lowkeyokay

I really think we should have something like Stack Overflow for academic papers. The comments system works so well. Also, the so called impact factor of journals, which in many cases are directly or indirectly linked with academics and universities financial outcome, could be replaced by the points system from SO.

Of course I'm not proposing using SO directly for academic research but something inspired by it.

And that has now happened to me with HN... On the plus side; the content (not least the comments) is much more valuable

And this would be the time to revisit John Oliver’s Snowden interview [1]. Specifically at 25:53. Since the topic is surveillance it may be inappropriate to link YouTube. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to, the gist is people only care when their dickpics gets leaked...

[1] https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M

I still like sql. It’s just so intuitive:

select this from that where something is true

That’s the core of everything you do.

I could write all day about what a mess it can become, and how awful debugging is. But I still enjoy it

Economist here. I completely agree

I thought this was just a matter of scope. a declared outside of the function is not the same as the one declared as a parameter.

We're currently trying out QueryStorm [1]. It supports SQL through built in SQLite, but you can connect to any DB and get the full SQL feature set of your DB. It's also possible to manipulate data, and automate stuff using C#. So far it's been quite good. Everyone can view spreadsheets created using QueryStorm, but the data will just be plain data unless they have QueryStorm installed. That's the only drawback.

I really thought PowerPivot could be this excellent data tool, but the DAX formula language is just such a pain. I really dislike it. Using SQL og C# is just much more intuitive - especially SQL.

1: https://querystorm.com

As for cross-platform, VS Code has a plugin for SQL Server. It doesn't provide all the graphical management tools that SSMS does but all the stored procedures are available, naturally.

If you're on a Mac, i suggest [1] Hankinsoft's SQL Studio. I've been using it daily for a couple of years. It's very light weight and supports most db's. It has some neat functions too; like marking rows and columns, right click and get insert statements. It's not free, but for me, it has been well worth the price.

If you want something for quick data analysis, I would suggest looking into queryStorm [2]. It was on HN's front page [3] last week, but for it's C# capabilities. It started as as SQL query tool for excel. I have yet to try it but it seems very useful and fast. Although I don't think it has any column store caching.

[1] http://www.hankinsoft.com

[2] https://querystorm.com

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15670030

Thanks! Will do.

It looks quite amazing. Is there any way to provide som sort of log in form, if data is provided by a protected source?

Of course, the user could just enter credentials in cells, but if I want something more secure. Is there any way to integrate an OAuth 2 log in form or similar?

For the love of God please upvote the this (the OP) so that it will be in the top 9 posts. Then we can all watch a feedback loop in all its pixel glory!

edited to clarify that I'm not in any way asking anyone to update my comment - just the original post

Nice story but, I couldn't concentrate cause inside my head was this crazy person yelling: 'WHEN IS HE GONNA PEE!'

The number of people who like the taste of vanilla (I suppose) doesn't correlate with hours of sunlight in some area. Both correlate with amount of ice cream sold.

Certaintly will cause a few laughs in Denmark... (hint: Google translate)

SO search never seem to find the answer I'm looking for, but once I start writing a question it almost always ends up finding a similar (answered) question. So their search works but perhaps it needs lots of input

A lot of points in this article resonated well with me. Especially this:

> Companies that focus too much on technology without putting it in context of a customer problem will be caught between a rock and a hard place — or as I like to say, “between open source and a cloud place.”

I'm in the second year of a SaaS selling to entreprises. We are doing ok but all of our customers are nearly identical (it's in the public sector). We would love to have lots of different types of customers but we seem to be stuck. Our customers are probably buying our knowledge as much as our product.

I would say unless your tech is groundbreaking and not easy to copy, domain knowledge will likely be your differentiator. But that's harder to scale.

To my experience, quitting Facebook has been quite easy. I quit four years ago. Sure, it's an extra burden on friends and acquaintances when they want to invite my to partys and such. They have to email or text me. (yeah, not on WhatsApp either). I might not hear right away when an old friend has a baby but for closer friends and family, I don't miss out on anything.

Note: I actually quit because I thought it would mean less procrastination, but then I discovered HN...

I kinda agree that it's very difficult to start a tech and not being a techie, but you can compensate by having deep domain knowledge. Especially in b2b.

That said, we now have a dev on our team and we can do a lot more. It does pose the danger of feature creep. We try to be very aware of that.

I think one of the biggest problems with video calls is the lack of eye contact. I've seen solutions [0] that try to solve it with software but it's not good enough and it's not real eye contact.

A hardware (science fiction) solution could be to have lots of cameras behind the screen. The transmitted image would be from the camera your eyes are actually looking into.

[0] http://mashable.com/2013/08/27/video-call-eye-contact-app/#4...

Fair enough. My point though is that there is the option to by a better washer but most people - including myself - choose the cheaper option.

I don't buy too much into the 'build to fail' argument. Rather, I think it's just a matter of consumers choosing features and price over longevity. You can't really prove longevity here and now. Of course you can build up a reputation but it takes time and might not pay off.

Anecdote 1: Miele has a very good reputation. They also cost three times as much as the volume sellers and have a much lower market share. Sorry, no evidence of that claim. The closest is an article [1] claiming they produce 850.000 units per year.

Anecdote 2: I just replaced a cheap ($200) oven from Ikea (made by Whirlpool). Most likely the heater had broken. Inspection, parts and repair would probably cost the same as a new one. It had lasted 5 years, just past the warranty. We bought a new one, same model. It's simply too cheap to repair.

My conclusion: Lousy quality is our own fault - we do have options.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...

Why do you think it is rediculous?

I actually had the same thaught. Learning to read or even basic writing doesn't compare to the skill and effort it takes to write something interesting, let alone a novel. You just know enough to consume what others have written. Basically the same as learning to use an iPad.

Reading the above quote from Micheal Chrichton, I immediately thought about The Economist and how they are usually well informed. I remember a short article on some legal case in rap music. I used to be very into rap, and while I didn't learn a lot from the article it did confirm that the writers take it very seriously whatever topic they are reporting on.

I stopped reading TE because I was put off by their too steadfast belief in monetarism as the be it end all. To their credit, they are pretty upfront about that though.

Not being a coder myself, I have hired freelancers from Toptal on two projects. The entire experience was pretty good. The contact at Toptal took time find the the match.

On the first project we got a pretty good front-end-dev. I will say that I've learned a lot about project management in the process. On the second project we got a very skilled front-end-dev. We're still working with him daily.

It's not exactly cheap. At $70/hour I think it's fair. Don't know how the devs feel about Toptal or how much they charge but, from my point of view it's not all bad in the freelance market.