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Lessons learned from a failing local mall
The closing of the mall’s anchor store exposes how fragile the community’s business model is, providing an opening to shift approach.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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The facts about a recent counterfeiting case brought by the U.S. government
In the last few days there have been several stories about the sentencing of Eric Lundgren in a case that began in 2012, and we have received a number of questions about this case and our role in it. Although the case was not one that we brought, the questions raised recently have caused us...
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A Few Thoughts on Ray Ozzie’s “Clear” Proposal
Yesterday I happened upon a Wired piece by Steven Levy that covers Ray Ozzie’s proposal for “CLEAR”. I’m quoted at the end of the piece (saying nothing much), so I knew the piece was coming. …
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The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant (2005)
An allegory against complacency about aging and death.
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The Shirky Principle (2010)
[Translations: Japanese] “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky I think this observation is brilliant. It reminds me of the clarity of the Peter Principle, which says that a person in … Continue reading →
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Theology majors marry each other a lot, but business majors don’t
The American Community Survey collects data on the college majors of people who’ve graduated college. This excellent data has lots of untapped potential for family research, because it tells …
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Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
Now, that’s not because most Stack Overflow contributors are hostile jerks. The majority of them are generous and kind. Sure, a few are… just generous, I guess? But our active users regularly express their frustration that we haven’t done more to make outsiders feel more welcome. The real problem isn’t the community …
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Yes it's a bubble, so what?
Syzygy Asset Management
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Google’s new Chat service shows contempt for Android users’ privacy
Google launches Chat - new messaging service for Android phones
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Addressing Recent Claims of “Manipulated” Blog Posts in the Wayback Machine
Some recent press stories (1, 2) have discussed archived blog posts of a prominent journalist, Joy Ann Reid, in the Wayback Machine and her claims that some of these posts were “manipulated” by an “unknown, external party”. This past December, Reid's lawyers contacted us, asking to have archives of the blog…
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Gerontopoly: Homeownership, wealth, and age
Is the “dream” of homeownership really just a massive, intergenerational wealth transfer? Recently, that’s just how it has worked out.
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The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories (2014)
I. “Silliest internet atheist argument” is a hotly contested title, but I have a special place in my heart for the people who occasionally try to prove Biblical fallibility by pointing …
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Blind since birth, writing code at Amazon since 2013
Michael Forzano said he has a good “mental map of the structure of the code,” which allows him to help colleagues and provide unique feedback to his team.
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To Delete Facebook or Not to Delete Facebook? That Is Not the Question
Since the Cambridge Analytica news hit headlines, calls for users to ditch the platform have picked up speed. Whether or not it has a critical impact on the company’s user base or bottom line, the message from #DeleteFacebook is clear: users are fed up. EFF is not here to tell you whether or not to...
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Text Embedding Models Contain Bias
As Machine Learning practitioners, when faced with a task, we usually select or train a model primarily based on how well it performs on that task. For example, say we're building a system to classify whether a movie review is positive or negative. We take 5 different models and see how well each performs this task:
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What Data Does Facebook Collect When I’m Not Using Facebook, and Why?
Explaining more about the information we get from other websites and apps; how we use the data they send to us; and the controls you have.
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The Price of Free Is Actually Too High
I loved this quote by Tristan Harris in the New York Magazine article The Internet Apologizes … “We cannot afford the advertising business model. The price of free is actually too
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A game of tag that’s been going for 20+ years
A group of high school friends has been playing an elaborate game of tag since reconnecting at a reunion almost 30 years ago. A few years ago, one of the player
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How people die vs. media coverage of death
Data collection and analysis by Hasan Al-Jamaly, Maximillian Siemers, Owen Shen, and Nicole Stone.
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European Copyright Law Could Soon Get Worse
EFF has been writing about the upcoming European Digital Single Market directive on copyright for a long time now. But it's time to put away the keyboard, and pick up the phone, because the proposal just got worse—and it's headed for a crucial vote on June 20-21. For those who need no further...
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User Privacy Isn't Solely a Facebook Issue
During Congressional hearings about Facebook’s data practices in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, Mark Zuckerberg drew an important distinction between what we expect from our Internet service providers (ISPs, such as Comcast or Verizon) as opposed to platforms like Facebook that operate...
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Russia’s move to block Telegram another attack on online freedom of expression
On Friday, the Tagansky District Court in Moscow is expected to rule on a request by Roskomnadzor, the Russian media watchdog, to block Telegram for its refusal to provide the Federal Security Service (FSB) with backdoor access to encrypted messages.
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When the business model is the privacy violation
Sometimes, when we worry about data privacy, we’re worried that data might fall into the wrong hands or be misused for unintended purposes. If I’m considering participating in a medical study, I’d want to know if insurance companies will obtain the data and use it against me. In these scenarios, we should look for…
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The high modernism of social media companies
A Revealing Memo A couple weeks ago, BuzzFeed leaked a memo written by Facebook VP Andrew “Boz” Bosworth in the summer of 2016. It contained ... Read more