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The Demise of Scientific American
Scott’s foreword One week ago, E. O. Wilson—the legendary naturalist and conservationist, and man who was universally acknowledged to know more about ants than anyone else in human hist…
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,147 posts.
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Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore
If you are a current or former career Bureau of the Fiscal Service Employee, especially if you’re a legacy IT programmer with years of experience and especially if you are a COBOL programmer currently working on the PAM, SPS or any other adjacent team, contact me over email or
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Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated
Most people have an extremely incorrect perception about waste disposal and recycling. Here’s the reality.
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The hotel bathroom puzzle
In his wonderful book The Evolution of Useful Things, the author and civil engineer Henry Petroski shares one of the most famous case studies in the history of design: Before it was destroyed by fi…
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The “small web” is bigger than you might think
The small web is growing, and getting more active. Good news.
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Elsevier shuts down its finance journal citation cartel
12 papers retracted, 7 editor positions removed, and the "open secret" of Elsevier’s elite paper mill exposed.
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The work-from-home future is destroying bosses' brains
DO NOT SUBSCRIBE HERE subscribe at wheresyoured.at. Click to read DO NOT SUBSCRIBE HERE subscribe at wheresyoured.at, by Ed Zitron, a Substack publication.
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Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity
How Bill Watterson Stuck to His Guns — and Vanished
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Deep-Fried Data
This is the text version of a talk I gave on September 27, 2016, at the Collections as Data event at the Library of Congress. [ video ] (21 mins)
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Killing Community
This is a theory that’s previously been stated in log/39-normie-hypothesis.gmi, but I think it’s worth expanding on as it’s become very relevant with the recent Reddit shit-show actualizing just how bad that website has gotten along with social media in general. I think the model demonstrates how the…
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The Tower Keeps Rising
Vibecoding and the possible collapse of a shared language.
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The next SOPA
Every few years, the MPAA’s lobbying power, rhetoric, and immense campaign contributions succeed in purchasing a bill in Congress to advance their agenda in a way that’s hostile to the technology industry and consumers.
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Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes"
In 2000, Douglas Adams made an interesting observation that I keep returning to. A user on Slashdot named “FascDot Killed My Pr” had asked the following question (where HGttG = Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy): Comedy….or Tragedy? First, a big thank-you. You’ve made a lasting contribution to “our” culture (or should…
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AI is making it easier to create more noise, when all I want is good search
We use Notion for the bulk of our knowledge management at CodePen. I have no use for an AI that can write for me.
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How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations
This Daily Mail piece by David Derbyshire is so profound it has been cited over and over: How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations: an interview with four generations of the same family about how far they were allowed to wander as kids. It comes from Britain but will sound familiar to
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AI is making me dumb
It's so god damn tempting to use AI to write. Whether it is articles, code, or documents. I feel like using AI is diminishing my ability to write myself.
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Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency data requests”
There is a terrifying and highly effective “method” that criminal hackers are now using to harvest sensitive customer data from Internet service providers, phone companies and social media firms. It involves compromising email accounts and websites tied to police departments and government agencies, and then sending…
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Facebook: Free as in Bullshit
This whole ad reads more like an ad *for* Apple’s privacy initiatives than against.
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My Caste
Allow me to introduce you to one of the largest population groups in India, as recognized by the constitution of India: Other Backward Classes ( OBC Category ). OBCs are estimated to comprise 40-45% of India's population, therefore, about 500 million people belong to OBC category. In other words, 1 in 16 people in the…
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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?
This is the midweek edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen.
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Cars kill cities
OK, I’m finally getting a chance to make another post. I have temporarily relocated to Mountain View, CA and have been up to my eyeballs in work, both ‘real’ work and research wo…
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Facebook is scaring me
Yesterday I wrote that Twitter should be scared of Facebook. Today it's worse. I, as a mere user of Facebook, am seriously scared of them.
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The War on Upstart Fiber Internet Providers
The personal site of Chris Hacken — entrepreneur and operator who founded and sold Loop Internet. Essays and a podcast on building internet infrastructure, companies, and other hard things.