I've been using DuckDB a lot more lately
It's a database, but one focused on analytics.
And it's very simple to install and use.
I've been using it more an more since they added the UI extension.
It really lets you just dive right into using it with a notebook interface.
Also, the notebook contents is stored in a database file and is automatically versioned.
I started another data analysis today.
Not a very strange occurrence since it is my job.
Since I've been working on database stuff and I didn't want to shift gears,
I wanted to load the data into DuckDB and work on it there.
It was easy enough to import the excel sheet and everything seemed to work.
I verified that it had imported the data by checking some of the summary stats
I had been provided with. All good.
But then I noticed something strange: there seemed to be a lot of missing data.
Then I noticed that the table created by reading the excel file had over 4 million rows.
And this from a spreadsheet with under 2 000 rows.
I specified the range incorrectly, I believe.
So it just added all those empty rows.
Fun times!
I had an early start this morning and
I totally forgot the time change.
I checked the time on my phone just to confirm how early it was.
The automatic time change on phones is a lifesaver.
I even have an analog clock in my office that handles it automatically.
But I had that moment when I looked at the non-updating clock on our stove.
How the heck did I lose that extra hour...
Oddly enough, Daylight Saving Time started close to home for me.
Today I learned that Port Arthur, one of the cities that was later amalgamated to form my home town of Thunder Bay, Ontario,
was the first city in the world to adopt it.
This clears up a mystery from my childhood.
I was raised on the Fort William
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side, and my family was very proud of it.
My mom talked about the time when Port Arthur was in a different (and therefore wrong) time zone.
When the original time change happened, both Fort William and Port Arthur sprang forward, but Port Arthur didn't spring back.
Fort William did, so for five months it was probably very confusing if you had an appointment in the other city.
They schedule time changes at 2 a.m. so most sleep through it.
However, I had a bit of a career working in Alarm Monitoring Centers.
They have to run 24 hours a day, so you have to work your share of nights.
I worked weekends when I was a student during the week, alternating days and nights.
so I got to observe time changes first hand.
It's kind of a strange experience, expecially working in a place where everything is time stamped.
When it springs forward, you just have an empty, non-existent hour.
But when it falls back, you have to loop back through that hour again.
So, I've always been facinated with time changes.
But given the distruption to people's lives, I don't think the are a great policy.
In 2020, Ontario passed the Time Amendment Act which officially moves the province to permanant daylight savings time.
The date this is implemented was left blank, to be announced by the Lieutenant Governor.
This is to ensure that we align with Québec and New York State.
But maybe we want to just do it on our own.
These time changes always mess me up.
As an aside, see this post for my thoughts on the names of Fort William and Port Arthur.
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When I was growing up it took me way too long to realize that Fort William was named that because the location of the North-West Company fort was in that city.
I never realized that because the Fort William Historical Park is nowhere near there.
In a location that makes no sense for a trading post.
And because Fort William was a North-West Company trading post,
their big corporate rival the Hudson's Bay Company never opened one of their big stores in Thunder Bay.
I don't know for sure, but I have always assumed it is because of a very longstanding corporate grudge.
Well, the HBC is basically dead now.
So they can just suck it.
Similarly, I never realized that Port Arthur was named that way because the port is there.
For Halloween, I thought I'd post about a horror movie I've watched.
I had a subscription to Shudder in our house for awhile,
and one fun thing to watch is the various shows that describe old horror movies.
I've added a lot of old horror movies to my to-be-watched list.
Alligator is basically about the urban legend that if you flush a baby pet alligator
down the toilet, it will grow very big.
This even happens once to Grampa Simpson.
The movie takes a different turn with the addition of corporate toxic waste.
I love the idea of a movie where the municipal government struggles to handle a monster.
And the best part is there are political reasons why can't handle this particular monster.
The best part of the movie, of course, is when the alligator messes up the rich folks party.
It's in a very 1970s class war spirit.
Robert Forster (1941-2019) does good work here as a cop no one wants to work with because he keeps losing partners.
And they aren't wrong not to want to work with him.
Apparently they released a board game based on the movie.
Who wouldn't want to play this game?
You know the kind of day when nothing goes quite right?
I sometimes think of it in Tabletop Role-Playing Game terms:
You roll so badly, you are going to get a penalty to all your rolls going forward.
Then thank makes you mess up the next roll,
then the next.
Pretty soon you can't do anything.
If I look at it objectively,
it's not quite that bad.
But in the moment, it feels quite demoralizing.
That said, there were some genuine moments of awesomeness today.
Quite a few people went out of their way to help me out today.
I'm extremely grateful for that.
That said, there were some genuine moments of awesomeness today.
Quite a few people went out of their way to help me out today.
I'm extremely grateful for that.
Anyway, I wanted to keep my blog posting streak going.
See you tomorrow.
As you can see from my posting history,
I've managed to keep this blog actively recently.
I've been able to post at least once a day for over a week now.
Granted, that isn't much of an achievement.
This blog is a random collection of things that interest me.
But since I don't have any commercial or other purpose
(aside from getting me to do some writing)
I think I'm in pretty good shape.
I can't really tell how many readers I actually have either.
I don't run any website analytics on this site,
though I do log basic information from requests to the web server.
The logs mostly tell me that my site is under attack constantly.
Attackers scan for access to WordPress control panels that aren't installed.
I'm sure most of the requests come from AI scrapers and other bots.
Anyway, if you are a genuine reader of this blog,
please reach out.
I have provided a contact form for the purpose.
I also have my social media networks at the top of the page,
please follow me there.
If you see something interesting, let me know.
But really, at the end of the day this blog is for me.
It is my deliberate writing practice.
It might change over time, become more focused.
Only time will tell.