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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 345 posts.
I read a fantastic article in Nature magazine (vol 459, pp931-939 (18 June 2009)) that summarizes not only the current state of novel H1N1 (aka Swine Flu) understanding, but also a compares H1N1 against other flu strains. In particular, it discusses in-depth how the pathogenic components — i.e., the stuff that kills…
We’re all used to having to identify ourselves as we enter a country. It is the only way we can hope to have any attempt at a secure border. But, so-called “exit controls,” wher…
Dear President Obama: We are more than willing to believe Russia was responsible for the hacked emails/records that influenced our electio...
The role of the modern librarian, and other things
For good and bad, technology has become a central force in all our lives. As members of the community, we're interested in ways in which tech companies can use their collective power to protect...
I am very sad to announce that ProTube was removed from the App Store by Apple on September 1, 2017. This comes after multiple requests and threats by YouTube which ultimately led Apple to suddenly pulling the app from the App Store. ProTube and many other 3rd party YouTube apps on the App Store have been targeted by…
Four years ago, I broke my comment section by declaring that Elon Musk’s Hyperloop proposal had no merit, combining technical criticism with expressions like “barf ride” and ̶…
YouTube partners are struggling to get their videos reinstated after false copyright claims. Where's the Fair Use?
Hacker News is one of the best sources for news in the intersection of technology and business. Hacker News gets nearly 1000 submissions on a busy weekday, and quite a bit less on the weekends:
The new Mayor of the city of Rome, Ignazio Marino, just announced his intention to destroy one of the city’s central roads, the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and turn the area around the old Roman Forum into the world’s largest archaeological park. Reactions have ranged from commuters’ groans to declarations from…
While the president of the United States and the leader of North Korea were/are currently beefing on Twitter about who should destroy the world first, North Korea was also causing me some personal frustration on data quality.
Question for Quote Investigator: I was looking through a collection of woefully inaccurate pronouncements delivered by experts, and I saw a remark attributed to Ken Olsen, a prominent computer industry pioneer who founded the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which built minicomputers. DEC was perfectly positioned…
A very, very long time ago, there was a star. It was much more massive than the star that lights our sky, around twenty times as massive. It was composed almost entirely of hydrogen, as was most of the universe when it was formed. Gravity collected its hydrogen together, and gravity compressed the hydrogen fuel at its…
“That Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE.” Imagine a space where you can bet on bear fights, warm your legs by th...
Famous Ted Chiang SF short story ‘Story Of Your Life’ is usually misinterpreted as, like the movie version 𝐴𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙, being about time-travel/precognition; I explain it is instead an exploration of xenopsychology and a psychology of timeless physics.
The internet does to the world what radio did to the world January 21, 2017 Ideas, Misc Over the holidays, I finally found the time to read Marshall McLuhan’s book “Understanding media” (I might have spent time with it during my studies but definitely didn’t pay too much attention back…
Introduction Did you know that piracy is about making money? Most people don’t seem to be aware of that. Piracy is about money. It’s serious business. It doesn’t have to be though…
personal ramblings, noone cares about
Facebook has long had too much power, but Mark Zuckerberg’s expressed willingness to use said power for political ends means it’s time to consider countermeasures.
18 Feb, 2017 Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto outlines his vision for a centralised global colony ruled by the Silicon Valley oligarchy. I say we must do the exact opposite and create a world with individual sovereignty and a healthy commons.
by Worst-Online-Dater
In the bird’s-eye view, one might have the comforting illusion that country borders are also language borders. Especially where the bor...
What follows is my personal perspective on an interesting dispute. Obviously, it is only my opinion of the situation and there are two sides to every story. I invite the other side to respond if they wish in the comments. I also made the decision to keep the other side anonymous after I first wrote
A brief analysis of gender distribution in visual representations of everyday life in North Korea using facial recognition algorithms and transfer learning applied to convolutional neural networks.
