Exquisite Tweets from @glassbottommeg
Funny story - we were asked to make dong detection software for LEGO Universe too. We found it to be utterly impossible at any scale.
Why Do Airplane Windows Have Tiny Holes?
It’s time for another sky-high edition of What’s That Thing, Slate’s column that examines the details of the world that are hiding in plain (or plane) sight. Send ideas for future columns, along with photos if possible, to mark@skyfaring.com.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-31T18:35:13+0000
Free MOOCs? Forget about it.
Coursera's free Statements of Accomplisments die a quiet death.
Hasnain says:
Sigh. The commercialization of education begins anew
Posted on 2015-05-31T18:30:23+0000
Ross Ulbricht, Creator of Silk Road Website, Is Sentenced to Life in Prison
Mr. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for his role as what prosecutors described as “the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise.”
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-30T18:57:08+0000
Not Buying a Home Could Cost You $65,000 a Year
Renters are missing out on savings in most metros
Chris Ball » Announcing GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub
Announcing GitTorrent: A Decentralized GitHub — May 29, 2015 (This post is an aspirational transcript of the talk I gave to the Data Terra Nemo conference in May 2015. If you’d like to watch the less eloquent version of the same talk that I actually gave, the video should be available soon!) I’ve be…
I am homeless because of Airbnb’s XXX Freak Fest orgy, blacklisted from leasing in NYC
Dear Brian, Anna, and Airbnb, I am homeless because you stuck a “XXX Freak Fest” orgy in my apartment and abandoned me to deal with the fall out. I’m not homeless because of finances – though the...
The Hacker Shelf | Community-curated collection of free books for the intellectually curious.
hackershelf.com
Should U.S. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?
Maybe someday we'll patch vulnerabilities faster than the enemy can use them in an attack, but we're not there yet.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-29T15:43:11+0000
FUCK THOSE POPUPS
signing up those who deserve it
The horrible reason one woman had to wait 77 years for her PhD
"It was a shame for science and a shame for Germany," she said. But it's a shame no longer.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-29T15:37:55+0000
Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?
An answer to a growing question of the 21st century
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-28T15:33:44+0000
Using logs to build a solid data infrastructure (or: why dual writes are a bad idea)
This is an edited transcript of a talk I gave at the Craft Conference 2015. The video and slides are also available. How does your database store data on disk reliably? It uses a log. How does one ...
Beware iPhone Users: If You Get This Text Message, Your Phone Will Likely Turn Off Immediately
An apparent security vulnerability has left iPhone users susceptible to having their phones shut off with a simple text message. The vulnerability appeared to have been first discovered on Reddit. A thread was created and updated with information revealing everything the Internet-community had disco…
githubengineering.com
githubengineering.com
Hasnain says:
"Rearchitecting GitHub Pages"
I'm surprised they managed to run it for so long on one machine
Posted on 2015-05-27T17:10:33+0000
Balance Work And Life Like Branson: Love What You Do
Are work and life one and the same for entrepreneurs?
Hasnain says:
I still don't get why society praises working so much over, you know, enjoying life
Posted on 2015-05-27T15:52:12+0000
FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S.
As FIFA leaders gathered for a meeting, Swiss law enforcement officials arrived unannounced and made arrests at the Justice Department’s request on charges including racketeering and money laundering.
Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat - QuirksBlog
I feel it’s time to revisit the web vs. native debate, and concede defeat — or, at least, concede that the web cannot, and should not, compete with native when it comes to complex, app-like structures.
After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracking program
Hours after the Senate balked at reauthorizing the bulk collection of U.S. telephone records, the National Security Agency began shutting a controversial program Saturday that senior intelligence and law enforcement officials say is vital to track terrorists in the United States.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-25T18:15:50+0000
Your clothes are killing us
The True Cost, a new documentary, chronicles the evils of the clothing industry and asks us to stop buying so much cheap crap.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-25T18:06:16+0000
Why are more than 10 million homes vacant in India? - BBC News
Economic analyst Vivek Kaul on why millions of home are lying empty in India when the country is facing a shortage of housing.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-25T18:03:03+0000
New C++ experimental feature: The tadpole operators - The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Since the + and - operators have such low precedence, you end up having to parenthesize them a lot, which can lead to heavily nested code that is hard to read.
The generation that tech forgot - BBC News
How can the tech industry engage the over-65s who feel devices are not designed with them in mind?
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-25T17:58:10+0000
How Employers Get Out of Paying Their Workers
Employers illegally siphon billions of dollars out of low-wage workers' paychecks each year, but the vast majority of these crimes go unreported.
Welcome to Python.org
The official home of the Python Programming Language
Organizational Debt is like Technical debt – but worse
Startups focus on speed since they are burning cash every day as they search for product/market fit. But over time code/hardware written/built to validate hypotheses and find early customers can be...
Who Will Be Hurt Most When The Tech Bubble Burst? Not VCs
Do we have a ticking time bomb on hand? The debate over whether Silicon Valley is sitting on another tech bubble rages on. It is being fueled by many..
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-24T17:30:50+0000
the responsibility we have as software engineers
I had the chance to chat this week with the very awesome Kate Heddleston who mentioned that she's been thinking a lot about the ethics of being a software engineer, something she just spoke about a...
'Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash killed in crash - BBC News
Renowned mathematician John Nash, subject of the film A Beautiful Mind, dies in a New Jersey taxi crash with his wife.
Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
Is Uber letting its drivers dodge The Americans With Disabilities Act?
Hasnain says:
"The suits demand Uber abide by the ADA, but Uber claims that because it’s a technology company, not a transportation service, it doesn’t fall under the ADA’s jurisdiction."
Could the courts rule that since the average person really just thinks of Uber as a transportation company, that argument doesn't fly? Sort of like how aspirin/kleenex pretty much lost their trademarks?
Posted on 2015-05-22T16:48:05+0000
U.S. Work Visa Explorer
The Labor Condition Application (LCA) is an application filed by prospective employers on behalf of workers applying for work authorization for the non-immigrant statuses H-1B, H-1B1 (a variant of H-1B for people from Singapore and Chile) and E-3 (a variant of H-1B for workers from Australia). The a…
Heating houses with 'nerd power' - BBC News
All computers produce heat, but computer servers produce a lot of heat - why isn't this used to keep homes and offices warm?
Why I am happy downgrading from a $500 to a $75 smartphone
The first smartphone I ever purchased died last week. It was an Android running CyanogenMod and lived through 19 months …
A Finance Minister Fit for a Greek Tragedy?
The defiant stand by Yanis Varoufakis in the high-stakes economic negotiations with the E.U. threatens to tear Europe apart.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-22T06:28:31+0000
First images of collisions at 13 TeV | CERN
Last night, protons collided in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the record-breaking energy of 13 TeV for the first time. These test collisions were to set up systems that protect the machine and detectors from particles that stray from the edges of the beam.
AMD says Nvidia’s GameWorks “completely sabotaged” Witcher 3 performance
There are plenty of performance issues in The Witcher 3, but who's to blame?
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-21T15:38:45+0000
Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
Juvenile Justice In re D.S. Iowa Supreme Court Holds that Evidence of Taunting Is Insufficient to Constitute Criminal Harassment. Recent Case
Hasnain says:
This is a great read, and incredibly harrowing and scary
"But when I heard those words, my heart sank. In front of me was a child in whose world being stopped and frisked was so regular, such a fact of everyday life, that he had reasonably concluded that it must be lawful. This child was growing up believing that his suspicious body could be probed at will by government employees. "
Posted on 2015-05-20T15:25:22+0000
6 Chinese Men Indicted in Theft of Code From U.S. Tech Companies
The suspects studied in the United States and took jobs at the semiconductor companies Avago Technologies and Skyworks Solutions.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-20T05:51:15+0000
A Curious Property of 82000 The number 82000 in base 10 is equal to…
A Curious Property of 82000 The number 82000 in base 10 is equal to 10100000001010000 in base 2, 11011111001 in base 3, 110001100 in base 4, and 10111000… - Richard Green - Google+
We need to ditch generational labels – Rebecca Onion – Aeon
Generational thinking is seductive and confirms preconceived prejudices, but it’s a bogus way to understand the world
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-20T05:41:12+0000
Logjam: How Diffie-Hellman Fails in Practice
Tracking the FREAK Attack
Uber Tests 30% Fee, Its Highest Yet
Uber is experimenting with taking 30% of the fares booked through its car-hailing app, the highest commission it has charged drivers.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-19T15:29:05+0000
Popcorn In Your Browser
popcorninyourbrowser.net
Hasnain says:
And now Popcorn time is in the browser. It'll be fun to see how fast it gets taken down
Posted on 2015-05-19T15:23:51+0000
RadioShack Sold Your Data to Pay Off Its Debts. The FTC Isn’t Too Happy About It.
RadioShack is dead, but its saga is ongoing. Last week, the company’s name was auctioned off for $26.2 million to Standard General, a hedge fund that earlier this year bought hundreds of RadioShack store leases. With the latest purchase, though, Standard General also got RadioShack’s collection of c…
Get Your Shit Together
Life and Death Planning: Low effort, high reward.
Adrian Chadd's Ramblings: freebsd-wifi-build, or "wait, you can run freebsd on atheros MIPS...
adrianchadd.blogspot.com
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-19T05:53:36+0000
We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
When Italian authorities confirmed that James Gandolfini had just died in Rome of an apparent heart attack in 2013, many reports in…
Hasnain says:
"Doctors take far too much confidence in scan results, feeling they see everything with certainty. They don’t. As a Florida coroner told me a few years ago, “We get this all the time. The doctors get our report and call and say, ‘But there can’t be a lacerated aorta. We did a whole set of scans.’
“We have to remind them that we held the heart in our hands.”"
Posted on 2015-05-19T02:22:52+0000
Google's Plan to Eliminate Human Driving in 5 Years | WIRED
Google wants to take the human out of the equation altogether, and for good reason.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-18T13:12:26+0000
Don’t Be So Sure the Economy Will Return to Normal
As postrecession problems linger, the question arises about whether we are witnessing a fundamental shift.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-18T05:00:40+0000
Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pakistani Company Axact Reaps Millions
According to former insiders, company records and an analysis of its websites, a secretive software company is selling fake academic degrees on a global scale.
Hasnain says:
I always wondered what they do while driving past daily, with their luxurious office and branded employee shuttles
Posted on 2015-05-18T04:43:16+0000
Full disclosure : 4096 RSA key in the strongset factored. on Trilema - A blog by Mircea Popescu.
Breaking News : Full disclosure : 4096 RSA key in the strongset factored.
Slot machines perfected addictive gaming. Now, tech wants their tricks
You can play a slot machine in Las Vegas before you’ve even reached baggage claim: there are tiny slots parlors in every terminal of McCarran International Airport. Once you pick up your rental...
The media's reaction to Seymour Hersh's bin Laden scoop has been disgraceful
Seymour Hersh has done the public a great service by breathing life into questions surrounding the official narrative of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Yet instead of trying to build off the details of his story,...
More lethal than RAW
Imagine that an enemy has perfected a super weapon that destroys reasoning power.
Hasnain says:
Improved critical thinking is pretty much a necessity
Posted on 2015-05-16T13:28:26+0000
Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck
The imminent need for basic income in recognition of our machine-driven future
Hasnain says:
Have I said we need basic income? I knew we have a lot of truck drivers around the world but this is worse than I thought.
"To allow this to happen would be truly foolish, for what is the entire purpose of technology but to free us to pursue all we wish to pursue? Fearing the loss of jobs shouldn’t be a fear at all. It should be welcomed. It should be freeing.
No one should be asking what we’re going to do if computers take our jobs.
We should all be asking what we get to do once freed from them."
Posted on 2015-05-16T11:48:47+0000
Luc Gommans - Breaking Grooveshark's encryption
As you may have heard, the streaming music service Grooveshark was taken offline last week after quite literally being sued to hell. I therefore believe it's now okay to publish the details of their encryption method.
Clinkle Implodes As Employees Quit In Protest Of CEO
Seven employees quit the frequently mocked payment rewards startup Clinkle simultaneously today due to frustration with its 24-year-old CEO Lucas Duplan,..
Bug Bounty Program | United Airlines
Find out about the United Bug Bounty program, which allows researchers to report website vulnerabilities and earn award miles.
Witness Accounts in Midtown Hammer Attack Show the Power of False Memory
Two people who saw a police encounter on Wednesday reported different details; surveillance videotape showed that both of them were wrong.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-15T15:21:02+0000
The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead
Young men work less. Older men work more. Here’s what happens at every age.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-15T15:19:45+0000
Vaccine exemptions: California Senate overwhelmingly passes SB 277, abolishing most opt-outs
A bill that abolishes 'personal belief exemptions' for vaccinations won broad approval in the California Senate on Thursday morning, and now advances to the Assembly.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-15T15:19:07+0000
Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla
SpaceX started with a plan to send mice to Mars. It got crazier from there.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-15T06:53:32+0000
Scientists have discovered the first fully warm-blooded fish
Other fish, like tuna, have only a limited form of warm-bloodedness.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-15T06:47:48+0000
In Flight
En route from London to Tokyo, a pilot’s-eye view of life in the sky.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-15T06:43:22+0000
Twenty - a game of numbers with a sneaky twist
Can you get to Twenty? It's harder than it looks!
Hasnain says:
Not another one of these. Say goodbye to your productivity
Posted on 2015-05-14T05:23:16+0000
Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb
Santa Monica’s City Council on Tuesday passed some of the region’s toughest regulations on the booming short-term rental industry. In a quick and unanimous vote, the Council approved rules that will ban most short-term rentals in the city by prohibiting the rental of an entire unit for l…
The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
In every country in the world, male suicides outnumber female. Will Storr asks why.
Why Billionaires Don't Pay Property Taxes in New York
It’s the extreme end game of a tax code that shifts the burden from owners to renters, and from the wealthy to the poor.
Wait! Google™ Sent Me.
Some websites discriminate between readers who arrive from a Google™ search, and those who don't. Push the button to don your mask.
Hasnain says:
I'm installing this. Really helps with a lot of article paywalls
Posted on 2015-05-12T23:52:03+0000
Home page - Lily
www.lily.camera
We used to build steel mills near cheap sources of power, but now that's where we build datacenters
Why are people so concerned with hardware power consumption nowadays? Some common answers to this question are that power is critically important for …
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-12T16:28:50+0000
Warrantless airport seizure of laptop “cannot be justified,” judge rules
Feds said a laptop is simply a "container" that can be searched without warrant.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-12T15:23:15+0000
Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4 Billion
Verizon is buying AOL for $4.4 billion in cash, a deal aimed at advancing the telecom giant’s growth ambitions in mobile video and advertising.
FTC Officials Back Tesla’s Right To Sell Cars Direct To Consumers
Key officials at the FTC aren't mincing words in a new post defending the right of manufacturers to sell directly to consumers: Part of the U.S. regulatory..
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-12T03:06:41+0000
More Consensus on Coffee’s Benefits Than You Might Think
A review of studies shows that coffee’s reputation as being unhealthy is undeserved, with the potential health benefits surprisingly large.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-12T03:03:22+0000
Narrowing a Residential Street - McAllister
We will transmit this City not only, not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us. - Derived from the Ephebic Oath, Athens, 4th Century BCE I took the image below outside ...
Game theory’s cure for corruption – Suzanne Sadedin – Aeon
Seen through game theory, cancer and police corruption are pretty much the same thing. And for one of them, there’s a cure
Hasnain says:
I think this takes it a little bit to the extreme, but a great read nonetheless
Posted on 2015-05-11T16:26:22+0000
cbloom rants: 05-10-15 - Did I ever mention that I fucking hate the fucking web-
I'm trying to get together the photos of my baby to share with my mom. What a fucking nightmare. They're mostly on my phone, and auto-backed up to Google Photos. Should be easy, right?
LRB · Seymour M. Hersh · The Killing of Osama bin Laden
It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the . . .
Microsoft to stop producing Windows versions - BBC News
Windows 10 will be the last version of the operating system to be numbered, says Microsoft executive.
Hasnain says:
Finally. Though it's still a slight disappointment from what I thought at first
Posted on 2015-05-11T05:09:39+0000
Whoever Is Leaking Trans-Pacific Partnership Drafts: Please Leak More
Knowledge is power, they say.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-10T17:22:28+0000
NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal By Their Heartbeats
A couple years ago, NASA and DHS unveiled a portable radar unit based on technology used to detect alien life on distant exoplanets. This radar unit, though, would be used closer to home—to find people burried under rubble. In the first real-world demonstration of its use, the device helped save 4 m…
Hasnain says:
This is awesome and scary at the same time. Just like all the scanning for life stuff in Sci-Fi media
Posted on 2015-05-08T06:31:31+0000
The Discovery of Apache ZooKeeper's Poison Packet - PagerDuty
We uncovered 4 bugs causing random cluster-wide lockups. Two bugs laid in ZooKeeper, and the other two were lurking in the Linux kernel. This is our story.
Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
This happy-looking shot was taken in 1999, when I almost destroyed myself. In this post, I'm going to talk about suicide, and why I'm still on this planet. These are stories I've kept secret from my family, girlfriends, and closest friends for years.
The Psychology of Pricing: A Gigantic List of Strategies
Welcome to a massive list of psychological pricing strategies. Whether you’re launching a new product, selling items on eBay, or negotiating a deal on your house, you’ll learn how to choose a price that will maximize your profit. This article is pretty beastly. To help you find the pieces that …
I was an undercover Uber driver
I drove a hundred rides for UberX to fact-check whether a middle-of-the-pack driver can make $90,000 a year. This is what I...
Dissolve My Nobel Prize! Fast! (A True Story)
It's 1940. The Nazis have taken Copenhagen, and physicist Niels Bohr has just hours, maybe minutes, to make two Nobel Prize medals disappear.
Hasnain says:
Bookmarking for future reference in case I ever need to do this.
Posted on 2015-05-07T01:13:34+0000
Why Do We Play Video Games That Feel Like Work?
Video games offer a utopian version of work: one where your goals are clearly defined and you're in control.
Hasnain says:
I feel like this piece is taking it way too seriously
Posted on 2015-05-06T15:35:22+0000
Six Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal ... I'm White'
Jamaal Allan is a high school teacher in Des Moines, Iowa. People make assumptions based on his name alone, and that's taken him on a lifelong odyssey of racial encounters.
MIT alumni in their 50s
I attended an MIT alumni gathering last week. There was a slight selection bias in that all those present were people whom an on-campus group was hoping to get donations from. Inadvertently it turn...
First Look at the Rift, Shipping Q1 2016
Since the earliest days of the Oculus Kickstarter, the Rift has been shaped by gamers, backers, developers, and enthusiasts around the world. Today, we’re incredibly excited to announce that the Oculus Rift will be shipping to consumers in Q1 2016, with pre-orders later this year. The Rift delivers…
Hasnain says:
Coming soon to a place near you. Can't wait (though I'll have to see if it fits my glasses)
Posted on 2015-05-06T15:20:49+0000
The Secret Lives of Homeless Students
After years of homelessness, I graduated college and a Master’s program. What about the other million-plus homeless stud…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-06T02:02:10+0000
What Hollywood Can Teach Us About the Future of Work
In our increasingly automated and global economy, every business is becoming a little like show business.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-06T01:58:57+0000
Court says Skype's name is too similar to Sky's - BBC News
Skype is unable to get an EU-wide trademark for its brand because a court believes its name is too similar to the broadcaster Sky's.
Germans, still outraged by NSA spying, learn their country may have helped
German anger turns inward following allegations that the country’s spies aided U.S. snooping on friends.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-05T15:22:39+0000
Fractal Lab
A demo video of a browser based interactive 3D fractal explorer and renderer.
What every computer science major should know
Given the expansive growth in the field, it's become challenging to discern what belongs in a modern computer science degree.
Hasnain says:
This is an amazing list. A lot of CS programs should be better structured
Posted on 2015-05-05T06:31:49+0000
When will we find aliens?
For the first time in human history, we have the means to answer the question
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-04T04:19:38+0000
I secretly lived in my office for 500 days
Unable to pay rent in L.A., I slept behind my desk. But what began as a quick financial fix soon became a lifestyle
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-05-04T03:25:48+0000
Pony - High Performance Actor Programming
Actor Model, Low Latency, High Performance, Programming, Capabilities, Data-race free