#spreadsheet — Public Fediverse posts

Git-knife – edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

https://github.com/TheRealYT/git-knife

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259611

#HackerNews #GitKnife #commitMessages #versionControl #spreadsheet #editing

Git-knife – edit commit messages, authors, and dates like a spreadsheet

https://github.com/TheRealYT/git-knife

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259611

#HackerNews #GitKnife #commitMessages #versionControl #spreadsheet #editing

I'm getting close to the first official release of my native #HaikuOS spreadsheet! 🚀
Looking for beta testers to try opening their own #Excel (XLS/XLSX) or #OpenOffice (ODS) files. Drop a comment or send me a DM if you're interested, and I’ll send you an advanced beta build! :)
https://forum.desktoponfire.com/d/43-atomo123/7 #spreadsheet #BeOS

I'm getting close to the first official release of my native #HaikuOS spreadsheet! 🚀
Looking for beta testers to try opening their own #Excel (XLS/XLSX) or #OpenOffice (ODS) files. Drop a comment or send me a DM if you're interested, and I’ll send you an advanced beta build! :)
https://forum.desktoponfire.com/d/43-atomo123/7 #spreadsheet #BeOS

MorphOS: Spreadsheet CellBasics 0.59

With CellBasics, Jacek 'jacadcaps' Piszczek is currently writing a spreadsheet application for MorphOS. The new version 0.59 among others provides printing and PDF support.

https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2026-08-00042-EN.html

#MorphOS #spreadsheet

MorphOS: Spreadsheet CellBasics 0.59

With CellBasics, Jacek 'jacadcaps' Piszczek is currently writing a spreadsheet application for MorphOS. The new version 0.59 among others provides printing and PDF support.

https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2026-08-00042-EN.html

#MorphOS #spreadsheet

Un nuovo progetto open source punta a rendere i fogli di calcolo più veloci, flessibili e integrabili in qualsiasi applicazione. Ecco cosa offre IronCalc. #Linux #OpenSource #Rust #Excel #Spreadsheet https://www.linuxeasy.org/ironcalc-il-foglio-di-calcolo-self-hosted-open-source/

Un nuovo progetto open source punta a rendere i fogli di calcolo più veloci, flessibili e integrabili in qualsiasi applicazione. Ecco cosa offre IronCalc. #Linux #OpenSource #Rust #Excel #Spreadsheet https://www.linuxeasy.org/ironcalc-il-foglio-di-calcolo-self-hosted-open-source/

📊 IronCalc: Motorul de calcul tabelar open-source și self-hosted creat în Rust!Pentru utilizatorii și companiile care caută o alternativă modernă, privată și extrem de rapidă la Google Sheets sau Microsoft Excel, IronCalc propune o abordare nouă: un motor de foi de calcul (spreadsheet engine) complet open-source, scris în Rust, conceput pentru a fi gazduit pe propriul server (self-hosted).✨ Principalele caracteristici și avantaje IronCalc:🦀 Performanță oferită de Rust:• Motorul de calcul este construit de la zero în Rust, garantând viteze ultra-rapide de procesare a formulelor, consum redus de memorie și o gestionare sigură a datelor.🔒 Self-Hosted & Control Total pe Date:• Eliminați dependența de platformele cloud ale marilor corporații Big Tech. Vă puteți găzdui propriul serviciu de foi de calcul direct în infrastructura proprie sau în containere Docker.🌐 Integrare WebAssembly (WASM):• IronCalc poate fi rulat direct în browser prin WebAssembly, permițând calcule complexe efectuate pe partea de client fără latență de rețea sau fără dependență permanentă de un server central.🎨 Interfață simplă și funcționalități esențiale:• Oferă o interfață curată și intuitivă unde puteți crea modele financiare, bugete sau analize de date, suportând un set extins de formule matematice și financiare standard.🛠️ Flexibil pentru dezvoltatori:• Datorită arhitecturii sale modulare, motorul IronCalc poate fi integrat ca o librărie direct în alte aplicații web sau desktop (suport pentru Python, JavaScript/TypeScript și Rust).O opțiune excelentă pentru comunitatea FOSS și echipele IT care își doresc un instrument de calcul tabelar flexibil, sigur și independent! 🚀#IronCalc #Rust #OpenSource #SelfHosted #Spreadsheet #Linux #WebAssembly #TechNews #FOSS #Privacy

📊 IronCalc: Motorul de calcul tabelar open-source și self-hosted creat în Rust!Pentru utilizatorii și companiile care caută o alternativă modernă, privată și extrem de rapidă la Google Sheets sau Microsoft Excel, IronCalc propune o abordare nouă: un motor de foi de calcul (spreadsheet engine) complet open-source, scris în Rust, conceput pentru a fi gazduit pe propriul server (self-hosted).✨ Principalele caracteristici și avantaje IronCalc:🦀 Performanță oferită de Rust:• Motorul de calcul este construit de la zero în Rust, garantând viteze ultra-rapide de procesare a formulelor, consum redus de memorie și o gestionare sigură a datelor.🔒 Self-Hosted & Control Total pe Date:• Eliminați dependența de platformele cloud ale marilor corporații Big Tech. Vă puteți găzdui propriul serviciu de foi de calcul direct în infrastructura proprie sau în containere Docker.🌐 Integrare WebAssembly (WASM):• IronCalc poate fi rulat direct în browser prin WebAssembly, permițând calcule complexe efectuate pe partea de client fără latență de rețea sau fără dependență permanentă de un server central.🎨 Interfață simplă și funcționalități esențiale:• Oferă o interfață curată și intuitivă unde puteți crea modele financiare, bugete sau analize de date, suportând un set extins de formule matematice și financiare standard.🛠️ Flexibil pentru dezvoltatori:• Datorită arhitecturii sale modulare, motorul IronCalc poate fi integrat ca o librărie direct în alte aplicații web sau desktop (suport pentru Python, JavaScript/TypeScript și Rust).O opțiune excelentă pentru comunitatea FOSS și echipele IT care își doresc un instrument de calcul tabelar flexibil, sigur și independent! 🚀#IronCalc #Rust #OpenSource #SelfHosted #Spreadsheet #Linux #WebAssembly #TechNews #FOSS #Privacy

Ah yes, the groundbreaking revelation that AI models built for language struggle with tabular data. 🤔 Apparently, #LLMs aren't the Swiss Army knife we all dreamed of, shocking no one who's ever seen a #spreadsheet. 😂 Thanks for the riveting insight, Captain Obvious! 🚀
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.02412 #AImodels #TabularData #Insights #Humor #HackerNews #ngated

Ah yes, the groundbreaking revelation that AI models built for language struggle with tabular data. 🤔 Apparently, #LLMs aren't the Swiss Army knife we all dreamed of, shocking no one who's ever seen a #spreadsheet. 😂 Thanks for the riveting insight, Captain Obvious! 🚀
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.02412 #AImodels #TabularData #Insights #Humor #HackerNews #ngated

Then I completely changed the way I have students submit comments. Now I use Nextcloud forms, and instead of creating a new sheet for each class meeting, I have all the comments for the quarter in one sheet. It works fine, but I have no idea how to get an average length for the responses of each student. Does anyone know how to do such in thing in #LibreCalc ? There is a column for respondents to type in their student IDs and another column where they write comments. #Spreadsheet #LibreOffice

Then I completely changed the way I have students submit comments. Now I use Nextcloud forms, and instead of creating a new sheet for each class meeting, I have all the comments for the quarter in one sheet. It works fine, but I have no idea how to get an average length for the responses of each student. Does anyone know how to do such in thing in #LibreCalc ? There is a column for respondents to type in their student IDs and another column where they write comments. #Spreadsheet #LibreOffice

A few years ago, I was asking for help in counting the number of characters in responses so that I could get the average response length for each respondent, and some power user gave me a miracle formula that only had to be pasted in the top cell of a column. It started "=let" and included stuff like "wraprows" and "reduce" and "lambda" and "Σ." I never understood it, but it worked for me then and I used it for several years. (cont) #spreadsheet #LibreCalc #LibreOffice

A few years ago, I was asking for help in counting the number of characters in responses so that I could get the average response length for each respondent, and some power user gave me a miracle formula that only had to be pasted in the top cell of a column. It started "=let" and included stuff like "wraprows" and "reduce" and "lambda" and "Σ." I never understood it, but it worked for me then and I used it for several years. (cont) #spreadsheet #LibreCalc #LibreOffice

RE: https://floss.social/@fossasia/116975449528578188

"It abstracts away all of the memory management, the hardware architecture and stuff for you when you write in #Python."
That's how most people got into #spreadsheet too back when coding outside of tech people is still too far away.

RE: https://floss.social/@fossasia/116975449528578188

"It abstracts away all of the memory management, the hardware architecture and stuff for you when you write in #Python."
That's how most people got into #spreadsheet too back when coding outside of tech people is still too far away.

@pjacock

There is (of course) something available for Emacs 😁

Check out SES - Simple Emacs Spreadsheet.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ses/

#linux #emacs #spreadsheet

@pjacock

There is (of course) something available for Emacs 😁

Check out SES - Simple Emacs Spreadsheet.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ses/

#linux #emacs #spreadsheet

Today Microsoft #Excel differences on Windows to macOS (missing menus just ribbon) got me thinking: can I not just run a #SpreadSheet in the #Linux #terminal for basic data work and visualisation?

I want something akin to the original text only #Lotus123 (which I used for school work on DOS), but ideally with in-terminal graphics for #DataViz.

There is https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im (must self compile, not trivial), several apparently abandoned tools like https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/ - and multiple vibe-coded rust tools I'd rather avoid...

Suggestions please?

Today Microsoft #Excel differences on Windows to macOS (missing menus just ribbon) got me thinking: can I not just run a #SpreadSheet in the #Linux #terminal for basic data work and visualisation?

I want something akin to the original text only #Lotus123 (which I used for school work on DOS), but ideally with in-terminal graphics for #DataViz.

There is https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im (must self compile, not trivial), several apparently abandoned tools like https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/ - and multiple vibe-coded rust tools I'd rather avoid...

Suggestions please?

Ah, the riveting tale of YC founders shuffling like loyal lemmings 🐑 into the #OpenAI and #Anthropic empires. Dive into this mind-numbing #spreadsheet of entrepreneurial "excellence" where clicking headers is the epitome of excitement. Who needs actual #innovation when you can just rearrange columns? 🙄📊
https://joinedanthropic.com #YCFounders #Entrepreneurship #HackerNews #ngated

Ah, the riveting tale of YC founders shuffling like loyal lemmings 🐑 into the #OpenAI and #Anthropic empires. Dive into this mind-numbing #spreadsheet of entrepreneurial "excellence" where clicking headers is the epitome of excitement. Who needs actual #innovation when you can just rearrange columns? 🙄📊
https://joinedanthropic.com #YCFounders #Entrepreneurship #HackerNews #ngated

“Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple”*…

Jason Toon on a man whose applied creativity birthed not one, but two major industries…

Global canned food sales are now more than $210 billion annually. The average American eats about 200 pounds of canned food every year. Meanwhile the worldwide paper industry has seen steep falls in the production of newsprint, printing paper, and writing paper since 2010, but the rise in paper and cardboard packaging has more than made up for it. The paper industry is bigger than ever, with revenue of $485 billion in 2025.

For better or worse, our world would simply not look the same today without these two industries. And one person was the key figure in starting both of them. Bryan Donkin can legitimately claim to be the “father” of the canned-food industry and the paper industry as we know them. So who was he, besides one of the very few guys named Bryan in the 18th century?

Born in northeastern England in 1768, Bryan Donkin went into the same business as his father: real estate. But it didn’t speak to him. So in 1792, at the rather ripe age of 24, he became an apprentice to John Hall at Dartford Iron Works to pursue his true calling as an engineer.

At the time, all paper was made by hand, more or less the same way it had been done since the Middle Ages. Cotton and linen rags were soaked in water and beaten into a pulp. A shallow, rectangular mold with a screen bottom would be dipped into the liquid slurry and shaken. A thin layer of the macerated fibers would settle on the screen; when dry, you’d have yourself a single sheet of paper.

Donkin started his post-apprenticeship career making these molds. But around 1801, he got connected to the Fourdrinier brothers, who produced stationery in London. They’d made a deal with a French inventor, Louis-Nicolas Robert, to bring a new paper-making machine to Britain. At the time, between the post-revolutionary turmoil in France and England’s more advanced industrial base, the latter seemed to hold more lucrative prospects for the new invention.

Unlike the laborious single-sheet, mold-based method, this new “Fourdrinier machine” used a cylinder to continuously produce rolls of paper. A mechanism called the “shake” agitated the conveyor belt at a high speed, to spread the wet pulp fibers in an even layer. Unfortunately, this rapid movement put a lot of strain on the mostly wooden machine. One of Donkin’s improvements was to use metal parts instead, for improved stability and precision.

Another refinement of his was adjusting the rollers that squeezed the water out of the paper, to maximize contact between them and the paper, to dry the paper more quickly and thoroughly. This and other improvements turned the Fourdrinier machine from an interesting prototype to a viable technical advancement.

It quickly became the industry standard, and remains so over 200 years later. The publishing boom of the late 19th and early 20th century wouldn’t have been possible without it. Those big machines you see today producing rolls of paper are most likely Fourdrinier machines. Donkin also made some key advancements in printing technology, so the Pulitzers and Murdochs of the world owe him double gratitude.

His fortune secured, now the head of a company bearing his name that still exists (these days they make gas valves), Donkin’s restless mind turned to another puzzle: the preservation of food. Like too many technological quests, this one was spurred by military needs. Best frenemies England and France were both spreading their empires around the planet, frequently clashing, and looking for ways to keep their troops fed. In such wide-ranging conflicts as the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), far more sailors died of malnutrition than in combat.

It seems yet another French inventor had visions of pounds sterling dancing in his eyes. Philippe de Girard had come up with a method of preserving food by putting in inside a sealed tin container, then boiling the container in water to sterilize it. Or maybe he swiped the method from another French inventor, Nicolas Appert [see here]. Or maybe they were in cahoots. What we do know is that in 1810, de Girard went to London and engaged a merchant named Peter Durand to be his frontman for getting a British patent, which de Girard would not have been eligible for since Britain and France were at war.

Durand was duly awarded the patent in his name. Ever since, he’s been often called the inventor of the tin can, despite having nothing to do with inventing it, and doing nothing with it except selling the patent for £1,000 in 1812. The buyer? Bryan Donkin’s old apprenticeship master, John Hall.

Now on equal terms as budding titans of industry, Hall put up the money and Donkin provided the brains along with a third partner, John Gamble, to bring tin canning to an industrial scale. Again, it took a couple of years, but Donkin and Gamble steadily refined the process. One of their major innovations was to use iron coated in a thin layer of tin, combining the strength of the former with the non-reactive properties of the latter for an imperturbable can that could survive the longest, roughest ocean voyages.

For the second time, a French invention plus Donkin’s enhancements equaled le jackpot. After getting the likes of Queen Charlotte and the Duke of Wellington hooked with some free samples of canned beef, the firm of Donkin, Hall and Gamble received an order for 156 pounds of canned food from the Admiralty in 1813. That grew to 2,939 pounds the following year, increasing annually to 9,000 pounds by 1821.

Having bested the canning challenge, Donkin again wandered off in search of other worlds to conquer: helping Charles Babbage with the “difference engine” that would eventually become the computer, consulting on bridge and canal projects, inventing the first metal pen and a screw-cutting machine, being a founding member of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Astronomical Society.

He died in 1855, an esteemed eminence in Victorian scientific and engineering circles. Today Bryan Donkin’s impact is out of all proportion to his memory. On a visit to his grave in London, the BBC found, [there was] no mention of his achievements. Cemetery staff didn’t know who he was.

I can sense the question from some quarters of the audience: are Bryan Donkin’s achievements worth celebrating? Not only did canned food help enable imperial conquest and war, it also led eventually to the mass industrialization of food production, with its attendant crises of public health and monocultural farming, and our psychological distance from our food supply. And one look at any municipal dump will show you how much paper and cardboard waste still goes into landfill, even in a supposedly “paperless world”.

Those points are well taken. But it’s easier to dismiss these advancements when you live in a world that’s always known them. Over the last century or two, large-scale paper production enabled the rise of mass literacy, from only 10% of the world’s population being literate in 1820 to 90% today.

And it’s not just British seamen who eat better because of canned food. A 2011-2013 National Institutes of Health study found that people who eat six or more canned items a week “consume more nutrient-dense food groups such as fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and protein-rich foods, and also have higher intakes of 17 essential nutrients” including potassium, calcium, and fiber. Canned food has helped overcome the tyrannies of distance and time to get more nutrition to more people.

From the perspective of people in 1810, both food canning and mass paper production were immense steps forward. We can’t lay our subsequent inability to maintain some equilibrium at their feet. It’s true that Bryan Donkin didn’t invent the machines he perfected. Both industries probably would have happened, in some form, eventually, without him. But in being the first to perfect them for large-scale use, and granting all the downsides they’ve brought along with them, he hastened the coming of a less hungry, more educated world. Not bad for a guy named Bryan…

How one genius fathered both the canning and paper industries: “The Lives of Bryan,” from @jasontoon.bsky.social.

* Willy Wonka (in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

###

As we devise, we might send carefully-calculated birthday greetings to Dan Bricklin; he was born on this date in 1951. An engineer, he was the co-creator, with Bob Frankston, of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. Known as “the father of the Spreadsheet,” he was awarded the Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1981 for VisiCalc and was one of six people spotlighted when “the Computer” was named “Machine of the Year” by Time magazine in 1982.

Neither Bricklin nor Frankston reaped huge financial profits from their spreadsheet program, though it sold over a half-million copies by 1983. At the time, copyright protection was not generally sought for software; their company was subsequently acquired by Lotus 1-2-3, which became the new spreadsheet standard (until, of course, Excel).

source

“Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple”*…

Jason Toon on a man whose applied creativity birthed not one, but two major industries…

Global canned food sales are now more than $210 billion annually. The average American eats about 200 pounds of canned food every year. Meanwhile the worldwide paper industry has seen steep falls in the production of newsprint, printing paper, and writing paper since 2010, but the rise in paper and cardboard packaging has more than made up for it. The paper industry is bigger than ever, with revenue of $485 billion in 2025.

For better or worse, our world would simply not look the same today without these two industries. And one person was the key figure in starting both of them. Bryan Donkin can legitimately claim to be the “father” of the canned-food industry and the paper industry as we know them. So who was he, besides one of the very few guys named Bryan in the 18th century?

Born in northeastern England in 1768, Bryan Donkin went into the same business as his father: real estate. But it didn’t speak to him. So in 1792, at the rather ripe age of 24, he became an apprentice to John Hall at Dartford Iron Works to pursue his true calling as an engineer.

At the time, all paper was made by hand, more or less the same way it had been done since the Middle Ages. Cotton and linen rags were soaked in water and beaten into a pulp. A shallow, rectangular mold with a screen bottom would be dipped into the liquid slurry and shaken. A thin layer of the macerated fibers would settle on the screen; when dry, you’d have yourself a single sheet of paper.

Donkin started his post-apprenticeship career making these molds. But around 1801, he got connected to the Fourdrinier brothers, who produced stationery in London. They’d made a deal with a French inventor, Louis-Nicolas Robert, to bring a new paper-making machine to Britain. At the time, between the post-revolutionary turmoil in France and England’s more advanced industrial base, the latter seemed to hold more lucrative prospects for the new invention.

Unlike the laborious single-sheet, mold-based method, this new “Fourdrinier machine” used a cylinder to continuously produce rolls of paper. A mechanism called the “shake” agitated the conveyor belt at a high speed, to spread the wet pulp fibers in an even layer. Unfortunately, this rapid movement put a lot of strain on the mostly wooden machine. One of Donkin’s improvements was to use metal parts instead, for improved stability and precision.

Another refinement of his was adjusting the rollers that squeezed the water out of the paper, to maximize contact between them and the paper, to dry the paper more quickly and thoroughly. This and other improvements turned the Fourdrinier machine from an interesting prototype to a viable technical advancement.

It quickly became the industry standard, and remains so over 200 years later. The publishing boom of the late 19th and early 20th century wouldn’t have been possible without it. Those big machines you see today producing rolls of paper are most likely Fourdrinier machines. Donkin also made some key advancements in printing technology, so the Pulitzers and Murdochs of the world owe him double gratitude.

His fortune secured, now the head of a company bearing his name that still exists (these days they make gas valves), Donkin’s restless mind turned to another puzzle: the preservation of food. Like too many technological quests, this one was spurred by military needs. Best frenemies England and France were both spreading their empires around the planet, frequently clashing, and looking for ways to keep their troops fed. In such wide-ranging conflicts as the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), far more sailors died of malnutrition than in combat.

It seems yet another French inventor had visions of pounds sterling dancing in his eyes. Philippe de Girard had come up with a method of preserving food by putting in inside a sealed tin container, then boiling the container in water to sterilize it. Or maybe he swiped the method from another French inventor, Nicolas Appert [see here]. Or maybe they were in cahoots. What we do know is that in 1810, de Girard went to London and engaged a merchant named Peter Durand to be his frontman for getting a British patent, which de Girard would not have been eligible for since Britain and France were at war.

Durand was duly awarded the patent in his name. Ever since, he’s been often called the inventor of the tin can, despite having nothing to do with inventing it, and doing nothing with it except selling the patent for £1,000 in 1812. The buyer? Bryan Donkin’s old apprenticeship master, John Hall.

Now on equal terms as budding titans of industry, Hall put up the money and Donkin provided the brains along with a third partner, John Gamble, to bring tin canning to an industrial scale. Again, it took a couple of years, but Donkin and Gamble steadily refined the process. One of their major innovations was to use iron coated in a thin layer of tin, combining the strength of the former with the non-reactive properties of the latter for an imperturbable can that could survive the longest, roughest ocean voyages.

For the second time, a French invention plus Donkin’s enhancements equaled le jackpot. After getting the likes of Queen Charlotte and the Duke of Wellington hooked with some free samples of canned beef, the firm of Donkin, Hall and Gamble received an order for 156 pounds of canned food from the Admiralty in 1813. That grew to 2,939 pounds the following year, increasing annually to 9,000 pounds by 1821.

Having bested the canning challenge, Donkin again wandered off in search of other worlds to conquer: helping Charles Babbage with the “difference engine” that would eventually become the computer, consulting on bridge and canal projects, inventing the first metal pen and a screw-cutting machine, being a founding member of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Astronomical Society.

He died in 1855, an esteemed eminence in Victorian scientific and engineering circles. Today Bryan Donkin’s impact is out of all proportion to his memory. On a visit to his grave in London, the BBC found, [there was] no mention of his achievements. Cemetery staff didn’t know who he was.

I can sense the question from some quarters of the audience: are Bryan Donkin’s achievements worth celebrating? Not only did canned food help enable imperial conquest and war, it also led eventually to the mass industrialization of food production, with its attendant crises of public health and monocultural farming, and our psychological distance from our food supply. And one look at any municipal dump will show you how much paper and cardboard waste still goes into landfill, even in a supposedly “paperless world”.

Those points are well taken. But it’s easier to dismiss these advancements when you live in a world that’s always known them. Over the last century or two, large-scale paper production enabled the rise of mass literacy, from only 10% of the world’s population being literate in 1820 to 90% today.

And it’s not just British seamen who eat better because of canned food. A 2011-2013 National Institutes of Health study found that people who eat six or more canned items a week “consume more nutrient-dense food groups such as fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and protein-rich foods, and also have higher intakes of 17 essential nutrients” including potassium, calcium, and fiber. Canned food has helped overcome the tyrannies of distance and time to get more nutrition to more people.

From the perspective of people in 1810, both food canning and mass paper production were immense steps forward. We can’t lay our subsequent inability to maintain some equilibrium at their feet. It’s true that Bryan Donkin didn’t invent the machines he perfected. Both industries probably would have happened, in some form, eventually, without him. But in being the first to perfect them for large-scale use, and granting all the downsides they’ve brought along with them, he hastened the coming of a less hungry, more educated world. Not bad for a guy named Bryan…

How one genius fathered both the canning and paper industries: “The Lives of Bryan,” from @jasontoon.bsky.social.

* Willy Wonka (in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

###

As we devise, we might send carefully-calculated birthday greetings to Dan Bricklin; he was born on this date in 1951. An engineer, he was the co-creator, with Bob Frankston, of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. Known as “the father of the Spreadsheet,” he was awarded the Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1981 for VisiCalc and was one of six people spotlighted when “the Computer” was named “Machine of the Year” by Time magazine in 1982.

Neither Bricklin nor Frankston reaped huge financial profits from their spreadsheet program, though it sold over a half-million copies by 1983. At the time, copyright protection was not generally sought for software; their company was subsequently acquired by Lotus 1-2-3, which became the new spreadsheet standard (until, of course, Excel).

source

This 1985 book is an introduction to those newfangled electronic spreadsheets. Don't worry, it also gently explains the fundamentals of microcomputers.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4658972W/Introduction_to_Microcomputer_Spreadsheets?edition=key%3A/books/OL10071647M

#spreadsheet #retrocomputing #book

This 1985 book is an introduction to those newfangled electronic spreadsheets. Don't worry, it also gently explains the fundamentals of microcomputers.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4658972W/Introduction_to_Microcomputer_Spreadsheets?edition=key%3A/books/OL10071647M

#spreadsheet #retrocomputing #book

@DavidLyfordTilley
@all follow this conference thread for presentations on #Excel #aiinExcel #spreadsheet #risk #audit #testing #verification #education #training #assessment #modelling #data #analytics

@DavidLyfordTilley
@all follow this conference thread for presentations on #Excel #aiinExcel #spreadsheet #risk #audit #testing #verification #education #training #assessment #modelling #data #analytics

Les Années Vécues
https://philosophics.blog/2026/07/01/les-annees-vecues/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
I’ve shared a piece of fiction writing meta content and the rôle of LLMs in my writing workflow, in particular, a punch list to track idea instantiation. I don’t, however, discuss my fondness for diacritical marks, especially those with no phonetic function.
#philosophy #writing #fiction #timetravel #LLM #scifi #process #author #time #blof #podcast #language #workflow #frnech #english #shortstory #method #ai #matrix #spreadsheet #google #claude #chatgpt

Les Années Vécues
https://philosophics.blog/2026/07/01/les-annees-vecues/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
I’ve shared a piece of fiction writing meta content and the rôle of LLMs in my writing workflow, in particular, a punch list to track idea instantiation. I don’t, however, discuss my fondness for diacritical marks, especially those with no phonetic function.
#philosophy #writing #fiction #timetravel #LLM #scifi #process #author #time #blof #podcast #language #workflow #frnech #english #shortstory #method #ai #matrix #spreadsheet #google #claude #chatgpt

I've been doing spreadsheets since Lotus 1-2-3 in MSDos, and google docs suddenly thinks I need a senseless idiot ai to help me create a spreadsheet.

#Spreadsheet #GoogleDocs

I've been doing spreadsheets since Lotus 1-2-3 in MSDos, and google docs suddenly thinks I need a senseless idiot ai to help me create a spreadsheet.

#Spreadsheet #GoogleDocs

The European Spreadsheet Productivity & Risks Interest Group maintains a list of horror stories with spreadsheet mistakes that made the news.

Some of them have cost millions, reputations, or even lives.

https://eusprig.org/research-info/horror-stories/

#FactOfTheDay #Spreadsheet #Tech #EuSPRIG

The European Spreadsheet Productivity & Risks Interest Group maintains a list of horror stories with spreadsheet mistakes that made the news.

Some of them have cost millions, reputations, or even lives.

https://eusprig.org/research-info/horror-stories/

#FactOfTheDay #Spreadsheet #Tech #EuSPRIG

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@DavidLyfordTilley/116578283901538164

We are short on attendees right now - this is a great selection of talks on #spreadsheet topics - if you are interested at all, do consider! Virtual attendance tickets are also available!

Guys ,

#Euro- #Office is out! (At least on #Archlinux..)

I installed it! Quite Nice

#Digital #Sovereignty

#Docker is needed ( for #Arch ) ( why ??? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ ) and installation needs a lot of chip- ressources... (too much accordîg to me..)

But it looks ok

This a ( #euro- #office) #excel #spreadsheet screen capture

Guys ,

#Euro- #Office is out! (At least on #Archlinux..)

I installed it! Quite Nice

#Digital #Sovereignty

#Docker is needed ( for #Arch ) ( why ??? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ ) and installation needs a lot of chip- ressources... (too much accordîg to me..)

But it looks ok

This a ( #euro- #office) #excel #spreadsheet screen capture

The Results of 65 Games of Party House
Long-time readers of this blog know that I've played a lot of Party House, game #25 in UFO 50. I'm not the best player at it, I've heard there's some with a random scenario win streak of over 130, but I have gotten up to 25. I wrote a strategy guide for it that's one of the most searched-for pages here. In the time s
https://setsideb.com/60-games-of-party-house/
#indies #niche #indie #Mossmouth #niche #PartyHouse #seeds #spreadsheet #strategy #Ufo50

Scriptable Sheets #Scriptableobject #Googlesheets #Serialization #Data #Spreadsheet #Explorer #Editor #Asset #Custom #Tool #Utility #Table #Inspector #Component #Workflow #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/scriptable-sheets-284559

Yade Sheet: A Powerful Spreadsheet Tool for Unity #Spreadsheet #Datatool #Unity #Editor #Runtime #Dataaccess #Extensible #Compatible #Thirdpartyintegrationbr #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/yade-sheet-a-powerful-spreadsheet-tool-for-unity-171399

RE: https://mastodon.social/@fribbledom/116343528402118429

I'm trying "sheets", a modal spreadsheet editor. I was thinking, even if it interprets keystrokes very much like what you'd expect from a vi-like TUI, of necessity there's always something a little unexpected...

Then I remembered how in Google Sheets a line break is Alt+Enter, not Control+Enter. I get it wrong half the time, it's infuriating!

#spreadsheet #Sheets #blambers

A shout out to https://cartularium.org. As a #spreadsheet aficionado I totally dig "a community of spreadsheet practitioners". And the Tuftesque design is simply gorgeous.

A shout out to https://cartularium.org. As a #spreadsheet aficionado I totally dig "a community of spreadsheet practitioners". And the Tuftesque design is simply gorgeous.

It's not every spreadsheet, but it's always a spreadsheet.

"The 2026 Hobart Cup was run 37 metres short after track staff relied on a faulty Tasracing spreadsheet that had contained incorrect measurements since at least 2021 …
"Former staff had been aware of the errors and worked around them for years."

https://pulsetasmania.com.au/news/hobart-cup-run-37-metres-short-after-staff-used-faulty-spreadsheet-investigation-finds/

#tasmania #spreadsheet

It's not every spreadsheet, but it's always a spreadsheet.

"The 2026 Hobart Cup was run 37 metres short after track staff relied on a faulty Tasracing spreadsheet that had contained incorrect measurements since at least 2021 …
"Former staff had been aware of the errors and worked around them for years."

https://pulsetasmania.com.au/news/hobart-cup-run-37-metres-short-after-staff-used-faulty-spreadsheet-investigation-finds/

#tasmania #spreadsheet

Ah, the world was clearly clamoring for a Lotus 1-2-3 #reboot 🤔—because who wouldn't want a #spreadsheet that feels like it's stuck in the '80s but pretends to speak Excel? 🕹️ Apparently, #GitHub thinks this is #innovation, while the rest of us are still trying to figure out how to navigate their labyrinth of features. 🔍
https://github.com/duane1024/l123 #Lotus123 #Nostalgia #Excel #HackerNews #ngated

L123: A Lotus 1-2-3–style terminal spreadsheet with modern Excel compatibility

https://github.com/duane1024/l123

#HackerNews #Lotus123 #Terminal #Spreadsheet #ExcelCompatibility #OpenSource #TechInnovation

A terminal spreadsheet editor with Vim keybindings

https://github.com/garritfra/cell

#HackerNews #terminal #spreadsheet #vim #keybindings #open #source #productivity #coding