The Plan and the Worker: Two Open Specifications for Agent Harnesses
Every agent harness solves the same two problems, and almost every one of them solves both privately.
Data, Lakehouse and AI with Alex Merced
Data, Lakehouse and AI with Alex Merced is a deep dive into the architecture shaping modern analytics. Each edition explores data lakehouse design, open table formats like Apache Iceberg, catalog strategy, semantic layers, query acceleration, and the rise
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Latest episodes
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: August 5 - August 12, 2026
This Week at a Glance
AI Weekly: GPT-5.6-Cyber, Muse Glimmer, and the Agent Browser
Week of August 5 to August 12, 2026
Approaches to Streaming Data into Apache Iceberg Tables
This is Part 13 of a 15-part Apache Iceberg Masterclass. Part 12 covered Python and MPP engines.
Apache Arrow Flight and ADBC, and Why Database Connectivity Finally Went Columnar
A data scientist runs a query against a warehouse.
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 29 to August 5, 2026
This was a week of decisions.
AI Weekly: The Week Frontier Pricing Broke
Two of the largest models ever released shipped inside five days of each other, and one of them costs a quarter of what the leader charges.
Apache Polaris 1.7.0 and the Quiet Work of Making a Catalog Trustworthy
A Spark job commits a table update.
Using Apache Iceberg with Python and MPP Query Engines
This is Part 12 of a 15-part Apache Iceberg Masterclass. Part 11 covered metadata tables.
File Encryption for the Lakehouse: The Terminology, the Machinery, and the Hard Problem of Interoperable Encrypted Tables
For years, the open lakehouse had an honest gap that practitioners whispered about and slide decks skipped: encryption.
AI Weekly: Opus 5 Lands, MCP Goes Stateless, and AMD Ships Helios
Week of July 22 to July 29, 2026
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 21 to July 29, 2026
This was a week where the open lakehouse stack spent most of its energy on contracts.
A Deep Dive Into File Compression: How Data Gets Smaller, Why Codecs Differ, and What to Actually Use in the Lakehouse
Somewhere in your data platform right now, a single configuration property is quietly deciding a meaningful percentage of your storage bill, your query latency, and your compute spend.
A Reader's Guide to My Books: Which One to Pick Up, Depending on What You're Building
The question I get most often after talks, after podcast episodes, and in newsletter replies is a simple one: where do I start with your books?
Apache Iceberg Metadata Tables: Querying the Internals
This is Part 11 of a 15-part Apache Iceberg Masterclass. Part 10 covered maintenance operations.
The File Format Renaissance: Parquet, Lance, Vortex, Nimble, BtrBlocks, and the New Physics of Columnar Storage
For a decade, the file format layer was the most settled real estate in data.
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 16 to July 23, 2026
The lakehouse community spent this week deciding what belongs in the format and what belongs outside it.
Lakehouse Table Formats in 2026: Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi, Paimon, and DuckLake, How They Work, Where They Stand, and Where They're Going
The table format war is over, and the table formats are not.
AI Weekly: MCP Goes Stateless, AMD Ships 2nm Silicon
The plumbing of the AI industry got rebuilt this week.
The Filters We Build: How Every New Medium Rewires Our Defenses, From Radio Ads to AI Slop
My grandparents’ generation learned to tune out the radio pitchman.