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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
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RMS lifestyle
I do not have a favorite food, a favorite book, a favorite song, a favorite joke, a favorite flower, or a favorite butterfly. My tastes don't work that way.
Why high fructose corn syrup replaced sugar in US
Once in a while I come across an animated debate on health benefits of sugar vs. high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is enzymatically produced mixture of glucose and fructose that approximately matches the chemical composition of sucrose, aka sugar. It is not this debate that is my concern; rather,…
Let’s help Airbnb rebuild the bridge it just burned
[Trieste, Italy, 12:02am Friday 21 May 2013 — As I say in the comments here, Airbnb has responded to this post, explaining that a bug in the system was involved. While that might patch Airbnb’…
How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)
Humans communicate with one another using a dazzling array of languages, each differing from the next in innumerable ways. Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives? Do people who speak different languages think differently simply because they speak…
Elsevier journals: has anything changed?
Greg Martin, a number theorist at UBC (the University of British Columbia in Vancouver) doesn’t think so, so he has decided to resign from the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of N…
Sucks to be an old engineer
As if the coming wave of foreign engineers resulting from the inevitable immigration bill isn’t bad enough, I saw this comment left on a Wall Street Journal article: At my recent 40th Stanford reun…
Dear WordPress
Has it really been 10 years? It seems just yesterday we were playing around on my blog, and the blogs of a few high school friends. Two of those friends are married, one isn’t anymore, two are stil…
Want to help the poor and transform your economy? Give people cash.
YEA,GOVERNMENT,STOP BEING SO CROOKED AND PUTTING THE MONEY IN YOUR OWN POCKETS SHARE WITH THE POOR AND NEEDY PEOPLE LIKE ME. I HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR HELP TO GET A HOUSING GRANT AND I HAVE EMAILED THE CROOKED GOVERNORS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA AND ALSO SENATORS,CONGRESSWOMEN AND MEN AND ALL YOU SNOBS CAN DO IS TO…
Lying Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft put up an ad: Windows vs. iPad: Compare tablets - Microsoft Windows. It shows the iPad screen (left) compared with the ASUS VivoTab Smart screen (right). This is not to scale. Microsoft has d
Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging
In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing "Talk" platform with a new one called "Hangouts" that sharply diminishes...
The Government Wants A Backdoor Into Your Online Communications
According to the New York Times, President Obama is "on the verge of backing" a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA forces telephone companies to provide backdoors to the government...
The Last Psychiatrist: The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam
"Dude, are you doing the Dove ad now ? That was so April 15th...?" Yes, I realize I missed the meme train, but it's better to be right than part of the debate, especially when there is no debate, this is all a short con inside a 50+ year long con. Remember House Of Games ? "It's called a confidence game. Why, because…
Teenager facing terrorism charges for something he posted on Facebook
Meet Cameron D'Ambrosio. He's 18 and lives in a small town near Boston. He posts a lot of lyrics on Facebook and wants to be a rapper. Oh, and he's being held without bail as a terrorist for ... WHAT??!
Surveillance and the Internet of Things
The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We’re constantly monitored on the Internet by hundreds of companies—both familiar and unfamiliar. Everything we do there is recorded, collected, and collated—sometimes by corporations wanting to sell us stuff and sometimes by governments wanting to keep an eye…
EFF now accepting Bitcoin again
Today, we’re happy to announce that we will be accepting Bitcoin donations through our website. You can use them to make one-time donations, set up monthly donations or get an EFF membership (which includes awesome membership swag like EFF hats and digital freedom t-shirts).While we are accepting...
Disappointing Unsealing Decision in Aaron Swartz Case
The public lost another battle in the U.S. v. Aaron Swartz case, this one over transparency. On May 13, 2013, the U.S. District Court judge handling the prosecution sided with the government, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR and refused to make public any information in the case...