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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist"
The US government has classified the Italian collective Autistici/Inventati as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," citing the collective's "far-left" politics.
William Gibson and the trademarking of cyberspace
Autodesk did trademark cyberspace, and William Gibson did get mad. But the story that Gibson retaliated by trademarking Eric Gullichsen was a prank by Timothy Leary.
What I'm Telling US Congress about Data Breaches
Last week I wrote about my upcoming congressional testimony [https://www.troyhunt.com/im-testifying-in-front-of-congress-in-washington-dc-about-data-breaches-what-should-i-say/] and wow - you guys are awesome! Seriously, the feedback there was absolutely sensational and it's helped shape what I'll
The bee that everyone wants to save
My neighbour has 50 hives, the road has 30 more. That's 4 million honeybees, and not one of them is the bee that actually needs saving.
We can do better than “same, but electric”
We've been making compromises to the limits of fossil fuels for so long that we've forgotten they're compromises.
Netflix's New Chapter
Netflix waited out Blockbuster with better economics, and it’s seeking to do the same with its competitors today; the key to the company’s differentiation, though, is increasingly creat…
Mastodon is big in Japan, and the reason why is uncomfortable
Mastodon is big in Japan. The reason why is… uncomfortable Remember Mastodon? In April 2017, there was a wave of excitement about Mastodon, a federated social network begun in October 2016 by Eugen …
What you may have heard about the dispute between UC and Elsevier
The UC Negotiating Team Ivy Anderson, (Co-Chair), Associate Executive Director of the California Digital Library; Jeffrey MacKie-Mason (Co-Chair), University Librarian and Professor, School of Information and Professor of Economics, UC Berkeley; Günter Waibel, Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director of the…
A Solarpunk Manifesto
Solarpunk, Permaculture, Sociocracy
Four strange places to see London's Roman Wall
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Go to Prison for File Sharing? That's What Hollywood Wants in the TPP Deal
The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) poses massive threats to users in a dizzying number of ways. It will force other TPP signatories to accept the United States' excessive copyright terms of a minimum of life of the author plus 70 years, while locking the US to the same lengths so it will...
Fields medalist Tim Gowers: Elsevier — my part in its downfall
The Dutch publisher Elsevier publishes many of the world’s best known mathematics journals, including Advances in Mathematics, Comptes Rendus, Discrete Mathematics, The European Journal of Co…
The World Health Organization calls for the decriminalisation of drug use
Transform Drug Policy Foundation is an independent charity working towards a safer system of legal regulation for all drugs. When we legalise and regulate drugs that are currently illegal we can take the power away from organised crime and establish safety controls.
Amnesty International: Encryption Is a Human Rights Issue
New Report Analyzes How Crypto Backdoors, Interference with Crypto, and Compelled Disclosure of Encryption Keys All Impact Free Expression and Privacy Defending encryption is a human rights issue, according to a new Amnesty International report. The report calls on nation-states to promote the use...
TikTok’s Poison Pill
Just a few months ago, it seemed that the biggest social media news of the year would be Elon Musk’s flirtations with buying Twitter (see, ... Read more
Why I didn’t sign the Fields medallists’ letter
[This post has been cross-posted to Terence Tao’s blog.] When I was around 11 I heard for the first time about Fermat’s Last Theorem. I was immediately captivated by the problem stateme…
Why I am pro-GPL
Last night at OSCON I attended the lightning talks (here called "Ignite Talks"). Most of them were pretty good (I especially loved Emily Dunham's "First Impressions (the value of the 'noob')" talk), but the last talk of the night was titled "Why I don’t use the GPL" by Shane Curcuru, "VP of Brand Management at the…
Chomsky on what ChatGPT is good for (2023)
The Noam Chomsky Website.
Omni Group Layoffs
Omni’s been around for almost 30 years, and I hope it’s around for another 30. It’s one of the great Mac and iOS shops — they will sing songs about Omni, at maximum volume, in the great halls.
Calling for Antitrust Reform
Mozilla supports the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA). The time for change is now. It’s time for governments to address the reality
Publicity Stunt Fallout
Update (Dec. 6): I’m having a blast at the Workshop on Spacetime and Quantum Information at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. I’m learning a huge amount from the talks and …
Jokes and Humour in the Public Android API
Previously I have covered a relatively obscure now-removed placeholder string in Android that doubles as an easter egg, the fictitious carrier by the name of El Telco Loco. But this time it is about methods and other parts of the publicly facing Android API that may generally be more humourous than they are useful…
Word gap: When money’s tight, parents talk less to kids
Tackling income inequality could boost low-income children's vocabulary, study suggests