A free site uses live weather data to flag pavement that will burn your dog's paws

Press the back of your hand against the sidewalk for seven seconds. If you can't stand it, your dog can't either. That's the old vet's rule for hot pavement, and it works. Asphalt at an 87°F air temperature can reach 140°F in direct sun; vets see paw burns every summer.

Gregory Paige built a free site called Pawmometer that checks the asphalt for you. Type in your city, or share your location, and the site reads current weather conditions to rate concrete sidewalks, asphalt streets, sand, and artificial turf as safe, caution, or avoid right now.

Paige isn't a software engineer. By day, he handles product marketing at Circle, the USDC stablecoin company. He built Pawmometer through "vibe coding" — describing what he wanted to an AI assistant like Cursor or Replit and letting the software write itself.

Writing about the tool for TrendWatching, Liesbeth den Toom argues that the limit on shipping useful software has shifted from engineering chops to taste — knowing what's worth making.

Previously:

• Humans fixing bad vibe code for good money
• Here's how your idea for an app, API, or website can come to life without any coding