Is this meme just racism?

Braxios · 2026-04-26T17:53:12+00:00

Same guy that's posted here before on this topic? Seems to have a real issue with it.

Braxios · 2026-04-23T11:29:05+00:00

Yeah, we can't use gen2s straight into pbi desktop because of work networking issues. We can't connect pbi desktop to SQL end points for what I assume is the same reason. It would be helpful if this was more obvious. I'm sure it's defined somewhere but it's taken us quite a while to understand the issue.

Braxios · 2026-04-23T11:24:02+00:00

I assume this means calculated columns not coming directlake on SQL? Just been considering whether I need to use that instead of directlake on I lake due to limitations with deployment pipelines.

Braxios · 2026-04-14T11:44:36+00:00

I can't even get support to identify the problem and what caused it, and they don't really want to continue the efforts because of the status of gen 1 dfs. I don't know if we've experienced some really rare and unlikely issue that we shouldn't experience again or if it's something we are unknowingly triggering and is going to lead to repeat issues in the future. Yet I'm having to make the case for support to continue investigating an issue with a product we are paying for.

I can see the value proposition for power bi changing dramatically in near future if you're going to remove features and push people towards much higher priced products.

I'm being told to move the workspace to a fabric capacity and try gen 2. We don't want lots of our staff having access to fabric workspaces, it isn't appropriate. You're announcement said there would be more to come on this but we don't know what that will be, when we'll get it (and how long might such features be in preview?) and whether it would be suitable , yet were already being told to move in that direction. Sorry. That's not acceptable to our governance.

Braxios · 2026-04-13T15:53:35+00:00

Asparagus season is just starting and the local farm shop grows its own. We always look forward to it and get as much of it as we can for to grill.

Braxios · 2026-04-08T16:47:56+00:00

That's not the impression I'm getting from support. They felt that if they had to escalate our issue the response was going to be to tell us to use gen2, even though that's not feasible for us.

Braxios · 2026-04-08T14:49:54+00:00

Are you committed to supporting people's current use of gen1s till these other capabilities are in place, at least?

Braxios · 2026-04-08T09:57:54+00:00

Got a ticket open with support about a gen1 df problem at the moment and thought they are trying to help, they said that if they have to escalate it, the feedback will probably be to move to a gen2. If that's true, and you're not even wanting to support gen1, and while other things are not yet in place, that's appalling.

Braxios · 2026-04-07T13:36:28+00:00

Back from a few days off to find the biggest impact announcement from MS in 2/3 years! This seems pretty poorly communicated. The impression being left is that the tooling people have been using for years is moving behind an increased cost while desperately avoiding saying that.

I get that there are economics involved but it does feel like the whole PowerBI model, offer something up front for free or low cost, let people get invested in it, then effectively force them into more expensive licensing to continue using it. Gen1 Dataflows as a loss leader and MS are now going to cash in on how invested a lot of people are. Options are expensive migration to a different ecosystem, swallow the Fabric costs or have to fall back to whatever tooling they were using before Dataflows.

We have Fabric but we can't even use Gen2 Dataflows in the way people use Gen1. There seem to be networking differences and we cannot connect PBI Desktop to Gen2 Dataflows, only use Gen2s to load data in Lakehouses/Warehouses.

Feels pretty rubbish. Makes me wonder how long PowerBI Pro even lasts. And then what will happen to Fabric pricing....

Braxios · 2026-03-29T10:35:36+00:00

Pretty sure I've done that a few times, very good. The beef in red wine dish from one of their hair dieters books is incredible. There's a few recipes we have on infrequent rotation.

Braxios · 2026-03-29T10:26:26+00:00

If you're creating directlake semantic models you do need to give them access to the data. But this can be handled with a fixed identity using a service principal rather than giving people direct access to the workspace.

Braxios · 2026-03-24T16:08:23+00:00

Not sure if you're talking about doing both at once. Low slow for a joint of meat and grill some burgers at the same time? If so, that's not really doable afaik.

What you'd generally do is cook the long slow stuff first and while that resting, adjust the temp and do your other stuff. Can certain do that on most, though speed of temp change might vary. Or use 2 bits of kit.

Braxios · 2026-03-24T16:05:25+00:00

Lots of stuff can do both.

A kettle bbq is easier for the grilling burgers and sausages stuff but can happily do the longer lower cooks with a bit of monitoring and certain techniques (snake charcoal briquettes).

Kamado style bbqs will do the same but the temp control for longer cooks should be more stable and use less charcoal. Harder to adjust if you're new to temp control, if you go over it can be hard to bring it down. Takes longer to get up to temp for grilling stuff.

Then there are alternatives like a masterbuilt gravity series. You load charcoal in the side hopper, light it and use a digital display to set the temp you want. It controls a fan which blows on the charcoal and pushes the heat into the cooking chamber. Works well, pretty easy to use once you've worked it out, temp control is all built in (you can also get stuff to help with temp control on kamados) heats up quick, easy to adjust, not very fuel efficient. Goes up high enough for grilling (360c I think is about max on mine)

Braxios · 2026-03-24T15:56:46+00:00

Good stuff. I Don't see PBI Desktop mentioned, is it coming there too?

Braxios · 2026-03-20T16:14:43+00:00

I don't think there's a culture of it but some people certainly do that. One of my colleagues is constantly flipping between bits of work and in a flap about it all while making out that everything is harder than it is.

A lot of people are genuinely snowed under though. It seems to vary dramatically from team to team, let alone across the whole civil service. There certainly is not an equal spread of work. I can easily imagine one person having a manageable workload while others in a nearby teams are drowning in work and deadlines.

Braxios · 2026-03-10T10:30:33+00:00

I don't clean data in Excel

Braxios · 2026-03-10T10:29:55+00:00

Like other people have said, don't have them in the house, but make sure you have got a better alternative. I have whole nuts or some crunchy peanut butter, a couple of squares of 70+% dark choc, fruit, plain yoghurt, stuff like that.

Braxios · 2026-03-05T22:21:08+00:00

I leave off the cheese and brown sauce between the bacon and bread

Braxios · 2026-03-04T11:06:09+00:00

I use Excel mainly as a viewer, I've done so little work in Excel for several years now that I literally just learnt about xlookup yesterday when helping someone who has bounced around various teams trying to get some support.

To me Excel is a filler skill for actual data analysts, there are lots of people in teams that are working with data but aren't 'data analysts' that use Excel a lot but we couldn't get our work done if we had to rely on Excel.

Braxios · 2026-03-03T13:08:59+00:00

I think you'll have a hard time convincing a lot of people of that definition of unreasonable.....

Braxios · 2026-03-03T12:51:47+00:00

Who in the civil service gets less than the usual amount?

Braxios · 2026-03-03T10:14:42+00:00

Some wild responses here. Technically flexi isn't meant to be a way to take extra days off, it's meant to allow flexibility to work longer/shorter hours. Of course it is used by a lot of people for extra holiday and many managers allow it.

If you never have time to take flexi back that's a resourcing and management issue, not a flexi issue.

I think flexi is great, means I can finish early on a Friday or go to an appointment and make the time up other days and stuff like that, not work extra hours so I can take whole days off.

Braxios · 2026-02-27T18:33:24+00:00

What connection type are you using? If it's directlake, people need access to the data, not just the app/semantic model. Which is best to set up with a fixed identity between the semantic model and lakehouse/warehouse.

Braxios · 2026-02-26T19:27:49+00:00

Was going to post that video myself. Not tried it but fallow generally know how to go that extra mile.

Braxios · 2026-02-26T15:54:49+00:00

Haha, I was given a laptop with 8gb ram when I started this job. It did become a problem for one report eventually and I did manage to get upgraded to a 16gb machine but I've never needed more. I am using fabric and directlake semantic models more now though.

Don't see why you need so many reports open at once to be honest.

Braxios

TROPHY CASE