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Party Affiliation
In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent? (Asked of independents: As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?)
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 2,107 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
692
Meat and Dairy Production
Meat is an important source of nutrition for people around the world. How quickly is demand growing? And what are the implications for animal welfare and the earth’s environment?
693
Study: Volkswagen’s excess emissions will lead to 1,200 premature deaths in Europe
A new MIT study finds excess emissions generated by Volkswagen cars sold in Germany, will likely cause 1,200 premature deaths throughout Europe. The most affected countries include Germany, Poland, France, Czech Republic.
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Signal Foundation
Long before we knew that it would be called Signal, we knew what we wanted it to be. Instead of teaching the rest of the world cryptography, we wanted to see if we could develop cryptography that worked for the rest of the world. At the time, the industry consensus was largely that encryption and...
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Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?
Some people enter the technology industry to build newer, more exciting kinds of technology as quickly as possible. My keynote will savage these people and will burn important professional bridges, likely forcing me to join a monastery or another penance-focused organization. In my keynote, I will explain why the…
698
Daniel Kahneman “I placed too much faith in underpowered studies”
This blog post focusses on Chapter 4 about Implicit Priming in Kahneman's book "Thinking" Fast and Slow." A review of the book and other chapters can be found here: https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-perspective-on-thinking-fast-and-slow/ Daniel Kahneman's response to this blog…
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Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)
Knight First Amendment Institute2021646 points374 commentscited by 10Society, Policy & Culture details
After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of…
701
Modeling a Wealth Tax
A wealth tax will usually have a threshold at which it starts. How much difference would a high threshold make? To model that, we need to make some assumptions about the initial value of your stock and the growth rate. Suppose your stock is initially worth $2 million, and the company's trajectory is as follows: the…
702
5G: The outsourced elephant in the room
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. In a break from the usual GPS/Galileo, DNA and C++ posts, here is a bit on 5G and national security. It turns out that through PowerDNS and its parent company Open-Xchange, we know a lot about how large scale European communication service…
703
Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
Now, that’s not because most Stack Overflow contributors are hostile jerks. The majority of them are generous and kind. Sure, a few are… just generous, I guess? But our active users regularly express their frustration that we haven’t done more to make outsiders feel more welcome. The real problem isn’t the community …
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The Internet of Beefs
You’ve heard me talk about crash-only programming , right? It's a programming paradigm for critical infrastructure systems, where there is -- by design -- no…
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How Tech Loses Out
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. Hi everyone, This is a transcript of my presentation over at the European Microwave Week 2020, actually held in 2021. You can find the video here and the slides here. I’d like to thank Frank van Vliet, general chair of the EMW, for inviting me…
707
Recall: Stealing everything you've ever typed or viewed on your own Windows PC
Photographic memory comes to Windows, and is the biggest security setback in a decade.
708
The expanding dark forest and generative AI
Proving you're a human on a web flooded with generative AI content
709
The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better
It is wrong to think these three statements contradict each other. We need to see that they are all true to see that a better world is possible.
710
The Global Dollar Short Squeeze
Published February 2020 There is currently a short squeeze affecting most of the global economy, slowing its growth. This has been the case well before the impacts from the trade war and the coronavirus. A short squeeze occurs when something that is heavily shorted goes on to rise sharply in price for one reason or […]
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Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers (2022)
Not an artistic judgement. Just a technical one.
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How we’re responding to The NYT’s data demands in order to protect user privacy
OpenAI is fighting a court order at the demands of The New York Times and plaintiffs, which involves retention of consumer ChatGPT and API user data indefinitely. Learn how we’re working to uphold user privacy, address legal requirements, and stay true to our data protection commitments.
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The internet has made defensive writers of us all
I was struck by this passage in Steven Pinker’s article about why academics’ writing stinks :
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Austrian DSB: EU-US Data Transfers to Google Analytics Illegal
In a groundbreaking decision, the Austrian Data Protection Authority has decided on a model case by noyb that the continuous use of Google Analytics violates the GDPR.
716
The Moral Economy of Tech
This is the text version of remarks I gave on June 26, 2016, at a panel on the Moral Economy of Tech at the SASE conference in Berkeley. The other panel participants were Kieran Healy (whose remarks are here ), Stuart Russell and AnnaLee Saxenian .
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LinkedIn dark patterns, or why your friends keep spamming you to sign up for it
or: Why Your Friends Keep Spamming You to Sign Up for LinkedIn
718
An Epidemic of Wage Theft Is Costing Workers Hundreds of Millions a Year (2014)
Millions of Americans struggle to get by on low wages, often without any benefits such as paid sick leave, a pension, or even health insurance. Their difficult lives are made immeasurably harder when they do the work they have been hired to do, but their employers refuse to pay, pay for some hours but not…
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America's Growth Ponzi Scheme
The American pattern of development creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.
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Learn to Read Korean in 15 Minutes
Want to learn more? Learn To Count to a Billion in Korean in 15 Minutes ! Or Learn to Read Russian in 15 Minutes !