1711
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
A short policy memo recently posted on the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) website argues that “mass timber can help solve the housing shortage.” It was posted as part of the Housing Ideas Challenge, a collaboration between FAS, Matt Yglesias and a few other organizations to generate new, innovative ideas for…
1715
Simplicity of IRC (2022)
During discussions with my friends and colleagues, whenever the topic of chat protocols comes up, I often remark how simple the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol is and how this simplicity has fostered creativity in the lives of many young computer hobbyists growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s. For many of…
1716
Any Technology Indistinguishable from Magic Is Hiding Something
Odes & Satires, and other matters of stuff & things.
1717
On the new Dutch intelligence and security law
13th of June UPDATE: The Dutch government has failed to hire and house the promised new 10 oversight staff. Yet, the new law will be enacted July 1st, passing oversight to people that don’t exist. I surely enjoyed living under the rule of law, but it appears it was a passing thing. “The Netherlands hosts some of the…
1718
The internet is slipping out of our reach
With AI encroaching every open forum on the internet, the future of human discourse is bleak.
1719
Are We Watching the Internet Die?
Sometime this month, Reddit will go public at a valuation of $6.5bn. Select Redditors were offered the chance to buy stock at the initial listing price, which it hasn’t announced yet but is expected to be in the range of $31-34 per share. Regardless of the actual
1720
Bell Labs: An Institute of Creative Technology (2015)
This week I finished the most recent book in my self-guided study of 20th century technology, namely The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, by Jon Gertner. As the title implies, it’s a chronicle of research and development wing of AT&T, a history that lasts...
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E-Bikes Overtake Buggies for Some Amish (2021)
In some Amish communities these days, e-bikes are beginning to outnumber buggies on the roads. Horse-drawn buggies, long a symbol of the Amish lifestyle, are finding less use as more people in Amish communities adopt electric-powered bicycles. In small Amish towns across America such as Sugarcreek, Ohio, Napponee…
1722
Why Tolkien Hated Dune
A short intro to the philosophy of ethics J.R.R. Tolkien maintained a very private, but very negative opinion of Frank Herbert’s Dune. In Tolkien’s Library, entry 964, Tolkien is quoted…
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How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
The Great Green Wall being built in Africa to halt the southern progress of the Sahara Desert is a favorite public works project of mine — it’s massive, ambitio
1724
The art and history of lettering comics
Todd Klein's online book exploring little-known aspects of comics: lettering, letterers, logo design and more.
1725
Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management
Writing at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
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French court issues damages award for violation of GPL
On February 14, 2024, the Court of Appeal of Paris issued an order stating that Orange, a major French telecom provider, had infringed the copyight of Entr’Ouvert’s Lasso software and violate…
1727
Bring back private offices
Open Office Sucks
1728
I'm going to keep opting out
Marketing, solicitations, advertising, political contact, direct mailers, email campaigns, cookies, ads — it's all opt out. It puts the burden on you to opt out of each communication each message, each outreach from a loyalty program. It can feel like weeding a garden, but that garden is your attention. The weeds keep…
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Why do east Asian firms value drinking?
East Asian businesses often go out drinking.
1730
ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood
Last week, someone leaked a spreadsheet of SoundThinking sensors to Wired . You are probably asking "What is SoundThinking," because the company rebranded last year. They used to be called ShotSpotter, and their outdoor acoustic gunfire detection system still goes by the ShotSpotter name.
1731
Where is all of the Fediverse?
Spurred on by the problems at Twitter, a lot of my social media timeline has “moved out” of Twitter/“X” on to what people mostly describe as mastodon or the “fediverse”. The fediverse being the collection of decentralised “instances” (aka servers) sometimes using different software but speaking a common protocol…
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Financial systems take a holiday
Ever wondered about what happens when banks are closed or why some apps have operating hours? It's fascinating.
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Billionaire-Fueled Lobbying Group Behind the State Bills to Ban UBI Experiments
The Foundation for Government Accountability - a Florida-based lobbying group backed by the richest 1% - is working to get basic income experiments banned by state legislators across the U.S. (This article is also available as a YouTube video and as a podcast episode) As a well-known quote often
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A game magazine that spent two years taunting a Final Fantasy VIII hater
I’m unsure how popular GameNOW magazine was, but over the course of two years, they pulled off one of the weirdest running gags I’ve seen in a game magazine, just to have fun at the expense of an irate reader who didn’t like Final Fantasy VIII .
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The internet turned into a crowded mall. Now you need a corner shop
On the need for a simpler, smaller internet to stand out from the crowd, meet interesting people, and build a calmer business.
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The Tech Industry Doesn't Understand Consent – Opt-Out Is Not Consent
Thanks to Samantha Cole at 404 Media, we are now aware that Automattic plans to sell user data from Tumblr and WordPress.com (which is the host for my blog) for “AI” products. In respon…
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YouTube video embedding harm reduction
Personal blog of Julien (jvoisin) Voisin
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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 !
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Here lies the internet, murdered by generative AI
Corruption everywhere, even in YouTube's kids content
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