571
Where did all the starships go?
In this Weekly Chart, we look for sci-fi books and their changing titles.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 1,045 posts.
572
How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood
The economics behind where movies are filmed, why Hollywood left Los Angeles, and whether audiences can tell the difference.
573
Court Filings: ICE App Identifies Protesters; Global Entry, PreCheck Get Revoked
ICE is using a smartphone app called “Mobile Fortify” to scan faces and capture contactless fingerprints, instantly pulling back names and biographical data — and court filings say the same encounters are being followed by revocations of Global Entry and TSA PreCheck. That turns “trusted traveler” into chilling of…
574
We see something that works, and then we understand it
“We see something that works, and then we understand it.” (Thomas Dullien) It is a deeper insight than it seems. Young people spend years in school learning the reverse: understanding happens before progress. That is the linear theory of innovation. So Isaac Newton comes up with his three laws of mechanics, and we get…
575
Nowhere is safe
Drones in Ukraine and in the War with Iran have made the surface of the earth a contested space. The U.S. has discovered that 1) air superiority and missile defense systems (THAAD, Patriot batterie…
576
Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
Why the poorest people in the world spend fortunes burying their dead
577
Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees
The Mondrian Trust claims a 1930 painting is still protected—citing "dual copyrights," Spanish law, and a misreading of the Copyright Act.
578
Dulce et Decorum Est (1921)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And…
579
We want Texans to know their rights
Last May, EFF reported that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. ALPRs are promoted as tools for keeping communities safe by finding missing persons and locating...
580
The people holding up the internet
Four billion phones ask one text file what time it is, kept by a UCLA lecturer in his spare time. We counted who maintains the code under your phone.
581
The classifiers Anthropic puts in front of Fable are too zealous
COMBINE-lab develops algorithms, data structures, and software for high-throughput genomics.
582
AI children's books, body horror edition
Last week, I posted a visual demonstration of the sameness of AI-generated content.
583
72% of the dollar's purchasing power was destroyed in just four episodes
The US dollar lost 96.9% of its value since 1914. Four inflationary episodes spanning 29% of the time caused 72% of the destruction. Monthly dataset, 1,357 obs.
584
The first 40 months of the AI era
A personal blog, by a programmer and IT expert. Essays, Articles, Guides, and Recipes. As well as Code, Quotes, and Links.
585
Dear people who work at the airport
I would like you to know that we passengers are trying our best. To you, this place makes sense -- you come here every day. You speak the lingo. You kno...
586
LLM Usage in Debian: Three Proposals
This proposal aims to expressly forbid any contributions to Debian written with the use or assistance of large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI tools.
587
LibreOffice and the art of overreacting
A donation banner is not an attack to users The announcement that LibreOffice 26.8 will feature a donation banner in the Start Centre has prompted a flood of responses, ranging from positive from many FOSS supporters, who understand the need for funding, to mild apprehension to extreme alarm from others. Some articles…
588
The Gentle Seduction (1989)
He worked with computers; she worked with trees, and the flowers that took hold on the sides of the Mountain.
589
The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced
In a time before crypto, Twitter, and AI slop, we had communities, real experiences, and beautiful TV…
590
591
Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling
A three-month national investigation by Beyond Plastics found that not a single tracked Starbucks cold-beverage cup ended up at a recycling facility — even when the cups were placed in clearly marked recycling bins inside Starbucks stores.
592
LLMs Are Complicated Now
Back in 2022 and 2023 there were two big branches of machine learning happening at Meta1. The LLM work that led to Llama was a clean, smooth stack of repeated Transformer modules; the recommendatio…
593
Is this the new cyber normal?
A week of cyber incidents one after another – is this what every week is going to look like and what can we do about it?
594
Anti-AI fonts are useless and harmful
Trying to obfuscate the web is a bad, pointless idea
595
If we do not stop to help each other, what do we become?
Yesterday, I received this email as a response to You Can't Vibe Code Love. It's such a remarkable and powerful statement that I asked permission to share it here, in its entirety, with personal information redacted: Hey Jeff, Hope you and your family are doing well. Just jogging
596
Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M
The Town of Atherton's lawsuit against Caltrain electrification is the clearest case study we have of how a tiny, wealthy minority can hijack a…
597
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599
The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You
A fabulously gay blind Romance author.
600
The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years (2011)
will go to Bletchly Park Trust if Keith wins, or The Internet Archive if Haughey wins.