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Google and Microsoft have opaque and unpredictable ad moderation
Yet another sad story of how big companies kill small ones because of poor processes.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 1,050 posts.
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The art of asking nicely
There are upsides to working with a neural net that trained on a huge collection of internet images and text. One is that, instead of ominous grey geometric blobs [https://aiweirdness.com/post/177091486527/this-ai-is-bad-at-drawing-but-will-try-anyways] when it doesn't understand your
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Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?
"In the late 1930s, FDR’s Administration supercharged antitrust enforcement, increasing more than eightfold the number of cases brought in just two years."
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Interpreting 9/11 commemorative Afghan carpets (2011)
The most controversial and confronting of the many categories of Afghan “war carpets” made since the Soviet invasion in 1979 were those which first appeared in early 2002 and which memorialized the…
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The Cultural Implications of Silence Around the World (2020)
What does silence mean around the world?
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Cybersecurity and the curse of binary thinking
Working in information/cybersecurity and technology risk is a fascinating and challenging career, as I’ve covered here. There is, mostly, a great spirit of sharing and collaboration among security professionals. However, I’ve observed one disturbing and growing trend in the past few years that might be characterized…
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The Death of the Festival
<p>(Part 1 of a multi-part series)</p> <p><em>We live a double life, civilized in scientific and technical matters,</em> <em>wild and primitive in the things of the soul. That we are no longer conscious of being primitive, makes our tamed kind of wildness all the more dangerous.</em> – Hans Von Hentig</p> <p>The…
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How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub
A new article was published in The Chronicle about me running Sci-Hub, a project dedicated to providing free access to academic journals all over the world. Their goal is to present Sci-Hub and its…
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My trust in software, an all time low
I don't think I've ever had more distrust and as a consequence distate for software than in recent years. I don't think its just me as a tech-nerd with artisanal tech-carpentry aspirations. I want people to build well, treat their users right and generally exercise some actual restraint. I see it very clearly and I…
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Out of Africa's midlife crisis
on bottlenecks, crashes and what diversity really looks like
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Not school or homeschool, but modular learning
Meet the new wave of teachers, artists and techies who are reinventing K-12 education one kid at a time
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HIV vaccine trial starts at Oxford
The University of Oxford today started vaccinations of a novel HIV vaccine candidate as part of a Phase I clinical trial in the UK.
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The cost of the “new way to message on instagram” (2020)
If you are on Instagram, you have been probably bombarded by Instagram Stories and notifications about new features like emojis, chat themes, selfie stickers, and “cross-platform messaging” that will allow you to exchange direct messages with, and search for, friends who are on Facebook. But the...
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YouTube algorithm recommends videos that violate its own policies: study
Conducted using data donated by thousands of YouTube users, research reveals the algorithm is recommending videos with misinformation, violent content, …
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Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising
This letter has been sent by the undersigned to EU & US regulators, to urge them to take action on banning surveillance-based ads, as recommended by the NCC.
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European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication
Today, the European Parliament approved the ePrivacy Derogation, allowing providers of e-mail and messaging services to automatically search all personal messages of each citizen for presumed suspect content and report suspected cases to the police. The European Pirates Delegation in the Greens/EFA
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How to build a small town in Texas
Of all the questions I get on Twitter the most common is this: “How do you build a town?” We know how it used to be done, but these last two centuries we have forgotten how to do it.
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Towards a more Elvish vision for Technology
This essay is telescopic . It can shrink or expand, depending on how much attention you are willing to give. This is the original version (3344 words). Show other sizes .
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Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)
Fears about old things when they were new. Click to read Pessimists Archive Newsletter, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
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The future is in symmetrical, high-speed internet speeds
Congress is about to make critical decisions about the future of internet access and speed in the United States. It has a potentially once-in-a-lifetime amount of funding to spend on broadband infrastructure, and at the heart of this debate is the minimum speed requirement for taxpayer-funded...
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Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it
A new report offers solutions to the problems that hound social media, from the spread of misinformation to the lack of competition.
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The Growth Ponzi Scheme
The American pattern of development creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.
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Cars, planes, trains: where do CO₂ emissions from transport come from?
Transport accounts for around one-fifth of global CO₂ emissions. Three-quarters of this is from road transport.
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New [July 2, 2021] Audacity Data Collection Policy
Audacity is the world's most popular audio editing and recording app. Edit, mix, and enhance your audio tracks with the power of Audacity. Download now!