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fblp

1,223 karma · joined September 15, 2012

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fblp··on Owed a billion dollars in Nvidia stock
Correction: The writer chose not to engage a lawsuit after receiving advice it was likely to be dismissed given 30 years had passed.
fblp··on Taylor Farms: How One Company's Reach Became a National Risk
This is a helpful industry article with clear recommendations. Many critiques on competition or consumer issues don't have such precision on their recommendations. I'd donate to them if I was in the US.
fblp··on U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications
These visa policies have already encouraged large tech companies etc to expand their Indian offices. It erodes the US tax base and means talent stay in their home country, which means more innovation happens outside the US. More start-ups are been founded in these countries because more talent is now there.

Trump first term was make Mexico and Vietnam Great Again as companies moved their manufacturing there. This term its make India Great Again as companies retain and train their tech talent there.

fblp··on Starbase, LA
I wonder if we're at the point where this shoreline critical infrastructure would need more physical security / protection from the drones of adversaries.
fblp··on Expert Witness to ChatGPT: "Show how 3M is 0 percent at fault"
The article is pay walled.. Does it explain why the expert witness shared screenshots of these prompts? Voluntarily or required to?
fblp··on Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election
Vote difference: 22,239 (Farage) - 9,455 (Binface) = 12,784 votes. 12,784 / 2 = 6,392

If Count Binface took just 6,393 more votes from Farage he would have won!

fblp··on GPT-5.6
oh that's sad, are the biolgy limitations for "safety"?
fblp··on Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?
One of the cooler things I've read on here as it's a next level "homebrew" AI setup! I'd be curious what some examples of debate outputs are. Please consider writing about it!
fblp··on How to convert between wealth and income tax
This grossly simplifies things.

In the US the max federal tax rate is 20% on capital gains, that is the gains realized when you typically sell an asset. The max tax rate on ordinary income is 37%. Some states don't tax at capital gains at all. Others make also tax capital gains.

There are a myriad of loopholes to defer and minimise capital gains ranging from QSBS (first 10mil in small businesses) to trusts to foundations to offset losses. Billionaires are incentivised to hold their assets and let them accrue rather than deploying that capital.

Yes, you could argue that billionaires have earned his billions. But could you really argue that the tax system should be configured to reward them for sitting on those billions and those gains should be taxed at a rate lower than someone working every day to earn 200k in wage income?

The economy has a fundamental division between those who earn income off the gains on assets, and those who earn an income on wages. Wealth taxes help level the playing field by those who already have a tax system in their favor.

Trickel down economics does not work when you earn more holding on to what you have.

fblp··on They Said It Would Cost $54M. We Said "No Thanks."
I wonder how much of the needs satisfied by this software in Alberta is also needed by other states? Yes, it's great that they saved money and built what they need so quickly, but a catch with govt is that they build out these proprietary processes that need more bespoke software.
fblp··on Googlebook
Yes, they could have done a chromebook or pixelbook variant. No sane reason for a third brand that dilutes the other two aside from internal google politics/promotions and to show shareholders.

This does nothing for the customer and you can see a brand called Apple which has been successful with the Air, pro and neo under one brand.

fblp··on Googlebook
Also product managers. Google has a chromebook brand that will a strong. It feels like someone split off the hardware and software under a different brand to get a promotion...
fblp··on DeepSeek v4
There's something heartwarming about the developer docs being released before the flashy press release.
fblp··on ChatGPT Images 2.0
Did it correctly follow the instructions? Don't know my pokemon well enough.
fblp··on Fulu bounty for Ring Camera jailbreak reaches $23k
Surely someone will jailbreak it now that they've allowed hardware modification:

"2026-04-07 We've replaced the requirement that there be no replacements of the original hardware with a rule that no more than 2 components may be added to, or replace components on, the original circuit boards."

fblp··on Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
Has Apple done this? Trying to figure out a safe place to store photos in the cloud without having to self host.
fblp··on Someone bought 30 WordPress plugins and planted a backdoor in all of them
Hear me out. Mergers and acquisitions that substantially lesson market competition can be blocked by governments, or even require approval in certain jurisdictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mergers_and_acquisitions

Maybe mergers or acquisitions that substantially impact security should require approval by marketplaces (industry governance), and notification and approval by even governments?

fblp··on DOJ Top Antitrust Litigators Exit After Ticketmaster Accord
FTA: No merger challenged since January 2025. This means that dozens of mergers that would typically be anticompetitive bleed consumers for money (think vet and dentist rollups) will happen unchallenged.
fblp··on Claude mixes up who said what
I've seen gemini output it's thinking as a message too: "Conclude your response with a single, high value we'll-focused next step" Or sometimes it goes neurotic and confused: "Wait, let me just provide the exact response I drafted in my head. Done. I will write it now. Done. End of thought. Wait! I noticed I need to keep it extremely simple per the user's previous preference. Let's do it. Done. I am generating text only. Done. Bye."
fblp··on Newly created Polymarket accounts win big on well-timed Iran ceasefire bets
Thank you for the thoughtful analysis. I'd echo that the deregulation and corruption of these markets has two impacts: 1) less "legitimate" (non-corrupt) capital flowing to these markets which may ultimately reduce the liquidity and value of the asstrs. 2) more speculative deployment of capital, which means that capital is used for making bets rather than uses for productive purpose (such as investing in legitimate investments that are productive for the economy.

Why would a insider invest in legitimate, productive investment when they can make outsized gains in betting markets or corrupt futures markets?

And yes, long term this will massively taint the US financial power and make economies like the UK more appealing.

fblp··on US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology
Axon seems to be the defacto standard for body cameras but I don't know much about them...
fblp··on Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?
Got it! Any recommendations on who to subscribe to? Any personal links for you?

In developer communities often you can support individual developers or groups through a monthly subscription / donation on their github page or similar.

fblp··on Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?
Hi Ronan appreciate you being here. what would help you and others continue to do journalism like this? (including commenting on HN?)
fblp··on The Australian government has announced gambling advertising reforms
Yep it's hard to build a large liquid market for both sides of the bet without a central platform being legal. Look at polymarket as another example of things that people wouldn't bet on if a (legal in some countries) platform didn't exist.
fblp··on Miscellanea: The War in Iran
Of those options I'd guess Hedgseth as he seems to be the one cheering the war and also using Christian rhetoric. Trump has also suggested he may have relied on Hedgseths advice to scapegoats Hedgseth in recent days..
fblp··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
Thank you for doing this analysis! I'd suggest adding some charts to better represent some of the issues you've found!
fblp··on Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
They do make more money the more pervasive tariffs are though as more people would buy tariff related financial products.
fblp··on Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
Glad to hear an open source option getting more adoption
fblp··on Ex-GitHub CEO launches a new developer platform for AI agents
Thank you for pointing this out. I didn't catch that the parent comment was ai either and upvoted it. Changed it to a downvote seeing your comment and realizing it the comment did indeed have many AI flags.
fblp··on The Great Unwind
Thank you for sharing your perspective and engaging on hackernews!
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