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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
Unlike a lot of places in tech, my company, Set Studio/Piccalilli has no outside funding. Bootstrapped is what the LinkedIn people say, I think. It’s been a hard year this year. A very hard year. I think a naive person would blame it all on the seemingly industry-wide attitude of “AI can just do this […]
For the past three years, Dan Pashman of The Sporkful podcast has been on something of a mission: to invent a new pasta shape. All of Pashman’s hard work has pa
This isn’t a rant against AI. I use it daily, ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemini. They’re in my workflow like everyone else’s. But the tradecraft is slipping. Analysts are skipping the hard parts. They’re trusting GenAI to do the heavy cognitive lifting, and it’s changing how we operate at a foundational level.
Blog for DoltHub, a website hosting databases made with Dolt, an open-source version-controlled SQL database with Git-like semantics.
I wrote last month about my diabetes diagnosis this year and my difficult choice to wear a proprietary device (called a CGM) on my arm 24/7 to continuously monitor my glucose levels. Like my friend and colleague, Karen M. Sandler — who previously made a much higher-stakes choice to receive a proprietary implanted…
What images were used to train Stable Diffusion's text-to-image AI model? I worked with Simon Willison to make a data browser to explore and search a sample of 12 million images.
A metascience post of sorts that argues we should take human capital more seriously
This legendary page from an internal IBM training in 1979 could not be more appropriate for our new age of AI. A computer can never be held accountable Therefore a …
Apple today announced a new 2025 target to use 100 percent recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries.
Over the past year and a half I've been spending more and more of my time working with Mozilla's latest project, Firefox OS. During that time I've fallen in love with the project and what it stands for, in ways that I've never experienced with a technology platform before.
In American innovation through the ages , Jamie Powell wrote: who hasn’t finished a non-fiction book and thought “Gee, that could have bee...
Agents can write code faster than we can absorb it. Here's why it still matters for humans to understand what they build — and some techniques for doing that efficiently: explainer docs, quizzes, micro-worlds, and shared spaces.
Workaholism or work addiction risk is a growing public health concern that can lead to many negative mental and physical health outcomes such as depression, anxiety or sleep disorder. Perception of work (job demands and job control) may become a major cause of employees’ work addiction. The international group of…
Edit: Oh! Hello, there, HN . For context, we're talking about elementary school here. More importantly, I'm not arguing that students should get quick answers from encyclopedias instead of reading books and other primary sources. I'm arguing that Wikipedia is better than "a Google search," which is a position I will…
Why human societies developed so little during 300 000 years
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
Ask A Manager had a wild story a week ago. A company interviewed someone, hired him, but when he showed up for work … it was a totally different person. A friend asked, “if this was your hire, and you manager asked you to change your hiring practices to prevent this, what would you do?” Nothing. I would do nothing…
YouTube is introducing new products that will allow learners to go deeper on subjects they are passionate about and creators to provide structured learning content.
Over 65% of the world's population is regularly on the internet, with China and India having the most internet users.
Hi, I'm Jonathan! I'm a developer who's passionate about building great user interfaces.
Air pollution can have a “huge” negative effect on cognitive intelligence – especially amongst older men – according to a study released this past August.
I’ve worked for Silicon Valley companies for more than a decade and international travel is a necessary part of my job. I’ve had my fair…
It turns out that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2011 found that the NSA's surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act to be unco...
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.
Uber drivers increasingly resort to aggressive tactics for tips, leading to uncomfortable experiences for riders.
I used to be a big fan of Spotify. Today I cancelled my subscription.
