Nice tailwind for the runners, but wind in the face for spectators. And there were in fact a few brief ’sprinkles’ in Framingham during the race - even a couple of flakes mixed in.
It was cold.

Yes, that’s what’s wrong with US transportation policy! Not enough focus on infrastructure for cars!

You know what would alleviate congestion? More communities where people had the freedom to NOT have to drive everywhere! Because they could choose public transit with fast & frequent service, protected bike lanes, and great pedestrian streetscapes.

Freedom to not have to drive everywhere would be nice.

Group of women running on a street, red arrow points to one of the women toward the back of that pack.

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

Not sure how you're using Claude with Home Assistant, but my results got better when I 1) switched to Claude Code instead of using the Web chatbot 2) Added a CLAUDE.md file that tells it to ALWAYS look up the latest docs when writing scripts, and 3) added the HA MCP Server.

Bayesian Instructions on how to integrate threshold Bayesian sensors into Home Assistant.

Open-source smart home platform @home-assistant.io HAS A BAYESIAN SENSOR

www.home-assistant.io/integrations...

www.howtogeek.com/one-change-m...

Bar chart of weekly #RStats posts (Sat–Fri). The week of Apr 11–Apr 17, 2026 had 443 posts, and the week before had 331.

Weekly number of Bluesky posts with the #RStats hashtag (case insensitive) Sept. 2024 - Apr 17, 2026, excluding the CRAN Package Updates bot. Weeks run Sat–Fri.
This past week: 443 posts
Coded with {bskyr} and {ggplot2}

[Posted via cron job. Tx for ur patience if something went awry] #RStatsStats

Are you required to use agents? Would your supervisor allow you to consider your relatively low amount of coding time as partly educational/learning time, and consider it OK to do some coding by hand, or use chatbots instead of agents for assistance? Is that not feasible anymore at all?

"Lowering the floor without lowering the ceiling" is such a great phrase. 💕 That's how tech projects become more inclusive! Welcome beginners without giving up the complexities and customizations that experienced users crave - whether they're coders, smart home builders, AI users, or anything else.

Would it be useful at all to try to think about new tasks and roles? What else might there be to do in this new world? Are there any parts of working with LLMs on coding that you do find interesting, and if so, is there any way to expand those? 2/2

This feels a bit like the problem at many companies that developers couldn't advance their careers unless they moved into management - and some just wanted to keep writing code.
Not every writer wants to be an editor either.
What's the answer if creator roles start disappearing altogether? 1/2

That is the problem IMO: not so much Gen AI as a technology, but organizational pressures. Because for personal projects, I have the luxury of asking AI to comment and explain its work. What does this code do? How does it work? Is there another, more efficient way to do that? And then you can learn.

Next week: Programming with #LLMs in #R & #Python.

{ellmer} and {chatlas}, system prompts, structured outputs, PDF/image summarisation. Practical, code-first, free to attend.

23 April | 1:15 PM UK | Online

Register: jumpingrivers.typeform.com/to/UmdyNbAs

Aside: Maine is one of the two whitest state in the U.S. (percent non-Hispanic whites: more than 89%). Maybe not a template for the rest of the Democratic Party?

You ‘totally get’ why ‘some people’ can’t forgive a Nazi tattoo? Totally? You understand what that symbol means to people who survived Nazi concentration camps? Or whose parents did? Or who have no aunts or uncles or cousins because they were all murdered by Nazis?
Nice column for Yom HaShoah.

New research: 18 of 23 AI models prioritize company revenue over users when ads enter the picture A Princeton/UW study tested what happens when chatbots face a conflict between helping users and making money. Most chose the money.

Important study for people who think they’ll get unbiased advice when asking an AI chatbot for help with buying something. That may change with ads and sponsorships!
www.hackshackers.com... #GenAI

Orbán era swept away by Péter Magyar's Hungary election landslide Viktor Orbán's 16 years in power is over, defeated by a 45-year-old ex-party insider who convinced a majority of Hungarians to oust him.

"Magyar has promised to reverse Orbán-era changes to education and health, tackle corruption, restore the independence of the judiciary and kill off the widely loathed system of patronage known as NER that helped enrich party loyalists and squander state resources."
www.bbc.com/news/article...

I am deeply skeptical of political polling data about this administration that does not attempt to weight by religion.

Immigration Enforcement, ICE, and Civil Liberties in the Second Trump Administration The survey of over 5,000 adults provides a comprehensive assessment of Americans’ views on the immigration enforcement policies of President Donald Trump’s second administration

Unaffiliated isn't split out by race, but non-religious whites voted very strongly against this administration. Data is from Feb 10-18.
prri.org/research/ame...

Bar chart titled “Figure 2. Views on Trump’s Handling of Immigration, 2025 and 2026, by Religious Affiliation.” Subtitle: “Percent who ______ handling immigration:” Blue bars are March 2025, “Approve of the job President Trump is doing.” Green bars are February 2026, “Hold favorable views of how Trump is” handling immigration. Values shown: All Americans 48 in 2025, 35 in 2026. White evangelical Protestant 78, 69. White Catholic 63, 53. White mainline/non-evangelical Protestant 64, 46. Jewish 39, 30. Hispanic Protestant 34, 23. Other non-Christian religion 43, 23. Unaffiliated 35, 21. Hispanic Catholic 29, 19. Black Protestant 29, 15. Source: PRRI Surveys, 2025 and 2026. [Alt text by ChatGPT]

As always, I like to look at US political data by religion as well as race. White "mainline" non-evangelical Protestants dropped below 50% on immigration, according to this PRRI survey. White evangelicals remain his biggest supporters, and he still has majority support among white Catholics. 1/2

[Thank you for that alt text 🤣 ]

Interact with Home Assistant Provides tools to control smart home features via the API for Home Assistant <https://developers.home-assistant.io/>. Allows for controlling states, services, and events. Supports configuring both loc...

Just started with @home-assistant.io a few days ago. It's super fun so far - especially since I can ask LLMs how to code something if I get stuck 😀
Very happy to see there's an #RStats 📦for Home Assistant! I look forward to trying that soon. Thanks @chriskenny.bsky.social
christophertkenny.com/ha/

Great news! 🎉🎉🎉

And how refreshing to see a leader with authoritarian tendencies nevertheless concede defeat after losing an election.

We had reporters at the state college where she had attended, watching with a group of students, and an elementary school with kids watching. Don't know how those kids processed it. It was terrible. I tend not to watch these live anymore.
Several things in town named for her.

😢

An mRNA treatment for PANCREATIC CANCER was in trials, among many other uses. Choosing to end this research is choosing to sentence millions to an early, painful death

Best wishes on your birthday. Hoping this will be the year you and your loved ones can finally enjoy peace again in your homeland.
Donation made.

I worked at Christa McAuliffe's hometown newspaper when Challenger happened. One of my co-workers was down in Florida with her parents watching the launch. It was horrific.

The University of Michigan has been measuring consumer sentiment since 1952. We just got the first Iran-afflicted measure for April, and it's at the lowest level ever recorded.