15:I[981,["658","static/chunks/658-a698693f56d0116a.js","183","static/chunks/183-6beeeb801c274aaa.js","474","static/chunks/app/%5Btype%5D/layout-631c4730b83c8223.js"],"Posts"] 16:T724,New Zealand Members of Parliament are required to annually disclose their financial interests (shareholdings, directorships, consultancies, etc.) but this gets published annually as an unwieldy 80+ page PDF that's hard to search effectively.

I processed structured data out of the PDF and built a searchable interface: https://open-register-of-pecuniary-interests.joshmcarthur.co....

You can search across all MPs' disclosed interests by name, company, or interest type. For example, you can quickly find which MPs have interests in specific sectors or companies, filter by category or political party.

The data extraction was interesting - I found that a two-pass approach worked well with Gemini 2.5 Flash - one to pull out MP names and referenced page numbers, then I extracted the specific pages each MP appeared on and extracted structured data just from these pages.

The approach could work for similar transparency registers in other countries - most seem to publish open data as PDF, which technically ticks the box, but isn't the most accessible format to work with. Even within NZ, I'm planning to expand the data I process to previous years, as well as processing data for local and regional councils (who have the same legal requirement to publish financial interests of council members).

Open sourced at https://github.com/joshmcarthur/open-register-of-pecuniary-i....

Tech stack: Ruby on Rails, SQLite (FTS5), Tailwind/DaisyUI - keeping it lightweight since this is just a side project to make public data more accessible.

Who ~Framed~ Created Pitman?

INapGPU: Text-mode graphics card, using only TTL gates

Notes on writing a monovocalic sonnet

We have outgrown the Process model

Three Perspectives on Equivalence Relations

Monoids in Public

The Newton-to-Quantum Mechanics tension between determinism and indeterminism

OpenAI says models are programmed to make stuff up

The Seneca: First Edition $8k PC Keyboard

AI bots 'coached' son to suicide: grieving mom delivers testimony [video]

Why, as a responsible adult, SimCity 2000 hits differently

How to Build Secure AI Coding Agents with Cerebras and Docker Compose

Kubernetes v1.34: Pods Report DRA Resource Health

Show HN: Made NZ's member of parliament financial disclosure data searchable

Could a primordial black hole's last burst explain a mysteriously neutrino?

Why Is Xcode So Antagonistic to Reduced Vision?

China bans its biggest tech companies from acquiring Nvidia chips, says report

How HR took over British business and got in the way of actual work

LLVM: Our AI policy vs. code of conduct and vs. reality

Biotech firm announces 'pivotal step' in effort to bring back the dodo

ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments After FCC Pressure

Security Industry turns "Without Warranty" to "Supply Chain Attack, Shame on You

Things for OS 26

WIP: A website for listing / finding free plants in your community

China blocks sale of Nvidia AI chips

The "Rainey Street Ripper": An Independent Analysis of the Evidence

Meta Ray-Ban Display: A Breakthrough Category of AI Glasses Quest Blog Store

DeepSeek-R1 incentivizes reasoning in LLMs through reinforcement learning

Java 25, Ready to Perform to the Limit

The Economic Impacts of AI: A Multidisciplinary, Multibook Review [pdf]

Ask HN: Are you running production workloads in Pytorch eager mode?