Blogs / Personal blogs

Paul Butler

paulbutler.org

I'm a software engineer and former quant, now building Jamsocket . I'm excited about tools to explore, explain, and persuade .

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Visit paulbutler.org → RSS feedOn Hacker News Nov 2010 – Feb 2025

Software Engineering 3Society, Policy & Culture 2Crypto & Blockchain 2Tools & Productivity 1Security & Privacy 1Networking & Internet 1

1

“Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory , David Graeber makes the case that a sizable chunk of the labour economy is essentially people performing useless work, as a sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct of the economic status quo. The book cites ample anecdotal evidence that people perceive their own jobs as completely…

4

Why is it so hard to give Google money?

I’ve been trying to run search ads on Google for over a month. Due to two unrelated snags, I’ve only had ~12 hours of uptime with those ads in that time. Based on conversations with other startups that run Google Ads, my experience is neither unique nor surprising. Apropos of Google’s earnings day, I wanted to vent a…