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I’m not convinced by the new lab leak debunking
It’s still an open question
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
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If nothing is curated, how do we find things
Bjork is currently promoting a new concert film being released called Cornucopia. She's been releasing new photoshoots and interviews almost every day for th...
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Enough's enough: Contract teaching at a Canadian University
Contract teaching at a Canadian University
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Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%
Loneliness increases death risk by 32% but we know how to fix it. Real solutions that cut loneliness in half, from mindfulness to community…
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An analysis of the Google antitrust trial
We did an analysis of the Google antitrust trial. Last week, over half of the trial was held behind closed doors because the judge, Amit Mehta, is deferring to Google on the need for secrecy.
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In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information
The way we consume content on the internet is increasingly driven by walled-garden platforms and black-box feed algorithms. This shift is making our media diets miserable. Ironically, a solution to the problem predates algorithmic feeds, social media and other forms of informational junk food. It is called RSS (Really…
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What $50 buys you at the Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen, China
We’re building the Model 01, a hackable ergonomic keyboard with mechanical keyswitches, programmable RGB LEDs, opensource firmware, and a…
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What Happens to Older Developers?
If you're here because you received a postcard by snail-mail, thanks for stopping by. To read a 57-page PDF that offers most of the story, use the link below:
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Politics is bad because we use an 18th century voting system
While it might not seem sexy, this single change could transform politics.
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Firefox 115 can remotely disable any extension on any site
Firefox version 115.0 was released on July 4, but I'm not celebrating. I'm concerned about a new "feature" in the release notes .
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Parable of the Polygons – a playable post on the shape of society
A playable post on how harmless choices can make a harmful world.
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Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click
Does Google show you different search results based on your personal info, even when signed out and in so-called "incognito" mode? We ran a study to find out.
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The unreasonable fight for municipal broadband
I love Longmont’s municipal broadband, but we had to fight Comcast every step of the way to get it.
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Tynt, the Copy/Paste Jerks
Regarding Tynt, a service that breaks copy-and-paste on websites.
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Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs: correction
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.
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Internet Archive responds to publishers’ lawsuit
Yesterday, the Internet Archive filed our response to the lawsuit brought by four commercial publishers to end the practice of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), the digital equivalent of traditional library lending. CDL is a respectful and secure way to bring the breadth of our library collections to digital learners…
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We need to liberate the Postcode Address File
This is the Pentagon Papers for the UK address database
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UK anti-encryption law
There was some surprise in the comments of yesterday's post over the fact that the United Kingdom has effectively outlawed encryption: the UK will...
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Open Source Isn't Dead
AI has changed vulnerability discovery, but closing source code does not remove the attack surface. Continuous AI defense is the better response.
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Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it
My next book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation : it's a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet. The hardcover comes from Verso on Sept 5, but the audiobook comes from me – because Amazon refuses to sell my audio:
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Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO
It is more important than ever that the social web is not controlled by corporations. Today, Mastodon is taking another step towards its founding ideals: independence and non-profit ownership. We're transferring ownership of key assets to a new European not-for-profit entity, ensuring our mission remains true to a…