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David Asboth

@davidasboth.com
3.9K followers 1.2K following 1.3K posts

Data generalist, educator, author of The Well-Grounded Data Analyst (Manning, 2025). Co-host of the Half Stack Data Science podcast.

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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 26/09/2026
Claude just said something is load-bearing, despite my custom instructions being very clear about that phrase but at least it had the sense to add: "sorry — but literally, here, it is: the whole plan rests on it". 2026, man, what a time to be alive.
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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Guardian has printed articles week after week foregrounding the narrative that 'councils are at breaking point' because of the 'burden' of SEN kids having the gall to ask for support that allows them to access the same education as their peers. The focus always on cost, not human dignity.
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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
If you are convinced that AI is, despite its flaws & ethical failings, a reliable research tool, ask it a specific question in a domain you know very well. Most people - understandably - ask LLMs questions about areas they're not experts in. They can't judge if the information is accurate.
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Bhav Patel (Dodonerd) @bhav.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Half Stack Data Science by @davidasboth.com and @shaunmcgirr.bsky.social might be my new favourite podcast.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 26/07/2026
New episode! How will we learn things in an age of AI? Recorded it a while ago, but luckily the topics haven't been made obsolete by recent developments in AI (always a risk). open.spotify.com/episode/3Ch2... #databs #datasky
open.spotify.com
S05E03 - How will we learn things?
Half Stack Data Science · Episode
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 08/07/2026
I think as a society we went wrong when we started using the word "curious" to mean "weird" rather than "inquisitive".
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 03/06/2026
BRB, grieving something that I didn't know didn't exist.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 01/06/2026
Excellent.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 28/05/2026
"What we are actually listening to is human limitation and the audacity to transcend it. Artificial Intelligence, for all its unlimited potential, simply doesn’t have this capacity." - Nick Cave, on whether AI can write a song, written in 2019(!) www.theredhandfiles.com/considering-... #databs
theredhandfiles.com
Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song? - The Red Hand Files
Dear Peter, In Yuval Noah Harari’s brilliant new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, he writes that Artificial Intelligence, with its limitless potential and connectedness, will ultimately render ma...
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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
What I am suggesting is that, in the same way that people turning to AI for therapy suggests a failing of both public mental health institutions & our own capacity as a society to provide individual & community support, that so many would turn to AI suggests a systemic failure to value the arts.
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Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Book: Test-Driven Data Analysis (by @njr0.bsky.social) Chapter 1 Data analysis as if the answers actually matter ht @cghlewis.bsky.social cc @rmcelreath.bsky.social book.tdda.info/book/chapter...
book.tdda.info
1 Orientation
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
i think some pro-AI people are also taken aback by what feels like the sudden implication that they’re not cool when they’ve been told the last couple of years how they’re on the cutting edge and anyone who didn’t get on board would end up looking like a loser when maybe it’s the other way around
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Nick Radcliffe @njr0.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
My book on TDDA is out. TDDA is like test-driven development (TDD) for data science with reproducible research. The tdda library has cross-language command-line tools and Python APIs. 20% off at www.routledge.com/Test-Driven-... with code 26SMA1. book.tdda.info #data #testing #reproducilibility
TDDA book cover.
Test Driven Data Analysis by Nicholad J. Radcliffe.
A Chapman & Hall Book. CRC Press. Taylor & Francis Group.
Data Science Series.

The cover is black with a 3-row, four-column grid of squares.
Each square has a number of white dots. In the top left, there are 32x32. Moving left to right, top to bottom, the number of dots roughly halves in each successive square. The numbers of dots on the bottom row are 6, 2, 2, 1.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
terrible. 20 years ago, the internet was full of hobbyist blogs and forums. over time, these have been replaced by paywalled substacks and private discord channels, each a walled garden. google's decision to prioritize AI just makes it less likely people will create free, public info
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Ian Anson @iganson.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
R, Python, Stata, SPSS, SAS, Matlab
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Half Stack Data Science podcast @halfstackdatascience.com · 04/05/2026
What happens when everyone can build software by chatting to an LLM? How does that change the dynamic of internal tools? Who is the Magical Glue Person and why might they emerge victorious? These and other questions answered in our latest episode: halfstackdatascience.com/s5e2-the-mag... #databs
halfstackdatascience.com
S5E2 – The Magical Glue Person – Half Stack Data Science
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 29/04/2026
Film you've watched more than six times with gif hard mode: no star wars, star trek, lotr, dc, marvel, disney, pixar, dreamworks, spielberg, cameron, wachowskis, or ghibli
media.tenor.com
a man wearing a wig and a pink shirt smiles
Alt: a man wearing a wig and a pink shirt laughs
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 29/04/2026
Now that LLMs can spit out practice questions and become tireless tutors, where does that leave humans (e.g. me) teaching things like Intro to Python? My hope is that as educators, our focus can move further towards helping people *apply* their knowledge to real project work. Thoughts? #databs
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 24/04/2026
I need to get back to this too actually. What's more human than making your ridiculous ideas, the ones that make you *you*, a reality?
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Damie Pak @damiepak.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
The machine cannot capture the stupidity of my soul. I yearn too greedily for absolute idiocy. The machine do not know the pleasure of intentional folly. It is divinely given, made possible by the human touch.
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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
When people stress out about "falling behind if they don't adopt AI," it's because productivity metrics are largely based on output volume and not on quality or understanding.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 17/04/2026
I know AI has people divided and there are a lot of nuanced discussions to be had, but can we at least all rally around the idea that "AI dungeon master for D&D" is an absolutely awful, soul-destroying idea that can get straight in the bin? No, I will not be linking to it but it exists 😬 #databs
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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
What's your favourite origin/root of a word? (in any language) I love etymology so much. It's like history & conspiracy theories combined. Our language has secret messages & lizard DNA baked into it. Like how 'gargoyle' comes from gargle / gurgle, because of the water spewing out their mouths
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 11/04/2026
If you could experience any video game again for the first time, what would it be? I can't name just one but whatever, it's my feed, so I'll mention a few: - Grim Fandango - Fallout 4 - the Mass Effect trilogy
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 08/04/2026
Milla Jovovich (yes, *that* Milla Jovovich) releasing an AI memory product that beats benchmarks is further proof we're in the weirdest timeline. #databs #datasky github.com/milla-jovovi...
github.com
GitHub - milla-jovovich/mempalace: The highest-scoring AI memory system ever benchmarked. And it's free.
The highest-scoring AI memory system ever benchmarked. And it's free. - milla-jovovich/mempalace
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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 27/03/2026
If you use GitHub (especially if you pay for it!!) consider doing this *immediately* Settings -> Privacy -> Disallow GitHub to train their models on your code. GitHub opted *everyone* into training. No matter if you pay for the service (like I do). WTH github.com/settings/cop...
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 23/03/2026
Trying to get an LLM to generate a specific document and I keep having to make it refine it. It had the absolute gall to call the latest document "_FINAL". Maybe it *will* replace us!
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 14/03/2026
This is an interesting one. On the one hand, I get that AI tools (not just LLMs) can democratise things like writing, which is good. I've read posts from people who have used AI to translate their thoughts into English. But! Even those people didn't use AI to write the original thing...
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 04/03/2026
I love the framing of AI users as nannies of the LLMs. "Misbehavior is blamed on the nanny, or the parents, never the little boy." It's so true that especially in AI hype circles every mistake the thing makes is a "skill issue". #databs #datasky
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 26/02/2026
I keep a Trello board of random project ideas I want to do at some point. About two months ago I created one titled: Raspberry Pi "idea generator" box Please help - what on earth did I mean by that? 🤣
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 24/02/2026
Saw a data analyst ad that had "Familiarity with ChatGPT or other AI tools for data analysis" as a nice to have 🤪 I guess we're at the point where employers think ChatGPT is a tool for data analysis. Cool cool cool cool cool. #databs #datasky
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Todd S. Jordan @toddsjordan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Here’s the thing about folks speedrunning the creative process with AI: I could go to the beach every morning and put a grain of sand in a cup. They’d take their cup to the beach and fill it one day; but the point isn’t to have a cup of sand. It’s to fill my life with a thousand trips to the beach.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 23/02/2026
👋This is also how I feel! Hello friends, please enjoy my dumb little thoughts ❤️
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 19/02/2026
Trying to break my addiction of checking football news multiple times a day even though I don't really watch football anymore. But I will briefly break my attempted football hiatus to say: it would be SO funny if Arsenal bottled it and didn't win the league. That is all.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 18/02/2026
One of my biggest fears as a data educator is running my "Intro to APIs" material in preparation for a class only to find that the API has been deprecated since the last time I used it. Didn't happen today but it's happened enough times! #databs #datasky
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 17/02/2026
One dark UX pattern that really irritates me is when the logout/sign out button is hidden deep in Settings. It's not a setting, it's a primary action! Insert "old man yells at cloud" meme.
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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Researchers face this dilemma all the time. You can talk to the media with care & nuance, but you will always be outflanked by anyone willing to simplify, exaggerate, speak with undue certainty, answer questions outside their expertise & extrapolate in ways unsupported by the data.
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Sam Rose @samwho.dev · 16/02/2026
Are you using open models on a regular basis? If yes, I’d love to hear about it! - what’s your use-case? - local or through an inference provider? - how has the experience evolved over time? - anything you miss from the closed models, if you’ve used them? Would appreciate reposts for visibility 🙏
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 11/02/2026
Louder for those at the back: once you start to think about LLM outputs as optimising for *plausibility*, it's easier to put into context what LLMs can/can't do and how to use them properly. #databs #datasky
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 05/02/2026
A succinct and useful list of rules for teaching data science, including some of my favourites: "teach with real data" and "have students do projects". #databs #datasky
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demon grrl | cyberdemon era @demongrrl.gay · 02/02/2026
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAJAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *breathes* AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA
Twitter post from @BenjaminDEKR

“OpenClaw is interesting, but will also drain your wallet if you aren't careful.
Last night around midnight I loaded my Anthropic
API account with $20, then went to bed.
When I woke up, my Anthropic balance was $O.
Opus was checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night."
Doing literally nothing, OpenClaw spent the entire balance. How?
The "Heartbeat" cron job, even though literally the only thing I had going was one silly reminder, ("remind me tomorrow to get milk")”Continuation of twitter post

“1. Sent ~120,000 tokens of context to Opus 4.5
2. Opus read HEARTBEAT md, thought about reminders
3. Replied "HEARTBEAT_OK"
4. Cost: ~$0.75 per heartbeat (cache writes)
The damage:
- Overnight = ~25+ heartbeats
- 25 × $0.75 = ~$18.75 just from heartbeats alone
- Plus regular conversation = ~$20 total
The absurdity: Opus was essentially checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night."
The problem is:
1. Heartbeat uses Opus (most expensive model) for a trivial check
2. Sends the entire conversation context (~120k tokens) each time
3. Runs every 30 minutes regardless of whether anything needs checking
That's $750 a month if this runs, to occasionally remind me stuff? Yeah, no. Not great.”
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 24/01/2026
We recorded an end of year review episode. We talked about what happened on the podcast, the world of AI, and what great sci-fi we read in 2025. Listen wherever you listen! Looking forward to recording more in 2026! #databs #datasky
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sam @samthielman.com · 22/01/2026
I just thought everyone should see this
Dr Kareem Carr
man: i wish to publish
@kareem_carr
Jan 21
reviewer 2: your paper is no good
man: i'll do anything to improve
reviewer 2: it's simple. you must read the work of the great scientist Pagliarini
man: *bursts into tears* but i am Pagliarini
Andre Pagliarini
@apagliar
Jan 21
a first: in rejecting an article I submitted to a journal, reviewer 2 noted I failed to engage the work of one Andre Pagliarini
Jan 21, 2026 • 3:47 PM UTC
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 17/01/2026
When your friend makes a claim about Hungarian football and you get the compelling urge to check WITH DATA 😤 #databs #datasky
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 15/01/2026
The state of LinkedIn man... I see posts like: "I used <AI technology X> for the first time today. [...] Follow for more tips using <AI technology X>!" I realise the irony of saying people on LinkedIn shouldn't be posers, but this immediate need to be seen as experts in something is excruciating.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 13/01/2026
When I say I love seeing other people's wild ideas for data projects come to life, this is what I mean. Seriously cool idea.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 08/01/2026
LinkedIn notification: "You have one of the most-viewed profiles. Add verification to boost trust." 1. I don't need to see the data to know I *don't* have one of the most-viewed profiles unless it's a weird subpopulation 2. If I already have one of the most-viewed profiles, why take any action?
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 03/01/2026
Posting this article as a bookmark to myself. Damn, it really hit home. "instead of causing consolation, screens only make us feel more distant and disconnected and lonely, as an apathy sets in that is increasingly abstract, a kind of stomach-level sadness" www.tommydixon.ca/p/how-to-end...
tommydixon.ca
How to end your extremely online era
A somewhat practical guide
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 03/01/2026
One of the things I said in my 2025 review is how I want to spend less time on social media. One point of internal resistance has always been "but what about the community?" but as much as I loved Data Twitter and its reincarnations, it's not the same as your *local* community.
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David Asboth @davidasboth.com · 31/12/2025
Today I felt somewhat compelled to write up my year in review. Featuring: - things I did - people we spoke to on the podcast - talks I've given - books I loved and more! Happy new year everyone and especially the #databs community! davidasboth.com/2025-year-in...
davidasboth.com
David Asboth - Data Solutions & Consultancy
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