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Group chats rule the world
The importance and dynamics of private group chats in shaping tech discourse
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 450 posts.
122
The Moral Economy of the Shire
Who paid for this? There’s a certain meme that I see making the rounds on Facebook every so often about the bucolic nature of life in the Shire, from Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord o…
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Some notes on influenceering
The ups and downs of publishing non-commercial content on the internet.
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Why is it so hard to build an airport?
Airports are a critical piece of modern infrastructure.
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2023 Letter
A walk-and-talk; Crumb; running and tangping; Knausgaard; Elon as Palmer Eldritch; memelords; Chicago as a megacity; Norton; and a pause.
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A game magazine that spent two years taunting a Final Fantasy VIII hater
I’m unsure how popular GameNOW magazine was, but over the course of two years, they pulled off one of the weirdest running gags I’ve seen in a game magazine, just to have fun at the expense of an irate reader who didn’t like Final Fantasy VIII .
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Escaping surveillance capitalism, at scale
Self-hosting and paid subscriptions promise an escape from surveillance capitalism. What guarantees do they really offer, and at what cost?
128
The most talented person in the world
Jodie is a cross-functional 3D designer and blogger. She has special interests in open source 3D printing for R&D and has spent a lot of time at different projects across the globe to learn more about 3D printing. Most of what she has learned is from hands-on experience.
129
Debanking (and Debunking?)
Crypto advocates kicked off a recent, somewhat politicized, discussion of debanking. Strap in for scintillating banking compliance trivia.
130
The Zombocom Problem
Welcome to zombocom… you can do anything at zombocom… anything at all… the only limit… is yourself…
131
Thoughts on the Future of Software Development
My optimistic take on the future of Software Development in the age of AI.
132
How good are American roads?
We’re in an era where US infrastructure is getting a lot of attention.
133
When ChatGPT summarises, it does nothing of the kind
One of the use cases I thought was reasonable to expect from ChatGPT and Friends (LLMs) was summarising. It turns out I was wrong. What ChatGPT isn’t summarising at all, it only looks like it…
134
Here comes the Muybridge camera moment but for text
Posted on Friday 31 May 2024. 2,785 words, 28 links. By Matt Webb.
135
Evidence of price-fixing in the oil industry?
The FTC just found evidence that American oil companies colluded with the Saudi government to hike gas prices, costing the average family $3,000 last year. The question is, what can we do about it?
136
Google banned me from Google Voice
After 15 years, Google banned me from Google Voice . This post is a summary of what happened, with the hope that it might help someone in the future who runs into the same situation. At the end , I have some thoughts about the latent danger of being banned from Google at any time with no notice.
137
Win for copyright user rights in Canada: Digital locks do not trump fair dealing
The Federal Court has issued a landmark decision (Blacklock’s Reports v. Attorney General of Canada) on copyright’s anti-circumvention rules which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. Rather, the two must co-exist in harmony, leading to an interpretation that users can still rely on fair dealing…
138
We Can Terraform the American West
Why is there almost nothing on the left hand side of the USA? Water scarcity! We’re missing 300 million Americans. We’re missing 30 global cities west of 100 degrees longitude. We shoul…
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You must read at least one book to ride
The first is going to sound bad in a culture where engineers are encouraged to apologize for existing while it is totally acceptable for a grifter that can't code to insist that they're a "thought leader". It is that, in my immediate professional environment, I am consistently acknowledged to be one of the best…
141
Banning open weight models would be a disaster
My comments on the NTIA AI Open Model Weights RFC
142
The sins of the 90s: Questioning a puzzling claim about mass surveillance
Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, gave an interesting talk at NDSS 2024 titled "AI, Encryption, and the Sins of the 90s".
143
The Double Irish Dutch Sandwich: End of a Tax Evasion Strategy
I wrote a decade ago about the Double Irish Dutch Sandwich, a strategy for corporations to evade taxes that was widespread and large-scale enough to come to the attention of the International Monetary Fund. But due to various changes in national and international tax agreements, the strategy seems to have faded…
144
FBI Raids Big Corporate Landlord over Nationwide Rent Hikes
I’ll get to the good and bad news of the week, but first I want to note the big story - Donald Trump’s conviction by a jury in New York - and a little story with big implications - the Federal Bureau of Investigation raiding a corporate landlord in cahoots with a nation-wide rent-fixing cartel that affects up to 16…
145
What If Data Is a Bad Idea?
Data is reductive. It objectifies. It bureaucratizes. But is it a bad idea?
146
The internet is already over (2022)
Our God is a devourer, who makes things only for the swallowing.
147
I wish I didn't miss the '90s-00s internet
about me I am 18, born in 2006. This is generally a good thing as I am in the prime of life currently. I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”, I think I was born at the perfect time to take advantage of superlinearly growing technological advancements. the internet today I…
148
I don't want anything your AI generates
AI output is fundamentally derivative and exploitative (of content, labor and the environment).
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Studios: Please don't spoil the movie we are seated to see
I tweeted this incredibly non-controversial take and it got a huge reaction, so I thought I'd recycle the content for a blog post. Enjoy. We...