josh laurito

Hi 👋 just a note that I'm not very active here any longer, but I do send out a bi-weekly (-ish) email about all things data and NYC at nycdata.substack.com. I hope to see some of you there!

Using my phone while in Europe has been… eye opening

The women’s semifinal “ace spike” is entirely Naomi Osaka, who famously served an ace past Roger Federer in a mixed doubles match! US Open Data: usopen.org/en_US/scores/e… If you like this, you might like my newsletter, where I cover all things NYC and Data: nycdata.substack.com

That dominance means men are broken less often (21% vs 32%) and see more tiebreaks (17% of sets vs 12%, though they're more common for women in later rounds). Breaks become rarer as the tournament progresses and mismatches disappear.

The US Open shares detailed stats for Men’s & Women’s Singles: it’s a fun dataset to explore! (link in thread) What jumps out: the men’s game is far more serve-centric. They hit aces at nearly 2x the rate of the women and win 73% of points on a good first serve ( 65% for women).

@heyitskenisha I'm extremely enjoying your USOpen content. Also Sinner is unbelievable right now, just a demolition tonight 🔨

Bublik looking amazed Sinner returned his drop shot. It’s JANNIK SINNER. Of course he got there, wake up! #USOpen

It _is_ pretty funny though 😂 reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/s/PV… For the less emotionally damaging content, you can subscribe here: nycdata.substack.com

Anyways, as of now, my most popular link for the month of August is a Reddit post about a 'Senior Data Analytics Consultant' asking ChatGPT to explain their job to a 5-year-old and having their feelings hurt.

I like to think my newsletter provides a lot of value to people, but it's always the silly links and games that get the most clicks and texts about. Maybe that is creating value!

Chris also reminded me that an album of monks performing Gregorian chants was purchased over a million times in the 90s. It’s true! My dad bought that album! You really had to be there! cantgetmuchhigher.com/p/how-many-art…

My big discovery this week was Chris Dalla Riva’s Substack: I got sucked in by a‘How Many Artists Did The Beatles Kill’, about how musical tastes changed in the 60s. It seems like tastes probably changes more in the 90s!

If you like data, flowers, and NYC (like I do) you should check out the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Cherrywatch

One thing that just occurred to me: with LLMs more or less ‘knowing’ all public information, we basically have an objective standard of whether something of consequence is a secret or not. If something is of consequence and LLMs don’t know it, is that thing a secret? I think so

@voberoi thank YOU!

Thanks @joshlaurito!

@charleyferrari I don’t know why people aren’t making a bigger deal out of this!

Why am I only finding out now that this year is the NYC Quadricentennial from my friendly neighborhood data science newsletter (thx @joshlaurito!) ny400th.org

@SeawrightForNY I live (and drive, and vote) in your district and this mealy-mouthed statement is disappointing. Help us seize this rare opportunity to build a transit system we can be proud of by speaking loudly to Albany that our 76 is overwhelmingly congestion pricing.

Statement on Congestion Pricing pause:

How should the number of analytics engineers at a company scale?

@NeonOneTech hi can you help me I’m stuck in customer support purgatory

@NateSilver538 Do you think The Atlantic’s coverage of Substack’s moderation issues is related? theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Substack is somewhat threatening to the business model of a certain sort of ideas-y periodical and I wish there were a more self-awareness of that. Like I love The Atlantic but Substack exerts upward pressure on comp for of the sorts of people who might write for The Atlantic.

My flight on the ground at ORD is currently delayed because they can’t get the plane cool enough to make it safe to board. (It’s over 100F in Chicago at the moment) I have to admit, this is a climate change failure mode I did not anticipate.