2101
Slop Terrifies Me
What if this is as good as software is ever going to be? What if AI stops getting better and what if people stop caring?
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
2102
49% of workers, forced to change passwords, reuse same one with minor change
A new survey has revealed some alarming news about the way users are choosing their passwords in their homes and workplace.
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Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad
Today Apple announced a version 4 their iPhone OS. It seems to answer most of the open issues relating to the platform. All sounded good.
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A Facebook Sixth Sense
I use Facebook every day — probably too much for my own good — and I’ve always been tempted to dive into their internals. That is, the…
2108
AI uses less water than the public thinks
By Jay Lund . . . Artificial intelligence (AI) will affect many economic and natural resource sectors as these new technologies develop and mature. We are in the early years of this process. Like most new things, AI has become an object of small and great hopes and fears – from hopes for saving and
2109
The ten year anniversary of the Healthcare.gov rescue
Ten years ago today, on Friday, October 18, 2013, the effort to fix HealthCare.gov began in earnest. At 7:15 A.M. Eastern time, a small group assembled next to the entrance to the West Wing of the White House. The group included Todd Park, Brian...
2110
I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for
According to his indictment , Aaron Swartz was charged with wirefraud for concealing/changing his "true identity". It sent chills down my ba...
2111
Where do the children play?
On the need for a world without us
2112
A case study in PDF forensics: The Epstein PDFs
The recent release of a tranche of files by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) under the “Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R.4405)” has once again prompted many people to closely examine redacted and sanitized PDF documents. Our previous articles on the Manafort papers and the Mueller report , as well as a study by…
2113
The Last Message Sent on AIM
In the early 2000s social media sites like Facebook and Twitter weren’t commonplace yet. Even text messages, at ten cents each, were something to be rationed. For many teenagers the primary means of communication outside school was AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). So when it was announced in October that they were…
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Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive
If we can align the incentives of the players involved, we can build infrastructure that is actually necessary and while doing it quicker and at lower prices than we do now.
2116
The Wholesale Plagiarism of Obscure Sorrows
Without permission, a marketing agency republished the entirety of John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows book, replacing its art with AI slop and adding new AI words. Their unauthorized site now ranks higher than the real one everywhere.
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How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court
A few weeks ago I was roasting some pumpkin for a delicious soup and towards the end of the cooking time the fan on the oven started into overdrive, making a lot of noise then it started beeping and p…
2121
U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades
Knowing your ABCs is essential to academic success, but having a last name starting with A, B or C might also help make the grade.
2122
Low-background Steel: content without AI contamination
Somehow I forgot to blog my site: https://lowbackgroundsteel.ai/ . I created it back in March 2023 as a clearinghouse for online resources t...
2123
Twitter is using its embedded JavaScript to hide tweets that have been deleted
With all the fuss about Twitter’s promised edit button, and how they might design it, we’re missing a disturbing development — Twitter is using its embedded javascript to edit other people’s sites.
2124
A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality
While perusing HackerNews today, I encountered this article and this comment thread by Paul Graham (PG for short), founder of Ycombinator. I think that a lengthy response is in order. I originally …
2125
Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling
YouTube resolution down again? Through a collaboration with another Massachusetts university, this Northeastern team unveils exactly who’s responsible.
2126
The Internet of Unprofitable Things
Gather 'round children. Uncle Andrew wants to tell you a festive story. The NTPmare shortly after Christmas
2127
My offer to Google Reader
Like many others, I was curious when Google announced that it would be revamping the Google Reader UI and refactor its social components into Google Plus. To that end, I wrote a brief blog post about what I felt would be a better alternative to stripping out Google Reader's social functionality .
2128
Fewer Foreign Passengers Are Flying to the US
On using a new dataset and ensuring your analytic findings aren't a data reporting issue.
2129
Children need risk, fear, and excitement in play
And why adults’ fears put them at risk
2130
75% of med students are on antidepressants, stimulants, or both? (2017)
As scientists, we can’t continue to approach medical education reform as a neurotransmitter deficiency in medical students. Can we?