At RubyConfTH, the speaker highlighted the significance of data locality in database processing, using a watermelon juice analogy to illustrate the benefits of downsampling data directly in the database, which enhances performance by reducing network and I/O overhead and providing more accurate processing times. A comparison of the lttb downsampling algorithm in Ruby with a SQL version utilizing Timescale’s hyperfunctions demonstrated that SQL can be significantly faster, as lighter data travels more quickly, with SQL achieving up to ten times the speed in seeding data. The speaker encourages database professionals, regardless of experience level, to consider processing and querying data directly in the database to improve efficiency, and invites interested individuals to explore Timescale Cloud, offering a 30-day free trial to experience the capabilities of hyperfunctions.