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Star Trek as a purely symbolic artifact of past times

Charlie Stross2012215 points127 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

Back to: I had a blog entry for you, but I eated it | Forward to: Beer, Boston (and books)

Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers

What Silicon Valley gets wrong about math education again and again

Dan Meyer2012106 points83 commentsMath & Algorithms details

less helpful

Apple’s great GPL purge

Shit Sam Altman says

What Happens When You Swear At Your Users

UK government declines to pardon Alan Turing

John Graham-Cumming2012166 points83 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

There's been a petition to the government and an Early Day Motion asking for Alan Turing to be pardoned. This is something I oppose desp...

Khan Academy: It’s Different This Time

The sociology of drinking

Malcolm Gladwell2012219 points39 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

It’s too late for Dave Winer and John Battelle to save the common web

Robert Scoble2012124 points68 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

Confiscating your ice cream cones

Hey, remember that awesome Hello City Planner video about how the Government is going to have to come and confiscate your ice cream cones? I thought the best thing about it was that it was actually created by the SF Planning Department, but I was wrong. It gets better: it turns out, it's a true story!! Before Ice…

"I haven’t been drunk in 3 years... and I’ve been partying way more than you."

Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

I don't think you browse like I do

My U.S. Border Nightmare

UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining

This is the first post of probably several in my concern about textmining. You do NOT have to be a scientist to understand the point with total clarity. This topic is one of the most important I have written about this year. We are at a critical point where unless we take action our scholarly rights will be further…

Did Mark Zuckerberg just accidentally leak the new newsfeed design?

The Most Incompetent TSA Story Yet?

Bruce Schneier2012108 points48 commentsSecurity & Privacy details

The storyline: TSA screener finds two pipes in passenger’s bags. Screener determines that they’re not a threat. Screener confiscates them anyway, because of their “material and appearance.” Because they’re not actually a threat, screener leaves them at the checkpoint. Everyone forgets about them. Six hours later, the…

No longer loving Google

Nelson Minar2012246 points123 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

I stopped working at Google in 2006 but I only stopped loving it this month. I’ve frequently defended the company in public, explaining unpopular actions from what I imagine their side is. Google has often been in the right but the company is terrible at explaining itself. I felt with my understanding of the company I…

The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Matthew Garrett2012161 points90 commentsOpen Source details

Programming is the new High School Diploma

Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think

Stanford Center for Internet and Society2012352 points115 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

The ethics of brain boosting

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Jelmer de Jong2012186 points69 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details

Scientific Community to Elsevier: Drop Dead

What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

Canada Is About To Pass Sopa’s Evil Little Brother. Politely

Paulo Coelho advertises on Pirate Bay front page

The Pirate Bay starts today a new and interesting system to promote arts Do you have a band? Are you an aspiring movie producer? A comedian? A cartoon artist? They will replace the front page logo with a link to your work. As soon as I learned about it, I decided to participate. Several of…

ACTA rapporteur denounces ACTA mascarade

La Quadrature du Net2012120 points18 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details