iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

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

Heatmap of the mtcars dataset, scaled within each column. Code: https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/heatmap-mtcars.R

Histogram of New York temperatures, with bars coloured by their own x values. Code: plt(~ Temp | Temp, data = airquality, type = "hist", theme = "classic")

Hexbin plot of 20,000 bivariate normal draws. Code: https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/hexbin.R

Stacked area plot of telephones in use by world region, 1956-1961. Code: plt(WorldPhones[-1, ], type = type_area(stack = TRUE, byord = "end"))

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Rob Ready @robready.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

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.

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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

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.)

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Flyovers out of fashion this week?

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Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

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...

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

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

Faceted tinyplot where the same axes are displayed for all sub plots.

Same plot as before, except the redundant inner axes are now suppressed.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭 v0.7.0 now available on CRAN 🎉 This is big release, with loads of new features. Same tiny footprint, though ;-) Short highlight thread below, borrowing examples from our gallery: grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/vig...

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/bubble-quakes.R

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/simpsons-paradox.R

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/barplot-meat.R

https://github.com/grantmcdermott/tinyplot/blob/main/vignettes/gallery_figs/spineplot-titanic.R

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

`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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Eff. It really is the hope that gets you.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

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

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Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

🎉 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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

One of my best tourist experiences was a long layover in Amsterdam. I'd been back home to catch the 2010 WC (an epic time in of itself). But my return flight coincided with a NL v Brazil QF, so I risked heading into the city for a few hours. NL won 2-1 and the city was, literally, painted orange.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

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.>

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 02/06/2026

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...

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

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

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Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

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

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Ai2 @ai2.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

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. 🧵

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

github.com/grantmcdermo... 👀

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Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 11/05/2026

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.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Nothing new, but switching to /plan mode really does make a material difference to how well Claude and co. perform.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

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

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Happy to see that `jgd` is now up on CRAN. An alternative #rstats graphics device that's fast and lightweight (mostly pure C). Try it out with our VS Code extension or Deno server. More details: github.com/grantmcdermo... Joint work with the indefatigable @eitsupi.bsky.social.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

If your business model is just a better SKILLS file, it's time to find a better business.

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Arseny Khakhalin @khakhalin.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Claude code, obey this rite: uv alone should see the light. Ban import star, cast em-dash out, Put pandas, pip, and print to rout. Polars flourish, f-strings burn, Docstrings, hints, at every turn. Clean thy lint, make patterns stand, Hold thy peace and serve my hand!

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

*Embarrassingly niche content* I recently spent some time tweaking my Neovim config, alongside some related shell tools. I think the end result is pretty slick & makes for an extremely fast+ergonomic workflow across my most used tools: #rstats, #pydata, git, Claude etc. github.com/grantmcdermo...

github.com

GitHub - grantmcdermott/dotfiles: Dotfiles, configs, etc.

Dotfiles, configs, etc. Contribute to grantmcdermott/dotfiles development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

A small, but meaningful quality of life improvements to your Claude Code workflow is available by editing your .claude/settings.json: ``` "spinnerVerbs": { "mode": "replace", "verbs": [ "Working" ] } ``` Sure, you won't see "perambulating" any more. But you're also not 12 yo.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Good news, everyone. I was just chatting to Claude and it turns out I am, in fact, absolutely right.

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Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Excited to launch the accompanying free RLHF Course for my book. To kick it off, I've released: - Welcome video - Lecture 1: Overview of RLHF & Post-training - Lecture 2: IFT, Reward Models, Rejection Sampling - Lecture 3: RL Math - Lecture 4: RL Implementation Landing page: rlhfbook.com/course

rlhfbook.com

Course | RLHF Book by Nathan Lambert

Course lectures and talks on RLHF and post-training.

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NBER @nber.org · 15/04/2026

A study of around 44,000 papers finds that the credibility revolution has spread unevenly beyond applied micro, driven mainly by difference-in-differences, with finance and macro lagging by roughly 15 years, from Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham www.nber.org/papers/w35051

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Tricksy upstream P3M "bug" that might be affecting performance in some of your `renv` and `rv` enabled projects on MacOS. #rstats forum.posit.co/t/missing-op...

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Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 06/04/2026

And another Quarto announcement; I've alluded to it before, but we're making it "official". We've started work on Quarto 2. The blog post has an overview: quarto.org/docs/blog/po... We'll share more in future blog posts, but here's what you can expect from the Quarto 2 dev effort: (1/)

quarto.org

What’s next: Quarto 2 – Quarto

We’ve started working on quarto-dev/q2, a full rewrite of Quarto in Rust.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Coming up (down?) for air after a social media break. As you do, here are some updates for various open-source projects that I've been working on...

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 29/03/2026

Did a series of videos with Markus Brunnermeier on Claude Code (more to come) Video 1: Getting Started with CC open.substack.com/pub/paulgp/p...

open.substack.com

Getting Started with Claude Code: A Researcher’s Setup Guide

Video 1 in a series on Claude Code

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Coming up (down?) for air after a social media break. As you do, here are some updates for various open-source projects that I've been working on...

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Forking paths and all that, but if DuPont hadn't thrown that ridiculous forward pass behind his own goal line, France, some unbelievably, would have been in with a shout for a draw.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

France have imploded, clearly. But genuinely the best I've ever seen Scotland play.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Back in December, I presented at a "Fast Computing" workshop hosted by the Bank of Portugal. The videos + materials are now all available online. github.com/BPLIM/Worksh... (Also including cool talks by @s3alfisc.bsky.social, @sebkrantz.bsky.social, and others.)

github.com

Workshops/BPLIM2025 at master · BPLIM/Workshops

Collection of presentations at BPLIM's workshops. Contribute to BPLIM/Workshops development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Grant McDermott @gmcd.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

I think the main issue is that many people, quite reasonably tbf, don't like the default base data.frame print method... But this is easy to override! gist.github.com/grantmcdermo...

A nicer print.data.frame method showing column types, as well as a subset of rows. Inspired by data.table's print method.

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