Feeling inspired to write your first TDS post? We’re always open to contributions from new authors.Some months, our community appears to be drawn to a very tight cluster of topics: a new model or tool pops up, and everyone’s attention zooms in on the latest, buzziest news. Other times, readers seem to be moving in dozens of different directions, diving...

Building an advanced local LLM RAG pipeline with two-step retrieval using open-source bi-encoders and cross-encodersContinue reading on Towards Data Science »

My students and I measuring the retreat of the Cotopaxi glacier.I was born and raised in Ecuador. In this country, weather and climate shape our lives. For example, our energy supply relies on sufficient rainfall for hydroelectric power. As a child, I remember having continuous blackouts. Unfortunately, Ecuador has not been resilient. At the time of...

First Impressions of DuckDB handling 450Gb in a real projectDuck blueprint. Generated by Copilot Designer.IntroductionThe fields of AI, Data Science, and Data Engineering are progressing at full steam. Every day new tools, new paradigms, and new architectures are created, always trying to solve the problems of the previous ones. In this sea of new opportunities,...

A step-by-step guide to understanding window functionsPhoto by Yasmina H on UnsplashWindow functions are key to writing SQL code that is both efficient and easy to understand. Knowing how they work and when to use them will unlock new ways of solving your reporting problems.The objective of this article is to explain window functions in SQL step by...

A simple guide to Turing Machines, how they came to be, and how they helped us define what an algorithm isPhoto by Taylor Vick on UnsplashIntroductionWhen we think of algorithms, we often describe them as similar to a recipe: a series of steps we follow to complete some task. We frequently use that definition when writing code, breaking down what must...