I’ll review the posts I wrote in 2019. But first, a challenge inspired by a Wall Street Journal article.
Can I Recreate This in Excel?
It’s from Wall Street Journal post Why a New Decade Feels Momentous written by Eugenia Cheng, illustrated by Tomasz Walenta.
There’s no practical reason to do this but could I do it? I ended up with this in Excel:
I also created an option to display random numbers and switch back to the original numbers.
Excel File
My 2019 Post Review Excel file includes the recreated pic and a list of all my posts.
2019 Post Sample
Some were fun (exploring silly ideas when over-caffeinated), others informative (explaining MMULT function), a few compared different solutions and even a couple of chess posts!
Fun Posts
I was in the backyard cooking a burger, drinking a beer.
I got inspired to build this!
Auditing Jordan Goldmeier’s hyperlink udf rollover invention!
I also created a mini maze game based on Jordan’s technique.
A face moves using only formulas & conditional formatting.
I also found a way to make the face interact with cells.
It’s surprising how much I learned tinkering around with this 🙂
Informative Posts
Reviewing a challenge from contextures, explaining MMULT function.
Sharing alternative solutions.
Should we avoid volatile functions?
This debate is just as important as vlookup vs index/match.
Curiosity Post
Finally a decent answer to the question:
Solution Post
4 solutions to a specific question I had earlier this year.
Which solution do you prefer?
Power Query
Power Query is an amazing tool with so many uses.
See how to create all combinations from three tables.
Explore the life changing tool currently called Get & Transform (previously known as Power Query).
Chess Posts?!
I review Robert Gascon’s chess game viewer.
Chess and Excel…what could be more exciting?
Robert’s post inspired me to build a FEN viewer!
Given a FEN (text description of chess position) I reposition the pieces on the board.
Download my Excel file above to see the list of all my 2019 posts.
WSJ Post
Eugenia’s article was an interesting read. Here’s an excerpt:
Math develops beyond numbers by continuing the process of finding patterns and relationships, and turning them into progressively more abstract concepts. Thinking about numbers leads to equations, which come from relationships between numbers. If we think about relationships between equations, we get into the field of algebraic geometry. Thinking about relationships between whole fields of math leads to my own area of research, category theory.
A similar process gave us the concepts of days and years. Humans discovered patterns in the rate at which the earth rotates and the rate at which it orbits the sun. We then invented a way of organizing time in units that would line up with those cycles in a convenient way. Days and years occur regardless of human observation; the part that we imposed was the arbitrary decision of what would count as the “beginning” of each cycle—midnight and January 1.
About Eugenia Cheng
Eugenia is a mathematician. Learn more about Eugenia on her website, WSJ and Wikipedia.
About Tomasz Walenta
Tomasz is an illustrator. See his work on Intagram, Marlenaagency and on his site.
Thank you
Thank you for reading my blog this year. A special thanks to those who commented, offered alternative solutions and provided ideas for posts. A special thanks to Robert Gascon for his insightful comments, post suggestions and Chess Game Viewer.
About Me
My name is Kevin Lehrbass. I’m a Data Analyst.
I live in Markham Ontario Canada.
As you can see, I’m a big Microsoft Excel fan!
Hi Kevin,
I’m delightedly flattered for your special compliment of my humble contributions. Relative thereto, I hope you could somehow find a way by which those who comment on your post could UPLOAD their alternative solution. Such is a feature of Microsoft Tech Community, which makes such site the perfect place to FREELY obtain solutions from the best of the best!
Cheers,
Robert