391
We're Drowning
Matthew Childs / Reuters We live in a golden age of software reuse. We’ve never before had such a wealth of freely available code, in so many languages, so easy to find and install. And yet, …
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 700 posts.
392
Science Is Getting Harder
Evidence that discoveries are getting smaller on average
393
Dutch antitrust authority fines Apple for fifth time
Domain registriert bei united-domains.de
394
Tools for thought as cultural practices, not computational objects
On seeing tools for thought through a historical and anthropological lens
395
The plague of emoji insertion in French docs
tl;dr A thumbs-up emoji appears each time you type a colon : in Google Docs, in french. I have just noticed that it is now possible to easily insert emojis in Google Docs! Good news? Not for french writers! This feature already exists in Outlook on the Web: when you
396
Flurry of Calls Among Saudi Staff and Spy Coincided with 9/11 Hijackers’ Arrival
Future al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki also connected
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Phrases in computing that might need retiring
The upcoming issue of the SICPers newsletter is all about phrases that were introduced to computing to mean one thing, but seem to get used in practice to mean another. This annoys purists, pedants, and historians: it also annoys the kind of software engineer who dives into the literature to see how ideas were…
399
You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected
Us denizens of the Internet have become familiar with concepts that were foreign more than a decade ago, one of the most that causes the most influence is going viral. There’s so much variety on the web with content providing the impression that anything could essentially make you rich. However, hid
400
Analyzing Carbon Dioxide levels while attending IETF-115 in London, UK
is it safe to travel these days?
401
A stupid joke resulting in a silly news cycle
I was just reminded of an event I inadvertently caused. I found some screenshots I took of a few websites. The websites all touched on a joke I made. I wrote it on a subreddit dedicated to finding comedy in programming topics: /r/ProgrammerHumor.
402
On the dangers of cryptocurrencies and the uselessness of blockchain
Earlier this month, I and others wrote a letter to Congress, basically saying that cryptocurrencies are an complete and total disaster, and urging them to regulate the space. Nothing in that letter is out of the ordinary, and is in line with what I wrote about blockchain in 2019. In response, Matthew Green has…
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404
The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich
Why is the Japanese Convenience Store Sandwich so iconic? After eating (a lot of) them on my past trips I decided it was time to find out exactly why they are so moreish! There are
405
Web 3.0 – The Great Con
I'll say it - web 3.0 is a meaningless buzzword, and blockchain and cryptocurrency is nothing more than a giant fraud.
406
Crypto, the Left and Technofeudalism
Rare is the person who could expertly comment – in a single interview! – on the rise of NFTs and their origins in the virtual worlds of gaming, the logic of the emerging regime of techno-feudalism, and the folly of El Salvador’s Bitcoin-heavy negotiating tactics with the IMF. Luckily, we have found this person in […]
407
Where in the world are Trader Joe’s warehouses? (2015)
Personal website of Samuel Burer, Tippie Rollins Professor of Business Analytics, University of Iowa.
408
Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security
When the U.S. security state announces that Big Tech's centralized censorship power must be preserved, we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves.
409
How to Drop Out (2004)
People who work get bored when they don't work. People who don't work never get bored.
410
Psychedelics and mental illness
The science of psychedelics is everywhere – but we should treat it with serious scepticism
411
Universal's Audible Watermark (2012)
This is my personal blog. The views expressed on this page are mine alone. Update, April 8, 2013: Can you hear it? Take the watermark listening test. Update, January 14, 2015: Check out the results of the listening test. A while ago, I wrote about my confusion regarding Weird Spotify Compression Artifacts. It turns…
412
A Random Distribution of Wealth (2017)
W hat happens, if 100 persons in a room are given $100 each and give away a Dollar to one randomly chosen person in this room each tick of the clock? How is wealth distributed over time by pure chance?
413
Latin as she is spoke: How classicists tricked themselves (2019)
How Classicists tricked themselves into not learning Latin well.
414
A simple explanation of how money moves around the banking system (2013)
Twitter went mad last week because somebody had transferred almost $150m in a single Bitcoin transaction. This tweet was typical: There was much comment about how expensive or difficult this would …
415
Google Fi bricked my iPhone 11 Pro Max (2020)
When I discovered Google Fi six months ago, I thought to myself, “Finally, a phone service that accomplishes everything I need at a…
416
Microsoft Full Circle
Microsoft has come full circle from the company that cared more about Windows than Office; the retirement of the Office name is possible precisely because Microsoft gave up on Windows and went to t…
417
A Twitter Off Ramp: A Tutorial for Getting on Mastodon
A tutorial for getting on Mastodon
418
Can a Tarot card reading be defamatory?
Crazed Tik-Toker's Tirade Against University Professor Raises Fact v. Opinion Issue
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The Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger
It's not "ego." It's a claim that you encounter a lot—an insult really—that people are buying bigger and bigger trucks to compensate for… so...