211
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 248 posts.
212
Who Do You Believe, Randall Stross or Your Own Lying Eyes?
Regarding Randall Stross’s piece in The New York Times claiming the problem isn’t AT&T’s network, but rather the iPhone’s hardware.
213
214
How Depressions Work
On Capitol Hill sit many powerful people — Congressmen, Senators, Justices — but also numerous others who do the daily work of keeping government running. And, like anyone with such a weighty responsibility, they sometimes want a break: a chance to see a movie or eat out with their spouse.
215
Virtual Mafia in Online Worlds
If you allow players in an online world to penalize each other, you open the door to extortion: One of the features that supported user socialization in the game was the ability to declare that another user was a trusted friend. The feature involved a graphical display that showed the faces of users who had declared…
216
217
218
219
Daring Fireball's take on Apple's FCC response
A few choice bits.
220
221
Nathan Myhrvold’s Evil Genius
Last year I wrote that Intellectual Ventures is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of our flawed patent system. It’s a firm that literally does nothing useful, its only business is the acquisition and licensing of patents. Not only does it have no intention of commercializing the technologies it “invents,” its business…
222
223
224
Universities and Economic Growth
Value of $120,000 spent at Emerson College: I hired a summer intern, who had finished three years studying film and video production at Emerson College, to work with me on a series of videos for people learning to fly helicopters. He brought his own equipment to the first day of filming, including some "work lights"…
225
226
The U.S. Civil Rights Movement as an Insurgency
This is interesting: Most Americans fail to appreciate that the Civil Rights movement was about the overthrow of an entrenched political order in each of the Southern states, that the segregationists who controlled this order did not hesitate to employ violence (law enforcement, paramilitary, mob) to preserve it, and…
227
228
What really happened at Ma.gnolia and lessons learned [with video]
Larry (@lhalff) and I have been recording a podcast for the past year called Citizen Garden that covers various topics related to the web, technology, and social networking. Well, given Ma.gnolia&#…
229
230
231
232
233
234
Gruber's WWDC 2009 Predictions
What I know, don’t know, and know I don’t know about tomorrow’s WWDC announcements. As usual, please, no wagering.
235
236
237
Morality, Compassion and the Sociopath
Again, the response to the Gervais Principle II seems to require a response to key themes that have emerged. There are several that I am going to touch upon in…
238
239
Inside the Cafe at Facebook Headquarters
Black mission figs with Serrano ham. Tiny beef meatballs with pine nuts and sweet yellow peaches. Tender braised rabbit with moscatel, cinnamon, and fresh cherries. And rich chocolate roulade cake shot through with rum.
240