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Glyphosate in Organic Hydroponic Food Production
The National Organic Program (NOP) is now allowing the cancer-causing herbicide, glyphosate, in “organic” hydroponic production.
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 742 posts.
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Glymphatic system clears toxins in the brain during sleep (2013)
In findings that give fresh meaning to the old adage that a good night’s sleep clears the mind, a new study shows that a recently discovered system that flushes waste from the brain is primarily active during sleep. This revelation could transform scientists’ understanding of the biological purpose of sleep and point…
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The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
The zero-sum bias occurs when people mistakenly expect gains and losses to be directly balanced in a situation where they’re not, especially in terms of one party benefiting directly at the expense of others. For example, the zero-sum bias can cause someone to think that a resource they’re interested in is limited…
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How much does air pollution cost the U.S.?
Damages from air pollution have fallen dramatically in the U.S. in recent years, shows new research. But how different sectors of the economy have contributed to that decline is highly uneven.
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Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
Those who are familiar with Frank Herbert's famous novel Dune will notice his analogy for the spice, and the surrounding struggle for it, with the crude oil of the Middle East. The novel is symbolic about the dependence of the West on the oil, and the power struggles to control this valuable resource.
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California Blocks Police Body Cam Use of Face Recognition
The state of California just made it clear: Face recognition surveillance isn’t inevitable. We can — and should — protect our communities from this dystopian technology.
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Aztec Political Thought (2013)
(A footnote on Inga Clendinnen’s extraordinary “ Aztecs: An Interpretation .” If there’s a better book on the Aztecs than this, I want to r...
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The case for banning ads in social media
Social media has been at the center of a number of firestorms around everything from being intentionally addicting, to making people depressed, to gleefully spreading misinformation and destabilizing democracies around the world. While almost everyone can agree that something must be done, there’s not a lot of…
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We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back
Xoilac 365 là nền tảng bóng đá trực tuyến chuyên sâu, Xôi Lạc TV mang đến hệ sinh thái nội dung đa dạng, giúp người hâm mộ cập nhật nhanh và theo dõi trọn vẹn nhịp đập sân cỏ.
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Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? (2016)
Algebra is no longer being taught to San Francisco eighth graders. Is the tech capital of the world dumbing down its STEM education?
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How Badly Is Google Books Search Broken, and Why?
I periodically write about Google Books here, so I thought I'd point out something that I've noticed recently that should be concerning to a...
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The Relationship Between Profanity and Honesty (2017)
There are two conflicting perspectives regarding the relationship between profanity and dishonesty. These two forms of norm-violating behavior share common causes, and are often considered to be positively related. On the other hand, however, profanity is often used to express one’s genuine feelings, and could…
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International Repair Day
International Repair Day is an annual celebration for everyone who makes repair happen in their communities around the world.
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Adversarial interoperability: reviving an old weapon to slay today's monopolies
Today, Apple is one of the largest, most profitable companies on Earth, but in the early 2000s, the company was fighting for its life. Microsoft's Windows operating system was ascendant, and Microsoft leveraged its dominance to ensure that every Windows user relied on its Microsoft Office suite (...
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Cake or death: AMP and the worrying power dynamics of the web
Web developer, standards and engineering nerd, cocktail enthusiast, maker.
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Google: Please Stop Telling Lies About Me
People who search for me in Google see a Google-generated box which incorrectly says that I am Israeli. Google has ignored my complaints about this; they dont seem to care about the accuracy of the…
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A Government Guide to Keeping Insulin Unaffordable
Through a nebulous network of bully tactics and insider dealings, government agencies and corporate campaign donors conspire to deny patients the benefits of market competition.
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Opioids and the Labor Market (2018)
This paper finds evidence that opioid availability decreases labor force participation while a large labor market shock does not influence the share of opioid abusers. We first identify the effect of availability on participation using the geographic variation in opioid prescription rates. We use a combination of the…
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Public's Dread of Nuclear Power Limits Its Deployment
In the ongoing effort to decarbonize U.S. energy production, one energy source often attracts great controversy.
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When zebra mussels colonized Lake Erie, it began to recover
There are many ways we can talk about the deeper roots of the crisis of our time, setting out from many different vantage points; as Charles Fort pointed out, one measures a circle, beginning anywh…
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Putting Victimhood Behind You
The primary goal of this site is to help people put victimhood behind them and craft a future of their choosing. "Living well is the best re...
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Metaphors We Believe By
In the past, gods and demons allowed us to talk about phenomena that we didn’t fully understand. During the Enlightenment, we tried to kill them and explain everything in reductionist scientific terms. But it feels to me like we’ve come full circle. We’re back to using oversimplified metaphors to wrap our minds around…
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We Never Paid for Journalism
In 2006 at around 4 am, a man appears at the door of a security booth in Downtown Los Angeles. He slowly opens the door, being careful not to be noticed. He grabs the key attached to a small crowbar h
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The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Thinker (1985)
Harry Truman was President and Sputnik was a word that only Russian language experts knew when Doug Engelbart first thought about displaying words and images on radar screens, storing them in computers, and manipulating them with levers and buttons and keyboards. For over thirty years, Engelbart has been trying to…