articsputnik

Boredom is the new luxury, no?

I found Presenterm [1] to be optimal for me. Simple and works in the terminal, yet powerful to export to PDF and HTML. It supports Mermaid and images. I'm also collecting a list [2] with other Markdown-first presentation tools, and according to the git stars, reveal.js seems to be the most popular. Tough for me, it was too heavy.

[1] https://github.com/mfontanini/presenterm

[2] https://www.ssp.sh/brain/markdown-presentations-or-slides/

beautiful website and visualizations!

yeah, avoiding all the serialization and deserialization, as I'm already working in Markdown and open text for almost all my stuff. The Claude Skill only seems to make sense for people who don't have their data in multiple different proprietary formats, then it might sense to packaging them into another one. But this can get messy pretty quick!

You can also read here, in case that works better: https://www.ssp.sh/blog/why-pivot-tables-never-die/. And it's definitely not LLM written. And I tried to answer the why in the chapter "Why Pivot Tables Endure":

> The enduring power of pivot tables is their robustness, simple usage, and fast, interactive response. It's the Lingua Franca of data if you are not fluent in the language of SQL or Python. A common language everyone understands: the top management, domain experts, and developers. It's an interface to data; it's the first no-code interface. Instead of the multidimensional query language MDX or the newer DAX, people can use a simple drag-and-drop interface. It democratized data analysis.

I'm a BI engineer, and I always convince people to use something else. But when I need to calculate my finances, and does not fit into Obsidian, I find myself using Excel again too :D Great product. Maybe not so much if you need to align on financial numbers - as everyone has their own truth :)

Omarchy just got added to Distro watch. Ranking currently #10 on the last 7 days.

awful, but expected..

Depends, maybe I should have said developers, and terminal enthusiasts. But sure, there's no one fits all. What's your go-to distro?

Bluesky and Mastodon are exactly this IMO. No algorithm, just following people.

it is, but as Omarchy is heavily based on web apps, which include Figma, Notion, Google Photos, etc. it works there too.

And in the native apps, such as Terminal, Obsidian, etc., you can just use ctrl++ or ctrl+-. At least that is how i use it. Or what specific apps you need that?

As someone coming from mac, i didn't know about basic things. So one thing I found, don't put your none-mac on a desk mat, it's very bad for thermal throttling. So that helped a ton. I also found that when plugged in in powermode, the lenovo was always on high power, therefore fan on. By switching to balanced, that turned of as well.

But also, as I stuck with Omarchy, I wanted a more beefier machine, as I work all day on the laptop. So with the new machine, Tuxedo latest version, I don't have any fans anymore too, just because it's much faster and better thermal. I will eventually write these up in a second part of the article.

try this, works great https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mouse-pinch-to-zoom... (I already used it on MacBook, but also on Omarchy now)

the same for me (e.g. yabai didn't work anylonger properly with latest update). But for the past 2 months (or so), I couldn't be happier with Omarchy. It's a Linux build that comes with all the Mac specifications out of the box and is set up as a tiling window manager, which is what I used on macOS. But no more bugs, and it just works. Plus I can tweak my own OS, if I need to change something. In case of interest, I wrote a little here: https://www.ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-arch-linux-omarchy/ (It was also on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44955923)

Great! But how active is Mastodon still? But I love the concept.

borg is one that pops up all the time, maybe i need to look into that more deeply. I like rsync, but it's creating huge backups. thanks for the suggestions and help, much appreciated.

what would be an option to still do it locally? without sending it to the cloud? probably needs a good compression

I have one too, 2013 I guess. I just use it as storage (samba-drive I guess) connected to my mini-computer (hp800) that runs hp800. I do occasional backups via rsync. It works. I also store some images etc. that I don't use there. But I only run a RAID, so I don't have the NAS backuped as well. I still have them in my old macbook backups. But not sure how to properly solve that dilemma of backing up a very large multiple TBs NAS, as I can't afford many more disks and another server to run just for that. If you have any a simple solution, I'm all ear :)

If i wanted a more similar device as macbook, i'd choose frameworker laptop, but they don't ship here where i live

My requirements were: affordable, as i didn't know if I stick to it, 32 GB of RAM, 14'' form factor and good keyboard. AMD for good Linux support. This ThinkBooks popped up, and I liked the look and just tried it. The matt screen was a bonus.

that's a good point. and for sure also one element of why we discuss using past each other here in the comments for some things

agreed. that's why i moved on now from macos to linux :). also installed Omarchy linux on a very old dell laptop, and it was super fast compared to windows.

OP here, thanks for the comment. True, I should have elaborated a bit more. Actually my 10 years old MacBook is still running as my wife's computer and the 15 years computer, I gave to a friend, which used it for a long time (not sure if still).

My comparison was with Windows PCs, that always were super slowish after 2-3 years. The built quality always felt cheap. The battery was done after 2 years. Maybe it was also an unfair comparison, that I bought cheaper PCs, but at work I recently had to a dev HP laptop much later, and I had a very similar experience.

So maybe the problem is more windows than the PCs, but if you have used MacBooks, then you definitely know the difference. Running a Lenovo now, I love the much other things. Let's see how long it holds. ThinkPads are defenitely in a similar categories as Macbooks, kind of unbreakable. Love them too.

Thanks for your hint, I added the definition of it to the article.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I actually refine and update my definition, that's why it is similar.

> A semantic layer is an interface to data stores that is designed to be queryable in terms relevant and familiar to those with knowledge of the business domain.

Sounds good to me, but I think it's too simplified. A semantic layer, IMO, does more. See Julian Hyde's definition, which is also similar to mine, and more involved as well:

> A semantic layer, also known as a metrics layer, lies between business users and the database, and lets those users compose queries in the concepts that they understand. It also governs access to the data, manages data transformations, and can tune the database by defining materializations.

> Like many new ideas, the semantic layer is a distillation and evolution of many old ideas, such as query languages, multidimensional OLAP, and query federation.

I appreciated your feedback. Will think a little more about it.

Yeah, we still have them, MDX before and now DAX :)

I curate some more on here in case of interest: https://www.ssp.sh/brain/data-modeling-languages.

OP here - I wrote extensively about, that's why I linked to existing article rather than explaining once more, and focusing on the why and how to build one. See also comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=44960004&goto=item%3Fi...

From the article:

> There's a lot of information out there, including from myself about the history and rise [2022], comparing it to an MVC-like approach, or explaining its capabilities. That's why in this article I focus on the why and showcase how to use it in a practical example in the next chapter.

[1] https://www.ssp.sh/blog/rise-of-semantic-layer-metrics/ [2] https://cube.dev/blog/exploring-the-semantic-layer-through-t... [3] https://cube.dev/blog/universal-semantic-layer-capabilities-...

My one line definition that I use atm:

> A semantic layer acts as an intermediary, translating complex data into understandable user business concepts. It bridges the gap between raw data in databases (such as sales data with various attributes) and actionable insights (such as revenue per store or popular brands). This layer helps business users access and interpret data using familiar terms without needing deep technical knowledge. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/semantic-layer#semantic-layer-defin...

Edit: I'm the OP.

It's a distraction free typewriter (https://www.ssp.sh/brain/distract-free-typewriter/). That particular model is a MicroJournal Rev. 2 with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 in it.

Check it out here: https://github.com/unkyulee/micro-journal/blob/main/micro-jo...

Why I ditched my M1 MacBook for a $1000 ThinkBook running Omarchy, an opinionated Arch Distro.