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The decline of high-tech manufacturing in the United States
America's major high-tech manufacturing industries have not escaped the general decline in manufacturing employment.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 666 posts.
572
Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
How do two well liked companies, deutsche Bahn and adobe, advertise their subscriptions? Badly. Deutsche Bahn, the fully state-owned railway company, is a we
573
Apple software update “bug” enables Apple Intelligence
Some people who had previously disabled Apple Intelligence in macOS 15.3 and iOS 18.3 saw it re-enabled after updating to macOS 15.3.1 and iOS 18.3.1 today. In fact I personally have two different Apple silicon Macs running macOS Sequoia, and after I updated both Macs to 15.3.1, Apple Intelligence was re-enabled on my…
574
GPT might be an information virus (2023)
Obligatory: the views and opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the views and opinions of my employer. In light of all the hype going around about ChatGPT, I wanted to offer my “hot take” on what the next 2-5 years
575
Why some DVLA digital services don't work at night
Every few months or so, somebody asks on social media why a particular DVLA digital service is turned off over night. Rather than answering it every time, I’ve decided to write this post, so I can point people at it in future. It’s a great case study to show why making government services digitally native can be quite…
576
The international standard for identifying postal items
The Universal Postal Union's S10 standard, in all its glory
577
NSPM-7 labels common beliefs as terrorism 'indicators'
New directive targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions
578
A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Dash
WHEREAS , the em-dash (—) has long served as the elegant scaffolding of the English sentence, providing the necessary breadth for parenthetical thought, sudden turns of phrase, and rhythmic pause;
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Can you use GDPR to circumvent BlueSky's adult content blocks?
In the battle between the Online Safety Act and GDPR, who will win? FIGHT! I'll start by saying that I'm moderately positive on Online Safety. If services don't want to provide moderation then they shouldn't let their younger users be exposed to harm. The social network BlueSky has taken a pragmatic approach to this…
580
Is Winter Coming? (2024)
In the 1960s, AI researchers tried - and failed - to deliver machine translation of Russian to English. Overly confident researchers, lazy journalists and far too optimistic tech utopianists all built expectations that couldn't be met. Eventually, the lack of results put a stop to the previously generous funding. The…
581
Stay Gold, America
We are at an unprecedented point in American history.
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Anti-Personnel Computing (2023)
Neologisms for the current computing era.
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How Georgists Valued land in the 1900's
The lost art of the "Somers System" of land valuation
584
Cottagecore Programmers
Every programmer I know has at some point longingly expressed how “[they] want to work with [their] hands”. Some say they wish they were a carpenter, some want to be in the fields on a farm, some want to raise chickens, or milk cows. It is however inevitable that I either hear someone say it or agree with it at some…
585
Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): An incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy
Gather round the fire, everyone, and let me tell you a story. It has everything you could want in a Christmas blockbuster: superheroes and villains, a car crash, children singing, a mystery to solv…
586
I feel open source has turned into two worlds
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…
587
DHH Is Worse Than I Thought
DHH's politics are not normal. Maybe they used to be, I don't know, but as of right now the dude is way outside of what most people would consider moral or acceptable.
588
Palantir: The Most Evil Company
At the cutting edge of dystopia and genocide
589
The Generative Burrito Test
A critical benchmark for image generation models: A partially eaten burrito with cheese, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, salsa, pinto beans, and chicken.
590
Stop killing games and the industry response
Recently, there's been a European Citizens' Initiative called "Stop Destroying Videogames" which by now has hit the milestone of 1'000'000 signatures. You're still encouraged to sign it if you care about its goals and are a EU citizen, since not all of those are likely to be valid signatures, but overall this is a…
591
Poisoning Well
An experimental strategy for contaminating Large Language Models
592
Bifurcation: The secret giant islands formed when rivers split
As I’m sure you’re aware, rivers usually combine together to make larger and larger rivers until they reach the sea.However, there are some exceptions: rivers do sometimes split up and flow in separate directions. These splits are called “bifurcations” (bi” meaning “two”, and “furcations” being the forks). They happen…
593
Mac app launches slowed by malware scan (2024)
I've always attributed slow Xcode launches to Xcode simply sucking, but I've noticed that the FileMerge app frequently launches slowly too. When this happens, the app can take a dozen bounces in the Dock before finally opening. FileMerge resides in the folder Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/ within the Xcode bundle…
594
Another Conflict Between Privacy Laws and Age Authentication–Murphy v Confirm ID
This opinion is a routine ruling over TOS formation and whether disputes must go to arbitration. However, before I dig into that question, I need to note the case’s chilling implications. * * * This case involves the Adult Friend...
595
Community Is Motivation on Tap
A good community can have tremendous influence on one’s motivation. I never appreciated this fact enough so I wanted to write about it here.
596
The Lost Towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline Wars
Looks fake, doesn’t it? This implausible Medieval forest of towers, as dense as Manhattan skyscrapers, is our best reconstruction of the town of Bologna at its height, toward the end of the Medieval Guelph-Ghibelline wars. We don’t see many such towers today… or think we don’t, but actually their remnants are all over…
597
What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?
Governments worldwide are trying to increase fertility with cash. But the most famous birthrate "boom" had a lot to do with science and technology, as well.
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Thank you Google for breaking my YouTube addiction
Thank you Google for breaking my YouTube addiction | exotext