451
I think I'm done thinking about GenAI for now
The conversation isn’t over, but I don’t think I have much to add to it.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 666 posts.
452
Enlisting in the Fight Against Link Rot
Google is killing a decade of its shortened links. Will you enlist in the fight against link rot?
453
A data analysis of speeches at the Oscars
I analysed almost 2,000 Oscar speeches to discover if the claim that Harvey Weinstein was thanked more often than God is true. Plus, we'll find out which Hollywood icon is bigger than both of them.
454
The World Happiness Report is beset with methodological problems
A case study in elite misinformation.
455
Sycophancy is the first LLM "dark pattern"
People have been making fun of OpenAI models for being overly sycophantic for months now. I even wrote a post advising users to pretend that their work was…
456
When a stadium adds AI to everything, it's worse experience for everyone
I just got back from a 24hr trip to Los Angeles to catch my favorite Portland Thorns team, watching them clinch their playoff spot in a match at BMO stadium in downtown Los Angeles. In May of 2024, I did the same trip to catch a match on Mother's
457
Why Northern England is poor
And why Thatcher is partly to blame, but not in the way most people argue.
458
ICE Is Buying a Tool to Track Phones, Without Warrants
Trump is quietly building a surveillance state, and almost no one is paying attention.
459
I analyzed the lineups at the most popular nightclubs
A few years back I did a bit of dance music related data visualization over at Lazily Evaluated. My favourite was an analysis of clubs and their lineups using Resident Advisor / RA data, I called it Clubster Analysis. I always wanted to dig into the technical aspects of gathering the data, analyzing it and building…
460
Gartner's grift is about to unravel
swyx recognizes $IT as a visionary short in the DX Tips Magic Quadrant of Boomer Relics That No Longer Make Sense
461
Heroin addicts often seem normal
At least, they did to me ten years ago
462
A brief history of the absurdities of the Soviet Union
In May 1991 a Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyev was sent into space. At the end of the year he was still circling around the Earth waiting for a spaceship to bring him back. He had left a Soviet Union that was still a superpower but would return to a world where there was no Soviet Union any more. The Soviet empire…
463
Some surprising things about DuckDuckGo
We have hundreds of easter-egg logos (featuring our friendly mascot Dax Brown) that surface when you make certain queries on our search engine. Our subreddit is trying to catch ‘em all. They’ve certainly caught a lot, currently 504, but we keep adding more so it’s a moving target. The total as of this post is 594. I’m…
464
Apple's Unlawful Evil
Apple has removed ICEBlock, a totally legal app that helps people track the movements of the masked snatch-squads who illegally terrorize brown people in America's cities, capitulating to a warrantless demand from Trump's DoJ boss Pam Bondi:
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We are no longer a serious country
And the world is starting to notice
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AI, Heidegger, and Evangelion
Our brains, evolved for tribal politics and campfire stories, are ill-equipped for the moral ambiguity of a system with no soul to save or damn.
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The gaslit asset class
James Grant invited me to address the annual conference of Grant's Interest Rate Observer . This was an intimidating prospect, the previous...
470
After the AI boom: what might we be left with?
Some argue that even if the current AI boom leads to an overbuild, it might not be a bad thing - just as the dotcom bubble left behind the internet infrastructure that powered later decades of growth. It’s a tempting comparison, but the parallels only go so far. The dotcom era’s overbuild crea
471
All clothing is handmade (2022)
Writing about an art quilt I made with reused textiles and what I hope it reminds us about the clothing that we wear and the people who created it.
472
Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome (2008)
Alright, I’ve got another conspiracy theory misconception to dispel. :) After reading through the Chrome Terms of Service, some people are worried that Google is trying to assert rights on ev…
473
Being fat is a trap
This has been a difficult article to write. Partly because this is a painful topic for many, and partly because I have to be completely open and vulnerable to write about it. I only write this in the hope it can help others in similar situations. Nothing in this article is meant to judge you. If someone judges you for…
474
How to start a school with your friends
We've taught over 100 classes to over 1000 students 🤓
475
Departing the New York Times
I left to stay true to my byline
476
The origin and unexpected evolution of the word "mainframe"
What is the origin of the word "mainframe", referring to a large, complex computer? Most sources agree that the term is related to the frame...
477
AI Is Dehumanization Technology
A call to reject the deployment and use of AI systems in Canada's public sector.
478
Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects
HS2 has become a case study in how not to build infrastructure. But what if we’d taken a different path entirely? In this post, I imagine how the Swiss would have done it: starting with the timetable, not the project. It’s a counterfactual, but it’s not a fantasy.
479
Kids who ran away to 1960s San Francisco
I followed my curiosity and ended up at the library reading hundreds of letters of runaway teenagers who came to hippie San Francisco
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