Hacker News: michaelrbock

New comment by michaelrbock in "Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board"

michaelrbock — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 23:05:34 +0000

Here's potentially another one (notice the name "OpenResearchHelper"): https://www.wikiservice.at/gruender/wiki.cgi?action=rc&days=... (I used GPT-6 Astra to find this)

And a few more:

- https://www.ludism.org/scwiki?action=browse;diff=1;id=SandBo... and edit history: https://www.ludism.org/scwiki?action=rc;all=1;from=1;showedi... which contains DataUSA poverty queries for Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Henderson, and Jacksonville—the same four-place task found in the known agent logs and GründerWiki

- https://www.ludism.org/mentat?action=browse;diff=1;id=SandBo... and edit history: https://www.ludism.org/mentat?action=history;id=SandBox

- https://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Test/WikiSandbox?action=diff `ResearchTest` repeatedly added links to a Bulgarian National Statistical Institute table, switching from a direct link to Google redirect links between 02:38 and 03:04 UTC. An administrator removed them at 06:57. The previous recorded edits were from 2016.

- https://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Test/Sandbox2?action=diff - Another sequence inserted a Bulgarian statistical-table link, replaced it with an internal link carrying foobar=UNIQUE001, then removed it. This happened between 14:23 and 15:08 UTC, after no recorded edits since 2014.

Can Chinese AI (Kimi K3) file American tax returns (TaxCalcBench)?

michaelrbock — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:17:42 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/column-tax/tax-calc-bench/pull/93

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49006300

Points: 13

# Comments: 6

TaxCalcBench: An open source eval for testing if AI can file taxes

michaelrbock — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 19:28:22 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/column-tax/tax-calc-bench

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836352

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Column Tax's master plan to automate tax filing (just between you and me)

michaelrbock — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 23:59:54 +0000

Article URL: https://www.columntax.com/blog/our-secret-master-plan-to-automate-tax-filing

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45754720

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by michaelrbock in "TaxCalcBench: Evaluating Frontier Models on the Tax Calculation Task"

michaelrbock — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 23:55:18 +0000

We agree, that's the thesis behind our tax development coding agent: https://www.columntax.com/blog/introducing-iris-our-ai-tax-d...

New comment by michaelrbock in "TaxCalcBench: Evaluating Frontier Models on the Tax Calculation Task"

michaelrbock — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 18:19:31 +0000

We tested models with knowledge cutoffs in 2025 so expect them to have knowledge of Tax Year 2024 forms in their weights. We also tested models with ability to do web search to get any other forms it thinks necessary: https://github.com/column-tax/tax-calc-bench

That all being said, we agree, which is what we've built with our internal tax coding agent, Iris: https://www.columntax.com/blog/introducing-iris-our-ai-tax-d... (ability to get just the right Tax form context on a per-line basis to turn the tax law into code).

New comment by michaelrbock in "TaxCalcBench: Evaluating Frontier Models on the Tax Calculation Task"

michaelrbock — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:26:59 +0000

Hi, author of this paper + repo here. This dataset is particularly hard to come by, so we’re really proud to be open sourcing it.

Let me know if you have any questions, happy to discuss!

SWE-Bench for Taxes

michaelrbock — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 21:32:38 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/column-tax/tax-calc-bench

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44739756

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

TaxCalcBench: Can AI file your taxes? (not yet)

michaelrbock — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:22:42 +0000

Article URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16126

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44677988

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Introducing Iris: Our AI Tax Development Agent

michaelrbock — Thu, 29 May 2025 15:55:53 +0000

Article URL: https://www.columntax.com/posts/introducing-iris-our-ai-tax-development-agent

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44127310

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

A tactical guide to hiring your first VP of Engineering

michaelrbock — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:30:49 +0000

Article URL: https://michaelrbock.com/vpe/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43291557

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by michaelrbock in "How to navigate and exit the idea maze"

michaelrbock — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 04:12:39 +0000

Author here. I said "random _to find_". But thank you for giving me an incredibly classic top HN comment :)

New comment by michaelrbock in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2021)"

michaelrbock — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 21:19:27 +0000

Founding Full-Stack Engineer | Column Tax | REMOTE (US Timezone overlap), SF, NYC | Full-time | https://www.columntax.com/

Column Tax is on a mission to help Americans gain financial independence.

Our first product is an API that brings the power of a high-end accountant to users who otherwise wouldn’t be able to access financial advice. Our users are individuals and families living paycheck-to-paycheck who use Column to get out of debt, move into their own homes, and save up for emergency bills.

Things we value:

- Focus: we know that doing great work takes long blocks of uninterrupted time

- Ownership: everyone at Column is empowered to make big decisions

- Transparency: expect honest & vulnerable communication

- Doing the right thing: Taxes is an industry with a history of predatory practices; we’re determined to fix that

To apply or if you have any question, see the full job description at https://jobs.columntax.com/ or email me (CTO) at michael@columntax.com directly.

Show HN: Every company working on autonomous vehicles

michaelrbock — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 17:20:52 +0000

Article URL: https://selfdriving.fyi/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24262918

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by michaelrbock in "What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?"

michaelrbock — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 13:55:57 +0000

Here are some additional resources for folks looking to ditch the keyboard: https://handsfreecoding.org/

New comment by michaelrbock in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2019)"

michaelrbock — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 00:39:36 +0000

Pioneer | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time, ONSITE | Software Engineer, Business Operations | https://pioneer.app

We’re building software to scalably find & support the world’s creative outsiders — the next generation of researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, and engineers.

In the ~9 months since our launch, we’ve seen thousands of applicants from over 100 countries, working on projects spread across almost every industry (check out our recent winners here: https://pioneer.app/blog/meet-the-pioneers-take-3).

We’re a small team of 5 led by our founder Daniel Gross (founder of Cue, acquired by Apple, former YC AI Partner), and are looking to hire our 3rd engineer & someone to run business operations.

Please reach out to: jobs+hn@pioneer.app.

New comment by michaelrbock in "Show HN: All SF Scooters on One Map"

michaelrbock — Thu, 24 May 2018 00:47:48 +0000

https://transitapp.com/ has almost exactly what you're looking for on mobile.

New comment by michaelrbock in "Autonomous transportation launching to 125k residents in Florida"

michaelrbock — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 21:54:24 +0000

With a test driver behind the wheel. Source: https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/951200429001469953

New Products

michaelrbock — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 05:56:16 +0000

Article URL: http://xkcd.com/1497/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9182789

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by michaelrbock in "Get away with Google Flights"

michaelrbock — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 03:19:16 +0000

I'm a fan of https://www.vamo.com/ for multi-city trips. You put in your point of origin and all the cities you want to visit (and for how long), and it routes you between the cities on the best type of transportation and offers accommodation suggestions as well.