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Alex Merced

I like to code, teach and promote. Subscribe to the Web Dev 101 and Datanation podcasts. Blogs and videos at devNursery.com and GrokOverflow.com. Find everything at AlexMerced.com

Location Orlando, FL Joined Joined on  Personal website https://www.alexmerced.com github website

Work

Head of DevRel @ Dremio

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The Filters We Build: How Every New Medium Rewires Our Defenses, From Radio Ads to AI Slop

The Filters We Build: How Every New Medium Rewires Our Defenses, From Radio Ads to AI Slop

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23 min read

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Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 16 to July 23, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 16 to July 23, 2026

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25 min read
AI Weekly: MCP Goes Stateless, AMD Ships 2nm Silicon

AI Weekly: MCP Goes Stateless, AMD Ships 2nm Silicon

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24 min read
AI Weekly: MCP Goes Stateless, Kimi K3, TSMC Records

AI Weekly: MCP Goes Stateless, Kimi K3, TSMC Records

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25 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 11 to July 18, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 11 to July 18, 2026

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25 min read
When Gatekeepers Panic: The Encyclopédie, Open AI Models, and the Politics of Accessible Knowledge

When Gatekeepers Panic: The Encyclopédie, Open AI Models, and the Politics of Accessible Knowledge

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22 min read
Deterministic Data Engineering With AI Harnesses: Using Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, and OpenCode for Data Work You Can Actually Trust

Deterministic Data Engineering With AI Harnesses: Using Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, and OpenCode for Data Work You Can Actually Trust

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19 min read
Designing Your Own AI Harness: A Deep Dive Into the Architecture of Agent Loops, Tools, Context, and Control

Designing Your Own AI Harness: A Deep Dive Into the Architecture of Agent Loops, Tools, Context, and Control

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20 min read
File Encryption for the Lakehouse: The Terminology, the Machinery, and the Hard Problem of Interoperable Encrypted Tables

File Encryption for the Lakehouse: The Terminology, the Machinery, and the Hard Problem of Interoperable Encrypted Tables

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20 min read
A Deep Dive Into File Compression: How Data Gets Smaller, Why Codecs Differ, and What to Actually Use in the Lakehouse

A Deep Dive Into File Compression: How Data Gets Smaller, Why Codecs Differ, and What to Actually Use in the Lakehouse

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20 min read
A Reader's Guide to My Books: Which One to Pick Up, Depending on What You're Building

A Reader's Guide to My Books: Which One to Pick Up, Depending on What You're Building

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11 min read
The File Format Renaissance: Parquet, Lance, Vortex, Nimble, BtrBlocks, and the New Physics of Columnar Storage

The File Format Renaissance: Parquet, Lance, Vortex, Nimble, BtrBlocks, and the New Physics of Columnar Storage

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21 min read
Lakehouse Table Formats in 2026: Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi, Paimon, and DuckLake, How They Work, Where They Stand, and Where They're Going

Lakehouse Table Formats in 2026: Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi, Paimon, and DuckLake, How They Work, Where They Stand, and Where They're Going

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22 min read
Block vs. Object Storage: A Deep Dive Into the Foundation of Modern Data, and How the Lakehouse Made the Slow Option Fast

Block vs. Object Storage: A Deep Dive Into the Foundation of Modern Data, and How the Lakehouse Made the Slow Option Fast

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22 min read
Federation and the Lakehouse: Two Roads to Unified Data Access, and How to Know Which One to Take

Federation and the Lakehouse: Two Roads to Unified Data Access, and How to Know Which One to Take

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21 min read
Personal Context vs. Shared Context: A Deep Dive Into How Humans and Organizations Should Feed Their AI Agents

Personal Context vs. Shared Context: A Deep Dive Into How Humans and Organizations Should Feed Their AI Agents

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22 min read
The Who, What, and Why of Semantic Layers: The Layer That Decides Whether Your Numbers Can Be Trusted

The Who, What, and Why of Semantic Layers: The Layer That Decides Whether Your Numbers Can Be Trusted

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22 min read
AI Weekly: Fable 5 Returns, ZCode Deuts, MCP Grows Up

AI Weekly: Fable 5 Returns, ZCode Deuts, MCP Grows Up

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23 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 1 to July 8, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: July 1 to July 8, 2026

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24 min read
The State of Apache Parquet in 2026: The Quiet Format Enters Its Loudest Decade

The State of Apache Parquet in 2026: The Quiet Format Enters Its Loudest Decade

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21 min read
The State of Apache Arrow in 2026: Ten Years In, the Invisible Standard Is Everywhere

The State of Apache Arrow in 2026: Ten Years In, the Invisible Standard Is Everywhere

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21 min read
The State of Apache Polaris in July 2026: From Incubating Catalog to the Governance Layer of the Open Lakehouse

The State of Apache Polaris in July 2026: From Incubating Catalog to the Governance Layer of the Open Lakehouse

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22 min read
The State of Streaming to Apache Iceberg in July 2026: Every Path, Its Latency, and What to Do When Seconds Are Not Fast Enough

The State of Streaming to Apache Iceberg in July 2026: Every Path, Its Latency, and What to Do When Seconds Are Not Fast Enough

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22 min read
The State of Apache Iceberg v4 in July 2026: What the Dev List Tells Us About the Format's Next Chapter

The State of Apache Iceberg v4 in July 2026: What the Dev List Tells Us About the Format's Next Chapter

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22 min read
Delete Files vs Deletion Vectors in Apache Iceberg: How V3 Rewrote the Economics of Changing Data

Delete Files vs Deletion Vectors in Apache Iceberg: How V3 Rewrote the Economics of Changing Data

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22 min read
The Variant Type in Apache Iceberg: How Shredding Turns Messy JSON Into Fast Analytics

The Variant Type in Apache Iceberg: How Shredding Turns Messy JSON Into Fast Analytics

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22 min read
The State of Agentic AI Standards in 2026: MCP, A2A, WebMCP, OSI, and the Protocol Stack Taking Shape

The State of Agentic AI Standards in 2026: MCP, A2A, WebMCP, OSI, and the Protocol Stack Taking Shape

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22 min read
Meet Apache Ossie: The Open Semantic Interchange Finds Its Home at the ASF

Meet Apache Ossie: The Open Semantic Interchange Finds Its Home at the ASF

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21 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 24 to July 1, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 24 to July 1, 2026

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25 min read
AI Weekly: Coding Tool Shakeups and Stateless MCP

AI Weekly: Coding Tool Shakeups and Stateless MCP

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24 min read
AI Weekly: Codex Goes Long, MCP Goes Stateless

AI Weekly: Codex Goes Long, MCP Goes Stateless

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22 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 17 to June 24, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 17 to June 24, 2026

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22 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 9 to 16, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 9 to 16, 2026

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24 min read
A Frontier Model Goes Dark: AI Week of June 16, 2026

A Frontier Model Goes Dark: AI Week of June 16, 2026

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23 min read
The Direction of AI in 2026: Performance, Cost, and the End of One Model for Everything

The Direction of AI in 2026: Performance, Cost, and the End of One Model for Everything

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24 min read
The Remote Already Exists: What "Click" Got Right About Agentic AI

AI agents learning user skip patterns

The Remote Already Exists: What "Click" Got Right About Agentic AI

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12 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 4 to June 11, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: June 4 to June 11, 2026

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25 min read
Apple Goes Agentic: AI Week of June 4-11, 2026

Apple Goes Agentic: AI Week of June 4-11, 2026

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13 min read
The Best Data Lakehouse Tools for Apache Iceberg in 2026: A Complete Breakdown

The Best Data Lakehouse Tools for Apache Iceberg in 2026: A Complete Breakdown

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22 min read
Apache Iceberg v4: The Current State, the Proposals, and Why They Matter

Apache Iceberg v4: The Current State, the Proposals, and Why They Matter

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21 min read
The State of Apache Iceberg Catalogs in June 2026

The State of Apache Iceberg Catalogs in June 2026

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26 min read
Why Dremio's Value Is Unique to Apache Iceberg Lakehouses and Agentic Analytics

Why Dremio's Value Is Unique to Apache Iceberg Lakehouses and Agentic Analytics

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22 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: May 28 - June 4, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: May 28 - June 4, 2026

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24 min read
AI Weekly: New PC Chips, Credit Pricing, Stateless MCP

AI Weekly: New PC Chips, Credit Pricing, Stateless MCP

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23 min read
Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: May 21-27, 2026

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: May 21-27, 2026

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14 min read
AI Weekly: Cheaper Coding Models, Custom Chips, and a Stateless MCP

AI Weekly: Cheaper Coding Models, Custom Chips, and a Stateless MCP

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12 min read
Single-Node Data Engineering: DuckDB, DataFusion, Polars, and LakeSail

Single-Node Data Engineering: DuckDB, DataFusion, Polars, and LakeSail

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18 min read
An In-Depth Overview of the Apache Iceberg 1.11.0 Release

An In-Depth Overview of the Apache Iceberg 1.11.0 Release

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14 min read
Semantic Layer Best Practices: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

Semantic Layer Best Practices: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

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5 min read
How a Self-Documenting Semantic Layer Reduces Data Team Toil

How a Self-Documenting Semantic Layer Reduces Data Team Toil

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4 min read
Migrating to Apache Iceberg: Strategies for Every Source System

Migrating to Apache Iceberg: Strategies for Every Source System

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7 min read
Hands-On with Apache Iceberg Using Dremio Cloud

Hands-On with Apache Iceberg Using Dremio Cloud

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7 min read
Approaches to Streaming Data into Apache Iceberg Tables

Approaches to Streaming Data into Apache Iceberg Tables

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6 min read
Using Apache Iceberg with Python and MPP Query Engines

Using Apache Iceberg with Python and MPP Query Engines

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7 min read
Apache Iceberg Metadata Tables: Querying the Internals

Apache Iceberg Metadata Tables: Querying the Internals

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7 min read
Maintaining Apache Iceberg Tables: Compaction, Expiry, and Cleanup

Maintaining Apache Iceberg Tables: Compaction, Expiry, and Cleanup

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6 min read
How Data Lake Table Storage Degrades Over Time

How Data Lake Table Storage Degrades Over Time

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7 min read
When Catalogs Are Embedded in Storage

When Catalogs Are Embedded in Storage

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7 min read
Headless BI: How a Universal Semantic Layer Replaces Tool-Specific Models

Headless BI: How a Universal Semantic Layer Replaces Tool-Specific Models

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3 min read
Data Virtualization and the Semantic Layer: Query Without Copying

Data Virtualization and the Semantic Layer: Query Without Copying

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4 min read
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