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100% User-Supported
If you want to build principled software, avoid becoming VCware. Stay user-supported. It is now possible for tiny teams to build principled software that mil...
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
1772
Why it's impossible to agree on what's allowed
On large platforms, it's impossible to have policies on things like moderation, spam, fraud, and sexual content that people agree on. David Turner made a simple game to illustrate how difficult this is even in a trivial case, No Vehicles in the Park . If you haven't played it yet, I recommend playing it now before…
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The scarcity of the long term
The chief hurdle in constructing a Death Star is not the energy, materials, or even knowledge needed. It’s the long time needed. A society can change their mind mid-way over centuries, and simply move on. The galaxy is likely strewn … Continue reading →
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How I got scammed on Facebook Marketplace (2023)
I bought the camera from a profile that was created in 2017. They had some other things for sale, too. The account looked legit — lots of family photos and comments from family members.
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“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
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Final Decision on Chromebook Case in Denmark
The Danish DPA issues an injunction in the Chromebook case
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Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"
There's a strain of anti-anti-monopolist that insists that they're not pro -monopoly – they're just realists who understand that global gigacorporations are too big to fail, too big to jail, and that governments can't hope to rein them in. Trying to regulate a tech giant, they say, is like trying to regulate the…
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Dean of Engineering at University of Nevada wrote a paper that’s bad
“As we look to sleep and neuroscience for answers we can study flies specifically the Drosophila melanogaster we highlight in our research.”
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Vision 1993
I’ve plowed through the first wave of AVP (Apple Vision Pro) reviews, and it seems pretty obvious that, at the current price and form factor, it’s not gonna be a best-seller. But I remain a strong believer in Augmented Reality (the AVP is VR not AR, for the moment). As I was diving into the reviews, a little voice in…
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Companies embracing SMS for account logins should be blamed for SIM-swap attacks
[UPDATE Since this was posted in 2024 : Major US telcos like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have suffered a months-long breach (the ongoing Salt Typhoon attack). These companies, of course, pass along the unencrypted SMSes vital to countless log in flows, account re-activations, and password resets. They are now known to…
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You are what you love
Discussing the importance of working alongside your emotions and not against them
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I don't want anything your AI generates
AI output is fundamentally derivative and exploitative (of content, labor and the environment).
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The Burial of William the Conqueror: A Comedy of Errors
William the Conqueror is one of those historical figures who need no introduction. Thanks to his famous victory at Hastings in 1066, he dra...
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The business of check cashing
Check cashing, as a business, is a poorly understood "alternative" financial service.
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Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees
The photo to the right is of the Staples parking lot behind the York Road store in Baltimore, a classic example of a place that needs to be turned back to urban forest — or developed into a m…
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How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
Although this article isn’t related to any of the 12 Challenges so far, it’s on a subject I’m developing for a potential future challenge.
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Notes on Cruise's Pedestrian Accident
This is a set of notes on the Quinn Emanuel report on Cruise's handling of the 2023-10-02 accident where a Cruise autonomous vehicle (AV) hit a pedestrian, stopped, and then started moving again with the pedestrian stuck under the bottom of the AV, dragging the pedestrian 20 feet. After seeing some comments about this…
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GitHub Spam
Spam on GitHub is getting out of control and affecting 10,000's of users daily. GitHub is seemly doing nothing about it, here is the proof.
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A parliament of owls and a murder of crows: How groups of birds got their names
Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other what the world is and what we are, for conveying the blueness of blue and the wonder of being…
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Why do people post on [bad platform] instead of [good platform]?
There's a class of comment you often see when someone makes a popular thread on Mastodon/Twitter/Threads/etc., that you also see on videos that's basically "Why make a Twitter thread? This would be better as a blog post" or "Why make a video? This would be better as a blog post". But, these comments are often stronger…
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Remote work won, don't let anyone gaslight you to believe otherwise
Bad managers and CRE bagholders lost, competent employees and internet-savvy teams won ...arbitrary authoritarian control over your work-life is so 1900s
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Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)
I often drive between Boston and New Haven. While on the road, I find myself pondering a simple question: If my only goal is to arrive as fast as possible, how fast should I drive? Ignoring things …
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2023 Letter
A walk-and-talk; Crumb; running and tangping; Knausgaard; Elon as Palmer Eldritch; memelords; Chicago as a megacity; Norton; and a pause.
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Dana-Farberications at Harvard University
“Imagine what mistakes might be found in the raw data if anyone was allowed to look!” – Sholto David
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Mourning Google
On March 15, 2010, I started a new job at Google . The fourteen years since that day feel like a century. The title of my announcement was Now A No-Evil Zone and, OK, I can hear the laughing from ten timezones away. I tried, then, to be restrained, but there are hardly words to describe how happy and excited I was. I…