181
Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case
Insofar as a political organization like Ofcom is even capable of admitting defeat, it did so in the 4chan enforcement today. In testimony before the Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Comm…
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 715 posts.
182
What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications
I wrote recently about what Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple are doing to your email: how four providers stopped being transport layers and turned into active intermediaries between brands and their customers, parsing, ranking, summarising, and increasingly answering on the recipient's behalf.
183
Has AI already killed self-help nonfiction books?
My head has been spinning after getting a spreadsheet roughly a week ago. Before we dive into my dirty laundry, let’s state the obvious: millions of people have a vague sense that AI is changing things. And LLMs sure are convenient for getting answers quickly. My team and I use Claude and other tools daily. […]
184
Annoying and alarming things about OpenCode
If you don’t know what OpenCode is, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever. The boot is made of TypeScript and the face is everything we have learned about security and systems software since the invention of the electronic computer in the 1940s. The creators describe it as an AI coding agent. As far as I can…
185
The dead Internet is not a theory anymore
Bots have taken over
186
An American Privacy Emergency
Scott’s foreword: Cynthia Dwork is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard, and a pioneer in the fields of differential privacy and algorithmic fairness. On my recent travels to…
187
The AI Race Just Got Awkward
Funny how quiet everyone got.
188
The Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything” is deceiving
Did you realize the film was actually manipulating you?
189
Slop Terrifies Me
What if this is as good as software is ever going to be? What if AI stops getting better and what if people stop caring?
190
The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows
Without permission, a marketing agency republished the entirety of John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows book, replacing its art with AI slop and adding new AI words. Their unauthorized site now ranks higher than the real one everywhere.
191
Will vibe coding end like the maker movement?
Is your vibe-coded app a Crapject or a Gift?
192
The best response to AI slop and online noise is from Robin Williams
There's a moment in the movie Good Will Hunting which perfectly summarizes all the problems with AI slop and online noise and infinite advice content. Sean (played by Robin Williams) is sitting next to Will (Matt Damon) on a bench in Boston Public Garden. I live here, so I know it well. The area
193
The changing goalposts of AGI and timelines
Based on its own charter, OpenAI should surrender the race
194
When hardware goes end-of-life, companies need to open-source the software
Blog post by Marciano Planque: EOL
195
A lot of population numbers are fake
Do we have any idea how many people there are in the world?
196
I think the military commissary's freezers were hacked
The frozen pizza aisle has become the national security risk du jour
197
I know why the mathematicians weep
On technological grief
198
Let's call a murder a murder
Caitlin Callenson’s courage in the face of insane danger is just remarkable.
199
Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals
OR: the long overdue forest fire
200
2025 Letter
Corgis, compute, Cold War; Ecclesiastes; ties; Stendhal; humor; Pascal's Wager; deep infrastructure; Germanic obedience; Texas State Fair
201
Feds Target AI Critics as "Foreign Agents"
Trump admin sees China behind opposition to AI data centers
202
There are no "rogue" AI agents
Identifying them as such only lets companies like OpenAI off the hook.
203
Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?
A personal blog, by a programmer and IT expert. Essays, Articles, Guides, and Recipes. As well as Code, Quotes, and Links.
204
205
Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection
(And everyone knows it)
206
The other Sean Byrne doesn't exist
A fictitious Sean Byrne ended up on a U.S. government restricted-party list. Sixteen years later, Apple, Nasdaq and others have mistaken me for him.
207
The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
Last night, I was taken aback to discover that my name appears in the Epstein Files, in 26 different documents. This is despite the fact that I met Jeffrey Epstein a grand total of zero times, and …
208
AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You
Certainly the industry is transforming, however, the people and organizations falling into the trap of no longer reading and writing code only do so at their peril.
209
210
A4 Paper Stories
I sometimes resort to a rather common measuring technique that is neither fast, nor accurate, nor recommended by any standards body and yet it hasn't failed me whenever I have had to use it. I will describe it here, though calling it a technique might be overselling it. Please do not use it for installing kitchen…