1891
Poison, Poison Everywhere
When I was in high school, my teacher once told us a crazy story.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
1892
The truth behind the 2026 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
2.8k words, 13 minutes reading time
1893
The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)
My neighbor introduced me to The Office back in 2005. Since then, I've watched every episode of both the British and American versions. I've watched the show…
1894
If English was written like Chinese (1999)
The English spelling system is such a pain, we’d might as well switch to hanzi — Chinese characters. How should we go about it?
1895
Fuck the Cloud (2009)
This will be the last time I go along this area of discussion for a while because it’s just going to get very old very quickly. But I wanted, in one place, a quick manifesto/rant about this p…
1896
Energy
I think a lot about how important cheap, safe, and abundant energy is to our future. A lot of problems—economic, environmental, war, poverty, food and water availability, bad side effects of...
1897
The decline of net neutrality activism
For many years, telecom and Net Neutrality-related policies have been a hot-button political issue for me, to the extent that I, an ordinary software engineer at Microsoft have been blocked on Twitter by former FCC chairman Ajit Pai because I tweeted support for Net Neutrality publicly. I also noticed that Net…
1898
Facebook Takes Out Newspaper Ads to Attack Apple's Strengthening iOS Privacy
Apple isn’t blocking the ability for Facebook to personalize ads, in any way. Apple is just providing *users* with control over their own privacy.
1899
That's not how email works
A confusing letter from HSBC informed me that I've not been receiving their emails, and I have to change the email address they use to contact me. Except I've been receiving all of their emails just fine! The problem, it turns out, is that surveillance capitalism is now so-widespread that the bank cannot conceive that…
1900
1901
Stop Ruining It
Paul McGowan makes stereos. To paraphrase his insight: The musicality isn’t a feature you add to an amplifier. It’s what’s left when you stop ruining it. To expand: Customer delig…
1902
Apple developer boycott of Feedback Assistant
I'm organizing a boycott of Apple's Feedback Assistant , starting immediately, and I encourage all Apple developers to join me. Here's how I propose that each of us can effectively participate in the boycott and let Apple know that we're boycotting Feedback Assistant:
1903
Product Hunt is dead
Thoughts on FOSS and fintech, layered by Mahmoud Hashemi
1904
Why it's impossible to agree on what's allowed
On large platforms, it's impossible to have policies on things like moderation, spam, fraud, and sexual content that people agree on. David Turner made a simple game to illustrate how difficult this is even in a trivial case, No Vehicles in the Park . If you haven't played it yet, I recommend playing it now before…
1905
1906
Don't ignore the janitor
The importance of seeing, smiling and talking to people
1907
You did no fact checking, and I must scream
I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a world of misinformation out there, but it doesn't take much effort to determine if something is likely to be true. There are brilliant tools like reverse Image Search which…
1908
1909
Slop is everywhere for those with eyes to see
How mindless consumption is making our FYPs worse.
1910
GDPR Violation: Scribd acquires PII on 500M users in a deal with LinkedIn
TL;DR: If you have a LinkedIn account, you were signed up to SlideShare automatically without your knowledge or consent. Your account including all your personal information will be sold to ScribD …
1911
A conversation with a newspaper owner raided by cops
Eric Meyer says his paper had been investigating the police chief prior to the raids on his office and home.
1912
There's no way to report spam on Google Drive
Recently, I've been getting a lot of spam notifications from Google Drive. Here's a sample: The notifications come direct to my Android phone via the Drive app - they don't appear in my Gmail spam folder. There is no way to report the abuse. If I go to the list of notification in the Android apps, there's no option to…
1913
Showing a sunrise/sunset realtime 24/7 with the use of unsecured CCTV cameras
“24h Sunrise/Sunset” is an installation that displays a realtime sunset and sunrise somewhere happening in the world with the use of CCTV. Hardware: Raspberry Pi 3B+, Arduino Nano Every , custom PCB, power supply’s, VFD displays, lasercut metal and LEDs. Software: Python 3 & Firebase realtime databases Changelog of…
1914
Mikeal Rogers has died
Mikeal Rogers, my best friend, my colleague, confidant, and one of a kind partner in countless late night chats and restless travel sprints, has died. Mikeal died of aggressive cancer. Words feel wholly inadequate because I want to capture the sweep of what he meant to me and to the
1915
Guess I'm a rationalist now
A week ago I attended LessOnline, a rationalist blogging conference featuring many people I’ve known for years—Scott Alexander, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Zvi Mowshowitz, Sarah Constantin, Carl…
1916
Coding is not the new literacy
Despite the good intentions behind the movement to get people to code, both the basic premise and approach are flawed. The movement sits on the idea that “coding is the new literacy,” but that takes a narrow view of what literacy really is.
1917
ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit
ICQ is turning 20 (and that is no small potatoes). A whole generation has already grown up with the forerunner of all messengers. For this…
1918
The diminishing returns of productivity culture (2021)
This is the midweek edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.
1919
The Church FAQ
A few years ago, we bought a church building. Since then, every time I mention it online and/or on social media, someone always responds, “wait, you bought a church, what” and then asks…
1920
Can you see three trees?
There's a simple three-part test for whether your city has enough nature. Most fall short.