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The internet has made defensive writers of us all
I was struck by this passage in Steven Pinker’s article about why academics’ writing stinks :
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Academics, we need to talk
Although I made the move to industry a bit more than five years ago, I still serve on program committees and review articles for journals a...
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Neal Stephenson: Why I Am a Sociomediapath (2015)
The personal website of author Neal Stephenson, unless it's been hacked.
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What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016?
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016? Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1959 The films North by Northwest and Ben-Hur, the play A Raisin in the Sun, the books The Naked Lunch and Starship Troopers, the first episodes of The Twilight Zone, and more. . . Current US law…
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The Myth of AI – Jaron Lanier
That mythology, in turn, has spurred a reactionary, perpetual spasm from people who are horrified by what they hear. You'll have a figure say, "The computers will take over the Earth, but that's a good thing, because people had their chance and now we should give it to the machines." Then you'll have other people say…
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Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant
The governments of Australia, Germany, the UK and the US are destroying your privacy. Some people don't see the problem...
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My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
Paul Graham published a simplified version of his essay on income inequality . Here's my simplified response: It is true that many social...
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Shut Up, Paul Graham: The Simplified Version
As often happens when you say something controversial, there have been some very adventurous interpretations of the essay I just wrote about economic inequality. I thought it might help clarify matters for the undecided if I tried to write a version so simple that it leaves no room for misinterpretation. “I wrote <a…
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T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Applies Indiscriminately
Back in November, T-Mobile announced a new service for its mobile customers called Binge On, in which video streams from certain websites don’t count against customers’ data caps.[fn]To be fair, T-Mobile’s plans don’t have traditional data caps—they just slow down to “2G” speeds once customers...
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You can't trust Amazon Underground
Bid on the RGP-Domain discours.es. Bid now from €10 and secure the domain at an early stage!
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Govtech: The $400B Market Hiding in Plain Sight
The Govtech Fund is the first-ever venture capital fund dedicated to government technology startups.
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How Paul Graham Gets It Wrong in “Economic Inequality”
Paul Graham (PG) is one of my favorite writers. His Essays are just about all well worth the time to read (and sometimes re-read). It’s not…
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Paul Graham Is Still Asking to Be Eaten
An Obviously Critical Response to “Economic Inequality” by Paul Graham
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Why Arabs Lose Wars (1999)
Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Egyptian regular forces did poorly against Yemeni irregulars in the 1960s.1 Syrians could only impose their will in Lebanon during the mid-1970s by the use of overwhelming
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Redefining Work
The most modern definition of work is “an exchange in which the participants benefit from the interaction”. Interestingly, cooperation is…
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The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground
After more than four decades of serving as the nation's economic majority, the U.S. middle class is now matched in size by those in the economic tiers above and below it.
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Income inequality is not the problem, it's a symptom
Paul Graham today published two essays in which he challenges the idea that economic inequality is a problem. Since the 1970s, economic ...
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A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality
While perusing HackerNews today, I encountered this article and this comment thread by Paul Graham (PG for short), founder of Ycombinator. I think that a lengthy response is in order. I originally …
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Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock
With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the 'ian' in Debian. Ian started the Debian project in August of 1993, releasing the first versions of Debian later...
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In Memoriam: Ian Murdock
Docker is a founding member of the Blueprint Alliance, a 12-company reference architecture for securing AI agents, built around four governance questions.
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Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition
In this regularly updated article, which is without doubt the most comprehensive list of Linux distributions' problems on the entire Internet, we only discuss their main problems and deficiencies (which may be the reason why some people say Linux distros are not ready for the desktop) while everyone should keep in…
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How Completely Messed Up Practices Become Normal
Have you ever mentioned something that seems totally normal to you only to be greeted by surprise? Happens to me all the time when I describe something everyone at work thinks is normal. For some reason, my conversation partner's face morphs from pleasant smile to rictus of horror. Here are a few representative…
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No Brainer
For decades now, I have been haunted by the grainy, black-and-white x-ray of a human skull.