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Xi Jinping’s War on Spontaneous Order
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a letter I wrote to their editor in response to Kevin Rudd’s exposition on Xi Jinping’s “Common Prosperity” campaign:
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 1,050 posts.
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Alexander von Humboldt: the first Solarpunk
Humbolt was captivated by lush nature but loved humanity and the new technological developments. He believed that if we understand Nature and the laws governing her, we can create a sustainable future. He was the first Solarpunk and here are his ideas
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Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
This is the Sunday edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.
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Something weird is happening on Facebook
Someone appears to be pouring enormous energy and effort into a data collection project aimed at building personality profiles from social media interaction…again
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Pausing “Instagram Kids” and building parental supervision tools
Update on pausing “Instagram Kids” and building parental supervision tools for a safer experience for users under 13.
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On Solitude
Over 15 years ago, I took my first device-free, silent, solitude experience.
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What our research says about teen well-being and Instagram
Instagram's research shows that on 11 of 12 well-being issues, teenage girls who said they struggled with those issues also said that Instagram made them better rather than worse.
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Apple’s app review prevents developer from submitting fix to game for the blind
Hi all. As some of you may know, I am a totally blind iOS game developer. Among other games I have made accessible Hangman, Choose your Face, etc. Well, about 3 days ago I found out a bug which prevented iOS 15 users from running my game accessible hangman. I submitted an update to the app store fixing this problem…
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Why Telegram had to follow Apple and Google when they suspended a voting app
telegra.ph/why-telegram-had-to-follow-apple-and-google-when-they-suspended-a-voting-app-09-252021229 points168 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details
Telegram gives its users more freedom of speech than any other popular mobile application. Unlike other apps, Telegram can't be pressured by shareholders, cloud providers or advertisers into unjustified censorship. Telegram doesn't exist in isolation, however. It depends on other companies to function, from banks and…
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Demonopolizing the Internet with Interoperability
The Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery has just published my editorial, "Competitive Compatibility: Let's Fix the Internet, Not the Tech Giants," explaining how interoperability was once an engine for competition and user empowerment – and how that ended.
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Big problems at the timezone database
The last time I wrote about the timezone database on this blog, the database was under threat from a lawsuit. Fortunately that lawsuit w...
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Facebook is other people
This is what "democratization" looks like
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Your face is not a bar code: arguments against automatic face recognition (2001)
An abridged version of this article appeared in Whole Earth 106, Winter 2001, pages 74-77.
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EFF Flew a Plane over Apple's Headquarters
For the last month, civil liberties and human rights organizations, researchers, and customers have demanded that Apple cancel its plan to install photo-scanning software onto devices. This software poses an enormous danger to privacy and security. Apple has heard the message, and announced that it...
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If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
Imagine a Silicon Valley strategy implemented with the United States phone system 100 years ago. It's not a pretty picture.
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Apple's Texas-Sized Problem
Link to: https://popular.info/p/apples-texas-problem
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What Does Evergrande Meltdown Mean for China?
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace2021176 points226 commentsTech Industry & Business details
The impact of Evergrande has caused financial distress to spread faster and more forcefully than Beijing’s financial regulators expected, putting pressure on them to move quickly to stop the contagion. But they cannot rescue Evergrande’s creditors without also undermining their fight against bad debt.
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Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account
Accounts that have never been disabled include the accounts for Rocket League (a game whose Mac support [Epic discontinued in January 2020][rl]), and separately, Unreal Engine. My understanding is that none of those accounts are affected by Apple’s decision not to reinstate the Fortnite developer account.
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Definitive Account of the CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud
An axis of the CIA, Big Tech and the DNC-allied wing of the corporate media spread an absolute lie in the weeks before the 2020 election. We now have definitive proof.
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Introducing Age Verification
Roblox is a global platform where millions of people gather together every day to imagine, create, and share experiences with each other in immersive, user-generated 3D worlds.
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I quit – Peak indifference, big tobacco
Peak indifference, big tobacco, disinformation and death
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The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used
This month marks the publication of "The Actual Star," a new, wildly ambitious, wildly successful novel by Monica Byrne, spanning 3,000 years of history from the ancient Maya to a distant future.
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Internet Freedom Around the World Declines for 11th Consecutive Year
Read Freedom House’s annual survey & analysis of internet freedom around the world in the Freedom on the Net 2021 report— The Global Drive to Control Big Tech.
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Robots Must Be Ephemeralized
There is a subfield of robotics research called “sim-to-real” (sim2real) whereby one attempts to solve a robotic task in simulation, and the...
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Microsoft ruined passwords, now aims for a passwordless future
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.
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When McDonalds Came to Denmark
Every few months, a prominent person or publication points out that McDonalds workers in Denmark receive $22 per hour, 6 weeks of vacation, and sick pay. This compensation comes on top of the general slate of social benefits in Denmark, which includes child allowances, health care, child care, paid leave, retirement…
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Elite Biases Make Policy Biases
A 2014 paper predicted U.S.