Return of the Horse (With a Pointy Hat)

Back in October 2016, I wrote my very first post here. I had recently swapped high-energy astrophysics for the fast-paced world of startup data science, and I was eager to document the transition. I promised to write about Python, Apache Spark, and graph databases, concluding with a hopeful, “So hold onto your hats, it’ll likely be a bumpy ride…”

I didn’t realise quite how bumpy — or how quiet — the ride would get.

Nearly ten years have passed since that original launch. While my passion for data science and complex problem-solving never wavered, this blog unfortunately did. It languished for years. As web styles evolved, the underlying page design slowly broke, and the visuals became, frankly, embarrassing. The worse the site looked, the less I wanted to write. It became a classic feedback loop of digital neglect where I was simply too self-conscious to publish anything new.

So, what changed?

Agentic AI code assistants to the rescue. Thanks to some incredible pairing with AI tools - a massive shoutout to Antigravity and Google Stitch - the tech stack has been entirely overhauled. The broken designs have been swept away, and Horse with a Pointy Hat has finally been relaunched using Hugo. It turns out that when you remove the friction of a broken interface, the itch to write comes rushing back.

The world has moved on tremendously since 2016. Back then, I casually joked that if you weren’t doing deep learning, you weren’t really a data scientist. Today, the conversation has entirely shifted. You can expect this revived space to lean heavily into the topics currently redefining our industry, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) and Agentic AI.

But while the tech changes at breakneck speed, some things remain absolute. As AI becomes deeply embedded in the fabric of everyday software, AI Governance and ethics are more critical than they have ever been. We cannot build the future without rigorously analysing the implications of what we put into production.

It is good to be back, with a clean site and a lot to talk about.

Hold onto your (pointy) hats!