibshow help-page citations. GitHub: github.com/ropensci/bib... #rstats #rOpenSci #BibTeX #LaTeX
blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
{macrtools} v0.0.8 is out, with macOS 27 support. Install the compiler tools R needs on a Mac, right from the R console. Site: mac.thecoatlessprofessor.com/macrtools/ GitHub: github.com/coatless-mac... #rstats #macos
mac.thecoatlessprofessor.com
macrtools: R Development Toolchain for macOS
An R package to install and manage the complete R development toolchain on macOS, including Xcode CLI, gfortran, and essential development libraries.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Responses will be delayed for a couple of weeks.
Carriage waiting for green lightView out from the RockiesView out from the Rockies
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
both {webrios} and {webroid} will be heading to there respective app stores in about 2 weeks.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Install at the gate, write Python at cruising altitude without worrying about plane wifi. Pyodios 1.1.0 makes it happen with #Python 3.14 via #Pyodide (#WebAssembly) on #iOS 26+. apps.apple.com/us/app/pyodi...
Two iPhones side by side: matplotlib code and its chart in a notebook on the left, six finished charts in the Plots gallery on the right.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
{Pyodios} v1.1.0 has been sent over to the App Store for approval. It includes a host of fixes, features, and a bump from Python v3.13 to v3.14. This requires iOS 26 or above. Once approved, we'll be pulling back the initial Pyodios v1.0.0 version to avoid it being available on iOS 17/18 devices.
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The R Foundation @r-foundation.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
We invite #RStats users to contribute to a fund dedicated to helping the family of Tomáš Kalibera following his untimely death in April. Find out more and donate here: www.r-project.org/foundation/k...
r-project.org
R: Tomáš Kalibera Family Fund
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Nothing says your niche R Observatory project has made it like a hosting provider gently asking if you are aware you are being attacked. Happy Monday!
Screenshot of an email from a hosting provider that reads: "Hello, This email is being sent to inform you that your site r-observatory.thecoatlessprofessor.com is currently receiving an unusually high volume of traffic from a large number of IP addresses simultaneously. This pattern is consistent with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack or aggressive bot/crawler activity, and it is generating" (text cuts off).
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
{shinyelectron} is on CRAN. install.packages("shinyelectron") Turn an R or Python Shiny app into a desktop app your users double-click. macOS, Windows, Linux. One export() call builds the installer. cran.r-project.org/package=shin... #rstats #python #rshiny #pyshiny
cran.r-project.org
shinyelectron: Export 'Shiny' Applications as Desktop Apps using 'Electron'
Provides tools to export 'Shiny' applications written in 'R' or 'Python' as standalone desktop applications using 'Electron'. The applications run as native, cross-platform programs. Depending on the ...
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Every R course has the whiteboard moment where you draw a vector as a row of boxes. {paintr} draws it and writes the accessor in each cell, so the diagram and the code are one object. Now on CRAN. #rstats blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/software-rel...
The numeric vector 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 drawn by paintr's paint_vector() as a single horizontal row of five boxes in the mint palette. Each box holds its value in large type with the bracketed position it answers to underneath, running from bracket 1 through bracket 5. The third box, holding 30, is filled with a soft mint highlight, so the picture shows what x[3] selects rather than describing it. A caption above reads that the vector has 5 elements and is numeric.
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Martyn Plummer @martynplummer.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
JAGS 5.0.0 is released martynplummer.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/j...
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Bum bum be-dum, bum bum be-dum bum www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGY5...
youtube.com
R & D Demo: Apptrope Data Science App Viewer
YouTube video by TheCoatlessProfessor
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
webrios and pyodios let you run R and Python on #iOS, and new releases are close. Hit a bug? Missing something you need? Tell us before we cut the build: github.com/hjjb-llc/web... github.com/hjjb-llc/pyo... #rstats #python
github.com
GitHub - hjjb-llc/webrios: Issue tracker for webRios, an iOS app that runs R locally via WebAssembly
Issue tracker for webRios, an iOS app that runs R locally via WebAssembly - hjjb-llc/webrios
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Now on CRAN: {livelink}. Hand it a string, a file path, or your clipboard and get back a URL that opens a live R session in the browser, code already loaded. CRAN: cran.r-project.org/web/packages... Release notes: blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/software-rel... #rstats
Three-panel diagram showing how livelink works. Panel 1, "You write R": a code block wrapping a short script in webr_repl_link(), where the script loads the mtcars dataset and plots mpg against weight with steelblue points. A caption notes that a string, a file path, or the clipboard work too. Panel 2, "You get a URL": a long webr.r-wasm.org link with the code encoded in the fragment. Panel 3, "They get a live R session": a browser window with four panes, an editor holding script.R, a file browser showing home/web_user/script.R, a terminal where source('script.R') and mean(mtcars$mpg) return 20.09062, and a pane displaying the resulting scatter plot.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
What about the forthcoming quarto-hub.com that's moving into Release Candidate (RC) status for Quarto v2? c.f. bsky.app/profile/coat... github.com/quarto-dev/q...
github.com
quarto-hub: track invitations centrally · Issue #344 · quarto-dev/q2
"User X shares project Y with user Z" is a thing we could track in the same service that will track (user_id, project_set_automerge_id) tuples.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
RcppEnsmallen 0.3.11.0.1 is on CRAN, bringing ensmallen 3.11.0 and two new optimizers: DeltaBarDelta and MomentumDeltaBarDelta. blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/software-rel... #rstats #rcpp #mlpack
blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com
RcppEnsmallen v0.3.11.0.1 Released - New DeltaBarDelta and MomentumDeltaBarDelta Optimizers – TheCoatlessProfessor
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
{livelink} will also soon be expanded over to Python just after Pyodidarian launches as the later comes with a Pyodide powered Python enhanced 4-panel editor based off of webR's. #pyodide #livelink #python
Screenshot of the Pyodide REPL, a browser-based Python environment. The left pane shows example code using pandas and matplotlib; the right pane shows an Environment panel of variables and a Plots tab with a line chart titled "n squared."
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
#webR and #Shinylive already share browser-runnable links from their editors. livelink is a small #Rstats wrapper around that idea: build those links from R (scripts & projects) and decode any of them back into files. GH github.com/coatless-rpk... Post blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/programming/...
A split comparison of two ways to share an R project. The top path, 'send the instructions,' runs through install steps to a laptop marked 'runs, if it installs.' The bottom path, 'send a link,' goes straight to a browser already running the plot.A loop showing encode and decode as inverse steps. Three project files flow along webr_repl_project() into a single URL, then back along decode_webr_link() into the same three files.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
v0.2.0 coming soon with even more goodness.
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hrbrmstr 🇺🇦 🇬🇱 🇨🇦🇧🇪 @hrbrmstr.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026
#RStats #macOS folks => XQuartz has a security fix for folks running it on Apple Silicon www.xquartz.org/releases/XQuartz-2.…
xquartz.org
XQuartz - XQuartz 2.8.6
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Last week I gave a quick overview on R Observatory. Here's the longer write-up of what it does. blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/posts/beginn... #rstats
blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com
The Beginnings of the R Observatory – TheCoatlessProfessor
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
I know I'm sleeping, 'cause this dream's too amazin'
Screenshot showing Apptrope Data Science fixed with a Shiny for Python app open along with 10 other app frameworks.
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Thomas Lumley @tslumley.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Here's the official ad: we're hiring for a continuing position up to A/Prof. It's a large stats dept with a broad view of statistics. Research areas include probability, computing, ecology, astronomy, stats education, biostats. We care about teaching quality: students are our main funding source
jobs.smartrecruiters.com
Pouako|Lecturer to Senior Lecturer to Associate Professor - Te Kura Tatauranga|Department of Statistics
Company Description: Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of AucklandTe Whare Pūtaiao | Faculty of Science is the leading science faculty in Aotearoa New Zealand and one of the largest in Au...
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coolbutuseless @coolbutuseless.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Introducing {rdoom} - Play Doom in #RStats (in time for #UseR2026 !) github.com/coolbutusele... This is a demonstration that {tigerfb} + {nara} can do realtime interactivity in R! Includes: keyboard & mouse control, audio, cheat modes!
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Dirk Eddelbuettel @eddelbuettel.com · 11/07/2026
Norm Matloff (1948-2026) @matloff.bsky.social I was made aware of the post below made by his daughter. We lost another friend and valued long-time contributor the #Rstats community, gone far too soon, and sure to be missed. His memory will be a blessing.
Screenshot of post on X in the account of Norm Matloff in which his daughter announces his passing. Gone too soon, and sure to be missed.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Bees knees that #JupyterLite picked up URL share encoding. But, for those more interested in Terminal emulation in #WASM environments, the cherry ontop is Jupyterlite-Terminal package w/ bash + vim and nano editors. May be the start of a fun new weekend project github.com/jupyterlite/... #pyodide
github.com
GitHub - jupyterlite/terminal: A terminal for JupyterLite.
A terminal for JupyterLite. Contribute to jupyterlite/terminal development by creating an account on GitHub.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
After 2 years collecting dust on GH, peeky has finally peeked out onto CRAN and kept its own release quiet for a week. It downloads & rebuilds the source behind any published #Shinylive app, in #Rstats | #Python CRAN: cran.r-project.org/package=peeky blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/programming/...
peeky hex logo: cartoon eyes peek over an app whose corner peels back to reveal source code
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
R CMD check comes back clean. Then CRAN emails you about title case and a missing @ return tag. checktor is in. It catches those before you submit. On CRAN as of last week 7/2! CRAN: cran.r-project.org/package=chec... Blog: blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/programming/... #rstats
Dark terminal screenshot of a checktor() run on a demo package: the Package Doctor diagnosis summary listing five check categories with an overall verdict of "NEEDS ATTENTION (10 issues)."checktor hex logo: a stethoscope whose chestpiece is a green check mark
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Yes, yes it was a #quarto playground I spied back in the day. Confirmed by @shikokuchuo.net 's #user2026 talk. Quarto levels up via: quarto-hub.com
Screenshot of Charlie's talk posted on Linkedin showing the playground and it's home over at quarto-hub.com
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Checking on an R package usually takes five open tabs: CRAN, GitHub, download counts, reverse deps, check results. R Observatory collects all of that on one page, for every CRAN and Bioconductor package. r-observatory.thecoatlessprofessor.com #rstats
The ggplot2 package page on R Observatory. A header gives the name, version 4.0.3, and tagline, with four headline numbers: 6,665 packages depend on it, 26.4M downloads a year, 81.1% test coverage, and 13 of 13 CRAN checks passing. Sections below cover an Overview (maintainer, first-published date, description), install commands in tabs (CRAN, pak, Ubuntu r2u, Fedora COPR, openSUSE OBS), Health (CRAN check result, code-health facts, and a dated check history), and the start of Downloads. A Vital Signs sidebar summarizes health, coverage, docs, downloads, reverse dependencies (6,665 direct and 1,909 indirect), release, license, and links to reference docs.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Turn a Shiny app into a desktop app your users just double-click. shinyelectron wraps #rstats or #Python Shiny in Electron and builds a native installer for macOS, Windows, and Linux, with a runtime of your choice (including a fully offline build). Build locally or in CI. #rshiny #pyshiny
macOS drag-to-install window for demo-r-app-suite: the app icon with an arrow pointing to the Applications folder.The app's About panel showing the r-shinylive (WebR) backend, R 4.6.0, 37 packages, platform wasm32-unknown-emscripten, inside the desktop app.shinyelectron launcher listing three R Shiny apps as cards (Dashboard, Data Explorer, About), with an "Apps → Back to Launcher" menu open.GitHub Actions run "Build demo installers" for shinyelectron 0.2.0, matrix building 73 of 76 jobs across macOS, Windows, and Linux.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
73/76. The desktop is coming for your Shiny apps. Or your Shiny apps are coming for the desktop. Hard to tell from in here. Either way, the machines have been at it for an hour and they're almost done. #rshiny #pyshiny #rstats #python
A GitHub Actions workflow run for the coatless-rpkg/shinyelectron repository, titled "shinyelectron 0.2.0 #22" under the "Build demo installers" workflow. Status reads "In progress," triggered via a release one hour ago when user coatless published v0.2.0. The build-demos.yml workflow shows a completed "setup" job (59 seconds) connected to a "Matrix: build" stage reading "73/76 jobs completed." A left sidebar lists individual jobs for demo-py-app-suite across multiple platforms, including auto-download builds for linux-x64, mac-arm64, mac-x64, and win-x64, plus a bundled linux-x64 build, each marked with a green checkmark.
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rOpenSci @ropensci.org · 29/06/2026
🎉 We've just moved @ropensci.org on Bluesky to a fully independent account! We were previously bridged from our Mastodon account via Bridgy Fed. Same community, same content, fresh start. Give us a follow if you haven't already! 🦋 #RStats
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Apparently I shipped Mac versions of my iPhone/iPad apps by leaving a checkbox on. Pyodios #python and webRios #rstats run on macOS now. #WebAssembly really does go anywhere. TIL.

A Mac screen split between two windows. On the left, the Mac App Store shows an account page with Pyodios (displaying a download button) and webRios (with an Open button), both marked "Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS." On the right, the webRios app is open to a "Welcome to webRios" onboarding screen reading "Run R on your iOS device," explaining that webRios brings R statistical computing to iPhone and iPad through webR, a WebAssembly distribution of R. A sidebar lists Console, Editor, Plots, Environment, File Browser, Projects, Packages, History, R Help, and Settings.A Mac screen split between two windows. On the left, the Mac App Store shows an account page with an "iPhone & iPad Apps" section listing Pyodios and webRios, both marked "Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS" with Open buttons. On the right, the Pyodios app runs a Jupyter-style Python notebook called ExampleNotebook.ipynb locally through Pyodide. Code cells demonstrate basic arithmetic, f-strings, and list comprehensions with their printed output below. A right-hand panel shows environment variables, loaded modules, and two small plot thumbnails.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
@posit.co any chance #P3M download stats could be published like cran-logs.rstudio.com? cran-logs only logs CRAN-mirror source pulls, so the Linux binaries P3M serves (CI, Docker, etc.) are invisible to authors. The API has a downloads field but returns count: 0. #rstats
Terminal session running a curl POST request to https://packagemanager.posit.co/__api__/filter/packages with header Content-Type: application/json and body {"repo":"cran","names":["ggplot2"],"omit_downloads":false}. The server returns a JSON error: {"code":6,"error":"downloads are not available because usage data is disabled; set omit_downloads to true or enable Server.UsageDataEnabled","payload":null}.Browser showing the JSON response from https://packagemanager.posit.co/__api__/repos/cran/packages/ggplot2. It lists metadata for the ggplot2 package: source "cran", version 4.0.3, repository "RSPM", license "MIT + file LICENSE", maintainer Thomas Lin Pedersen, publication date 2026-04-22, plus depends, imports, and suggests fields. The "downloads" field is highlighted and reads { count: 0 }, showing no download counts are exposed on the public instance.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Portable R for #rstats v4.6.1 on #Windows is now out: github.com/portable-r/p...
github.com
GitHub - portable-r/portable-r-windows: Portable, relocatable R distributions for Windows (x86_64, aarch64)
Portable, relocatable R distributions for Windows (x86_64, aarch64) - portable-r/portable-r-windows
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
A well-earned Rousseeuw Prize for the R Core Team, the quietly heroic group behind #rstats, with Brian Ripley speaking for everyone. The stray photo of Excel is an accidental but perfect tribute to where most of us started before we found their work. www.bbc.com/news/article...
A laptop on a wooden desk displaying a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, densely filled with rows of numerical data and a green toolbar across the top. A person's hand rests on the trackpad, with a tablet, a small potted plant, and a calculator on the desk nearby. The BBC caption beneath reads that the R programming language can be used to analyse data easily, even though the screen is clearly showing Excel rather than R.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Portable R for #rstats v4.6.1 on #macOS is now available and signed: github.com/portable-r/p... In other news, first time macOS CRAN binaries became available before Windows binaries I think?
github.com
GitHub - portable-r/portable-r-macos: Portable version of R for macOS
Portable version of R for macOS. Contribute to portable-r/portable-r-macos development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Peter Dalgaard @pdalgd.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
R version 4.6.1 "Happy Hop" (source version) has been released. It should be on CRAN by now (update of manuals pending). #rstats
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The R Foundation @r-foundation.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
The 2026 Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics has been awarded to the R Project. #RStats www.rousseeuwprize.org/2026
rousseeuwprize.org
The Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics
The Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics is a biennial prize to celebrate outstanding contributions to statistics research.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Looks like #quarto v2 will usher in new webassembly playground based on a scene grab from Posit’s in office post
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The R Foundation @r-foundation.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
John Fox (1947-2025) An obituary of R Foundation member John Fox by Peter Dalgaard. www.r-project.org/doc/obit/joh... #rstats
r-project.org
R: John David Fox (1947-2025)
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The R Foundation @r-foundation.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
In memoriam Tomáš Kalibera (1978–2026). www.r-project.org/doc/obit/tom...
r-project.org
R:
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Closing the loop on last week's Portable #rstats post. Hadley reached out, the conversation went well, attribution is fixed, and the ecosystem gets maintained Portable R builds. Longer update on the blog... blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/posts/closin...
blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com
Closing the Footnote Loop – TheCoatlessProfessor
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
A month later, here is what happened to this work. blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com/posts/extrac... #rstats
blog.thecoatlessprofessor.com
Extraction with a Footnote – TheCoatlessProfessor
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jonny (leachate composite form) @jo.nny.rip · 04/05/2026
"What if instead of a broad landscape of people making and maintaining things where we reuse, link, and credit work done elsewhere, we just LLM launder a sloppy copy into our monoliths and make everything reimplement everything but worse"
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
I have blocked exactly one person from a project on GitHub. Strong contender for #2 today: a Posit Senior SWE who pointed Claude at my portable-r-macos / portable-r-windows scripts, opened a PR, and linked my work as "existing art." That's not reference. That's laundering. Worse no signing on mac.
Screenshot of GitHub pull request #284 in rstudio/r-builds, titled "feat: portable, relocatable macOS and Windows R builds," merged by jmwoliver with 19 commits from the branch portable-r-mac-windows into main. A "Files changed" table lists paths and descriptions, including macos/build.sh (main macOS build orchestrator), macos/patch-mach-o.sh (Mach-O load command rewriting and codesigning), macos/make-relocatable.sh, macos/install-rprofile-hook.sh, macos/notarize.sh, macos/entitlements.plist, macos/test.sh, windows/build.ps1, windows/test.ps1, several .github/workflows YAML files, a Makefile, README.md, and a CLAUDE.md labeled "Developer notes." Below the table, an "Existing art for reference" section links to github.com/portable-r/portable-r-macos and github.com/portable-r/portable-r-windows.
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James Balamuta @coatless.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Portable R 4.6.0 is now live for Windows and macOS. No installer, no admin, no system changes. Just extract the archive and run. macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel): github.com/portable-r/p... Windows (x64 + ARM64): github.com/portable-r/p... #rstats #macos #windows
github.com
Release R 4.6.0 · portable-r/portable-r-macos
Portable R 4.6.0 for macOS Signed with a Developer ID Application certificate and notarized by Apple. These modified R binaries should not trigger Gatekeeper warnings. Downloads Architecture Fil...
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