Seeing like a spreadsheet
The electronic spreadsheet, particularly Microsoft Excel, is a profoundly influential yet unloved tool that reshaped the American economy. It enabled the rise of financial engineering and transformed corporations from or…
Data news and analysis on Web Pulse: 566 curated articles tracking the latest Data developments, tools, and research, updated continuously from vetted sources.
The electronic spreadsheet, particularly Microsoft Excel, is a profoundly influential yet unloved tool that reshaped the American economy. It enabled the rise of financial engineering and transformed corporations from or…
The article argues that effective documentation requires a "theory of mind" for the reader, meaning writers must understand the audience's background, goals, and knowledge gaps—something current LLMs cannot truly replica…
A financially motivated cybercrime group called TeamPCP has launched a wiper attack targeting Iran, using a self-propagating worm named "CanisterWorm" that destroys data on systems set to Iran's time zone or Farsi langua…
Their experience playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game, combined with insights from game theory and cybernetics sparked by the Iran War, led them to develop a new mathematical framework called Strategic Momentum Mechanic…
Lawmakers are pushing to close a legal loophole that allows federal agencies like the FBI to purchase Americans' location data from commercial data brokers without obtaining a court-approved warrant. FBI Director Kash Pa…
The article explains that a wave of age verification laws, intended to protect children online, now requires adults to upload government IDs or facial scans to access many websites, creating significant security and priv…
The article argues that data work is inherently tied to office politics, despite many data practitioners viewing themselves as neutral truth-seekers. It explains that data is often perceived as powerful and objective, le…
This paper introduces the Serial Safety Net (SSN), a certification scheme that layers on top of weak isolation levels like Read Committed or Snapshot Isolation to guarantee serializability without the performance penalti…
As software becomes deeply embedded in an organization's operational foundation, its complexity and hidden dependencies often create friction, delays, and risk during changes. While initial tools provide quick value, the…
The article discusses the history and current state of MySQL, noting its decline in popularity after Oracle's acquisition but arguing it may be due for a renaissance. Despite PostgreSQL becoming the default choice for ma…
This article explains how network analysis tools like Burp Suite can be used to inspect the hidden data traffic flowing between apps, websites, and devices. The author describes learning this technique from a security re…
The article explains that "quick" software fixes, such as prototypes or small internal tools, often become permanent infrastructure without proper design, leading to significant long-term costs. This hidden cost manifest…
The article is a FAQ by a long-term GrapheneOS user addressing common questions and misconceptions about the privacy-focused mobile operating system. It clarifies that installation is straightforward on supported Pixel d…
This article provides a technical guide for installing TrueNAS SCALE on a 16GB partition of a large NVMe drive, rather than using the entire disk, to conserve storage space. It details how to modify the installer script …
The article describes an 8AM Opening Range Breakout (ORB) trading strategy implemented in PineScript for TradingView. The strategy defines a key price range from 8:00 to 8:15, determines a bullish or bearish daily bias, …
22 copy/paste-ready prompts for building an AI agent system, specifically detailing instructions for creating a Personal CRM, a meeting recording integration, and a RAG knowledge base. Each prompt includes specific techn…
This article explains how to use the `MeterListener` type from the `System.Diagnostics.Metrics` APIs to consume and record metric values in-process within a .NET application. The author demonstrates this by creating a si…
This document outlines strict coding guidelines for AI agents and contributors working with Python code, emphasizing full optimization through algorithmic efficiency, parallelization, and minimal technical debt. It manda…
This article is the sixth and final part of a series on building a browser-based dinosaur runner game with Deno. It focuses on implementing observability by adding structured JSON logging and custom OpenTelemetry traces …
Here is a factual summary of the article: The article describes a solver for Semantle, a Wordle variant that scores guesses based on semantic similarity rather than letter matching. The solver uses a filtering approach …