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SQL performance improvements: finding the right queries to fix

A few weeks ago, we massively improved the performance of the dashboard & website by optimizing some of our SQL queries. In this post, we'll share how we identified the queries that needed work. In the next post, we'll explore how we fixed each of them. We'll cover the basics and gradually work our way up to the more advanced/complex ways of identifying slow queries. In this post, you'll see: Let's go! What these results look like # As a reminder, this is the resulting performance gain for

How to disable ACR on your TV - and why you should ASAP

Adam Breeden/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Smart TVs track viewing habits with ACR tech. Collected data fuels billions in targeted ads. Turning off ACR protects privacy but takes effort. Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about eve

William James at CERN (1995)

William James at CERN Some Examples of Selection in Minds and Computers 1. William James Principles of Psychology This is obviously true of action. Whatever views your views on free will, it is indubitable that differing options occur to us, that we compare them, that we prefer some to others, that eventually we elect one and dismiss the rest. More interestingly, James describes the role of selection in perception, and finds it at every level of neural and mental life. The sense organs, to b

Comic Sans typeball designed to work with the IBM Selectric typewriters

YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T PRINT THIS! Update, July 7 2023: Dave Hayden took the resin-printed typeball concept and improved on it greatly. I'm extremely grateful that he took on all the hard work of iteratively going through and dialing in the perfect values to make a functional ball, and I'm pleased to think I contributed in some way to his achievements. ----------------------------------------- This is a Comic Sans typeball designed to work with the IBM Selectric typewriters that take 88-c

Circle to Search could be adding new Translate options (APK teardown)

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority TL;DR Our teardown of the latest Google app beta reveals that Google is testing more changes to the Circle to Search UI. The Translate shortcut following a selection may move to a more prominent spot. A new “Change selection” button would appear in the same section after you’ve searched. Circle to Search has quickly become one of Google’s most recognizable features, offering a simple way to look up anything on your screen with a quick gesture. Since launchi

Compositional Datalog on SQL: Relational Algebra of the Environment

I spent some time before making Datalogs that translated into SQL. https://www.philipzucker.com/tiny-sqlite-datalog/ There are advantages. SQL engines are very well engineered and commonly available. SQLite and DuckDB are a pretty great one-two punch. A new twist on how to do this occurred to me that seems very clean compared to my previous methods. Basically, the relational algebra style of SQL actually meshes with manipulating the Datalog body environments (sets of named variables bindings)

How to disable ACR on your TV - and why it makes such a big difference

Adam Breeden/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targe

I unlocked 15GB more Gmail storage for free - without deleting a single email or file

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Every new Google email account comes with 15GB of free storage -- a solid offer at no cost. However, that space can fill up fast, especially since it also covers files in Google Drive and Google Photos. If your inbox is cluttered with unread newsletters and sneaky spam, there's a way to clean house without losing important messages. With the right approach, you can preserve what matters while giving yourself a

Our favorite smart lock is on sale for the first time today

Setting up a smart home security system is important, even if you never want to think about having to use it. Thankfully, Kwikset’s Halo Select — the best smart lock we’ve ever tested — is currently down to $259 ($20 off) at Amazon, Lowe’s, and The Home Depot, marking the first time the lock has been on sale since its launch late last year. In her review, Verge reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy praised the Halo Select for supporting four entry methods: a physical key, Kwikset’s app, a location-b

Sling's New $20 'Select' Package Gives You 11 Channels

There's a new $20 skinny bundle on the scene, and you probably want to know what the low-priced live TV package gets you. Sling introduced a fresh package called Sling Select on Tuesday, joining its prior offerings of Sling Orange, Sling Blue and Sling Orange & Blue plans. Select's selection is a pared-down version of Blue (plus some outliers not found in Blue or Orange), and its price reflects that. Select includes Fox News, FS1, FX, National Geographic, NFL Network, Lifetime Movie Network, Ga

Gemini’s getting a nice usability upgrade for its text responses (Updated)

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority TL;DR Google is working on an easier process for sharing text responses from Gemini. The new workflow can be initiated by double tapping or dragging to select specific text, and users can bypass the “Select text” option. However, this new method won’t work on text in a list, only the text before or after it. Update, August 14, 2025 (10:42 AM ET): After first identifying Google’s work towards bringing Gemini a greatly improved interface for text sharing a fe

How to turn off ACR on your TV - and why you shouldn't wait to do it

Adam Breeden/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underut

Changing these 6 settings on my Roku TV significantly improved the performance

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Few things ruin the joy of watching a good show more than suddenly seeing that rotating asterisk symbol or swirly icon that tells you your TV is buffering. Or maybe it's stuttering, or altogether freezing. If this is happening on your Roku TV, don't give up on it just yet. Also: How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing so makes such a big difference) Like phones and computers, Rokus have caches that accumulate temporary data, which inevitably slows them down over time. Th

How I got another 15GB of Gmail storage at no cost (and without losing old files)

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Every new Google email account comes with 15GB of free storage -- a solid offer at no cost. However, that space can fill up fast, especially since it also covers files in Google Drive and Google Photos. If your inbox is cluttered with unread newsletters and sneaky spam, there's a way to clean house without losing important messages. With the right approach, you can preserve what matters while giving yourself a fresh start. Also: Gmail is making it a whole lot easi

How to disable ACR on your TV - and why it makes such a big difference doing so

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

How to get another 15GB of Gmail storage for free (and without losing old files)

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Every new Google email account comes with 15GB of free storage -- a solid offer at no cost. However, that space can fill up fast, especially since it also covers files in Google Drive and Google Photos. If your inbox is cluttered with unread newsletters and sneaky spam, there's a way to clean house without losing important messages. With the right approach, you can preserve what matters while giving yourself a fresh start. Also: Gmail is making it a whole lot easi

ChatGPT is rolling out 'personality' toggles to become your assistant

OpenAI is rolling out a new "personality" feature on the ChatGPT web app. This allows you to choose between multiple personalities, such as "Robot." ChatGPT is pretty good at coding and reasoning, but it falls a bit short on personality. On the other hand, Microsoft Copilot feels a bit more personal, but that could change soon. With the personality feature, which is slowly rolling out to some users across the world, you can personalize how ChatGPT interacts with you. By default, ChatGPT is ch

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why you shouldn't wait to do it)

Adam Breeden/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underut

Jqfmt like gofmt, but for jq

Description I'm frequently passed long shell one-liners that require some visual inspection before running. These days, there's about as much jq in that one-liner as there is bash. I wrote jqfmt to help add line breaks in sensible locations while reading (or writing!) jq. At time of initial development, I naturally turned to https://github.com/itchyny/gojq expecting to be able to generate and walk a syntax tree—but gojq didn't seem to provide an AST that could be "walked," and it doesn't expor

Random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

Campbell's Law (a variant of Goodhart's Law) states that the more a metric is used for social decision-making, the more it will be subject to corruption which distorts and corrupts not only the metric itself, but the very social processes it was meant to measure. Selection criteria for a position of authority are one example of such a metric. When selection criteria are opaque, it is difficult for them to become a target, preserving their utility as measures. For governance positions however, it

Show HN: VS Code extension to edit the filesystem like a text buffer

Voil View on the Visual Studio Marketplace. Youtube video showing voil features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_L0c7rcYLs&t=5s. Edit file system like a text buffer (similar to oil.nvim). Create new files/directories by typing their names in the editor (names ending with / are treated as directories). Convert your existing text-editing skills to file system manipulation skills, as opposed of the vscode's default file explorer which requires mouse interaction or memorizing new keybinds (and

Why random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

Campbell's Law (a variant of Goodhart's Law) states that the more a metric is used for social decision-making, the more it will be subject to corruption which distorts and corrupts not only the metric itself, but the very social processes it was meant to measure. Selection criteria for a position of authority are one example of such a metric. When selection criteria are opaque, it is difficult for them to become a target, preserving their utility as measures. For governance positions however, it

Hill Space: Neural nets that do perfect arithmetic (to 10⁻¹⁶ precision)

When understood and used properly, the constraint W = tanh(Ŵ) ⊙ σ(M̂) (introduced in NALU by Trask et al. 2018 ) creates a unique parameter topology where optimal weights for discrete operations can be calculated rather than learned . During training, they're able to converge with extreme speed and reliability towards the optimal solution. Most neural networks struggle with basic arithmetic. They approximate, they fail on extrapolation, and they're inconsistent. But what if there was a way to m

Cmdk – CD anywhere and open anything in your terminal

cmdk The ⌘-k "access anything" shortcut is awesome on Notion, Slack, etc. The terminal, by comparison, is a dinosaur: tons of repeated cd and ls and TAB just to get anywhere. This is ⌘-k for the terminal: access anything on your filesystem, from anywhere, with previews before you open: When you press enter... Directories get cd d to d to Text files get opened in vim Images and PDFs get opened in the Preview app .key files get opened in Keynote I'm extremely grateful to fzf; this project

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it makes such a big difference)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

Anker Bluetooth Shower Speaker Is Selling for Pennies, Amazon Is Selling at a Loss for Prime Day

Portable Bluetooth speakers always become hot sellers as summer approaches and there’s a good reason for it: they’re built for adventure, often waterproof, and perfect for taking your music anywhere. If you’re in the market for a mini speaker that delivers on all fronts, the Soundcore Select 4 Go by Anker is a top pick. This product has been influenced by thousands of buyers with a 4.7 out of 5 rating and more than 3,000 reviews on Amazon. It’s my favorite this year and courtesy of Prime Day, y

How to turn off ACR on your TV (and why it greatly enhances your viewing experience)

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads. Also: Your TV's USB port is seriously underutili

I changed 6 settings on my Roku TV to give it an instant performance boost

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Few things ruin the joy of watching a good show more than suddenly seeing that rotating asterisk symbol or swirly icon that tells you your TV is buffering. Or maybe it's stuttering, or altogether freezing. If this is happening on your Roku TV, don't give up on it just yet. Also: How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing so makes such a big difference) Like phones and computers, Rokus have caches that accumulate temporary data, which inevitably slows them down over time. Th