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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher (1991)
Before reading, please set your irony detector to the on position. If you find yourself inclined to dismiss the below as paranoid, you should know that the design behind the current American school system is very well-documented historically, in published writings of dizzying cynicism by such well-known figures as…
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Amazon’s Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress with Mugshots
Amazon’s face surveillance technology is the target of growing opposition nationwide, and today, there are 28 more causes for concern. In a test the ACLU recently conducted of the facial recognition tool, called “Rekognition,” the software incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress, identifying them as other people…
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Around 90% of all river-borne plastic that ends up in the ocean comes from just 10 rivers
The world has become increasingly alarmed at the amount of plastic in its oceans. But where does all this plastic waste come from?
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The Cosmetic Class
What happens when a society with a penchant for the cosmetic meets a medium dominated by it? “The medium is the message.” Or so goes the famous saying from media scholar Marshall McLuhan, widely re…
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Working Hours
How much time do people across the world spend working? How have working hours changed over time, and what do these changes matter for people’s lives? Explore data and research on working hours.
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PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding
‘Puisque ces mystères me dépassent, feignons d’en être l’organisateur.’ –Jean Cocteau. Click to read Quariety, by anas sabbar, a Substack publication. Launched 6 years ago.
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The European Commission versus Android
Examining the history of Android explains why the European Commission may be right to fine Google for its actions around Android, even as the reasoning feels off.
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Dissolving the Fermi Paradox
I’m late to posting this, but it’s important enough to be worth sharing anyway: Sandberg, Drexler, and Ord on Dissolving the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox asks: given the immense num…
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The Absolute Denial of Shit
Today emoji are used by 92% of the world’s online population. The diminutive images have inspired a holiday and a $50 million animated movie. You can even make a living translating them. The Emojicon convention draws attendees from around the world. Topics of discussion at the 2018 gathering in Brooklyn include: “How…
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How should we evaluate progress in AI?
Improving artificial intelligence research with scientific testing, design practice, and meta-rational choice of methods and criteria
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The hotel bathroom puzzle
In his wonderful book The Evolution of Useful Things, the author and civil engineer Henry Petroski shares one of the most famous case studies in the history of design: Before it was destroyed by fi…
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Legal Systems Very Different from Ours
This is an old page, put up as part of a course I taught in 2012. The more recent draft is here . The final draft of this book has now been published and is available on Amazon as either a paperback or a kindle .
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Illegal Production and Use of Banned CFC-11 in China's Foam Blowing Industry
We investigate and campaign against environmental crime and abuse
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South Korea has limited a working week to 52 hours, in order to stop overwork
The previous limit was almost 10 hours every single day, including weekends.
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Yes, Amazon Is Tracking People
In order to protect civil liberties without hampering innovation, lawmakers should require public input before surveillance tools are deployed and ensure that facial recognition databases are purged of data related to law-abiding people.
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Mark Zuckerberg and his empire of oily rags
Surveillance capitalism sucks: it improves the scattershot, low-performance success-rate of untargeted advertising (well below 1 percent) and doubles or triples it (to well below 1 percent!).
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How the Blog Broke the Web (2017)
I first got online in 1993, back when the Web had a capital letter — three, in fact — and long before irony stretched its legs and unbuttoned its flan
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How much is time wrong around the world? (2014)
Why Spaniards have dinner so late? A map of the difference between solar time and clock time around the world.