751
Of Course It's a Coup
Miss the obvious, lose your republic
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 992 posts.
752
The Icelandic Voting System (2024)
It’s election season here in Iceland! The election is on Saturday, 30th of November, so next Saturday from when this is written. Every time elections are upcoming, somebody inevitably asks me how the voting system here works, probably expecting a simple answer. So, here’s a stab at it. Iceland uses a biproportional…
753
The Unsustainability of Moore's Law
Roughly every two years, the density of transistors that can be fit onto a silicon chip doubles.
754
Overconsumption is a spiritual problem
Overconsumption is a spiritual problem, not a money problem. Lessons about desire from "Spirited Away".
755
Paperbacks and TikTok
In 1939, Simon & Schuster revolutionized the American publishing industry with the launch of Pocket Books, a line of diminutive volumes (measuring 4 by 6 ... Read more
756
We need more optimistic science fiction
We cannot create a better world if we cannot imagine it.
757
Hate Radio (2011)
Anti-Tutsi articles and graphic cartoons began appearing in the Kangura newspaper from around 1990. In June 1993 a new radio station called Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC) began broadcasting in Rwanda…
758
Requiem for a Solar Plant
"...requiring reconductoring of 1.71 miles at a cost of $795,150...limiting output to 3MW..."
759
Standard Ebooks Public Domain Day 2025 in Literature
Read about the new ebooks Standard Ebooks is releasing for Public Domain Day 2025!
760
Signal Carnival
At Revision 2025, we released "Signal Carnival" ( csdb , YouTube ). This demo asks you to switch the audio and video cable of your C64:
761
Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance
From The world is entering an era where identity is no longer a matter of personal relationships, lived experience, or even paperwork. Increasingly, it is reduced to biometric scans, algorithmic ve…
762
A Comment on Mozilla's Policy Changes
A short commentary on Mozilla's policy changes and how they affect the user community.
763
LLMs tell bad jokes because they avoid surprises
LLMs suck at comedy, art, journalism, research, and science for the same fundamental reason
764
Universities should be more than toll gates
Personal writing by Walid Dib, and a collection of games, apps, and companies I’ve built.
765
The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
Ben Lindbergh at the Ringer asks “When did jerk stop meaning ‘stupid’?” He starts with the Steve Martin movie The Jerk , saying of its protagonist:
766
A few words about FiveThirtyEight
Silver Bulletin will begin publishing some new features soon — including Trump approval ratings. But the media just lost an extremely valuable resource.
767
Don't Be Frupid
Frupidity is stupid frugality that wrecks engineering teams. Misguided cost-cutting kills productivity, morale, and innovation. You can fight it.
768
US Congress is making more than 250M acres of public lands available for sale
The Senate reconciliation package is a disturbing giveaway that will mandate the “disposal” of public lands across the western United States.
769
Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data
If you’re fed up with Meta right now, you’re not alone. Meta tracks you across millions of websites and apps and its business model relies on your data. If you want to limit Meta’s ability to collect and profit from your personal data, here’s what you need to know.
770
A media company demanded a license fee for an Open Graph image I used
A media company demanded a license fee for an Open Graph image used on my twitter archive. I gave in and paid it, but what does that mean for open graph images and copyright?
771
Benjamin Button Reviews macOS
Benjamin Button Reviews macOS | exotext
772
Rising young worker despair in the United States
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.
773
US Passport Power Falls to Historic Low
For the first time since the Henley Passport Index was created 20 years ago, the United States is no longer ranked amongst the world’s Top 10 most powerful passports.
774
Is Germany on the brink of banning ad blockers?
Across the internet, users rely on browsers and extensions to shape how they experience the web: to protect their privacy, improve accessibility, block harmful or intrusive content, and take control ...
775
A Word on Omarchy
An in-depth look at the currently trending Arch Linux configuration that is Omarchy.
776
Why Does Claude Speak Byzantine Music Notation?
A Caesar cipher is a reasonable transformation for a transformer to learn in its weights, given that a specific cipher offset occurs often enough in its training data. There will be some hidden representation of the input tokens' spelling, and this representation could be used to shift letters onto other letters in…
777
Remembering Alasdair MacIntyre
What I do know is this. I have never met, nor do I ever expect to meet, a philosopher as fascinating as Alasdair MacIntyre.
778
Brennan Center for Justice Report: The Campaign to Undermine the Next Election
The executive branch is interfering in U.S. elections in unprecedented ways.
779
A new database on police use of force and misconduct in California
UC Berkeley Journalism offers a two-year Master of Journalism (MJ) degree and a summer minor, preparing students for careers in journalism.
780
Losing a 5-year-long Illinois FOIA lawsuit for database schemas
Thomas Ptacek, a friend and expert witness in this lawsuit summed it up best in the court's hallway while walking within three feet of opposing counsel: "This is fucking stupid" .