211
The Baby-Eating Aliens
(Part 1 of 8 in "Three Worlds Collide") • This is a story of an impossible outcome, where AI never worked, molecular nanotechnology never worked, bio…
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 318 posts.
212
If You Want to Catch a Liar, Make Him Draw
A man accused of a crime is brought into a police interrogation room and sits down at an empty table. There’s no polygraph equipment in sight, and the typical two-cop questioning team isn’t in the…
213
214
Why boycotting Whole Foods is Stupid
I’ve been forwarded a few emails about the Whole Foods Boycott, a movement in response to Whole Food’s CEO John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal article. I’m tempted to find the…
215
Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
I spend far too much of my life daydreaming about scenarios like this: I wanted to ask for survival tips in case I am unexpectedly transported to a random locat
216
217
Corrupted Word Files for Sale
On one hand, this is clever: We offer a wide array of corrupted Word files that are guaranteed not to open on a Mac or PC. A corrupted file is a file that contains scrambled and unrecoverable data due to hardware or software failure. Files may become corrupted when something goes wrong while a file is being saved e.g…
218
Why charging for access to news sites won't work
I wish them good luck with this, and I mean that sincerely, but I believe this is a fundamentally flawed strategy.
219
Palm Pre Privacy Invasion
I've been taking a closer look at the WebOS side of my Palm Pre tonight, and I noticed that it periodically uploads information to Palm, Inc.
220
A Week in Hacker News
I started posting to Hacker News recently. The rise and fall of submissions through the rankings is really hypnotic. I wrote a screen-scr...
221
The Value of Downvoting, or, How Hacker News Gets It Wrong
Paul Graham's Hacker News is a great website to find interesting programming links and sane discussion. The site reflects a sort of post- Reddit sensibility; the design of HN was directly intended to address the shortcomings of programming.reddit.com from someone very much on the inside (Reddit was a Paul Graham Y…
222
223
224
225
I really want to like Apple (but they don't like us)
I loved my Apple IIs passionately. I love my Macintosh collection (from SE to Bondi-blue iMac). While not being a heavy Mac user, I keep a Mac on my desk as a second computer to my main computer (a netbook running Linux because I like carrying it around, because it's cheap and because I like Linux better than OSX for…
226
227
Developers: You Are What's Wrong With the iPhone AppStore
instapaper for iphone is $5. I've bought a bunch of games for >$3. It is addicting.
228
Richard Dawkins: Viruses of the Mind
Center for the Study of Complex Systems at U-M LSA offers interdisciplinary research and education in nonlinear, dynamical, and adaptive systems.
229
230
231
232
233
WTF is up with Dell?
[Update at end of post] I love Dell servers. In fact I even love their network hardware. I’ve spent 0000’s (yeah that’s four zeros) with them during the last 2 years and Mick my old sales guy rocked! As did his hardware team.
234
235
z/OMG
Two weeks ago I was on a Project Management course at work, which was highly enjoyable and very involved. Project management for a company this big is evidently a very complex and rigorous process involving all kinds of procedural steps and checks and formal presentations of stuf...
236
237
238
Doctorow, How to Destroy the Book
Cory Doctorow, my former EFF colleague, now novelist and all-around-inspiration, gave a stirring speech entitled "How to Destroy the Book" in November at a Canadian conference dedicated to literacy. Fittingly, it was spontaneously transcribed and posted online at The Varsity.ca. The whole thing is...
239
240
