iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 18h

I would agree with you, except that X still exists. So LinkedIn will never be the worst

James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

How hard do you find it to balance a making something look better and ensuring you don’t lose any accuracy? Smoothed lines in particular, but basically any softening for aesthetic appeal.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

And studies are increasingly showing that this is incredibly bad for our emotional/intellectual resilience. It’s a fine line between incredibly useful and incredibly damaging. I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t use AI, but we should be wary of the long term effects too.

youtu.be

Will Artificial Intelligence Lead To More Dementia?

YouTube video by Dementia Careblazers

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Absolutely. Getting AI to do something that you are super proficient in, is a good use. But even then, you should probably still do it manually every so often, just to keep the “muscle memory”. But too many people are using AI as an alternative to learning/problem solving.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Nice summary! I’m really hoping to do Amsterdam next year! May have to miss out on a different trip, but will see how it all shakes out!

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

AIEIO. AI Induced Emotional Obesity. We’ve become so used to the fast food style satisfaction of AI, that anything vaguely hard (like solving a problem ourselves, or manually having to slog on a crap piece of work) leaves us emotionally and mentally exhausted.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

RIP Mia. I’m so glad we could give you a better home for the last 8 years of your life, and change you from a flea infested, grumpy lady who had only ever slept outdoors on a mat, to a spoiled grumpy lady who went to the beach, the park, and slept near my feet stinking out my office. Fly high 🌈

Basset hound starting intently into a camera

2 Basset Hounds running on the beach, obviously having fun

Basset hound lying on a bed, covered in a large, fluffy blanket!

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My 2.5 yo also sings it all the time. Much less tunefully that yours 😂

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I hope everyone at #FabConEurope #SQLConEurope has a wonderful time! Such FoMo here, but I will be monitoring the socials for some amazing announcements!

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Filling their stadium beyond the allowed capacity

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Hadn’t seen that before. Yeah, a global standard would be an interesting challenge. But I don’t see it completely cannibalising PBI/Fabric semantic models.

static.klipy.com

Spock's Iconic Eyebrow Raise

Alt: Spock's Iconic Eyebrow Raise

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Qlikview was very good, but their equivalent language to DAX was not nearly as good. And it made developing the models behind the reports repetitive and limiting. Eventually it caught up with them. Qlik was superb for quick ad-hoc work, when granularity was easy. But after that it got hairy.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

You need tools that have solutions to handle these exact problems. Just having the ability to partition your data by date, and only refresh the current partition, for example, can save you terabytes of processing on each refresh.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

100%, engaging in good faith. A lot of reporting is simple. And simple reporting can be done quickly, and often more attractively, with vibe coding, web apps etc. But once your data reaches a certain level of complexity (size, refresh rate, business rules, sensitivity)…

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

But once you need to examine the filters, and then shift them somehow (compare to last month, compare to overall average etc.), modifying the context in which your calculation is applied becomes increasingly tricky.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Context Evaluation is basically the ability to write a single formula, which behaves as expected, no matter what rows you send to it. So a simple example like SUM, will just sum up a single column in a filtered list of rows. (Like an excel pivot table).

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The first comment in the thread is excellent. PBI gets marketed as simple, but as soon as your business requirements became tricky, that is no longer true. Vibe coding can definitely replace the 5 minutes to wow thing, but not the enterprise reporting aspect of it, with governance, security et al.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

As someone who spent their early career building SSRS reports, and battling continuously with context calculations, other tools are great for simple reports, but there’s a reason that the most prominent people in the PBI community are DAX experts. That’s where the tool really shines.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Power Bi is more than a reporting tool though. The most powerful part of the tool is the semantic model (basically Analysis Services). The fact that the visual reporting canvas interacts directly with the model just makes it more powerful.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I used to umpire cricket at quite a high level, so I have a lot more sympathy for officials than most. In my opinion, the main issue is that VARs stated objectives are incompatible with each other. I tried to write about it here: jimbabwe.co.za/2026/09/18/v...

jimbabwe.co.za

VAR Has Reached a Tipping Point

Before my life as a data nerd, I spent a number of years as an amateur cricket umpire. I worked hard at it, progressed through the ranks, stood in some good cricket, and generally achieved more tha…

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Another day, another unanimous KPI ruling that the ref got a decision wrong, but not “wrong enough” to warrant an overturn by VAR. VAR has too many competing objectives, which work against each other in many ways. The system has to be changed. jimbabwe.co.za/2026/09/18/v...

jimbabwe.co.za

VAR Has Reached a Tipping Point

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Honestly, I expected this outcome (even said so on a group chat). Wrote this piece last week about VAR in general, but partially because I thought we may be talking about this during the interlull. jimbabwe.co.za/2026/09/18/v...

Group chat - all messages from me.

1st Message: (re Haaland goal vs Man U)

Yeah. It’s the most blatantly incorrect application of that law I’ve seen.

2nd Message:

Expecting KMI Panel to go 5:0 on that one

3rd Message:

Probably 5:0 on the Arsenal penalty yesterday too, but 3:2 or 2:3 as to whether VAR should have overturned it

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Yeah, this is wild. I’m actively encouraging my parents to spend their money on doing things that make them happy. Some of those things include me and my family, and I’m super grateful to spend time with them, but I’m also glad when they do the things that they’ve wanted to do for a long time.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Yeah. I understand all of the things that VAR are trying to achieve, but I just don’t believe that those things can all be achieved together. So basically, you either sacrifice speed for accuracy and accept slightly more (and longer) delays, or you just remove it altogether.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

jimbabwe.co.za/2026/09/18/v... I wrote something about VAR in English Football, and how sometimes having multiple individually sensible objectives can lead to a system that ends up worse than before. It's not about tech but can be applied in so many aspects of life.

static.klipy.com

Referee Gives Son Heungmin Red Card

Alt: Referee Gives Son Heung-Min Red Card

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I also hate myself that I use it for certain things outside of work, but the ability to do small POC projects that would previously have just rotted in my brain is enticing, especially with the time restrictions imposed by wanting to spend as much time as possible with my little one! 🫣

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I have a healthy amount of respect for all wildlife, but Crocs scare the crap out of me. Even reading the article gave me shivers.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

But the umpires in cricket have accepted that having a decision overturned is not the end of the world, making decisions in real time and with 1 look is incredibly difficult, and the best way for umpires to be respected by players and supporters, is to just not unduly influence the game with errors

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Cricket has the best use of a video review system in my opinion. It is easier to officiate because of the discreet nature of events (balls) within cricket, so I don’t think the system can be replicated exactly.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

But if you start lowering the bar for overturns, then the PGMOL can’t claim 90% accuracy anymore and pat themselves on the back.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

And the original decision carries no weight for the review. They start from a blank slate and make an objective decision.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I know Raya is exceptional at playing high up the pitch, but there’s just no reason to have him taking a free kick 10 meters into the opposition half.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I was surprised to see the comments about his performance during the game. Obviously he’s different to Kai, but I thought he did a couple of things quite well, even though he’s clearly very rusty.

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

An attempt to get free data to try and validate/replicate the results?

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Boring, boring, anti-football etc…

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James McGillivray @jamesmcg.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

What is that 1w as a percentage of total output? And is there any data about women transitioning? Does the testosterone elevate their output on a similar scale? I’m guessing that they measure watts per kg because the heavier you are the more power you need to produce, so bigger frame not advantage

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