RcppArmadillo 15.2.4-1 on CRAN: Upstream Update R bindings to powerful and expressive C++ matrix library dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats #rcpp

RcppClassicExamples 0.1.4 on CRAN: Maintenance Usage Examples for Long Deprecated Rcpp Predecessor dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats

"Don't you wish Charles Mingus had a podcast?" Adam Maness killing it after quoting an incisive Mingus comment after a blind test 'for having omitted Ornette Coleman'. youllhearit.com/episodes/sha...

RcppClassic 0.9.14 on CRAN: Minor Update Deprecated previous Rcpp API dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats

tidyCpp 0.0.10 on CRAN: Even More Maintenance Tidy C++ wrapping of the C API for R dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats

this is nuts

It's effin' unbelievable that each and every time I turn on something at #YouTube I get served the exact _same_ and rather _terrible_ ad for the same candidate in next week's primaries here in IL-07. Well guess who I am not going to vote for?

after a night of russian missile attacks on Ukraine, I decided my saturday needed something stupid and fun. so I built a random econ paper title generator. current favorite: Craft Beer Variety as an Instrument for Public Trust in Economists small joys. dariia-m.github.io/econ-title-g... #Econsky

RcppCNPy 0.2.15 on CRAN: Maintenance Read and write NumPy data from R dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats #rcpp

RcppBDT 0.2.8 on CRAN: Maintenance R Bindings for the Boost Date_Time Library dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rcpp #rstats

We are pleased to announce that Heather Turner @heathrturnr.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy has joined the R Core Team. She has been an active contributor notably via the R Dev Days, and has greatly improved cooperation between R Core and the R community in more ways #RStats.

Maybe not correct as mentioned over on mastodon. @cranberriesfeed.bsky.social saw one removal yesterday, ten the day before, two three days ago and so on. See e.g. the URL below, you could RSS-subscribe to just removals if that is your thing. #rstats dirk.eddelbuettel.com/cranberries/...

RcppDE 0.1.9 on CRAN: Maintenance Differential Evolution Optimization via RcppArmadillo dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats #rcpp

When one `apt` upgrade run gets you updated #duckdb (1.5.0), #rstudio (nighly) and #r-stats (4.5.3) binaries ... One command to rule them all. (First two packages served via informal PPAs I set up, last one is launchpad.net build of updated and uploaded package.)

Github’s uptime lately seems…..concerning? [mrshu.github.io]

How much does it pay to publish an open access academic book? Read this thread for my story and 💲💰 amounts. 🧵 www.routledge.com/9781032908724

rformat 0.1.0 is on CRAN. Base R-inspired code formatter built on utils::getParseData(), R's built-in AST. One Import: Rcpp, so it's lightning fast. install.packages("rformat") rformat::rformat_file("my_script.R") #tinyverse #rstats

nanotime 0.3.13 on CRAN: Maintenance High-resolution nanosecond time functionality for R dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats #rcpp

An underappreciated fact among the spat over whether moderation wins for D or not: everything is a lot harder if you don't have a charismatic candidate. (Chart below translates to 50% of Green voters rank the candidate as most important, 37% the program, and onky 16% long-term party affiliation)

I analysed data on 788 distinct attacks, 1,860 missile and drone launches, and abnormal “high-temperature events”, such as fires, at 208 strategic sites. It suggested the war has entered a new phase. www.economist.com/interactive/...

There is an eternal and fundamental law of software engineering (look up 'indirection' at wikipedia). There is an equally eternal law of software companies. Eventually they all monetize their user base via subscription. No exception. Lots of reference to this online but has this been named yet?

RProtoBuf 0.4.26 on CRAN: More Maintenance An R interface to Google Protocol Buffers data serialization dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rcpp #rstats

Proposing new rule: "Live your life in such a way that nobody will be forced to render parts of it as a 'Downfall' variant."

Fabulous review of Thomas Mann, his life, "Zauberberg" (i.e. "Magic Mountain"), what it meant, how the writing (1913-1924) changed the author, and what re-reading this piece from a Literature Nobel winner a hundred years later may reveal now. www.commonwealmagazine.org/thomas-mann-...

So 'Barbie' looses again, and 'Oppenheimer' wins once more?

RcppGSL 0.3.14 on CRAN: Maintenance Easier GNU Scientific Library use from R dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rcpp #rstats

My lucky day for the #spotify RNG? Daylist right now opens with a sequence of songs by Wadada Leo Smith, @vijayiyer.bsky.social, Bill Frisell, Mary Halvorson, Matthew Shipp, James Branon Lewis, Melissa Aldana. Not bad at all! (I know, it's an uncool service, but heck it's still convenient.)

Seth Meyers in the clip below from 2011, about 12 minutes in: "Donald Trump has been saying that he'll run for President as a Republican. Which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke." It only gets better from there. And to see the face while the jokes are flying.

tidyCpp 0.0.9 on CRAN: More (forced) Maintenance Tidy C++ wrapping of the C API for R dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/03... #rstats

10/10 No notes.

There is really only one thing to say about Trump and the WHCA dinner: That Seth Meyers said it all already in 2011. If you have never seen it, enjoy the full 20 minutes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YGI...

If you haven't yet, check out Friends of @usbls.bsky.social lovely, new website design. Thanks so much to @markgsheppard.com for applying his skills, efforts, & professional service to this! While you're there, read about recent updates & join.

#r2u had its first 'three point five million packages delivered' month in Februaru (outside that two-day Sep 2023 outlier) bringing the total to over 68 million #CRAN #Rstats packages shipped as #Ubuntu .deb binaries. #r2u. Fast. Easy. Reliable. Pick All Three.

#r2u had its first 'three point five million packages delivered' month in Februaru (outside that two-day Sep 2023 outlier) bringing the total to over 68 million #CRAN #Rstats packages shipped as #Ubuntu .deb binaries. #r2u. Fast. Easy. Reliable. Pick All Three.

We killed 85 schoolgirls. We are not the good guys.

folks, please don't submit LLM-generated PRs to open source projects. It makes no sense. If the maintainers want to use an LLM to fix an issue, they can use Claude or whatnot directly. They don't need you as intermediary, that's just silly. If they don't want to use LLMs, they have reasons.

Thirteen months (and a week) down. Leaves 1058 days. One day at a time. ("So much winning" had my head spin enough to be a week late here.)

x13binary 1.1.61.2 on CRAN: Micro Maintenance X13-ARIMA-SEATS by the US Census Bureau for R dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2026/02... #rstats

"Warner Brothers used 2 b a friend of mine, now they're just a monumental waste of time..."

So when your kid skeets once in a blue moon, you're required by law to reskeet it. Them's the rules. Anna explained all this quite lucidly in her defense last summer but it is still a wee bit out of my wheelhouse.

Josh Goldstein emailed me a nice tip for @rdatatable.bsky.social chaining: if we start a chained `data.table` operation inside a set of parens, we are no longer subject to the 'REPL constraint' and can keep each operation on a line. See ALT text. #rstats Now in the pdf at github.com/eddelbuettel...

#rstats 4.5.3 "Reassured Reassurer" scheduled for March 11. Full schedule on developer.r-project.org (or the svn if you're impatient.) This should be the wrap-up release for the 4.5 series.

Kash Patel says he now has a lead that Savannah Guthrie's mom is being held at either the NCAA Final Four or the Masters golf tournament, plans to personally investigate.

Sunday home alone so what does one do? Time to try the 2026 recipe of the year from @kingarthurbaking.bsky.social Turned out nicely as promised. I am not yet convinced I want flaky in a pizza crust though 🙃 Maybe better for, say, a plum-ladden summer cake of a (sweetened) yeast crust? #breadsky

Best thing about recent flare-ups in #rstats? A growing mute list.

Time for a cold one and some small club live music.

“I know Andrew is a good man who’s been treated terribly, but you remember when we learned a few minutes ago that England and the United States are two different countries?” said Senior Advisor Gerald Donovan

Great suggestion, and just tried. One is for the freezer, one for me 'home alone' this weekend. All "to scale" as there are only us two empty nesters.

It’s the real Liberation Day. 🇺🇸

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement