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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,149 posts.
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What Stops Female Founders?
The lack of women in tech startups seems a perennially hot topic. I’m keenly aware of this problem because I see so many founders, and so few of them are women. I’m delighted to have 6 women at...
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The Death of Quanta Magazine
Yesterday Quanta Magazine published an article written by Natalie Wolchover, Physicists Create a Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer . I’m shocked and disappointed. I thought Quanta Magazine was the most respectable source of science news, they have published several quality, in-depth articles in difficult topics. But…
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When online commenters detect my art as AI
Here is a collection of screenshots (obfuscated) of dozens and dozens of online comments from many platforms (Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook) containing accusations or confusion that my artworks and comics are AI-generated. Despite creating every piece by hand, despite sharing timelapses, the comments keep…
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A False Economy Powered by Ads and Lies
Tech companies like Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet continue to post record profits despite a slew of controversies and bad press.
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Who Does Skype Let Spy?
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about power and the Internet, and what I call the feudal model of IT security that is becoming more and more pervasive. Basically, between cloud services and locked-down end-user devices, we have less control and visibility over our security—and have no point but to trust those in power…
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Historian suspended by Facebook after sharing document by Goebbels
To: Oversight Board Good day, My name is Igor Petrov, I am an independent historian. The list of my publications, including those for Cambridge University Press, is available at https://independent.academia.edu/IgorPetrov40 On August 6, 2021, whilst conducting archival research and working with…
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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.
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Elsevier sold me a Creative Commons non-commercial licensed article
[Update 2015-03-13: I have blogged further about this here and provided a recap here. This post has been viewed over 10,000 times. Clearly some people want to sweep this under the carpet and pretend this is just ‘a storm in a teacup’ but it did happen and people do care about this. Thanks to everyone […]
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How people talk about marijuana on Reddit: a natural language analysis
In honor of today being April 20th, I thought it would be interesting to do some NLP on Reddit comments about marijuana (shout out to…
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How a Month Without Computers Changed Me
I’ve sent a message to my family and delegated my open source projects to my friends. With my last tweet sent, I turn off my laptop, phone, and tablet. My Digital Sabbath begins in 10 minutes: no digital devices for the next month.
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Latent Space as a New Medium
Lately I’ve been asking myself: what might artificial intelligence be good for besides answering questions and writing code?
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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…
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Critical Thinking Isn't Just a Process
Authoritarian muscle memory and the twists and turns of lying
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A Historical Tour of Silicon Valley
A tour of Silicon Valley
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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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Why fusion will never happen (2012)
I like fusion, really. I’ve talked to some of luminaries that work in the field, they’re great people. I love the technology and the physics behind it. But fusion as a power source is n…
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Is the FSF Fighting the Previous War?
This is a bit genuine red meat and perhaps a little sensitive for some people but it does raise a point that deserves discussion. A shorthand for that point is the title of today’s post. A more descriptive way of describing it is, “Is the FSF’s demand for purity actually harming the users they’re striving to protect?”
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Turkey's Financial Crisis
Earlier this week, Mohamed El-Erian was lost for words.
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Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)
Just venting. Between GDPR dialogs, dark patterns, and invasive ads, browsing the web nowadays — especially from EU — is a miserable experience.
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I Am Alex St. John’s Daughter, and He Is Wrong About Women in Tech
My name is Amilia St. John and I am the daughter of Alex St. John. Yes, that one. For those not following the horrific toddler meltdown my…
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Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?
attached is signature proof
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AI didn't break copyright law, it just exposed how broken it was
How generative AI exposes the gap between copyright law and everyday enforcement, from fan art and private creation to commercial competition.
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