<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: RobinL</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RobinL</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:32:32 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=RobinL" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Really like this, well done!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 06:07:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692602</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692602</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692602</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've been experimenting for a year or two making games that make mental arithmetic practice fun for kids.  The latest is
<a href="https://rupertlinacre.com/keep_it_going/" rel="nofollow">https://rupertlinacre.com/keep_it_going/</a> an infinite rollercoaster, which I think is one of the more successful attempts.  There are various others on the homepage. My son also really likes arithmetic annihilation and maths vs monsters.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 05:52:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692497</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692497</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692497</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Observable]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://new.observablehq.com/@observablehq/a-new-observable">https://new.observablehq.com/@observablehq/a-new-observable</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629276">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629276</a></p>
<p>Points: 3</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:37:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://new.observablehq.com/@observablehq/a-new-observable</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629276</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629276</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "ChatGPT Images 2.5"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I wish I could do it better. There seems to be a lot of variability.  This episode of radiolab on the topic is fascinating: <a href="https://radiolab.org/podcast/aphantasia/transcript?utm_source=chatgpt.com" rel="nofollow">https://radiolab.org/podcast/aphantasia/transcript?utm_sourc...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:29:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615618</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615618</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615618</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "ChatGPT Images 2.5"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Interesting. I'm surprised they haven't prioritised/deliberately trained for this more because of how useful it is to ask codex to generate some images/assets/sprites when building sill games.  It would dramatically enhance how polished it's games were.<p>That said for single images the old model was already okayish for prototypes</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:14:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615332</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615332</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615332</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Data Science in the Age of AI]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://www.robinlinacre.com/data_science_age_ai/">https://www.robinlinacre.com/data_science_age_ai/</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519172">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519172</a></p>
<p>Points: 1</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 01 Sep 2026 07:41:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://www.robinlinacre.com/data_science_age_ai/</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519172</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49519172</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Thanks - author here - I think this is due to the unexpected traffic spike from Hacker News!  Will look into</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:56:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49450301</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49450301</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49450301</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Thank you!  My son's favourite at the moment is arithmetic annihilation in two player mode:
<a href="https://rupertlinacre.com/arithmetic_annihilation/" rel="nofollow">https://rupertlinacre.com/arithmetic_annihilation/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:33:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447889</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447889</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447889</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Also shout out to <a href="https://bustimes.org/map" rel="nofollow">https://bustimes.org/map</a> which is a less fun but more informative version of this. My son has spent many a happy hour on this site</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:23:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447056</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447056</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447056</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Author here.  Wasn't expecting this to blow up!<p>This is a quick prototype, made for my 7yo who loves buses.<p>A few tips:<p>- Click the freeze icon to be able to zoom and pan without it changing the location of the lens<p>- Double click to position the lens<p>Thanks for feedback about the data. The bus stop and route data comes from the Department for Transport’s Bus Open Data Service (BODS), using the national GTFS feed. It seems some things like Manchester metro creep in.<p>All these caveats aside, as soon as I got this working it felt like a promising direction. I will pay attention to everyone's comments and suggestions and iterate! Thank you!<p>Incidentally there's a bunch of other free stuff I built for my 7yo on the root domain</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:11:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446939</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446939</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446939</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Click the freeze icon to freeze, or double click to choose a location for the lens</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:06:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446916</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446916</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446916</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://rupertlinacre.com/buslens/">https://rupertlinacre.com/buslens/</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445286">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445286</a></p>
<p>Points: 84</p>
<p># Comments: 55</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:36:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://rupertlinacre.com/buslens/</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445286</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445286</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Pixel Watch 5"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Surprised no one has mentioned Gemini.  That's the highest value add feature for me. I have pixel watch 3, which I got cheap second hand.  Gemini is a little laggy but still useful. If the experience was similar to the latest open AI voice model when used on a phone, it'd be incredibly useful</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 05:35:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49282110</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49282110</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49282110</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://rupertlinacre.com/arithmetic_annihilation/" rel="nofollow">https://rupertlinacre.com/arithmetic_annihilation/</a><p>A mental arithmetic tower defence game for kids.  Now with head to head/two player.  Code:
<a href="https://github.com/RupertLinacre/arithmetic_annihilation" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/RupertLinacre/arithmetic_annihilation</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 06:38:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240057</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240057</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240057</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Incentives are for losers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Incentives are important for allocative efficiency, whether that be the price of a banana or the incentive to do a job that pays more.  Of course, they're imperfect and there are some cases where incentives lead to rent-seeking rather than genuinely economic efficiency.  And there is often a divergence between private value and social value.  But these are exceptions to the rule.  If everyone ignored price signals, society would be less well off.<p>This doesn't mean we should all attempt to do the highest possible paying job available to us, but it does mean there's a genuine loss to society if (say) a high paid software engineer decides to quit and start a bike repair shop i.e. the economic pie will be smaller an so will the tax base.  So when making the decision we should at least be conscious of this.<p>As an economist, I do kind of agree with the premise of the article, but in a different way.  As consumers in particular, we can do much better than following incentives.<p>For instance, we can use the car less, even if it's a bit inconvenient.  It's much nicer to see more people out walking, on their bikes or on the bus, leads to less noise and congestion. So there's a positive externality.  Or I could buy a smaller car, even though bigger one is more convenient.<p>Similarly, if you're lucky enough to have a high paying job, you can buy all sorts of status symbols.  Or, you could choose to consume less than you earn, and give the difference to charity, or invest in something of social value.<p>Whether you agree with this or not, economic theory provides a clear framework to think about all of this, both the price signal and the difference between private and social incentives.  What bothers me (as the article touches on) is that people often have a simplified view of economics which is essentially that 'market incentives and price signals broadly lead to good outcomes (or at least, better outcomes than communism!), and therefore economics always morally endorses buying things at market prices'.  There's nothing in economic theory that says that spending £50k more on a car because it's got a fancier brand is a reasonable moral choice.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Aug 2026 08:17:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229493</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229493</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229493</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes - it's certainly the case at the moment that you can run a few thousand through the LLM at a reasonable price, but not, say, ten million.  But the rate of progress suggests to me that this argument won't hold up forever. Eventually I think an off the shelf LLM will outperform most and probably all more traditional ML models at this task.  Largely because LLMs can identify tricky ones and pick them out for more intensive effort (e.g. looking online, further searches again the canonical list of addresses)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:20:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216364</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216364</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216364</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One example:  I've been working for a couple years (not full time) on a high performance FOSS address matcher: <a href="https://github.com/moj-analytical-services/uk_address_matcher" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/moj-analytical-services/uk_address_matche...</a><p>Until recently LLMs have been really bad at this task.  I always knew it was coming, but with GPT 5.6 they've suddenly become good.  It's pretty clear to me that it won't be long before most of my work on this is rendered pointless because the LLM can either do the classification itself (when given agentic access to the canonical list of addresses), or write a classifier itself if given enough labelled data. Of course these two are complementary</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 20:39:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215958</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215958</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215958</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "The Claudyssey: A line-for-line translation of Homer's Odyssey by Claude Fable 5"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Having recently read Wilson's translation, I was immediately put off at the introduction and leapt to the conclusion it was bad.  It just doesn't sound anywhere near as good to my ear.<p>However, there may be more to it than I thought.  No admittedly the following is ChatGPT's opinion, but I think it's valid and made me think again:<p>> The second is the better translation as English poetry; the first (Claude's) is the better translation if you want to see the Greek more directly.<p>> If I were studying Homer, I'd strongly prefer the first. It continually reminds you that you're reading an ancient poem whose concepts don't map neatly onto modern English.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 20:35:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215910</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215910</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215910</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've often felt my job as a programmer has often been to automate myself (and others) out of my job.  But I've always felt in control of that. I suppose there's some cosmic justice to the fact that it's now being done to me.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 20:16:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215681</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215681</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215681</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by RobinL in "Algorithms on billion-scale graph using 10GB RAM: I love DataFusion"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Love this Sem.  Will provide a great alternative to the SQL based connected components algorithm we ship in Splink. Looking forward to testing how much faster it is.  Thanks for your work on it!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:09:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49128003</link><dc:creator>RobinL</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49128003</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49128003</guid></item></channel></rss>