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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
4412
I Want Your AOL CDs
Yes, yes I do. As you might expect, someone who does a lot of something (collecting) like I do, in a pretty public fashion, tends to get some pretty shiny-polished chestnuts tossed over the fence. …
4413
Inside NASA’s Mysterious Rubber Room
Ever since learning about the Rubber Room and Blast Room deep below launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center I had been hopeful that I would one day get to photograph this mysterious remnant of the A…
4414
Blind user of the iPhone
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4415
Life is Beautiful
I haven’t slept. For much of last night, my daughter Ava cried out in her sleep with nightmares. Eventually her cries would wake us both. Instead of going back to sleep, Ava would chat with me about her day. I wish I could remember all the amazing things she told me at 2:00 AM.
4416
No funding for uncomfortable results
Latanya Sweeney blew the whistle on how easy supposedly de-identified data could be re-identified. Her results were not well received.
4417
Brian Eno's Theory of Democracy
Organizing and generating variety in politics
4418
The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)
Don't update positively on your extremist beliefs whenever you hear a bad argument against them
4419
Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”
And other misadventures
4420
Microsoft Full Circle
Microsoft has come full circle from the company that cared more about Windows than Office; the retirement of the Office name is possible precisely because Microsoft gave up on Windows and went to t…
4421
Make product worse, get money
It’s so easy
4422
Ubuntu and GNOME jump the shark
I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 a week or so back in order to get a more recent version of SCons. 11.04 dropped me into the new “Unity” GNOME interface. There may be people in the world for whom Unity is a good idea, but none of them are me. The look is garish and ugly, and it takes twice as many clicks as it did before to…
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Revenge of the Chickenized Reverse-Centaurs
In AI circles, a “centaur” describes a certain kind of machine/human collaboration, in which “decision-support” systems (which the field loves to call “AI”s) are paired with human beings for results that draw upon the strengths of each, such as when a human chess master and a chess-playing computer program collaborate…
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Response to DHH
I’ve taken this post down. I’ve been attacked so much the past few days; the most vicious, personal, hateful words poisoned my brain, and the original version of this post was mean. I am so sorry. …
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The xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story
This xz backdoor thing reminds me of a story I heard from friends that worked at a tech company that made cell phones. They had a great coder that worked on the project, he had put in work as a contractor for a few months, and due to the quality of his work he was hired in full time. After two months he simply stopped…
4429
JWZ Unable to Distribute Two Free Pre Apps
301 This blog has moved to jwz.org . This post has been archived here . Please update your links. 301
4430
When the CIA got away with building a heart attack gun
How 16 Senators Accidentally Saved Democracy (Then Watched It Die)
4431
Post from "weev" (AT&T/ipad data hacker) on his arrest and treatment
A while ago, someone came to me and gave me some data involving AT&T iPad customers to publicize, the full story of which I’m sure you’re all familiar with from my previous excellent blog posts. I was subsequently raided by the FBI and arrested , though I have been under gag orders and haven’t been able to discuss the…
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Isaac Asimov on Security Theatre.
A great find: In his 1956 short story, “Let’s Get Together,” Isaac Asimov describes security measures proposed to counter a terrorist threat: “Consider further that this news will leak out as more and more people become involved in our countermeasures and more and more people begin to guess what we’re doing. Then…
4435
Patent Troll Forced To Settle Frivolous Lawsuit Against One-Man Business
This story will circulate a lot today. I’d like to suggest a more informative and accurate headline than the likely “Lodsys dismisses a lawsuit and donates to charity”.
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Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino
Who decided these personalized Siri features should go in the WWDC keynote, with a promise they’d arrive in the coming year, when, at the time, they were in such an unfinished state they could not be demoed to the media even in a controlled environment? Three months later, who decided Apple should double down and…
4438
Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
The world has enough lithium, but we need to scale up production this decade.
4439
Homeschooling as a right, and a needed practical alternative
Education in Victoria is succeeding in some areas, but failing in many others – we have new school buildings, but they are overflowing and the school rolls climbing so quickly that teachers a…
4440
Congestion Pricing Is a Policy Miracle
Which is exactly why Trump wants to get rid of it