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Why Open Offices?
If one person is wrong, they’re wrong. If a lot of people, some of whom got extremely rich off of their wrong ideas, are wrong, there’s a good possibility I’m the wrong one. At …
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 580 posts.
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Turn Out the Lights, the Party’s Over
What party, you ask? The one with the mosh pit at LaSalle and Jackson in Chicago. The one held in the building that’s in the background image of this page.
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German court rules in favor of the Wikimedia Foundation
We are happy to announce that the court of Munich has ruled in favor of the Wikimedia Foundation in Dr. Evelyn Schels v. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..
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EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)
Since late 2004, EFF has been warning the public about "printer dots" -- tiny yellow dots that appear on documents produced by many color laser printers and copiers. These yellow dots form a coded pattern on every page the printer produces and can be used to identify specific details about a...
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A Little Bit of the Manuals
Of the barrage of advice the world was prepared to give me from the vantage point of the Internet, one unique bit of advice came from a long-time collector and rescuer of older computer documentati…
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Reassessing Airport Security
News that the Transportation Security Administration missed a whopping 95% of guns and bombs in recent airport security “red team” tests was justifiably shocking. It’s clear that we’re not getting value for the $7 billion we’re paying the TSA annually. But there’s another conclusion, inescapable and disturbing to…
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Why 18th century books looked like smartphone screens (2014)
A weblog about politics, technology, and culture
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The Essence of Peopling
Nouns for human beings - "people" or "person" - conjure in the mind a snapshot of the surface appearance of humans. Using nouns like "people" subtly encourages…
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Windows 10 to be a recommended update in early 2016
Windows 10 has been a great journey so far. Following the plan we originally outlined in June, more than 110M devices have upgraded. If you’re already running Windows 10 – thank you! Our aspiration is for customers to choose Windows, and to love Windows. Our early data shows customers from France to Brazil to China
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Data is at the heart of search, but who has access to it?
In my February 23 blog post, I gave a brief overview of how search engines have evolved over the years and how today’s search engines learn from past searches to anticipate which results will be mo…
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How MTV's “16 and Pregnant” May Have Reduced Teen Pregnancy
Apparently MTV broadcasts a show called "16 and Pregnant," in which each show tracks a pregnant teen-ager through the final months of pregna...
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Police Must Respect the Right of Citizens to Record Them
“I’m asking all the citizens of North Charleston to continue taping.” That is what Councilwoman Dorothy Williams said in response to the shooting death of Walter Scott. She and others recognize that the story would have been very different without the video showing that a white police officer shot...
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Is Social Rejection the Key to Creativity?
On the psychology of why rejection and loneliness may be necessary evils for the creative genius
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They Took Our Myths
Back to: A product review, and some musing | Forward to: What's The Best Medium For A Storyteller In 2015 And Beyond?
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The Tomb of Queen Esther in Persia
“How much is the taxi to Khomeini Square?” “ Gheymati nadore, it does not cost anything”, the old taxi driver spreads his arms...
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Why Dole owns container ships
Dole operates the largest refrigerated fleet, or reeferships, in the world. Here's why it makes sense for a major importer to operate its own ships.
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Why Mitch McConnell Cannot Be Allowed to Decide the Fate of the Patriot Act
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear this week that, while the Senate is rapidly approaching recess, the Senate “will stay in [session] until a deal is struck to extend” the Patriot Act. McConnell has also introduced legislation for both long-term and short-term reauthorization...
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A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
Dewars, safety rules, barware, and drinks: how to throw a liquid nitrogen cocktail party, in the spirit of Dave Arnold's Liquid Intelligence, without anybody losing an eye.
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California’s DNA Law Violates Privacy Protections Guaranteed by State
San Francisco—Californians who’ve merely been arrested and not charged, much less convicted of a crime, have a right to privacy when it comes to their genetic material, EFF said in an amicus brief filed Nov. 13 with the state’s highest court. EFF is urging the California Supreme Court to hold that...
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IA or AI?
I’ve been reading a paper [1] written two decades ago, which itself is an account of events two decades before that. It is Alan Kay nominally writing about the history of a programming langua…
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This is what a Tor Supporter looks like: Laura Poitras
The first thing that Laura Poitras has to say about Tor is that she couldn’t have made...