<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: gramie</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gramie</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2026 05:44:00 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=gramie" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "A Few Good Magazines From the 70s and 80s"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There was a Toronto Commodore magazine called The Transactor that was my absolute favourite. It covered everything from the CBM 4032 and 8032 through the various Amigas. The magazine was very much programmer oriented, from assembly to BASIC and C.<p>It also published the Commodore Inner Space Anthology, containing full memory maps, ASCII tables, BASIC reference, and much, much more.<p><a href="https://www.commodore.ca/commodore-gallery/the-transactor-magazine/" rel="nofollow">https://www.commodore.ca/commodore-gallery/the-transactor-ma...</a><p>Earlier on, when I was first using our VIC-20 and C64, I learned a great deal from Compute and Compute's Gazette.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:04:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629220</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629220</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629220</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Artemis II is not safe to fly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Lots of people have bad feelings about things. If it all turns out okay, they generally forget about the premonitions. If it goes bad, then they believe that their gut instinct is reliably correct.<p>When I was small, I used to have bad feelings about my parents getting in a car accident every time they went out. It never happened, and they lived into their 90s.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:48:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588155</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588155</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588155</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Show HN: Learn Arabic with spaced repetition and comprehensible input"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For a different method of learning Arabic (or several other languages), check out <a href="https://www.languagetransfer.org" rel="nofollow">https://www.languagetransfer.org</a>. It teaches Egyptian Arabic, explaining that the entire region knows this dialect because Egypt is the TV and movie hub of the Arabic world.<p>It's all audio (MP3s or streaming) and completely free, and (IMHO) the best language learning system out there. I have used it to learn Spanish, my sixth language and can't recommend it highly enough.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2026 18:53:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47379863</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47379863</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47379863</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Yoghurt delivery women combatting loneliness in Japan"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The annual consumption of ice cream in Japan was 6.7 litres per person in 2021 (compared to 10 litres/person in Canada and 20 litres/person in the U.S.). For all dairy, Japanese people each ate 94 kg in 2022.<p>They eat less dairy, but hardly none. I have heard people say that a scoop of ice cream or a glass of milk each day is not a problem, but more can be. Intolerance also seems to increase with age, so younger people can consume more dairy.<p>A 1975 study in Japan puts intolerance (unable to drink 200ml of milk comfortably) at 19% of the population. I would suspect that massive exposure over the past 50 years has lowered that percentage significantly.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:38:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289143</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289143</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289143</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> doesn't have that problem by construction<p>Well no, but it does have other significant construction problems! <a href="https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/japans-20b-kansai-airport-in-osaka-sinking-at-an-alarming-rate-experts" rel="nofollow">https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/japans-20b-kansai-airport...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:01:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47141127</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47141127</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47141127</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "France's homegrown open source online office suite"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't believe that there is a single case in world history where increased family income did NOT reduce the number of children per family. Likewise with improvements in child mortality.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:58:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925938</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925938</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46925938</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Are you saying that something about this product is suspect? But it has "Beautiful Craftsamnship"!<p><a href="https://img-va.myshopline.com/image/store/1731468034215/1dd40a2b58c4355aff91c01535b48f41.png" rel="nofollow">https://img-va.myshopline.com/image/store/1731468034215/1dd4...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:03:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912942</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912942</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912942</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What fraction of Americans are <i>capable</i> of reading a book (i.e. not functionally illiterate)?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:25:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891153</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891153</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891153</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Ask HN: Is there anyone here who still uses slide rules?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We learned to use them in high school (in Canada) in the mid-late '70s. Electronic calculators were just becoming widespread, and not everyone had them.<p>I think I can do basic calculations with them, although I really haven't touched one in many years.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:00:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871801</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871801</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871801</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Being a Canadian in America"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm sorry, but this comes across to me (obviously, from my first two words, also a Canadian) as saying, "I don't want the inconvenience of doing anything, but I'll pay some money to assuage my guilt".<p>You may not be able to vote, but as a resident you can write (on paper!) to your representatives to express your concerns.<p>You can get in touch with grassroots movements that are doing things (not just protesting!) to resist the rise of fascism.<p>You can look at ways to harness your clearly exceptional business/technical talents. Improve communications privacy for the public? Crowdsource information about ICE/CBP movements and activities? Expose people or corporations who are collaborating with undemocratic practices?<p>From your vantage point, you would have a much better idea what options are available.<p>Yes, there are personal risks and costs, but you have chosen to live in a society that has been creeping slowly but visibly towards authoritarianism. You have benefitted handsomely from your position, maybe it's time to pay back the people who clean your offices and pick your produce for (often less than) minimum wage.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:22:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766726</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766726</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766726</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Water 'Bankruptcy' Era Has Begun for Billions, Scientists Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We Canadians have seen how much value the US administration places on treaties.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:08:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766548</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766548</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766548</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Water 'Bankruptcy' Era Has Begun for Billions, Scientists Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The BBC said (<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw4478wnjdpo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw4478wnjdpo</a>) that in 30 years, private water and sewerage companies in England and Wales have extracted over 86 billion pounds (~USD $115 billion), while investing very little.<p>Meanwhile, consumer water rates in those areas increased by as much as 50% in the past year alone.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:08:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766537</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766537</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766537</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Things I've learned in my 10 years as an engineering manager"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I recall hearing that Google had a term similar to this:<p>A "shit umbrella" was a manager who protected the development team from all the politics, blame, and mismanagement coming from above.<p>A "shit funnel" was a manager who directed all the shit coming down, directly onto the team.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 14:59:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766416</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766416</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46766416</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Roam 50GB is now Roam 100GB"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> used to be the fastest speed you could get at home<p>My 1200 baud from 1987 would beg to differ. Granted, that was for bulletin boards, not the WWW (which hadn't been invented yet).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 03:51:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46627803</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46627803</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46627803</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I believe that this only exists for colour printers. The official reasoning was to trace people counterfeiting money.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 10 Jan 2026 16:17:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566955</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566955</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566955</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Ask HN: In the real world we pay for everything so why not software?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The incremental cost of a musician giving away MP3 files of his/her music is also "nothing at all", but the vast majority of musicians would prefer it if they could afford to eat!<p>Just like with software developers, we want to find a way to compensate musicians, but that it proving a very intractable problem.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 05 Jan 2026 01:56:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494508</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494508</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494508</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Kitchen optimizations"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The issue comes when there are multiple people using the kitchen. Sometimes my wife runs the dishwasher when I'm not around, or vice versa. We usually rinse our dishes, so there is not always a lot of visible evidence.<p>The problem is when you have a dirty dish and assume that the dishwasher contents are dirty too (because usually we unload the dishwasher soon after it finishes). Then you put a dirty dish in, possibly making other dishes dirty. So you have to either hand-wash several dishes or re-wash the entire load.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:15:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46444222</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46444222</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46444222</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Without government interference, someone who is stronger/more brutal than you can kill you and take your property, partner, and anything else they like. It is in the top 10 in the world for homicides.<p>Haiti is a horrifying place to live, for most people. The UN says that 85% of the capital is controlled by gangs, and they are spreading out into the rest of the country.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 25 Dec 2025 15:25:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384933</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384933</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384933</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Computer animator and Amiga fanatic Dick van Dyke turns 100"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I believe that the frequency hopping technique is still used everywhere today, for things like wi-fi and Bluetooth.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 14 Dec 2025 20:48:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266740</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266740</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266740</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by gramie in "Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I also have hearing loss in one ear. I have a hearing aid for that ear, and it dramatically improves my higher-frequency hearing on that side. My wife certainly appreciates it. If I start speaking loudly, she will often say, "Do you have your hearing aid in?", and either I forgot to wear it or the battery is dead (typically lasts about 16 hours).<p>One drawback is that I can't listen to Bluetooth music because it only comes through the one side. It's good enough for podcasts, through.<p>Mine is a Costco one (manufactured by Phonak, I believe). Nothing really fancy, but only $1,000 -- and the Ontario government covered half of that.<p>I kind of resisted getting a hearing aid for a long time -- even though I used to date an audiologist -- but it's a significant improvement to my quality of life.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 24 Nov 2025 20:00:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46038506</link><dc:creator>gramie</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46038506</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46038506</guid></item></channel></rss>