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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 694 posts.
For over a century, lawmakers have exempted politically favored organizations and industries from the tax code. As a result, the tax-exempt nonprofit economy now comprises 15 percent of GDP, roughly equal to the fifth-largest economy in the world.
Data is reductive. It objectifies. It bureaucratizes. But is it a bad idea?
Our God is a devourer, who makes things only for the swallowing.
about me I am 18, born in 2006. This is generally a good thing as I am in the prime of life currently. I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”, I think I was born at the perfect time to take advantage of superlinearly growing technological advancements. the internet today I…
AI output is fundamentally derivative and exploitative (of content, labor and the environment).
I tweeted this incredibly non-controversial take and it got a huge reaction, so I thought I'd recycle the content for a blog post. Enjoy. We...
Garbage in garbage out
Prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos, a widely used insecticide, is linked to lower birth weight, reduced IQ, loss of working memory, attention disorders, and delayed motor development.
If you ship a Web App in the EU and will be impacted by this, please sign our open letter to Tim Cook. It is critical that we gather as much evidence as possible to prevent Apple from breaking Web Apps in the EU.
Four archetypes in software engineering
Earlier quite a few iDOS users and supporters reached out to me to let me know about the recent AppStore policy change (Thanks, EU). In light of this, I decided to resubmit iDOS. However, it looks like Apple has blacklisted iDOS 2, preventing me from even requesting a review under that title, and I had to submit under…
A future you might actually want to live in.
A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible.
Dorothy Bishop has the story about “a chemistry lab in CNRS-Université Sorbonne Paris Nord”:
FOR more than three hours on a fine, calm August morning in 1955, the eyes of Sydney’s suburbia were fixed skyward, anxiously watching the flight of a pilotless Auster aeroplane
Ever wondered about what happens when banks are closed or why some apps have operating hours? It's fascinating.
What will be the end of Windows? Microsoft.
We talk a bit about the AI crawler abuse we are seeing at Read the Docs, and warn that this behavior is not sustainable.
In light of the recent cancellation of the queer.af domain registration by the Taliban , the fragile and difficult nature of country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) has once again been comprehensively demonstrated. Since many people may not be aware of the risks, I thought I’d give a solid explainer of the whole…
On the last day of 1945, with World War II finally behind it, Finland's government announced a new and very strange policy. All Finns were r...
A major online publication once reported in a profile on me that I had retired at 33. A few old friends and acquaintances reached out to congratulate me on my financial ind...
By imposing the restrictions on open-source AI, SB-1047 could reduce AI safety, through reducing transparency, collaboration, diversity, and resilience.
[“The welcoming, friendly and visually pleasing appearance” of the TSA’s headquarters at 6595 Springfield Center Drive, Springfield, VA.]
There's a class of comment you often see when someone makes a popular thread on Mastodon/Twitter/Threads/etc., that you also see on videos that's basically "Why make a Twitter thread? This would be better as a blog post" or "Why make a video? This would be better as a blog post". But, these comments are often stronger…
Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants (NPPs) have largely restored their electricity production after sharply reducing output last week as a precautionary step due to renewed attacks on the country’s increasingly fragile energy grid, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy…
“Imagine what mistakes might be found in the raw data if anyone was allowed to look!” – Sholto David
Activism comes in many forms. You might hold a rally, write to Congress, or fly a blimp over the NSA. Or you might use a darkly hilarious parody to make your point, like our client Modest Proposals recently did. Modest Proposals is an activist collective that uses parody and culture jamming to...
