1081
The myth of NASA's expensive space pens
There’s a story about NASA’s incredibly expensive space pen and Russia’s simpler solution that gets trotted out every time some large organization introduces so
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
1082
TSA: Fail
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel. Instead, they have made air travel the ...
1083
Parental controls aren't for parents
I found a stranger texting my 12-year-old on a 'kid-safe' Gabb phone. Parental controls are broken.
1084
Early-Retirement Update
I’ve had a difficult time finding a way to create a new entry on a blog that has essentially been dead since 2015. Yet, I have had a persistent feeling that I owe my readers an update.
1085
Companies embracing SMS for account logins should be blamed for SIM-swap attacks
[UPDATE Since this was posted in 2024 : Major US telcos like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have suffered a months-long breach (the ongoing Salt Typhoon attack). These companies, of course, pass along the unencrypted SMSes vital to countless log in flows, account re-activations, and password resets. They are now known to…
1086
Apple’s new abuse prevention system: an antritust/competition point of view
Apple has announced the new client-side content scanning (based on parameters received from the center) to find child sexual abuse materials to be reported to law enforcers.
1087
An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California
Update (April 27): Boaz Barak—Harvard CS professor, longtime friend-of-the-blog, and coauthor of my previous guest post on this topic—has just written an awesome FAQ, providing his pers…
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I don’t like computers
AdamW on Linux and more
1090
The Egg (2009)
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
1091
What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record
Everything You Wanted to Know About LeBron and Me and the Scoring Record
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It’s an age of marvels
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
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Game theory illustrated by an animated cartoon game
an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other
1096
Naomi Wu and the Silence That Speaks Volumes
When China's prodigious tech influencer, Naomi Wu, found herself silenced, it wasn't just the machinery of a surveillance state at play. Instead, it was...
1097
A man overrides his camera's firmware to bring rare pictures of North Korea back
A collection of photos from my trip to North Korea, with historical context.
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1099
The Most Dangerous Censorship
Invisible but present, and far from the eyes of the public
1100
I won’t buy ebooks anymore
Personal blog of Julien (jvoisin) Voisin
1101
Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics
Due to UK disclosure requirements, it's possible to examine the P&L of the privately owned/controlled OnlyFans. And the results are shocking.
1102
The AirPods Effect
How earbuds influence our beliefs and push us apart.
1103
People expect technology to suck because it sucks
I get at least 27 tech annoyances on a single day
1104
The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
<p>Would you believe that there is a conspiracy theory about the way we tune musical instruments? And that this theory even involves the Nazis, chakras, and whatnot? No? Then sit down and enjoy
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Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list
Governments from around the world admit they carry out false flag terror: A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to…Read More
1107
Police Civil Asset Forfeitures Exceed All Burglaries in 2014
Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually.
1108
It’s been a very hard year
Unlike a lot of places in tech, my company, Set Studio/Piccalilli has no outside funding. Bootstrapped is what the LinkedIn people say, I think. It’s been a hard year this year. A very hard year. I think a naive person would blame it all on the seemingly industry-wide attitude of “AI can just do this […]
1109
The Invention of a New Pasta Shape
For the past three years, Dan Pashman of The Sporkful podcast has been on something of a mission: to invent a new pasta shape. All of Pashman’s hard work has pa
1110
The slow collapse of critical thinking in OSINT due to AI
This isn’t a rant against AI. I use it daily, ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemini. They’re in my workflow like everyone else’s. But the tradecraft is slipping. Analysts are skipping the hard parts. They’re trusting GenAI to do the heavy cognitive lifting, and it’s changing how we operate at a foundational level.