Version 0.2.2 of the {NHSRplotthedots} package has today been accepted by CRAN. I have taken over the baton as maintainer, and I'm looking forward to helping more NHS data analysts produce XmR plots of their data, quickly and without fuss. nhsrplotthedots.nhsrcommunity.com

If now that #TDF2025 has ended you don't feel your summer has yet included enough 'people doing impossible things on bikes' then may I recommended the 4000km unsupppored nonstop #TCRno11 from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, which started last night...

I set out some personal goals for 2025 and have just completed a review of progress at Q2. TL;DR: Nailing the cycling. Need to get back on the books and get the research complete. andy-callow.medium.com/personal-goa...

Do any #rstats folks know how I can find why {readxlsb} was removed from CRAN? I've forked the github repo, but we use the code at work to read finance spreadsheets over which I have no file format control. Interested in what would be needed to get it back onto CRAN

This applies to the NHS too. Improvement can only be delivered to patients by the front line. It's the reason I choose to work and make a difference in a provider trust, not anywhere more remote from patients.

I wrote a history of recent AI development in 32 images of otters using wifi on airplanes, from images to video to code. It shows two big trends: rapid improvements in AI models of all types and the growth of open weights AI models. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-recent...

The ragnar R package helps you build RAG systems for document information retrieval. You'll need API access to an LLM and an API to make embeddings. Still unfortunately difficult in the NHS, but it will become possible as orgs find and share the news of benefit in specific use-cases. #databs #nhs

I wish every team published a doc like Free Agent did for why they chose the tool they did. Of course I am glad they chose Dagster+, but I think this kind of clear-eyed proof of concept criteria can help teams choose the right tool for their team: #dataBS engineering.freeagent.com/2025/05/29/d...

An exceptional new @nejm.org review on cancer of unknown origin www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Can you spot What this chart has got That modern poems have not? www.economist.com/culture/2025...

A thread about using AI to summarise documents; but it could really be about almost any use of AI. Right now - in healthcare for example - it's a great timesaver for people who don't *need* it, and potentially troublesome for those who may try to use it outside their existing expertise.

I'm busy reviewing a large number of applications for a position in my team. I'm reflecting on the huge amount of human experience and expertise that is embedded in the applications. Pretty humbling.

Thanks to everybody who chimed in! I arrived at the conclusion that (1) there's a lot of interesting stuff about interactions and (2) the figure I was looking for does not exist. So, I made it myself! Here's a simple illustration of how to control for confounding in interactions:>

🎯 Level up your R functions! Discover best practices for returning multiple values - from simple vectors to structured outputs. Perfect for data pipeline development. 🔗 www.spsanderson.com/steveondata/... #rstats #Rprog #Rcode #DataSci #R4ds #blog #function #RProgramming

Git was 20 years old this week. Written by the creator of Linux as a tool to streamline his workflow - it shows the importance of making tools. If you have a better way of doing something, write and share it. It's possible that few others understand the problem, let alone have the solution you do!

#TodayinHistory #dataviz #Onthisday #OTD 📊 💀May 3, 2010 Jacques Bertin died in Paris, France 🇫🇷 In 1967 his Semiology of Graphics became the first comprehensive theory of graphical symbols and modes of graphics representation --> Grammar of Graphics

Good advice. "Customer first" cuts across almost every domain. I think Adam Wathan called this "programming by wishful thinking" in one of his TDD talks, and that language has always stuck with me.

I really enjoyed chatting with Karin about bridging R and Python. This post is a deep dive into reticulate, rpy2, and what great interoperability really looks like. #rstats #python

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Here it is with real data! A map of 550,000 foreign aid projects in just a few lines of #rstats code

10 years ago today I published a blog post about the pomological watercolor collection, which you may know from @pomological.xor.blue. it changed my life in some surprising ways! take a little trip with me down memory lane parkerhiggins.net/2025/04/10-y...

This is the beginning of some NHS collaboration on more advanced methods to understand and simulate NHS waiting lists, and therefore better manage the resource constraints that underpin them. I'm one of the authors of this #rstats package, and it's going to get very interesting!

✔️ Generate R code for reproducibility IAs a Shiny app deployed via shinylive, DataMap can also be installed as an R package. Try it now: github.com/gexijin/data... Source code: github.com/gexijin/data... Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2504.08875

It's late, but I just made a PR to the GitStats #rstats project. A tiny PR, but so great to be able to contribute to open-source work, fix my problems, and maybe fix other people's problems at the same time! If you need to keep an eye on git repos, check out GitStats! github.com/r-world-devs...

Open always wins. People love optionality.

Made an app so you can view daily updates of this chart & compare other administrations and metrics like unemployment and inflation 🤓 It updates daily, so check it tomorrow to see today's continued US market collapse 🤠 jhelvy.github.io/potus-econ-s... Built with #rstats #shinylive #quarto

Now there's a protest sign you don't see often.

A flu strain has likely gone extinct since 2020

A blog post I wrote 2 years ago, about code vs. low code analytics. Re-reading it today I stand by every word. The advent of LLMs has helped those wanting to take the non-proprietory route to securing their future careers. Never been a better time to learn to code! smithdata.co.uk/blog/posts/2...

Hey #rstats: I just want to say you're awesome. No matter how stupid my question, you've all piled on with helpful suggestions and advice. 11/10 community.

The code from our Christmas bed occupancy forecasting project is now open-source under the MIT licence here: github.com/nottmhospita...

Here's an overview of some forecasting work Marcos and others in the team delivered over Christmas. Comment below if the code would be helpful and we'll plan to get it onto github. medium.com/@mifabietti/...

👋Hello Bluesky Community! We’re the NHS Strategy Unit, and we’re excited to connect with you here! Follow our work here or on LinkedIn uk.linkedin.com/company/the-..., Subscribe to our mailing list www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/Strategy_U.... #BlueskyCommunity#TheStrategyUnit

The relief of a new job and some of the early outputs from the team being positively received! Mainly to their credit, but a relief nonetheless! The bed and theatre models are looking great so far thanks to the data wizardry on the team #nhs #annualplanning #demandandcapacity

Oooooooh Artificial Intelligence... #makestatisticssexyagain

End of year newsletter for NHS-R Way! nhsrcommunity.substack.com/p/end-of-yea... Some highlights from the RPySoc conference Where NHS-R Community has been featured Finds from our Slack channel GitHub finds (including links to The Turing Way recordings on how to get started) Details on Events in 2025

When worlds collide. Great podcast here interviewing Thierry Martin from Toyota. It's so good to hear his clear presentation of the work he and his team do. www.snowflake.com/podcast/thie...

Just joined Blue Sky and the amazing @nhsrcommunity.bsky.social . Ready to learn and share R and Python tips with the wider community of analysts in Blue Sky

Running to catch the tram! Yes! I got the tram - that's saved me 10mins! Happily writing email... Scenery looks different today. Dear reader, I'm on the wrong tram.

If you were planning data warehouse changes for a largish hospital (4 sites, 18k staff, 1400 inpatient beds, a significant amount of outpatient work, and collaboration regionally), which of these data tools would be in your dream team? Asking for a friend.

Date time storage is complicated. And spare a thought for the analyst who's going to need to pull this information back out in 5 years and try to correctly interpret the intent behind the stored data

At #NHSRPySoc and thinking for the quadrillionth time that a sane NHS would make sure that data scientists have somewhere to deploy their projects so they can show them to interested parties. Tiny investment, massive benefit

Collective terror from all analysts in the room as clinical details from "Arthur Walker's" recent hospital stay are added slowly to the screen. Nervous sighs of relief as it's explained Arthur doesn't exist, and this is synthetically created data (the subject of the talk) #NHSRPySoc

Eureeka! Open maternity services dashboarding being discussed at #NHSRPySoc!!!! ❤️❤️🎉🎉🎉🎉👍👍👍👍

Happy to attend the #NHSRPySoc 2024 conference in Birmingham at the ICC

Getting excited for #NHSRPySoc tomorrow and Friday. Having grown up in Brum I've been very relaxed with travel arrangements, which makes it lucky that I've just properly checked the venue to discover it's not where I would automatically have driven to! See you at the ICC not the NEC! 🗺️

Thanks for all the suggestions #dataBS folks! FYI I found a really cool public repository of APIs that actually gets tested by bots to monitor the health of the APIs in the list. www.freepublicapis.com