Tessera

My new Tour de data Substack has taken off! With two stages having passed, I’ve already posted 3 new posts, a 🧵

NEW! Combining my two obsessions of cycling and political economy data into a new Substack: Tour de Data. Daily posts for every stage of the Tour de France, digging into what the race tells us about money, place, and power. Not just who's in yellow;) 🚴📊 tourdedata.substack.com

Tour de data | Lauren Leek | Substack

Everyone watches the racing. I'm watching the data on riders, money, towns, and what the Tour is really about. Click to read Tour de data, by Lauren Leek, a Substack publication. Launched 18 hours ago...

tourdedata.substack.com

Jack Russell @jackru.bsky.social · last mo.

I downloaded every charity in England & Wales expecting to find Britain's clubs dying. Instead I found that the problem is turning up and fastest in the poorest places, where it'd help most. New piece on the geography of belonging 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Just added the excellent @laurenleek.eu and @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social to this pack which already includes @dylandifford.bsky.social and @alexselbyb.bsky.social amongst other great data journalists. Please get in touch with suggestions to add. I'm particularly looking for anyone covering Ireland.

Jack Russell@jackru.bsky.social · last mo.

I've put together a starter pack of data journalists covering the UK & Ireland. Ireland coverage is very weak though - please get in touch if you know anyone I should add. go.bsky.app/EYkze8J

Want to hear me challenge a publican on @bbcnews-world-rss.bsky.social "Radical with Amol Rajan" based on my research on pub closures? oh wait, we actually (mostly) agreed. Do check it out from 18min onwards here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Radical with Amol Rajan - Last Call for the Local: Are Old Pubs the Solution to Modern Crises? (Oisín Rogers) - BBC Sounds

The Devonshire’s landlord argues why, and how, we should save the British public house.

bbc.co.uk

I have been practicing for when AI takes over our jobs by taking extended holidays. I’ve gotten ahead of the curve.

Bought booza in Punchbowl today. By total coincidence, same family that ran the shop below my grandmother's window in Lebanon. This post became a piece on why London is losing its Brick Lanes because it's well-designed, and Sydney's strips survive because it isn't. open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

The Basket and the Booza

Why London keeps losing its independent neighbourhood restaurants, and what a basket lowered from a Lebanese window taught me about what is happening.

open.substack.com

Rob Johns @robjohns75.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Found in Surry Hills (Sydney) street library: Quantitative Analysis for Management, fairy tales and faith books. Gentrification is complete.

It's kind of @laurenleek.eu to like this because I drew very heavily on her laurenleek.substack.com/p/the-quiet-... in piloting this section last year. I gave due credit, of course, but frankly money should probably have changed hands too.

The quiet collapse of surveys: fewer humans (and more AI agents) are answering survey questions

I show data on two trends undermining surveys: the collapse of human response rates and the increase of AI agents. I'll also discuss downstream implications and propose some possible solutions.

laurenleek.substack.com

Data engineers: I’m busy building a large-scale cloud data pipeline and want to get the foundations right from the start. What’s the one thing you wish you’d set up early? 🙏

Still trying to figure out the Gold Coast. Skyscrapers as beachfront, strip malls 200m inland, barely footpaths, no city centre and somehow Australia’s favourite holiday destination and 6th biggest city. Please explain (in European).

Not saying we’re in trouble but five black swans on my morning run? I’d short.

Eh yes, Canberra may be the most boring capital in the world, but buses with front bike racks and superb road cycling through national parks? That’s elite boring done well, if you ask me.

Nick Evershed!?@nickevershed.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Great to see my latest substack post and interactive map of the pokies and third places featured in the most recent Guardian Crunch #datavis newsletter:)

Post nicht verfügbar.

great read, and now I'm wondering how much of the unexplained % of pokies takings from your model is due to money laundering! www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

The ‘housewife’, the ‘childcare worker’ and the gigantic scam flourishing in Sydney

A damning cache of documents has laid bare the extent to which criminality has been allowed to take place in well-known venues.

smh.com.au

Victoria made public transport temp free. Ridership spiked. Headlines: proof of cost barrier. But compare Victoria to NSW, where fares didn’t change and the difference in car use is small. Data shows uplift is from existing riders using it more. So the barrier isn’t cost but trip completeability?

Curious why in one NSW town of 2,209 people gambling machines extracted almost $4,000 per person? I wrote about how Australia kept its third places alive by hiding the cost inside them, why Britain’s reform backfired and I even tried to beat the machine myself. open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

The Machine Is Friendly. That's Why It Wins.

How Australia kept its third places alive, what it hid inside them, why Britain’s fix made the problem worse, and what happened when I tried to beat the machine.

open.substack.com

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 4mo ago

Finally, a valid instrument (spotted in NSW)

I've always been curious about how seeds *actually* work when generating random numbers, so I decided to figure it out for class yesterday and it's actually REALLY NEAT AND MAGICAL. Check out this little Excel file I made to show how a seed can creates a set of pseudo random numbers

Screenshot from Excel showing how 11 different random numbers are generated given the formula $(a X_n + c) mod m$ and a seed of 1234. The modulus from the previous iteration is used in the subsequent iteration to make the number, but for this to work with the first iteration, you need a starting value—hence the seed

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 4mo ago

So X is a cess pit Bluesky is dying Linkedin is AI LoveWhereYouWork slop Am I gonna have to just shitpost on Strava now?

@ratlimit @ratlimit.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Claude is down :/ so I’m just running my sink

Using generative AI for non-generative ML and why this matters more than most people realise. I joined the Learning Curve podcast to talk about this, my Substack work, and what's next for me. I don't hold back 🎙️ youtu.be/L88L8kDuuMM

The Learning Curve EP2 Lauren Leek

YouTube video by ModivusAI

youtu.be

Hiring a car soon in Australia and my family’s advice: fill up before you leave the city since regional stations are closing. Aus imports 80% of its refined fuel and only holds 39 days of reserves. Prices up 100c/litre since Feb, the govt’s excise cut saves only 26c. Panic buying mainly for now…