The schema is this: items(id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, type TEXT, time INTEGER, by TEXT, title TEXT, text TEXT, url TEXT

Doesn't scream columnar database to me.

At a glance, that is missing (at least) a `parent` or `parent_id` attribute which items in HN can have (and you kind of need if you want to render comments), see http://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/46436741