New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
Why We Sleep: A Tale of Institutional Failure
In our previous installment of this podcast, we learned from independent researcher Alexey Guzey that famed sleep researcher Matthew Walker seems to have committed research misconduct in his bestselling book, Why We Sleep. Walker is a University of California professor, Google researcher, and Ted talk star, and his…
Protecting Lives & Liberty: How Contact Tracing Can Foil COVID-19 & Big Brother
If you'd like to help translate this comic, click here to see what translations have already been done! If your language hasn't been done yet, send a Pull Request to that repo with your translated comic, or send it to . Thank you! 💖
A (possible) solution to Covid-19
Notice. Since this seems to be such a common question I think I should describe my background. I have a PhD in molecular microbiology and I was once a tenured academic (professor). I now work in the biotech sector. I have published a number of peer reviewed papers in virology. If you really want to know more about me…
The Global Dollar Short Squeeze
Published February 2020 There is currently a short squeeze affecting most of the global economy, slowing its growth. This has been the case well before the impacts from the trade war and the coronavirus. A short squeeze occurs when something that is heavily shorted goes on to rise sharply in price for one reason or […]
Quantifying the Adpocalypse
Someone is off sides - advertising revenue in the time of COVID
Dear internet: We must ban targeted advertising immediately
The solution to one of our most challenging privacy issues of today could have the simplest answer.
230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question
Over the past several weeks, Signal traffic has gone through the roof. New users are signing up at unprecedented rates, and we’ve expanded our server capacity faster than we ever anticipated. It means a lot to us that so many people are relying on Signal during this difficult time. When users che...
Hours
A novelist friend introduced me to a productivity technique I’ve found effective. I spread it to my friends, and now to my horror management types have discovered it. A friend just told me he…
What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)
The sophisticated "scientific concept" with the greatest potential to enhance human understanding may be argued to come not from the halls of academe, but rather from the unlikely research environment of professional wrestling.
Private equity looting public health in a pandemic
During a 2007 trip to NYC, while taking long walks from one indie bookstore to the next, lugging increasingly heavy bags of pressed vegetable matter, I stumbled on Simon Lovell's How to Cheat at Everything at the St Mark's Bookshop.
Updated WHO recommendations for international traffic in relation to COVID-19 outbreak
This document provides updated recommendations for international traffic in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak, in light of the rapidly evolving situation. It supersedes the advice published on 27 January 2020.On 30 January 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, following the advice of the…
COMMENTARY: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data
Dr. Brosseau is a national expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases and professor (retired), University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Sietsema is also an expert on respiratory protection and an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
A Message to Our Users
Learn more about how to use each Zoom product to connect with coworkers, customers, businesses, and more with insights and best practices.
The EARN IT Act Violates the US Constitution
Since senators introduced the EARN IT Act (S. 3398) in early March, EFF has called attention to the many ways in which the bill would be a disaster for Internet users’ free speech and security. We’ve explained how the EARN IT Act could be used to drastically undermine encryption. Although the bill...
Omni Group Layoffs
Omni’s been around for almost 30 years, and I hope it’s around for another 30. It’s one of the great Mac and iOS shops — they will sing songs about Omni, at maximum volume, in the great halls.
Signaling as a Service
01 Intro One of the best books I have read in the last few years is The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler. The book makes two main arguments: a) Most of our everyday actions can be traced back to some form of signaling or status seeking b) Our brains deliberately hi
Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library
Last Tuesday we launched a National Emergency Library—1.4M digitized books available to users without a waitlist—in response to the rolling wave of school and library closures that remain in place to date. We’ve received dozens of messages of thanks from teachers and school librarians, who can now help their students…
Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports
The Japanese government seems incapable of getting their act together so that they can provide meaningful data to the public.
Open access to ACM Digital Library during coronavirus pandemic
For the next 3 months, through 6/30/20, ACM is making all work published by ACM in the ACM Digital Library freely accessible.
The EARN IT Bill Is the Government’s Plan to Scan Every Message Online
Update 10/1/2020: The EARN IT bill has been amended since this blog post was published. We still oppose the bill.Imagine an Internet where the law required every message sent to be read by government-approved scanning software. Companies that handle such messages wouldn’t be allowed to securely...