Hasnain says:

Really looking forward to trying this.

“In many ways, I think the time is ripe for this kind of product. AI really is making new things possible in consumer apps, and the collapse of Twitter under Elon Musk has created an opportunity for a team with genuine expertise in this space to take a run at text-based social networking again.”

Hasnain says:

The kids are turning out alright. I also am quite peeved by the term “union avoidance” for some reason.

“But Jackson Lewis principal Pierson-Scheinberg, who presented on “The Evolving World of Labor Relations: An Organizing Re-Union,” may be learning some of her best lessons in union avoidance from her teenage son.

“Funny story,” she told the audience. Her son, a high school senior, was trying to get out of writing a paper, but the only way to get out of it was to bring an outside speaker to talk to his class.

“He goes, ‘Mom, I really think you would be cool, and I know you do this everywhere, it would be really cool if you come in. [But] you’re a union buster, so it can’t be you.’””

Hasnain says:

I am unreasonably excited by this.

“The first city to have the builder’s remedy thrust upon them was Santa Monica who failed to adopt a valid housing element. What happened next shocked California: the residential zoning for the city was eliminated by law.

The whole residential zoning.

A town which in the last eight years approved 1,600 new homes and within a week, saw a dozen development proposals filed that put 4,000 new homes in the pipeline with over 800 of them deed-restricted for low income households. They couldn’t reject a single home, either. It didn’t even go through a long city council process, the project approvals were merely administrative by the planning department. The city councils and zoning boards had zero authority to deny the projects. Zero.”

Hasnain says:

“Some police reform advocates are silent about the failure of these reforms and have pivoted loudly to blaming qualified immunity – a doctrine that prevents police from being sued for misconduct. Those who care about justice must absolutely challenge qualified immunity, as long as they understand that the protections that cops receive through the law is not the basis for their violence. Cops brutalized and killed people before they had immunity. The job necessitates it, which is why abolitionists have fought to reduce and eliminate police funding, encounters with cops, and the underlying reasons why cops have jobs in the first place.”

Hasnain says:

“In addition, she said, the agency “found merit to a charge alleging statements and conduct by Apple — including high-level executives — also violated the National Labor Relations Act.” Unless Apple settles, the board’s regional director will issue a complaint against the Cupertino, California-based company, Blado said in an email.

The agency’s investigations stemmed from cases brought in 2021 by former employees Ashley Gjovik and Cher Scarlett. Scarlett accused the company of maintaining work rules that “prohibit employees from discussing wages, hours, or other terms or conditions of employment.” Gjovik’s filings alleged that an email Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook sent pledging to punish leakers, as well as a set of policies in Apple’s employee handbook, violated federal law.”

Hasnain says:

I expect things will get really grim, really quickly today once the video is released. Cops almost never get even a slap on the wrist - and here they have been charged with murder; the union isn’t defending them and the police chief says she understands if there is outrage. Verbal accounts of the video are really horrifying. As someone on Twitter put it:

“The video is so bad they fired and charged the cops involved.

It’s so bad they’re preparing for rioting.

It’s so bad the police chief has a message out saying she understands the outrage.

Now imagine if there wasn’t a video.”

Hasnain says:

“Caltrans also weighed in after it was reached for comment by various media organizations. In a shocking moment of humility, they noted that, while they didn’t approve of Ankrom’s methods, they couldn’t deny the quality of his work. Not only would they not be pressing charges — they were going to leave his handiwork up. One Caltrans representative jokingly told ABC that they had a job application for Ankrom to fill out.”

Hasnain says:

This is scary. I hope the Streisand effect helps.

“When students at another college in the Indian capital — Jamia Millia Islamia University — announced their own plans on Wednesday to view the film, Delhi police swooped in to detain the organizers. Ranks of riot police armed with tear gas were also dispatched to the campus, according to witnesses and smartphone photos they shared.

All told, the remarkable steps taken by the government seemed to reinforce a central point of the BBC series: that the world’s largest democracy was sliding into authoritarianism under Modi, who rose to national power in 2014 and won reelection in 2019 on a Hindu nationalist platform.”

Hasnain says:

Drama aside, learning more about how the monarchy and press are intertwined in the UK has been eye opening.

“But how is it possible that Harry has managed to generate such interest, with the sales of his book smashing all previous records, while the British press relentlessly attack his character? And how has it made such a dent into the monarchy – an institution which millions support?

The answer is simple – and for Britain’s media gatekeepers, deeply worrying. A shared language and increasingly global platforms for news and information means the UK is becoming, culturally speaking, an appendage of the United States. While English has proven an extraordinary tool of soft power, even after the collapse of the British empire, it increasingly feels like a site of cultural exposure. And although the Windsors have the BBC and Fleet Street, Harry has Netflix, Spotify, Penguin, and a smorgasbord of US chat show hosts. When it comes to winning the hearts of Britain’s under-50s, the country’s most powerful clan is holding a pea-shooter in a gunfight. And the momentum is only going in one direction”

Hasnain says:

“Musk framed his takeover of Twitter last year as being a win for free speech, and he pledged to only moderate speech on the platform if it went outside the bounds of the law. His actions since then have been a series of backslides. For example, he banned accounts using public information to track his and other powerful peoples' flights after saying he would never do so, in order to preserve freedom of speech.

Musk once called himself a "free speech absolutist" and said that "some governments" were demanding that satellite internet company Starlink block Russian news sources, but that it would not unless "at gunpoint."”