skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I notice not a single mention of the CAP theorem. I have a hard time taking any "scalable" RDBMS solution seriously without a discussion on how you scale well-known problems with deletes and updates, maintaining b+tree indexes, distributed joins, distributed data, node loss/partitions, and distributed transactions/updates.

If you are a new distributed system and don't have Jepsen tests or a similar level of discussion on how your database handles partition events, then that tends to be harbingers of snake oil in distributed systems.

Granted I only did a quick search on CAP on your article, but the initial paragraph of your article didn't exactly invite further investigation or time investment.

If your "NoSQL" is just a single node MongoDB, then you should state that rather than your blanket statement. As is your categorization of "NoSQL" is unspecified and unqualified, leading me to believe this is a management-level article with little regard for the real issues in large-scale distributed databases, and why would I think your software also considers such problems?
This article seems too focused on the idea that even if you're not passionate about something today, you can be more passionate about it tomorrow and it's easier to become passionate if you don't have a fixed mindset (imagine that!).

But it still overemphasizes the importance of passion in a career IMO. I think the best career advice is to declare what's important and find a career that seems congruent with that. If the important things in your life don't pay much or require money, be prepared to select a career that's lucrative but tolerable / benign.

Personally, I'm not leaping out of bed to get to work, but it pays well and I like that it supports my hobbies. I certainly wouldn't have chosen this career if I had followed my passion. However, I think I get to enjoy my passions more because I have some financial resources to pursue them and I get to enjoy them more on my own terms.

The reality is this - work is lucrative either because it's unpleasant (plumbing), hard to acquire the skills (doctor / some lawyers / software engineering), performance oriented and intensely competitive (financial trading, top level management). Things that people are passionate about tend to be pleasant, easy, or doing things that are broadly appealing. It's hard to imagine that being passionate.

The only people who should follow their passions are people with passions that are lucrative to follow. If you love managing projects / products, follow your passion. If you love horses, consider doing something lucrative so you can buy your own horse.
You might also try some Abe Kobo, who had a heavy influence on Murakami's writing. His 1970 "Inter Ice Age 4" is a really interesting sci-fi-ish novel involving global warming, supercomputers, and genetic engineering.
The Hyperion Cantos is 4 books btw. But seconding your recommendation.
It's "IPsec", not "IPSEC", FYI. (Some people really care about this, and will stop listening to you if you don't get this right.)

I don't agree with you. You'd have to review a lot of history to make that sort of assertion about the purpose of IPsec, and you'd have to ignore transport mode. Transport mode clearly exists to protect end-to-end... In transport mode the purpose of IPsec really is to protect all upper level protocol packet flows covered by local IPsec policy.

Also, since both, transport-mode IPsec and TLS are end-to-end, using both would be a serious waste of resources -- in practice few ever use transport mode, because any non-VPN, non-BITS/BITW uses of IPsec are just ETOOHARD to deploy and scale.

Of course, encrypting multiple times at different layers, but only once end-to-end, is not wasteful.
We've updated the link from a thread of tweets about a list from this article (https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1017697437165785088.html). Another page with just the commandments: https://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html.
I really, really don't understand the expensive alcohol hobby. For those of you that do, is it more about finding and trying cool stuff? Because I can completely relate to that. I just feel like expensive alcohol is so transient, and can't provide the same experience that the equivalently priced food could.
I'm a pretty big fan of TOML, though I've mostly only used it for Cargo.

What are the limitations for large complex configs, and do you think there's currently a better configuration format for them? Feel free to link elsewhere if there's a canonical location for this discussion.
when was the last time it was changed?
I'd imagine Craigslist is also quite efficient.
Not when it's sold by some sketchy dude that you meet in a McDonald's parking lot.
> strong enough salary to raise a family

Working 80+ hrs a week isn't usually compatible with raising a family.
It's similar to paper vs plastic bags. Paper bags require more energy and fresh water making them worse for the environment.
I started drinking Japanese whiskey because it was a better value than Scotch. Now I drink Scotch again because it's a better value than Japanese whiskey.
> Why would a company want to encourage people to make complaints in the most public way possible?

I think the topic here is that customer support only/mainly replies in a constructive and interested manner when the issue is brought to public, e.g. on Twitter, because now they are being publicly called out for their behavior. Appalling, but appears to be true.

On the other hand, when using private channels for customer support you'll get responses that range from being passed around by call center operators that are powerless (and thus useless) to solve your problem, to downright being lied to.

Private support channels, namely those operated by real people, are costly, making Support a constant target for budget cuts rather than actual, professional management (that "investment" you mentioned). Plus, these channels are known for their hostile/toxic environments and meager paychecks, so it seems unfair to expect high quality professional customer support from the "official" channels; but the bean counters made the budget work, hooray!
On top of it, “plane” is all over the article.
I think if I lived in Minneapolis, I'd rip out all the grass and put in white clover. The neighbors can then poise their hands over their snitch-phones, waiting in vain for a plant to grow past 8".
On the contrary, in Chicago, which admittedly has a pretty outstanding retail market for whiskey, it has never been easier to buy Japanese whiskey. Nikka Coffey Grain and even the Nikka Single Malts show up on the shelves at Binneys, our neighborhood liquor chain.

What is probably true is that it's harder to get Yamazaki. Yamazaki had a moment last year (I think?) when its Sherried Single Malt was named "best whiskey in the world". One reason why whiskey enthusiasts hate this "best whiskey in the world" nonsense is that it instantly turns brands into collector items, which get hoarded for trade and resale value instead of consumed by people who actually like whiskey.

But, whatever. Yamazaki was fine, but there's lots of good Japanese whiskey, and in the no-age-statement era of single malts, it has never been easier to get your hands on wine-casked whiskey expressions. It's a golden age. Enjoy it!
hah, you're right, I definitely am looking at it with distributed system goggles on. With just one machine, yes, it will probably make sense to fully process one job before moving onto another (although there are some cases where this may not be true, such as if you're limited by having to wait for external APIs. But this isn't a strong argument because calling external APIs probably isn't something you want to be doing in Hadoop anyway).
If your workload scales, though, you will eventually have to spread out onto multiple machines anyway. At that point, even if you process each job on a single machine, you either need a system to coordinate job allocation across machines, or you have to accept some slack if you only schedule jobs on individual machines. In the former case, we're taking rapid steps towards YARN anyways. I'm sure non-Hadoop, pre-packaged systems exist that can handle this, although I'm not personally familiar with them, but my point is just that the more steps we take towards the complexity of a distributed computing model, the more it starts to seem reasonable to just say "okay, let's just use hadoop/spark/etc. and get the extra benefits they offer as well (such as smooth scaling without having to think about hardware), even if it's more expensive than a setup with individual nodes optimized for our purpose." It's now really easy to spin up a cluster, and with small scale, costs are not that big a deal. With large scale, your system is distributed in some way anyway.

I don't think it's an obvious decision, and you're absolutely right that people are usually too quick to jump to distributed systems when they really don't need them. But I think there are a lot of arguments for using something like Hadoop even before it's strictly necessary. I think part of the disconnect is that we have different backgrounds, so we both look at different things and think "oh, that's easy" vs "oh, thats like a pain."
The ISA you describe doesn't require aliasing rules. It merely gives you an incentive to have them.

C and other languages need much better control over aliasing than the 'restrict' keyword and compiler command-line switches.
Your analogy doesn't hold for me. Small house, 5 acres, pond, river, rural countryside.

If I walk down the street, the most dangerous things I can expect are deer, or if I'm very unlucky, a bobcat.

When I lived in the nearby urban cities, I could walk down the street and the most dangerous things I have faced in the past were people on crack, with weapons, wanting money. If I had been less fortunate, it would have been a gang that split open a neighbor's skull over a stolen CD.

Nothings perfect, but I'll take the country life any day.
There is only so much need for programmers in environmental volunteering. There is a great need for programmers who can write software for insurance companies. I know a number of great programmers who have left those jobs because they are doing boring. The ones who remain find things to enjoy outside of work. Some love programming and are happy to be paid to do it, but most are just great programmers doing a boring job 9-5 and going home at night to something they love. The only thing they love about their job is it is 9-5, overtime is rare, and they have to take a two week paid vacation every year (a fraud prevention measure to make it hard to cover any wrong doing).

Likewise, nobody is passionate about hauling my trash to the dump. (I have kids in diapers so my trash stinks) Nobody is passionate about cleaning septic systems. The jobs have to be done though.

All of the above jobs have something in common: well paid compared the the level of skill required. The people who do them have learned to do their job, and they have learned to find something else in life to enjoy.
a talk from Alan Kay copied by someone here mentioned

Geoffrey West : scale https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31670196-scale

Not read it yet but it's on my list
> I can’t name one alternative to the type of service provided by AirBnB

What exactly is it that AirBnB provides that hotels don't? I like staying at AirBnBs, but there are lots of alternatives depending on exactly what components of the services they provide you require.
The thread hypothesis is that the tycoon is selling short. Full stop. You suggested that a sovereign fund might also buy long, which would entail the fund paying money and receiving stock. Full stop. All of this feel-good narrative about what happens next is merely imaginative supposition, unrelated to the discussion.
It's not a block chain, just a rogue distributed network. But saying too much more would ruin the plot.

It gets a little bit over the top, but the concept is very entertaining.
Customer service costs only scale if the customer is spending enough at your business to offset it. Many people probably don't spend enough to offset this and make more sense to drop as customers than to keep maintaining. And when there are only a handful of sellers in the market anyway, what difference does it make if they have a negative experience to share.
> People seem to be naturally anti-regulation, failing to see that those regulations don't exist purely upon the whims of bureaucrats, but chiefly to address previous issues brought to the regulator's attention.

I don't think that view is natural in common citizens, but rather it's the result of effective, long-term propaganda (a.k.a. public relations [1]) campaigns by those who the regulations typically protect against (businesses and their owners, mostly) and who therefor have to comply with them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
Disclaimer: I work for trivago and I am partially responsible for the architecture behind trivago's Kafka use.

I'd like to invite you to watch this talk and get a few more insights why we use Kafka in the ways we do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU0BCVl4bjo

Let me try to come up with a TL;DR here:
trivago comes from a complete on-premise, central database point of view. Change Data Capture via Debezium into Kafka enables a lot of migration strategies into different directions (e.g. Cloud) in the first place, while not having the need to change everything on the spot.

It seems like a common pattern to compare Kafka with a pure MQ technolgy. Kafka can also serve as a persistent data storage and a source of truth for data.

I hope this makes the picture a bit more clear to you. Feel free to ask if I missed something.
"X is awful advice" is awful advice
Ask HN: Prepaid long-term web hosting
Here’s a question for you brilliant folks. Suppose you are at the end of a spectacular career — a writer, an engineer, a CEO, whatever. And that you’ve created a simple static site that showcases your life’s work. Mostly HTML/CSS/PNGs. Maybe some downloadable files.

Suppose further that you have no kids.

You’d like to get this site hosted on a custom domain. You want it to be available as far into the future as possible. Money is not really a limitation. You can prepay. In fact, you want to prepay.

How would you go about setting up a simple HTML site to last far into the future? Which vendors would you use? What extra layers/protections would you build in?

Would you select the optimal DNS/registrar and host? Or would you select one vendor for all three functions?
Which are? There was a recent study which showed low income people in gentrifying neighborhoods don't move any more frequently than low income people do generally. And for those who actually own property, they get a huge windfall.
Doing Windows, Part 4: The Rapprochement
This design, roughly, is being used very widely and is well-documented everywhere. But does anyone know of any lesser-known yet equally functional designs that work at the same scale?

Are there cases this design does not work for?
> I have a PC environment of 5000, and it's definitely in the single digits. PC's are speced appropriately prior to purchase, with a lifetime of 5 years

You get easily get more than 5yr at less cost if you spec for upgrade ability up front (good CPU + motherboard specs) and then do a mid lifecycle ram, storage, etc upgrade. Rolling upgrades can save even more money if done properly because the hardware coming out of use becomes your service parts for the stuff that's getting up there in age.

Regardless, the best solution is whatever fits your specific needs best.
Curious: how exactly do you see that the comment is being downvoted?
“Inline”, though, is a request, like a hint. It doesn’t _enforce_ it. And this is my problem with most optimisations: you can’t guarantee they’ve happened. Putting them in the type system is definitely the right way of doing this.

constexpr, however, does seem to be enforced.
Tests like the SAT correlate strongly with results from IQ tests.

That said, your point about cultural bias is well taken. Rather than scrapping standardized testing though, we should instead focus on creating a society where group identity doesn't matter as much as individual ability.
Supreme Court didn't make a decision on whether or not it's legal to refuse service.
CleanEmail Rules Automation is available for any IMAP service
Funny enough that's the one enormous benefit of having a state run liquor market in Oregon. I can search all liquor stores inventory and see that a store nearby has Yamazaki 18 for $249.95. Is it worth that price?
I think it's due to the trend against hiring DBAs. Nobody wants to put so much work into their databases anymore. I feel like that was half of the NoSQL craze, let's stop thinking about how to use databases because it's a pain.

After a while of slowly modifying and lumping more crap on a database, and it becomes a slow PITA that everyone is too afraid to touch, the usual result is to lift everything onto a new DB. DALs make this easier, but I agree that this should in no way be the point of a DAL. The point should just be to simplify & improve access to the database.
This is a huge problem inherent in large-scale platform-type businesses in growth stages. The scale required to be competitive in these arenas is such that if support costs scaled linearly they would strangle you. At least until you reach near-monolopy status and can raise prices. These platforms each hit a nadir in customer service before a few embarrassing failures that trigger apologies and more transparency.

It's also worth noting that these customer service failures are only newsworthy when the platform has ubiquity. That is, getting banned only matters if it locks you out of a significant portion of a market.

As others point out there are some industries that have consumer protections. For example, Visa basically cannot single out individuals to be ineligible for Visa cards. It's worth considering whether these protections should be extended to any company controlling large market segments.

Maybe machine learning can (ironically) bring some humanity back to customer service. And I don't mean infuriating, worthless chatbots. I mean instead of having single-criteria lists of "offenses" that trigger bans have machine learning models that can look at customers holistically in a way that would be very difficult to manually program. This approach could be taken now using "dumb" scoring and weighting algorithms, but it would require a lot of manual work tweaking and analyzing.
Yes. You get one generation (one tick-tock, so for example, Nehalem+Westmere, Sandy+Ivy Bridge, Haswell+Broadwell, though differences between tick and tock are generally not worth it). 1151/H4 deviates a bit here, because Intel fubar'd their roadmap and weren't able to deliver even single-digit advances per revision any more. So H4 now has three generations of chipsets, two of which don't support CFL (Coffee lake).
Trade-offs for asphalt vs. concrete roads
That claim probably depends on where they're made...
> with the right help, most people can get interested in almost anything

Yes, but those cultivated interests might not overlap with your natural talent.

You might decide to cultivate an interest in accounting, but be really bad at numbers since a young age, and will always be at a disadvantage towards someone that is innately good with numbers.

I think the best advice is: find something you enjoy learning about, and that fits well your natural talents and it will be much easier to make a career out of it.
> I just feel like expensive alcohol is so transient, and can't provide the same experience that the equivalently priced food could.

How do you figure? Food is at least as transient. A several hundred dollar bottle of whiskey can last years.
Unlike Pappy van Winkle, Yamazaki is really quite good. 2 of the three Pappy bottles I've had tasted like grass clippings, and the 3rd was pretty unremarkable.

Also, careful with the aging comparisons. Single malt whiskey routinely ages for over a decade and the really expensive stuff for significantly longer than that. But Pappy is a bourbon, and it is unusual for bourbons to age for 15 years, not because it's expensive but because it's often counterproductive. I think? several of the Buffalo Trace Antiques are even no-age-statement.
> Why should adding features make an app crumble on a single server?

It's not inherent, but obviously as you have more developers working on more and more things independently, each with different needs, tolerances, and deadlines, it becomes increasingly unreasonable to presume it can all be managed well on a single box.

If they went and added chat, or Twitter-like features, or subreddits, or similar, it might be a lot tougher to keep it all on a single box. It's a lot easier when we're all looking at the same top 30 stories, and pretty limited in how we interact with them and each other.
Can we please step back for a moment and reflect on that.

$117k is officially considered “low income” in some places http://fortune.com/2018/06/27/bay-area-six-figures-housing-h...
No, as it has given a lot to the Java community since Java 6, when no other company bothered to actually acquire Java.
Coffee is protective of the cardiovascular system, and reduces mortality.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42081278
I think the path is there, we just don't really know how long it takes to get to that point. I gave electricity as an example because at some point is was also just a service provided by a private company to people who had alternatives. So it's perfectly conceivable that in 10-20-50 years such services will be considered utilities.

Electric, gas, water, sewage, trash, these all became utilities. The internet itself might also become one. Or some of the services relying on the internet like mail, shopping, accommodation, etc. I expect it will take a while though.
Great idea, but why in the world do you require so many write privileges??

This application will be able to read and write all public repository data. This includes the following:

Code
Issues
Pull requests
Wikis
Settings
Webhooks and services
Deploy keys
Dhall is really similar to Nix in that regard, though in practice I've never seen Nix used for real configs (sadly). Usually trying to do so in Nix ends up being really ugly because the Nix features don't translate directly to concepts in the config language.
I guess it’s based on user votes rather than GitHub’s algorithm to rank repositories?
Sometimes I think I’m the only person on HN who strongly prefers a detached, single family house with plenty of space between neighbors. I’ve done apartment living and condo living and will never voluntarily return to it. Some benefits of owning a single family detached home:

1. I have a small kid with a lot of running energy who plays in the yard every day. Having to walk to the nearest park (if one exists) is inconvenient especially if it’s miles away.

2. I’m done with loud neighbors. Constant parties, loud bass music rattling the shared walls, loud sex at all hours, loud conversations right outside my door. It was a constant attribute of dense urban living.

3. Hobbies that require lots of private space and machinery, like sheet metal working and carpentry. Not going to be possible in a townhome without being yourself the annoying loud neighbor.

4. Freedom to customize. If I want to mount a huge antenna on my roof or build a backyard shed, only a detached home allows this.

5. Related to 4: Authority to fix things when they break. If my roof is leaking I can choose if and when to fix it. I can shop around for contractors to make sure I’m not overpaying. I can inspect and approve the work. In an apartment or condo these important tasks are out of my hands and done (always poorly) by an incompetent committee or landlord.

6. (For car owners) Indoor car parking and protection from the elements measurably reduces the maintenance cost of those cars. And fixing cars is tons easier in a garage. Nothing worse than replacing your power steering system in a 2 by 4 meter parking space surrounded by your neighbors’ cars. Ask me how I know.