Both of us are usually working in our home offices when she shows up, so I needed a way to track her hours so I could pay her every 2 weeks. I was afraid of losing a piece of paper (especially to our dog as he is fond of those), so I started keeping track of her hours in a spreadsheet. At the end of each day, I’d scrub the driveway video from our security system to pick up the timestamps. Then for payday I’d add the hours, multiply by 60, add minutes, divide by 60, and multiply by her hourly rate. Then mark it paid in the spreadsheet.

That worked OK, but it was a bit of a pain to use. There would be days when I would forget this process and the source-of-truth video would have aged out of the security system history. Then doing the base 60 math required a few re-verify steps as I didn’t want to risk a mistake that would be in our favor financially. As a precaution I’d always round the timestamps up/down in her favor (which ends up being real money over a month).

So I grabbed Claude (my first serious AI use) and built something to simplify my life: a small web app (Spring Boot + React on AWS), with an old iPad by the door as a kiosk. She punches in and out on it, and I have an “admin” view that lets me see the time logs and compute pay automatically. It grew some legs because there's a few extra features I realized I needed after weeks of using it (like notifications when she punches in or out, or the ability to leave her a message when I'm stuck in a meeting).

This was a fun side project, and since it was already on AWS I figured I could make it public and the extra cost wouldn't be too much to bear. It actually took a lot of effort to do that (more than I wanted: email deliverability alone was a saga), but it's there now, and it's free.

Happy to answer anything about the stack, the hosting, or whatever. I don’t have Android devices to test, so I’m not sure how well it works in that world (any feedback appreciated).

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321046

Points: 6

# Comments: 4

I had no idea this existed on iOS (there may be an equivalent on Android), and I was very skeptical about it, but it has turned spam calls into a non-issue for me.

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/screen-and-block-call...

Note that I would be careful about using pure tones for too long. Pure tones end up focusing the energy in your cochlea towards a small area of hair cells. Since these cells don't regenerate, it may be wise to avoid overstressing them.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746288

Points: 6

# Comments: 6

But if you are one of the "common kind", which is typically an insult to your hearing apparatus that damaged your cochlea, then the work from Susan Shore [2] is a reasonable explanation of what could actually be going on (genesis by the fusiform cells of the dorsal cochlear nucleus). You may be interested in checking out her publications listed in the wikipedia article quoted.

[1] https://www.tinnitusresearch.net/index.php/for-clinicians/di... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Shore

I think you are thinking of Gaby Olthuis. Her story is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQ6kSqBOao

I still need transactional emails to go through, unless I change pharmacies, which isn't impossible to do, but has downsides that may be more painful than having to "Mark As Spam" a couple of times a week.

I keep receiving marketing emails from them, and when I click "unsubscribe", the backend keeps telling me "There are no email subscriptions associated with *@*". That means it did take into account my unsubscribe request the first time around, as it doesn't find me in the DB.

So their DB doesn't have me in there, but I still get emails.

I understand the challenges of distributed systems, eventual consistency, etc... and so it appears the entity sending the email is using an "old" DB with my email address in it, that isn't sync'd yet with my removal update, but after waiting for over a month, I'm beginning to think this will never stop.

How would you deal with that?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43645319

Points: 7

# Comments: 18

Thankfully, the serial numbers aren't too close to each other, so I'm hoping they aren't part of the same batch.

Concretely, I use ZFS with a zpool with 2 SSDs in a mirror configuration. When one dies, even if it's sudden, I can just swap it out for another one and that's it.

My vulnerability window starts when the first SSD fails and closes when the mirror is rebuilt. If something bad happens to the other SSD during that time, I'm toast and I have to start restoring from backup.

Since that event, I've flipped the switch back to "snail mail" and will resist the constant nagging until they implement a paper fallback (i.e. notify by email first and if it's not paid within X weeks of deadline, fire off a paper notification).

My wife can use the BI app (even though it uses an outdated UI design). I haven't found any Frigate-based UX that would meet that bar (and that bar is not even particularly high with the BI app).

Would love to know if I'm missing a Frigate UX option that is "family friendly".

I realize this is going to sound dumb, but please also consider that we all (almost all) carry natural ear plugs with us in the form of our hands/fingers. When sound gets loud, do not hesitate to plug in quickly. Damage to our hearing apparatus depends on intensity and duration, so the sooner you plug the better.

It may be safer to plug your ears with your fingers quickly than to spend a few seconds looking for your fancy -33 dB ear plugs, as unexpected loud noises tend to surprise us but not last very long (ambulance, fighter jet, honking, etc).

In addition to this, there are lots of sound level measuring apps for our smartphones and it can be helpful to measure long lasting levels at venues (concerts, bars, etc). Airplane cabin noise is surprisingly loud. Noise canceling headphones are a great tool for this scenario.

Finally, remember that hearing damage is cumulative: what many of your peers will tolerate fine may not work for you and vice versa. Watch for "the straw that breaks the camel's back".

If your hearing apparatus has already been insulted, treat it with lots of care. If it hasn't already been insulted, treat it with lots of care.