Placetique

Tag: data

  • Last night a DB saved my life (Part 2)

    Last night a DB saved my life (Part 2)

    Following on from my last post about what DuckDB makes possible, here’s a little more detail about how this works in practice… Installing DuckDB There are two ways to use DuckDB: via the Command Line (CLI/Terminal), and via a library for whatever language you’re programming in. I tend to use the CLI more intensively while…

  • Last night a DB saved my life (Part 1)

    Last night a DB saved my life (Part 1)

    Every so often, a technology comes along that is magical in how well it works, and transformative in terms of its impact on your work. Wifi was one of those: I *still* remember the first time I used it and the computer that I used it on. There was no going back to cat-5 at…

  • The Full Stack: Tools & Processes for Urban Data Scientists

    Recently, I was asked to give talks at both UCL’s CASA and the ETH Future Cities Lab in Singapore for students and staff new to ‘urban data science’ and the sorts of workflows involved in collecting, processing, analysing, and reporting on urban geo-data. Developing the talk proved to be a rather enjoyable opportunity to reflect on more…

  • Land Registry Consultation #2: Reasons to Respond

    In some circles (e.g. mine) news that the government is trying (again) to sell off the Land Registry has caused something of a stir. The curtain closed on the first act of this drama in March 2014, by which time 91% of respondents to the consultation opposed the Land Registry’s transition to a service delivery company.…

  • Big Data’s Little Secrets (Part 2)

    In my previous post I looked at some of the issues affecting the extent to which ‘big data’ gives a reliable picture of the world around us. In this post I want to take you through one of the least sexy—but most important—parts: the data itself. My point, again, is not to suggest that big…

  • Multiple MySQL Servers on a Single Machine

    Note: this was previously posted at simulacra.info, but I am in the process of (re)organising my technical notes and tutorials. A bit of a dry post here, but I thought I’d share my experience of trying to get two instances of MySQL (and two different versions, to boot) running simultaneously on a single piece of hardware…