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Cake or death: AMP and the worrying power dynamics of the web
Web developer, standards and engineering nerd, cocktail enthusiast, maker.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 390 posts.
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Google: Please Stop Telling Lies About Me
People who search for me in Google see a Google-generated box which incorrectly says that I am Israeli. Google has ignored my complaints about this; they dont seem to care about the accuracy of the…
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When zebra mussels colonized Lake Erie, it began to recover
There are many ways we can talk about the deeper roots of the crisis of our time, setting out from many different vantage points; as Charles Fort pointed out, one measures a circle, beginning anywh…
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Putting Victimhood Behind You
The primary goal of this site is to help people put victimhood behind them and craft a future of their choosing. "Living well is the best re...
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Metaphors We Believe By
In the past, gods and demons allowed us to talk about phenomena that we didn’t fully understand. During the Enlightenment, we tried to kill them and explain everything in reductionist scientific terms. But it feels to me like we’ve come full circle. We’re back to using oversimplified metaphors to wrap our minds around…
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We Never Paid for Journalism
In 2006 at around 4 am, a man appears at the door of a security booth in Downtown Los Angeles. He slowly opens the door, being careful not to be noticed. He grabs the key attached to a small crowbar h
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The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Thinker (1985)
Harry Truman was President and Sputnik was a word that only Russian language experts knew when Doug Engelbart first thought about displaying words and images on radar screens, storing them in computers, and manipulating them with levers and buttons and keyboards. For over thirty years, Engelbart has been trying to…
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China, Leverage, and Values
If there is a new tech cold war, it is one with shots fired over a decade ago, largely by China. The questions going forward are about both leverage and values.
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Unsolicited messages on Keybase
What is Keybase? Keybase ( keybase.io ) is a platform designed to help users send and receive encrypted communications as well as secu...
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On the Pleasures and Sorrows of Life Without Screens
I recently received a message from a friend of mine, a young man named Mike. He told me that Digital Minimalism had changed his life. ... Read more
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Privacy Fundamentalism
The current privacy debate is making things worse by not considering trade-offs, the inherent nature of digital, or the far bigger problems that come with digitizing the offline world.
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How to Join a Social Network in 1998
I'm David Friedman , a professional photographer who sometimes gets ideas for photos, designs, gadgets, and other projects. I write about it all on this blog. You can find the meaning behind the name “Ironic Sans” back in the very first post .
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Minnesota court decision means doctors can be sued by patients they don't treat
By KIP SULLIVAN (30) On April 17, the Minnesota Supreme Court published an opinion holding that doctors who deny services to patients may be sued even if they did not have a doctor-patient relation…
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Deterministic thinking: a problem in how we think, not just in how we act
– Basketball Stats: Don’t model the probability of win, model the expected score differential.
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Stuxnet was embarrassing, not amazing (2011)
As the New York Times posts yet another breathless story about Stuxnet, I’m surprised that no one has pointed out its obvious deficiencies. Everyone seems to be hyperventilating about its pur…
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Would you accept cheaper rent in exchange for a monthly Amazon purchasing quota?
I’m sure many of you either have an Alexa-powered device in your house, or at least have played around with one somewhere. So it won’t be surprising to you that Amazon has been partnering with home…
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Stab a Book, the Book Won't Die
On the resilience of books in the face of apps, attention monsters, and an ad-driven online economy
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Mimetic Traps
I’ve been a graduate student in physics for almost three years, but I only recently figured out why. I had to tackle a simple question do so:
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Ilya Starinov – The godfather of modern insurgent IED warfare
I’ve been researching for this post for quite a while and of necessity it’s going to be my longest post. Ilya Starinov is arguably the most important person in the history of IEDs and in…
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Tumblr the Day After
It is not surprising that the news about Automattic buying Tumblr has picked up a lot of coverage. I especially appreciated the notes of support from Tumblr founder David Karp, former CTO Marco Arm…
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The Trouble with “Finding Your People” Online
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