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How the Sears Catalog Undermined White Supremacy in the Jim Crow South
Sears has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to close hundreds of stores in an effort to keep the company afloat. The Sears catalog is perhaps one of the
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 597 posts.
542
A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality
Data from a variety of sources contribute to a broad picture of strong growth and shared prosperity during the early postwar period, followed by slower growth and greater inequality since the 1970s. Within these broad trends, however, different data tell slightly different parts of the story, and no single data source…
543
An effort to bring computer science to all US high schools
Amazon employees accelerate effort to bring computer science to all U.S. high schools.
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Taking on a Patent Troll: Caveat Troglodytarum
This is the definitive guide to video encoding. Learn everything you need to know about encoding, transcoding, compression & video codecs all in one place.
546
Ursula K. Le Guin on “Spare Time”
In praise of the mundane, unquantifiable, impractical activities that feed creative work and fill life with meaning.
547
The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.
548
The Major Urban Revolution of Minor Transportation Means
Electric bikes and scooters have enormous advantages for short urban trips. How will they change our cities? When Elisha Otis introduced the safety elevator in 1852, he never imagined skyscrapers.
549
A Few Thoughts on Ray Ozzie’s “Clear” Proposal
Yesterday I happened upon a Wired piece by Steven Levy that covers Ray Ozzie’s proposal for “CLEAR”. I’m quoted at the end of the piece (saying nothing much), so I knew the piece was coming. …
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Jean Bourgain
I have just learned that Jean Bourgain passed away last week in Belgium, aged 64, after a prolonged battle with cancer. He and Eli Stein were the two mathematicians who most influenced my early ca…
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The “Facebook Nevers”
The fall of Facebook has nothing to do with people quitting the service…
555
The Erdős paradox: When a mathematical number and Wikipedia collide
An interview with the author of a recent Medium piece on mathematician Paul Erdős, the mathematical degree of separation that his collaborations inspired, and Wikipedia’s gender gap.
556
Update: The agenda-driven edits of Philip Cross and Wikipedia's response
A look at a Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign to discredit anti-war campaigners and journalists
557
Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are rapidly expanding as a poverty-reduction strategy around the world. Following the publication of positive findings…
558
There was a time when search engines were a thing, and it seems they still are
There was a time when search engines were a thing. And it seems they still are
559
Robert and Virginia Heinlein's Colorado Springs House
Socolive là địa chỉ được nhiều người hâm mộ bóng đá tìm đến khi muốn cập nhật và theo dõi trực tiếp bóng đá trên nền tảng trực tuyến. Nội dung tại Socolive được xây dựng xoay quanh nhiều giải đấu và cuộc đối đầu đáng chú ý, giúp người xem dễ dàng tìm thấy trận đấu đang được quan tâm. Cách phân loại thông tin theo từng…
560
Myth Busting Banksy
The recent incident around Banksy embedding a shredder into the frame of his Girl With A Balloon has caught the world’s attention. As a nerd obsessed with the intersection of art and tech, I too was sucked in over the weekend in trying to unravel the mysteries behind Banksy’s self-shredding paint
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The End of the Ad-Supported Web
What if we got the business model of the web wrong?
563
The Chamber of Guf
[I briefly had a different piece up tonight discussing a conference, but the organizers asked me to hold off on writing about it until they’ve put up their own synopsis. It will be back up ev…
564
On journeys (2015)
- 1 - Poland is an ancient country whose history is deeply intertwined with that of the western civilization. In its glory days, the Po...
565
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution (2015)
How muggles and sociopaths invade and undermine creative subcultures; and how to stop them.
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Emails suggest reviews from the Wirecutter are “pay to play” (2014)
Does the Wirecutter offers unbiased real reviews? Not even close. This story is about a little company taking on a fake review site owned by the NY Times.
567
The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher (1991)
Before reading, please set your irony detector to the on position. If you find yourself inclined to dismiss the below as paranoid, you should know that the design behind the current American school system is very well-documented historically, in published writings of dizzying cynicism by such well-known figures as…
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The Wisdom And/or Madness of Crowds
an interactive guide to human networks
569
The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant (2005)
An allegory against complacency about aging and death.
570
The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories (2014)
I. “Silliest internet atheist argument” is a hotly contested title, but I have a special place in my heart for the people who occasionally try to prove Biblical fallibility by pointing …