Hacker News: paulgb

New comment by paulgb in "Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware"

paulgb — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 14:50:57 +0000

I remember following this at the time! FYI it was "shut down" (kept online but no further development) two years ago (https://x.com/KennethCassel/status/1620500575183073280)

> Decided to shutdown Diode. (For now the site is live, I'll likely open-source the code in case anyone wants to take the baton and run)

Kenneth is now working on RMFG (https://www.rmfg.com/)

New comment by paulgb in "The battle to stop clever people betting"

paulgb — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 22:05:04 +0000

I like betting because I find it fun to quantify probabilities of future events, and having a ~small amount of money at stake keeps me motivated to follow through on whether I was right.

I do think there are positive EV bets to be had on prediction markets though, they are mosty not efficient.

New comment by paulgb in "The battle to stop clever people betting"

paulgb — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 13:26:51 +0000

> an unrealistic maladaptive cope

I like betting myself, but I don't think abstaining from betting is maladaptive at all. Most of the bets we encounter in the real world are negative EV.

New comment by paulgb in "Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say"

paulgb — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 21:18:01 +0000

I'm mostly surprised that someone can so consistently and repeatedly demonstrate an inability to filter information he receives and still be trusted with LPs' money. It's another form of Gell-Mann amnesia.

New comment by paulgb in "Cloudflare Email Service: private beta"

paulgb — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 20:30:40 +0000

I would bet in the direction of this being a bug on big corp's side rather than Cloudflare's.

New comment by paulgb in "Every industry is an overcrowded airport lounge now"

paulgb — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 02:41:00 +0000

Enjoyable read, but kind of ironic that it interrupts your reading half way down to nag you to subscribe. Everything is an overcrowded airport lounge, indeed.

New comment by paulgb in "Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City"

paulgb — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 20:10:10 +0000

Cars are only “heavily regulated” in the sense that you pass a test once when you are a teenager and then never have to pass a test again, just pay a nominal fee to renew your license.

I am curious what data you are looking at that gives you the impression pedestrians and bikers are the root cause of most accidents. As a frequent pedestrian / biker here, I see a car doing something unhinged about every mile I walk. On Wednesday I almost got hit by a car flying the wrong way down a one-way street and then running a red.

New comment by paulgb in "Perfect Freehand – Draw perfect pressure-sensitive freehand lines"

paulgb — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 20:46:47 +0000

This is by Steve Ruiz of https://tldraw.com, in case anyone noticed the similarity between the two.

Heavyweight: An Art Project About Lawyer Vibes

paulgb — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 19:42:32 +0000

Article URL: https://kendraalbert.com/2025/07/21/lawyer-letters-without-lawyers.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44652081

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by paulgb in "The Fundamentals of Asyncio"

paulgb — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:40:04 +0000

This is great! Thanks for writing it.

One nit, the unquoted quotes in this file seem to be a parse error (I replaced the inner ones with single quotes and it ran) https://github.com/anordin95/a-conceptual-overview-of-asynci...

Jamsocket (W22) Is Joining Modal

paulgb — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:48:05 +0000

Article URL: https://jamsocket.com/blog/jamsocket-is-joining-modal

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44522952

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by paulgb in "The Architecture Behind Lovable and Bolt"

paulgb — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:26:27 +0000

I had a trip with my family and used v0 to create an itinerary app with a timeline view of our flights, hotel/airbnb bookings, activities, etc.

It was the only thing I’ve 100% vibe-coded without writing a line of code myself. It worked pretty well. In an earlier era I might have used a shared google doc but this was definitely a better experience.

If you’re looking for things to use lovable/bolt for, I’d say don’t use it for software you otherwise would have written by hand; use it for the software you would never have written at all.

New comment by paulgb in "Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked"

paulgb — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:26:28 +0000

I've said it before but really feels like a flaw that the halvings are discrete and happen suddenly every four years, instead of gradually each block. As far as I can tell the only advantage to it is that it makes the math simpler. The disadvantage is that it creates weird market dynamics in which large amounts of mining capacity are plunged into unprofitability in one instant. If I wanted to run a 51% attack, I'd look to buy up suddenly-unprofitable capacity immediately after a halving.

New comment by paulgb in "Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked"

paulgb — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:23:06 +0000

That's a dated rule at this point, ChatGPT has been able to use its Python interpreter as a calculator for a while and in my experience will opt to do that for back-of-the-envelope calculations.

New comment by paulgb in "Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI"

paulgb — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 19:34:34 +0000

I think the intent is less about the CO2 emissions as about the air quality that people have to breathe (hence a stricter standard in some locations).

I don’t know about measurable effects but I hate when I pass a long-idling truck and can taste it in the air.

New comment by paulgb in "Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI"

paulgb — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 19:28:53 +0000

I see where you’re coming from, but the alternatives are either that the law isn’t enforced, or the state ramps up its own surveillance, which is more dystopian to me.

I see this as in the same vein as SEC whistleblower awards, which I’ve never heard described as dystopian. Businesses just don’t have the same expectation of privacy that individuals do.

New comment by paulgb in "Congestion pricing in Manhattan is a predictable success"

paulgb — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 21:24:29 +0000

It’s 75% lower off-peak though, so there’s still an incentive.

New comment by paulgb in "Congestion pricing in Manhattan is a predictable success"

paulgb — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 18:04:45 +0000

> Whether someone is driving because of speed, or comfort, or some other factor, the cost has to exceed their personally calculated benefit.

It's a dynamic system though; as some drivers opt not to drive, the utility of driving for those other drivers increases. Yes, the market will find an equilibrium somewhere where some people will still drive, but that's kind of the point.

New comment by paulgb in "Congestion pricing in Manhattan is a predictable success"

paulgb — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 16:58:12 +0000

> That's the fundamental argument against the assertion that traffic speed increases will offset the costs. It cannot be true, or people would choose to drive.

I think the mistake you're making here is assuming that the value of driving and the cost of congestion are the same to every driver.

For some people, driving is an elastic decision. They mode shift, or time shift to off-peak, or carpool, or combine errands in the city into one trip instead of multiple.

For other people, driving is necessary. They'll benefit from fewer of the first type of person being on the roads during peak hours.

New comment by paulgb in "Congestion pricing in Manhattan is a predictable success"

paulgb — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 16:17:59 +0000

It was not just an idle threat either, they tried to do it until they were blocked by a judge https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/nyregion/nyc-congestion-p...