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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 305 posts.
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The problematic culture of “Worse is Better”
Our industry has been infected by a dangerous meme, and it’s one that hasn’t been given its proper scrutiny. Like many memes that explode in popularity, “Worse is Better” gave a name to an underlying fragment of culture or philosophy that had been incubating for some time. I point to C++ as one of the first instances…
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Everything that is wrong with American capitalism, in one headline
Here it is, in the LA Times: " Comcast, Charter reach $20-billion deal, would swap customers in L.A. " Cable companies Comcast Corp. ...
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Charles Stross YAPCA keynote: The world in 2034
This should be titled Keynote talk for YAPC::NA 2014 . What's up with the title?
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Hey Paypal, why do you need access to my microphone, camera and photos?
Who actually checks the permissions of applications they’re installing? A little while ago a Paypal update stalled because it required extra permissions. This is what happens if an app you have already installed wants more power. I was more than a little surprised with what I found.
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Coursera
I’m excited to be teaching Stanford Law’s first Coursera offering this fall, on government surveillance . In preparation, I’ve been extensively poking around the platform; while I found some snazzy features, I also stumbled across a few security and privacy issues.
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Using GameStop as a bank
An anonymous user of 4chan has come up with a brilliantly harebrained scheme for their personal banking. They use video game retailer GameStop as a bank. Here’s
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Cryptocontracts Will Turn Contract Law Into a Programming Language
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post with 10 things that amazed me about bitcoin (here). I just can’t stop thinking about the idea that I brought up in the final point of that post, specific…
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AAAS Blocking Access to the Scientific Literature When They Say It Is “Free”
A blog about microbiology, genomics and metagenomics, sequencing, evolution, ecology, and open science.
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Rat Park drug experiment cartoon
Comic about a classic experiment into drug addiction science: Rat Park. Would rats take drugs if given a stimulating environment and company?
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Entitlement issues (2009)
I am home. My dog is happy to see me. The world is a good place and I am behind on work because American Airlines doesn't have proper power ...
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M/S Estonia accident radio transcript
Transcript of VHF channel 16 on the night of the Estonia disaster.
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The resource leak bug of our civilization
A couple of months ago, Trixter of Hornet released a demo called "8088 Domination", which shows off real-time video and audio playback on t...
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Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’
We learned recently of the suicide of Stefan Grimm, a successful professor at the prestigious Imperial College in London. Professors Grimm regularly published highly cited articles in the best journals. He was highly productive. Unfortunately, some of his colleagues felt that he did not secure sufficiently large…
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Content, Forever
Got some time to kill and want to read a meandering essay by an algorithm with a short attention span? Tell us how many minutes you want to spend reading and a starting topic, and we'll whip something up.
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We Need Viable Search Engine Competition
Why Google's monopoly on search is a growing problem, from conflicts of interest to SEO manipulation, and why we desperately need a real competitor.
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AIs are now re-writing history
Dr Robert Smith is a technologist, complexity scientist, entrepreneur, writer and sought-after public speaker. He is an artificial intelligence (A.I.) expert and has worked with clients, companies and institutions across the private and public sectors. Having grown up in Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights…
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Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis
Recently there have been heated complaints that the culture of programming unfairly excludes some groups. They want to join the programming elite and get a spot at the startup trough. More power to…
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An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
In early 2014, I provided material support in what would end up turning around what was, in their own words, the US Army’s biggest case in a generation, and much to the dismay of the prosecution team that brought me in to assist them. In the process, it seems I also prevented what the evidence pointed to as an…
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95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
I’m seeing a lot of wrangling over the recent (15+ year) pause in global average warming…when did it start, is it a full pause, shouldn’t we be taking the longer view, etc.
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