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Nigerian Teens Are Making Sci-Fi Shorts with Slick Visual Effects
For the past year, a group of teens in Nigeria called the Critics Company have been uploading short sci-fi films to their YouTube channel. Using a smartphone wi
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Interslavic Language
Introduction to Interslavic — Vvod v medžuslovjansky jeazy — Ввод в меджусловјански језык
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WeWTF
I’ve started nine firms and I’m, generously, 3-4-2 (win-lose-tie). In retrospect, and I think about this a lot, the only reliable forward-looking indicator of our firm’s success or failure was … timing. Specifically, the part of the economic cycle at founding. The firms we started in recessions had an easier time…
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A Walk in Hong Kong
My mom fainted the first time she set foot in an American supermarket. It was 1981 and we were freshly arrived in America, and some combination of the culture shock and smell and sensory overload of a Safeway was too much for her, not normally a fainting woman.
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Google Forcing Nest Cameras’ Visual Indicator Light To Be On
Google Forcing Nest Cameras Visual Indicator Light To Be On
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Tumblr the Day After
It is not surprising that the news about Automattic buying Tumblr has picked up a lot of coverage. I especially appreciated the notes of support from Tumblr founder David Karp, former CTO Marco Arm…
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Attorney General Barr and Encryption
Last month, Attorney General William Barr gave a major speech on encryption policy—what is commonly known as “going dark.” Speaking at Fordham University in New York, he admitted that adding backdoors decreases security but that it is worth it. Some hold this view dogmatically, claiming that it is technologically…
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The electric car as a talisman of false hope
Electric cars give us a sense that we can have change without having to change. In 'solving' climate breakdown, they are a talisman of false hope.
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Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy
[Conflict of interest notice: I’ve volunteered for both private and public charities, but more often private. I received a small amount of money for work done for a private charity ten years …
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Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)
Applied Computer Science: On Murder Considered As STEM Field—using information theory to quantify the magnitude of Light Yagami’s mistakes in 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑡𝘩 𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑒 and considering fixes
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Elsevier threatens others for linking to Sci-Hub but does so itself
Sci-Hub is a copyright-violating site that provides infringing access to scholarly publications that are behind paywalls. Its ethics are problematic but it’s...
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Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?
I’m sure many of you either have an Alexa-powered device in your house, or at least have played around with one somewhere. So it won’t be surprising to you that Amazon has been partnering with home…
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Secretly Public Domain: Most books published in the US before 1964
This is how Project Gutenberg is able to publish all these science fiction stories from the 50s and 60s . Those stories were published in issues of magazines that didn't send in the renewal form. But up til now this hasn't been a big factor, because 1) the big publishers generally made sure to send in their renewals…
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Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
A detailed explanation of why I keep saying that advertising is a cancer on modern society.
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The Ethics of Web Performance
Tim Kadlec writes about performance, product management, and the web.
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Web Scraping and Crawling Are Perfectly Legal, Right? (2017)
In this post, you'll find out more on the legal aspect of web scraping and crawling, and what possible consequences you might face.
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When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right
“There’s this flat-earther documentary called BEHIND THE CURVE,” my wife said. “We have to watch it!” Of course we did. My wife will occasionally get into huge debates…
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Taleb is wrong about IQ
Investigation of Talebs claims about IQ using real data.
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Metaphors We Believe By
In the past, gods and demons allowed us to talk about phenomena that we didn’t fully understand. During the Enlightenment, we tried to kill them and explain everything in reductionist scientific terms. But it feels to me like we’ve come full circle. We’re back to using oversimplified metaphors to wrap our minds around…
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The Best Magazine Articles Ever (2012)
The following are suggestions for the best magazine articles (in English) ever. Stars denote how many times a correspondent has suggested it. Submitter comments are in italics. For a great way to read long-form magazine articles on a tablet device see my review of LongForm and Instapaper here .
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How I tried to compete with YouTube and Google with Livevideo.com
Learn how Google kills competition through anti-competitive behavior. This is the true story of how I tried to compete with YouTube and Google with two of the former founders of Myspace between 2006-2008 on a startup called LiveVideo.com. Some old files I found related to LiveVideo.com: Automated Transcript: 00:05 You…
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Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
The bicycle, as we know it today, was not invented until the late 1800s. Here are some theories about why