1321
Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come
Data Ownership as a conversation changes when data resides primarily with people-governed institutions rather than corporations.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,065 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
1322
Benefits of choosing email over messaging
My colleagues and friends know that I prefer to communicate with them via email rather than chat messaging. There are many benefits in such a choice. You may want to consider them and adopt the same stance.
1323
Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society
Today, 43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society, up from 34% in 2022.
1324
The UK is still trying to backdoor encryption for Apple users
The Financial Times reports that the U.K. is once again demanding that Apple create a backdoor into its encrypted backup services. The only change since the last time they demanded this is that the order is allegedly limited to only apply to British users. That doesn’t make it any better.The demand...
1325
Privacy Harm Is Harm
Every day, corporations track our movements through license plate scanners, building detailed profiles of where we go, when we go there, and who we visit. When they do this to us in violation of data privacy laws, we’ve suffered a real harm—period. We shouldn’t need to prove we’ve suffered...
1326
Flock's gunshot detection microphones will start listening for human voices
Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As...
1327
When private practices merge with hospital systems, costs go up
Private practices are vanishing as more doctors join large hospital systems. This increasing consolidation is reducing competition and raising prices, according to a study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Fiona Scott Morton.
1328
Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026
Read more on the Riksbank’s website.
1329
Be Worried
Author's note: I wrote this in March 2023, but just published in October 2025. I held back from publishing this originally for fear that I was being sensationalist. But with the launch of Sora 2, I couldn't not share these thoughts. I only regret I didn't publish it 2 years ago.
1330
The collapse of the econ PhD job market
What is an Economics PhD worth in 2025?
1331
California needs to learn from Houston and Dallas about homelessness
Houston and Dallas reduced street homelessness dramatically not by being more compassionate or cruel than California, but by building working systems
1332
In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information
The way we consume content on the internet is increasingly driven by walled-garden platforms and black-box feed algorithms. This shift is making our media diets miserable. Ironically, a solution to the problem predates algorithmic feeds, social media and other forms of informational junk food. It is called RSS (Really…
1333
Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?
A small change to operations may undermine a key differentiator for the anime streamer.
1334
Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance
From The world is entering an era where identity is no longer a matter of personal relationships, lived experience, or even paperwork. Increasingly, it is reduced to biometric scans, algorithmic ve…
1335
The strangest letter of the alphabet: The rise and fall of yogh
The rise and fall of yogh
1336
DHH Is Worse Than I Thought
DHH's politics are not normal. Maybe they used to be, I don't know, but as of right now the dude is way outside of what most people would consider moral or acceptable.
1337
Email immutability matters more in a world with AI
Email immutability matters even more in a world of AI. Here is how we enable your use of your data, in line with our values.
1338
Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity
For 16+ years, we master the rules of school. Study hard, get good grades, follow the formula and ultimately merit wins. Then we enter the workforce and none of it works quite like we thought. This becomes painfully obvious as you rise higher in the org. Even seasoned veterans forget
1339
NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system
Bits of Freedom komt op voor internetvrijheid door de online grondrechten op communicatievrijheid en privacy te beschermen.
1340
Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
At FTX, Frank, and Pollen, software engineers were asked to do something potentially illegal, or to go along with what looked like fraud. They obliged in two out of three cases, landed in hot water, and now face jail time. A reminder why it’s never a good idea to go along with such requests.
1341
ICE Is Buying a Tool to Track Phones, Without Warrants
Trump is quietly building a surveillance state, and almost no one is paying attention.
1342
Our efforts, in part, define us
What happens when something we enjoy doing that took effort becomes effortless? And what happens if that original effort was a foundation on which we saw value…
1343
The gaslit asset class
James Grant invited me to address the annual conference of Grant's Interest Rate Observer . This was an intimidating prospect, the previous...
1344
Making sure AI serves people and knowledge stays human
Today we’re sharing a human rights impact assessment on AI/ML to help Wikimedia understand effects on human rights.
1345
An opinionated critique of Duolingo
beyond the green owl, from streaks and potions to pedagogy and politics
1346
Can you use GDPR to circumvent BlueSky's adult content blocks?
In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT! I'll start by saying that I'm moderately positive on Online Safety. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm. The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this…
1347
Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
The debate surrounding the Codes of Conduct (CoC) adopted by Open Source projects may be reaching a turning point. In September 2025, a controversy erupted over the governance of RubyGems, a corner…
1348
Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%
Loneliness increases death risk by 32% but we know how to fix it. Real solutions that cut loneliness in half, from mindfulness to community…
1349
What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?
Running around in the woods, firing small plastic pellets at other people, in pursuit of a contrived-to-be-fun mission, turns out to be, well, fun.
1350
90%
AI is writing 90% of the code I was in charge of