Hasnain says:

Great read on how hiring is now impacted by LLMs

“The tech interview process needs to catch up because LLM tools are changing the definition of a “great programmer”. Being a standout software engineer today includes proficiency with LLM tools, and knowing when to utilize them. An engineer who was standout in 2021 and refuses to use LLM tools today, will struggle to remain standout in many workplaces.”

Hasnain says:

“I think this is the point of middle management! Like, the good stuff that it can do when not squashed into number-crunching and goal-checkbox-filling. At each level of the system, people have the context to understand what they’re talking about, and the relationships to say what they mean. Alignment is not bestowed; it is negotiated.”

Hasnain says:

Learnt a lot of math and systems stuff here.

“It is entirely acceptable and workable to treat erasure codes as a magic function that turns 1 file into chunks and back. You can stop reading here, and not knowing the details of what math is being performed will not hinder your ability to leverage erasure codes to great effect in distributed systems or databases. (And if you continue, take what follows with a large grain of salt, as efficient erasure coding is a subject folk have spent years on, and the below is what I’ve collected from a couple of days of reading through papers I only half understand.)”

Hasnain says:

Insightful read on promo packets. Once you’re in the know this seems fairly obvious, but it’s not obvious at all from the outside. Focus on impact, folks!

“Regardless of the narrative structure you choose, before typing a single word into your promo packet draft, try to tell someone (yourself even), verbally, your bunny story. How bad was your Dark Lord’s reign? What were your weapons of battle? And just how happy were your bunnies in the last chapter of your hero’s journey?”

Hasnain says:

“I do not quite know what is worse. The prospect that billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos dictated this absurd Editorial Board article, similar to how he forbade the Washington Post from endorsing during the Presidential election? Or, the prospect that the Washington Post editorial board actually believes the bloviating fact-less propaganda they just published. Either way, it does not bode well for a healthy fourth estate committed to holding the powerful accountable.

The facts are clear. The ICC is perfectly within its jurisdiction, right, and obligation to hold Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leaders accountable for war crimes. That the ICC has not yet reached the point of filing arrest warrants for each of the despots mentioned by The Post is nothing more than an argument for increased ICC funding so it can fulfill its mandate of prosecuting war crimes. Rather than excuse war crimes committed by people The Post likes, perhaps its editorial board can remember that their job as journalists is not to capitulate in the face of atrocity, but to hold fast the call for democracy. If this is a task too difficult for The Post’s board, then maybe it’s time to resign and let actual journalists take the lead.”

Hasnain says:

“However, it is now clear to me that there is ongoing work on structured editing which either doesn’t know about incremental parsing in general, or Tim’s algorithms specifically. I hope this post serves as a useful advert to such folk that incremental parsing exists, and Tim’s and Lukas’s theses specifically, are absolutely worth the investment of time in reading.
I would love to see more progress in this area, and the more that those working on it know the breadth of our existing knowledge, the more likely we are to make meaningful progress. I hope to see more such progress soon!”

Hasnain says:

“An event happens on a date, at a time. The precise details of that time are very important: if you tell people to show up to your event at 7pm and it turns out they should have arrived at 6pm they’ll miss an hour of the event!

Some of the worst bugs an events website can have are the ones that result in human beings traveling to a place at a time and finding that the event they came for is not happening at the time they expected.

So how do you store the time of an event?”

Hasnain says:

“Any system that disrupts internet services, hampers business operations or raises privacy concerns could pose a serious threat to both private individuals and the broader business community, digital rights activist Aziz said.

“Pakistani businesses rely on global platforms for services like web hosting, and many have contracts requiring confidentiality. If the new system inspects network traffic, blocks VPNs, or imposes a registration regime, it could create more obstacles,” she warned.”

Hasnain says:

“The ICC’s decision has far-reaching economic and diplomatic implications, particularly for Israel’s relationships with the EU. As Josep Borrell rightly stated, this is a legal decision with binding consequences for EU member states. Israel’s preferential trade agreements with the EU, which exempt 65 percent of its exports from customs duties, are now under serious scrutiny.

It is ethically and legally indefensible for the EU to maintain these privileges while the sitting prime minister of Israel face charges of genocide and war crimes. Similarly, Israel’s participation in European sports leagues, cultural exchanges, and academic programs like Erasmus must be reconsidered. These partnerships starkly contradict the legal and moral weight of the ICC’s findings.

Economic consequences could extend beyond the EU. Countries in the Global South, many of which have been vocal in supporting the ICC’s mandate, may impose their own restrictions on trade and collaboration with Israel. This would not only isolate Israel diplomatically but also pressure it to comply with international law.”

Hasnain says:

“But this great awakening has been slower to develop in business-school psychology, several academics told me. “No one wants to kill the golden goose,” one early-career researcher in business academia said. If management and marketing professors embraced all of psychology’s reforms, he said, then many of their most memorable, most TED Talk–able findings would go away. “To use marketing lingo, we’d lose our unique value proposition.””