HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

beckingz

2,021 karma · joined July 2, 2019

Data Person.

Email: `hn` at `williamangel.net`

submissionscomments
beckingz··on ArcticDB: Why a Hedge Fund Built Its Own Database
There's value in 'backwards compatibility' from a process/skills perspective. I agree that companies usually pay too high a premium on that, but there is value.
beckingz··on Burn After Wearing
If the margins are high enough, then it's optimal to overproduce and then sell to everyone who will buy at a certain price point. If discounts will reduce your ability to sell the same brand in the future at that price point, it can be financially optimal to destroy it instead.

THIS IS INTENTIONAL.

beckingz··on How to Be More Agentic
On average your luck cancels out.
beckingz··on It is time to recognize the major issue of 'boreout' at work
Once again it turns out that good management is important. Give people direction and the tools they need to do their work well and you get a lot more productivity!
beckingz··on Bad scientific code beats code following "best practices" (2014)
Business epistemology is not about knowing Truth, it is about knowing currently useful information and practices, and it is expensive to validate or generate this knowledge.

Hence we get the same thing over and over again until someone convinces people there is a better way, or simply does something different and makes more money.

beckingz··on I'm skeptical of low-code
And PowerApps is slow as balls.

Power Automate is great, but PowerApps is just a mess where every click in the dev interface takes like 5 seconds. On paper it looks so good, but in practice it is so painful to get that on paper performance and functionality.

beckingz··on LLM Visualization
Just lots and lots and lots and lots of vectors.

So Black Magic!

beckingz··on You Win or You Learn
Tumblr has better checkmarks.
beckingz··on Omegle 2009-2023
Good for them!

Knowing when to call it quits is very wise. I mourn the end of a characteristic internet site, but I respect the founder.

beckingz··on Sam Bankman-Fried: guilty on all charges
He'll probably get 45 years and serve 13ish.
beckingz··on Open Data Is Dead
Indeed, the trend in corporations is to be actively hostile to web scrapers as well. Programmatic access is not encouraged so they can sell more ads.
beckingz··on Apple unveils M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max
Probably billions of dollars in R&D and extremely clear executive guidance?
beckingz··on Getting Started in KiCad 7.0
Start by building a prototype proof of concept on a breadboard or prototyping board!
beckingz··on Lumber prices down 11% YoY
Classic Tarkov issue. Real bitcoin ruined the economy for a bit.
beckingz··on FTC sues Amazon for illegally maintaining monopoly power
Privacy. The iOS improvements to privacy with advertiser ID becoming opt-in instead of opt-out has been brutal on targeted advertising.
beckingz··on Prophet: Automatic Forecasting Procedure
It's the classic data nerd trap.

"I'm pretty good at statistics and can predict things using software... I bet I could make money in the stock market"

And then they realize just how hard it is.

beckingz··on Airtable Lays Off 27% of Firm, Shifts Focus to Big Clients
Not to mention the original microsoft access database.
beckingz··on Airtable Lays Off 27% of Firm, Shifts Focus to Big Clients
I was wondering when this was going to happen. Airtable is a cool technology, but seemingly overhyped at their price point.
beckingz··on Apple supports right-to-repair bill
Apple thinks they'll make more money this way. Good for them.

Long term, I hope this increases competition for quality hardware

beckingz··on NYC Lost 100K Homes in Apartment-to-House Conversions
Intercity/ interstate migration is a huge contributor to the pressure in major US cities. If NYC or SF were 1/4th the cost I would move there immediately, but the value would be marginal at this point.
beckingz··on Tell HN: I-9 Debacle Nationwide
I had to go in to the office to have my passport verified after 4 months of employment...

don't really see the point.

beckingz··on Beyond SQL: A relational database for modern applications
Fecal. Like Sequal.
beckingz··on Changing its name tanked X's downloads in App Store and Play Store
Doesn't want to get sued by the people who put up the majority of the money.
beckingz··on We Call on FOSS Contributors to “Exit Zoom”
"The proprietary and for-profit nature of Zoom also has made it subject to multiple cases of algorithmic bias. The once esoteric seeming issues are now a stark reality."

As a huge fan of FOSS, I gotta say this is ridiculous to include here.

beckingz··on Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design
The specs were decreased so that "success" was extremely likely, because failure is career ending.
beckingz··on Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design
Except that requirements cost time to develop, so perfect requirements have significantly more cost than good enough requirements.

Also, requirements tend to evolve as customers grow, so requirements will change over time and become less perfect, causing that investment to depreciate.

beckingz··on A world where people pay for software
If I could pay rent and feed myself regardless, I would design this out of spite.
beckingz··on Alphabet Announces Second Quarter 2023 Results [pdf]
up 7000 employees despite layoffs.
beckingz··on Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To
Yeah but the dude is like a lawnmower
beckingz··on Ask HN: When denormalize is preferred instead normalization?
Create a view in the database that takes the transactions and returns the data in the format that you want.

It will probably have a bunch of JOIN client.id on transaction.client_id etc etc, but it's the easiest way to get started.

When the view stops running fast enough, switch to a scheduled materialized view.

Page 1 of 29Next →