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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 454 posts.
Yesterday, we learned that the NSA received all calling records from Verizon customers for a three-month period starting in April. That’s everything except the voice content: who called who, where they were, how long the call lasted—for millions of people, both Americans and foreigners. This “metadata” allows the…
There are days where a trend you noticed becomes absolutely visible. Today is one of those days. I have seen the Android brand disappear o...
Soft skills play an important role for programmers, listening to clients’ requirements, creating solutions, and communicating effectively can make or break a career.
M.C.A. Hogarth's account of the 2012–2013 Games Workshop "space marine" trademark dispute over her novel Spots the Space Marine, with the original posts preserved and the book available direct.
A few days ago I learned, via a French blog, that I was fined 8,000 euros for quoting a French blogger. I would have known earlier, but the ...
We wanted Alejandro to have a power wheelchair. We wanted him to be able to move through the world by his own volition and it’s clear that the ability to independently explore his environment is important for his cognitive development on multiple levels. We tried going through the typical process of obtaining a power…
Every so often this article makes the rounds and it annoys me. That isn’t how traffic works and the proposed solutions won’t fix anything. Maybe you can eliminate the annoying stop-and-go, but no one gets home any faster. In fact you can prove that you and everyone behind you get home strictly later than if you had…
“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it” Aung San Suu Kyi: Freedom from Fear Recent events in the UK have been disturbing for believers and s…
Two reasons why I'll stick to my unfriendly, long, Google+ URL.
Chris Hayes of MSNBC reminds us that the good guys and bad guys of history are not entirely clear as they're happening. Heather Parton of digsby blog passes along a transcript of his recent...
(NB: this was very hastily written, so I hope the logic flows – I just wanted to get it out…) I think many people thought I was joking when I boldly declared it would be cheaper for me to rent a tw…
As we’ve discussed, in Batman Begins 1960s-style full employment and antipoverty programs lead to skyrocketing crime while in The Dark Knight Rises 1980s-style tough-on-crime policies and neoliberal economics lead to a revolt of the economic underclass. The films are mirror images, one about the failure of liberal…
NSA, GCHQ, Prism, FISA, Project Bullrun, Sigint. After Edward Snowden, former CIA and NSA employee, started revealing how massively, intensely and easily we are all being spied upon by the intelligence agencies of various governments, the terms above have suddenly been spending a great deal more time in the media…
It turns out that the NSA’s domestic and world-wide surveillance apparatus is even more extensive than we thought. Bluntly: The government has commandeered the Internet. Most of the largest Internet companies provide information to the NSA, betraying their users. Some, as we’ve learned, fight and lose. Others…
There’s been a bit of a media onslaught from David Cameron about his ‘war on porn’ over the weekend. Some of the messages given out have been very welcome – but some are con…
While my last post covered my previous year traveling, writing and programming [http://old.alexmaccaw.com/posts/traveling_writing_programming], this article will go into the specifics of planning your own round the world trip, including flights, costs, activities and accommodation. I'll show you how affordable…
In July 2012, responding to allegations that the video-chat service Skype—owned by Microsoft—was changing its protocols to make it possible for the government to eavesdrop on users, Corporate Vice President Mark Gillett took to the company’s blog to deny it. Turns out that wasn’t quite true. Or at least he—or the…
