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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 992 posts.
An analysis of studies incorporating data from almost 30 million people has highlighted the role that air pollution – including that coming from car exhaust emissions – plays in increased risk of dementia.
We are losing something precious in the age of LLMs: our unique voices.
In a landmark ruling, a federal district court held that backdoor searches of databases full of Americans’ private communications collected under Section 702 ordinarily require a warrant. Congress should uphold its responsibility to protect civil rights and civil liberties by refusing to renew Section 702 absent a…
A differential diagnosis for the weird and the awkward
Cambridge researchers urge public health bodies like the NHS to provide trustworthy, research-driven alternatives to platforms driven by profit.
And why French is full of them
On July 30, 2025, the U.S. government issued an executive order titled “Termination of De Minimis Treatment for All Countries” regarding mail to the United States.
Because we believe that the world would be a better place if more businesses were driven by a meaningful cause instead of greed.
Average blood levels far exceed those considered to cause impairment.
Silent changes in payment methods on big creator funding platforms raise some unpleasant questions.
This is the second year I brought my Dad (a now-retired radio engineer and co-host of Geerling Engineering) to Open Sauce, a Bay Area maker faire-like event, dreamed up by William Osman and featuring hundreds of exhibits ranging from mad science, to vintage electronics, to games, to world-record-breaking Rubik's Cube…
It’s A Race Between Building Up and Burning Down
Also: World League Basketball
Record-high solar and wind bring the US to a clean power tipping point.
Caltrain announced at its monthly Board of Directors meeting that regenerative braking on the new trains is generating and sending back to the electric grid approximately 23% of the energy consumed by the system.
Why do people take screenshots of text?
This month we’ve ramped up the infrastructure behind the download server, and downloads should now be available earlier and faster. There’s also a small technical change in that requests for a “…latest” file will now be answered with a HTTP redirect to the specific latest version (see previous blog post).
The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) recommended MrBeast update advertising and data collection practices.
After building a software company to a multi-billion dollar exit, I made the jump to hardware. Now I’m working on carbon removal + steel at Charm Industrial , and electric long-haul trucking with Revoy . It’s epically fun to be building in the real world, but little did I expect that more than half the cost of…
The EU’s Chat Control law would scan private messages and weaken encryption. Sign Mozilla Foundation’s petition to defend privacy and protect our digital future.
For years, one of my businesses has been a regular user of Wise (formerly TransferWise). Wise is a financial service that lets you send and receive money across currencies, often at a better rate and lower fee than traditional banks. Sounds great, right?
You are the sum of your behaviors not your intentions
A series of foundation models for transparent AI in Europe
Taking inspiration from a rare mutation that makes people impervious to viral diseases, a Columbia researcher is developing a therapy that could bestow this superpower on the rest of us.
[This post is adapted from our forthcoming book, Preserving Government Information: Past, Present, and Future.] Today we want to clarify something important about preserving government information. There is a difference between the government changing a policy and the government erasing information, but the line…
UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of t
OR: Claude will you go to prom with me?
Bits of Freedom komt op voor internetvrijheid door de online grondrechten op communicatievrijheid en privacy te beschermen.
