Hacker News with Generative AI: Culture

Silicon Valley, Halt and Catch Fire, and How Microserfdom Ate the World (2015) (grantland.com)
Douglas Coupland’s novel Microserfs is about the spiritual yearnings and time-frittering activities of youngish coders immersed in the drudgery of the software-development process, and how those activities become an expression of those yearnings.

Silicon Valley, Books, Culture, Technology, Software Development

52 points by Apocryphon 10 hours ago | 14 comments

The demoscene as a UNESCO heritage in Sweden (goto80.com)
The demoscene has become a national UNESCO-heritage in Sweden, thanks to an application that Ziphoid and me did last year.

Culture, Sweden, Computer Graphics, Art, History

628 points by robin_reala 2 days ago | 84 comments

Visions of Greenland (worldhistory.substack.com)
The outside world has long projected its desires onto the world's biggest island

Greenland, History, Geography, Culture

3 points by crescit_eundo 2 days ago | 0 comments

The Culture Shock of Flossing (theguardian.com)
In fairness to the French, there is actually very little data to support the benefits of flossing.

Culture, Health, Dental Hygiene, France

12 points by andsoitis 4 days ago | 3 comments

'What the hell is this stuff?': French people on the culture shock of flossing (theguardian.com)
In fairness to the French, there is actually very little data to support the benefits of flossing.

Culture, Health, France, Dentistry

8 points by howard941 5 days ago | 0 comments

The Real Book (2021) (99percentinvisible.org)
Since the mid-1970s, almost every jazz musician has owned a copy of the same book. It has a peach-colored cover, a chunky, 1970s-style logo, and a black plastic binding. It’s delightfully homemade-looking—like it was printed by a bunch of teenagers at a Kinkos. And inside is the sheet music for hundreds of common jazz tunes—also known as jazz “standards”—all meticulously notated by hand. It’s called the Real Book.

Music, Jazz, Culture, History

156 points by Tomte 5 days ago | 41 comments

Trump orders 'ideological' cleanup of Smithsonian museums (elpais.com)
U.S. President Donald Trump has made good on his threat to intervene in the museums of the Smithsonian network in Washington, and even the capital’s zoo.

Politics, Smithsonian Institution, Museums, Culture, United States

14 points by geox 5 days ago | 1 comments

'We use them every day': the clack of typewriter keys can still be heard (bbc.com)
Computers and smartphones might be where most writing is done these days, but typewriters still have work to do in the US.

Typewriters, Technology, Writing, History, Culture

3 points by admp 5 days ago | 0 comments

In Japan, an Iceless Lake and an Absent God Sound an Ancient Warning (nytimes.com)
For at least six centuries, residents along a lake in the mountains of central Japan have marked the depth of winter by celebrating the return of a natural phenomenon once revered as the trail of a wandering god.

Japan, Environment, Culture, Folklore, Mythology

6 points by occamschainsaw 5 days ago | 1 comments

Five Things AI Will Not Change (metastable.org)
In 1983, when I was ten, 100 million people watched the TV movie “The Day After,” an audience five times larger than the Game of Thrones finale garnered in 2019. The cold-war era film graphically depicted the aftermath of an all-out nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union: mass casualties, radiation poisoning, the collapse of infrastructure, and the breakdown of society.

Artificial Intelligence, Culture, Predictions, Technology

14 points by pbw 6 days ago | 4 comments

The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything (2011) (npr.org)
The vast majority of the world's books, music, films, television and art, you will never see. It's just numbers.

Culture, Media, Art, Technology, Society

10 points by bumbledraven 7 days ago | 1 comments

The Blood on the Keyboard (historynewsnetwork.org)
The history of ivory-topped piano keys and the invisible human suffering caused by our cultural commodities.

History, Culture, Consumerism, Ethics

6 points by Thevet 7 days ago | 0 comments

The Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010 (runningshoescore.com)
The year was 2010. “Ke$ha's Tik Tok” was topping the Billboard charts. Steve Jobs has just introduced a goofy new oversized iPhone called an “iPad”. And in running forums across the internet far and wide, hoards of enthusiasts preached the gospel of a new way of running: without shoes.

Running, History, Trends, Culture, 2010s

186 points by jonnycat 8 days ago | 202 comments

Music and the Decline of Civilization (renovatio.zaytuna.edu)
In almost every description of a declining civilization we find the same tropes: an excess of liberty, a confusion of social norms, and the weakening of authority that soon descends into lawlessness.

Music, Culture, Civilization, Society

21 points by walterbell 8 days ago | 39 comments

Reflecting on WikiTok (aizk.sh)

Social Media, TikTok, Culture

158 points by aizk 8 days ago | 46 comments

Humming along in an old church, the Internet Archive is more relevant than (npr.org)
The nonprofit, founded in 1996, is a digital library of internet sites and cultural artifacts. This includes hundreds of billions of copies of government websites, news articles and data.

Internet Archive, Nonprofits, Digital Libraries, History, Culture

5 points by bentobean 9 days ago | 0 comments

"Vibe Coding" is a dangerous fantasy (nmn.gl)
Last week, X exploded when a “vibe coder” announced his SaaS was under attack.

Software Development, Culture, Online Communities, SaaS

7 points by namanyayg 10 days ago | 2 comments

In some parts of the US, the clack of typewriter keys can still be heard (bbc.com)
Computers and smartphones might be where most writing is done these days, but typewriters still have work to do in the US.

Typewriters, Writing, Technology, Culture, United States

20 points by tigerlily 10 days ago | 10 comments

In some parts of the US, the clack of typewriter keys can still be heard (bbc.com)
Computers and smartphones might be where most writing is done these days, but typewriters still have work to do in the US.

Writing, Technology, History, Culture

7 points by Geekette 10 days ago | 0 comments

Tyler Cowen on Immigration, Doge, and 'The Great Forgetting' (reason.com)
"Bad ideas have been making a comeback," the host of Conversations with Tyler tells Reason.

Immigration, Economics, Culture, Political Commentary

5 points by paulpauper 11 days ago | 1 comments

Russian Names (2018) (justrussian.com)
Names are usually not given much attention in textbooks or Russian language lessons. But at the same time, the ability to understand them and to use them properly is very important for successful socialising and building up relationships.

Russian Language, Culture, Social Skills

6 points by petethomas 11 days ago | 5 comments

The Vanishing White Male Writer (compactmag.com)
It’s easy enough to trace the decline of young white men in American letters—just browse The New York Times’s “Notable Fiction” list. In 2012 the Times included seven white American men under the age of 43 (the cut-off for a millennial today); in 2013 there were six, in 2014 there were six.

Literature, Demographics, Culture, Publishing

13 points by mudil 11 days ago | 5 comments

The Cult of the American Lawn (noemamag.com)
“When Janet and Jeff Crouch sought to enliven their front yard in suburban Maryland with native black-eyed Susans, Joe-Pye weed, asters and coneflowers, they had no inkling that they were doing anything controversial.”

Gardening, Culture, American Culture, Environment

63 points by ecliptik 12 days ago | 104 comments

What does Maga-land look like? (theguardian.com)
I drove 2,000 miles with a French friend across my home country – and saw the endless nowhere land that is the crucible of Trumpism

Politics, United States, Culture, Travel

7 points by daverol 12 days ago | 1 comments

Western Ignorance: Failure to See China Beyond the Party (thechinaacademy.org)

Politics, China, International Relations, Culture

31 points by suraci 12 days ago | 31 comments

Christianity "Borderline Illegal" in Silicon Valley. Now the New Religion (vanityfair.com)
There was a time, Tan says, when such a gathering would be “maybe even reviled in San Francisco.”

Religion, Culture, Silicon Valley, Technology

15 points by Apocryphon 13 days ago | 9 comments

Graydon Carter's Wild Ride Through the Golden Age of Magazines (newyorker.com)
Graydon Carter, a former editor of Spy, the New York Observer, and Vanity Fair, has been held up over the years as a force of style, both in his personal life (he dresses well) and in his expansive vision of creative work.

Media, Journalism, Culture

15 points by samclemens 13 days ago | 4 comments

Pierogi in Space (esa.int)
In a first for space cuisine, ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski will bring pierogi, the traditional Polish dumplings, to the International Space Station during the upcoming Axiom Mission 4.

Space Exploration, Food, Culture

154 points by stared 13 days ago | 45 comments

Why Tech Bros Overestimate AI's Creative Abilities (aaronrosspowell.com)
Silicon Valley's overconfidence in the imminent arrival of Artificial General Intelligence stems from a combination of limited understanding of the humanities, an insular culture, and a business model that incentivizes exaggerated claims about AI's capabilities.