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Several data engineers that I know in this space (AI for business applications) are doing the usual ETL + mapping pipeline related work. Nowadays a lot of them are also having to deal with unstructured data such as textual reviews of products, service quality feedback, policy documents. Data engineers are developing the pipelines for chunking, vectorization, ingestion into RAG pipeline and for LLM training fine tuning. So it's still collecting, cleaning data, but quite different at the next level of detail, in my opinion.


Thank you. How does one get into this field? Web dev isn’t that exciting anymore


The data engineers I know started out as data scientists. They discovered that their ability to make models that did anything useful was hampered by low-quality or absent data. Then they discovered that there was a lot more job satisfaction (not to mention much better pay) in making useful data available than there was in clicking the "train" button over and over in slightly different configurations.


> How does one get into this field?

Network and meet someone who will give you, a web developer (a profession that is heavily stigmatized in the industry), a chance in a very competitive field.


I didnt realize web devs are stigmatized in the industry, as a web developer


They are not. There is a stigma associated with the ecosystem I think.

People who can create beautiful and user-friendly interfaces are extremely valuable and respected.

But my experiences trying to set up a typescript project and the unbelievable number of frameworks and crazy things to navigate (mjs/cjs) made me yearn for the pains of the Python ecosystem again.


Web developers are, front end engineers are not.


Hope he’s using the AI to convert user inputs into query parameters and doing the actual retrieval through queries. Or perhaps there are subjective descriptions or reviews of the venues that need to be queried?


Getting a 500 on https://launchleopard.com/

<div class="flex h-screen flex-col justify-between scroll-smooth"><h1>500</h1> <p>Internal Error</p> <div id="svelte-announcer" aria-live="assertive" aria-atomic="true" style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); clip-path: inset(50%); overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; width: 1px; height: 1px;"></div></div>


Always used to think about him while travelling on this beautiful road in Hyderabad.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Professor+CR+Rao+Rd,+Hyder...

One of the few times I've seen roads named after academicians and scientists.


CERN campus in Geneva is full of roads named after physicists: https://goo.gl/maps/t1x4MBXwXKE1mdGb9

but I guess those are more internal roads :P


Irvine, California! Michelson Dr, Millikan Ave, Von Karman Ave, Kelvin Ave. And Millikan runs parallel to Hale and Noyes.

These streets named after scientists are easily the most interesting thing about living in Irvine.


IIRC, the statistics department in the UoH is also named after him.

edit: fixed typo


Very beautiful to see. On a recent visit to the Amer palace in Rajasthan (India), I was wondering how cool it'll be when AR tech evolves so that tourists visiting such places can get a much more immersive view of such monuments in their historic glory (complete with people speaking, music of the era, and whatnot). If anyone wants to co-build something in this space, please let me know!


Thanks for mentioning Visio. I work for the Visio team, so if you have any feedback pls lmk.


Mac. Pleeeeeeease support Mac! I'm a technical consultant who was given a Macbook for work and I have to run a VM to use Visio. We're working on spec'ing out a replacement technology that works on Mac, but none of the competitors are as good as Visio, and all of our clients expect Visio. In 2019 we've got a team of 65 people all ditching Visio (and our Windows VMs) and going with LucidChart or Omnigraffle because we need something that runs on Mac.

Also you probably don't have control over this, but I tried to add Visio to my personal Office 365 subscription for personal use, but apparently you need a business subscription to get Visio? What's the point of that? I want to give Microsoft my money but they just won't take it.


Free hunter: . The problem you encountered was an "improvement" MS introduced in with Office 2016. They decided that Visio was a "business" product that home users could not possibly want to use ... <big sigh>! More likely, that home users could not AFFORD to use at the price point MS is selling Visio. . Initially, they made it impossible to install Visio (and Project) with ANY other Office bundle. OOPS! It took them almost a year to fix for business users. . Here are a couple of links from MS about installing Visio . https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Install-Visio-f98f2... . SUPPORTED SCENARIOS FOR INSTALLING DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF OFFICE, VISIO, AND PROJECT ON THE SAME COMPUTER – DIFFERENT YEARS AND MSI VS CTR. . https://technet.microsoft.com/library/mt712177%28v=office.16... . This is an EXCELLENT resource. Starting on October 11, 2016, Office 2013 software that uses Click-to-Run can be installed on the same computer with Office 2016 software that uses Click-to-Run. . We can also Use the Office Deployment Tool to install volume licensed editions of Visio 2016 and Project 2016 . . Note: The MAK keys currently available on the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) aren’t compatible with this specific installation scenario. We’re working on a solution, but we currently don’t have a date when we expect the solution to be available. KMS activation is available.


Try Omnigraffle Pro - imports and exports to Visio.


I've successfully used lucidcharts.com to import, edit & re-export back to Visio.


Consider the case of a metabolic pathway. It's a diagram that shows different biochemicals, and they're connected to one another by arrows labeled with an enzyme.

In this situation, you often have several chemicals that can all be converted to something you want to highlight. When presenting such things in linear logical order for explanatory power you'd have all the precursors in a row and then have them all have nice arrows going to the product.

What I had the most trouble with was getting the arrows to combine nicely with curves. Consider something that makes it so that when multiple arrows go to a single connection point, it replaces the arrowheads with a single composite arrowhead. This deals with slight angle issues and color mismatches. Arrow labels were relatively straightforward to get adjusted right, but arrow bodies were not.

In this kind of diagram I also need to often pull a secondary arrow out of the main arrow to indicate a species that was removed, for instance ATP might come in and go out as ADP. This is very tricky to blend right visually, the arrows will be overlapping, they're defined to touch from the center of the secondary arrow to a point on the main arrow, etc. Consider a tool to launch additional arrows (casting both forward and backwards if desired) from evenly spaced control points on a main arrow?

Example of how bad it is when most people do it (this one is typical or above average). If Visio could to those right (don't worry about adding a chemical editor, those are just PNG or vector graphics from ChemDraw 100% of the time) it would make biology so much easier to present nicely.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Wi...


This is probably a long shot, but if y'all ported it to Linux, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

(Or improve the feature-parity between the online and desktop versions, like the other commenter suggested.)


Please make a Mac version


Since you are on the team, puzzle me this. . The original creators sold out to MS back in the mid 2000's. Now MS calls it an "Office" product. . So why is Visio not included in ANY Office bundled offering? It is only sold as an overpriced standalone product, back to 1980's marketing! It strikes me as contrary to the key concept underlying Office! That is selling bundles of products cheaper than standalone competitors.

As this question shows, there are lots of free and low cost alternatives.

Visio (and Project) should be included in at least one Office bundle, ie Pro Plus.


Make it more stable.

Everybody in my class started with Visio, they almost all went to alternatives due to unreliability. Crashes with no autosave files happened way too often.


I'm a long-time Visio user (maybe 10+ years), and I also find it crashes way more often than any other Office product.


Bring Visio online to feature parity with Visio desktop! Demonstrated progress/goals toward this would go a long way too.


Sorry, that is not going to happen. (my opinion as an informed user ...) . The Office online (onlie <sic>) (cr)applets will NEVER have feature parity with desktop equivalents. The online applets are intended for simple use only. They can read and do simple edits on files created in the "real" desktop applications without corrupting features they cannot edit. . They are essentially a "bait and switch" tactic. Get you used to using the simple applet, to "encourage" you to spend money to rent Office 365 (their preferred product). Like "Office 2010 Starter" that came "free" with some computers, for a short time. .


Confused about your premise. I'm paying for service now. I pay the same price for the desktop version as for the online version.

I'm not trying to save money, I'm trying to ensure a good experience for folks who need to use Visio on Mac/Linux/FreeBSD in addition to the Windows users.


I love Visio. Good job.

Is there a way I can interface C# to it easily? Basically I'd like to add some intelligence to a standard Visio document to almost make it a schematic capture system. Even if that isn't possible, keep up the good work!


Please release a full client for macOS :)


Thanks for mentioning Visio, it is now available on the browser as well, for basic, business, flowcharts, network, and cross-functional flowcharts. $5/per user/per month (annual plan) https://products.office.com/en-us/visio/visio-online-plan-1

Disclosure: I work for the Visio team, so if you have any feedback pls lmk.


Thanks for mentioning Visio, it is now available on the browser as well for basic, business, flowcharts, network, and cross-functional flowcharts. $5/per user/per month (annual plan) https://products.office.com/en-us/visio/visio-online-plan-1

Disclosure: I work for the Visio team, so if you have any feedback pls lmk.


What drives me absolute bananas is the way they changed licensing for Visio. You could get the database reverse-engineering feature (Pro version) for a fixed, one-off price up to some point. Now it's all subscriptions. Blah.

(great software though, I have to admit)

As for the main topic, my favourite diagramming tool is GraphViz, mostly because it is easy to script / automate, does a great job auto-placing things, handles large diagrams quite nicely and works on any OS.


But how are you going to prevent that from happening on your site too? Wouldn't brokers try to inflate the prices on your site as well?


It is pretty, but I guess a simple tree map (example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8562801.stm) where the sizes of the various rectangular pieces give some idea of the %age would have been much better.


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