Hacker News: gautamcgoel

New comment by gautamcgoel in "New Washington state law bans noncompete agreements"

gautamcgoel — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:12:47 +0000

Wait, I'm confused. Do you mean Boston should have made non-compete agreements illegal?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 19:01:48 +0000

I assume OP means that a probe launched today would take decades to exit the solar system.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "How to defer US taxes"

gautamcgoel — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:44:39 +0000

The thing I don't understand with these loan arguments is: don't you eventually need to pay taxes in the income you use to repay the loan? It seems to me that folks who take out such loans are just kicking the can down the road.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Microsoft's 'unhackable' Xbox One has been hacked by 'Bliss'"

gautamcgoel — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 23:30:26 +0000

Just wanted to say this is an amazing technical writeup, thanks for sharing.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Loon: A functional lang with invisible types, safe ownership, and alg. effects"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 01:26:17 +0000

Looks amazing. However, I'm confused about some of the examples in the ownership section. Consider this example:

  [fn consume [xs]
  [println [str "got " [len xs] " items"]]]
  [let items #[1 2 3]]
  [consume items]
  ; items has been moved — using it here is a compile error

This is described as an example of a setting where the variable 'items' has been moved, so it can no longer be used. However, the consume function does not mutate its argument, so I don't see why 'items' can no longer be used. In addition, it seems to me that the term 'moved' is being used to mean 'mutated'. Is that correct, or do I have it wrong?

Another example from the website is the following:

  [fn length [xs] [len xs]]

  [let items #[1 2 3]]
  [println [length items]]
  [println [length items]]  ; items not consumed

The website explains this example as follows: "If the compiler can prove that a reference will not outlive the owner, it passes a borrow instead of moving." However, there are no references in this example, only the original variable 'items'. Am I missing something? I think the language is cool, but the explanations of the semantics could be improved.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "The C3 Programming Language"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 14:27:04 +0000

What old features would you like to dispose of in a modern redesign of D? What would this new edition look like?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "John Varley has died"

gautamcgoel — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 05:44:18 +0000

Mammoth and Red Thunder are both masterpieces.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Anthropic taps IPO lawyers as it races OpenAI to go public"

gautamcgoel — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 19:51:40 +0000

How would this work, given that Anthropic is a public benefit corporation?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "New gel restores dental enamel and could revolutionise tooth repair"

gautamcgoel — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 19:29:19 +0000

Whoa! Any references?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "New gel restores dental enamel and could revolutionise tooth repair"

gautamcgoel — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 18:52:51 +0000

Been using Boks for a couple months, haven't noticed much difference. Maybe some reduced sensitivity.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "EVs are depreciating faster than gas-powered cars"

gautamcgoel — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 04:59:14 +0000

Which car + how do you like it?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Bitcoin Whale Shorted $1.1B Right Before Tariffs"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 02:23:01 +0000

I'm confused: why would you short BTC if you knew in advance that additional tariffs would be announced? Wouldn't you expect that to increase the dollar value of BTC due to depreciation of the dollar?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland"

gautamcgoel — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 20:19:42 +0000

Sorry to hear that, that is completely unacceptable behavior.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Why I chose Lua for this blog"

gautamcgoel — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 04:43:35 +0000

You are correct that 1-based indexing is the norm among mathematicians, but none of the creators of Lua is a mathematician, AFAIK. You can read about the early history of Lua here:

https://www.lua.org/history.html

New comment by gautamcgoel in "How older parents divorce affects their adult children"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 21:18:55 +0000

What were the benefits?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 08:37:08 +0000

What British values do you think have been abandoned in favor of American values?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Writing Speed-of-Light Flash Attention for 5090 in CUDA C++"

gautamcgoel — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 19:35:34 +0000

Do you have a source for that B200 price?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Review of Anti-Aging Drugs"

gautamcgoel — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 21:05:43 +0000

Simple solution: take an antacid, like Tums.

New comment by gautamcgoel in "Toothpaste made with keratin may protect and repair damaged teeth: study"

gautamcgoel — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 18:55:12 +0000

Any upcoming advances for gum disease?

New comment by gautamcgoel in "New treatment eliminates bladder cancer in 82% of patients"

gautamcgoel — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 18:57:46 +0000

So sorry to hear this, I wish him the best.