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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 695 posts.
We got a funny phone call today, and by "funny" I mean "not actually even a little funny." Officer Chan, the permitting officer for SFPD, called to remind us that we're required to have video surveillance that records everything our customers do, and to give that footage to SFPD any time they ask, without a warrant or…
We’re in the middle of an epic battle for power in cyberspace. On one side are the traditional, organized, institutional powers such as governments and large multinational corporations. On the other are the distributed and nimble: grassroots movements, dissident groups, hackers, and criminals. Initially, the Internet…
Every day or so I read another blog post (or ranting comments) about how BlackBerry could be rehabilitated, or how Nokia could restart Maemo and build the ultimate smartphone again. Things came to a head after Jolla announced their first phone for sale. Surely this phone with an amazing user interface will vindicate…
A couple weeks ago, I filed a brief in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in my case challenging the constitutionality of the TSA’s nude body scanners and invasive pat-down program. My bri…
Last week, I stumbled across a BBC News article entitled How to eat healthily on £1 a day via a story on hacker news . Healthy eating on a budget is something I’m really interested in, but I was horribly disappointed by the article, because i) it didn’t show you how to eat healthily, and ii) it didn’t show you how to…
Edward Snowden said that he stepped forward because he came to realize that the US government is engaged in invasions of Americans' privacy on a vast and unprecedented scale, and was hiding its int...
We’re told studies have proven that drugs like heroin and cocaine instantly hook a user. But it isn’t that simple – little-known experiments over 30 years ago tell a very different tale. Drugs are …
[[Update: As of August 2015, I have partly implemented the approach in the first example below (but not the second example). ]]
The Sophos Blog
Microsoft is launching a new marketing campaign for Office 365 that celebrates working during your kid’s recitals, on vacation, and while enjoying the appetizer at a restaurant. All this under the guise of “balance” between work and life. Yes, it’s horrible. Remote w…
Professors Hal Abelson and Peter Diamond complete review.
I feel badly for Paul Graham because he's being made out to be something I am sure he is not. But the brouhaha that he unleashed about women founders, women coders, and women hackers is a good thing because we ought to be having a broader conversation about these issues. Paul asks "God knows what […]
This isn’t phishing; it’s not even spear phishing. It’s laser-guided precision phishing: One of the leaked diplomatic cables referred to one attack via email on US officials who were on a trip in Copenhagen to debate issues surrounding climate change. “The message had the subject line ‘China and Climate Change’ and…
I’m a smart guy. I’m not bragging. It’s not like I deserve any credit for being smart. I didn’t do anything to make that happen. I’m also tall, but nobody compliments me on that. (Good job being tall!) Intelligence is an immutable characteristic that I have at times capitalized on and at other times let […]
Mozilla and OTOY deliver the power of native PC applications to the Web, unveil next generation JavaScript video codec for movies and cloud gaming
