Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 952 posts.
Save Open Source /-/ the Impending Tragedy of the Cyber Resilience Act
By: Dirk-Willem van Gulik, VP, Public Affairs, ASF TLDR; Software, including open source, is becoming regulated the world over. This lengthy blog post explains the background to the Cyber Resilience Act in the European Union, what is good, its flaws and the likely negative impact on open source. And it also explains…
LLM discourse needs more nuance
With this write-up, I want to outline my current thinking around large language models like OpenAI's chatGPT.
RFC 9518 – What can internet standards do about centralisation?
RFC 9518: Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards has been published after more than two years of review, discussion, and revision.
Liquid democracy: two experiments on delegation in voting
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.
ChatGPT is really good at roleplaying
ChatGPT is really good at roleplaying as strange and unusual characters with minimal prompting.
Setting time on fire and the temptation of The Button
We used to consider writing an indication of time and effort spent on a task. That isn't true anymore.
A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married
As of 2021, 25% of 40-year-olds in the United States had never been married, a significant increase from 20% in 2010.
The loophole that made cars in America so big
Here's why American cars and trucks are so big
Disabling Matrix Portalling
Portalled channels will be going away on 2023-07-31. Details below.
Welcoming 1927 to the Public Domain
This year we are welcoming works from 1927 into the public domain in the United States, including books, periodicals, sheet music, and movies. Big events of 1927 include the first transatlantic phone call from New York to London, the formation of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the first successful…
Making IIIF Official at the Internet Archive
A joint blog post between the Internet Archive and the IIIF Community Summary After eight years hosting an experimental IIIF service for public benefit, the Internet Archive is moving forward with important steps to make its International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) service official. Each year, the…
2000Ad announces retirement of John M. Burns
Earlier this week, John M. Burns, one of Britain’s great comic artists, whose work has thrilled and amazed for more than six decades, announced his retirement from comics. John M. Burns is, without a doubt, a legendary British comics creator. His extensive body of work across the last six decades and more has brought…
EU Digital Identity framework (eIDAS) another kind of chat control?
The proposed EU Digital Identity framework (eIDAS) aims to meddle with the process around internet certificates and will undermine the independence and security assurances of the basis for website security:
Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%
Sixty-three percent of Americans say a third U.S. political party is needed, up from 56% a year ago and by one percentage point the highest in Gallup's 20-year trend.
Trust-based moderation systems
master's thesis research into subjective, trust-based moderation systems
How Big Pharma reaps profits while hurting everyday Americans (2019)
The pharmaceutical industry leverages Washington’s culture of corruption to increase profits while everyday Americans suffer from high drug prices.
Ambient Co-Presence
Creating a subtle, peripheral, and synchronous sense of shared space and context on the web
The King doesn't own all the swans in Britain
So who does?
One Year into the War in Ukraine
Today marks the end of the first year of Putin’s War in Ukraine. I will not call it an anniversary, because I don’t think anyone is celebrating. Nevertheless I think this makes a useful…
Meta preps new social app
Meta's hosting secret meetings with select creators to share details
Commercial interests petition FCC for high power allocation on shortwave
The ad hoc group “Shortwave Modernization Coalition” petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow data communications on multiple bands within the HF 2 – 25 MHz range with up to 20 KW, including in bands immediately adjacent to spectrum allocated to the Amateur Radio Service.
The Cuts at WVU
Updated April 2024 : I posted this text in August to help publicize what was happening at WVU. It was linked from many public letters and discussion forums. I later removed the text because I was on the job market and didn't want this to be the first thing that comes up when you google my name. I have now secured a…
The world needs computational social science
The world needs computational social science, and it is not only, or even primarily, about the AI revolution. The reasons follow below and I also cover what a computational social scientist should …