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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 302 posts.
[Translations: Japanese] “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky I think this observation is brilliant. It reminds me of the clarity of the Peter Principle, which says that a person in … Continue reading →
Suggested Citation: Bai, H. (2018) Evidence that A Large Amount of Low Quality Responses on MTurk Can Be Detected with Repeated GPS Coordinates. Retrieved from: https://www.maxhuibai.com/blog/evidence-that-responses-from-repeating-gps-are-random
Observations on Frank Herbert’s 𝐷𝑢𝑛𝑒 series—the notes are probably overstated, the Butlerian Jihad was 𝑛𝑜𝑡 a robot uprising seeking to exterminate humanity, and precognition/prescience in the Dune universe appears to work backwards allowing for retro-causality and stable time-loops as exemplified by Leto II’s Golden…
If someone is worse at their job than a drunk person with Google, why do they still have their job?
Apple’s case before the Supreme Court is about standing; Apple has a strong case. That, though, doesn’t mean the App Store isn’t a monopoly — and that Apple isn’t increasing…
Improving artificial intelligence research with scientific testing, design practice, and meta-rational choice of methods and criteria
I’ve sent a message to my family and delegated my open source projects to my friends. With my last tweet sent, I turn off my laptop, phone, and tablet. My Digital Sabbath begins in 10 minutes: no digital devices for the next month.
This page is part of the "e-mail archives" section of a site, Plato and his dialogues , dedicated to developing a new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. The "e-mail archives" section includes HTML edited versions of posts that I submitted on various e-mail discussion lists about Plato and ancient philosophy. Note: I…
In 2008, Paul Graham wrote How To Disagree Better, ranking arguments on a scale from name-calling to explicitly refuting the other person’s central point. And that’s why, ever since 200…
Update, 3/6/21: 2.5 years after they gave me a wild ride with admin access to their forums, Tesla announced that they will be killing off the Tesla
Like a lot of people, I was intrigued by “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration”, an anonymous New York Times op-ed written by a “senior official in the Trump administration”. And like many data scientists, I was curious about what role text mining could play.
Meet the Name Fad. In 30 years, the names Natalie, Chelsea, Samantha, and Lindsay will sound how Nancy, Cheryl, Susan, and Linda do today. And in 60 years, the names Ethan, Cody, Brandon, and Matthew will be Earl, Chester, Bernard, and Melvin.
Why every purchase is a performance “I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.” — Thomas Cooley About a month ago, I published what has become my mo…
What if we could build secure systems that didn't depend on central servers or even Internet access to let people collaborate? What would a system like this mean for political organizing, disaster relief, or even civic infrastructure? The Briar app and the Bramble framework are an attempt to find out.
We have a new vehicle, a Honda Odyssey Elite customised for my wheelchair, and for me to drive with hand controls.
The transparency movement has finally come of age. Power has shifted to the users. Their trust has to be earned in different ways now.
Part I of this is here , if you haven’t read it yet please do so before reading this installment, it will help to establish context.
There are a lot of idiots around — just look at the front benches of the House of Commons. But why do the idiots reach such elevated positions? Many onlookers feel sure that the successors to David…
This blog post distills the key findings of our longitudinal analysis of how Europe’s right to be forgotten (RTBF) is being applied in practice.
As a software engineer, changing jobs is a way of life. Every day, beautiful recruiters from top tech companies reach out to you on…
Recently, a Facebook dataset was released consisting of the complete set of users from the Facebook networks at 100 American institutions, and all of the in-network “friendship” links between those…
Set up WeChat Pay and AliPay as a foreigner in China: linking a foreign card, loading and transferring RMB, and paying by QR code without cash.
