Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 13,069 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
Dear Twitter: Stop screwing over your developers
I really like Twitter. I think it’s a great, fun, service, that helps enable interesting online communities, and is a surprisingly effective way to spread news and information to lots of people online. One of the things that I’ve loved about Twitter is their API, and how open and welcoming they’ve been to developers…
Tech journalists who make no sense
I’m sure all fields have terrible reporting, but the shit that’s coming out of the tech world must be eligible for some sort of cake. Taste this slice of delicious nonsense that made the Forbes site today in Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: We’ve Moved Past The Cloud: Salesforce.com remai…
Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety
This article explores an alternative explanation: foreign airlines do comparatively poorly because their first officers have almost no pilot-in-command experience.
Bruce Schneier: Refuse to be terrorized
On Aug. 16, two men were escorted off a plane headed for Manchester, England, because some passengers thought they looked either Asian or Middle Eastern, might have been talking Arabic, wore leather jackets, and looked at their watches—and the passengers refused to fly with them on board. The men were questioned for…
Living on the Edge – Story of an Iranian Student in US
Story of an Iranian Student in US
EFF Urges Supreme Court to Take on Unconstitutional NSA Surveillance
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the Supreme Court to review and overturn an unprecedented ruling allowing the government to intercept, collect, and store—without a warrant—millions of Americans’ electronic communications, including emails, texts, phone calls, and...
The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU
Curious how much common medications such as acetaminophen/paracetamol cost in an ICU? What about the actual daily room cost in an ICU? Or, specific treatments/labs? What about diaper cream? I'm…
Europe is locking itself in to US LNG
The US energy secretary says the quiet part out loud: the tributary $750 billion in energy purchases the EU has promised in its Trump deal is meant to lock Europe into "long-term" energy dependence.
Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress
Human activity and behaviour is contributing to an increasing number of disasters across the world, putting millions of lives and every social and economic gain in danger, warns a new UN report.
Inflation is differential and restructuring (2021)
When it comes to inflation, economists get it wrong. Inflation is always and everywhere differential.
I give up on free software phones (2019)
A blog about free software and programming
Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy
We want professional ethics and a great FP conference
The San Francisco Rent Explosion
An apartment in San Francisco costs how much?! Surely you jest, Priceonomics.
Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?
The key question about AI and school is about the past
Bye, Twitter
Today I’m leaving Twitter, because I don’t like making unpaid contributions to a for-profit publisher whose proprietor is an alt-right troll. But also because it’s probably going to break down. Read on for details.
Somebody please stop the spam texts
I complain about spam texts and consider why I’m so hesitant to just reply STOP to unsubscribe.
“Privacy”.com–Yeah Right
At the behest of a friend of mine, I decided to get myself a Privacy.com account. I filled it out with my personal information, activated the account, and...
Increasingly Competitive College Admissions: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
0: Introduction This is from businessstudent.com: Acceptance rates at top colleges have declined by about half over the past decade or so, raising concern about intensifying academic competition. T…
Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
The public is always asking of nuclear, ‘what if it all goes wrong?’ Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima have now provided the answer.
The high price we pay for social media
Sitting exams is unpleasant at the best of times, but my daughter believes she has extra cause to complain. Two of her A-level papers are scheduled for the same time, so she must take a break betwe…