Do one thing… - O'Reilly Radar
I've been lamenting the demise of the Unix philosophy: tools should do one thing, and do it well. The ability to connect many small tools is better than having...
Hasnain says:
"The first person to create a tool that can pipe a table from a browser into a spreadsheet, a Google doc, or even a text file without massive pain will be my hero."
Posted on 2015-10-31T07:28:34+0000
Random Acts of Optimization
http://riot.com/1S14VKQ #RiotTechBlog
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-30T08:34:40+0000
| you can’t pay your rent with “the unique platform and reach our site provides”WIL WHEATON dot NET
A very nice editor at Huffington Post contacted me yesterday, and asked me if I would be willing to grant permission for the site to republish my post about the seven things I did to reboot my life. Huffington Post has a lot of views, and reaches a pretty big audience, and that post is something I'd…
Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?
If you’ve ever been a Homejoy customer this should piss you off. “Fly Maids” has all your data and they seem pretty awfu…
Why Software Outsourcing Doesn't Work ... Anymore
Remote and offshore software outsourcing was a perfect business concept ten years ago. Not anymore. Here is why.
Facebook will give employees super slow Internet speeds every Tuesday to better understand...
Facebook is starting '2G Tuesdays' so all its employees can see what it feels like to have a super slow connection in emerging markets like India.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-28T04:44:39+0000
BREAKING: Uber gearing up to launch operations in Pakistan
Potentially massive news.
CppCon/CppCon2015
CppCon2015 - Presentation Materials from CppCon 2015
Hasnain says:
Slides are finally up. Time to go through all of them
Posted on 2015-10-27T06:42:26+0000
Copyright is broken / fuzzy notepad
Fri 23 October 2015 Copyright is broken Undertale is a fantastic game. I might even write about it sometime. But not right now. See, Undertale’s creator said a few weeks ago that taking Undertale commissions is fine, but selling unofficial merch is not. I said yesterday that I think this is kind of…
Teen Who Hacked CIA Director’s Email Tells How He Did It
The hacker who allegedly broke into CIA Director John Brennan's private AOL email account tells WIRED how he did it.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-22T05:00:37+0000
YouTube Will Remove Videos Of Creators Who Don’t Sign Its Red Subscription Deal
YouTube made its video creators an offer they literally couldn't refuse, or they'd have their content disappear. Today YouTube confirmed that any creator that..
YouTube Red, A $9.99 Site-Wide Ad-Free Subscription With Play Music, Launches Oct 28
Today Google is rolling its Play Music on-demand service into a new $9.99 subscription for ad-free viewing across all of YouTube that will launch October..
Amazon Spars With The Times Over Investigative Article
An article published in The New York Times two months ago, detailing Amazon’s work culture, drew a lengthy response on Monday from the company’s senior vice president for global corporate affairs.
Hasnain says:
"It is even more unusual for the company to share information from its personnel files to challenge an article, as it did for Mr. Olson and others. “Amazon wants to rewrite story by releasing personal details about employees,” Glenn Fleishman, a freelance journalist who worked at Amazon briefly in the late ’90s, wrote on Twitter."
Posted on 2015-10-20T15:46:23+0000
Google's growing problem: 50% of people do zero searches per day on mobile
Amit Singhal in 2011 showing a comparison of search volumes from mobile and "early desktop years". Photo by Niall Kennedy on Flickr. Amit Singhal, Google's head of search, let slip a couple of inte...
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-20T15:44:37+0000
Prison Without Punishment
Germany allows inmates to wear their own clothes, cook their own meals, and have romantic visits. Could that work in the United States?
OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English
I decided to upgrade my Mac to El Capitan, but my computer said, on one condition: I must "carefully" read and agree with something. It even provided a tiny cozy display window for viewing it: And ...
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-18T17:23:21+0000
Rent is so high in San Francisco that I’m a software engineer and I live in a van
I took one look at my local real estate listings and bought an old VW bus instead.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-18T00:06:58+0000
Former Stanford dean explains why helicopter parenting is ruining a generation of children
Julie Lythcott-Haims left Stanford to write a parenting manifesto.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-17T17:27:44+0000
Don’t Feed the Beast – the Great Tech Recruiter Infestation | mockyblog
Don’t Feed the Beast – the Great Tech Recruiter Infestation “Don’t move to that London” warned my northern grandfather once. “It’s full of spivs”. The Oxford Dictionary (somewhat chauvinistically) defines a spiv as: A man, typically a flashy dresser, who makes a living by disreputable dealings “But…
Hasnain says:
"Picture a wideboy from some Essex sink estate – all swagger and hairgel. Reptilian, devoid of all talent, a sociopathic disregard for others. Hungers for success, for fast cars and fit birds and gassy lager and awful nightclubs. He’s watched The Apprentice and finks he knows wot business is abaat. He’s got a shiny suit and practises his take-me-seriously-face in the mirror every day. His name could be Spencer or Kai, Nathan or Chardonnay, but I’m going to call him Shithead."
Posted on 2015-10-16T15:32:57+0000
This study is forcing economists to rethink high-deductible health insurance
Perhaps higher deductibles don't lead to smarter shoppers but rather, in the long run, sicker patients.
Hasnain says:
"This study tried giving workers both the tools to compare costs and a financial incentive to go with the less expensive option. And, at least in this instance, those nudges weren't enough to encourage patients to choose cheaper doctors. Instead of looking for a lower-cost option, workers simply decided not to go to the doctor at all."
Posted on 2015-10-15T05:39:27+0000
How is NSA breaking so much crypto?
There have been rumors for years that the NSA can decrypt a significant fraction of encrypted Internet traffic. In 2012, James Bamford published an article quoting anonymous former NSA officials stating that the agency had achieved a “computing breakthrough” that gave them “the ability to crack curr…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-15T05:29:50+0000
How I Teach Gerrymandering
by Ben Kraft The Gerry-mander One of my favorite Splash classes to teach is “Gerrymandering: Theory and Practice”. By now I’ve taught it in a number of different contexts – to high school students at...
Maryland Debacle Shows Why We Must Get Football Out Of Our Universities
The University of Maryland is once again paying millions of dollars to fire its football coach, in a futile effort to win more football games. They did the same thing four years ago, with disastrous effects. Why can't they learn? Meanwhile, the university has imposed furloughs and pay freezes on all…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-13T04:52:40+0000
ferd.ca -> The Little Printf
The Little Printf: why do we code? This text is a transcript of a presentation I have given on October 9, 2015, at the CityCode conference in Chicago. This content is also available in video, and as a PDF Document better suited for printing. — Chapter 1 I've been lucky enough to have been born befor…
Hasnain says:
I think everyone who works with software should read this. Pretty spot on and pretty moving. So many amazing quotes, don't know where to begin.
"Little printf was surprised to meet an expert who seemed so disinterested in helping others, yet so annoyed by their perceived lack of skill. It was a bit sad that this man narrowed his vision of himself to just the one area he knew, to the point where he didn't do anything else than create problems for himself to fix!"
Posted on 2015-10-13T04:44:22+0000
In Bel-Air, someone is using 1,300 gallons of water — per hour
This much we know:
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-12T15:53:38+0000
From SimCity to, well, SimCity: The history of city-building games
To boot, the majority of older games are available on digital distribution service GOG.
Hasnain says:
This is a great read; though not discussing Cities:Skylines is an injustice
Posted on 2015-10-12T05:23:21+0000
Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
In response to the many people who have asked me whether I am leaving Berkeley, it is true that the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department has fired me. More precisely, the then Chair of the Mathematics Department, Arthur Ogus, emailed me on October 31st 2014 saying that my employment would be terminate…
Urban activists set out to sue San Francisco's suburbs
A much unloved San Franciscan and her cohorts push a posh suburb to start building denser and more affordable apartments.
Hasnain says:
“Most people would be very uncomfortable tearing down 315 houses. But they don’t have a similar objection to never building them in the first place, even though I feel they’re morally equivalent. Those people show up anyway. They get born anyway. They get a job in the area anyway. What do they do? They live in an overcrowded situation, they pay too much rent, they have a commute that’s too long. Or maybe they outbid someone else, and someone else is displaced.”
“It’s easy to see the problem when you’re tearing down someone’s home. But when you’re not building, it’s hard to see whose home it is.”
Posted on 2015-10-11T22:45:43+0000
A Good Vimrc
There are tons of tutorials such as this one on the internet that contain all kinds of awesome hacks to make your Vim better, but the absolute worst way to make your environment better is to just copy it wholesale from others.
What people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like
Whale-buses, aviation police and new-fangled barbers: A fantastic vision of the future
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-11T01:58:23+0000
Mecca Then and Now, 126 Years of Growth
A series of photographs on Mecca and its surrounding area taken sometime around 1887 by the photographer Al Sayyid Abd al Ghaffar, compared with images from similar locations taken in 2015.
nbviewer.ipython.org
In this notebook, we cover the basics of probability theory, and show how to implement the theory in Python. (You should have a little background in probability and Python.) Then we show how to solve some particularly perplexing paradoxical probability problems.
'Great Pause' Among Prosecutors As DNA Proves Fallible
Experts say the field of forensic DNA is having a moment of truth about years of overstated claims, and it may tarnish its reputation as the "gold standard" of legal evidence.
America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker
A shocking story about the biggest company in the US's most profitable industry
Hasnain says:
I've only read one chapter so far, and I'm absolutely horrified.
“All the big pharmas” have lawsuits, the analyst concluded, sipping an espresso. “It’s just not a big deal.”
"Indeed, with before-tax profits of $20.6 billion for 2014, putting aside $500 million or even $1 billion a year over 15 years to cover payouts for boys with 46DD breasts and other claims that might come along doesn’t put much of a dent in the company’s financials. As Johnson & Johnson declared in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission three weeks before the analysts’ conference, “In the Company’s opinion … the ultimate outcome of legal proceedings, net of liabilities accrued in the Company’s balance sheet, is not expected to have a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial position.”"
"However, the fact that this illegal conduct is not a “big deal” on Wall Street and only the occasional subject of news coverage should make it a big deal to the rest of the world: The drug companies seem to be able to break the rules with relative impunity, or at least without suffering the kind of punishment that would actually hurt—their stock prices taking a hit or senior executives being held personally responsible."
Posted on 2015-10-10T20:07:06+0000
The biggest mystery in mathematics: Shinichi Mochizuki and the impenetrable proof
A Japanese mathematician claims to have solved one of the most important problems in his field.
Hasnain says:
"Three years on, Mochizuki's proof remains in mathematical limbo — neither debunked nor accepted by the wider community. Mochizuki has estimated that it would take an expert in arithmetic geometry some 500 hours to understand his work, and a maths graduate student about ten years. So far, only four mathematicians say that they have been able to read the entire proof."
Posted on 2015-10-10T19:54:55+0000
Psychedelics Could Be The Next Big Thing In Mental Health Care
A new review of studies finds that LSD, psilocybin and MDMA hold potential for treating mental illness.
Fifth Amendment Flowchart
Posted on September 9, 2014 by Nathan Go back to start of Miranda | of Taking the Fifth | of Self-Incrimination Go back to start of Miranda | of Taking the Fifth | of Self-Incrimination Did you know that each $5 Patreon donor currently lets another 3,000 people see all this for free?Click Here to…
FBI director calls lack of data on police shootings ‘ridiculous,’ ‘embarrassing’
His complaints come as the federal government and several states are taking steps to improve transparency.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-09T16:27:26+0000
Volkswagen's U.S. chief blames emissions scandal on 'individuals'
Volkswagen's cheating on emissionswith the use of software in diesel cars was not a corporatedecision, but something that "individuals did," its U.S. chiefexecutive told lawmakers on Thursday.
YC Research
Our mission at YC is to enable as much innovation as we can. Mostly this means funding startups. But startups aren’t ideal for some kinds of innovation—for example, work that requires a very long...
Hasnain says:
This is an awesome move.
"Many of the best researchers in the world are forced to choose between high-paying engineering work to support their families or doing the work they really want to do; the fact that this is an either/or choice is bad for all of us."
Posted on 2015-10-07T18:56:28+0000
A new era of Windows 10 devices from Microsoft
We’ve been talking about Windows 10 for over a year now and today we started our next chapter, with new devices designed for Windows 10. Today I stood on stage in NYC along with members of my team ...
Europe's highest court just rejected the 'safe harbor' agreement used by American tech companies
The Safe Harbor agreement allowed US tech companies to transfer data between the US and Europe.
Hasnain says:
I wonder how this will play out. If the inverse also happens, say goodbye to reasonable latencies for requests that cross continents (or, depending on legal wording, say goodbye to friends across continents)
Posted on 2015-10-06T15:07:05+0000
Why Red M&M's Disappeared for a Decade
In the 1970s and 80s, the red M&M mysteriously disappeared, a victim of horribly unsound FDA testing.
Hasnain says:
"In the aftermath of Red No.2’s ban, the media went on a frenzy, denouncing the dye as a carcinogenic, tumor-inducing agent. Americans, already on edge from a Swine Flu scare a few months earlier, panicked. A hysteria ensued that saw hundreds of brands recalling their Red No.2-infused products: hot dogs were pulled from grocery aisles, dog food was discarded in droves, ice cream treats were left to melt in landfills -- and the red M&M disappeared."
Posted on 2015-10-04T05:06:50+0000
Losing sight – Tink
Losing sight Posted in Real life on October 3rd 2015 I don’t know who will read this. I don’t even know why it has suddenly become important to write it, but for whatever it’s worth, this is an account of an event in my life that changed everything. I lost my sight over the course of 12 months from…
Hasnain says:
This is depressing, moving, enlightening and encouraging all in one go.
It's about literally losing sight due to poorly managed diabetes
Posted on 2015-10-04T02:38:32+0000
www.airpaperinc.com
www.airpaperinc.com
Hasnain says:
When you're so bad that people will pay $5 to cancel your service
Posted on 2015-10-03T00:12:30+0000
The Hypocrisy Of How The Media Covers Mass Shootings
Edited from a report on the morning of 8/2/2015 covering the Oregon community college shootings. In a matter of minutes, CNN goes from showing the wishes of ...
Hasnain says:
Official: I won't release the shooter's name as we don't want them to have credit for this act
CNN: yeah we have his name and we're going to release it...
Despicable. Especially given the fact that this is the second attack in two days and there seems to be no rational discourse
Posted on 2015-10-02T15:11:47+0000
Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
Amazon.com Inc. is flexing its e-commerce muscles to gain an edge on competitors in the video-streaming market by ending the sale of devices from Google Inc. and Apple Inc.
Hasnain says:
WTF Amazon?
Sure, let's make ourselves look petty and anti-competitive (this pretty much admits that their devices just aren't as good as their competitors).
And let's screw over our main business while we're at it - since Prime will no longer be the one-stop shop where you can get everything under the sun.
Posted on 2015-10-01T22:13:35+0000
How the banks ignored the lessons of the crash | Joris Luyendijk
The long read: Joris Luyendijk spent two years talking to hundreds of City insiders. They revealed how close we came to disaster – and how quickly finance went back to business as usual
Hasnain says:
"Seven years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it is often said that nothing was learned from the crash. This is too optimistic. The big banks have surely drawn a lesson from the crash and its aftermath: that in the end there is very little they will not get away with."
Posted on 2015-10-01T05:25:36+0000
The secret developers of the video game industry
Issue The secret developers of the video game industry by Matt Leone @LattMeone In July 2015, developer Comcept launched a Kickstarter campaign for its game Red Ash. It didn’t go...
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-10-01T05:17:24+0000
I Purchased the Domain Google.com via Google Domains
A strange thing happened at 1:20 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, September 29. I was learning more about the Google Domains interface, and typed google.c