Hacker News: arrowsmith

Internet freedom is fading in the new era of social control

arrowsmith — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 15:28:22 +0000

Article URL: https://bigthink.com/the-present/internet-freedom-is-fading-in-the-new-era-of-social-control/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881905

Points: 11

# Comments: 1

New comment by arrowsmith in "GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra produces proof of the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture [pdf]"

arrowsmith — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:34:57 +0000

Knowledge for its own sake is great, but it's worth noting that many "useless" fields of mathematics turned out to be very practical in the long run.

Number theory was long thought to have no practical application, but now it's the backbone of cryptography. Boolean algebra was developed in the 19th century (George Boole died in 1864), decades before it was used to build computers.

Those "useless" theorems being proved today may turn out to unlock a world-changing technology centuries from now. When the breakthrough comes we'll be grateful for the people who laid the foundations.

New comment by arrowsmith in "New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices"

arrowsmith — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:23:09 +0000

Yes but it's always advertised as "$12/MONTH" in big letters with billed annually written somewhere small and non-obvous.

New comment by arrowsmith in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

arrowsmith — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:06:12 +0000

Regulation is a good thing for big, established incumbents who can afford expensive lawyers. It keeps them safe from competition.

New comment by arrowsmith in "New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony"

arrowsmith — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:30:07 +0000

Yes but that didn't happen in the Americas. They didn't settle or leave any lasting impact.

New comment by arrowsmith in "New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony"

arrowsmith — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:21:13 +0000

They briefly visited, they didn't "conquer"

New comment by arrowsmith in "Chat Control 1.0 and 2.0 Explained"

arrowsmith — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:03:06 +0000

The president of the European Commission is “elected” through a thin pretence of democracy that the people of Europe have effectively no control over, and mostly pay no attention to. If you think she’s there because the greater public decided she’s the best person for the job then you don’t know how the EU works.

Also most of the EU population don’t know her for anything at all. I’d be surprised if more than 50% of Europeans could name her.

New comment by arrowsmith in "When AI Costs More Than the Engineer"

arrowsmith — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:15:14 +0000

Maybe an ESL thing? "Potatoes" are literally called "earth apples" in some languages (e.g. pommes de terre in French; Erdäpfel in some German dialects.)

New comment by arrowsmith in "Springer Nature has removed two studies by Max Planck"

arrowsmith — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:33:05 +0000

Max Planck published the same paper in multiple journals in the 1940s, which was common practice at the time. He also published a second unrelated paper that happened to have the same title as the paper it was a response to. In 2011 both papers were retracted from their journals' archives, most likely because a bot incorrectly flagged them for plagiarism.

Saved you a click.

New comment by arrowsmith in "We all depend on open source. We will defend it together"

arrowsmith — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 11:21:14 +0000

Then it's perhaps not the best name, given what happened in the end to the empire's eastern border.

New comment by arrowsmith in "AI Engineer Claims to Have Cracked Linear A"

arrowsmith — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 20:31:11 +0000

https://xkcd.com/2151/

UK Even Wants Image Scanners on Unsupported Devices

arrowsmith — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 19:26:55 +0000

Article URL: https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-even-wants-image-scanners-on-millions-of-unsupported-devices

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48590304

Points: 7

# Comments: 4

Won't Somebody Think of the Children?

arrowsmith — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:24:08 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/rich_rdctd/status/2067265604105474260

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48584911

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by arrowsmith in "Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users"

arrowsmith — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:08:17 +0000

The UK government has just create an upsurge of interest in digital privacy, so that might be why

UK's Social Media Ban: The Monumental Pretext for Total Digital Surveillance

arrowsmith — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:19:50 +0000

Article URL: https://modernity.news/2026/06/16/uks-social-media-ban-the-monumental-pretext-for-total-digital-surveillance/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48574454

Points: 18

# Comments: 11

Canada Is Building a Surveillance State

arrowsmith — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:09:50 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/lucyhargreaves4/status/2066903272271544551

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48560391

Points: 14

# Comments: 1

New comment by arrowsmith in "Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb"

arrowsmith — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:33:52 +0000

It's here: https://codeberg.org/rickoooooo/BannedBookLibrary/src/branch...

For the curious, the "banned" books are (it's a short list):

  - Call of the Wild - Jack London
  - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
  - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
  - Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence

Stunning and brave.

New comment by arrowsmith in "The Future of Email"

arrowsmith — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:43:22 +0000

Yeah I had the same reaction. From the title I was expecting to find out what the "future of email" is. I'm still waiting.

New comment by arrowsmith in "Global population movements from 1990 to 2023"

arrowsmith — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:57:09 +0000

US had net negative migration in 2025 for the first time in decades:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/14/immigra...

New comment by arrowsmith in "German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews"

arrowsmith — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:20:09 +0000

Which led to a British journalist holding an "offensive poems about Erdogan" contest, which was won by Boris Johnson:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/19/boris-johns...