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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 13,072 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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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:
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Tech worker resistance is crucial to preventing human rights abuses in the U.S
Hi, I am Valerie Aurora, systems archictecture consultant, writer, and cat appreciator. At Bow Shock Systems , I solve difficult systems problems in networking, file systems, and operating systems. In 2023 I moved permanently to Amsterdam after 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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How messed up was Germany's energy policy?
It's not as bad as a lot of people are saying
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Science is political, and that's a bad thing
People who say “science is political” usually aren’t just stating facts - they’re trying to push something on you. Don’t let them
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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.
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Let’s Not Have a Beer
For the first time, I won a major raffle at a recent conference. However, I had to give the prize back since it was a beer dispenser and I don’t drink. If your reaction after reading the last line was “Why don’t you drink?” or “Most of us do and it’s your choice that you missed out.”, then this blog is for you. I’m…
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Is work necessary?
I saw this bouncing around Facebook, and I would like to endorse the underlying philosophy:
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Textbooks Prices: Out of Control
This blog provides updated forecasts and comments on current weather or other topics
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Cursing the government does not fix potholes. Spray-painting them does
A bit more than a year ago, we did something a bit weird. We took a few cans of spray paint and we went out on the street. Not to pain...
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Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)
I often drive between Boston and New Haven. While on the road, I find myself pondering a simple question: If my only goal is to arrive as fast as possible, how fast should I drive? Ignoring things …
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Voting from Antarctica
How to vote back home while you're in Antarctica!
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Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used
I’m tired of this phrase and this simple way of thinking about tools. This blog post is a wandering train of thought on the topic of what tools are and why it matters to be even slightly more mature in how we think about them.
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Pay toilets and NYT: a free market microcosm
Nicholas Kristof in Sunday's New York Times asks a pressing -- often quite pressing -- question. Why are there no public toilets in America? He is right. He calls for a federal infrastructure plan to fix the problem: "Sure, we need investments to rebuild bridges, highways and, yes, electrical grids, but perhaps…
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Why Google cares if you use your real name
Over the weekend there was a bit of hoo-hah about accounts swept off Google-Plus, because they didn't have the users' real name.
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Reassessing Airport Security
News that the Transportation Security Administration missed a whopping 95% of guns and bombs in recent airport security “red team” tests was justifiably shocking. It’s clear that we’re not getting value for the $7 billion we’re paying the TSA annually. But there’s another conclusion, inescapable and disturbing to…
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Be Worried
Author's note: I wrote this in March 2023, but just published in October 2025. I held back from publishing this originally for fear that I was being sensationalist. But with the launch of Sora 2, I couldn't not share these thoughts. I only regret I didn't publish it 2 years ago.
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Glasgow 2024 Hugo Awards Statement – 22 July, 2024
22 July, 2024
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The Slow Death of the Power User
There’s a certain kind of person who’s becoming extinct. You’ve probably met one. Maybe you are one. Someone who actually understood the tools they used. Someone who could sit down at an unfamiliar system, poke at it for twenty minutes, and have a working mental model of what it was doing and why. Someone who read…