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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
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Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting
I don't remember seeing this before at the bottom of the Craigslist posting form. I'm guessing this is the result of the Padmapper debacle?...
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NP Complete 3rd Grade Math Problems (2018)
Leo’s third grade class got to try a Noyce Foundation math worksheet [1] the other day. They didn’t fare so well, but I gotta tell you, some of the problems are REALLY hard! In fact, on…
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Lead is still bad for your brain
Wait, wasn't this solved by the Romans? Anyway, my grandma ate lead paint and she was totally fine.
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Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters
One of my commenters reports that he showed my essay on evaluating the harm from closed-source software to Richard Stallman, who became upset by it. It shouldn’t be news to RMS or anyone else that I think he’s a fanatic and this is a problem, but it seems that every few years I have to explain the problem again. I…
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Scissor Statements: Sort by Controversial
[Epistemic status: fiction] Thanks for letting me put my story on your blog. Mainstream media is crap and no one would have believed me anyway. This starts in September 2017. I was working for a sm…
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The falling nutritional value of crops
The mineral content of wheat and rice is lower today than sixty years ago. Why is that and what does it mean for how we eat?
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The Paywalled Garden: iOS is Adware (2020)
Over the years, Apple has built up a portfolio of services and add-ons that you pay for. Starting with AppleCare extended warranties and…
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Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)
Based on two talks I gave in the spring of 2005—one entitled "Ontology Is Overrated", and one entitled "Folksonomies & Tags: The rise of user-developed classification."
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AI children's books, body horror edition
Last week, I posted a visual demonstration of the sameness of AI-generated content.
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Useful Spy Books
Reading a good book is a great joy. And recommending a good book is almost as enjoyable. I’ve long been fascinated by books on espionage, and this contributed in no small part to me eventually joining the Dutch intelligence world, and later, rejoining it in some fashion. If you have favorite books that should be on…
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Thomas Jefferson and Apple versus the FBI
When Prohibition began, anti-alcohol crusaders demanded that the St. Louis Public Library burn every book that explained "the home production of alcohol for drinks". The librarian insisted on keeping the books but agreed to hide them from the "general public".
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The Clock in the Mountain
A work crane at the Clock site in western Texas. There is a Clock ringing deep inside a mountain. It is a huge Clock, hundreds of feet tall, designed to tick for 10,000 years. Every once in a while the … Continue reading →
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Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic
Readers with long memories may recall the brief, inglorious UK fuel shortage of a few weeks ago, which was mostly caused by the rush to refuel for fear the pumps would run dry. Some petrol stations…
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72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes
The US dollar lost 96.9% of its value since 1914. Four inflationary episodes spanning 29% of the time caused 72% of the destruction. Monthly dataset, 1,357 obs.
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The Sucker Complex
One is killed every minute
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The Pirate Bay Is The World’s Most Efficient Public Library
The way media piracy works is that one person or group purchases a work, and then shares it with millions of other people. This...
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Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?
Hey folks! Fireside this week, but next week, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the blog (the first post went up May 3rd) we’re diving into a look at Helm’s Deep in both the book…
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Cruel optimism and lazy pessimism
Do you remember the avocado toast guy? I read Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus recently (you should read it, it’s great), and I learned that someone1 has come up with a name for this sort of modern reinterpretation of “let them eat cake”: cruel optimism. Cruel optimism, the way Hari interprets it2, boils down to the folly…
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LLMs Are Not Fun
I got into programming because it let me turn thought into reality. If I could reason precisely, then a computer could carry out my thoughts unerringly. I could step away from tiring, ambiguous human interaction for a while.
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The first 40 months of the AI era
A personal blog, by a programmer and IT expert. Essays, Articles, Guides, and Recipes. As well as Code, Quotes, and Links.
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Massachusetts gas fires: Another technological tragedy
One Thursday afternoon last month, dozens of fires and explosions rocked three towns along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. By the end of the day 131 buildings were damaged or destroyed, one person was killed, and more than 20 were injured. Suspicion focused immediately on the natural gas system. It looked like a…
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Designing for a right to repair
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as possible. This is how to design for a right to repair.
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GitHub Renamed Me (2014)
Github Renamed Me - We will change your SSH keys and you will like it
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