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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 580 posts.
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Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions
There may be a scientific answer for why conservatives and liberals disagree so vehemently over the existence of issues like climate change and specific types of crime.A new study from Duke University finds that people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically…
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Nothing Is Agreed Yet – We Can Still Stop the TPP's Copyright Trap
Trade negotiators have a saying—that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. What that means is that despite all of the deals that has been struck in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations so far, they remain tentative until each country signs off on the final agreement. A...
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Popular Chinese iOS apps compromised in malware attack
自2011年以来用技术对抗审查。我们使用AI监控审查并在全球范围内扩大言论自由。
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Win for Fair Use in ‘Dancing Baby’ Lawsuit
San Francisco – A federal appeals court in San Francisco today affirmed that copyright holders must consider whether a use of material is fair before sending a takedown notice. The ruling came in Lenz v. Universal, often called the “dancing baby” lawsuit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)...
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Is it futile to un-Google?
A rant on the obsession with privacy stuff.
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Elite scientists are more likely to have a hobby in the arts and crafts
Highly-accomplished scientists are more likely to have an artsy hobby than the average scientist. And Nobel prize winners are even more likely.
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Discrete Analysis – A new type of math journal
This post is to announce the start of a new mathematics journal, to be called Discrete Analysis. While in most respects it will be just like any other journal, it will be unusual in one important w…
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Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer
There is a classic thought experiment in the field of artificial intelligence which is often used to explain how an AI might inadvertently cause the destruction of humanity as a by-product of tryin…
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TSA Master Keys
Someone recently noticed a Washington Post story on the TSA that originally contained a detailed photograph of all the TSA master keys. It’s now blurred out of the Washington Post story, but the image is still floating around the Internet. The whole thing neatly illustrates one of the main problems with backdoors…
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Sick Systems: How to Keep Someone With You Forever
So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they’ve ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they’ve ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and…
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Linguistic Harbingers of Betrayal
In life, love, war, and planetary colonization, even long-lasting friendships can end if one betrays the other's trust for his own gain. We studied the language of betrayal by observing players of Diplomacy , the game that ruins friendships . In this very popular game, players can form alliances and try to conquer the…
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Aristotle’s (apocryphal) advice to Alexander the Great on Persian elites (2013)
One of the most frequently copied and widely disseminated books in Europe from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries was the Secret of Secrets . Formally it contains advice from the great philosopher Aristotle to the world-conqueror Alexander the Great. Aristotle’s advice covers everything from Alexander’s diet…
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Safe from what?
What does it mean for a baby monitor to be safe? Some things are clearly essential: It should not explode; it should not release significant quantities of dangerous gasses; if it's designed to be placed within reach of a baby, it should not pose an electrocution or choking hazard. Less obviously, if it has data or…
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How the Dutch got their cycling infrastructure (2011)
How did the Dutch get their cycling infrastructure? This question keeps coming back because it is of course relevant to people who want what the Dutch have. Road building traditions go back a long …
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A Little Bit of the Manuals
Of the barrage of advice the world was prepared to give me from the vantage point of the Internet, one unique bit of advice came from a long-time collector and rescuer of older computer documentati…
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The Tomb of Queen Esther in Persia
“How much is the taxi to Khomeini Square?” “ Gheymati nadore, it does not cost anything”, the old taxi driver spreads his arms...
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“I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon”
Last Saturday, I read the 6,000-word New York Times piece, “Inside Amazon,” in the car on my way to the beach. I sat quietly in the front…
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Why Do Colleges Give Honorary Degrees?
For more than 500 years, the honorary degree has provided an opportunity for colleges to build relationships with the rich, famous, and well-connected, in hopes of securing financial donations and cheap publicity.
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‘Pharmacy of the developing world’ under attack from the US, EU, Japan
What good is a breakthrough medicine, vaccine or test if the people who need it cannot afford it?
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A Western Kid Living in Communist Poland (2014)
In this HN thread I commented on how the story about the People’s Republic of Donetsk reminded me of my days in communist Poland.