https://blog.jbledger.com/categories/tools/Recent content in Tools on The Public LedgerHugoen-usSat, 12 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/the-same-data-three-tools-power-bi-dbt-and-duckdb/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/the-same-data-three-tools-power-bi-dbt-and-duckdb/One frozen snapshot of federal budget data through three modern stacks: a diffable Power BI model in TMDL, a dbt + DuckDB warehouse with 82 tests — and the five things the tests caught in real data.https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/a-copilot-that-says-no/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 15:00:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/a-copilot-that-says-no/A natural-language-to-SQL copilot with no LLM in it: a deterministic router, 40 pre-approved SELECTs, results frozen at build time, and a refusal taxonomy — out-of-scope, untracked-agency, injection, and more, each with a named reason.https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/six-macros-for-the-monthly-close/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:30:00 +0000https://blog.jbledger.com/posts/six-macros-for-the-monthly-close/A budget workbench in Excel: four template workbooks, six VBA macros for reconciliation, variance, and the close checklist — plus Python twins of the two computational macros so every number reproduces headlessly.