Allan Lasser
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Allan Lasser
@allanlasser.com
Head of Product at MuckRock
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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...
October 22, 2025 at 4:22 AM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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/
MuckRock
MuckRock is a collaborative news site that gives you the tools to hold the government accountable.
www.muckrock.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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...
Quanta Contributor Max G. Levy Wins AAAS Kavli Gold Award for Science Journalism | Quanta Magazine
Judges from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and The Kavli Foundation recognized Quanta Magazine contributing writer Max G. Levy with a Gold Award in the Magazine category for “...
www.quantamagazine.org
November 13, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Find every mention of Trump in the released Epstein files on @documentcloud.org www.documentcloud.org/projects/223...
Epstein full docs
Nov 12, 2025 - Oversight Committee Releases Additional Epstein Estate Documents
www.documentcloud.org
November 13, 2025 at 5:42 PM
You‘ve truly got to hand it to whoever typeset the word “knockout” in Knockout
October 14, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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...
feat: async SSR by Rich-Harris · Pull Request #14447 · sveltejs/kit
This adds asynchronous SSR to an app that's using the latest version of Svelte (^5.39.3) and has opted in to the Svelte experimental.async option (and, ideally, the SvelteKit experimental.remot...
github.com
September 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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
August 19, 2025 at 5:15 AM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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)
Public Access Requests for CAN-PCC
www.documentcloud.org
July 8, 2025 at 3:43 PM
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...
www.youtube.com
July 24, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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...
MuckRock, NFOIC and other leading transparency groups receive $1.25M Press Forward grant to help local journalists obtain government records
Journalism relies on public records, but transparency laws are weakening nationwide, with longer response times, high fees and more frequent rejections. Agencies know that few newsrooms can research a...
www.muckrock.com
July 16, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
TIL about citrus greening disease and the dire situation in the US citrus industry 😬
July 7, 2025 at 1:10 PM
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.
June 8, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
IRS’s Direct File wasn't open source while it was being developed. But somebody just made it public!
GitHub - IRS-Public/direct-file: Direct File
Direct File. Contribute to IRS-Public/direct-file development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
May 30, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Jevons paradox remains undefeated
May 5, 2025 at 1:58 PM
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.
April 30, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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
California solar on canals initiative moves forward
The California Solar Canal Initiative project aims to use information gained in a University of California, Merced study and begin to identify communities willing to generate electricity with solar…
buff.ly
April 8, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
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:
Release Notes
The latest release of DocumentCloud introduces OCR injection, ensuring that OCR'd text from Textract or any Add-Ons is grafted into the underlying PDF.
www.muckrock.com
March 26, 2025 at 2:45 PM
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.
March 20, 2025 at 1:11 AM
“Apple has tremendous technical advantages to offer in AI. But they’re marketing Genmojis of hot dogs carrying briefcases.”

daringfireball.net/linked/2025/...
Apple Silicon Is Groundbreaking for AI
Link to: https://x.com/alexocheema/status/1899735281781411907?s=42
daringfireball.net
March 20, 2025 at 12:31 AM
This meets my most optimistic expectation: there will be new opportunities and a demonstrated need for building a more responsive government

My cynical expectation is that billionaire capture will return us to the previous status quo

My most pessimistic expectation is that we won’t have the chance
Talked to Tim Walz as he campaigned in Wisconsin. Thought his answer to one Q I'd had for Dems - if you come back in 2028, do you rebuild everything DOGE broke? - was interesting.

"I think it's an opportunity."
www.semafor.com/article/03/1...
March 19, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Allan Lasser
They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.
Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow
As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy
freedom.press
March 18, 2025 at 1:11 PM
The most popular story in Massive Science’s history made this exact point: massivesci.com/articles/sex...

Also, the top traffic source for it was the search query “xxx sex” and had a bounce rate waaaay lower than you’d expect it to.
February 19, 2025 at 4:43 PM
move fast and lorem ipsum sit amet
It looks like the DOGE team have launched new website on a Wordpress blog with just one of the default Wordpress templates (waste.gov)
February 12, 2025 at 3:39 PM