Hacker News: azza2110

New comment by azza2110 in "OpenTrafficMap"

azza2110 — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:47:10 +0000

Agreed - it is very similar to Google Maps.

New comment by azza2110 in "Quality of drinking water varies significantly by airline"

azza2110 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 01:52:09 +0000

The article is from 2023. I wouldn't be too hard on the author as it was still a novelty back then.

New comment by azza2110 in "Pixel 10 Phones"

azza2110 — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 23:37:06 +0000

Similar experience with my Pixel 5 but different outcome. My SIM tray crumbled and they sent me a new phone under warranty.

New comment by azza2110 in "Show HN: Crossing The Lexicon, a fun Wordle-inspired daily word game"

azza2110 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 14:58:53 +0000

This is fun. Like a cross between Bananagrams and a crossword.

Scored 26 today but I'll be back tomorrow to do better.

New comment by azza2110 in "Spending an afternoon in the Sizewell control-room simulator"

azza2110 — Tue, 07 May 2024 06:05:45 +0000

You can still visit Sizewell B, the plant in the article. I visited last year.

Two very knowledgeable guides led our group of 4 on a 3-4 hour tour of the facility, including the turbine hall.

https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-stations/sizewell-b#v...

New comment by azza2110 in "Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice"

azza2110 — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 02:50:59 +0000

Saffron is 94 USD per gram at major Australian grocery stores.

When I went earlier today, this locally-grown product was the only saffron available. https://i.imgur.com/q8z9MBF.jpeg

New comment by azza2110 in "Why are most sofas so bad?"

azza2110 — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:56:32 +0000

The bracing provided by the backing sheet makes all the difference.

Some of the simple desks the sell are nothing more than a tabletop and four screw in legs. With no bracing the desk is unpleasantly wobbly.

The very popular Ikea cube bookcases (https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/kallax-shelving-units-58285/) aren't sold with a backing sheet - thankfully they seem stiff enough without it.

New comment by azza2110 in "London Then and Now: Aerial Shots Show City Grow over Past Two Decades"

azza2110 — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:31:39 +0000

London prices have been high for a long time but growth has been more reasonable since the flat construction boom.

Eyeballing from a chart here (https://www.plumplot.co.uk/London-house-prices.html)

- 1995 to 2010: 300% growth (10% p.a.)

- 2010 to 2023: 75% growth (4% p.a.)

New comment by azza2110 in "Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently"

azza2110 — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 16:18:28 +0000

I've found it's best to use a combination of written and spoken word, when trying to communicate more, but less frequently. i.e.

- Write a set of concise, clear, well-structured discussion notes ahead of a meeting

- Give all attendees time to pre-read the notes and flag the specific points requiring deeper discussion

- Once face-to-face, discuss ONLY those flagged topics. Don't waste the opportunity for high-bandwidth communication on the notes/topics that aren't contentious.

New comment by azza2110 in "Toaster: Pure CSS 3D Editor"

azza2110 — Mon, 22 May 2023 15:21:43 +0000

Stop signs are blank on the back. Could you hide the text instead?

New comment by azza2110 in "High-performance tidy trees visualization (2022)"

azza2110 — Fri, 19 May 2023 00:58:07 +0000

This is great.

It's beautiful, and you've explained the field of tidy tree generation really well.

I wish I had this to refer to last year when implementing something similar in VBA for Excel and PowerPoint [1]. Perhaps it's time for me to revisit!

[1] https://aaronbrooker.com/vdttool

New comment by azza2110 in "Declining quality of consumer-grade products – 2009 fridge compressor autopsy"

azza2110 — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 22:12:58 +0000

I'd happily pay 5x the price of the cheapest product available, if I knew I was getting a higher quality product with a longer lifetime.

However, I can never tell if this 5x premium actually gets me a better core product, or just gets me better branding, advertising, aesthetics, and/or superfluous features.

So I usually just buy the cheapest and hope for the best.

New comment by azza2110 in "Harry Beck’s 1933 London Tube Map"

azza2110 — Mon, 30 May 2022 22:45:11 +0000

For anyone who finds this interesting, I recommend reading Underground Maps Unravelled, by Robert J Maxwell: http://www.tubemapcentral.com/writing/umu.html

It covers the history of London Underground maps and signage, analysis on how/why certain map elements help users, and contains a number of painstakingly recreated historical and theoretical transit maps to illustrate the points.

New comment by azza2110 in "Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?"

azza2110 — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:45:02 +0000

I've been working on an Excel tool to procedurally generate Powerpoint value driver tree graphics from spreadsheets.

https://aaronbrooker.com/vdttool

Most corporates only have MS Office so I've had to stick to using VBA.

Built to save me time in my day job, but has become a passion project. The most challenging part has been improving the algorithm for displaying the trees in a compact form but with an eye-pleasing amount of whitespace.

New comment by azza2110 in "The dangers of high status, low wage jobs"

azza2110 — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 19:47:53 +0000

I think you are talking about Blendle which up until a few years ago let you pay by the article for many major newspapers and magazines.

I miss it.

New comment by azza2110 in "Cargo Cult Software Engineering (2000)"

azza2110 — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:30:34 +0000

Does the Netherlands even have hills and valleys?

New comment by azza2110 in "Boeing CEO refuses to admit 737 MAX 8 is flawed"

azza2110 — Wed, 01 May 2019 06:00:42 +0000

The issue with the MAX8 is that it is fundamentally imbalanced. The larger heavier engines are tacked on to an airframe similar to the existing 737, constantly causing the plane to tip forwards, such that repeated tiny changes are required to maintain level flight. It is these tiny changes that are automated by software and can cause a crash when fed faulty sensor data.

The MAX10 is a significantly longer aircraft. The forwards rotation of the larger heavier engines is better balanced by the forces imparted by the tail acting over a longer lever arm, so the problematic sensor-driven software-controlled tiny changes aren't required.

New comment by azza2110 in "How my sexual health searches ended up in the hands of big tech companies"

azza2110 — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 13:07:00 +0000

I have the below address bookmarked - easier than digging through menus!

chrome://settings/content/notifications

New comment by azza2110 in "Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo"

azza2110 — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 07:30:27 +0000

Earlier this year I worked in the finance department for a major airline with significant B737 Australian operations.

As much as I would have liked these numbers to be false, they are sadly reality.

New comment by azza2110 in "Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo"

azza2110 — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 03:01:26 +0000

A typical 737 pilot earns 200-250k AUD and can work no more than 72 hours per month, including training, admin, etc.

If a pilot needs so much sleep that they can only safely work 18 hours per week, I'd hate to think how compromised a passenger's safety is when being shuttled around by a Taxi/Uber driver working 40-80 hours per week.