Identity crisis: Wives of immigrant tech workers struggle to find purpose
Work, which gives their spouses a sense of purpose and accomplishment, as well as colleagues and a social network, is not available to the women.
Hasnain says:
"Almost half a century after American women rejected narrow gender roles that prescribed lives of housekeeping and child care, these immigrant women are being consigned to the same limited roles."
Posted on 2015-08-31T15:38:43+0000
“Spookiness” Confirmed by the First Loophole-free Quantum Test
Henson et al, arXiv:1508.05949Spookiness, it seems, is here to stay. Quantum theory has been put to its most stringent “loophole free” test yet, and it has come out victorious, ruling out more common sense views of reality (well, mostly). Many thanks to Matt Leifer for bringing this experiment - via…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-28T06:39:52+0000
The Woman Who Spent Six Years Fighting a Traffic Stop
Getting caught in a speed trap in a small Louisiana town.
Hasnain says:
"Larvadain, who is now 74, worries that young lawyers are less concerned with right and wrong than with chasing dollars. Although Patricia Parker’s lawsuit against Woodworth offered small hope of a big payday, Larvadain agreed to represent her. “Because I saw wrong had taken place. And I knew someone had to take a stand.”"
Posted on 2015-08-28T06:33:28+0000
How fixed-gear bikes can confuse Google’s self-driving cars
An awkward encounter with a cyclist highlights the technology’s tough road ahead.
Hasnain says:
From HN comments:
"In the not so far future this will be a concept impossible to explain to kids. That we all used to drive around these multi-thousand pound machines and rely on the expertise of often distracted strangers to not be maimed or killed (and dying by the millions by the way)... It already is starting to sound ridiculous. The thought of no machine in control will be terrifying before long."
"One of my favorite jokes is a grandparent talking to their grandchild, saying, "Did you know, when I was a kid, we used to drive cars ourselves?"
"No way, grandpa! And nobody ever got hurt?"
"Oh no! Every year millions died!""
friendswholikedonaldtrump.com
friendswholikedonaldtrump.com
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-27T22:12:53+0000
Why Do Colleges Give Out “Honorary” Degrees?
For more than 500 years, the honorary degree has provided an opportunity for colleges to build relationships with the rich, famous, and well-connected, in hopes of securing financial donations and cheap publicity.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-27T16:31:33+0000
Rovio To Cut 260 Jobs As The Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
It looks like Angry Birds maker Rovio is having some troubles to pay the bills. The Finnish company is about to cut 260 jobs after reducing its workforce by..
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-27T16:25:46+0000
Reuters Employees Bombarded With Reply-All Email Catastrophe
Every company has its reply-all email meltdown. Wednesday was Thomson Reuters' turn.
Hasnain says:
Should we just teach reply all etiquette in Kindergarten?
Posted on 2015-08-27T05:31:54+0000
Facebook’s Human-Powered Assistant May Just Supercharge AI
Facebook's new virtual assistant, M, is driven mostly by humans. But it may still be a step forward for AI.
Meet Y Combinator’s New COO
Silicon Valley's most successful incubator now has an operations chief who hails from Google.
Hasnain says:
"Younis, 33, was born on a rural farm in Pakistan. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1988, where his parents found work as blue collar workers in the auto industry in Detroit. Immersed in a region dominated by Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, Younis didn’t dream of developing the next hot mobile app. Rather, his goal was to be an engineer at an automobile company. Younis ended up attending Kettering University, in Flint, Mich., which let students work at General Motors while completing their engineering education."
Posted on 2015-08-26T18:13:23+0000
I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon. This Is My Story
Last Saturday, I read the 6,000-word New York Times piece, “Inside Amazon,” in the car on my way to the beach. I sat qui…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-26T16:33:19+0000
Stephen Hawking believes he’s solved a huge mystery about black holes
Hawking presented his ideas at a historic meeting of the minds in Stockholm.
WordSafety.com
Good names are difficult to come up with. And if you've found one: have you considered what your potential name might mean in another language? What if it's something obscene?
How companies make millions off lead-poisoned, poor blacks
Structured-settlement annuitants are lured by quick cash to unload their future payouts for dimes on the dollar.
Hasnain says:
I was first going to dismiss this based on a click bait title. Then I read it and got sad
Posted on 2015-08-26T01:46:20+0000
Chebyshev Approximation and How It Can Help You Save Money, Win Friends, and Influence People -...
Blog post by Jason Sachs titled Chebyshev Approximation and How It Can Help You Save Money, Win Friends, and Influence People
The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies
The high cost of overwork.
Hasnain says:
"managers could not tell the difference between employees who actually worked 80 hours a week and those who just pretended to."
Posted on 2015-08-25T06:30:27+0000
Bank Overdraft Policy Reform is Long Overdue
Quickly - what lending product can charge 10x the average payday loan APR, yet makes up a 4x larger market? Give up? Bank overdraft fees.
Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites
Some torrent websites are banning Windows 10 users over fears that the operating system is sending identifying information back to Microsoft.
Why dolphins are deep thinkers
The more we study dolphins, the brighter they turn out to be, writes Anuschka de Rohan
Hasnain says:
"One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird and so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch to get even more fish. "
Posted on 2015-08-24T04:52:05+0000
Cooking with the New York Times
The New York Times Cooking is the best recipe discovery site for browsing years of Times recipes, searching for your favorite ingredients, and watching how-to Cooking videos. NYT Cooking makes it easy to find both healthy and sophisticated recipes – to challenge your skills with recipes by Sam Sifto…
Hasnain says:
The NYT just released a site with over 17k recipes. It actually has a good UI. I'm all for it.
Posted on 2015-08-23T22:06:56+0000
Cat Purr | Your Furry Friend's Noise, Online & Free
Whether you're not at home, can't have a pet, or just need your purr fix right this moment, this soundscape can help you relax and emulate the soothing experience of snuggling up with your furry friend
The Trucks Are Killing Us
Death rates are rising even as Congress is caving to trucking industry pressure and loosening regulations.
Hasnain says:
"The trucking industry, through its chief trade group, the American Trucking Associations, insists that it needs longer work weeks and bigger vehicles so that more trucks will not be needed on the road, which it says could result in more accidents. That logic is laughable, but Congress seems to be buying it."
Posted on 2015-08-22T17:14:37+0000
C++: Deleting destructors and virtual operator delete - Eli Bendersky's website
C++: Deleting destructors and virtual operator delete August 21, 2015 at 05:37 Tags C & C++ , Assembly , Compilation This post starts with a fairly obscure topic - how an overloaded operator delete behaves in light of polymorphism; amazingly, it then gets even more obscure - shedding light on the tr…
Finland considers basic income to reform welfare system - BBC News
The Finnish government of Juha Sipila is considering a pilot project that would give everyone of working age a basic income.
Work Hard, Live Well
Amazon isn’t the only company burning out their employees with unsustainable expectations. Let’s break the cycle.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-20T15:26:29+0000
How does a relational database work - Coding Geek
An in-depth article that explains how a relational database handles an SQL query and the basic components inside a database.
Hasnain says:
I just skimmed this. Seems better than most college courses
Posted on 2015-08-20T06:35:42+0000
xkcd: Board Game
Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).
Google loses data as lightning strikes - BBC News
Google has said data was wiped from disks at one of its data centres in Belgium - after it was struck by lightning four times.
Dear Jeff Bezos: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon
If only you had asked for our feedback earlier.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-19T08:15:10+0000
Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance
Albert Mach wants to help you lead a Viking clan. He wants you to compete for honor and treasure and the control of islands. He wants you to tame the wild dragon. And he wants the masses of the Int…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-19T08:12:10+0000
San Francisco
UberEATS delivers the best dishes, from the best restaurants, in 10 minutes or less. View the menu, open your Uber app, and place your order.
OnHub
Meet OnHub, a new router from Google that’s built for all the ways you Wi-Fi.
HOWTO: Get tenure
Even though I got tenure, for reasons that will soon be obvious, I wouldn’t wish an exact repeat of the last seven years of my life on even Reviewer Number 3.
An (Important) Disproof Of The One-Time Pad
In a recent TechCrunch article I was quoted calling the one-time pad a "unicorn". Inevitably, I was roundly criticized. But what none of the commenters..
Hasnain says:
Welp, time to never use anything developed by this guy
Posted on 2015-08-19T00:07:47+0000
How we know what lies at Earth's core
We can't journey to the centre of the Earth, but that hasn't stopped us finding out what is down there
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-17T16:40:57+0000
Intel just open sourced Stephen Hawking’s speech system and it’s a .NET 4.5 WinForms app that...
Disclaimer: This post does not constitute an endorsement of any Microsoft service, technology or product by Stephen Hawking. The purpose of this post is to discuss Intel’s communication platform for individuals with disabilities and it’s technical details. Pictures are used purely for informational…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-17T16:39:19+0000
GDC Vault - JPS+: Over 100x Faster than A*
www.gdcvault.com
Hasnain says:
I thought JPS was the fastest pathfinding algorithm out there (at least for the cases relevant to games); looks like I was wrong.
Time to pick up more game AI books
Posted on 2015-08-16T18:43:10+0000
The U.S. Government Is Putting Americans on Its No-Fly List on a Hunch
In the movie Minority Report, Hollywood depicts a future Washington, D.C., in which people are arrested by a special police force called Precrime, based on predictions that they will commit murders in the future. These predictions are not based on science, but on near-infallible psychics. Precrime a…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-15T22:16:54+0000
We should host the Olympics in the same place every time
The Olympics are bad for cities. So why do we keep asking new places to invest billions of dollars in state-of-the-art stadiums they’ll never use again?
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-15T22:06:10+0000
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace
The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions.
Hasnain says:
"One ex-employee’s fiancé became so concerned about her nonstop working night after night that he would drive to the Amazon campus at 10 p.m. and dial her cellphone until she agreed to come home. When they took a vacation to Florida, she spent every day at Starbucks using the wireless connection to get work done."
Long and really enlightening
Posted on 2015-08-15T18:32:25+0000
How California Is Winning the Drought
The state’s scorching summer of 2015 is showing us that we know what to do when it comes to conserving water — we just have to do it.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-14T22:40:21+0000
Why Teachers, Parents, and Society at Large Have Destroyed Kids’ Love of Learning
What’s more important: straight As or taking risks?
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-13T23:12:57+0000
Facial Recognition Software Moves From Overseas Wars to Local Police
Dozens of police departments have begun using facial recognition technology to pursue conventional criminal suspects like drug dealers and prostitutes.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-13T15:59:57+0000
I spent a weekend at Google talking with nerds about charity. I came away … worried.
Many were more excited about battling malevolent artificial intelligence than about helping the poor.
Hasnain says:
"The common response I got to this was, "Yes, sure, but even if there's a very, very, very small likelihood of us decreasing AI risk, that still trumps global poverty, because infinitesimally increasing the odds that 10^52 people in the future exist saves way more lives than poverty reduction ever could.""
Was the speaker aware of how insensitive it sounds to argue for more AI research when we have people suffering in poverty this very instant?
Posted on 2015-08-12T20:14:26+0000
How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus
College students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education.
Hasnain says:
"For instance, last year administrators at Bergen Community College, in New Jersey, suspended Francis Schmidt, a professor, after he posted a picture of his daughter on his Google+ account. The photo showed her in a yoga pose, wearing a T-shirt that read I will take what is mine with fire & blood, a quote from the HBO show Game of Thrones. Schmidt had filed a grievance against the school about two months earlier after being passed over for a sabbatical. The quote was interpreted as a threat by a campus administrator, who received a notification after Schmidt posted the picture; it had been sent, automatically, to a whole group of contacts. According to Schmidt, a Bergen security official present at a subsequent meeting between administrators and Schmidt thought the word fire could refer to AK-47s."
Posted on 2015-08-12T18:54:58+0000
How Uber Is Changing Life For Women In Saudi Arabia
Women, legally barred from driving in the country, make up 70-90 of the service's customer base.
G is for Google
googleblog.blogspot.com
U.S.A., Land of Limitations?
The biggest factor for success isn’t hard work but how our lives started.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-10T05:29:01+0000
Google’s $6 Billion Miscalculation on the EU
Why the search leader’s antitrust deal fell apart
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-09T20:10:04+0000
How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code
Colin Hughes' programming website, Project Euler, provides a plan for how to learn anything in fun, discrete steps
Performance without the event loop | Dave Cheney
Performance without the event loop This article is based on a presentation I gave earlier this year at OSCON. It has been edited for brevity and to address some of the points of feedback I received after the talk. A common refrain when talking about Go is it’s a language that works well on the serve…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-09T07:32:15+0000
DM's Esoteric Programming Languages - Bogobogosort
Bogobogosort specifies how one should check if the list of numbers is sorted. It does it recursively, because as anyone who knows anything at all about computer science knows, recursion is always good and cool. To check if the list is sorted, use the following procedure:
Unix Toolbox
A collection of Unix/Linux/BSD commands and tasks which are useful for IT work or for advanced users, a compact and practical reference.
Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
Data from 485,000 people in China found that rates of ischemic heart disease, respiratory disease and cancer were all lower in hot-food eaters.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-07T05:52:16+0000
Agency or Porn
We’ve hand selected advertising agencies and adult films from around the world, and want you to pick which ones which.
In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions
Do Americans who are upset about Cecil even realize how terrifying animals can be?
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-05T18:58:33+0000
imageplay.io
imageplay.io
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-05T15:37:18+0000
Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity And Paternity Leave Program
A few hours after hitting its all-time stock price high today, Netflix has announced a new program for all employees. In a blog post, Netflix outlined its..
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-05T05:53:33+0000
This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineers into Remarkable Managers
Twitter's former Director of Engineering shares the plan he uses to transform engineers into successful and happy managers.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-04T06:55:42+0000
My Life Unmasking British Eavesdroppers
Duncan Campbell spent 30 years — and risked his freedom — uncovering the secrets of U.S. and British eavesdropping, including the existence of ECHELON, one of the biggest spy scandals of the Cold War. Now, thanks to Edward Snowden, he has proof of ECHELON's existence.
Hasnain says:
"The error was catastrophic. I watched as Johnstone slumped in the witness box. He then descended into “gloomy confusion,” according to a watching reporter. He condemned articles published in his own army unit’s magazine as illegal, and finally confessed, “To be frank, I am not certain what is a secret and what isn’t.”"
Posted on 2015-08-04T05:50:04+0000
LLVM for Grad Students
LLVM is a godsend of a research tool. Here are some detailed notes on what LLVM is, why you would want to use it for research, and how to get started as a compiler hacker.
Bertrand's Paradox
web.mit.edu
Hasnain says:
Yay for math (the solutions are .gifs so keep watching)
Posted on 2015-08-04T05:29:17+0000
Engineering Managers Should Code 30% of Their Time
Lose contact with the code, and you lose the connection to your team and the project. How then to make the time to manage and code? The cofounder of MongoDB explains his approach.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-04T04:42:54+0000
How Dare You Say That! The Evolution of Profanity
From “Odsbodikins” to “belly,” the banned words of our ancestors look as bizarre today as tribal rituals. But we are hardly beyond such taboos. We just observe different ones.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-04T03:09:31+0000
Web Design - The First 100 Years
This is the expanded version of a talk I gave on September 9, 2014, at the HOW Interactive Design conference in Washington, DC.
Hasnain says:
I had this open for a while, finally got around to finishing it. It's an awesome talk and worth reading for everyone; it's not just about "web design" but an amazing talk on technology, the past, and the future.
Posted on 2015-08-04T02:36:12+0000
What The Ad Blocker Debate Reveals
Related columns: The Rise of AdBlock Reveals A Serious Problem in the Advertising Ecosystem By Frédéric Filloux Seeing a threat to their ecosystem, French publishers follow their German colleagues and prepare to sue startup Eyeo GmbH, the creator of anti-advertising software AdBlock Plus. But they…
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-03T16:25:27+0000
The Web We Have to Save — Matter
The rich, diverse, free web that I loved — and spent years in an Iranian jail for — is dying. Why is nobody stopping it?
Hasnain says:
"I miss when people took time to be exposed to different opinions, and bothered to read more than a paragraph or 140 characters. I miss the days when I could write something on my own blog, publish on my own domain, without taking an equal time to promote it on numerous social networks; when nobody cared about likes and reshares.
That’s the web I remember before jail. That’s the web we have to save."
Posted on 2015-08-03T16:16:29+0000
This South Korean neighborhood banned cars for a month — and people loved it
Something surprising happened when Haenggung-dong gave its streets over to pedestrians.
Inside the sad, expensive failure of Google+
Create a social network or risk everything. That was the original pitch for Google's Facebook rival, Google+, a refrain hammered over and over by the social network's chief arch...
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-03T06:00:25+0000
Training Officers to Shoot First, and He Will Answer Questions Later
When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, William J. Lewinski often appears as an expert witness who says they had no choice but to fire.
Hasnain says:
"His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person. Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story."
The ending of this article makes me want to rage
Posted on 2015-08-03T05:32:05+0000
More dirty coding tricks from game developers
In this timeless feature from the March 2010 issue of Game Developer Magazine, we revisit the mighty kludges and well-meaning hacks that are sometimes required to get our games out the door on time.
joushou/serve2d
serve2d - A protocol detecting server, based off the serve2 library
Two books isn't enough protection: Britain deports writer Ishtiyaq Shukri
Many of you who are familiar with South African literature know that writer Ishtiyaq Shukri was detained and questioned for over nine hours at Heathrow Airport in London on the 14th of July 2015, a...
Hasnain says:
"Third World immigrants always carry proof of their legitimacy in the form of papers – papers that a white traveller from the geopolitical West would never think to carry: passport, of course. Visa, duh yes. But also: letters from institutions or friends from stating that they are inviting one to come visit, which include those friends’ national ID numbers (to show that they themselves are not illegals), their phone numbers, addresses, and utility bills (to show that they are actually residents at the given residence); letters from employers to show one is gainfully employed; also one’s birth certificate, printouts of bank statements to show that one is solvent and will not become a burden on one’s host country, and proof of health insurance, for the same reason as the former set of documents; then, if applicable, marriage certificates, maybe even deeds to property. That is the burden of the Third World traveller: envelopes of papers and their duplicates, carrying proof of legitimacy. So when you see some Dark Other holding up the immigration queue, shuffling through what seems like unnecessary papers, know that this is what’s happening. "
Posted on 2015-08-02T18:53:35+0000
Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture...
From VOX I was halfway through a job interview when I realized I was wrinkling my nose. I couldn't help myself. A full-time freelance position with a long commute, no benefits, and a quarter...
Click to view the original at ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com
Say goodbye to the weirdest border dispute in the world
Dahala Khagrabari was a part of India, surrounded by a Bangladeshi enclave, which was surrounded by an Indian enclave, which was surrounded by Bangladesh.
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2015-08-01T21:03:09+0000