541
Why are there no good dinosaur films?
running on jurassic park's fumes for over 30 years
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 992 posts.
542
The Rise of Whatever
This was originally titled “I miss when computers were fun”. But in the course of writing it, I discovered that there is a reason computers became less fun, a dark thread woven through a number of events in recent history. Let me back up a bit.
543
Where is my von Braun wheel?
In 1962. There — that answers the clickbaity title right away.
544
The War on the Walkman
The Sony Walkman is now iconic of the 1980s, eliciting nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ of owning music, rather than renting it.
545
The Moat of Low Status
It hurts, but less than you think
546
The wanton destruction of a creative-tech era
Fastly, you killed glitch.com and ruined your karma for 10,000 years. You have “betrayed yourself for nothing.”
547
The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million
Trust me, I counted.
548
Aging-related inflammation is not universal across human populations
Inflammation may not be a universal human experience, but a byproduct of industrialized lifestyles.
549
Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers
Apple's anti-competitive App Store policies are gouging consumers, enabling censorship, and harming privacy-focused developers. We're joining a lawsuit to restore internet freedom.
550
China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide
A new Oceana analysis reveals the global scale of China’s visible fishing fleet
551
552
More on Apple's Trust-Eroding 'F1 the Movie' Wallet Ad
Sending this ad is completely destructive to all the hard work other teams at Apple have done to make Apple Wallet actually private — and, more importantly, *to get users to believe that it’s private*.
553
The Unsustainability of Moore's Law
Roughly every two years, the density of transistors that can be fit onto a silicon chip doubles.
554
Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff
Cliff-edged fitness functions and the evolution of schizophrenia
555
Engineered Addictions
How silicon valley is putting a price tag on your attention - and relationships
556
I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric
This is a story that started back in 2022, but I think its a perfect time to reflect on the impact that it has had on my friend group still to this day. Update (2/7/2025): I'm genuinely blown away by the response to this post. This hit the
557
AI Is Dehumanization Technology
A call to reject the deployment and use of AI systems in Canada's public sector.
558
559
The Hollow Men of Hims
An admittedly partial - but deeply troubling - case against America's most brazen medical grift, involving Chinese knockoffs, subscription traps, and prescription gas station sex pills.
560
Community Is Motivation on Tap
A good community can have tremendous influence on one’s motivation. I never appreciated this fact enough so I wanted to write about it here.
561
Few Americans pay for news when they encounter paywalls
Among adults who have not paid for news in the past year, the most common reason they cite is that they can find plenty of other news articles for free.
562
The NO FAKES act has changed, and it's worse
A bill purporting to target the issue of misinformation and defamation caused by generative AI has mutated into something that could change the internet forever, harming speech and innovation from here on out.The Nurture Originals, Foster Art and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act aims to...
563
Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything
Batteries are now cheap enough to unleash solar energy’s full potential, getting as close as 97% of the way to delivering constant electricity supply 24 hours across 365 days cost-effectively in the sunniest places.
564
The cultural decline of literary fiction
What happened?
565
Requiem for a Solar Plant
"...requiring reconductoring of 1.71 miles at a cost of $795,150...limiting output to 3MW..."
566
US Congress is making more than 250M acres of public lands available for sale
The Senate reconciliation package is a disturbing giveaway that will mandate the “disposal” of public lands across the western United States.
567
Signal – An Ethical Replacement for WhatsApp
Moving from WhatsApp to Signal is an important action, right now. WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, has been involved in several cases of election interference: America in 2016, Trinidad and Tobago …
568
Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA
In recent months, we have received numerous reports from users across West Asia and North Africa (WANA) expressing alarm over a little-known but deeply intrusive bloatware application—AppCloud—pre-installed on Samsung’s A and M series smartphones. Without users’ knowledge or consent, this bloatware collects sensitive…
569
The JAWS shark is public domain
A story with legal drama, a mystery, snow leopards, and, uh, naughty bits.
570
Rolling the ladder up behind us
Who will take over for us if we don't train the next generation to replace us? A critique of craft, AI, and the legacy of human expertise.