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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 598 posts.
This is a fun one. I’ve spent more time than I’d care to admit staring at LLM output. And there’s something that I’ve noticed: LLM-generated prose has a kind of… vibe. It’s difficult to describe,…
A recent UK Channel 4 TV programme talked about the recent decline in quality of food: YouTube Channel 4
It’s April Cools! It’s like April Fools, except instead of cringe comedy you make genuine content that’s different from your normal stuff.1 For example, last year I talked about owning a microscope. This year I debated doing another hobby but settled on a much dumber topic. Have you ever seen those lists of weird…
First a round of thanks for the many people in industry and government who provided valuable links, background and insights! I could not have done this without your help! If you spot any mistakes, or have suggestions, please do contact me on bert@hubertnet.nl The EU’s new Cyber Resilience Act is admirable in its goal…
When I’m learning a new language, I tend to take a very dumb approach (and I don’t mean that in some enlightened way). I’ll usually try out a tutorial or two, but if the language is similar to another language that I know, I’ll basically just start coding without investing a lot of time learning the language features…
April 10, 2023. The backlash was immediate after I spoke at the 2016 Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism , which bills itself as a “celebration of science and critical thinking.” Although the conference had allotted me 10 minutes for questions, the stage manager, Jamy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties advocacy group, recently published a good article entitled “ISPs Should Not Police Online Speech—No Matter How Awful It Is.” 1 It argues that providers within the internet “stack” should refrain from censoring traffic according to their own values. That…
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
A look at how online forums grow, thrive, and then decay.
There was a cultural divide in benshi preferences, rather like the difference in taste between those
Connect with Lunduke and other members of Lunduke community
What if you could counterfeit so much money that it stopped being illegal?
Laniakea Books is a publishing house in London, England, which publishes public domain books only.
LLMs do all the things people say they do at once, even if those people vociferously disagree, and they’re all useful.
the studio has always played to critics instead of children and manipulated with cheap sentiment
Why do we have to learn everything the hard way?
The Bank of England has raised interest rates to 4%, supposedly to tackle inflation. There is just one problem with this decision. The Bank knows that much of the inflation we are suffering is being driven by rising oil and energy prices, largely resulting from conflict in the Middle East. It also...
The age of frontend JavaScript frameworks eating the web world didn’t happen simply because some well-meaning developers found great DX. It happened because we were fed a line.
Trying to make the case for permanent irrevocable digital identities, which unfortunately today, by de-facto, are email addresses.
I lived in New York City for 8 years and never had anything major stolen. In San Francisco, it took 2 weeks…
I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one.
Why is the US military ceding ground to China? As a new DOD report shows, big defense contractors are middlemen whose main purpose is stock buybacks and dividends.
Pay attention to how people are talking about freedom. It's a leading indicator of cultural (and economic) trends.
A review of ‘Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health’
Welcome to the new world.
A lot of more modern financial infrastructure follows the paths blazed by checks, at least in the U.S.
