#497: quantum of sollazzo – 20 December 2022

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 The Pudding's brilliant look at upward mobility in the US.

'till next week,
Giuseppe @puntofisso

✨ Topical

A little data nugget from this week's (very unusual but still useful and interesting) travel to work data, using LSOAs...

Alasdair Rae picks the remote working trends 2011 to 2021 from ONS data.

Wikiwho

"This is a tool to navigate edits to the English Wikipedia made by IPs belonging to known organizations."

The job satisfaction map: these are the countries where workers live best

Interesting data analysis that shows some surprises both in current terms and trends from past surveys. Almost 60% of workers are satisfied in Italy? I must really be in a negative bubble.

The collapse of insects

"The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble, with recent research suggesting insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate."

Russia is using energy as a weapon

The Economist's Graphic Detail looks at fuel prices and excess deaths.

🛠️📖 Tools & Tutorials

The photo of the U.S. Air Force's new stealth aircraft is on the left, taken at night, with stars in the background. We can use them to find the exact location of the jet.

Very interesting use of astrometry and other data approaches.

Teaching ChatGPT about the bird and the bees

"In this blog post, I want to teach ChatGPT about the birds and the bees… by having it train its own classification algorithm!"
Fundamentally, as suggested by Data Machina, pair-programming with ChatGPT.

Learn Prompting

We'll see more of this, I suppose – a course on prompt engineering.

Simple ML for Sheets

A way to use Machine Learning in Google Sheets.
Assuming it is a good idea to do so...

A better U.S. house election results map?

Animated, and showing results both proportionally and somewhat related to their geography. And released with an Observable notebook. By Karim Douieb.

Awesome ChatGPT Prompts

A collection of useful prompts proven to work.

Going somewhere? Don't forget Faye travel insurance

Next time you travel, make sure Faye is on board. Getting a custom quote for full-trip coverage takes under a minute online, and you can even file claims digitally in the Faye app for fast reimbursement. It's all covered: whether your plans change before leaving or you experience in-trip hiccups like medical emergencies, lost luggage or flight delays, Faye takes care of travelers with real-time, 24/7 customer support. Plus, the easy-to-use app provides flight alerts, weather updates, COVID-19 destination info, and more.

📈Dataviz, Data Analysis, & Interactive

Resurfacing the past

Another impressive example of Storymaps.
(via Massimo Conte)

Should money supply be fluctuating this much?

"Actions by policymakers have led to a critical economic measure deviate greatly from historical norms."

Did Anyone Actually ‘Cart’ That #FoodTok Recipe?

"Instacart investigates the influence of viral TikTok recipes on customer shopping behavior."

Lev Manovich's publications visualized

Academic Lev Manovich has released a single file containing all 65 of his articles from 1991-2007, and shows how to use it as data, exploring and visualizing patterns in the text, using Voyant Tools.
(via Massimo Conte)

Rachwen Mosbehi' PowerBI portfolio

The portfolio of a PowerBI enthusiast and Data storyteller.
(via Massimo Conte)

🤖 AI

Sorry, we're ChatGPT-heavy again. Interesting to see these debates about prompt engineering and its viability as a separate profession. (Hint: it's not viable.)

Why does ChatGPT work so well? Is it “just scaling up GPT-3” under the hood?

"In this 🧵, let’s discuss the “Instruct” paradigm, its deep technical insights, and a big implication: “prompt engineering” as we know it may likely disappear soon:👇"

To get a sense of how hyped LLMs are right now...

"I started the year with <300 followers. Began tweeting GPT-3 examples (and nothing else) in April, with no prior experience in LLMs or NLP. I'm now Staff Prompt Engineer @scale_AI, and I've gained 7K followers in the past 28 days."

Disputing A Parking Fine with ChatGPT

ChatGPT seems to be lawyering well.

Hacking AI for climate policy

The results of a hackathon run by Climate Policy Radar and OpenAI.

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