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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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AI’s big rift is like a religious schism
The cult-like battles between e/acc and doomers
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Forget spaceships; I just want my music
A couple weeks ago, as my kids settled into the car, I asked like I always do, "what songs do you want me to play?" They have a range of favored earworms, from Baby Shark to Babaloo, and usually the songs are tolerable, at least. But a few albums, like Bluey's soundtrack, transcend the children's genre. They're…
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Trust-based moderation systems
master's thesis research into subjective, trust-based moderation systems
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Amazon Has an Honesty Issue
We recently ordered a high-value item from Amazon (for Prime delivery), but it was stolen from within their delivery chain. Amazon initially accepted that there was an issue but have staunchly tried t
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Deadweight Loss as a Service
The truth is that the best ideas are often psychotic, obscene, and unoriginal.
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If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing
20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired . I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:
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The pro-Israel information war
Israeli gov-led Zoom calls, WhatsApp chat logs, and other docs provide a window into the massive effort to shape online discourse and silence pro-Palestinian voices.
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X.com is Twitter, but what are [a-z].com?
An exploration into the internet's most simple domain names
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AI and Trust
I trusted a lot today. I trusted my phone to wake me on time. I trusted Uber to arrange a taxi for me, and the driver to get me to the airport safely. I trusted thousands of other drivers on the road not to ram my car on the way. At the airport, I trusted ticket agents and maintenance engineers and everyone else who…
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The Placeholder Girlfriend
It became real when I saw the list. When I saw the rubric.
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Multifaceted: The linguistic echo chambers of LLMs
This is a fun one. I’ve spent more time than I’d care to admit staring at LLM output. And there’s something that I’ve noticed: LLM-generated prose has a kind of… vibe. It’s difficult to describe,…
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The city of the future looks like a former military bunker in Taipei (2016)
Back in 2016, I wrote an article for How We Get To Next on an informal settlement called Treasure Hill, in Taiwan, that could be a prototype for the future of sustainable urban living. How We Get To Next is still online in archived format, but with bitrot being what
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Why I always hit the crosswalk button (2015)
An examination of Kitty Genovese and the Volunteer's Dilemma
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My techno-optimism
Special thanks to Morgan Beller, Juan Benet, Eli Dourado, Karl Floersch, Sriram Krishnan, Nate Soares, Jaan Tallinn, Vincent Weisser, Balvi volunteers and others for feedback and review.
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The Bond villain compliance strategy
Jurisdictional gamesmanship is a common strategy for crypto businesses. Here is how it worked out for Binance and its CEO. Spoiler: poorly.
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Some observations on the final text of the European Digital Identity framework
The final text of the update to the eIDAS regulation (establishing a framework for a European Digital Identity) has been agreed upon. In a last minute effort to improve the text, we wrote an open letter criticising the proposal on weakening the security of the web, and providing too few safeguards protecting users of…
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GitHub Renamed Me (2014)
Github Renamed Me - We will change your SSH keys and you will like it
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Is it legal to mix cash in a jar? How is Bitcoin mixing any different?
Chris Blec asks the following question: Source: Twitter Chris's premise is that it is "not illegal" for him to get together with a bunch of ...
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My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up
Elon Musk and The Enduring Appeal of “Criticism is Censorship”
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Persuasion through status rather than argument
Intelligent individuals are better at understanding the reputational consequences of their beliefs
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Why aren't motherboards mostly USB-C by now? (2021)
I’m beginning to think that the Windows PC that I built in 2015 is ready for retirement (though if Joe Biden can be president at 78, maybe this […]
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Lockheed is now tracking phones and walkie-talkies from space
Space-based phone location-tracking firm HawkEye 360 announced its partnership with U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin this morning. The UAE military is allegedly a "strong" customer.
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The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"
PepsiCo employee says the Tesla Semi is a "disaster" & does 400 miles "at best" with round-the-clock servicing by Tesla engineers
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The Decline of Usability: Revisited
Three years ago, I wrote a rant about the problems of our current UI paradigm. The complaints I voiced were hardly new or unique, neither was the text what I'd consider my best writing. It was, honestly, mostly a way to blow off steam. It seems I struck a nerve, though, because it's proven to be one of the most…
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Bring Back Webrings
I built a webring for personal websites.
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We've learned nothing from the SolarWinds hack
Mac's Tech Blog
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Tragedy of return to hostile offices
Don't suffer and merely survive, aided by your noise cancelling headphones. Optimising for individual happiness can result in less of the joy that people find in teams that achieve great things together.