Top all-time · #13646
Alex Petralia
Personal blog · alexpetralia.com/posts · on HN as alexpetraliadatacareer
Alex Petralia writes alex petralia, a personal blog at alexpetralia.com about data and career. Since 2016, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 23 times, most often “Learn just enough Linux to get things done”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-07-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- Learn just enough Linux to get things done2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-06-26
- Working with data from start to finish (essay series)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-07
What Hacker News says?
Bring a color-print out of your projects. This worked wonders for me when I was applying to jobs. For reference, my website is here: https://www.alexpetralia.com . I printed out the first page, then could talk about each project quite tangibly with the print-out in hand. You still need a portfolio, you just also have to SHOW it. It is your job as an applicant, not theirs to research every candidate that comes by.
Comment linking /
on “Building a Kickass Portfolio”Submitted Learn just enough Linux to get things done as a story · 353 points
HN discussionI learned bash primarily for practical reasons (ie. navigating in Linux, parsing files, searching for text) and nothing more. Definitely not from a DevOps or SysAdmin point of view as I'm sure fits the background of many commenters in this thread. If your use case is pragmatic in nature, I would recommend my post on the topic: http://alexpetralia.com/posts/2017/6/26/learning-linux-bash-...
Comment linking /posts/2017/6/26/learning-linux-bash-to-get-things-done
on “Ask HN: How can I get better at bash?”Submitted You should be using DBeaver as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI've written about this problem before as well[1] - data science seems to be defined uniquely narrowly (and confusingly) compared to other fields. -- "Data science" is the most natural name for this field. Though fields like "information science" and "political science" are broad, "data science," as it is popularly defined, is uniquely narrow. This is problematic because general fields typically serve as a roadmap f…
Comment linking /posts/2016/6/22/reclaiming-the-term-data-science
on “What Data Scientists Really Do, According to Data Scientists”Submitted How to have meetings which pay the rent as a story · 3 points
HN discussionStill highly recommend DBeaver for working with Postgres. My own post on the topic: http://alexpetralia.com/posts/2016/6/8/you-should-be-using-d...
Comment linking /posts/2016/6/8/you-should-be-using-dbeaver
on “Postage – A fast replacement for pgAdmin”Submitted Good leaders set a vision and secure buy-in as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI have reflected on a good definition of causality and would be curious if anyone has thoughts or critiques of it. I am repasting part of my essay below. ( https://alexpetralia.com/2023/02/25/statistics-only-gives-co... ) -- Can we nevertheless extract causality from correlation? I would argue that, theoretically, we cannot. Practically speaking, however, we frequently settle for “very, very convincing correlations”…
Comment linking /2023/02/25/statistics-only-gives-correlations-so-what-about-causation-part-11/
on “Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021)”Submitted Reclaiming the term “data science” as a story · 3 points
HN discussionInterestingly this is exactly how I've come to define truth/correctness: https://alexpetralia.com/2023/01/25/how-do-we-know-if-data-i...
Comment linking /2023/01/25/how-do-we-know-if-data-is-correct/
on “Practices of Reliable Software Design”Submitted More dangerous subtleties of JOINs in SQL as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI have alternatively heard this distinguished as: - UX Product Managers (close to users) - Technical Product Managers (close to developers) I've written about this a little bit here for the curious: https://alexpetralia.com/posts/2019/10/14/product-management...
Comment linking /posts/2019/10/14/product-management-get-it-done
on “Product Manager vs. Product Marketing Manager vs. Product Owner”Submitted Pitfalls of Taking Averages with Multidimensional Data as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI am writing an essay series on this topic: last-mile analytics and how an abundance of data must be ultimately converted into (measurably correct) action. If anyone wants to follow along, the series is here! https://alexpetralia.com/2023/01/19/working-with-data-from-s...
Comment linking /2023/01/19/working-with-data-from-start-to-finish/
on “Big Data Is Dead”Submitted Always learn the shortcuts as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOne thing I noticed is that while I had good ideas in the shower, I couldn't remember them! (no pen/paper, phone, etc.) So, I started using mnemonics to remember my thoughts[0]. Now I take showers without feeling the anxiety of forgetting all the thing I thought about (e.g. chores, talk to someone, respond to email, write down an idea, etc.). [0] https://alexpetralia.com/2017/12/31/shower-recall/
Comment linking /2017/12/31/shower-recall/
on “The science of why you have great ideas in the shower”Submitted Hard technical skills for the modern business analyst as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wrote about precision here if you are interested. You first need precision before you can start even talking about accuracy (otherwise there is no "center"). https://alexpetralia.com/2023/01/31/what-does-it-mean-for-da...
Comment linking /2023/01/31/what-does-it-mean-for-data-to-be-precise-part-4/
on “The Electron Is So Round That It’s Ruling Out Potential New Particles”Submitted A Guide for Future Managers as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Working with data from start to finish (essay series) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted More dangerous subtleties of JOINs in SQL as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why data analysts should exercise caution when taking averages as a story · 1 points
HN discussion