Sharon Machlis
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smachlis.bsky.social
Sharon Machlis
@smachlis.bsky.social
2.5K followers 290 following 1.2K posts
Author of Practical R for Mass Communication & Journalism
❤️ #RStats, writing & cities designed for walking/biking
Having fun with #GenAI
(Mostly) retired; former tech journalist
Also #VibrantAging #Running #Photography #Crochet #ASL
Posts Replies Media Videos
smachlis.bsky.social
Turn off #PositronIDE completion suggestions by file type!
In Settings (gear icon at bottom left), turn off the "Editor > Inline Suggest" and "Inlay Hints" settings. Search by lang like @lang:quarto, @lang:plaintext or @lang:markdown, then disable in the correct workspace.
Screenshot of a Positron settings interface showing configuration options for inline suggestions under the "Workspace" tab. Two red arrows point to: The "Workspace" tab, indicating that workspace-specific settings are being viewed. The "Editor › Inline Suggest: Enabled" option, which is currently unchecked. The description reads: "Controls whether to automatically show inline suggestions in the editor." It also notes: "(Also modified in Quarto > Workspace)". At the top, a search bar contains the query: inline suggest: lang@markdown.
November 9, 2025 at 3:14 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Nov 7, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 80 yesterday and 56 the day before.
November 8, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
For all the focus on Jewish voters in the NYC mayor's race, white Jews voted for Mamdani at a higher rate than white Catholics, according to CNN exit polls (I don't know margin of error slicing this way): white Catholics 26%, white Jews 33%. White non-religious: 81%.
www.cnn.com/election/202...
| Candidate | Protestant/Other Christian | Catholic | Jewish | Other religious affiliation | No religious affiliation | | ----------- | -------------------------- | -------- | ------- | --------------------------- | ------------------------ | | **Mamdani** | 45% | 26% | 33% | **68%** | **81%** | | **Sliwa** | 10% | 20% | 3% | 3% | 1% | | **Adams** | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | | **Cuomo** | **45%** | **54%** | **63%** | 27% | 18%
November 5, 2025 at 2:04 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Why so much attention on New York City & its mayor? NYC has a GDP of $1.286 TRILLION, according to the NY Fed. Just the city, not the metro area .
www.newyorkfed.org/m...
That's larger than 23 of the 27 countries in the EU - only Germany, France, Italy, and Spain are higher.
Table of key economic statistics for New York City: Population 2024: 8,478,072 Population growth 2024, 10-year change: -2.0% GDP 2023, billions: $1,286 Job growth 2024, 5-year change: 2.8% Median household income 2023: $75,000 Median home price 2023: $675,000 Population share age 25+ with BA+: 42.6%
November 4, 2025 at 9:23 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Rachel Ruysch exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is well worth a visit! There until December 7 (then heads to Munich). The Dutch artist (1664-1750) "was one of the most celebrated still-life painters of her time." Pics cannot do justice to her stunning paintings www.mfa.org/exhibition/r...
photo of a painting of flowers Photo of a painting of flowers
November 2, 2025 at 9:18 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Anyone who thinks #GenAI chatbots don't help with drudge work has never tried a prompt like this for adding links to #Rstats packages you want to credit in a blog post:
Hey any way you can add quarto links to all the R packages in this text: I'm using the new [mapgl R package](https://walker-data.com/mapgl/index.html){target='_blank'} for maps; and ggplot2, janitor, dplyr, googlesheets4, sf, DT, tinytable, and other packagges for data wrangling and display. Here’s your text with Quarto-style links added for all the R packages mentioned (each opening in a new tab): I'm using the new [mapgl R package](https://walker-data.com/mapgl/index.html){target='_blank'} for maps; and [ggplot2](https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/){target='_blank'}, [janitor](https://sfirke.github.io/janitor/){target='_blank'}, [dplyr](https://dplyr.tidyverse.org/){target='_blank'}, [googlesheets4](https://googlesheets4.tidyverse.org/){target='_blank'}, [sf](https://r-spatial.github.io/sf/){target='_blank'}, [DT](https://rstudio.github.io/DT/){target='_blank'}, [tinytable](https://vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/){target='_blank'}, and other packages for data wrangling and display.
November 1, 2025 at 11:59 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Oct 31, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 52 yesterday and 39 the day before.
November 1, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Oct 24, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 33 yesterday and 57 the day before.
October 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Oct 17, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 63 yesterday and 55 the day before.
October 18, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Oct 10, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 52 yesterday and 50 the day before.
October 11, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Walk down to the river this afternoon
Narrow river with autumn foliage on one side reflecting in the river, green foliage on the other side
October 6, 2025 at 1:36 AM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Oct 3, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 52 yesterday and 44 the day before.
October 4, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Thanks!! 😍 I'm in the midst of updating a lot of code to re-do the way I display local election results on my little neighborhood blog, hopefully before our Nov. 4 election. This is a table I did 4 years ago - searchable, sortable, with the bar charts. Seems like I could try that in tinytable?
September 29, 2025 at 9:57 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Sep 26, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 54 yesterday and 41 the day before.
September 27, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
You can use the Positron data explorer on csv and parquet files without first loading them into an #RStats or Python data frame! Just click on the file name in the explorer.
(Learned at #Positconf2025 )
Soon, filtering/sorting data in the data explorer will generate R code for that view.
Screenshot of Positron data explorer with list of files on left, parquet file highlighted. Next column has sparkline visualizations for each column. To the right is a table display of the data.
September 24, 2025 at 2:57 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Sep 19, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 49 yesterday and 56 the day before.
September 20, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Generative AI resources from @posit.co #Positconf2025
{ellmer}: https://ellmer.tidyverse.org {chatlas}: https://posit-dev.github.io/chatlas/ {shinychat}: https://posit-dev.github.io/shinychat/ {querychat}: https://posit-dev.github.io/querychat/ {shinyrealtime}: https://github.com/posit-dev/shinyrealtime AI Newsletter: https://posit.co/blog/?post_tag=ai-newsletter Positron Assistant/Databot: https://positron.posit.co
September 17, 2025 at 9:11 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
In development for the {air} #RStats 📦 for R code styling:
# fmt: tabular
to align code creating tabular data
#Positconf2025
Screenshot showing code creating a tibble with columns comma-separated but aligned
September 17, 2025 at 7:22 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Useful #Positconf2025 slide from Rebecca Barter on how she uses different forms of #GenAI for coding
This is a photo of a presentation slide titled "Tasks I use AI coding assistants for." The slide lists categories and tasks: Code completion Recall and discover functions Generate repetitive code Inline editor Scale up from test example File editor Optimize code Refactor my code Chat Debug Explain complex code Agent Generate unit tests Generate documentation Create project templates Alt text by ChatGPT
September 17, 2025 at 2:49 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
One of my favorite #PositConf things, from @hadley.nz : the Pac-Man inclusiveness "rule"
#PositConf2025
Alt text from ChatGPT: This is a photo of a presentation slide projected on a screen in front of an audience. The slide has a dark blue background and features a large yellow Pac-Man figure on the left. Text inside the "mouth" of Pac-Man reads: "LEAVE SOME SPACE HERE." On the right side of the slide, the heading says: "Remember the Pac-Man Rule" with "Pac-Man Rule" in yellow. Below it, white text reads: "Invite new people into your groups, make new friends, and build a community full of people who feel included."
September 17, 2025 at 1:21 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Sep 12, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 46 yesterday and 60 the day before.
September 13, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Hey #PositConf2025: One of the projects I'll be walking through at my Sept 11 Workshop for Ukraine is building a RAG chatbot with the {raghar} #RStats 📦 to ask natural-language questions of next week's #PositConf schedule.
Not too late to register! Details: sites.google.com/view/dariia-...
Workshops for Ukraine RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) in R with ragnar by Sharon Machlis, tech journalist and former director of editorial data & analytics for Foundry All proceeds going to support Ukraine
September 11, 2025 at 12:03 AM
smachlis.bsky.social
Hummingbird in the yard #photography
Hummingbird at a blue flower
September 10, 2025 at 5:12 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Daily number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 1 - Sep 5, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot.
Coded with the {bskyr} and {ggplot2} R packages.

[Posted via R script and weekly cron job. Tx for your patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats
Bar chart of daily #RStats posts. Amounts range from around 25 in September 2024 to peaking over 100 some days. Latest totals were 49 yesterday and 36 the day before.
September 6, 2025 at 2:06 PM
smachlis.bsky.social
Shiny app to search and filter posit::conf(2025) Bluesky posts with the #positconf2025 #positconf25 or #positconf hashtags.
App: apps.machlis.com/shiny/positc...
GitHub repo: github.com/smach/bluesk...
#RStats #RShiny
Screenshot of a web dashboard displaying Bluesky posts about posit::conf(2025), covering the period from January 8 to September 3, 2025. Top summary boxes show: * Total Posts: 61 * Unique Authors: 23 * Total Likes: 814 A searchable table lists individual posts with columns for CreatedAt, Text, Author, Likes, Reposts, Replies, and Tags. Four posts are visible including text, author, date, hashtags. (alt text mostly written by ChatGPT)
September 3, 2025 at 6:54 PM