jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
Restructuring a giant, ancient codebase to make LibreOffice work well everywhere
https://fosdem.org/2018/interviews/michael-meeks/
Scientists make huge dataset of nearby stars available to public
http://news.mit.edu/2017/dataset-nearby-stars-available-public-exoplanets-0213
Things I wish I knew earlier about Machine Learning
https://peadarcoyle.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/three-things-i-wish-i-knew-earlier-about-machine-learning/
Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-to-open-first-world-front-in-firefox-os-war/
Xiaomi camera playing on Google home hub sends stills from other people's homes
https://www.reddit.com/r/googlehome/comments/eine1m/when_i_load_the_xiaomi_camera_in_my_google_home/
Pure Bash Bible
https://github.com/dylanaraps/pure-bash-bible
Listerine Mouthwash Royalties
https://auctions.royaltyexchange.com/orderbook/asset-detail/4580
Tower Bridge bot killed by Twitter, replaced with marketing
http://infovore.org/archives/2011/06/12/wheres-towerbridge/
Developer responds to allegations of FBI backdoor in OpenBSD IPSec
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=129244045916861&w=2
Google helps Scientology billionaire Bob Duggan hide a dark family secret (2015)
https://tonyortega.org/2015/06/13/google-helps-scientology-billionaire-bob-duggan-hide-a-dark-family-secret/
Google Fiber: 151Mbps down / 92Mbps up
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/google-fiber-shows-its-potential-with-151mbps-download-speeds-20110823/
NASA: Tonga blast was 10 megatons, more powerful than a nuclear bomb
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073800454/nasa-scientists-estimate-tonga-blast-at-10-megatons
Why don't websites immediately display their text these days?
http://superuser.com/q/547743/73619
How Internet Archive Is Ensuring Permanent Access to Open Access Journals
https://blog.archive.org/2020/09/15/how-the-internet-archive-is-ensuring-permanent-access-to-open-access-journal-articles/
Guide to Equity Compensation
https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation
Ohio Sues 5 Major Drug Companies For 'Fueling Opioid Epidemic'
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/31/530929307/ohio-sues-5-major-drug-companies-for-fueling-opioid-epidemic
Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%
http://monica-at-mozilla.blogspot.com/2015/05/tracking-protection-for-firefox-at-web.html
Forgotten Employee (2002)
https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/
IBM scientists demonstrate 10x faster large-scale machine learning using GPUs
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2017/12/10x-faster-using-gpu/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=AI&utm_content=nips2017
ClassicKit – A collection of UI components for iOS influenced by Windows 95
https://github.com/Baddaboo/ClassicKit
Run Stable Diffusion on Intel CPUs
https://github.com/bes-dev/stable_diffusion.openvino
Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2017-March/005298.html
Unix as IDE
https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/series/unix-as-ide/
Montreal is taxing churches (2017)
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/no-more-religious-exemptions-montreal-is-taxing-churches-1.3415164
TSA-style body scanners are coming to public spaces
https://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2019/05/police-to-use-tsa-style-scanners-to-spy.html
Bread and Circuses: The State of Web App Startups
http://jolieodell.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/bread-and-circuses-the-state-of-web-app-startups/
Why some of the best developers keep quitting
https://www.fastcompany.com/40443084/this-is-why-your-best-developers-keep-quitting
Kubernetes Hardening Guidance [pdf]
https://media.defense.gov/2022/Aug/29/2003066362/-1/-1/0/CTR_KUBERNETES_HARDENING_GUIDANCE_1.2_20220829.PDF
YouTube age-restriction quagmire exposed by 78-minute Mega Man documentary
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/09/youtube-age-restriction-quagmire-exposed-by-78-minute-mega-man-documentary/
Stanford to host more online classes
http://www.cs101-class.org/#
Wolfenstein 3D – Gameboy cartridge with co-processor
http://www.happydaze.se/wolf/
D3 in Depth
http://d3indepth.com
Tesla Roadster
https://www.tesla.com/roadster/
Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100
https://www.axios.com/e-scooter-startup-lime-shuts-in-12-markets-lays-off-around-100-d25d44e4-c0f1-4713-9a89-868f4da40e03.html
AWS X-Ray – Distributed Tracing System
https://aws.amazon.com/xray/
Show HN: Arxiv.org on IPFS
https://www.xirva.org
Rendering Head in WebGL
http://alteredqualia.com/xg/examples/deferred_skin.html
Why WebAssembly Is Faster Than Asm.js
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/03/why-webassembly-is-faster-than-asm-js/
Avro Arrow – The record-breaking jet which still haunts a country
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200615-the-record-breaking-jet-which-still-haunts-a-country
As Suicides Rise, Insurers Find Ways to Deny Mental Health Coverage
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-16/insurance-covers-mental-health-but-good-luck-using-it
How Yahoo Killed Flickr (2012)
https://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet
The Eerie Beauty of the Apple Watch Solar Face, and the Anatomy of Nightfall
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-eerie-beauty-of-the-apple-watch-solar-face-and-the-anatomy-of-nightfall
Should We All Take a Bit of Lithium?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/should-we-all-take-a-bit-of-lithium.html
News Websites Are Dumpster Fires
https://bradleytaunt.com/2019/05/29/news-websites-are-dumpster-fires/
OS X 10.10 – Source Code
http://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1010/
Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2012/02/adobe-and-google-partnering-for-flash-player-on-linux.html
Glucose metabolism responds to perceived sugar intake more than actual intake
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72501-w?mc_cid=2b33d59ff8&mc_eid=e358e73db6
Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/re-maps-public-service.html
Youtube Instant creator gets instant job offer
http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/10/youtube-instant-job/
ORC – Nim's new memory managment
https://nim-lang.org/blog/2020/12/08/introducing-orc.html
Employers are rethinking open-plan office design
https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/05/open-office-design-coronavirus-risk-safe-workplace-health/611299/
NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/348112948230774784
Deurbanising the Web [pdf]
https://lab6.com/0
Daniel Kaminsky, Internet Security Savior, Dies at 42
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/technology/daniel-kaminsky-dead.html
The joys of having a Forever Project
http://www.dev.gd/20130122-the-joys-of-having-a-forever-project.html
Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2
Introducing Netflix Stethoscope
http://techblog.netflix.com/2017/02/introducing-netflix-stethoscope.html
Programming languages endorsed for server-side use at Meta
https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/27/developer-tools/programming-languages-endorsed-for-server-side-use-at-meta/
A prompt engineering guide for DALLE-2
https://dallery.gallery/the-dalle-2-prompt-book/
The Polygons of Doom: PSX
http://fabiensanglard.net/doom_psx/index.html
Making IRC better
https://sourcehut.org/blog/2022-07-06-sourcehut-and-irc/
Show HN: A programmable tooltip on Mac OS
https://tanin.nanakorn.com/main/2020/04/19/use-tooltip-to-speed-up-your-workflow.html
Linux 5.8-rc1
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=whfuea587g8rh2DeLFFGYxiVuh-bzq22osJwz3q4SOfmA@mail.gmail.com/
D as a Better C
http://dlang.org/blog/2017/08/23/d-as-a-better-c/
Qusim.py – A toy multi-qubit quantum computer simulator written in Python
https://github.com/adamisntdead/QuSimPy
Future JavaScript: what is still missing?
http://2ality.com/2019/01/future-js.html
The US Secret Service mistook a cyberpunk RPG for a hacker's handbook
https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/feature/gurps-cyberpunk-rpg-us-secret-service
Sharedrop – Easy P2P file transfer powered by WebRTC
https://github.com/cowbell/sharedrop
How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/opinion/how-the-fbi-can-detain-render-and-threaten-without-risk.html?_r=0
Brown: color is weird [video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4aWZRtTwU
Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow
http://michael.richter.name/blogs/why-i-no-longer-contribute-to-stackoverflow/
Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-02-15/missing-malaysia-jet-mh370-weeks-away-from-keeping-secrets-forever
Reddit raises $410M in new funding
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/technology/reddit-new-funding.html
Firefox bullshit removal
https://gist.github.com/haasn/69e19fc2fe0e25f3cff5
WordPerfect for UNIX (1992)
https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/wordperfect.html
Apple Admits to Hardware Quality Problems with iPhone X, MacBook Pro
https://www.thurrott.com/apple/191172/apple-admits-to-hardware-quality-problems-with-iphone-x-macbook-pro
Shame.css
http://csswizardry.com/2013/04/shame-css
Prisma – Database tools for modern application development
https://www.prisma.io/
New MacBook Pro models to feature magsafe, no touch bar and more ports: analyst
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/15/new-macbook-pro-models-magsafe-ports/
How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016
https://hackernoon.com/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascript-in-2016-d3a717dd577f#.l8ak5j3gz
The truth about cold water
http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cold_water?11198
Unboxing a $100 Chromebook
https://twitter.com/timsneath/status/1550598445248811008
Keeping People
http://zachholman.com/talk/keeping-people
Criminals Are Tapping into the Phone Network Backbone to Empty Bank Accounts
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzvxv/criminals-hackers-ss7-uk-banks-metro-bank
NixOS - Declarative configuration OS
http://nixos.org/nixos/
The tech bubble that never burst
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/19/technology/tech-startup-bubble.html
Don’t teach kids to fear the world
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/09/the-best-way-to-teach-kids-about-danger/671310/
Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-whistleblower-assassinated-after-uncovering-dollar200-billion-dirty-money-scandal
Research suggests some potential benefits to being a loner
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180228-there-are-benefits-to-being-antisocial-or-a-loner
Ubuntu One file syncing code Open Sourced
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/08/10/ubuntu-one-file-syncing-code-open-sourced
Howdoi – Instant Coding Answers via the Command Line
https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi
Org-mode parser in Rust
https://github.com/ngortheone/org-rs
Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal
https://prospect.org/health/juul-taking-academic-corruption-to-new-level/
Stop Patent Trolls: Support the Innovation Act of 2015
https://act.eff.org/action/stop-patent-trolls-support-the-innovation-act-of-2015
Slack's bait and switch
https://opkode.com/blog/slacks-bait-and-switch/
New version of Apache HTTP Server released
https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the_apache_software_foundation_celebrates
Amicus brief on behalf of 97 tech companies
https://cloud.app.box.com/s/mx6vhp0m8c1jyc8fh5yvned3nlu6ihec
Over twenty subreddits have gone private
https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/mbq12a/over_twenty_subreddits_including_cringetopia/
Nuclear Power at McMurdo Station, Antarctica
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/
Bee Bread
http://nordicfoodlab.org/blog/2015/9/4/bee-bread
Gordon: An open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript
http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon
Making money building Shopify micro-SaaS apps
https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/building-your-first-micro-saas-app-on-shopify
Why Meteor will kill Ruby on Rails
http://differential.io/blog/meteor-killin-rails
People Don't Know Themselves Very Well
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/03/you-dont-know-yourself-as-well-as-you-think-you-do/554612/?single_page=true
Show HN: Beehive – An open source IFTTT powered by Go's templating engine
https://github.com/muesli/beehive
Setup Keybase.io, GPG and Git to sign commits on GitHub
https://github.com/pstadler/keybase-gpg-github
Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere
https://beautifuldingbats.com/hey-howd-you-do-that
SimCity’s Sims Don’t Seem That Smart After All
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/simcitys-sims-dont-seem-that-smart-after-all/
Xerox PARC’s engineers on how they invented the future and Xerox lost it (1985)
https://spectrum.ieee.org/xerox-parc
Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/07/22/investors-bought-a-quarter-of-homes-sold-last-year-driving-up-rents
Root – Programmable bank account for software developers
https://root.co.za/
Ken and Roberta Williams Working on Colossal Cave Adventure Remake for VR and PC
https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/03/22/ken-and-roberta-williams-working-on-colossal-cave-adventure-remake-for-vr-and-pc
TurboTax halts all state e-filing amid data breach probe
http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2015/02/06/turbotax-halts-e-filing-of-state-tax-returns/
A LinkedIn Hack That Led to a $120k Investment
http://thehustle.co/the-linkedin-hack-that-made-me-120000
How to learn data science
https://www.dataquest.io/blog/how-to-actually-learn-data-science/
Threads Are a Bad Idea for Most Purposes (1995) [pdf]
https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/threads.pdf
Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201705/diaphragmatic-breathing-exercises-and-your-vagus-nerve
Minefield: HTML5 Massively Multiplayer Online Minesweeper
http://mienfield.com/
Exotic data structures
http://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Exotic%20Data%20Structures
Octopuses caught on camera throwing things at each other
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03592-w
GitHub pages is now running Jekyll 3
https://github.com/blog/2100-github-pages-now-faster-and-simpler-with-jekyll-3-0
OpenFace: Free and open source face recognition with deep neural networks
http://cmusatyalab.github.io/openface/
Rust your ARM microcontroller
http://blog.japaric.io/quickstart/
Run JavaScript on Cloudflare with Workers
https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-workers-unleashed/
Why I Did Not Go to Jail (2014)
https://a16z.com/2014/02/06/why-i-did-not-go-to-jail/
Ibuprofen alters human testicular physiology
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/01/03/1715035115.full
Apple copies rejected app
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/apple_copies_rejected_app/
Absolute Zero
http://www.damninteresting.com/absolute-zero-is-0k
Stop Scanning Me
https://stopscanningme.eu/en/
You might not need to store plaintext email addresses
https://blog.klungo.no/2020/11/01/you-might-not-need-to-store-plaintext-emails/
An engineered PET depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2149-4
Show HN: Top PDFs and Papers Submitted to Hacker News
https://www.hackernewspapers.com/
Google Classroom
https://www.google.com/edu/classroom/
The PEPs of Python 3.9
https://lwn.net/Articles/819853/
Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-internet-protests/thousands-of-russians-protest-against-internet-restrictions-idUSKBN1QR0HI
WinBox: Window manager in a web browser
https://github.com/nextapps-de/winbox
US Senate report on Equifax breach [pdf]
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20Equifax%20Report.pdf
Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/business/pakistan-fake-pilot-intl-hnk/index.html
John Resig: Introducing the GraphQL Guide
https://blog.graphql.guide/introducing-the-graphql-guide-11a5ae48628a
Beautiful Online SICP
http://sarabander.github.io/sicp/
Google Flights
http://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=JFK,EWR,LGA;t=POP;d=2013-01-13;r=2013-01-25;mc=m
Learning how to write a 3D engine from scratch in C#, TypeScript or JavaScript (2013)
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/davrous/2013/06/13/tutorial-series-learning-how-to-write-a-3d-soft-engine-from-scratch-in-c-typescript-or-javascript/
Apple has locked me out of my developer account
https://rambo.codes/personal/2019/11/20/apple-has-locked-me-out-of-my-developer-account.html
Monument Valley in Numbers: Year 2
https://medium.com/@ustwogames/monument-valley-in-numbers-year-2-440cf5562fe#.phzgxwizd
WebScript.io: Just choose a URL and type in a script. No servers, no deployment
https://www.webscript.io/?
Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170728-monopoly-was-invented-to-demonstrate-the-evils-of-capitalism
Cloud Functions: Go 1.11 is now a supported language
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/application-development/cloud-functions-go-1-11-is-now-a-supported-language
How I Automated “Finding Almost Anyone’s Email Address”
http://nathanleclaire.com/blog/2013/11/23/how-i-automated-finding-almost-anyones-email-address/
I got my money back from a scammer by contacting his mom on Facebook (2016)
https://blog.haschek.at/2016/how-a-scammer-stole-500-dollars-from-me
Apple removes game after Chinese company cloned, trademarked, requested takedown
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/bs6n3l/apple_removed_my_game_from_the_app_store_because/
Is speed reading really possible? 
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4229
7-zip 22.00 – APFS, Posix TAR, high precision timestamps
https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/discussion/45797/thread/9c2d9061ce/
Angry Bird’s “overnight success” only took 8 years.
http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/11/angry-birds-overnight-success-only-took-8-years/#disqus_thread
Learn TLA+
https://learntla.com/
'One Ring' Phone Scam
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/one-ring-phone-scam
Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/canada/single-use-plastic-ban.html
Isaac Asimov on How to Be Prolific
http://briangroat.com/2016/10/26/asimov-on-how-to-be-prolific/
You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation
http://www.argmin.net/2018/08/09/co-employment/
Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/raspberry-pi-4-uses-incorrect-usb-c-design-wont-work-with-some-chargers/
Show HN: Divjoy – React Codebase and UI Generator
https://divjoy.com
Show HN: Airmash – Multiplayer Missile Warfare HTML5 Game
https://airma.sh/
I'm currently building a similar project in Rust called iota: https://github.com/gchp/iota

I don't intend it to be a vim clone, however I'm currently adding some features which I've borrowed from vim. The main one being modal editing. Its much earlier on than this project, though.

As a side note, building a text editor is great fun, one of the most interesting projects I've worked on!
when I am 40 my oldest will be 18, so I have all whole nother life to live after this one.

I never really thought of it like that, thanks for pointing this out :)
I'm fairly certain Pakistan also develops its military hardware in house, it is a a large weapon exporter after all.
Yes.

Educated Indians look at China and wonder what the hell is going on. Indians have similar corruption and population problems, but a much more savvy segment of English-speaking, technologically brilliant, Western educated elites, for generations even.

And yet, India gets fill-in-the-blanks Java outsourcing contracts while China makes the frigging iPhone. It drives Indian people INSANE.

Source: I'm one-half Indian with relatives involved in outsourcing.
Odd, the USA Today story[1] pointed to has only X's for title and content.

[1] : http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2010-06-14-vidgame14_ST_...
So now there might be hope again for Python as well.
I saw a video of a demo of Natal in one of my classes. Blew me away.
Hey! I'm one of the websolr guys. Obviously, we're working on this problem, and it's a hard (but fun and rewarding) one for a number of reasons!

Search is fundamentally hard to put into the cloud, because it requires so many IO operations. In addition, delivering really high quality results requires machine learning and linguistics.

We have a few tricks up our sleeves to handle these issues, and I'm excited not only to shed the beta-ish feel, but to roll out some truly exiting features :) There's a "Review my startup" post coming pretty soon.
> If the former, though, then my question would be why would one be content with sticking to old(er) hardware, but not be content with sticking to old(er) software?

Security, and network effects.

Supporting deployment back to 10.6 / iOS 6 / etc isn't inherently difficult, but the fast pace of Apple's deployment, the lack of support for downgrading on iOS devices, and the now-constant API churn makes it seem like more hassle than it's worth.

Apple is intentionally driving new demand by pushing early obsolescence of old software and hardware.
Is SLIME any better than Geiser? I've been using it with Racket and it's pretty good.

http://www.nongnu.org/geiser/
You can turn off spaces-per-monitor, so I don't know what your complaint there is.

I also don't really get what Mission Control's "your virtual desktops are in a line" rather than Spaces' "your virtual desktops are in a square" makes you lose. You can turn off the reordering (I do) and it becomes functionally the same thing.
Yes, there is a reason.

woman -> femina, related to women -> femininus

man -> vir, related to men -> mas

As you can see it seems even the Romans did not like to make derivations from the old, old word "vir" (also see etymology for "world").

Feminine is from 'femininus', not 'femina'.

Masculine is from 'mas' -> 'masculus' (diminutive of 'mas') -> 'masculinus', not 'vir'.

'Mas' was never used to mean "man", only "male".

If instead of "feminism", the movement were called "femininism", then the opposite would indeed be "masculinism" as you suggest. But the opposite of "feminism" must be "virilism".
I am a freelance web designer. I am outside the US and only communicate with my clients via email and I make about $1500/month freelancing working only 4-5 hours a day. You should be making more by freelancing.

I sent you an email about this. I work as an outsourcing partner to US-based web design firms. These firms pay me a fraction of what they charge their clients, so I am looking to work with clients directly.

If you are interested we could partner up. I can provide web design and development services and have a very strong portfolio (alexwyser.com) to help us out.

This will allow you to take on more clients, provide a wider range of services (I do front-end and back-end stuff as well) and make more money. And probably help you freelance full-time.

Let me know if you are interested. And good luck.
yeah, facebook actually does a pretty good job of this, and so did friendfeed before fb acquired them; I wonder if the friendfeed guys helped improve it.

but as for twitter, I agree completely with the author's assessment
This is cool and I've seen it before but I have a hard time interpreting the results. For instance, I have a hard time believing Google's DNS is substantially slower than anyone else's which leads me to question all the results.

Also, and I'm hoping someone here can clear this up for me, but it's not clear to me how these results translate to actual DNS performance for my site. I only vaguely understand how the magic of the internet works but don't the DNS results get distributed throughout the network making the performance of the root servers less relevant? If I could chop 50-100ms off my TTFB by switching my DNS from Namecheap to someone else, I would definitely pay for that, but it's not clear to me.