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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 8,148 posts.
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The great blogging collapse: What happened to 100 successful blogs?
A 4-year study of 100 successful blogs reveals how Google's updates and AI transformed blogging. See which sites survived and which disappeared.
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Is Apple checking images we view in the Finder?
Can it be true that Apple is sent information about every image we browse in the Finder? Analysis of Visual Look Up and Live Text and when it happens.
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You must read at least one book to ride
The first is going to sound bad in a culture where engineers are encouraged to apologize for existing while it is totally acceptable for a grifter that can't code to insist that they're a "thought leader". It is that, in my immediate professional environment, I am consistently acknowledged to be one of the best…
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The demo scene is dying, but that's alright
The demo scene was recently proclaimed a UNESCO Living Cultural Heritage in Sweden, following several other European nations. As a scener, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. It's amusing on some level, there's maybe even a bit of pride involved, but also fear that it might bring unwanted attention to a Good…
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Why NSA Surveillance Scares Me
Nothing To Hide explains why you should care about surveillance even though you have nothing to hide. But it missed the point that most con...
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Freenode IRC operators now engaging in routine abuses of power
There have been several allegations of this since the handover of the Freenode infrastructure to its new custodians, but I can now provide a first-hand account of one incident — because I am the victim of it.
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Why 451?
Today, the IESG approved publication of “An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles”. It’ll be an RFC after some work by the RFC Editor and a few more process bits, but effectively you can start using it now.
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Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses
Why being popular is not the goal of most small businesses
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Do high interest rates fix high inflation?
Published: June 2023 In prior articles and newsletters, I’ve explored the causes of consumer price inflation over time. In short, the rate of consumer price inflation in an economy comes from a combination of 1) money supply growth and 2) significant changes in productivity and/or resource abundance. -Periods of fast…
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My Experiences as a Female Software Engineer
Jean Hsu - Fractional VP Engineering | Engineering Leadership for Startups
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Banning open weight models would be a disaster
My comments on the NTIA AI Open Model Weights RFC
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Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to include giant mech suits
A friend recently asked how to get started watching Gundam, and as I tripped all over myself, equal parts excitement and not wanting to sound like a
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Stop the Medicare “Advantage” Scam Before Medicare Is Dead
At the very least, let’s stop the egregiously deceptive advertising. Only Medicare should be able to call itself “Medicare.”
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Against software development
Just so, generic code is replaced by its concrete instances, which are faster and easier to comprehend (at first).
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My ranking of every Shakespeare play
A few years ago I set out on a personal journey to study and watch a performance of each of Shakespeare’s 37 plays. I’ve reached my goal and, though it’s not a usual topic around here, I wanted to get my thoughts down while fresh. I absolutely loved some of these plays and performances, and so I’d like to highlight…
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A Traditional City Primer
The Traditional City simply refers to the pattern of development that human civilization has built in for millenia.
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Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?
Note: I wrote this post on Thursday, and then Friday night, news dropped that the US DOJ is preparing an antitrust investigation against Google. Wow-ee. So, this post may either look better and/or …
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My love-hate affair with technology
Ten years ago I would have considered myself someone who was excited about new technology. I always had the latest smartphone, I would read the reviews of new…
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The Textbook Industry & Greed: My Story
Written in college after watching textbook salesmen work the faculty hallway: how custom editions and access codes squeeze students, and why it keeps getting worse.
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Yogababble
Malcolm Gladwell writes about a fascinating episode in history. Neville Chamberlain’s first plane ride was a trip to meet Adolf Hitler. The British Prime Minister was taken by Hitler’s charisma. He believed the German leader when he promised not to invade Czechoslovakia. After his triumphant return from Germany…
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Walkability a key factor determining upward mobility of a city's residents
Bipartisan Alliance, a Society for the Study of the US Constitution, and of Human Nature, where Republicans and Democrats meet.
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Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator, Only One Month Late
In 1987, Apple released this concept video for Knowledge Navigator, a voice-based assistant combined with a touchscreen tablet computer. Based on the dates mentioned in the Knowledge Navigator video, it takes place on September 16, 2011. The date on the professor’s calendar is September 16, and he’s looking for a 2006…