HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

simonb

693 karma · joined December 4, 2007

Twitter: @sbelak LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/simonbelak

http://www.hackernewsers.com/users/simonb.html

Verifying my Blockstack ID is secured with the address 1MDFkCXJtL1WxQM37oz1VaALcTZxmpiWoH https://explorer.blockstack.org/address/1MDFkCXJtL1WxQM37oz1VaALcTZxmpiWoH

submissionscomments
simonb··on SQLite Is Serverless
Or load it in Metabase (as an macOS app).
simonb··on Bollinger B1: An electric truck with 360HP and up to 200 mile range
Looks really interesting and promising, but why didn't they make it front control like the Land Rover FC101.
simonb··on Ask HN: Who's using Clojure, and to do what?
My (ex-)team at https://www.goopti.com used Clojure for the entire data infrastructure, all the machine learning and exploratory data science.

I've given a couple of talks about our experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GLXmGeuoOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmggfGD3RQ&index=6&list=PLe...

simonb··on Hacked Twitter Accounts Post Swastikas, Pro-Erdogan Content
It doesn't seem to be limited to just TheCounter https://twitter.com/desantis/status/841952242789974021
simonb··on Doing Bayesian Data Analysis On the GPU: Examples
Shameless self promotion: https://github.com/sbelak/huri has a half-decent plotting DSL that uses ggplot underneath.
simonb··on Is the Semi-Permanent “Gunpowder Empire” Historical Scenario Plausible?
English has become lingua franca beyond the colonies only after WW2.
simonb··on TTIP Leaks
Of course, but all these are manifestations of the same ideological system (that also brought "peace and prosperity").
simonb··on TTIP Leaks
For one, suicide rates in the developed world are on the rise: http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
simonb··on G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft
Chinese automaker GAC recently invested in Uber. techcrunch.com/2015/12/21/uber-china-lands-strategic-investment-from-chinese-automaker-gac/

All eyes are on Silicone Valley, but I think China will be the first to allow fully autonomous cars on its roads (Chinese-made of course).

simonb··on Show HN: Legion Analytics – Using Data to Find the Right Customer
I take it you are focused on B2B?
simonb··on Transpose: A structured alternative to Evernote
I see this more as a lightweight MS Access replacement.
simonb··on Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions Scandal
500k in the US, 11M worldwide.
simonb··on SICP Distilled: An idiosyncratic tour of SICP in Clojure
I always thought of it as being a kindred spirit to Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
simonb··on Why is Bitcoin forking?
Miners and exchanges.
simonb··on Thoughts on Time-series Databases
Would Timetravel module work for your use-case: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/contrib-spi.html#A...
simonb··on Dragit – Direct manipulation of data graphics
You can visualise an additional dimension if you factor out the time dimension.
simonb··on Dragit – Direct manipulation of data graphics
An unfortunate limitation of dragit seems to be that all state is global and therefore you can't have more than one such chart on a single page.
simonb··on RethinkDB 1.13: pull data via HTTP, push data via changefeeds
another vote for compound indices.
simonb··on Why Eve Online's economist thinks Bitcoin could be a scam
His main argument boils down to: there is a risk because I don't know and/or understand the code; but with the reference source code being public, this is his limitation, not the system's.
simonb··on Java is back? Programming language trends for 2345 teams
Considering the difference in sample size and make-up, the latest results just show the competition is gaining broader appeal and with it more mainstream languages start to dominate.
simonb··on Google set to face Intellectual Ventures in landmark patent trial
s/his/her/g
simonb··on Can Bitcoin Replace PayPal?
You are talking about one specific -- granted canonical -- wallet implementation; there are plenty of others including thin clients: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Clients
simonb··on Renault ships a brickable car with battery DRM that you're not allowed to own
Cheaper at the onset does not imply cheaper overall. Renault is already fleecing their customers with one of the highest maintenance costs of all makes (higher than BMW for instance).
simonb··on FlyKly Smart Wheel
Most European cities will make you carry your bike from time to time or make huge detours. But, like you, I'm not the target customer for this so maybe people in general are more careful with route planning.
simonb··on FlyKly Smart Wheel
Not necessarily. QR systems such as Maxle are sturdy enough for competitive downhill use.

Also 10 pounds is a huge difference not just in the effort needed to propel the bike forward but also in terms of maneuverability, especially as it is rotating weight. And in city usage you often have to carry the bike down stairs etc. where again 5 kg and a messed up center of gravity is a big deal.

simonb··on How To Deconstruct Almost Anything (1993)
Looking at "similar scandals" on the same page, science/engineering does not come out unscratched either.

Also I always found Sokal affair a bit stacked against the offending the journal. The issue was "Science Wars", that is confronting scientific vs. postmodernist view. If they were to edit what were presumably contributions from the side of science, it would defeat the purpose somewhat.

simonb··on Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
There aren't that many on the road to begin with. To put this into perspective: during 1990-1994 there were 5 fatalities in Volvo 240s with 186000 cars on the road [http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr3009.pdf]

Also the roof holding 4 additional cars, that's cute http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/v...

simonb··on word2vec – Tool for computing continuous distributed representations of words
This already does dimensional reduction using neural networks (for details see papers cited at the bottom of the page).
simonb··on Learn Emacs Lisp in 15 minutes
With regards to multiple selections, have you seen: http://emacsrocks.com/e08.html http://emacsrocks.com/e13.html
simonb··on How the Bitcoin 1% manipulate the currency, deceive its user community
Wouldn't exchanges have precisely this signature in the blockchain?
Page 1 of 4Next →