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ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent
Several websites including Voat, ZeroHedge, Archive.is, LiveLeak, and others have been blocked in Australia and New Zealand in direct contravention to
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media
The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it
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Key Polish Political Party Comes Out Against Article 13
With only days to go before the final EU debate and vote on the new Copyright Directive (we're told the debate will be at 0900h CET on Tuesday, 26 March, and the vote will happen at 1200h CET), things could not be more urgent and fraught. That's why today's announcement by Poland's Platformy...
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US Army applying new areas of math
Many times on this blog I've argued that the difference between pure and applied math is motivation. As my graduate advisor used to say, “Applied mathematics is not a subject classification. It's an attitude.” Traditionally there was general agreement regarding what is pure math and what is applied. Number theory and…
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EU businesses sign open letter against copyright directive articles 11 and 13
March 19th, 2019 Dear Members of the European Parliament, The companies signing this letter to the European Parliament are urging you to vote against Articles 11 and 13 of the proposed copyright directive. The text of the trilogue agreement would harm the European economy and seriously undermine the ability of…
7297
The principle of charity: Criticize the best interpretation of an argument
The principle of charity is a philosophical principle that denotes that, when interpreting someone’s statement, you should assume that the best possible interpretation of that statement is the one that the speaker meant to convey. Accordingly, to implement the principle of charity, you should not attribute falsehoods…
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Four Wikipedias to ‘Black Out’ over EU Copyright Directive
Update, 25 March: The Italian, Galician, Asturian, and Catalan Wikipedias have blacked themselves out today to protest the EU Copyright Directive. Other language versions of Wikipedia have chosen to show site banners above their content. Wikipedia’s volunteer editing communities make decisions like this independently…
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Android users in Europe will be asked which browser and search engine they want
For nearly a decade, we’ve been in discussions with the European Commission about the way some of our products work. Throughout this process, we’ve always agreed on one …
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Eliminating Robocalls
Twilio's CEO talks about trusted communications, reputation, robocalling, and making it safe to pick up your phone again.
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Programmer Migration Patterns
I made a little flow chart of mainstream programming languages and how programmers seem to move from one to another. There's a more common...
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What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance
David shares how the new age of information abundance is transforming commerce, education, and politics. Read here.
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Reasons Not to Use Apple (2018)
Apple reportedly had objections to what Jon Stewart said in his video program — it canceled the show after he had criticized China, and something the article describes as "AI". (It could be that what he criticized was actually large language models, which may be an important issue but are not "intelligence" .)
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Google’s Nest fiasco harms user trust and invades their privacy
Last month, Google announced that its Nest Secure would be updated to work with Google Assistant software. The problem? Google never told users its product had a microphone to begin with. Simple oversight or invasion of privacy? We break it down.
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CowToilet, a Toilet for Cows
If you are a dairy farmer looking for ways to reduce your environmental impact, Hanskamp's CowToilet may be for you. This innovative system is designed to…
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Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
This will be short, ranty and to the point: these warnings are getting ridiculous: I know, tell you something you don't know! The whole ugly issue reared its head again on the weekend courtesy of the story in this tweet: > I’m not sure if this makes it better
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Rewarding Neglect and Punishing Investment in Struggling Neighborhoods
In cities all over America, we deter people from revitalizing neighborhoods by punishing them with higher taxes for improving their property. A change in how we tax property could fix these incentives.
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Party Affiliation
In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent? (Asked of independents: As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?)
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Opioids and the Labor Market (2018)
This paper finds evidence that opioid availability decreases labor force participation while a large labor market shock does not influence the share of opioid abusers. We first identify the effect of availability on participation using the geographic variation in opioid prescription rates. We use a combination of the…
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The Web We Broke
I read something depressing last Monday, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
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Graying Out
For many years I’ve interacted with my fellow humans, I think perhaps more than any other way, via the medium of Internet chat. But in my chat window, they’re fading, one by one. This problem is technical and personal and I felt it ought not to go unrecognized.
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Researchers find trapdoor in SwissVote election system
A team of researchers have examined the source code published as part of the SwissPost e-voting system, provided by Scytl, and discovered a cryptographic trapdoor.
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On the death of my family's dairy farm
This Christmas, like every other, I traveled to northern Wisconsin to stay with my parents on the dairy farm I grew up on.
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Our Boss Will Call Your Boss
On February 17, seven Blackwater-like security contractors were arrested in Haiti while driving in unmarked vehicles and transporting illegal weaponry and tactical equipment. They claimed to be on a government mission. Four days later the US “rescued” them. None are expected to face charges. What happened?
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Where Warren’s Wrong
Senator Warren’s proposal about how to regulate tech is wrong about history, the source of tech giant’s power, and the fundamental nature of technology itself. That doesn’t mean t…
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Some airlines and regulators ground 737 Max in wake of Ethiopian Airlines crash
Some airlines and national aviation authorities have grounded their Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the wake of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 (ET302).
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Proton Technologies awarded €2M from the EU
We are happy to announce that the European Commission has awarded €2 million to Proton AG, the parent company of Proton Mail and Proton VPN, to develop a suite of encrypted services.
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I Win My European Unemployment Bet
In 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate exceeded Europe’s for the first time in decades. Apologists for European labor market regulation rejoiced, so I publicly bet that European unemployment would exceed U.S. unemployment over the next decade. The original authors I targeted turned me down, even after I offered a 1…