Earlier this week I mentioned that part of the reason Stringfest Analytics is called Stringfest is because of string instruments and classical music. I love classical music, and one thing I find really relaxing when I can't get to a live concert is putting on a livestream. It's great music, but also just really nice ambiance while I'm working or around the house. Here in Cleveland we have an AMAZING classical music and conservatory circuit, and obviously there are so many other great conservatories around the country and world. A lot of them offer free concerts and free livestreams. The problem is there isn't really a great aggregator just for that. Bachtrack is good, but it's more of a smorgasbord of livestreams. I wanted something focused specifically on free conservatory livestreams. So I used Codex to build one! classicalwatch.stringfestana… is now a thing. 🎼 I love little projects like this. With AI's help I was able to set up the site, GitHub Actions, DNS records, and the rest of the plumbing, learn a bunch along the way, and end up with a little service that I'll actually use myself and hopefully other people will enjoy too. Have a good weekend, everybody.

If you're looking for someone to deliver one or two days of onsite training in a particular city, most experienced trainers are going to assume travel expenses are covered. If you only want someone local, that's fine, I guess, but good luck finding someone in that particular market with the right expertise and availability. There's a reason people travel for this kind of work. It's a niche field, and the people who do it well aren't necessarily sitting around in your ZIP code waiting for a gig. (And frankly, if you're unwilling to cover travel expenses for specialized training, I have to wonder whether you're offering enough compensation to attract experienced talent in the first place.) Just be upfront about it in the posting. Don't act like someone is being unreasonable for assuming a pretty standard arrangement in this industry.

I run Stringfest Analytics as a one-person consulting and training business, and a lot of that work happens away from my usual desk. I’ve put together a post about the gear I use for it. This list is mostly for trips where I’m flying, so luggage space matters. I tend to favor things that are compact and durable, and everything in the post is something I own and use. That includes an adjustable lap desk, a folding keyboard, and two microphones I choose between depending on how much room I have. Read the post: stringfestanalytics.com/work… The article contains affiliate links; I may earn a commission from purchases. What’s one item you bring to make working away from home easier?

How to use the DROP function in Microsoft Excel - How-To Geek - goo.gl/alerts/5Yzwvq #GoogleAlerts

A saved hour from AI is not yet a cash saving cfo.com/news/a-saved-hour-fr… via @CFO

I'm by no means an expert on ontologies or knowledge graphs, but I keep seeing people bring them up in discussions about the future of business analytics, and I have to say I'm rather skeptical. You'd think that as a liberal arts guy with a philosophical bent, I'd be all over this stuff. But as someone who also values realism and efficiency, I find the whole enterprise almost theological in nature. There's this ambition to formally define the nature of a business and the relationships among everything in it, seemingly at the expense of actually living, experiencing, and moving the business forward. Whatever happened to "all models are wrong, but some are useful"? Of course a financial model is going to be wrong. But at least it defines its assumptions, has a reasonably clear beginning and end, and gives people something to work with. You make your decisions, adjust as reality unfolds, and get back to running the business. I worry that ontologies invite us to spend more and more time debating what a business is, rather than doing anything useful with one. Maybe I'm missing something, but I have a hard time seeing how an ever more elaborate representation of reality necessarily gets us any closer to understanding it.

I tried giving the IRS an ontology instead of a tax return to demonstrate all the economically valuable knowledge and know-how I was generating, but they still sent me to jail. I kept explaining that accounting doesn't matter, bruh! I'm a network of complementary intangibles! Are you getting it now?

I'd say so!

Haven't we been hearing that the future of work is the "gig economy," that everyone will become an independent contractor, and that traditional full-time employment is going away for something like 30 years now? And yet it basically hasn't happened. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, independent contractors made up 6.7% of employment in 1995 versus 7.4% in 2023. Some revolution! bls.gov/blog/2024/contingent… Even the Federal Reserve finds that gig work is largely a part-time activity supplementing traditional employment. federalreserve.gov/publicati… Maybe AI will change things, but recycling one of the most tired predictions of the last 30 years and slapping a 3-5 year timeline on it because "people inside big tech think so" is a unfortunately tepid take.

Curious what Python can add to your Excel work? I joined Danielle Stein Fairhurst and the Plum Solutions community to explore forecasting and simulation with Python in Excel. The replay is now available, along with practice files and a completed workbook. Pick one example and give it a try. Thanks to Danielle for hosting! Watch the session: youtube.com/live/ZLp_WGeWE40…

> be free-market think tank > publish article celebrating how nobody centrally planned your pumpkin ale > government shouldn't pick winners and losers > the market knows best > competition determines what creates value > register as a 501(c)(3) > get exempted from federal income tax > donors get tax deductions for giving you money > why? > because your organization serves the "public interest" > who decides what constitutes the public interest? > the government, naturally > perhaps some sort of central authority could determine which organizations deserve preferential treatment > call it the IRS > sounds suspiciously like picking winners and losers > no no, it's different when we're the winners > anyway, thank goodness nobody centrally planned your pumpkin ale mackinac.org/blog/2026/from-… mackinac.org/blog/2026/from-…

Whatever happened to "it's not about the tool, it's about understanding the problem?" I feel like I never hear that anymore. As I've pointed out time and time again, I've always thought this was a pretty silly false dichotomy. Of course you need to understand the problem, but the tools you use shape how you think about it, what you consider possible, and even which problems you bother trying to solve in the first place. And now, with AI, suddenly everyone seems to understand that tools really do matter. I think Marshall McLuhan's ideas, famously summarized by John Culkin as "we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us," offer a much more useful way to think about all this. While I'm as interested as anyone in what AI can do, I do wonder if we've lost sight of what we're actually trying to accomplish. I find it especially strange that so much of the tech world, which used to celebrate originality and thinking differently, now seems perfectly happy to clap like seals whenever somebody uses AI to recreate software that already existed 30 years ago. Maybe it's worth revisiting some of those ideas about digital minimalism, deep work, and thinking differently that were so fashionable just a few years ago. They weren't all wrong, and if anything, they might be more relevant now than ever.

Crash tests are not designed for that position brah

Walmart launches joint membership with Sam's Club as it leans into delivery, gas discounts cnb.cx/4zJjIUZ

I've been having so many good client conversations and making real progress with my business while here in Hawaii. And I've been doing it without getting caught up in all the draining, grinding stuff that doesn't really accomplish much besides burnout. I hate to sound so kumbaya about it, but being down here always puts me in such a mindset of simplicity and abundance. Less noise, more perspective, and somehow things seem to move forward more naturally. Totally worth feeling like I need a shower 24/7 from the tropical humidity and breeze. 😂

The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall greekconcierge.com/calendar/…

I rebuilt my most complicated Excel workbook in Python with an AI agent's help, and I'm not going back xda-developers.com/rebuilt-e…