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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 421 posts.
During the pandemic, a dangerous business has prospered: invading students’ privacy with proctoring software and apps. In the last year, we’ve seen universities compel students to download apps that collect their face images, driver’s license data, and network information. Students who want to move...
Within our living systems, we have been raising several types of mealworms in order to compost polystyrene (styrofoam). We recently came across the study by 2015 Standard University that confirms our suspicions that they are indeed turning styrofoam into usable organic matter! Their notes are not m
Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power by Pekka Hämäläinen. Yale University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 544 pages, $35.
I’ve been wanting to publicly comment on Lenovo’s statement on Linux support for a while, as there’s much to say about it, and my failing attempt at finding a suitable replacement for my venerable T510 gave me an excuse to document …
Researchers at the University of Missouri College of Engineering also examined the relationship between vehicle crashes and two other sleep disorders, sleep apnea and insomnia.
The global pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness in America. This report from Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explores who is lonely, the many causes of loneliness, and ways to alleviate it.
Researchers have created a plant-based, sustainable, scalable material that could replace single-use plastics in many consumer products.
Researchers found that surgical masks impede the spread of COVID-19 and that just a few, low-cost interventions increase mask-wearing compliance.
Two days ago, through its communications regulator, Uganda's government ordered the "Suspension Of The Operation Of Internet Gateways" hours before the country's general election. This action was confirmed by several users and journalists who got access to the letter sent to Internet providers.
Regular cannabis use has harmful effects regardless of the age a person starts using, a University of Queensland-led study has found.
In this letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, the ACLU urged Members to oppose H.R. 4192, Confronting the Threat of Domestic Terrorism Act. By reifying and broadening domestic terrorism authorities, H.R. 4192 would unnecessarily expand law enforcement authorities to target and discriminate against the very…
We study productivity before and during the working from home [WFH] period of the Covid-19 pandemic, using personnel and analytics data from over 10,000 skilled professionals at a large Asian IT services company. Hours worked increased, including a rise of 18% outside normal business hours. Average output declined…
COBOL is a coding language older than Weird Al Yankovic. The people who know how to use it are often just as old. It underpins the entire financial system. And it can’t be removed. How a computer language controls the financial life of the world.
And what this tells us about what the common buzzword really means.
On 6 January 2021, 53 people were arrested in Hong Kong under the National Security Law, including the organisers and candidates in last July’s democratic primaries where over 600,000 Hong Kongers voted for pro-democracy candidates for the upcoming Legislative Council elections. On the morning of 6
Whilst the European Parliament has been fighting bravely for the rights of everyone in the EU to exist freely and with dignity in publicly accessible spaces, the government of Portugal is attempting to push their country in the opposite direction: one of digital authoritarianism. The Portuguese lead organisation in…
We love innovative materials which can replace our use of animal leather. But what is mushroom leather? and how is mushroom leather made? Read our complete guide to Mushroom leather and find out how this natural, earthy material can help lower our fashion footprint.
One of democracy's foundations is the fact that all human beings have certain inalienable rights and freedoms. Suspended by trust and shared values. Today, trust and shared values are being replaced by “control and surveillance”.
The University of Oxford today started vaccinations of a novel HIV vaccine candidate as part of a Phase I clinical trial in the UK.
To prevent cheating in exams many countries restrict or even shut down Internet access during critical exam hours. For most of June Syria is having planned Internet shutdowns during critical exam periods.
We’ve taken important steps to make YouTube a safer place for families. We’re announcing a continuation of these efforts.
Research links cause of cyberbullying to social media addiction, hours spent online and identifying as male.
