Top all-time · #4704
Simon Späti
Personal blog · ssp.sh/blog · on HN as articsputnikdataprogrammingwriting
Simon Späti writes Data Engineering Blog & Second Brain, a personal blog at ssp.sh about data, programming and writing. Since 2023, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 152 times, most often “Will AI Replace Human Thinking? The Case for Writing and Coding Manually”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Simon Späti's posts on digital versus paper note-taking and on moving from a MacBook to Arch Linux. The comments cite these posts in passing and do not judge the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Data Engineering Blog with genuine insights by Simon Späti: 100+ open-source data essays, a 1,000+ note Second Brain, and the book Patterns of Data Engineering.
Most-linked posts?
- Will AI Replace Human Thinking? The Case for Writing and Coding Manually3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-04-10
- It’s so hard to finish an idea that is not yours and is just suggested by AI3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-04-24
- Vim Language, Motions, and Modes Explained (2023)2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-07-17
- Show HN: My Digital Zettelkasten That Connects Data Engineering and Much More2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-03-26
- I Still Blog – and Why the Future of Blogging Is Connected2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-06
- Data Engineering Concepts: 101 Concepts Every Data Engineer Should Know2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-13
- Why you should still have your own website in 20262 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-11
- Using symlinks to manage multiple Git repos in a single Obsidian vault2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-11-10
- Finding My Pathless Path2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-06-30
- If You Always Enjoy It, You're Not Pushing It Hard Enough–Benn Stancil2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-09-11
What Hacker News says?
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…
Comment linking /blog/macbook-to-arch-linux-omarchy/
on “macOS Tahoe”Submitted Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own as a story · 499 points
HN discussionThere's also an article from this same site about that: https://www.ssp.sh/brain/digital-vs-paper IMO it's way better to do what you think is good, whether that's Obsidian, notebooks, or something else
Comment linking /brain/digital-vs-paper
on “It’s so hard to finish an idea that is not yours and is just suggested by AI”Submitted The problem is not AI code, but not knowing about system architecture or intent as a story · 388 points
HN discussionIt'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...
Comment linking /brain/distract-free-typewriter/
on “From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent”Submitted It’s so hard to finish an idea that is not yours and is just suggested by AI as a story · 263 points
HN discussionWhat IMHO is more interesting than the article itself - what is this little cyberdeck-style mini notebook on the left in this picture that is part of the article? Does anyone have a link? https://www.ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-arch-linux-omarchy/arch-b...
Comment linking /blog/macbook-to-arch-linux-omarchy/arch-btw.jpeg
on “From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent”Submitted From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent as a story · 253 points
HN discussionYeah, 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 .
Comment linking /brain/data-modeling-languages
on “Why Semantic Layers Matter (and how to build one with DuckDB)”Submitted Finding Flow: Escaping digital distractions through deep work and slow living as a story · 226 points
HN discussionFrom 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-…
Comment linking /brain/semantic-layer
on “Why Semantic Layers Matter (and how to build one with DuckDB)”Submitted Will AI Replace Human Thinking? The Case for Writing and Coding Manually as a story · 180 points
HN discussionIt's all in my Obsidian Vault. And I update every day. I do it mainly for myself. I have been a writer for 8 years, but I have been taking notes already since 2003 (OneNote). But since I use Obsidian, it takes me zero effort to publish some notes publicly; that's why I'll have an easy time continuing. And I focus on small bites every day, rather than huge updates and try hard. This way it's just natural to me. Whene…
Comment linking /blog/obsidian-note-taking-workflow/
on “Data Engineering Vault: A 1000 Node Second Brain for DE Knowledge”Submitted Data Engineering Vault: A 1000 Node Second Brain for DE Knowledge as a story · 123 points
HN discussionI 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-pres…
Comment linking /brain/markdown-presentations-or-slides/
on “HTML Slides with notes”Submitted Vim Language, Motions, and Modes Explained (2023) as a story · 108 points
HN discussionI think so, thinking is like training a muscle, if you don't do it often, you don't get to do so. But it's not as black and white, because there are different use cases where it makes total sense to use, and when it doesn't. I collected opinions from writers and developers over the years and share why I'm pro writing text manually. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/will-ai-replace-humans/
Comment linking /brain/will-ai-replace-humans/
on “Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?”Submitted My Obsidian note-taking workflow as a story · 101 points
HN discussionYou 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 langu…
Comment linking /blog/why-pivot-tables-never-die/
on “Like MS Excel, Pivot tables never die”Submitted Data modeling guide for real-time analytics with ClickHouse as a story · 84 points
HN discussionMost people miss "Vim Is More than Just an Editor." The Vim Language, its motions, and its modes will make you a better programmer and writer. If you invested in the vim language early on, you can use it on each editor, browser, and other apps. This has nothing to do with the editor yet – these are universal and available. For example, there's VSVim for VSCode, IdeaVim for the JetBrains products, Vintage Mode for Su…
Comment linking /blog/why-using-neovim-data-engineer-and-writer-2023/
on “LazyVim”Submitted Travel Locally, Where You Are as a story · 25 points
HN discussion> If you want to enhance your consciousness / rot your brain with AI - go ahead. I couldn't agree more, and I love the smoking analogy. I think if we don't use it carefully, we won't be able to think confidentially. I wrote in 'Will AI Replace Human Thinking' [1] that it will be a long-term loss as people will stop thinking and learning. Time will tell. [1] https://www.ssp.sh/brain/will-ai-replace-humans
Comment linking /brain/will-ai-replace-humans
on “I'm just so bored of AI”Submitted If you start writing today, there's no way to know if you can write without AI as a story · 17 points
HN discussionYep, it is. Super happy with it. I added some custom themes and links to my second brain, but other than that, all mdBook. I also have more notes about writing a book with Markdown and self-publish at https://www.ssp.sh/brain/create-a-book-on-markdown/ .
Comment linking /brain/create-a-book-on-markdown/
on “Data Engineering Design Patterns (DEDP)”Submitted The Act and the Outcome of Creation as a story · 8 points
HN discussionTrue, I started with Omarchy, but then changed everything to my liking. It's so much nicer if you can change your OS by changing some dotfiles, and don't get distracted by all the nonsense of new features that macOS and Windows are adding. I wrote about my journey https://www.ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-arch-linux-omarchy/ and what I learned after 8 months: https://www.ssp.sh/blog/linux-omarchy-the-good-bad-and-fixab...
Comment linking /blog/linux-omarchy-the-good-bad-and-fixable/
on “macOS Needs Its Grid Back”Submitted A year of Omarchy Linux as my daily driver as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI use neovim for querying my databases with DBUI and tpope dadbod :) https://www.ssp.sh/brain/query-databases-in-vim-vim-dadbod/ But HeidiSQL and DBeaver are great, and open source (DBeaver even has a vim integration too;)
Comment linking /brain/query-databases-in-vim-vim-dadbod/
on “HeidiSQL – Lightweight MariaDB, MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL and SQLite Manager”Submitted I still use RSS to follow newsletters and blogs [Newsboat] as a story · 6 points
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