1111
The first big AI disaster is yet to happen
The first public passenger locomotive, Locomotion No. 1, began service in September 1825. The first mass-casualty railway disaster happened seventeen years…
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
1112
Firefox OS's story from a Mozilla insider not working on the project (2024)
I clearly remember, but can't date it. I was working for Mozilla messaging at the time ( momo ), being the QA lead for Thunderbird. It was at the end of one of the Mozilla All-hands, maybe in 2011 or 2012. At one of the ending keynotes, we were introduced to Boot 2 Gecko. A hack that would let US - Mozilla own the…
1113
Why Koreans ask what year you were born
Why age is crucial in Korea, affecting language, respect, and social relationships. What is Korean & international age?
1114
The Gentle Singularity
We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started. Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence, and at least so far it’s much less weird than it seems like it should be. Robots...
1115
Low-background Steel: content without AI contamination
Somehow I forgot to blog my site: https://lowbackgroundsteel.ai/ . I created it back in March 2023 as a clearinghouse for online resources t...
1116
Mikeal Rogers has died
Mikeal Rogers, my best friend, my colleague, confidant, and one of a kind partner in countless late night chats and restless travel sprints, has died. Mikeal died of aggressive cancer. Words feel wholly inadequate because I want to capture the sweep of what he meant to me and to the
1117
AI Angst
My input stream is full of it: Fear and loathing and cheerleading and prognosticating on what generative AI means and whether it’s Good or Bad and what we should be doing. All the channels: Blogs and peer-reviewed papers and social-media posts and business-news stories. So there’s lots of AI angst out there, but this…
1118
Finding Shawn Mendes (2019)
In this day and age, celebrities have a lot of influence over our politics. Garthwaite and Moore estimated that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 netted him an extra 1 milli…
1119
Building supercomputers for autocrats probably isn't good for democracy
The shameless spin around Stargate UAE
1120
Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
Re: My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts There was a post recently that was dissing AI Skeptics. While the post is funny at times, I feel like it’s absolutely and completely missing the point of the skepticism. Or at least I feel that it is glossing over some massive pain points of said skepticism. Let’s go over some of…
1121
The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela
Imagine entering the biggest library in the world. You peer down an incredibly long aisle with wooden bookshelves brimming with books. You can see multiple such corridors, all lit with a comfortable warm light. There’s a rich smell of old paper. You can hear some muted voices, perhaps arguing in a whisper. It’s…
1122
Windows 10 spies on your use of System Settings (2021)
Windows 10 spies on your use of System Settings
1123
Online sports betting: As you do well, they cut you off
A few decades back my teenage son and I approached Las Vegas at night while traveling south on Interstate 15. When the skyline of the city began sparkling into view, the kid said, “Wow. Think…
1124
Being fat is a trap
This has been a difficult article to write. Partly because this is a painful topic for many, and partly because I have to be completely open and vulnerable to write about it. I only write this in the hope it can help others in similar situations. Nothing in this article is meant to judge you. If someone judges you for…
1125
What you need to know about EMP weapons
Content copyright © 1995 - 2025 to Bruce Simpson (aka Aardvark), the logo was kindly created for Aardvark Daily by the folks at aardvark.co.uk
1126
1127
I think I'm done thinking about GenAI for now
The conversation isn’t over, but I don’t think I have much to add to it.
1128
We are no longer a serious country
And the world is starting to notice
1129
IRS Direct File on GitHub
Personal blog of Chris Given, government technologist. These words are always written by a human; I have no one to blame but myself.
1130
AI makes the humanities more important, but also weirder
Historians are finally having their AI debate
1131
The Unreliability of LLMs and What Lies Ahead
The Unreliability of LLMs & What Lies Ahead
1132
How Georgists Valued land in the 1900's
The lost art of the "Somers System" of land valuation
1133
AI Responses May Include Mistakes
The other day I wanted to look up a specific IBM PS/2 model, a circa 1992 PS/2 Server system. So I punched the model into Google, and got this:
1134
Notes on Tunisia
I spent almost three weeks in Tunisia, visiting the cities of Tunis, Bizerte, El Kef, Tozeur, Tataouine, El Jem, Sfax, Sousse, Monastir, Kairouan, and a few smaller towns in between. At first, I th…
1135
Untrusted chatbot AI between you & the internet is a disaster waiting to happen
JavaScript, math, maps, etc
1136
Revenge of the Chickenized Reverse-Centaurs
In AI circles, a “centaur” describes a certain kind of machine/human collaboration, in which “decision-support” systems (which the field loves to call “AI”s) are paired with human beings for results that draw upon the strengths of each, such as when a human chess master and a chess-playing computer program collaborate…
1137
Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
I reverse-engineered Waffle House's website to build a live version of the (unofficial) Waffle House Index, and got a cease and desist for it.
1138
1139
1140
The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return
Thanks to Jesse Richardson for discussion. Polymarket asks: will Jesus Christ return in 2025? In the three days since the market opened, traders have wagered over $100,000 on this question. The mar…