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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 453 posts.
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Schneier: The Dishonest Minority: Security and its Role in Modern Society
Three months ago, I announced that I was writing a book on why security exists in human societies. This is basically the book’s thesis statement: All complex systems contain parasites. In any system of cooperative behavior, an uncooperative strategy will be effective—and the system will tolerate the uncooperatives—as…
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Twitter and Facebook Both Quietly Kill RSS
Last year I shared how Twitter was moving more and more towards a closed, less-standards oriented model of sharing content as they upgraded their design to bring more people to the Twitter.com website. At that time, they removed the prominent RSS icons and made it only possible to access an RSS feed for an individual…
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FBI chastened by court for lying about existence of surveillance records
An order from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has revealed the FBI lied to the court about the existence of records requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), taking the position that FOIA allows it to withhold information from the court whenever it thinks...
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DHS asks Mozilla to take down MafiaaFire add-on
From time to time, we receive government requests for information, usually market information and occasionally subpoenas. Recently the US Department of Homeland Security contacted Mozilla and reque…
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British hackers: stop voting for lizards; start voting for people today
In So Long and Thank for All The Fish, the elegiac fourth book of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy, Douglas Adams gives us this conversation between Arthur, a very ordinary Earth…
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Dear Record Labels: Focus on Buyers, Not Thieves
Watch streaming video, find interesting podcasts, and discover classic music and new songs from independent artists.
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I take illegal drugs for inspiration
I take illegal drugs for inspiration Daily Telegraph, Saturday May 21st 2005, pp 17-18 (Note: This version is very slightly different from the published, edited, version) © Sue Blackmore 2005 Every year, like a social drinker who wants to prove to herself that she’s not an alcoholic, I give up cannabis for a month. It…
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The daily lunch delivery of India's dabbawallahs
Every day, approximately 4,000 dabbawallahs deliver 160,000 home-cooked lunches from the kitchens of suburban wives and mothers direct to Mumbai’s workers in “the world’s most ingenious meal distribution system.” (Hey UPS, how’s that for logistics?) Dabbawallahs p…
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Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT
Bose Corporation will remain private and independent; dividends will sustain and advance MIT’s mission.
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Why we need an Open Wireless movement
If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find. Stories like the one over the weekend about a bunch of police breaking down an innocent man's door because...
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Tumblr "Disappears" Microsoft's Danah Boyd
Update: Tumblr called me, apologized, and restored my account. More details below.
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How to beat Apple
In the near term, companies making iPhone and iPad competitors are never going to beat Apple at their own game. Apple has supply chain advantages, a massive num
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A “perfect” voting system
A voting system that sidesteps Arrow's theorem entirely. The scare quotes around
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Richard Feynman on education in Brazil
From Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!:
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Dr. Stallman responded to my open letter
Whoa. Thanks for all the attention and feedback, everybody! In case you're curious: I ended up emailing the letter to RMS and got a reply earlier today. I am skeptical of advice from people who disagree with what I stand for. --Dr Richard Stallman Overall, commenters seem to have had fairly positive things to say, but…
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Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter
Dear Dr. Stallman, Thank you for coming to Penn and giving a talk on A Free Digital Society; it was an honor meeting you. You mentioned that what you expected of us was to help the Free Software Foundation however we could; I'd like to take you up on that and offer both yourself and the FSF the following advice: Stop…
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Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies
a blog about genomes, DNA, evolution, open science, baseball and other important things
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There Is No Magic
The scene was a post-seminar dinner at a homely Vietnamese joint. We had just listened to Jacquet speak at the University of Chicago. A soft-spoken grandfather-like figure, he enjoyed the nearly un…
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Have you ever printed a boarding pass?
Bill III's Blog -
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Hacking The Status Game
I was taking an improv class, and the instructor gave us a game to play before getting on stage, so that we can turn off our over-rationalizing minds and get into the flow. The game was called Status , and it went like this:
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