Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 30/03/2026Just a few hours left to submit to PyCon AU! If you have a #python and/or #Data and #AI idea you're keen to share with the community, why not consider a cheeky last minute submission? 🐍 032
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 13/02/2026Hey #python, #data and AI peeps! #pyconau 2026 is in Brisbane this year and the CFP is open! Are you a (wrangler | engineer | curator | researcher) doing things with data or AI/ML? Consider sharing with the community--submit to the Data and AI specialist track! 2026.pycon.org.au/cfp/speciali...2026.pycon.org.auSpecialist Tracks — PyCon AU 2026 070
Reposted by Ned LetcherSheridan Feucht @sfeucht.bsky.social · 06/12/2025I'm headed to San Diego this afternoon to attend the mech interp workshop at #NeurIPS! Really excited to give a lightning talk and catch up with everyone. 🌴 041
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 03/12/2025I'm in town for NeurlPS all week. Wow this conference is biiiig. Anyone I know (or don't know!) up for a drink? #NeurIPS #NeurIPS2025 #mlsky 151
Reposted by Ned LetcherTom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 25/10/2025I like to think that this map of all the regional names for woodlice in the UK could also be a map illustrating the new tribes of humans to be found on the same landmass after The Great Digital Crash and ensuing breakdown of society. 97700215
Reposted by Ned LetcherData Behind the Scenes Conference @databsconf.com · 06/10/2025The videos from the #DataBS Conference have made it to YouTube! Over the coming days, we'll highlight sessisons from the event -- one post per talk. You can also sneak ahead by going straight to the YouTube playlist, here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...youtube.comData Behind the Scenes 2025 - YouTubeData Behind the Scenes is a data conference by data practitioners, for data practitioners. We come together to share stories and experiences about the the me... 12412
Reposted by Ned LetcherCollin Berke @collinberke.bsky.social · 28/09/2025I got introduced to @randyau.com's 'Data Cleaning IS Analysis, Not Grunt Work' post during the #dataBS Conf this week: www.counting-stuff.com/data-cleanin... . I just finished--it was a great read. Here are some quotes and thoughts I'm walking away with 👇 1/9 #RStatscounting-stuff.comData Cleaning IS Analysis, Not Grunt WorkAlso, most data cleaning articles suck 34511
Reposted by Ned LetcherShannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 22/09/2025“In humans, curiosity usually begins as a mental stirring, but in octopuses,… it’s a function of bodily design. In a sense, curiosity + intention are dispersed throughout an octopus’s tissues—right out to the tips of its tentacles. Inquisitiveness… ‘is built into the octopuses’ anatomy.’”nybooks.com‘Such Flexible Intensity of Life’ | Verlyn KlinkenborgTheir striking intelligence makes octopuses tempting subjects for wishful anthropomorphism and uncanny reminders of nature’s mysteries. 512630
Reposted by Ned LetcherErwan Rivault @erwanrivault.com · 12/09/2025Launch day 🚀 We’ve just released @chartlecc.bsky.social - a daily chart game! Your job is to guess which country is represented by the red line in today's chart. You get 5 tries, no other clues! Play today, come back tomorrow for a different chart with new data and share with your chart friends 📈chartle.ccChartle - A daily chart gameGuess the country in red by analysing today's chart 1212853
Reposted by Ned LetcherErwan Rivault @erwanrivault.com · 19/09/2025It's been a week since we launched @chartle.cc with @adnaanj.bsky.social and we had an amazing start! - Average of 700 users/day - Record 1.2K users yesterday - From 78 countries - 66% win overall - 2m 18s average engagement Thank you to all who played + shared the game Any feedback, send our way! 52110
Reposted by Ned LetcherDuckDB @duckdb.org · 16/09/2025📈 DuckDB 1.4.0 is out! This is our first LTS release which comes with *one year of community support*. It also supports database encryption, the MERGE SQL statement and Iceberg writes. For more details, read the announcement blog post at duckdb.org/2025/09/16/a... 05221
Reposted by Ned LetcherAlice Averlong 🏳️⚧️ @alice.averlong.com · 15/09/2025Behold my latest keyboard, the JuggleKeyboard! Just click the letters as they're juggled, it's an easy* way to type. * it's not easy 351310436
Reposted by Ned LetcherDr Osnat Katz Moon 🌙🟣 @astrosnat.bsky.social · 15/09/2025Does anyone want beautiful historical depictions of celestial phenomena? Anyone? Well, here you go publicdomainreview.org/collection/f...publicdomainreview.orgFlowers of the SkyDepictions spanning almost a whole millennium — in chronological order — of comets, meteors, meteorites and shooting stars. 310637
Reposted by Ned Letcherhrbrmstr 🇺🇦 🇬🇱 🇨🇦 🏳️🌈 @hrbrmstr.dev · 15/09/2025"AI" is going great! blog.jim-nielsen.com/2025/mac-app... 061
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 02/09/2025I'd recommend this course for anyone working on operational systems where LLM output may play a load-bearing role, even if you're not of the engineering persuasion, but are up for getting your hands dirty with some code. maven.com/parlance-lab...maven.comAI Evals For Engineers & PMs by Hamel Husain and Shreya Shankar on MavenLearn proven approaches for quickly improving AI applications. Build AI that works better than the competition, regardless of the use-case. 110
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 02/09/2025The course validated my intuitions that these foundations apply just as much to generative AI applications and has given me a road-tested pragmatic framework for applying them to the weird world of LLMs and AI engineering. 110
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 02/09/2025Their approach thoroughly resonates with my experience as a data scientist: look at your data, perform thorough error analysis, develop metrics that matter, and iterate via experimentation and user-feedback. 110
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 02/09/2025I recently completed @hamel.bsky.social and @sh-reya.bsky.social's AI Evals For Engineers & PMs, which presented practical frameworks for identifying appropriate dimensions of quality, creating automatic validators to measure at scale, and effective feedback loops that enable continual improvement 120
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 02/09/2025Assessing LLM output quality requires managing their vast input/output spaces and acute sensitivity to minor prompt changes, but many teams are still running on largely vibe-based evals, incurring considerable risk and preventing systematic product improvement. We can do better! #databs #mlsky 131
Reposted by Ned LetcherJoshua Gans @joshgans.bsky.social · 30/08/2025If AI and workers were strong complements, what would we see?, by @joshgans open.substack.com/pub/joshuaga... Does the latest data tell us AI is a substitute for human work? Nope. Is that comforting? Also nope. My comments on @erikbryn and co. (and @Noahpinionopen.substack.comIf AI and workers were strong complements, what would we see?The answer is pretty much what the initial data is showing 11810
Reposted by Ned LetcherAlexander Doria @dorialexander.bsky.social · 30/08/2025debugging new pretrain like 091
Reposted by Ned LetcherJennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 28/08/2025There is a reason why the introduction and first three chapters are required reading in weeks two and three of my law and technology course Essential for understanding where we are 17319
Reposted by Ned LetcherJorin @jorin.me · 26/08/2025DuckDB is awesome and it’s a great tool to explore and transform data. But DuckDB doesn’t help you visualize and share data with others. That's why I built Shaper: taleshape.com/blog/turn-yo... #duckdb #databs #dataengineering 0114
Reposted by Ned LetcherRandy Au @randyau.com · 20/08/2025Data Behind the Scenes Conference free registration is open! Wed Sept 24, ~10am-5pm EDT. Online-only, single track. Join data folks as they share experiences with how data work is done in production, thorns & disturbing hacks and all! (Pls help get the word out 📈) ti.to/databsconf/d... #dataBSti.toDataBS Conf"Data, Behind the Scenes" is a free-to-attend online-only, single track conference centered on the real stories of data work from the folks in the trenches. We’re not here for the latest AI hype, perf... 22211
Reposted by Ned LetcherLibby Heeren @libbyheeren.bsky.social · 21/08/2025I got my #DataBS Conf ticket todayyy! Come hangout with us! ti.to/databsconf/d...ti.toDataBS Conf"Data, Behind the Scenes" is a free-to-attend online-only, single track conference centered on the real stories of data work from the folks in the trenches. We’re not here for the latest AI hype, perf... 0201
Reposted by Ned LetcherRaghav Agrawal @impactology@mastodon.social @impactology.bsky.social · 11/08/2025Is there any book for working professionals that teaches them how to dissect, compress, and traverse a domain quickly to come up with first principles of any domain? To rapidly map any domain's knowledge structure in weeks, not years 131
Reposted by Ned LetcherDominik Moritz @domoritz.de · 01/08/2025🚀 We've just open-sourced Embedding Atlas – a tool for exploring large embedding spaces through rich, interactive visualizations 📊. 412133
Reposted by Ned Letcherhenry @hdevalence.bsky.social · 09/07/2025I’ve been working on an experimental, multiplayer, open-world AI chat system called Numinex. 1. Uses branching comment trees 2. Multiplayer/multimodel 3. Explicit context curation 4. Built on ATProto 5. Open observation of model behaviors 210113
Reposted by Ned LetcherSimon Willison @simonwillison.net · 14/06/2025Anyone got a good alternative to Pocket as a read later / stash a copy of an article tool? 43627
Reposted by Ned LetcherEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 14/06/2025The AI Con book tour is headed abroad! @alexhanna.bsky.social and I aren't traveling together but check out thecon.ai/events for our upcoming events, starting with Edinburgh (Alex), Sydney (Emily) and Melbourne (Emily)thecon.aiEvents - THE AI CONUpcoming CTMF-GAIL Seminar (Edinburgh), June 20, 2025 Alex will do a fireside chat with Shannon Vallor, hosted by the University of Edinburgh’s Generative AI Laboratory. UTS (Sydney), June 25, 2025 Em... 87016
Reposted by Ned LetcherDarragh Murray @darraghmurray.bsky.social · 11/06/2025A great post from Dr Marco Motta on the pursuit of objectivity in data storytelling #dataviz #dataBS. Marco is both an expert in data viz and has a PhD in philosophy - so he has some unique perspectives that are worth engaging with www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-d...linkedin.comFrom Data to Dialogue: Why Pure Objectivity in Analytics is a Philosophical Dead EndRethinking data visualization through the lens of phenomenology and hermeneutics In boardrooms around the world, a familiar refrain echoes: "Just show me the facts." "Let the data speak for itself. 061
Reposted by Ned LetcherJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 01/06/2025I have an opportunity to hire a staff scientist for my lab. Looking for someone with outstanding skillset in ML/statistics, genomics applications; interest in mentoring, strong publication record, PD experience required. Email CV to me+cc my assistant (see 'contact' on my website). Ad to follow. 384108
Reposted by Ned LetcherMaike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 29/05/2025the peak moment of my career was co-inventing (with Roman Garnett) Bayesian optimisation, only to discover just before we submitted that someone had already invented it a few decades before 2391
Reposted by Ned LetcherNE Ohio Regional Sewer District @neorsd.org · 25/05/2025our priority is to invest in the systems that prevent your stuff from being covered in poop in the first place 124012
Reposted by Ned LetcherDuckDB @duckdb.org · 13/05/2025DuckDB Labs is looking for software engineer interns: duckdblabs.com/jobs/Softwar... Apply until June 15 and join us in Amsterdam!duckdblabs.comSoftware Engineer InternDuckDB Labs provides services around the DuckDB in-process OLAP data management system directly from its main developers. 02515
Reposted by Ned LetcherBrian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 04/04/2025After all the discourse over whether super-intelligent, ultra-powerful AI is coming, we now have a prime example of exactly how AI is massively disruptive, today: When it is used by lazy, reckless, and malicious people in power. Welcome to the age of AI-generated economic collapse, everyonebloodinthemachine.comWelcome to the age of AI-generated economic collapseOn AGI, AI-generated tariffs, and what really threatens the social order 12807252
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 03/04/2025What about distributing things like Dash and streamlit apps as electron apps? I imagine that could be a viable strategy 210
Reposted by Ned Letcherrmoff 🏃♂️🫖🥓 @rmoff.net · 02/04/2025Thoughtworks have published their latest #TWTechRadar. A few 'blips' (as they call them) of note in the data space: 🟢 Adopt: Data product thinking 🟢 Adopt: Trino 👍 Trial: Databricks Delta Live Tables 👍 Trial: @metabase.com ✋ Hold: Reverse ETL www.thoughtworks.com/radar #dataBSthoughtworks.comTechnology Radar | Guide to technology landscapeThe Technology Radar is an opinionated guide to today's technology landscape. Read the latest here. 0103
Ned Letcher @ned.sh · 02/04/2025This is a thing that seems to keep recurring for me too. Any #databs peeps have any ideas? 030
Reposted by Ned LetcherRobin Linacre @robinlinacre.bsky.social · 01/04/2025If you're using duckdb in a python script or jupyter notebook, you can run con.execute('CALL start_ui()') at any point, and the ui will pop right up in your web browser with the current database automatically available. (I knew about the UI, but I had missed this trick!) 062
Reposted by Ned LetcherArna Ghosh @arnaghosh.bsky.social · 01/04/2025Are you training self-supervised/foundation models, and worried if they are learning good representations? We got you covered! 💪 🦖Introducing Reptrix, a #Python library to evaluate representation quality metrics for neural nets: github.com/BARL-SSL/rep... 🧵👇[1/6] #DeepLearning 3279