Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 8,149 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
Advanced Denanonymization through Strava
Strava is getting some bad press, because its heatmap can be used to infer the existence and floorplan of various US/UK military and govt...
The Death of the Festival
<p>(Part 1 of a multi-part series)</p> <p><em>We live a double life, civilized in scientific and technical matters,</em> <em>wild and primitive in the things of the soul. That we are no longer conscious of being primitive, makes our tamed kind of wildness all the more dangerous.</em> – Hans Von Hentig</p> <p>The…
Emoji History: The Missing Years
During my research into vintage Japanese drawing software, I came across some devices that had built in sketch or handwritten memo functions. I bought a coup...
Treason in the Futures Markets
People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets
How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
The Great Green Wall being built in Africa to halt the southern progress of the Sahara Desert is a favorite public works project of mine — it’s massive, ambitio
The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Naval Officer? Voltaire? William Pitt Lennox? Herb Caen? Howard Jacobs? Norman R. Augustine? Anonymous?
A Guide for Prospective Tea Monks
Inspired by Becky Chamber's Monk & Robot Series
How to Kill a Decentralised Network
How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.
Hacker News for Hackers
Hacker News is one of the best sources for news in the intersection of technology and business. Hacker News gets nearly 1000 submissions on a busy weekday, and quite a bit less on the weekends:
Publish and Perish at Imperial College London: The Death of Stefan Grimm
Jump to follow-up This week’s Times Higher Education carried a report of the death, at age 51, of Professor Stefan Grimm: Imperial College London to ‘review procedures’ after death of academi…
Your Money and Your Life (Edward Snowden)
Central Bank Digital Currencies will ransom our future
The “simple” 38 step journey to getting an RFC
The Internet is built on the mutual understanding of network protocols and practices, and most of those protocols are defined using Request For Comments (RFC) or Best Common Practices (BCP) documents.
Cantonese Proverbs in One Picture
The Great Canton and Hong Kong Proverbs” : illustrations of 83 Cantonese proverbs in one picture
The Shape of Rome (2013)
The new Mayor of the city of Rome, Ignazio Marino, just announced his intention to destroy one of the city’s central roads, the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and turn the area around the old Roman Forum into the world’s largest archaeological park. Reactions have ranged from commuters’ groans to declarations from…
Signal Carnival
At Revision 2025, we released "Signal Carnival" ( csdb , YouTube ). This demo asks you to switch the audio and video cable of your C64:
Elsevier charges authors to make items "Open Access", then charges to read them.
[This is a long post – in summary Elsevier breach licences and charge readers for Open Access. I also ask the world to verify and amplify my conclusions].
The death of a public intellectual
Is it that time of the year again? A new intellectual minted. The loss of next few evenings watching YouTube, reading substacks? All for that sweet nectar of a novel “hot take”.
The anti-inflation pivot of 2022
In response to the surge in prices that began in earnest in the summer of 2021 central banks all around the world are hiking interest rates.
It's the land, stupid: How the homebuilder cartel drives high housing prices
Henry George was right about land values. And today we have a homebuilder cartel rooted in control of land and financing.
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…
The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse
The following article was written by Swedish high school teacher Filippa Mannherheim and translated by retired Swedish educator Sara Hjelm. It appeared in the Swedish publication Expressen. Sweden …
The state of South Africa, 28ish years post-apartheid
A blog containing essays, of varying cogency, about various things that my mind have wandered to.