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The science of Westworld
How close are we to building the hosts?
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,149 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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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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Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
As of August, 2025, Skype no longer exists as a dis-service for actual use. However, this information about how it was unjust while it operated may still be interesting for comparison with other online dis-services and for understanding the wrongs that they often do to users.
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Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)
Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Kiwi. Software guy. All content human-authored unless otherwise noted.
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Dear Obama, from Infosec
Dear President Obama: We are more than willing to believe Russia was responsible for the hacked emails/records that influenced our electio...
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In 2017, I’m going to stop watching the news
I've stopped watching the news a few months ago and it's definitely a trend I'm planning to continue in 2017. We live in a world of information. Open Facebook …
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Critiques of the DHS and FBI’s Grizzly Steppe Report
On December 29 th , 2016 the White House released a statement from the President of the United States (POTUS) that formally accused Russia of interfering with the US elections, amongst other activities. This statement laid out the beginning of the US’ response including sanctions against Russian military and…
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On the Exponential View
The following is the text of a talk I gave in San Francisco on December 1st, 2016.
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Inequality and Skin in the Game
(Chapter from Skin in the Game)
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The threat of technological unemployment
There is a widely reported threat to our economy: robots are going to replace human workers. It is nothing new... In 1930, Keynes, the famous economist introduced the term "technological unemployment"... We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they…
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Security Risks of TSA PreCheck
Former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley wrote an op-ed pointing out the security vulnerabilities in the TSA’s PreCheck program: The first vulnerability in the system is its enrollment process, which seeks to verify an applicant’s identity. We know verification is a challenge: A 2011 Government Accountability Office report…
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No tipping means better business
Friendly and helpful customer support that goes above and beyond. We help you get the perfect domain name.
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Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People
This is the text version of a talk I gave on October 29, 2016, at Web Camp Zagreb [ video ] (45 mins)
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Confronting the Credibility Gap for Crewed Exploration of Mars
Confronting the Credibility Gap for Crewed Exploration of Mars (Notes from talk on September 22, 2016, at the Mars Society Conference. ...
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On Digital Minimalism
The Curmudgeonly Optimist People are sometimes confused about my personal relationship with digital communication technologies. On the one hand, I’m a computer scientist who studies and improves these tools. ... Read more
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My Priorities for the Next Four Years
Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. I believe his ideas, temperament, and inexperience represent a grave threat to our country and world. Suddenly, all the things I had planned to work on seemed trivial in comparison. Although Internet security and privacy are not the…
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Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
[Update (12/14/16): Reuters has specified that the rootkit was implemented as a Linux kernel module. Wow.]
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One More Sign World Is Shrinking – eBay Is for Suckers
If you live in an economy where officials are corrupt, contracts are hard to enforce, and trust is scarce, everyday transactions are burdensome and time-consuming. If you don’t want to get scammed,…
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Tech worker resistance is crucial to preventing human rights abuses in the U.S
Hi, I am Valerie Aurora, systems archictecture consultant, writer, and cat appreciator. At Bow Shock Systems , I solve difficult systems problems in networking, file systems, and operating systems. In 2023 I moved permanently to Amsterdam after 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Sane Thinking About Mental Health Problems
Epistemic status: exhortatory and personal, but pretty confidently my true belief CW: suicide mention When I was a teenager, I was depressed. And the way I thought mental illness worked, the way I…
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Why I still won’t review for or publish with Elsevier
In 2012, I signed the Cost of Knowledge pledge, and stopped reviewing for, and publishing in, all Elsevier journals. In the four years since, I’ve adhered closely to this policy; with a coupl…
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Great Problems: An Epidemic of Rent-Seeking
America follows the path of late Rome: Fortunes no longer arise from creating new wealth, but via exploiting privileged relations with the state.
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In Defense of Inclusionism
Iron Law of Bureaucracy: the downwards deletionism spiral discourages contribution and is how Wikipedia will die.
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