Worldbuilding with data
The raison d'etre for data engineering + my 2025 research theme
If storytelling is the telos of analytics, that essential human capability we enhance through technique and information, what is the corresponding telos of data engineering?
This systematic collection and ordering of data is worldbuilding.
open.substack.com/pub/stkbaile...
11.02.2025 13:47 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Discussion: The AI Era Liberal Arts
What do students need to know?
Wrote just a tad bit more about it here.
Discussion: The AI Era Liberal Arts open.substack.com/pub/stkbaile...
13.01.2025 14:10 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
The big change is moving from a worldview that worships pure forms and into one that appreciates built forms. It still revolves around "number", but we need to operate in context. Information is "number in noise", technology is "number in contraption", and aesthetics is "number in form".
13.01.2025 14:10 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Iβd keep the Trivium. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are perennial subjects when interpreted broadly. They teach how to gather information, order it, and argue with it.
There's some play in the Quadrivium, though. I'd keep arithmetic, but bring on:
- Information
- Technology
- Aesthetics
13.01.2025 14:10 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
x.com
Interesting thread on Twitter proposes:
- Logic
- Statistics
- Rhetoric
- Research
- Agency
- Investment
- Rhetoric
It's a bit hustle-bro for my tastes, but the focus on thriving in uncertainty resonates. Great jumping-off point for discussion.
x.com/Devon_Erikse...
13.01.2025 14:10 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
In 1200, the liberal arts were:
The trivium:
- grammar
- logic
- rhetoric
The quadrivium:
- arithmetic
- geometry
- music
- astronomy
What are they today?
13.01.2025 14:10 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackletoβ¦
#1 - Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
This is history, but it reads like a thriller. The challenges get greater with each step of the journey. The stakes get higher. At the end, I gave Shackleton and his team a standing ovation. (I mean this literally.)
www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
08.01.2025 16:03 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
The Farthest Shore (Earthsea Cycle, #3)
Book Three of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle. Darknβ¦
#2 - The Farthest Shore
Just loved the wisdom.
"For discipline is the channel in which our acts run strong and deep; where there is no direction, the deeds of men run shallow and wander and are wasted."
www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
08.01.2025 16:03 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
Steinbeck's first posthumously published work, The Actsβ¦
#3 - The Acts of King Arthur
What stands out are the never-ending episodes of knight antagonizing knight. They look for any opportunity: they camp out on hills, they provoke, they quest. We do this now, too--but we murder with words those we used to with spears.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/93...
08.01.2025 16:03 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Bea Wolf
A modern middle-grade graphic novel retelling of Beowulβ¦
#4 - Bea Wolf
Bea Wolf is the crown jewel of dad jokes. An entire published book, complete with splendid illustrations, premised on trollingβahem, reimaginingβthe epic poem Beowulf. It works flawlessly. (Just like dad jokes.)
www.goodreads.com/book/show/60...
08.01.2025 16:03 β π 3 π 1 π¬ 1 π 0
Death's End (Remembrance of Earthβs Past, #3)
With The Three-Body Problem, English-speaking readers gβ¦
#5 -- Death's End
Deathβs End is where things get weird. Itβs always interesting and sometimes delightful. Even when it doesnβt work (viz. Australia), it moves on quickly enough. And when it does work, itβs original, thought-provoking, and well worth the read.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/25...
08.01.2025 16:03 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
5 Great Books from 2024
Since the only thing I can predict is the past
Read 47 books last year, and I threw together some mini-reviews of them.
Worst place goes to Wuthering Heights. I had low expectations, and it didn't meet those. (But I have talked about it a lot to people, so maybe that's the appeal.)
Top 5 in the thread >>
08.01.2025 16:03 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Approx. a two car garage incl. roof. Thinking monster truck or construction equipment. Takes up most of road, would need a ladder to climb aboard, but shorter than tower size.
05.01.2025 23:37 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Hyperion Cantos to Animorphs is a reading transition that fully and surprisingly checks out to my brain
02.12.2024 21:34 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Cool, happy to share notes, will DM. High level, I see branch deployments as a killer feature, although CI/CD deployment times can creep up over time and reduce value. Asset framework is mostly good, but you need guidance for developers around how to use it, otherwise it degrades in coherence
02.12.2024 21:25 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
What do you want to know?
02.12.2024 18:44 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 2 π 0
Writing my second book, on the Meta Grid: Fundamentals of Metadata Management (OβReilly, 2025)
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Data/Software engineer building a data platform for Magenta (German Telekom in Austria) interested in database internals, modern data stack, and rust
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