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bhseoon The MySQL MyISAM and InnoDB engines and a grocery checkout

Even after you've spent days tweaking the performance, you are still left with a fundamentally slower engine.

bhseoon Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

I'm not very fond of advertising as a practice in general. I'm not trying to say all those practices are ok, just because a lot of people carry them out.

Is the pilot with the flying banner evil?

Is my low-volume, efficient, targeted, semi-automated marketing evil?

How many of you have cold called people? Are you evil?

Is Google evil, trying to cut into every online (and offline) publisher's profit?

bhseoon [dead]

Probably.

Nevertheless, the library section has a bunch of good stuff on computer virii and related topics: http://vx.netlux.org/lib/

bhseoon Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

"Spam" exists in most communication channels.

Telemarketers in call centers. Automated voice messages. Bulk SMS messages. Bluetooth spam. Junk mail. Email spam. Usenet spam. IRC spam. Web spam. Word-of-mouth spam. Celebrity “endorsements”. Street peddlers. Classifieds spam. Flyer spam. Sky writing, flying banners etc. Huge billboards with blinking fucking lights.

I could go on for a while.

Are all of those people evil opportunistic bastard cockroaches?

bhseoon Open Subtitles

I've seen more than a couple subtitle sites disappear, mostly because of copyright issues.

bhseoon Open Subtitles

Welcome to the rest of the world.

English is not my mother tongue, however I've been watching foreign films using English subtitles for quite a while. English subtitles likely provide the most utility, at least in internet land.

I also sometimes use English subtitles on English-speaking films. It used to be a must when I was still learning English, but it's still useful for noisy films or films with British/Irish/Scottish people (living in the UK for a considerable period of time didn't help at all).

Anyway, opensubtitles.org was horrible last time I checked. Some better options:

http://addic7ed.com/

http://subscene.com/

http://www.podnapisi.net/

http://forom.com/

bhseoon Posterous Catches Friendfeed

Perhaps you haven't watched the less internet-experienced people surf the web.

People do search for sites that they have already visited.

bhseoon Learning to juggle grows brain networks for good

I became very curious about juggling when I was younger, so one afternoon I started learning how to juggle 3 balls, using some oranges and an animated .gif.

My fascination with juggling only lasted for about a year, during which I learned how to juggle 3 and 4 balls (still can't do 5), flowersticks/devilsticks, diabolos and poi. I remember that learning each one got successively easier.

That being said, I'm not a particularly good juggler. Learning just the basics of each juggling prop and maybe a couple of tricks, was enough to satisfy my curiosity.

I like keeping a set of soft juggling balls around. You can squish them, play with them and throw them at people. Getting up from my chair and juggling for a few minutes really helps reduce the strain on my eyes, back, wrists and mind. I also do some of my best thinking during those minutes.

I'd recommend juggling to any hackers that spent a lot of time in front of a monitor.

bhseoon Ask HN: Your biggest non-technical hack/discovery

Nice combination of bonus abuse and sportsbetting arbitrage. You can still make money in similar ways, although online gambling operators have tightened up the last few years.

bhseoon Ask HN: I've tried lots of things but haven't finished any.

> Why do so many people talk about youth as some sort of idyllic time in one's life?

Because youth is wasted on the young.

It's a good thing that you've tried all that, even those left unfinished. The next step is to apply the Pareto principle, and stop doing a bunch of things. Do the easiest thing with the most benefit. Do what makes you happy. Do more things outside the academic and business areas. Dabbling isn't a bad thing. Here are some suggestions I find worthwhile, in no particular order:

1. Sex.

2. Meet people, help people, make friends, make allies.

3. Travel.

4. Improve your body. A healthy mind needs a healthy body.

5. Teach yourself how to cook.

6. Read books. (don't be afraid of not finishing them)

7. Learn more about the rules that govern you. Quite boring but so very useful.

8. Become a minimalist. Sell your things and stop buying things you don't need. Simplifying is good.

9. Study and practice meditation.

10. Learn how to grow, collect or hunt food.

11. Explore altered states. Some do it with wine, some do it with poetry. Exercise, alcohol, herbs, plants, fungi, pharmaceuticals, music or plenty of other activities, they can all do the trick.

12. Conquer fears.

13. Swim in the ocean.

14. Lie on the beach.

15. Don't worry be happy.

bhseoon Ask HN: Review our app, Boomtango

Great idea for a plugin.

One feature I'd really like to see, is the ability to selectively delete history entries, both in Firefox's regular history database and Boomtango's enhanced database.

bhseoon Google Flu Trends - US Flu Activity High

The other 3 country graphs show business as usual. I'd say it's mostly because everyone in the US is freaking out.

bhseoon Big list of database software

They will be added along with object databases.

bhseoon Big list of database software

Yes there are plenty of omissions. As for free, there are plenty of commercial products on the list already.

bhseoon Why no one will ever read your thesis

No one will read your post after you write a new blog post and the link to your blog's root has nothing to do with the HN title.

bhseoon MongoDB 0.9.9 Released

I second that.

bhseoon Ask HN: How do you record your thoughts?

I like Wikidpad. http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/

bhseoon How to render the Segway Human Transporter obsolete

What kind of "third wheels" have you used when creating software?

bhseoon Tell HN: How to ban url shorteners from linking to your site

http://www.blackhat-seo.com/2009/short-url-services/

A bigger list.

bhseoon Ask HN: What sites, e.g. experts-exchange.com, would you remove from Google?

Here is an example from my list, I call this the "site info" category.

http://*.aboutus.org/* http://www.quantcast.com/* http://www.websiteoutlook.com/* http://www.xomreviews.com/* http://www.statbrain.com/* http://www.alexa.com/data/* http://searchanalytics.compete.com/* http://builtwith.com/?* http://*.compete.com/* http://www.who.is/*

bhseoon Ask HN: What sites, e.g. experts-exchange.com, would you remove from Google?

I have been compiling a list of useless sites to share with the world. You will need CustomizeGoogle for Firefox or your own userscript in the browser of your choice. Come to think of it, I might even create some userscripts/plugins for other browsers to go with my useless website list.

If you'd like to contribute your own lists or userscripts, let me know.

bhseoon Ask HN: How many links to Chrome OS comments are enough?

Agreed, however I was expecting someone to point me to a feed reader that supports negative keyword filters.

bhseoon Ask HN: How many links to Chrome OS comments are enough?

I thought it would be added by the system.

bhseoon Why web log analyzers are better than JavaScript based analytics

7) log files record all traffic, even if javascript is disabled

You can have a tracking pixel in noscript tags as backup.