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The Sphere
Las Vegas’ $2.3 billion immersive flagship takes a distressingly prophetic look inward.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 694 posts.
302
The history of Alt+number sequences
Code pages and custom keyboard handling.
303
Should this be a map or 500 maps?
500 priests, cartographic n00bism, and the limits of scale
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Switzerland mandates software source code disclosure for public sector
Switzerland has enacted the "Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Governmental Tasks" (EMBAG), establishing a mandatory requirement for open source software within public sector bodies.
305
Working Title (Insurance)
Title insurance is grossly overpriced relative to actual risks involved. Why is that?
306
Cities need more trees
A case for planting more trees in urban areas.
307
All web "content" is freeware
By Ruben Schade in Eora/Sydney, Australia.
308
Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?
In recent years there has been a noticeable uptick in publicized incidents of turbulence affecting commercial aircraft. These events, sometimes unexpected and severe, have led to passenger injuries, emergency landings, and a recent rare fatality. Turbulence can be caused by a variety of factors, from the mixing of air…
309
The Death of NYC Congestion Pricing
And What is Says About the Institutional Problems in American Cities & Infrastructure
310
DoorDash and Pizza Arbitrage (2020)
There is such a thing as a free lunch
311
FICO and the Credit Bureau Cartel
Mortgage lenders face destruction as a cartel of Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax work with FICO to drive them out of business. Regulator and anti-monopolist Rohit Chopra is pushing back.
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Navigating Starlink's FCC Paper Trail
Guest Post: What I learned when I figured out how to navigate FCC filings.
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iDOS 3 Rejected by Apple
Earlier quite a few iDOS users and supporters reached out to me to let me know about the recent AppStore policy change (Thanks, EU). In light of this, I decided to resubmit iDOS. However, it looks like Apple has blacklisted iDOS 2, preventing me from even requesting a review under that title, and I had to submit under…
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A journey into Kindle AI slop hell
A journey into Kindle A.I. slop hell with Leah Beckmann
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ChatGPT is biased against resumes with credentials that imply a disability
UW researchers found that ChatGPT consistently ranked resumes with disability-related honors and credentials — such as the “Tom Wilson Disability Leadership Awa
317
Solar generates fifth of global electricity on summer solstice midday peak
Today across midday peaks on the summer solstice, the world will generate about a fifth of its electricity from solar. This milestone highlights the rapid growth and impact of solar power, which has seen unprecedented expansion in recent years.
318
Creative workers deserve better than a choice as to who rips them off
Spotify's relationship to artists can be kind of confusing. On the one hand, they pay a laughably low per-stream rate, as in homeopathic residues of a penny. On the other hand, the Big Three labels get a fortune from Spotify. And on the other other hand, it makes sense that the rate for a stream heard by one person…
319
Aster shootdown over Sydney in 1955
FOR more than three hours on a fine, calm August morning in 1955, the eyes of Sydney’s suburbia were fixed skyward, anxiously watching the flight of a pilotless Auster aeroplane
320
Twitter and the spread of academic knowledge
Serendipity without physical proximity? Maybe, maybe not.
321
Notes on Tajikistan
Over the summer, I spent about two weeks in Tajikistan, mostly in Dushanbe (the capital) and various points along the Pamir Highway, which borders Afghanistan and later leads into Kyrgyzstan. This …
322
Reining in America's $3.3T tax-exempt economy
For over a century, lawmakers have exempted politically favored organizations and industries from the tax code. As a result, the tax-exempt nonprofit economy now comprises 15 percent of GDP, roughly equal to the fifth-largest economy in the world.
323
Nobody knows what's going on
A major online publication once reported in a profile on me that I had retired at 33. A few old friends and acquaintances reached out to congratulate me on my financial ind...
324
The demise of the mildly dynamic website (2022)
Early websites. In the beginning, website HTML was crafted by hand. Your average personal — or corporate — website might consist of hand-edited HTML subsequently uploaded, probably via FTP, to a web server which knew only how to serve static files.
325
The hacking of culture and the creation of socio-technical debt
Culture is increasingly mediated through algorithms. These algorithms have splintered the organization of culture, a result of states and tech companies vying for influence over mass audiences. One byproduct of this splintering is a shift from imperfect but broad cultural narratives to a proliferation of niche groups…
326
EU Council to Vote on Chat Scanning Proposal on Thursday
🇫🇷 French: Traduction du dossier Chat Control 2.0, stopchatcontrol.fr🇸🇪 Swedish: Chat Control 2.0🇩🇰 Danish: chatcontrol.dk🇳🇱 Dutch: Chatcontrole Table of contents: The End of the Privacy of Digital Correspondence and the End of Anonymous Communication Take action to stop Chat
327
Please don't mention AI again
The recent innovations in the AI space, most notably those such as GPT-4, obviously have far-reaching implications for society, ranging from the utopian eliminating of drudgery, to the dystopian damage to the livelihood of artists in a capitalist society, to existential threats to humanity itself.
328
Chat Control: Incompatible with Fundamental Rights (2022)
The EU Commission's draft regulation on chat control is currently being negotiated in the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. With the fight against sexual violence against children, the draft pursues an objective that is essential for the protection of children and their rights and can justify…
329
Chat Control Must Be Stopped – Now
With its legislative proposal known as “Chat Control,” the EU Commission is trying to establish an unprecedented mass-surveillance apparatus of Orwellian proportions in the European Union. If EU citizens don’t stand up for privacy now, it may be too late.
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The Public Interest Internet
What if the internet were public interest technology? Is that too wildly speculative? I think not. I am not talking about a utopian project here — a public interest internet would be a glorious imperfect mess and it would be far from problem-free. But while there is a lot of solid thinking about various digital issues…