@ssp.sh - Simon Späti 🏔️

30 Apr 2026 14:34 +0000

New watch day. After having worn a Casio DBM-150 for almost all my youth, then a Ripcurl/Pulsar for some time, and a Tissot (which I still use), I tried a Fitbit (but battery..., and recharging). I went back to my roots and ordered the Casio AE-1200 (Black Forest Royale). What's yours these days?

30 Apr 2026 14:00 +0000

Most data problems don't need distributed systems. They need solid fundamentals. https://dedp.online/part-1/1-introduction/challenges-in-data-engineering.html

29 Apr 2026 08:18 +0000

The Ordinary Life: And how a Good Life Might Look Boring. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/the-ordinary-boring-life/

28 Apr 2026 07:44 +0000

It's wild how many spy pixels some emails send. I understand analytics is important, but is it that important that you survey your users without knowing? I deactivated all of mine. I don't know who opened/clicked it, but that's fine. Better than being creepy and spying on people. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

28 Apr 2026 06:45 +0000

Valid time vs transaction time. When you need both. Bitemporal modeling handles historical data along two distinct timelines. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/bitemporal-modeling https://www.ssp.sh/brain/bitemporal-modeling/

27 Apr 2026 17:22 +0000

Improving your website is probably the most addictive thing you can do, no? But at least it's useful, right 🙏😀 How do you update your websites? 😉 [contains quote post or other embedded content]

27 Apr 2026 16:00 +0000

Backfilling is where you see the difference between a data engineer and a great data engineer. A backfill means taking a data asset normally updated incrementally and updating historical parts of it. www.ssp.sh/brain/backfill https://www.ssp.sh/brain/backfill/

26 Apr 2026 15:10 +0000

TIL—DNS Anycast ≠ CDN Cache 😅. That's why I've added CDN caching to my website today. I thought my provider gave me this before, but I set up @bunny.net today. It looks promising.

25 Apr 2026 09:00 +0000

The history of External Tables is long. If the Lindy effect is true, they will stay for another 30 years. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

25 Apr 2026 08:02 +0000

Simple Made Easy. A four years old talk, I learned a ton. Thanks, Rich Hickey, and ThePrimeagen, for the comments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eXiWkPSb50

24 Apr 2026 14:27 +0000

A few thoughts on «Using Obsidian with AI». https://www.ssp.sh/brain/using-obsidian-with-ai/

24 Apr 2026 13:24 +0000

Have you ever thought why Databricks, BigQuery, and others are still adding features such as External Tables? I've used them when starting my career in 2003, but why are they still used today? And what are the modern versions of External Tables? https://motherduck.com/blog/internal-vs-external-storage-whats-the-limit-of-external-tables/

24 Apr 2026 06:19 +0000

Not just syntax. A fundamental shift in how you think about data systems. Imperative: dictate exact steps. Declarative: describe what you want, the system figures out how. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/declarative-vs-imperative/

23 Apr 2026 08:39 +0000

Sending a newsletter with your custom-made email client? In Markdown format? Writing with Neovim? Yes, yes, yes!! It works 🙂 [contains quote post or other embedded content]

22 Apr 2026 08:55 +0000

Everyone wants to use AI to automate data work, but nobody wants to review, let alone maintain it. AI-generated code is very similar to written text, except that code is more functional. I did a little self-experiment to test the maintainability and threshold on when it starts to crack.

21 Apr 2026 06:45 +0000

Most companies think data governance is about policies and committees. The ones that get it right embed governance into their tools. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/data-governance https://www.ssp.sh/brain/data-governance/

20 Apr 2026 16:00 +0000

Normally ACID means a database. But now data lakes like Delta Lake added these features too. Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. Simple files on S3 now have the same guarantees as Postgres. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/acid-transactions https://www.ssp.sh/brain/acid-transactions/

17 Apr 2026 12:45 +0000

Adding a column seems trivial. Until you realize 47 downstream consumers break. Schema evolution is a pivotal feature of data lake table formats. It enables seamless addition of new columns without disrupting existing structures. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/schema-evolution https://www.ssp.sh/brain/schema-evolution/

17 Apr 2026 10:07 +0000

Testing new hero image with description. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

16 Apr 2026 20:00 +0000

Is DevOps the new data engineering of data science? As in the old days, when you spent 80% of your time on data engineering instead of data science. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/the-state-of-devops-in-data-engineering https://www.ssp.sh/brain/the-state-of-devops-in-data-engineering/

16 Apr 2026 09:45 +0000

I feel people who don't use tmux are trying to make it down, while everyone I know who uses it just loves it and can't live without it. So I'd say figure it out for yourself.

16 Apr 2026 09:43 +0000

Zen mode and vim motions in Obsidian are pretty dope. i have zen mode in Obsidian through the vimrc plugin mapped to `z` and looks like this. As a comparison, 2nd without zen mode. Config in my dotfiles.ssp.sh at: https://github.com/sspaeti/dotfiles/blob/8ee8b4441ec948bbc1bba9de6d12ef100e5e9c61/obsidian/Simon/SecondBrain/.obsidian/.vimrc#L67

15 Apr 2026 12:45 +0000

We've heard it all. BI and dashboards are dead. But every time, only to rediscover its power and resurrection whenever we need grounded data analysis in any enterprise and startup space. https://www.rilldata.com/blog/ai-reveals-why-bi-still-matters-hint-its-not-dashboards

14 Apr 2026 14:23 +0000

Anyone still using external tables? I'm currently writing about them, and it's fascinating that they are still not dead yet. What's your use case? And what are the more modern versions of using them?

14 Apr 2026 12:30 +0000

Zero-copy data sharing between Python, Java, C++ without serialization overhead. That's Apache Arrow. Arrow is not a file format. It's an in-memory columnar format. The Arrow ecosystem: Arrow Flight, Flight SQL, ADBC - a full stack for high-performance data transfer. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/apache-arrow https://www.ssp.sh/brain/apache-arrow/

13 Apr 2026 21:38 +0000

TIL—Gmail has emoji reactions integrated into emails. I got a reply and really like the concept; never saw it before, so I just added it to neomd.ssp.sh. Check full documentation for reactions at https://ssp-data.github.io/neomd/docs/sending/#emoji-reactions. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

13 Apr 2026 11:07 +0000

What software or devices would you categorize as "Slow Tech", and what do you use that comes to mind? [contains quote post or other embedded content]

13 Apr 2026 10:50 +0000

«Slow Tech» is slow in the moment, but increases productivity in the long term. It does so by slowly processing information, which makes you focus and creates more insightful outcomes. It lets you do more meaningful and deep work.

12 Apr 2026 14:00 +0000

Architect vs gardener. The architect outlines first, then fills in the information. The gardener has a vague idea and goes with the flow. Like Stephen King, having fun exploring. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/different-types-of-writers