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Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 13,070 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
Distinct cellular and genetic differences in colorectal cancer in young patients
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers, along with Mass General Brigham researchers from the Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, and the Broad Institute, have uncovered biological clues to why colorectal cancer can behave more aggressively in younger people. Published today in Nature Medicine, the…
Randi Zuckerberg Runs in the Wrong Direction on Pseudonymity Online
The Nymwars rage on. Over the past several weeks Google has been engaged in a very public struggle with its users over its “real names” policy on Google+, prompting blog posts and editorials debating the pros and cons of allowing pseudonymous accounts on social networking sites. But there is one...
From Leading the Egyptian Revolution to Making Minimum Wage in San Francisco
In 2011, Ahmed Salah was a leading Egyptian revolutionary who met with ambassadors and Secretaries of State. Now he is nearly homeless in San Francisco.
2016's most-edited Wikipedia articles
Which English Wikipedia articles were edited most in 2016? Find out what captured editors’ interests.
Chaos Computer Club Supports Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden
Since its founding more than thirty years ago, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) holds strong beliefs in the freedom of information. Consequentially, freedom fighters and whistleblowers deserve our...
The Problem with Mobile Phones
Mobile phones have become ubiquitous and basic communications tools—now used not only for phone calls, but also for accessing the Internet, sending text messages, and documenting the world. Unfortunately, mobile phones were not designed for privacy and security. Not only do they do a poor job of protecting your…
The internet does to the world what radio did to the world
The internet does to the world what radio did to the world January 21, 2017 Ideas, Misc Over the holidays, I finally found the time to read Marshall McLuhan’s book “Understanding media” (I might have spent time with it during my studies but definitely didn’t pay too much attention back…
Documenting equipment losses during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
By Jakub Janovsky , Naalsio , Aloha , Dan , Kemal , and Alexander Black This list only in...
You are falling behind because you haven't fed the insincerity machine
I was lucky enough to witness the beginnings of social media, working on the platforms that made it happen. I’ve also seen the decline of its first iterations and products. Currently I am witnessing the idea of a social web being perverted, weaponised and automated out of any trace of human or social aspect…
The NSA Continues to Violate Americans' Internet Privacy Rights
A federal court will be scrutinizing one of the National Security Agency’s worst spying programs on Monday. The case has the potential to restore crucial privacy protections for the millions of Americans who use the internet to communicate with family, friends, and others overseas.
Jon Skeet earns 1mm rep on Stack Overflow
Yesterday, Jon Skeet's reputation on Stack Overflow passed 1,000,000 . ONE MILLION. Those of you who are highly engaged with the Stack Overflow community probably have a general idea of a) who Jon Skeet is and b) exactly how amazing and ridiculous this statement is, but just to make sure we are all on the same page…
No Copyrights on APIs: Help Us Make The Case
Earlier this year, we applauded District Court Judge Alsup for getting it right and holding that, as a matter of law, one could not copyright APIs. The case, Oracle v. Google, is now on appeal to the Federal Circuit, where a three-judge panel is going to revisit Judge Alsup’s ruling.We’ve explained...
Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? (2016)
Algebra is no longer being taught to San Francisco eighth graders. Is the tech capital of the world dumbing down its STEM education?
The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
Have you heard? There's map news!
Let People Move to Jobs
When I argue that we should bring rents down by building more housing, one kind of response I've gotten is: Why are you trying to move more people into cities? There's lots of housing available in the US, it's just not in the currently trendy cities. Instead of moving people we should be moving jobs. Why couldn't…
East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)
A look at the experiences of activists in East Germany (GDR) dealing with Stasi informants and infiltration before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
If you believe in "Artificial Intelligence", take five minutes to ask it
Here’s a Mastodon thread from a year ago. Just a quick check on how ChatGPT’s getting on … Me: Who reassigned the species Brachiosaurus brancai to its own genus, and when? ChatGPT…
Richard Stallman on ChatGPT
I define "intelligence" as being capable of knowing or understanding, at least within some domain. ChatGPT cannot know or understand anything, so it is not intelligence. It does not know what its output means. It has no idea that words can mean anything.
On Being Blacklisted
I understand why writers exhibit cowardice, but I don’t have much sympathy for them.
Don't buy AR glasses
Popup hell awaits you
My Free Speech Means You Have to Shut Up
Elon Musk and The Enduring Appeal of “Criticism is Censorship”
Minnesota Wants to Ban Under-18s from User-Generated Content Services
As part of an omnibus bill, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed a troubling bill restricting how under-18 users engage with user-generated content (UGC) services. [At the bottom of this post, I’ve included the text as passed by the Minnesota...
The internet needs our love
It’s noisy out there. We are inundated with sensational headlines every minute, of every day. You almost could make a full-time job of sorting the fun, i