By some minor miracle (even on April Fools) the R Weekly Highlights podcast has made it to episode 200! We go "virtual" shopping for LLM-powered text analysis and prediction using the mall package, and how recent advancements in the grid and ggplot2 packages empower you to make use of highly-customized gradients. Plus listener feedback!

Episode Links

• This week's curator: Jon Calder - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @jonmcalder (X/Twitter)
• Text Summarization, Translation, and Classification using LLMs: mall does it all
• The guide to gradients in R and ggplot2
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W14

Supplement Resources

• Mall: Run multiple LLM predictions against a data frame with R and Python https://mlverse.github.io/mall/
• Announcing rixpress https://brodrigues.co/posts/2025-03-20-announcing_rixpress.html
• Hack your way to scientific glory https://stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/538

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music credits powered by OCRemix

• Dark World Jazz - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Gux - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00156

Thriving in a multi-lingual data science lifestyle while authoring your next Quarto project, putting LLMs to the scientific test with parsing manuscripts, and replicating a life-saving spatial visualization originally created over 170 years ago!
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Ryo Nakagawara - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @rbyryo.bsky.social (Bluesky) & @R_by_Ryo) (X/Twitter)
• Creating multilingual documentation with Quarto
• The ellmer package for using LLMs with R is a game changer for scientists
• {SnowData} 1.0.0: Historical Data from John Snow's 1854 Cholera Outbreak Map
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W12

Supplement Resources

• Wes McKinney & Hadley Wickham (on cross-language collaboration, Positron, career beginnings, & more) https://youtu.be/D-xmvFY_i7U
• Tabby Quarto extension https://quarto.thecoatlessprofessor.com/tabby/
• Plotting the Past: The 1854 Cholera Outbreak Visualized in R https://simplifyingstats.wordpress.com/2025/01/18/plotting-the-past-the-1854-cholera-outbreak-visualised-in-r/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music credits powered by OCRemix

• Lost in a Nightmare - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Palpable - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03001
• Cammy's London Drizzle - Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers - MkVaff - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00453

Giving your package documentation site a little personality and much more with {pkgdown} customization, plus a novel new package to bring the power of LaTeX to all of your plots!

Episode Links

• This week's curator: Batool Almarzouq - @batoolmm.bsky.social (Bluesky) & @batool664 (X/Twitter)
• Customize your expedition: Create a unique documentation for your R Package
• LaTeX Typesetting in R: The 'xdvir' Package
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W11

Supplement Resources

• {xdvir} package vignette https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/xdvir/vignettes/xdvir-intro.html
• tinytex- A lightweight, cross-platform, portable, and easy-to-maintain LaTeX distribution based on TeX Live https://yihui.org/tinytex/
• Adding arm64 to r2u https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2025/03/04#046_arm64_comes_to_r2u
• Website for tidyplots use cases https://tidyplots.org/use-cases/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music credits powered by OCRemix

• A View from the Top (of Shinra HQ) - Final Fantasy VII Remake - TheManPF, Andre Beller, jnWake, Kev Ragone, Michelle Dreyband, newmajoe, Ronin Op F - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04777

A major milestone for leveraging LLMs in R just landed with the new ellmer package, along with a terrific showcase of retrieval-augmented generation combining ellmer and DuckDB. Plus an inspiring roundup of the recent Closeread contest winners.
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Sam Parmar - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @parmsam_ (X/Twitter)
• Announcing ellmer: A package for interacting with Large Language Models in R
• Rapid RAG Prototyping: Building a Retrieval Augmented Generation Prototype with ellmer and DuckDB
• Winners of the Closeread Prize – Data-Driven Scrollytelling with Quarto
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W10

Supplement Resources

• Coder Radio episode 608 - R with Eric Nantz https://coder.show/608
• nhyris - The minimal framework for transform R shiny application into standalone

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music credits powered by OCRemix

• Watermelon Flava - Breath of Fire III - Joshua Morse, posu yan - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01411
• Stomp the Summer Sky - Secret of Mana - Ziwtra - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00859

Our candid takes on the state of CRAN's role in light of recent package archival events, how creative use of LLMs could greatly streamline your next literature review, and a few great illustrations of lazy being a good thing in your R session.
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Eric Nantz - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) & @theRcast (X/Twitter)
• Is CRAN Holding R Back?
• How to use large language models to assist in systematic literature reviews
• Lazy introduction to laziness in R
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W08

Supplement Resources

• A guide to contributing to open-source Python packages https://arilamstein.com/blog/2025/01/02/a-guide-to-contributing-to-open-source-python-packages/
• Continue https://www.continue.dev/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music credits powered by OCRemix

• Gurgling Desert Pond - Final Fantasy Random Encounter - blackguitar - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02555
• Hotel Rhumba - Earthbound - The Pancake Chef - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00526

An illuminating set of tips for making the best out of the phrase "fifty shades of grey" in your next monochrome visualisation, how the unique formatting features of the Scotland census data were tamed with the power of R, and how the first-ever native mobile application powered by R has opened the doors wide open for innovation across many parts of data science.
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Jon Carroll - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @jonocarroll.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy (Bluesky) & @carroll_jono (X/Twitter)
• Designing monochrome data visualisations
• The life changing magic of tidying text files
• Rlinguo — Why Did We Build It?
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W07

Supplement Resources

• ColorBrewer palettes https://colorbrewer2.org
• John's GitHub repository for tidying census files https://github.com/johnmackintosh/tidy-scotland-census
• Introducing Rlinguo, a native mobile app that runs R https://rtask.thinkr.fr/introducing-rlinguo-a-native-mobile-app-that-runs-r/
• mirai v2.0 - Continuous Innovation https://shikokuchuo.net/posts/25-mirai-v2/
• Key considerations for retiring/superseding an R package https://epiverse-trace.github.io/posts/superseding-bpmodels/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music powered by OCRemix

• Chillout - Mega Man 2 - sedure - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01175
• Black Genesis - Final Fantasy VI Balance & Ruin - Brandon Strader, Rexy - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02796

Context is king in a trifecta of R packages harnessing LLMs to be your virtual assistant in package development and data science, plus the world (of data) is at your fingertips for data exploration and sharing your insights using the innovative closeread Quarto extension.


Episode Links

• This week's curator: Jonathan Kitt - @jonathankitt.bsky.social (Bluesky)
• Three experiments in LLM code assist with RStudio and Positron
• Gapminder: how has the world changed?
• Downloading datasets from Our World in Data in R
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W06

Supplement Resources

• From hours to minutes: accelerating your tidymodels code https://youtu.be/pTMiDHFIiPQ?si=4qZC3_NLUVhD5hAa
• Effecient Machine Learning with R https://emlwr.org/
• Closeread: Bringing scrollytelling to Quarto https://youtu.be/KqLxy66B3lQ?si=w7DIB4QhYk2u6cLG
• Closeread Posit contest submissions https://forum.posit.co/tag/closeread-prize-2024
• Extract Information From Images and PDFs With R & LLMs  https://3mw.albert-rapp.de/p/extract-information-from-images-and-pdfs-with-r-llms
• usgs geological survey mapping water https://waterdata.usgs.gov/blog/acs-maps/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music credits powered by OCRemix

• Costa del Sol DANCE - Final Fantasy VII - posu yan - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00095
• Aerobotics - Mega Man 8 - Just Coffee - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03323

Ready to bring your next presentation slides to the world of Quarto? Our first highlight has a batch of power tips you can use for your next slide deck. Plus terrific insights from first-time contributors to open-source software.
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Jon Calder - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @jonmcalder (X/Twitter)
• Seven tips for creating Quarto revealjs presentations
• From Novice to Contributor: Making and Supporting First-Time Contributions to FOSS
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W05

Supplement Resources

• Emil Hvitfeldt's blog https://emilhvitfeldt.com
• GitHub Desktop https://github.com/apps/desktop
• GitKraken https://www.gitkraken.com/
• lazygit https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit
• Coworking mini-hackathons https://ropensci.org/blog/2025/01/24/coworking-hackathons/ 
• ShinyConf 2025 https://www.shinyconf.com
• Posit::Conf 2025 https://posit.co/conference/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music powered by OCRemix

• The Narshemellow - Final Fantasy VI Balance & Ruin - XPRTNovice - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03141

Bringing a little tidy magic to creating flowcharts in R, how data.table is addressing recent shifts in R's C APIs, and another showcase of R's visualization prowess in the realm of brain imaging. 
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Ryo Nakagawara - @[email protected] (Mastodon) & @rbyryo.bsky.social (Bluesky) & @R_by_Ryo) (X/Twitter)
• Flowcharts made easy with the package {flowchart}
• Use of non-API entry points in data.table
• Intro to working with volume and surface brain data 
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W04

Supplement Resources

• flowchart - R package for drawing participant flow diagrams directly from a dataframe using tidyverse https://bruigtp.github.io/flowchart
• Mermaid - Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text in a similar manner as markdown https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid
• DiagrammeR - Graph and network visualization using tabular data in R https://rich-iannone.github.io/DiagrammeR/
• RNifti https://github.com/jonclayden/RNifti
• gifti https://github.com/muschellij2/gifti
• CRAN Cookbook https://r-consortium.org/posts/user-friendly-technical-cookbook-style-cran-guide-for-new-r-programmers-ready/
• 2024 Posit Year in Review https://posit.co/blog/2024-posit-year-in-review/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music powered by OCRemix

• Secrets Abound (Matoya's Cave) - Final Fantasy: Random Encounter - Midgarian Sky - https://encounter.ocremix.org/
• Succumb to the Wilderness - Wild Aarms: ARMed and DANGerous - Level 99 - https://armed.ocremix.org/

The R Weekly Highlights podcast returns for Our first episode of 2025! We learn how hosted and self-hostem LLM's perform in the summarization of Bluesky R posts, as well as how models hosted on Azure infrastructure summarize cycling destinations. Lastly, we visit the visualization corner once again to bring a little (or a lot) of color in your next graphics created with R.
Episode Links

• This week's curator: Batool Almarzouq - @batool664 (X/Twitter)
• Bluesky conversation analysis with local and frontier LLMs with R/Tidyverse.
• Harnessing Azure OpenAI and R for Web Content Summarisation: A Practical Guide with rvest and tidyverse
• Working with colours in R
• Entire issue available at rweekly.org/2025-W01

Supplement Resources

• Rasa open-source documentation https://rasa.com/docs/rasa/
• Brand.yml https://posit-dev.github.io/brand-yml/
• {rix} updates https://docs.ropensci.org/rix/news/index.html
• Strategic Investment Analysis: Key Questions Generated by DoTadda’s Knowledge Platform https://www.spsanderson.com/steveondata/posts/2024-12-26/

Supporting the show

• Use the contact page at https://serve.podhome.fm/custompage/r-weekly-highlights/contact to send us your feedback
• R-Weekly Highlights on the Podcastindex.org - You can send a boost into the show directly in the Podcast Index. First, top-up with Alby, and then head over to the R-Weekly Highlights podcast entry on the index.
• A new way to think about value: https://value4value.info
• Get in touch with us on social media
  • Eric Nantz: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @rpodcast.bsky.social (BlueSky) and @theRcast (X/Twitter)
  • Mike Thomas: @[email protected] (Mastodon), @mike-thomas.bsky.social (BlueSky), and @mike_ketchbrook (X/Twitter) 

Music powered by OCRemix

• Peacemaker - Sonic Adventure - halc - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02187
• The Quick and the Blue - Mega Man 2 - The Megas - https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02090