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Guys what is wrong with ACATS
Ever transferred assets between brokerages? Impressive, terrifying machinations happened in the background. No cats were harmed.
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 1,214 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Mortgages are a manufactured product (2022)
Mortgages are popularly thought of as loans, but to understand the industry, it's better to model them as complex manufactured products.
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The European Commission versus Android
Examining the history of Android explains why the European Commission may be right to fine Google for its actions around Android, even as the reasoning feels off.
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Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer
There is a classic thought experiment in the field of artificial intelligence which is often used to explain how an AI might inadvertently cause the destruction of humanity as a by-product of tryin…
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The EU's new Cyber Resilience Act is about to tell us how to code
First a round of thanks for the many people in industry and government who provided valuable links, background and insights! I could not have done this without your help! If you spot any mistakes, or have suggestions, please do contact me on bert@hubertnet.nl The EU’s new Cyber Resilience Act is admirable in its goal…
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Assange Hearing Day 10
The gloves were off on Tuesday as the US Government explicitly argued that all journalists are liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917) for publishing classified information, citing the Rosen case. Counsel for the US government also argued that the famous Pentagon Papers supreme court judgement on the New…
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Confiscating your ice cream cones
Hey, remember that awesome Hello City Planner video about how the Government is going to have to come and confiscate your ice cream cones? I thought the best thing about it was that it was actually created by the SF Planning Department, but I was wrong. It gets better: it turns out, it's a true story!! Before Ice…
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Why some DVLA digital services don't work at night
Every few months or so, somebody asks on social media why a particular DVLA digital service is turned off over night. Rather than answering it every time, I’ve decided to write this post, so I can point people at it in future. It’s a great case study to show why making government services digitally native can be quite…
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You can't reach the brain through the ears
Why do we have to learn everything the hard way?
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Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"
There's a strain of anti-anti-monopolist that insists that they're not pro -monopoly – they're just realists who understand that global gigacorporations are too big to fail, too big to jail, and that governments can't hope to rein them in. Trying to regulate a tech giant, they say, is like trying to regulate the…
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Stuxnet was embarrassing, not amazing (2011)
As the New York Times posts yet another breathless story about Stuxnet, I’m surprised that no one has pointed out its obvious deficiencies. Everyone seems to be hyperventilating about its pur…
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The Newton hypothesis: Is science done by a small elite?
In previous posts I said that the extent to which "Fund people" works will depend on the distribution of scientific talent. Think about the following …
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4chan hacker discusses the manipulation of the Time poll
There’s a scene toward the end of the book Contact by Carl Sagan, where the protagonist Ellie Arroway finds a Message embedded deep in the digits of PI. The Message is perhaps an artifact of …
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The Long Shadow of Checks
A lot of more modern financial infrastructure follows the paths blazed by checks, at least in the U.S.
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This Apple-HTC Patent Thing
There are two aspects surrounding Apple’s patent litigation against HTC that demand further consideration. First, the severe problems with the U.S. patent system as a whole, particularly regarding software patents. Second, the strategic implications of Apple’s decision to file suit.
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An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout
Context: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…
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Randomize HN: Removing the vote threshold for getting to the front page
You ever notice that there's this funny threshold for getting to the front page on sites like HN? The exact threshold varies depending on how much traffic there is, but, for articles that aren't wildly popular, there's this moment when the article is at N-1 votes. There is, perhaps, a 60% chance that the vote will…
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Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet
Pay toilets are nasty, and ought to be illegal. Those of us who are not poor can afford the price, if we accept the practice; poor people can't. To deny people access to a toilet when they need one is nasty and degrading.
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The Brexit Possibility
Brexit’s downsides are clear; might tech help realize upsides in building something new based on a new world order?
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OpenAI's Woke Catechism
How a Few Activists Made ChatGPT Deny Basic Science
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Flags Are Not Languages
Famous Birthdays has been described as a “ Wikipedia for Gen-Z ”. It’s an insight into popularity across the internet of influencers, not just from traditional stage and screen but also social media channels such as TikTok and Instagram.