Hacker News: ammojamo

New comment by ammojamo in "Every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera"

ammojamo — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 06:15:00 +0000

Disagree. The purpose of the indicator is to signal your intention to others. Indicate first, then shoulder check. If you then discover a car in your blind spot, abort the manoeuvre if necessary or slow down to let them pass you first.

I do agree it's bad form to indicate when you know there is a car in your blind spot already.

Discovering a car in your blind spot should be a relatively rare occurrence if you are driving attentively.

New comment by ammojamo in "No More Hidden Changes: How MySQL 9.6 Transforms Foreign Key Management"

ammojamo — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 01:02:43 +0000

This is great news for me. Recently I have been trying to set up a simple solution to replicate a MySQL database into DuckDB, without the whole CDC shebang (kafka, debezium etc.). The biggest problem I faced was the fact that cascaded operations are not captured in the logs and so they would not make it into the replica. Every workaround I could come up with was slow and/or fragile. It sounds like these up-coming changes will simply make that problem disappear - hurrah!

$48 4G hotspot that doubles as a 'smartphone' with a 3.2-inch display

ammojamo — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 04:02:43 +0000

Article URL: https://www.techradar.com/pro/hmd-launches-a-usd48-4g-hotspot-that-doubles-as-a-smartphone-with-a-3-2-inch-display-and-even-a-pair-of-cameras-and-you-can-even-chat-on-it

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45910470

Points: 11

# Comments: 4

New comment by ammojamo in "AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study"

ammojamo — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:13:59 +0000

This. And I do their work a lot more slowly because it's not my regular job, and I actually already had to do some of the work (getting the items out of my trolley and onto the conveyor). Now I stand there forever fumbling with barcodes, trying to get bags to stay open, switching between getting items out of the trolley and scanning. The old checkout system is so much more efficient when you are buying anything more than a couple of items at a time.

New comment by ammojamo in "A deliberate practice app for guitar players who want to level up"

ammojamo — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 03:35:29 +0000

Just as another data point, I think the word 'deliberate' is entirely appropriate as it differentiates between 'casual' practice (e.g. just playing through a bunch of songs and hoping you get better) vs deliberate practice where you are working on a specific exercise with a specific goal. I can't really relate to what the parent post is saying.

New comment by ammojamo in "Eggs US – Price – Chart"

ammojamo — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 04:31:11 +0000

We do have some ISA browns which are 2-3 years old, but no lash eggs yet – they all seem pretty happy – I guess it just depends.

That said, I'm not that emotionally attached to them – I like them, care for them, but if I thought they were seriously sick I would put them down. We're all different :-)

New comment by ammojamo in "Eggs US – Price – Chart"

ammojamo — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 04:23:49 +0000

All good points, but I would add a couple of things:

1. Scale also comes into play: We only have 8 hens, and are able to significantly supplement their feed with scraps from the kitchen, which are effectively free. The chooks are free ranging over a similar area (~half an acre), so the lower density means more free-range food for them, I guess. As a result, our feed costs per egg are actually much lower than if we had more chooks, and keeping a few old hens around is a negligible cost for us.

2. We regard our chooks somewhere halfway between pets and livestock - it's not a binary choice. We enjoy having them around so they have some intrinsic value for us, but at the same time if they were getting too expensive to keep, we'd be OK with occasionally cooking one up.

New comment by ammojamo in "Eggs US – Price – Chart"

ammojamo — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 01:06:54 +0000

Just to offer a different experience, we've kept chooks for years and it's been great.

However, we do have a large yard where they are free to range around – I think this is key.

In my experience there is no need to kill a chook after 3 years. Average lifespan for a chick is 8-10 years. Egg laying frequency does decrease with age, but there's no need to kill them just because they're slowing down a bit. Our oldest chook is 8 years, and laid her (probably) last egg only a few months ago.

When it does come time to kill one for whatever reason, the broom stick method breaks the neck instantly - easy and clean, just a bit of flapping around. As for the body, we just bury them if we are not going to eat them.

I think the heirarchical behaviour depends somewhat on the breed and the environment. Our chooks do have a clear hierarchy, none of them have died as a result. We have a mix of breeds - Australorp, Plymouth Rock, ISA Brown and one other mystery breed.

Flies probably depend on your environment – in Australia here we have a ton of flies already, I don't think the chooks make much difference!

Some of our chooks have a lot of personality and are almost pets, especially the early ones we basically hand raised as chicks – although you don't want to be too sentimental about them either. You have to be OK with killing them if that becomes necessary - it's still a sad time when I have to do that though.

If you have enough yard space and like the idea of being connected to the creatures that supply some of your food, I'd totally recommend giving chooks a go.

* edit: should have added, we don't keep a rooster which probably changes the dynamics too

New comment by ammojamo in "SpaceX Super Heavy splashes down in the gulf, canceling chopsticks landing"

ammojamo — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 01:09:37 +0000

I believe they diverted to save the tower from being potentially damaged/destroyed by a failed landing.

New comment by ammojamo in "SQL style guide by Simon Holywell"

ammojamo — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 05:11:43 +0000

You are not alone at all, I also prefer singular names for the same reason. I reserve plural names for the rare cases where the single row of a table actually contains information about more than one item, which is usually when I'm doing something denormalized or non-relational e.g. CREATE TABLE user_settings ( user_id INT, settings_data JSON)

New comment by ammojamo in "New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible"

ammojamo — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 10:11:39 +0000

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

(Matthew 5:33-37)

New comment by ammojamo in "Ask HN: How do you exercise?"

ammojamo — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 05:35:05 +0000

My grandmother, who was fit and healthy into her 90s, used to chuckle at the idea of "exercising". I now understand where she was coming from – a simple active lifestyle can be all the exercise one needs.

These days I live in a rural Australian town and mostly walk or ride a bike to get around. We don't have a TV, a dishwasher, an air-conditioner or a ride-on lawn mower. Life is great. I'm working on a small building project in my spare time and instead of using machinery to level the ground, I just used a mattock and shovel (like my grandfather would have). It took weeks instead of hours, but that's OK.

New comment by ammojamo in "The Grug Brained Developer"

ammojamo — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 03:21:45 +0000

Hah! I read the whole thing thinking that of that grug. Which gave it a really odd but lovable vibe in my head. TIL there is more than one Grug.

New comment by ammojamo in "Adventures in Stereograms"

ammojamo — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 23:00:34 +0000

I always experienced them 'back-to-front' as well, and I believe it is what happens if your eyes are focusing on a point in front of the picture ('cross-eyed') instead of a point behind it.

With a lot of effort, I can see it the right way by putting the image very close to my face, and relaxing my eyes to focus on an imaginary point beyond the page/screen. Then I slowly back away so that the image fits more comfortably in my field of view. However, I still find it very hard to bring the image into sharp focus, and at any moment the illusion can suddenly disappear and I have to start again.

I have excellent vision but after trying to look at these stereograms for a few minutes I am suddenly having difficulty focusing on normal objects around me. Quite unnerving.

New comment by ammojamo in "The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology"

ammojamo — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:38:00 +0000

Sounds like you might like Wood Working for Mere Mortals (https://woodworkingformeremortals.com/). I haven't taken any of the courses Steve offers but I'm a huge fan of his YouTube videos.

New comment by ammojamo in "Casio F-91W: The strangely ubiquitous watch (2011)"

ammojamo — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 03:33:35 +0000

A couple of dollars cheaper (in Australia), better backlight, 50m water resist.

New comment by ammojamo in "Casio F-91W: The strangely ubiquitous watch (2011)"

ammojamo — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 02:25:56 +0000

SKMEI make a clone: https://skmei.com/products-item/skmei-digial-sport-watches-l...

It has an excellent backlight and I regularly wear it swimming without any problems so far.

Nepal’s Forbidden Kingdom

ammojamo — Sat, 06 Apr 2019 09:32:16 +0000

Article URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-06/inside-the-forbidden-kingdom-of-lo/10920760

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19590011

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by ammojamo in "Yellow vests knock out 60% of all speed cameras in France"

ammojamo — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 10:32:26 +0000

Not sure about the states but here in Australia it works basically as you have described - but there is also a very expensive (in my opinion) fine for each speeding offense, and this is not scaled according to income.

New comment by ammojamo in "Yellow vests knock out 60% of all speed cameras in France"

ammojamo — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 10:11:49 +0000

> We need car control every bit as much as gun control, and speed cameras are a big part of that. People die when drivers are left unchecked. Disproportionately, it's people not inside cars.

I agree completely.

To be honest, from a safety perspective, I would be happy if speed cameras were integrated with street lighting so that basically every stretch of road was covered by speed cameras.

That said, I think that penalties should be in the form of a points system that ultimately results in losing your driver's license if you consistently speed. Financial penalties seem to disproportionately penalise the poor.