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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,065 posts.
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Black currants were banned in the USA (2017)
Do you know what got black currants banned? They nearly destroyed a huge part of American forests. Find out how this healthy berry became a threat.
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What I believe II
Unrelated Update: To everyone who keeps asking me about the “new” P≠NP proof: I’d again bet $200,000 that the paper won’t stand, except that the last time I tried that, it d…
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You Are in a Box
your data is trapped inside the box that is your program. you can only see what the program author exposes.
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SFPD obtained live access to business camera network in anticipation of protest
New documents EFF received through public records requests have revealed that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) received live access to the hundreds of surveillance cameras that comprise the Union Square Business Improvement District’s (USBID) camera network in anticipation of potential...
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Looking Back on the Spanish War (1942)
As an independent charity, we rely on the generosity of donors, Friends and Patrons to maintain these free resources. I First of all the physical memories, the sound, the smells and the surfaces of things. It is curious that more vividly than anything that came afterwards in the Spanish war I remember the week of…
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Are Rotisserie Chickens a Bargain?
Rotisserie chickens are delicious, ready-to-eat, and don't cost any more than an uncooked chicken. Is that combination too good to be true?
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Beijing’s Three Options: Unemployment, Debt, or Wealth Transfers
China’s debt problems have emerged so much more rapidly and severely this year than in the past that a growing number of analysts believe that this may be the year that China’s economy breaks. There is no question that China will have a difficult adjustment, but it is likely to take the form of a long process rather…
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Vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 detected in London, UK
News originally published on the Global Polio Eradication Initiative website. The Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN) has confirmed the isolation of type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV2) from environmental samples in London, United Kingdom (UK), which were detected as part of ongoing disease surveillance.
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What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation
It is hard not to be impressed — and perhaps a little alarmed — by the progression. In 1997, IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue beat the world’s greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov. It was a hugely ex…
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What the fuck happened to nerds
I've befriended some of the most thoughtful, brilliant, curious, eccentric, and sincere people I've ever met in the tech industry. Many of my dearest friends...
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Life After Language
In October 2013, I wrote a post arguing that computing was disrupting language and that this was the Mother of All Disruptions . My specific argument was that…
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“How Do TSA Employees Feel About Working For a Despised Agency?”
This one comes from Rod. “Would you know if the TSA higher-ups acknowledge the outcry against the agency and how they are attempting to handle said outcry? And are the screeners themselves aw…
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Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers. Oh My Alternative Internets Beyond HTTPS
Finger from 1971, Gopher from 1991, and Gemini from 2019. These protocols offer decentralized, terminal-based alternatives to the modern web. The small web…
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The Missing Protocol: Let Me Know
I want a new protocol, tentatively called “Let Me Know” (LMK). The purpose is to provide someone an anonymous way to get notified when a singular, specific event occurs. Here’s a basic use case: Some random blog author has published Parts 1 and 2 of a series. You enjoyed it, and you want to know…
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Drones that can plant 100k trees a day
Drones could fight deforestation by planting 1 billion trees a year.
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Stackoverflow Is A Difficult Community to Participate In
These are a few of the reasons why I have difficulty in participating in the StackOverflow community. I was once a very active user, but due to these reasons, and a few unstated, I am unable to participate in the community anymore. The Eternal September Issue. Many new users of StackOverflow...
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Apple Rejects the Hey Calendar from Their App Store
There should at least be a standard of double jeopardy when it comes to the app store monopoly regimes. If you’ve managed to overturn a rejection of your service once, they can’t come after you on the same service again later. We could have used that today! But unfortunately there is no rule of law with the app…
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Toward policy for open-source software as infrastructure
Open-source software (OSS) sits at the center of almost every digital technology moving the world since the early 1980s—laptops, cellphones, widespread internet connectivity, cloud computing, social media, automation, all the rainbow flavors of e-commerce, and even secure communications and anti-censorship tools.
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On Tolkien and Orwell
On first looking at J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and George Orwell (1903-1950) they appear to have little in common, as men or writers, other than being peculiarly English authors with evergreen book sales. The year 1937 was a seminal one for both men and useful for highlighting their different lifestyles, politics and…
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Here’s to the Misfits
The school I went to in England used to proudly display their famous alumni in black and white photos circling the theatre lobby. From John le Carré, to John Cleese, the list included notable actors, top politicians and accomplished actors. What the school didn't tell admiring visitors though, is
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The UK "Porn" Filter Blocks Kids' Access To Tech, Civil Liberties Websites
It fell to the UK Tories to actually implement the Nanny State. Too bad Nanny Tory does not want kinds to read up on tech web sites, or civi...
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Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures
Photos of the Los Angeles River