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</style></head><body><!--[if mso | IE]><table width="600" bgcolor="#f1f1f1" align="center"><tr><td><![endif]--><div id="obsession-container"><table id="obsession-header" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/giphy-51.gif?w=480)"><tr><td id="obsession-header-content"><img src="https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/themes/vip/qz-api/lib/plugins/qz-obsession-email/images/logo.png" alt="Quartz Obsession"/><h1 id="obsession-header-title">Spreadsheets</h1><span id="obsession-header-date">October 17, 2017</span></td></tr></table><!--[if mso | IE]><table class="outlook-card"><tr><td><div class="obsession-card-content"><h2 class="obsession-card-title">A winning formula<hr /></h2><p class="first"><span style="font-weight:400;">Freshen up your formulas and pamper those pivot tablesâInternational Spreadsheet Day is Oct. 17. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">On this day in 1979, a computer program called VisiCalc first shipped for the Apple II, marking the birth of the electronic spreadsheet. A few years later, Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC had its moment, and then Microsoft Excel became the dominant spreadsheet program, which it remains today.</span></p>
<p class="last"><span style="font-weight:400;">The spreadsheet was the original killer appâthe thing that convinced many people to buy a computer for the first time. Conceived as a simple scratchpad, the now-ubiquitous tool is used to compile everything from grocery lists to multinational company accounts. Its incredible flexibility makes it both powerful and dangerous, loved and loathed in equal measure. </span></p>
</div></td></tr></table><table class="outlook-cta"><tr><td><a href="http://email-tracking.qz.com/wf/click?upn=pu9n0ps8hGF44zTMfA2zQU0GkxgAXkprbeX5p14xE2g7bUEi-2FkklDjRfZgCyNN2wF5hjJbk2YEjrh0c-2FKt1D8g-3D-3D_mvz2iKCHyENW-2B9fXEOaXviTIXVtXmq0biYHLH1lypt1tFbENg8of9Z7mfMhiXpapG9BkF0oJdZlEvBJSCZ5sKa1zKCayqdhXK3ICisGF8eIYstxR6yMnmaPnR-2Bbtnw8SSeg7IEcGJIzUpCwINH8Y-2BvEpvR14OL6kPFd5odMqgcmzBocraqabaCAMGHKx2KVKiQPXGP5fDldmFCzsfXADX0EDnOVfe3AoCb4Kn0hhPkvvYateQW4X5rwVEnOF2WkiZdiW8FNTmUo52vJLSTe26RTi9yROI9rr7SuC-2BpYcIswrq2yZY8u5QSUrWxbkJ9n0o7q-2F1P-2BQG9hclP-2BYZNdyxxlUIqVPBr9CpeVL5YwzR91VpMaU0pATxPe9O7Hh3zFPbop8gkJ8-2BE0YDfAL8n-2BUA5k1ar2pd9Ic6jELu7-2FacXnuzwWzQBzP3K1bbxk4figyfNaUZ30M1zC1yQOyCZJJ0XZufxNAs4F2BqB7KA2VRsI-3D">Read the full email</a></td></tr></table><table class="outlook-card"><tr><td><h3>Why is my email truncated?</h3><p class="warning">The interactive elements of this email don't work with all email software. To get the full experience of the Quartz Obsession in your inbox, we recommend using Gmail or Apple Mail.</p></td></tr></table><![endif]--><!--[if mso | IE]><div class="hidden"><![endif]--><div class="first obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><h2 class="obsession-card-title">A winning formula<hr /></h2><p class="first"><span style="font-weight:400;">Freshen up your formulas and pamper those pivot tablesâInternational Spreadsheet Day is Oct. 17. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">On this day in 1979, a computer program called VisiCalc first shipped for the Apple II, marking the birth of the electronic spreadsheet. A few years later, Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC had its moment, and then Microsoft Excel became the dominant spreadsheet program, which it remains today.</span></p>
<p class="last"><span style="font-weight:400;">The spreadsheet was the original killer appâthe thing that convinced many people to buy a computer for the first time. Conceived as a simple scratchpad, the now-ubiquitous tool is used to compile everything from grocery lists to multinational company accounts. Its incredible flexibility makes it both powerful and dangerous, loved and loathed in equal measure. </span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><figure class="obsession-hero"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/visicalc-refcard.gif);"></div></figure><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">origin story</div><h2 class="obsession-card-title">Magic powers<hr /></h2><p class="first"><span style="font-weight:400;">Dan Bricklin dreamt up the idea for VisiCalc in 1978, while a student at Harvard Business School. He used an early prototype to ace an assignment about financial projections for a corporate marketing campaign, wowing his class with breadth, depth, and detail that was unusual in the era of hand-held calculators.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Early adopters seemed to possess âmagic powers,â </span><a href="https://qz.com/578661/dan-bricklin-invented-the-spreadsheet-but-dont-hold-that-against-him/"><span style="font-weight:400;">Bricklin told Quartz</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;">. The spreadsheet quickly became the lingua franca of finance.</span></p>
<p class="last"><span style="font-weight:400;">Software patents were rare in the 1970s, so VisiCalc relied on trademark and copyright protections to ward off rivals. It didnât workâcopycat programs soon surpassed the original in popularity. </span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">fun fact</div><h2><span style="font-weight:400;">Other names the founders of VisiCalcâshort for âvisible calculatorââconsidered: Electroledger, Calculedger, Calcupaper, and Compulator.</span></h2>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card video"><figure class="obsession-hero"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU96Pd_npn4"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/screen-shot-2017-10-16-at-12-27-27-pm1.png);"><div class="play-button"></div></div></a></figure><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">watch this!</div><p class="first last"><span style="font-weight:400;"><a href="https://qz.com/1103867/visicalc-and-apple-aapl-steve-jobs-said-that-the-spreadsheet-was-key-to-apples-early-success/">Steve Jobs gives the first spreadsheet program credit</a> for the success of the Apple II, his companyâs first mainstream machine.</span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">download this!</div><p class="first last"><span style="font-weight:400;">The version of VisiCalc released for the IBM PC in 1981 will still run on modern Windows machines. It weighs in at a scant 27.5 kilobytes and can be </span><a href="http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm"><span style="font-weight:400;">downloaded here</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;">.</span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">hard cell</div><h2 class="obsession-card-title">When the sheet hits the fan<hr /></h2><p class="first last"><span style="font-weight:400;">Spreadsheets are easy to make, and even easier to make badly. In one study, researchers at Dartmouth got access to live spreadsheets from a group of companies. Depressingly, they found that only a third were error-free: Many were minor, but some skewed numbers by as much as $100 million. The list of costly Excel-based snafus is </span><a href="http://www.eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm"><span style="font-weight:400;">long and cringe-worthy</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;">. Here are few doozies:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">The opaque, error-prone system of risk reporting via spreadsheets at JPMorgan allowed a trader known as the âLondon whaleâ to rack up </span><a href="https://robertkugel.ventanaresearch.com/robert-kugel/2013/01/29/the-spreadsheet-and-the-whale"><span style="font-weight:400;">more than $6 billion in losses.</span></a></li>
<li style="font-weight:400;"><span style="font-weight:400;">A spreadsheet formula error led economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff to </span><a href="https://qz.com/75119/how-to-avoid-making-an-excel-mistake-like-rogoff-and-reinhart/"><span style="font-weight:400;">overstate the effects of government debt</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;"> in an influential paper used by many to justify austerity policies.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight:400;">A single mistaken cell entry led organizers of Londonâs 2012 Olympics to overbook the synchronized swimming events <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/8992490/London-2012-Olympics-lucky-few-to-get-100m-final-tickets-after-synchronised-swimming-was-overbooked-by-10000.html">by 10,000 tickets.</a></li>
<li>Years of genomics research is <a href="https://qz.com/768334/years-of-genomics-research-is-riddled-with-errors-thanks-to-a-bunch-of-botched-excel-spreadsheets/">riddled with errors</a> because Excel and other popular spreadsheet applications converted some gene symbols to dates and numbersâlike turning the gene MARCH1 into â03/01/2016.â</li>
</ul>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card quiz"><figure class="obsession-hero"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/tips1-2.gif);"><table><tr><td><div class="obsession-card-kicker">pop quiz</div><h2 class="obsession-hero-title">Which of these is not a formula function in Microsoft Excel?</h2></td></tr></table></div></figure><input type="radio" name="quiz-6" id="quiz-6-answer-radio-correct" class="obsession-quiz-radio-correct"><input type="radio" name="quiz-6" id="quiz-6-answer-radio-1" class="obsession-quiz-radio-wrong"><input type="radio" name="quiz-6" id="quiz-6-answer-radio-2" class="obsession-quiz-radio-wrong"><input type="radio" name="quiz-6" id="quiz-6-answer-radio-3" class="obsession-quiz-radio-wrong"><label for="quiz-6-answer-radio-1" id="qz-6-answer-label-1" class="obsession-quiz-answer wrong">=CONCATENATE</label><label for="quiz-6-answer-radio-2" id="qz-6-answer-label-2" class="obsession-quiz-answer wrong">=AGGREGATE</label><label for="quiz-6-answer-radio-3" id="qz-6-answer-label-3" class="obsession-quiz-answer wrong">=IMCONJUGATE</label><label for="quiz-6-answer-radio-correct" class="obsession-quiz-answer correct">=APPROXIMATE</label><div class="obsession-quiz-message-correct"><strong>Correct.</strong> </div><div class="obsession-quiz-message-wrong"><strong>Incorrect.</strong> </div><div class="obsession-quiz-fallback">If your inbox doesnât support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email.</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">quotable</div><h2><span style="font-weight:400;">âTake her back to the crib and spreadsheets / </span><span style="font-weight:400;">âCuz I Microsoft Excel in the bedsheetsâ</span></h2>
<p class="first last"><span style="font-weight:400;">âlyrics from â<a href="https://genius.com/Rtillery-outside-prod-by-rtillery-lyrics">Outside</a>â by Rtillery<br /></span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><figure class="obsession-hero"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/screen-shot-2017-10-16-at-12-12-37-pm.png);"></div></figure><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">Art history</div><h2 class="obsession-card-title">Art meets science<hr /></h2><p class="first"><span style="font-weight:400;">Spreadsheets arenât just for creative accounting. Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi uses the program to draw elaborate landscapes. He </span><a href="http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~cbl97790/kakikataHSK07.htm"><span style="font-weight:400;">explains his technique here</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;">, if you read Japanese and have a lot of spare time on your hands.</span></p>
<p class="last"><span style="font-weight:400;">Another work of spreadsheet art worth checking out is</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax2UBISNv2A"> <span style="font-weight:400;">this stop-motion animation</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;"> of a scene from Super Mario Bros, made from 1,000 screenshots and, as the anonymous uploader puts it, âsome hours of work.â</span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><h2 class="obsession-card-title">Back to the future<hr /></h2><p class="first"><span style="font-weight:400;">In 1863, Jules Verne wrote </span><i><span style="font-weight:400;">Paris in the Twentieth Century</span></i><span style="font-weight:400;">, a prescient work of speculative fiction. The dystopian capital he imagined 100 years in the future was in thrall to greedy financiers, all-powerful corporations, and pervasive automation (âmachines advantageously replacing human handsâ).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Office workers were slaves to calculating machines that âlooked rather like huge pianos.â The âGreat Ledger,â as he described it, was a sort of steampunk proto-spreadsheet:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p class="last"><span style="font-weight:400;">ââŚby operating a sort of keyboard, sums were instantaneously produced, remainders, products, quotients, rules of proportion, calculations of amortization and of interest compounded for infinite periods and at all possible rates. There were high notes which afforded up to one hundred fifty percent!â</span></p>
</blockquote>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><figure class="obsession-hero"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/screen-shot-2017-10-17-at-2-08-40-pm.png);"></div></figure><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">person of interest</div><h2 class="obsession-card-title">Excel-ent<hr /></h2><p class="first">Every year, students from around the world compete in the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship. (Yep.) In August, 17-year-old John Dumoulin took home the top prize for Excel mastery, which included <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/16/16152310/microsoft-office-specialist-mos-world-championship-2017]">$7,000 and an Xbox.</a></p>
<p class="last">At a hotel in Anaheim, contestants were given a set of challengesâtricky equations, obscure formulas, and the likeâto complete in 90 minutes, judged by accuracy and speed. Dumoulin says his spreadsheet skills were honed by tracking baseball stats in his spare time. Heâs a big fan of conditional formatting, which <a href="https://lifehacker.com/microsoft-offices-teen-champions-share-their-best-trick-1796680111">âcan make your data look very enhanced and eye-catching.â</a></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><figure class="obsession-hero"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/11.jpg?quality=80&strip=all);"></div></figure><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">DIY</div><h2 class="obsession-card-title">Level up<hr /></h2><p class="first"><span style="font-weight:400;">Looking to improve your spreadsheet skills? The Corporate Finance Institute highlights</span><a href="https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/excel/study/advanced-excel-formulas-must-know/"> <span style="font-weight:400;">10 advanced Excel formulas</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;"> âevery world class financial analyst must know.â For other tips, MrExcelâs many</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/bjele123/about"> <span style="font-weight:400;">YouTube videos</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;"> have been watched more than 8 million times. (Or at least look like you’ve got the skills with <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Paladone-I-Love-Spreadsheets-Mug/dp/B001I3UBKC">this enthusiastic mug.</a>)</span></p>
<p class="last"><span style="font-weight:400;">If after all that your data analysis needs </span><i><span style="font-weight:400;">still</span></i><span style="font-weight:400;"> arenât satisfied, Quartzâs Dan Kopf ran down</span><a href="https://qz.com/1063071/the-great-r-versus-python-for-data-science-debate/"> <span style="font-weight:400;">the pros and cons</span></a><span style="font-weight:400;"> of programming languages you can learnâSAS, Stata, R, Python, and the likeâto take things to the next level.</span></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card text"><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">take me down this đ° hole!</div><h2>âA virtual cult of the spreadsheet has formed, complete with gurus and initiates, detailed lore, arcane rituals â and an unshakable belief that the way the world works can be embodied in rows and columns of numbers and formulas.â</h2>
<p class="first last">â <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/10/a-spreadsheet-way-of-knowledge/">Steven Levy, âA Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge,â Harperâs, 1984</a></p>
</div></div><div class="obsession-card poll"><figure class="obsession-hero"><div class="obsession-hero-image" style="background-image: url(https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/screen-shot-2017-10-16-at-2-58-44-pm.png);"><table><tr><td><div class="obsession-card-kicker">talk to us</div><h2 class="obsession-hero-title">What do you think of spreadsheets?</h2></td></tr></table></div></figure><input type="checkbox" id="poll-13-vote-control" checked="checked"/><div class="vote-btn"><a clicktracking="on" class="obsession-card-cta" href="https://polldaddy.com/poll/9853149/">Click here to vote</a></div><div class="vote-options"><input type="radio" name="poll-9853149" id="poll-9853149-radio-45105400"/><input type="radio" name="poll-9853149" id="poll-9853149-radio-45105401"/><input type="radio" name="poll-9853149" id="poll-9853149-radio-45105402"/><input type="radio" name="poll-9853149" id="poll-9853149-radio-45105403"/><label for="poll-9853149-radio-45105400" id="poll-9853149-answer-45105400" class="obsession-poll-answer first">Love them!</label><label for="poll-9853149-radio-45105401" id="poll-9853149-answer-45105401" class="obsession-poll-answer">Hate them!</label><label for="poll-9853149-radio-45105402" id="poll-9853149-answer-45105402" class="obsession-poll-answer">Love to hate them!</label><label for="poll-9853149-radio-45105403" id="poll-9853149-answer-45105403" class="obsession-poll-answer last">A life without pivot tables is not worth living.</label></div></div><div class="obsession-card auto"><div class="obsession-card-content"><div class="obsession-card-kicker">the fine print</div><p class="first">In yesterdayâs poll about the <a href="https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1103436/">kilonova</a>, 84% of you said you were âhumbled by the awesomeness of the universe.â đ </p>
<p>Todayâs email was reported and written by <a href="https://twitter.com/jkaraian">Jason Karaian</a>.</p>
<p class="last"><em>Images: Certiport (Dumoulin)</em></p>
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