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The Lava Lamp Just Won't Quit
In the 1960s, a British nudist invented a lamp that inadvertently became the poster child for psychedelia. Thirty years later, it came back with a vengeance.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,917 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
4052
Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)
Explore research at Microsoft, a site featuring the impact of research along with publications, products, downloads, and research careers.
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Chaos Computer Club Supports Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden
Since its founding more than thirty years ago, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) holds strong beliefs in the freedom of information. Consequentially, freedom fighters and whistleblowers deserve our...
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We are being sued for refusing to take down a website
In May, 2014 we were contacted by Andy Lehrer who requested that we takedown the website causepimps.ca because he claimed the page http://causepimps.ca/andy-lehrer/top.html contained defamatory material (queue Streisand-effect in 3-2-1...go!) We reviewed the website to see if there were any material violations of our…
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XKCD “Time” Wins Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story
The 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, Loncon 3, has announced the 2014 Hugo Award winners. 3587 valid ballots were received and counted in the final ballot. BEST NOVEL Ancillary Justice, by An…
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The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Adam Carolla’s Settlement with Podcasting Troll
Big news from Texas: Adam Carolla has settled with the podcasting patent troll Personal Audio. Although the settlement is confidential, we can guess the terms. This is because Personal Audio sent out a press release last month saying it was willing to walk away from its suit with Carolla. So we can...
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How “Legal” Are Seed Libraries?
After the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture cracked down on a community seed library, hundreds of seed libraries in the U.S. are suddenly wondering if they are breaking the law. According to PA regulators, in order to give out member-donated seeds, the Simpson Seed Library in Cumberland County would have to put…
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X to close
The origins of the use of [x] in UI design.
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We’re 10 today
On our tenth birthday we can look back on a year in which our free and open world map has gone from strength to strength, being deployed by large companies such as Apple, Mapquest and Foursquare, and relief organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the American Red Cross.
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US Sought Permission to Change Historical Record of a Public Court Proceeding
A few weeks ago we fought a battle for transparency in our flagship NSA spying case, Jewel v. NSA. But, ironically, we weren't able to tell you anything about it until now. On June 6, the court held a long hearing in Jewel in a crowded, open courtroom, widely covered by the press. We were even on...
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We Will Fight Until The End
Buckyballs settled their lawsuit months ago . And news of Magnicube’s settlement comes today . They’re both out of the fight.
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A Contrarian View of MITx: What Are We Doing?
I love MIT but confess being frustrated . The MITx announcement added to my frustration. As outlined below, I argued against OpenCourseWare (OCW) before it was announced. I was not persuasive and lost the debate. My view of how MIT should take advantage of the digital revolution was unusual then, but is more common…
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Google tips off cops after spotting child abuse images in email
The Sophos Blog
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Hate Your ISP? Maybe You Need Community Fiber
Brian Carver co-authored this post. Between the net neutrality debate and the Comcast/TWC merger, high-speed Internet access is getting more attention than ever. A lot of that attention is negative, and rightly so: Internet access providers, especially certain very large ones, have done a pretty...
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Introducing EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month
Here at EFF, we see a lot of stupid patents. There was the patent on “scan to email.” And the patent on “bilateral and multilateral decision making.” There are so many stupid patents that Mark Cuban endowed a chair at EFF dedicated to eliminating them. We wish we could catalog them all, but with...
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The Business of Fake Hollywood Money
Making fake cash is a risky line of work -- even if it's as a certified Hollywood prop master.
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EFF Asks Judge to Rule NSA Internet Backbone Spying Techniques Unconstitutional
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today presented a federal court with a detailed explanation of how the NSA taps into the Internet backbone and requested the judge rule that the agency is violating the Fourth Amendment by copying and searching the collected data. EFF argues...
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Diversity and Startups
Sexism in tech is real. One of the most insidious things happening in the debate is people claiming versions of “other industries may have problems with sexism, but our industry doesn’t.” Both men and women claim this, even though it keeps getting harder to do in the face of shocks like the Tinder texts. We know there…
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State Laws That Stop Cities From Installing Fast Internet
For decades, municipal broadband operations have been subject to a minefield of restrictions and barriers designed to make the prospect of establishing or maintaining a community broadband network costly, difficult, and unsustainable. The Biden administration initially pledged that the Broadband Equity, Access, and…
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The World Health Organization calls for the decriminalisation of drug use
Transform Drug Policy Foundation is an independent charity working towards a safer system of legal regulation for all drugs. When we legalise and regulate drugs that are currently illegal we can take the power away from organised crime and establish safety controls.
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Open Source Madness
The Yorba Foundation, a non-profit group that produces open source Linux desktop software, reported last week that it was denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status by the IRS. The group had waited nearly five years for a decision. The IRS stated that, because the software Yorba develops can be used...
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Own your own data
A new system would allow individuals to pick and choose what data to share with websites and mobile apps.