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U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for "Armageddon,"
Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,149 posts.
5762
The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
The zero-sum bias occurs when people mistakenly expect gains and losses to be directly balanced in a situation where they’re not, especially in terms of one party benefiting directly at the expense of others. For example, the zero-sum bias can cause someone to think that a resource they’re interested in is limited…
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Why drinking coffee in Iran has become so complicated
It all started with a sarcastic jab in a chat: “You shouldn’t be more Catholic than the Pope. You go to order a coffee, and the guy’s like, ‘From Kenyan farms or Brazil?’ It’s l...
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Interview: Vitalik Buterin
In which we talk about the big shifts in crypto.
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90% of crypto's Illinois primary spending failed to achieve its objective
The cryptocurrency industry super PACs dumped $14.2 million into the Illinois primaries. 90% of that – $12.8 million – was wasted, in that it went to opposing Democratic candidates who won their primaries (Stratton in the Senate race, Ford in H-07) or supporting their opponents. The PACs' only victories in the state…
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Delegative Democracy – a scalable voting model
In between representative democracy , where voters elect politicians to make decisions on their behalf, and direct democracy , where voters directly decide the issues, lies a third model that deserves more consideration. In this model, people have the choice of either voting directly on a decision, as in direct…
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On Hacking
In June 2000, while visiting Korea, I did a fun hack that clearly illustrates the original and true meaning of the word "hacker".
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Virtual reality affects men and women differently
Last week, I wrote a provocative opinion piece for Quartz called “Is the Oculus Rift sexist?” I’m reposting it on my blog for posterity, but also because I want to address some of the critiques that I received. First, the piece itself:
5773
The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
This is a post loosely based on an article appearing today in the German newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” by Axel Brennicke and me. The raw data for our analysis is available. Please do let us know if you find a […] <a class="more-link"…
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Urban highways destroy wealth
Infrastructure investment is often seen as a good way to stimulate the economy and to provide facilities to allow the economy to grow. It's...
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The social side of science seen in the research on programming language quality
I love science. Not the “space is beautiful” faux-science, but the process of doing science. Hours spent calibrating equipment, cross-checking cites of cites of cites, tedious arguments about p-values and prediction intervals, all the stuff that makes science Go. And, when it does happen, the drama. I also want us to…
5777
On the Wildness of Children
The Revolution Will Not Take Place in a Classroom
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Weathering Software Winter (2022)
This is a blog post based on a transcript of a talk by Devine on November 26th 2022. Watch the video version on (YouTube). The slideshow presentation was made using Adelie .
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Mastodon Is Rewinding the Clock on Social Media – In a Good Way
A comment on a Hacker News thread inspired me to contemplate why Mastodon is everything we loved about social media before…
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Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
Those who are familiar with Frank Herbert's famous novel Dune will notice his analogy for the spice, and the surrounding struggle for it, with the crude oil of the Middle East. The novel is symbolic about the dependence of the West on the oil, and the power struggles to control this valuable resource.
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Ági Szabados Does Not Need to Apologize to Me
So, at the opening ceremonies of the Budapest International Book Festival this year, a couple of people gave prefatory remarks before I received the Budapest Grand Prize and participated in my own …
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Galileo Project now fully funded for expedition to study an interstellar meteor
Wonderful news! We just received full funding for the Galileo Project expedition to scoop the fragments of the first interstellar meteor…
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German state parliament bans laptops - Pirate party show up with typewriters
This website is for sale! crackajack.de is your first and best source for information about crackajack. Here you will also find topics relating to issues of general interest. We hope you find what you are looking for!
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How Raganwald Lost His Crown
A very, very long time ago, there was a star. It was much more massive than the star that lights our sky, around twenty times as massive. It was composed almost entirely of hydrogen, as was most of the universe when it was formed. Gravity collected its hydrogen together, and gravity compressed the hydrogen fuel at its…
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Installing Red Star 3.0, North Korea's homegrown operating system
Earlier this week, someone who goes by slipstream (“pulling data out of DPRK’s ass since 2014!”) posted a torrent of North Korea’s Red Star 3.0 installer. My first instinct was to download and run it, because installing software from North Korea, what could possibly go wrong?
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On the Women’s Petition Against Coffee of 1674
“That Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE.” Imagine a space where you can bet on bear fights, warm your legs by th...
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Aaron Swartz's Legacy
It's really only in the past year or so that I had grown aware of him at all; one hears a lot of names over the course of following the industry and the Internet scene, and I'd naturally heard of him. But it was only recently that I had come to realize that I kept hearing about him in matters that were of particular…