613: quantum of sollazzo
#613: quantum of sollazzo – 1 July 2025
The data newsletter by @puntofisso.
Hello, regular readers and welcome new ones :) This is Quantum of Sollazzo, the newsletter about all things data. I am Giuseppe Sollazzo, or @puntofisso. I've been sending this newsletter since 2012 to be a summary of all the articles with or about data that captured my attention over the previous week. The newsletter is and will always (well, for as long as I can keep going!) be free, but you're welcome to become a friend via the links below.
The most clicked link last week was this CNN data viz of the war between Israel and Iran
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'till next week,
Giuseppe @puntofisso.bsky.social
🛎️ Things that caught my attention
I've been listening to Sam Menter's brilliant Problems Worth Solving podcast and I've come across this episode with Prof. Rachel Dunscombe, CEO of OpenEHR, titled "Your data could save lives". Have a listen to it here or on your favourite podcasting platform.
This one caught my attention... but not for good reasons :D Browser.Dating self-describes as "The dating website matching people based on their browser history". What could possibly go wrong...?
✨ Topical
The most important steps to a longer life
An absolute classic :) Where does the idea that 10,000 steps a day make you healthier comes from? Alex Käßner looks at this question for Datawrapper.
Bunker Busters
This is from (paper-based) Mark Magazine, and itself comes from a book called "The Handbook of Tiranny" looking at missiles that can reach underground. Basic idea but very effective. From 2017, but related to current news.
(via Peter Wood)
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🛠️📖 Tools & Tutorials
I counted all of the yurts in Mongolia using machine learning
"Naturally, I was impressed by the quantity of yurts I saw, and I was curious: just how many yurts (ger in Mongolian) are in Mongolia and why? This set me on the path drawing bounding boxes on over 10,000 yurts to train a machine learning model to count the rest of the yurts in the country. While I was training the model, I wondered what the story behind these yurts are, I did a small investigation for later in this article. For now, this is the story of counting them."
Deliver big insights in small spaces
Observable's Allison Horst discusses "chart types, interactions, and layouts for rich data visualizations with limited real estate".
How to Think About Time in Programming
"Time handling is everywhere in software, but many programmers talk about the topic with dread and fear. Some warn about how difficult the topic is to understand, listing bizarre timezone edge cases as evidence of complexity. Others repeat advice like "just use UTC bro" as if it were an unconditional rule - if your program needs precise timekeeping or has user-facing datetime interactions, this advice will almost certainly cause bugs or confusing behavior. Here's a conceptual model for thinking about time in programming that encapsulates the complexity that many programmers cite online."
Time is not the precise entity most people would think it is...
How to Vibe Code as a Senior Engineer
"It used to take weeks to build a feature. Now, with AI, a senior engineer can do it in an hour. A fully featured SaaS app? Perhaps 10 days. I know because I just built one."
Note – senior engineer. Not just everyone.
A guide to Scroll-driven Animations with just CSS
"Scroll-driven animations have increased browser support and are available in Safari 26 beta, making it easier for you to create eye-catching effects on your page. Let me show you how."
Text to SVG
"This is an easy tool to convert any text to SVG paths. Just enter text here and it will be converted to SVG paths. You can view the SVG source and/or download the SVG (or PNG) directly."
AI Dataset Generator
"AI Dataset Generator – Create realistic datasets for demos, learning, and dashboards"
🤯 Data thinking
Measuring humidity is as messy as how it can make you feel
"...thermometers can be accurate to fractions of a degree, while RH measurements depend at least partially on temperature. So I was curious as to what made the measurement of relative humidity so difficult.
To cut to the chase, the primary reason that relative humidity is hard to measure is because the concept itself is complex."
📈Dataviz, Data Analysis, & Interactive
30 minutes with a stranger
The Pudding's Alvin Chang looks at the results of an experiment where "500 people agreed to converse with someone they didn’t know."
This is another of those incredibly engaging scrollytelling essays that The Pudding has come to be famous for.
Who is the best CDO
It's hard to be a Chief Data Officer. You'll enjoy this interactive game. Or hate it. Or both.
🤖 AI
Using AI Right Now: A Quick Guide
This article discusses "which AIs to use, and how to use them".
Anthropics Claude can now build AI apps
The Decoder reports: "Anthropic now lets users build, host, and share their own AI-powered apps directly within the Claude app. The feature is rolling out in beta for Free, Pro, and Max subscribers. Developers can create interactive apps powered by Claude models without paying separate API costs - usage is billed to the end user's account. Claude writes real code, handles technical tasks like error management, and makes it easy to share creations via link. There are still some limitations, including restricted access to external APIs and lack of persistent data storage."
The inception?
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