Hacker News Reader

barkingon MVCC Unmasked (2011) [pdf]

Didn't mean to trod on anyone's toes. I think interbase (from which firebird forked) was the first successful/important database system to use MVCC. I just mentioned MGA because that was how I first and commonly have heard MVCC described. I guess David Reed was the first to come up with the idea even if he never implemented it. But I doubt that Postgres ignored what Interbase had demonstrated as being feasible and successful in practice.

barkingon MVCC Unmasked (2011) [pdf]

Postgres like most other databases pretty much copied MVCC from Interbase/Firebird. I found the following explanations for Transactions in Firebird very helpful in terms of understanding MVCC aka MGA (multi-generational architecture)

https://ib-aid.com/en/transactions-in-firebird-acid-isolatio...

https://www.slideshare.net/ibsurgeon/3-how-transactionswork

barkingon 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

Sometimes it's no harm to have eyes from outside a discipline have a look at things.

barkingon The thoughts running through our heads are more varied than we might suppose

That's a pretty judgemental comment all the same.

barkingon Useless Windows 10 Features

Fair point, there probably was an element of trying to prolong machines' lives longer than usaul going on, all right.

barkingon The thoughts running through our heads are more varied than we might suppose

Yes that's the one, well done for finding it!

barkingon The thoughts running through our heads are more varied than we might suppose

I watched a youtube video where a passerby was being vox-popped for tv about football. He says something to the interviewer and you can see a lightbulb go on in his head and he then looks at the camera and says "that's actually a good point". The interview went viral because it was such a funny moment.

barkingon Useless Windows 10 Features

For every previous version of windows you typically bought a new licence only when you purchased a new PC. The fact that MS allowed upgrades to Widows 10 on old machines should not have affected their revenue to any great extent, those machines were never going to have a paid upgrade anyway.

barkingon Datacenter Locations Driven by 19th Century Politics

I feel like all these discussions should make some mention of how the US government felt this was their land to give

barkingon Tasty Seaweed Reduces Cows’ Methane Emissions by 99%

I'm disappointed too! I was going to ask if this might work for us humans.

barkingon Netflix’s biggest bingers get hit with higher internet costs

It's on a forty something inch tv we generally watch netflix and maybe because we don't watch terrestrial tv at all any more, we don't notice the lower quality. As long as I don't have buffering I'm happy. Anyway we live in a rural area and get our internet by wireless so beggars can't be choosers!

barkingon Netflix’s biggest bingers get hit with higher internet costs

I have Netflix playback settings set at Low quality, which is <= 300 MB per hour which is 10% of High or 5% of ultra HD.

Seems fine to me.

barkingon Kevinism

You're better off sticking with the long established names of your culture. My parents picked really boring names (as I thought) for our family. We were named after our grandparents. We used to regularly chastise them for this when we were young. Now I'm glad of it. I could have been called Calvyn.

barkingon The land that no country wants (2016)

It's OK to claim an adjacent territory, bring in settlers, oppress the natives, etc, just not OK to cross water to do so. is that your position? Hardly?

barkingon The land that no country wants (2016)

The company has actually redeemed its reputation by continuosly releasing updates, afaik. Not fair to malign them like that.

barkingon The land that no country wants (2016)

Are Chinese people white 'cos if so then maybe? Xinjiang, Tibet, South China Sea.

barkingon Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

I can understand that, I fear they are fighting a losing battle though.

I listened to a commentator over the weekend talking about this whole business. He said that China have very many economic levers they can apply to HK to get their way and that military force is still a very distant option. The first thing that will happen is that Carrie Lam will be pushed aside and replaced with someone more hardline. They won't do it now because it would look like a victory for the protesters.

barkingon Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

I thought they should have stopped the protests when the administration suspended the extradition bill. But then again as it is, people are disappearing from HK and reappearing in Chinese jails, so maybe they are right to push on. It's hard to see them winning though.

barkingon Wine on Windows 10

So, like any good geek solution, it doesn't actually solve the user's original problem at all.

Brilliant!

barkingon Recursive language and modern imagination acquired 70k years ago: hypothesis

Hadn't people spread out from Africa, longer ago than that?

barkingon Focus on the high-expectation customer

The Blog has its own domain but is actually part of Medium.com? I don't think I've seen this before.

barkingon Focus on the high-expectation customer

You could reject some very good free apps then. But I kinda agree with you. It's partly the phenomenon of attaching little value to something one gets for cheap/free. And conversely, people can bend over backwards to be impressed by something they pay a lot of money for.

barkingon Who kicked them out? On St Patrick [audio]

The written article is mostly behind a paywall but there is an audio link that plays entire article (20 mins +).

barkingon Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain

Or if it's an "Art Installation"

barkingon Senior Citizens Struggle with Suicide as Loneliness and Isolation Set In

I tend to agree with you and I'm not a churchgoer. Roy Hattersley an atheist former English politician wrote about the relief of Hurricane Katrina

The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.

Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/12/religion.uk

barkingon Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

Good point, lol. Unfortunately for me I need convert to stones to get a feel for weight

barkingon India tiger census shows rapid population growth

This is a great achievement for such a densely populated countries. I'd thought Tigers in the wild were on a terminal decline.

barkingon Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

Why would you give a weight in a combination of imperial AND metric units?!

barkingon Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

Well done, 75 lbs (or 5 stone, 5 pounds in real money) is incredible.

barkingon Teenage Engineering has won over kids and professionals with a synthesizer

Yes nothing I do recently is enabling me to see NY Times content and a lot of NYT stories make the front page.