Hasnain says:

Severance was such a good show, and very refreshingly different when compared to most recent stuff out there. It gave me lots to ponder about how we all perceive work and life.

“Severance is the extreme version of the consideration of how we derive the meaning of our lives from work, and the unhealthy attachments we form with our subordinates and managers. In the world of the severed, Lumon acts as their parents, their teachers and their government. Outside of their workmates and Mr. Milichick, the severed rarely if ever meet another person.”

Hasnain says:

This piece is a bit more optimistic than I am, but it was refreshing to read nonetheless.

“As for the NIMBYs themselves, whether they self-identify as such or are de facto fellow travelers, we can only hope that they think carefully about how they want to wield what little power they have left. They can, of course, keep filing lawsuits, badgering planners, and spinning conspiracy theories at Livable California meetings if they want to. (Everyone needs a hobby.) Alternatively, they could accept that the state’s tastes, needs, and demographic composition have changed. they could help ensure that cities change accordingly and for the better, by participating in consensus-building discussions that acknowledge the realities of growth, equity, sustainability, and--yes--livability. California will still need dissenting voices, varying opinions, and civic watchdogs, of course. Many NIMBY advocates could ably and usefully serve those functions without resorting to extremism or antagonism. And they can still enjoy themselves and be thankful for their windfall wealth and tax subsidies.

I could be wrong. You never know what the next lawsuit will bring or what odd alliance is going to emerge. But, just as any sensible household needs to plan for retirement, so should the NIMBY movement. It's about time.”

Hasnain says:

Great read on cryptography. It takes a simple question: “do there exist cryptographic schemes which are secure under the random oracle model but are insecure when implemented with a concrete hash function?”, and answers it while explaining a bunch of the theory from the ground up.

“At this point, one question should be: can proofs in the random oracle model be trusted? I think I want to say yes to this question. Obviously, we shouldn’t take the random oracle model as a trivial assumption, and if a proof can avoid relying on it, that’s all for the better. On the other hand, there are now many proofs relying on this model, and the only major flaw I know of resulting from the use of this model is perhaps the presence of Length Extension Attacks, and other similar issues with message concatenation.

There are assumptions that we have to rely on in Cryptography, like the hardness of certain problems, and maybe the random oracle model is just one of the assumptions we’ll have to concede.”

Hasnain says:

““The pandemic helped level the playing field by creating working conditions that are the same for everyone and better controlled through the use of technology,” said Daniel Clayton, vice president of global security operations at Bitdefender Inc., a Romania-based company that makes hack prevention and response tools.

Supporting a neurodiverse workforce takes no more effort than having the empathy necessary to support all employees, Mr. Clayton said: “This is just understanding what somebody needs to be successful and then setting conditions for them to be successful.””

Hasnain says:

“To that end, we must hold the media—which helped create this crisis, which regularly passes over trans perspectives, which disseminates transphobic distortions—to account. Jesse Singal is both a propagator and a reflection of mounting public anxieties that have accompanied the increasing public visibility of trans people. Singal didn’t invent transphobia, and he’s far from the only transphobic contrarian in the discourse. But what the media says and does is enormously consequential. There are vicious bigots who are eager to seize upon any ideological rationale that might facilitate their campaigns of hatred. Media outlets must stop platforming ideologues who—whatever their excuse—are undermining the perspectives and concerns of trans people. Time and again, we have seen our legitimacy questioned, our identities derogated, and, in the end, our lives placed under genuine threat.”

Hasnain says:

“Even if Bhargava’s techniques don’t lead straight to the next number theory breakthrough, Thorne believes the paper will have a more intangible impact. “To read this paper, I think, is to realize that these results are out there to be proved,” he said. “[Bhargava] dared to believe it was possible, and he showed the world that he was right.””

Hasnain says:

Pondering this today.

“White Americans want an endlessly appreciating asset and the ability to police who their neighbors are and what they do. Housing segregation, suburban sprawl, and planned communities are how they won those things, and how they protect them. Automobile dependence is mainly a necessary side effect. Housing preferences have less to do with how people want to get around than they do with the level of control white Americans want to have over who can live near them, largely for the sake of property values.”

Hasnain says:

And the school leaders are saying they’d continue to do the same thing and don’t have regrets. Sigh.

“San Mateo High School held the party on April 9 at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, about 18 miles away. Following the event, however, 90 out of the nearly 600 students who attended tested positive for the virus.”

Hasnain says:

Oof.

“According to the report, the British tabloid MailOnline was pursuing a story based on allegations made by a former girlfriend of Kotick’s, and a temporary restraining order she had received against him. But Sandberg and Kotick worked together on two separate occasions, in 2016 and in 2019, to strategize on how to “persuade the Daily Mail not to report on the restraining order.”

The report states that Facebook and Activision staff were both directly involved in the effort, and that there was concern internally at Facebook that the story would “reflect negatively on her reputation as an advocate for women.””

Hasnain says:

Definitely need to read this book now.

“Making decisions is dangerous, and managers will avoid it when possible, even if this costs the organization in the long run. Jackall tells an anecdote about a large, old battery at a plant. The managers did not want to be on the hook for the decision to replace it, and so problems with it were patched up. Eventually, it failed completely, and the resulting cost to replace it and to deal with costs related to EPA violations and lawsuits was over $100M in 1979 dollars. And yet, this was still rational decision-making on behalf of the managers, because it was a risk for them in the short-term to make the decision to replace the battery.”