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The human only public license
A copyleft software license that restricts AI usage
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,149 posts.
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I wish people were more public
On sharing more of yourself.
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What is the value of browser diversity?
In May 2019 I attended a talk by Mike Taylor who works on webcompat at Mozilla. Mike told the sordid story of window.event, a non-standard IE invention that was replicated in Konqueror, which showed up in Webkit, which stuck around in Blink, and was now Mike’s problem in Firefox. It was a good story fraught with ups…
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Apple Broke My iPhone, and Their Policies Prevent Them from Fixing It
Hello. I’ve been an otherwise happy iPhone user since 2008. I use my iPhone with an MVNO carrier in the U.S. called Straight Talk, which runs over AT&T’s network. This is my story.
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How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
Tokyo has rightly been getting some plaudits for housebuilding of late, and this post brings together some stats that illustrate just how impressive its record is. First, some definitions and conte…
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Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps
After roughly five months of appeasing users with new feature after new feature after new feature , the other shoe has finally dropped. Today, Strava sold its segmented soul. At least, if you believe Strava Segments are the soul of what makes Strava, well, Strava.
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Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap
I wanted Book Corners to contribute newly submitted public bookcases back to OpenStreetMap. After researching the operational and community requirements, I decided not to implement it.
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Hey programmers, we need to talk
This article is now in Russian! Hey guys. Thanks for coming to this meeting on such short notice. There’s coffee in the back. Did somebody spot the token recruiter yet? And show him the door?…
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My Take on FBI's “Alternative” Method
FBI acknowledged today that there “appears” to be an alternative way into Farook’s iPhone 5c – something that experts have been shouting for weeks now; in fact, we’ve been saying there are several viable methods. Before I get into which method I think is being used here, here are some possibilities of other viable…
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I hate you Microsoft
The rare moment when I need to open a powerpoint document is here. As usual, I have my institutional account logged into their “services”, because my university pays microslop something in the ballpark of hundreds of thousands of euros in contracts with this large software provider.
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Facebook and PGP
Facebook just announced support for PGP, an encrypted email standard, for email from them to you. It’s an interesting move on many levels, albeit one that raises some interesting questions. The answers, and Facebook’s possible follow-on moves, are even more interesting.
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Identify a Facebook user by his phone number despite privacy settings set
The goal of this blog is to share write-ups about bugs i have found in Facebook and reported to them under the Facebook bug bounty program.
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Is old music killing new music?
All the growth in the music business now comes from old songs—with consumption of new music actually shrinking. How did we get here, and is there a way back?
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MSU Vice President of research & innovation Steve Hsu has been forced to resign
President Stanley asked me this afternoon for my resignation. I do not agree with his decision, as serious issues of academic freedom and fr...
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Gemini is Solutionism
While I don’t care too much about ideas and projects that I believe to be dead ends or maybe even doomed to fail eventually, a recent interaction on Superhighway84 got me to write down a few thoughts on why I believe Project Gemini is a really bad idea.
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Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria
The Rosatom historical website has an entire section devoted to "Atomic Fun" — jokes and stories from the Soviet nuclear program. It's... something.
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How Many Tracks Do Train Stations Need?
A brief discussion on Reddit about my post criticizing Penn Station expansion plans led me to write a very long comment, which I’d like to hoist to a full post explaining how big an urban tra…
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A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page
Bruce Faulconer deserves better, but the system seems rigged against him
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Minister No More
The referendum of 5th July will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage. Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached. It is, therefore, essential that the great…
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Why did The Beatles get so many bad reviews?
An inquiry into how critics stumble
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Online sports betting: As you do well, they cut you off
A few decades back my teenage son and I approached Las Vegas at night while traveling south on Interstate 15. When the skyline of the city began sparkling into view, the kid said, “Wow. Think…
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Non-Apple's Mistake
I've been patient, I've been gracious And this mountain is covered with wolves Hear them howling, my hungry children Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you. Jonathan Coulton, "Skullcrusher Mountain"
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The iPad Big Picture
This is Apple’s way of asserting that they’re taking over the penthouse suite as the strongest and best company in the whole ones-and-zeroes racket.
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