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The death of corporate research labs
In American innovation through the ages , Jamie Powell wrote: who hasn’t finished a non-fiction book and thought “Gee, that could have bee...
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 913 posts.
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DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot
There’s a story in today’s Washington Post “Cybersecurity 202” newsletter that confirms that the Department of Justice is capitalizing on the techlash in order to build up congressional support for the DOJ’s long-desired goal of legislation that will restrict your freedom to encrypt your data and
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70% of surveyed Americans say they can't do their job without internet
Over 65% of the world's population is regularly on the internet, with China and India having the most internet users.
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Paper about Herbalife-related patient death removed after legal threats
A paper describing the death of a young woman trying to lose weight by consuming Herbalife® products has been withdrawn after the company threatened to sue the journal.
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Quarantine will normalize WFH and recession will denormalize full-time jobs
You know nothing John Snow
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SCOTUS rules you may sue government agents for damages when they violate rights
Arlington, Va.—In a unanimous opinion issued today by the U.S. Supreme Court, and authored by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court ruled in Tanzin v. […]
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Openstreetmap is having a moment
The Billion Dollar Dataset Next Door
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Privacy is the most important concept of our time
Privacy is more than the right of an individual to be left alone. It concerns the very fabric of society.
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Not an Amazon Problem
The NY Times profile quotes me saying “We don’t really have an Amazon problem. What we have is a deep, societal problem with an unacceptable imbalance of power and wealth.” But the URL contained the string “amazon-critic-tim-bray” and the HTML <title> says “Tim Bray Is Not Done With Amazon”. I feel like I’m being…
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MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions
Archived MIT Admissions blog post 'A special announcement about SAT Subject Tests,' published March 20, 2020. Preserved for historical context; not maintained as current admissions policy.
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I deleted my Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts, and felt great since
The problems with social media platforms in 'human' and 'data' terms. Deleting Facebook (Meta), WhatsApp, and Instagram will have a net positive effect.
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Sweden gives employees unpaid time off to be entrepreneurs (2019)
The world of work has entered a period of unprecedented change. In the era of AI and automation, workers have to stay flexible. In Sweden, that flexibility has been commonplace for 20 years. What could the rest of the world learn from it?
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I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action
Yesterday or so a new initiative I Love MDN was unveiled. People can show their appreciation for the MDN staff and volunteers by leaving a comment.
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RIAA Abuses DMCA to Take Down Popular Tool for Downloading Online Videos
"youtube-dl" is a popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms. GitHub recently took down youtube-dl’s code repository at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America, potentially stopping many thousands of users, and other...
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Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?
Pollution from tyre wear can be 1,000 times worse than what comes out of a car’s exhaust, Emissions Analytics has found.
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US Border Patrol says they can create central repository of traveler emails
The U.S. government has taken the opportunity during the global pandemic, when people aren't traveling out of the country much, to roll out a new platform for storing information they believe they are entitled to take from people crossing the border. A new filing reveals how the U.S. Border Patrol will store data from…
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Physical attractiveness bias in the legal system (2017)
[Download for PDF/printable version of this article] When I started looking into this subject, I predicted a person’s physical attractiveness would only have minor advantages. I was wrong. In fact, I was so wrong, that in one study, the effects of physical attractiveness on judges were so influ
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Mozilla’s Uncertain Future
Some thoughts on Mozilla for people who don’t know Mozilla.
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United States vs. Google
The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google is appropriately narrow, and if it fails it gives a template for Congressional action.
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Usenet – Let's Return to Public Spaces
Usenet was what the Web is missing nowadays: a genuinely public space, with unclear ownership
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How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy
How Germany Is Able To Run The World’s Second Largest Export Economy In The Post-Industrial Era “ The Germany Shock ” describes European growth & the efficiency-maximizing centralization of European manufacturing activity after the launch of the Single Market and the Euro . Two questi