I'm moderating a panel at NICAR this week! Come hear @allanlasser.com, @elizabethrenter.bsky.social, @arlenemartinez.bsky.social and I talk about careers and finding your niche in news or news-adjacent roles. Stop by, say hi and bring your questions! schedules.ire.org/nicar-2026/#...
Working on some Jupyter notebooks for #NICAR. One of my favorite ways to write and think about code.
I’m excited to have NICAR 2026 happening in my backyard! Let me know if you’re looking for things to do, eat, or see around Indy
and also
Also I know it’s not actually magic, but it sure feels that way.
It’s straight up magic that—just from my phone—I can describe a feature I want to add to my web project to Claude, it’ll implement it while I’m doing other stuff, and then open a PR I can review and modify. The loop between having an idea and executing it is so, so fast.
It's pub day!! The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2025 is out. I'm thrilled to appear with @sequencermag.bsky.social alongside many talented writers whose work I revere. Including the pieces in this anthology
Get a copy from an indie store to support the series
bookshop.org/a/114150/978...
MuckRock doesn’t answer to advertisers or political interests. We don’t even have a paywall.
Today is Giving Tuesday, the start of our most important fundraising season. If you believe in a more open, accountable democracy, we’re asking you to stand with us. www.muckrock.com/donate/
Quanta contributing writer @maxlevy.bsky.social has received a Kavli Gold Award from @aaas.org and @kavlifoundation.org for “The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology,” a detailed account of how small organisms use static electricity to their advantage.
www.quantamagazine.org/quantanews/q...
Find every mention of Trump in the released Epstein files on @documentcloud.org www.documentcloud.org/projects/223...
A photograph of the movie poster for “The Smashing Machine.” It is focused on a pull quote describing the film as “a knockout” in capital letters of descending weight, typeset in the font family Knockout.
You‘ve truly got to hand it to whoever typeset the word “knockout” in Knockout
SvelteKit async SSR has landed! The future of Svelte is now here. Try it out along with the new remote functions!
See the PR for some unfinished rough edges. Work continues on it while it's behind an experimental flag, but you can now play around with it!
github.com/sveltejs/kit...
I'm writing about insurance and climate change for the first time in ages, and far out those guys have been busy while I wasn't looking
Simon has made all of the emails he received public on @documentcloud.org: www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...
As well as the response that he received from Garner when he asked for comments for this story: www.documentcloud.org/documents/25... (4/5)
It's also a great example of how learning how to copy well is one of the best ways to learn new skills.
This video is a great example of what makes game development such a challenging art. There's so much so much knowledge required, and so much effort involved, to achieve what appears to be a simple effect.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDqi...
Getting access to public docs is getting harder, particularly at the local level. I'm excited for @muckrock.com @nfoic.bsky.social @rcfp.org and the @brechnerfoi.bsky.social to work together to to fight for information more effectively all across the country: www.muckrock.com/news/archive...
Citrus greening was first detected in Florida in 2005, thought to have been brought through the Port of Miami. According to the American Society of Horticultural Sciences, as trees are affected by the disease they suffer premature fruit drop, the fruit harvested is smaller and misshapen and the juice quality is compromised, all resulting in lower yields.
Since 2005, orange production in Florida has dropped 90%, from 150 million boxes to a mere 16 million boxes expected in 2023. Between 2002 and 2017, the number of citrus growers in Florida decreased from 7,389 to 2,775 (a 62% decline) and the number of juice processing facilities decreased from 41 in 2003 to 14 in 2017 (a 66% decline).
Demand for new housing, associated businesses and infrastructure has reduced the percentage of land dedicated to agriculture, rangeland and forestry.
In 1970 the U.S. produced 75% of the world’s grapefruit, which dipped to 43% in 2002 and now is projected to sit at a mere 4% in 2023. China now claims almost 80% of global grapefruit production, followed by Mexico and South Africa at 6% each.
TIL about citrus greening disease and the dire situation in the US citrus industry 😬
I came home and felt whiplash after opening Bluesky for the first time in two days. Of course these impotent authoritarians are escalating after getting absolutely embarrassed by a handful of brave Angelinos. They don’t hold American values and they will continue to lose every fight they pick.
On Saturday night I met a mathematician from Togo 🇹🇬, a law student from Lithuania 🇱🇹, and a public health researcher from Mexico 🇲🇽. They were all doing interesting work and we’re lucky they still want to continue it in the US.
Replacing the elected Board of Trustees for Indiana University with idiotic political appointees through sneaky legislative tricks, Indiana Republicans continue to undermine the foundations of the state's economy. Employers have been leaving, with limited growth only in low-skill, low-wage work.
IRS’s Direct File wasn't open source while it was being developed. But somebody just made it public!
Jevons paradox remains undefeated
As folks use LLMs more, I'm paying attention to whether the language we use to talk with one another start to adopt the structure of prompts. On the one hand: it'd be great for everyone to be more explicit about their goals and expectations. On the other: please don't talk to me like I'm a computer.
California pilots a solar-over-canal system to combat drought. Project Nexus will cover canals with solar panels, generating clean energy while preventing water evaporation. The project showing potential for 13 GW of annual energy, while saving 50,000 acres of land. buff.ly/ZBokAil
#ShareGoodNewsToo
DocumentCloud now injects newly OCR'd text back into the original PDFs when you run Textract or one of our OCR Add-Ons, the DocumentCloud API has new documentation and a few bug fixes have been released:
Entropy finds a way
It’s kind of crazy that the last tech investment hype cycle (blockchain) was predicated upon establishing consensus reality, and this one (generative AI) will obliterate it.
