Hasnain says:

I’m actually surprised, but twitter did open source a bunch of “the algorithm”:
https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/open-source/2023/twitter-recommendation-algorithm

wondering what people will find as they go over the code.

(github: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm and https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm-ml )

Hasnain says:

Interesting read and I’d love to see any follow up studies here. I like how it presents the trade off between remote work and fertility rates. With how much some governments have been harping on about lower birth rates, you’d think they’d be open to more flexibility here, but they keep wanting to force people back into the office. Or not allowing immigrants. Sigh.

“Overall we see the impact of remote work on women’s intentions for family formation and the desire to have children. While remote work appears to have the biggest positive impact on older women who already have children, the clear positive impact on marriage rates suggests the potential for longer-run impacts—including changed fertility rates—on younger women. While the evidence is early and far from conclusive, we believe this research makes the case for the hypothesis that elevated levels of remote work during COVID made a positive contribution to the U.S. and potentially other developed countries’ fertility rates. Moreover, we believe this evidence is suggestive that the “return to the office” may contribute to falling birth rates, and that governments interested in supporting marriage and implementing pro-natal policies may be interested in considering how flexible work arrangements can be supported and encouraged.”

Hasnain says:

Simple rule with lots of ramifications. Worth thinking about as a design principle in general.

“Rust also has a rule. It’s kinda funny, because in some senses, this rule is almost the opposite of Magic’s, if you can even stretch the comparison this far. Here it is:

Whenever the body of a function contradicts the function’s signature, the signature takes precedence; the signature is right and the body is wrong.

This rule is also so pervasive in Rust that we take it for granted, but it is really, truly important. I think it is also important for Rust users to internalize the implications of this rule, so that they know why certain things work the way that they do.”

Hasnain says:

This is sad.

“"This is the first time in my career that I've ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it's always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember," says the JAMA paper's lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Now, it's increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century."

Across the lifespan, and across every demographic group, Americans die at younger ages than their counterparts in other wealthy nations.”

Hasnain says:

Been a while since Yegge has blogged - always an instant read for me. This is warming me up more and more to LLM, given his usual skepticism I’m inclined to trust this more. So hard to pick a single quote to go with, so I’ll leave with this one cause it made me laugh:

“One of the craziest damned things I hear devs say about LLM-based coding help is that they can’t “trust” the code that it writes, because it “might have bugs in it”.

Ah me, these crazy crazy devs.

Can you trust code you yeeted over from Stack Overflow? NO!

Can you trust code you copied from somewhere else in your code base? NO!

Can you trust code you just now wrote carefully by hand, yourself? NOOOO!

All you crazy MFs are completely overlooking the fact that software engineering exists as a discipline because you cannot EVER under any circumstances TRUST CODE. That’s why we have reviewers. And linters. And debuggers. And unit tests. And integration tests. And staging environments. And runbooks. And all of goddamned Operational Excellence. And security checkers, and compliance scanners, and on, and on and on!

So the next one of you to complain that “you can’t trust LLM code” gets a little badge that says “Welcome to engineering motherfucker”. You’ve finally learned the secret of the trade: Don’t. Trust. Anything!”

Hasnain says:

This was a great read - learnt a bit more about recommendation algorithms!

“Recommender systems are extremely well studied in computer science, and relatively simple to understand, but public comprehension of how they work is poor. That has led to these algorithms being viewed as magic, demonized, or mythologized. (I hope to play a small role in changing this through my ongoing project on algorithmic amplification and society.) TikTok’s recommender system is not its secret: rather, it’s the design, which, of course, isn’t secret at all. More generally, in AI applications, the sophistication of the algorithm is rarely the limiting factor. The quality of the design, the data, and the people that make up the system all tend to matter more.

Despite TikTok’s design innovations being well known, other apps have trouble copying them because they were originally designed for a very different experience, and they are locked into it due to their users’ and creators’ preferences. This is a classic example of the innovator’s dilemma: Clay Christensen’s argument that incumbents tend to be held back by their own success—a lesson that’s been largely forgotten as “disruption” turned into a buzzword. As changes in technology make new user experiences possible, TikTok may one day be the struggling incumbent.”

Hasnain says:

This is…. Not great. I don’t have high hopes in our public health systems nowadays but I hope action is finally taken at some point before it’s too late.

“Taken together, the investigators write, these findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection damages the CD8+ T cell response, an effect akin to that observed in earlier studies showing long-term damage to the immune system after infection with viruses such as hepatitis C or HIV. The new findings highlight the need to develop vaccination strategies to specifically boost antiviral CD8+ T cell responses in people previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, the researchers conclude. “

Hasnain says:

This… doesn’t seem great. Hiring managers prioritizing their own time over countless other people’s.

“Hiring managers acknowledge as much. In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last summer, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months. Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing, according to Clarify Capital, a small-business-loan provider behind the study. One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees.”

Hasnain says:

Don’t know how to feel about this one.

“A University of Washington-led study has found that for Asian Americans, those who appear heavier not only are perceived to be more “American,” but also may be subject to less prejudice directed at foreigners than Asian Americans who are thin.

Researchers believe this effect relates to common stereotypes that Asians are thin and Americans are heavy — so if someone of Asian heritage is heavy, then they appear to be more “American.””

Hasnain says:

This was really interesting! I wonder what the causal factor here is, given that they controlled for a lot of things.

"Last year, Marieka Klawitter, professor of public policy at the University of Washington, examined 29 studies across the Western Hemisphere on wages and sexual orientation and found a 9 percent earnings premium for lesbians over heterosexual women. (Gay men, meanwhile, faced an 11 percent penalty, compared to straight men.)

She controlled for parenthood and concluded lesbians simply had more education and work experience than the general female population.

But another study from the University of Nevada, which used national data from the year 2000, adds a stunning asterisk to Klawitter's findings: Lesbians who had previously lived with male partners made 9.5 percent less than those who’d never cohabitated with a husband figure.

Were men actually the drags on women’s earnings?"

Hasnain says:

“What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.”

Hasnain says:

"I am not saying that Las Vegas hotels look beautiful. This type of architecture is made for casinos and nearby hotels, so I'd expect it to be kitschy.

But I think this kind of visual trick could find application in high-rise residential buildings to make façades look nicer and gentler. "

Hasnain says:

“This is when, according to Eden’s note, it all came out: Her parents admitted that Bader, Pocalyko, and Cole were hired to get Eden back to Saudi Arabia; they also berated her and called her a “freak.”

The day after Eden posted her note, her family’s Twitter and Telegram channels posted that she had died. Eden’s father did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Saudi embassy in Washington.”

Hasnain says:

This is yet another step in Florida’s full on slide into fascism it seems.

““She started immediately by asking if I could confirm that I sent that email and I did immediately confirm it,” he continued. “She then sounded like she was reading from a script and she said … ‘Your reputation has been irreparably tarnished in the Tampa Bay area and, because of that, we have to terminate you.’””

Hasnain says:

“But what should not be subject to dispute is the hubris of the same justices turning their backs on a half-century’s worth of limitations on the court’s power that they articulated, all for the purpose of striking down a social policy they don’t seem to like adopted by a Democratic president. Such a move would provide yet another example of a supposedly bedrock principle of conservative jurisprudence being tossed aside now that the conservative majority is ascendant. And it would do nothing to rebut growing charges that the justices are partisan political actors as much as they are neutral, independent jurists — further eroding public confidence in the Supreme Court and in the judicial system more broadly”

Hasnain says:

:( this sucks. Wishing the best to everyone I know that’s still there. Happy to talk if you need help on the job hunt or just need someone to listen.

“Here’s the timeline you should expect: over the next couple of months, org leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our orgs, canceling lower priority projects, and reducing our hiring rates. With less hiring, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team. We will let recruiting team members know tomorrow whether they’re impacted. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May. In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes. Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired.”

Hasnain says:

“It didn’t persuade the room, and on 9 November, the Kingston rent guidelines board was ready to hand the tenants a win. It took more than three hours of deliberation – Carolina Soto had tried holding firm for a 30% rent reduction – but in the end, they settled on 15%, a number Soto knew would still be a lifeline. It was the first time any American city had voted to decrease rents this way, and the tenants were ecstatic. “This is huge,” thought Teresa Greene. Nemon, the former Bernie Sanders organizer, says it was “the best I’ve felt since the Iowa caucuses”.”

Hasnain says:

Great read.

“It’s not obvious to me why venture capitalists should be so in control of what tech gets funded, who designs it, how it gets developed, why it gets deployed, and where the returns go. If it is simply a question of capital, we can and should explore alternatives to the privately run VC system prioritizing tech that degrades and commodifies more of our life, gambles on these developments with other people’s money, and in the blink of an eye causes regular panics that threaten to upend life for countless people. If it is a question of talent, we can and should recognize that these people are not any smarter or more talented than us—they just have more capital to throw at problems, better connections to ensure things work out their way, and less shame preventing them from pursuing what they want. If it is a question of politics, then we should ask whether a system that subsidizes a bunch of well-connected, wealthy libertarians as they enrich one another with lottery tickets is truly the only way we can and should develop technology. I hope not.”

Hasnain says:

I feel so bad for this kid.

“Claire, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, has never known a life that doesn’t include a camera being pointed in her direction. The first time she went viral, she was a toddler. When the family’s channel started to rake in the views, Claire says both her parents left their jobs because the revenue from the YouTube channel was enough to support the family and to land them a nicer house and new car. “That’s not fair that I have to support everyone,” she said. “I try not to be resentful but I kind of [am].” Once, she told her dad she didn’t want to do YouTube videos anymore and he told her they would have to move out of their house and her parents would have to go back to work, leaving no money for “nice things.”

When the family is together, the YouTube channel is what they talk about. Claire says her father has told her he may be her father, but he’s also her boss. “It’s a lot of pressure,” she said. When Claire turns 18 and can move out on her own, she’s considering going no-contact with her parents. Once she doesn’t live with them anymore, she plans to speak out publicly about being the star of a YouTube channel. She’ll even use her real name. Claire wants people to know how her childhood was overshadowed by social media stardom that she didn’t choose. And she wants her parents to know: “nothing they do now is going to take back the years of work I had to put in.””

Hasnain says:

Matt Levine with a great take on the SVB situation as usual.

“Also, I am sorry to be rude, but there is another reason that it is maybe not great to be the Bank of Startups, which is that nobody on Earth is more of a herd animal than Silicon Valley venture capitalists. What you want, as a bank, is a certain amount of diversity among your depositors. If some depositors get spooked and take their money out, and other depositors evaluate your balance sheet and decide things are fine and keep their money in, and lots more depositors keep their money in because they simply don’t pay attention to banking news, then you have a shot at muddling through your problems.

But if all of your depositors are startups with the same handful of venture capitalists on their boards, and all those venture capitalists are competing with each other to Add Value and Be Influencers and Do The Current Thing by calling all their portfolio companies to say “hey, did you hear, everyone’s taking money out of Silicon Valley Bank, you should too,” then all of your depositors will take their money out at the same time.”

Hasnain says:

Yikes. So long, SVB. This is going to hurt a bunch of companies

“As of December 31, 2022, Silicon Valley Bank had approximately $209.0 billion in total assets and about $175.4 billion in total deposits. At the time of closing, the amount of deposits in excess of the insurance limits was undetermined. The amount of uninsured deposits will be determined once the FDIC obtains additional information from the bank and customers.

Customers with accounts in excess of $250,000 should contact the FDIC toll-free at 1-866-799-0959.”

Hasnain says:

Wonder what other horrifying stories will come out as people go through the 2600 pages of emails.

““I have no doubt this will be an uphill battle when we get to session,” Deutsch warned the group. “As always, please do not share this with the media. The longer we can fly under the radar the better.”

The message was one in a trove of emails obtained by Mother Jones between Deutsch and representatives of a network of activists and organizations at the forefront of the anti-trans movement. They show the degree to which these activists shaped Deutsch’s repressive legislation, a version of which was signed into law in February, and the tactics, alliances, and goals of a movement that has sought to foist their agenda on a national scale. “

Hasnain says:

“Boys can be especially affected by whether fathers are part of the emotional equation. Our culture often tells men that softer emotions are weak, so fathers may have to give sons explicit “permission to feel,” says Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Because many men didn’t grow up with an emotionally warm male role model, they may lack confidence in their own abilities to be sensitive caregivers, which can hold them back. “When women take on the role of being the sole emotional caregivers, the only one who can comfort a child, the one who talks about emotions, it further entrenches the idea that the expression of vulnerable feelings belongs in the domain of women,” says Lisa Damour, author of “The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents.” She adds, “It’s not enough to encourage our sons to share their inner worlds. The men they look up to and respect need to show them how it’s done.””

Hasnain says:

“It’s easy to see where Yoshida’s sentiments in his IGN interview fall apart. I could trot out the standard response that gets used whenever a work of fantasy fails to include people of color in the name of “historical accuracy,” aka “blah blah blah, it doesn’t make sense that chocobos, Eikons, and magic are permitted but people of color is a step too far.””