619: quantum of sollazzo
#619: quantum of sollazzo – 12 August 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.
Apologies for sending most of you the unedited preview version las Saturday. Epic fail on my part.
The most clicked link last week was Will Careri's online index of dataviz newsletter.
🗓️ This online event by mySociety on August 19th might be of interest: How Access to Information Can Help Us Understand AI Decision-Making. The event will "explore how Freedom of Information (FOI) rights can be powerful tools to expose the realities of AI and algorithmic decision-making in government."
Register here.
AMA – Ask Me Anything! Submit a question via this anonymous Google form. I'll select a few every 4-5 weeks and answer them on here :-) Don't be shy!
The Quantum of Sollazzo grove now has 31 trees. It helps managing this newsletter's carbon footprint. Check it out at Trees for Life.
'till next week,
Giuseppe @puntofisso.bsky.social
🛎️ Things that caught my attention
In a world first, last week LinkedIn made me laugh. Rubén Domínguez Ibar's status update starts with the words: "Tech didn’t kill the seven deadly sins. It made them a subscription model." He's not wrong.
This on LinkedIn also made me think we're going towards some sort of singularity, just not a very good one: "Someone at Mastercard prompt-injected a job posting. A few days later, another company’s AI picked it up as legitimate."
This article about live coding job interviews has me in total agreement. In a way, I feel vindicated about choosing, almost two decades ago, to pursue routes that did not require this, as I never felt I could be good at it (ok, maybe at the time I had some impostor syndrome, but there you go). It turns out that there is mounting evidence it is also likely the wrong way to recruit.
My friend Daniele Quercia and team have analysed "200,000 papers in fields like AI, Data Mining, and Human-Computer Interaction. We asked a simple question: Which papers make a difference beyond academia?". TL;DR: not many. But read the paper, and download the data!
✨ Topical
What Asia’s trees tell us about heat inequality
Kontinentalist's Zafirah Mohamed Zein: "Trees are humanity’s best defence against scorching temperatures. But in Asian cities, uneven tree distribution means the heat hits some harder than others.".
The state of VC within software and AI startups – with Peter Walker
Pragmatic Engineer's Gergely Orosz: "How are VC funding, hiring, and founder trends shifting—and what does it mean for software engineers at startups? Extensive data discussed with Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta."
A great interview, with loads of juicy charts.
Science Is Winning the Tour de France
"Why today’s competitors far surpass the cheating champions of yesteryear".
The word "data" appears 9 times in this article.
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🛠️📖 Tools & Tutorials
Doing Data Analysis with AI
"A short course". However, also read the piece on analysis automation in the "Data thinking" section below.
How To Build CustomGPTs -- 2025 Guide
"This guide will show you how to build a Custom GPT that’s actually useful, one that solves real problems and stands out from the rest."
HTMX is hard, so let's get it right (Part 1)
"Disclaimer: I originally planned to make a simple non-functional uploader, then progressively bring it from "it works™" to "high-quality production-grade Uploader with S3 Presigned, Multipart, Accelerated Uploads, along with Auto-Saving and Non-Linear Navigation " all in HTMX (work usually done with frameworks, hence the title). However, just laying the foundation proved to be a really long post, so I'm breaking up into two pieces. This is the first piece, that establishes the basics."
Address formats around the world
W3C's Internationalization initiative: "How do address formats differ around the world, and what are the implications of those differences on the design of forms, databases, ontologies, etc. for the Web?"
Visual drag-and-drop AI tools
I've seen two and they... look suspiciously similar. But there you go: Tersa self-describes as "an open source canvas for building AI workflows. Drag, drop connect and run nodes to build your own workflows powered by various industry-leading AI models."
Sim.Ai allows users to "launch agentic workflows with an open source, user-friendly environment for devs and agents."
🤯 Data thinking
Can analysis ever be automated?
"The catch-22 of all these AI analysts. Plus, go crazy folks; go crazy."
Enterprise Data Architecture? Think urban plans not ivory towers
Edafe Onerhime on LinkedIn: "Enterprise Data Architecture (EDA) is one of those phrases that sounds like it belongs in a very serious tome. But to me it’s urban planning for your organisation’s data.
Think roads (data pipelines), buildings (platforms), and zoning regs (governance and policy). Done well, EDA helps data move efficiently, securely, and with purpose, from dusty corners to the centre stage.
Let’s take a walk through the city.".
Watching a data team get their credibility nuked in national news
"Last week, August 1, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued their regular report on employment. The highlight was that the unemployment was about steady at 4.2%, and the economy added about +73k non-farm jobs. More importantly, the data from the previous two months were also significantly revised down almost 90% to show that there had been practically no jobs growth the past three months. Within hours of it hitting the news, the revisions were (without evidence) declared politically motivated by the President and the head of the Bureau was fired. As you would expect, a LOT of experts have opinions about this, mostly different shades of negative."
As author Randy Au notes, this is a slow moving piece of news, due to the cycle of stats publication, but it might have a huge impact.
📈Dataviz, Data Analysis, & Interactive
What will climate feel like in 60 years?
Matt Fitzpatrick at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science - Appalachian Lab and Teofil Nakov have launched this great interactive map that allows the exploration of climate change by location.
(via Daniele Bottillo)
Wine characteristics by grape type
"Explore data from ~50,000 wines and their characteristics by grape type."
(via Fair Warning)
Is Social Security running out?
USAFacts: "The SSA projects that the trust funds supporting Social Security could be depleted by 2034, barring intervention from Congress."
Scorching cells
"How heat threatens lives in America’s prisons."
Brilliant storytelling by Reuters here, with a lot of data and models involved.
🤖 AI
No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive
"Curing Your AI 10x Engineer Imposter Syndrome"
Will data centers crash the economy?
"This time let's think about a financial crisis before it happens."
What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom
Teacher Piers Gelly tells his personal story "on a Semester-Long Dive into the AI Discourse".
GPT-5: Key characteristics, pricing and model card
Simon Willison accessed GPT-5 in preview and shares his thoughts.
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