FTC Takes Action Against Care.com for Deceiving Caregivers About Wages and Availability of Jobs on its Site, Impeding Cancellation Process
The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Care.com (Care), alleging that the child and older adult care gig platform has systematically deceived caregivers who were looking for jobs whi
Hasnain says:
No wonder the founder was asking for Lina Khan to be fired a few weeks ago. She continues to be my favorite government official
“The complaint cites one 2021 Care ad campaign on a third-party site saying “Childcare jobs from $18/hr,” while at the same time saying on its own website that, “On average, the national pay rate for babysitting jobs” and “The average rate for babysitters on Care.com” was between $13 and $14.25 per hour.”
Posted on 2024-08-29T06:53:33+0000
How Meta enforces purpose limitation via Privacy Aware Infrastructure at scale
At Meta, we’ve been diligently working to incorporate privacy into different systems of our software stack over the past few years. Today, we’re excited to share some cutting-edge techn…
Hasnain says:
I was somewhat in the general vicinity of this work so it’s really cool to see how it has evolved over time. The lessons in particular are cool
“Initially, we developed Policy Zones for batch-processing systems with some basic use cases. However, we realized that our designs for function-based systems were quite abstract and the adoption for a large-scale use case resulted in significant challenges, consequently, requiring considerable effort to map patterns to customer needs. Furthermore, refining the APIs and building missing operational support made it work effectively end-to-end across multiple systems. Only after addressing these challenges were we able to make it more generic and proceed with integrating Policy Zones across extensive platforms.”
Posted on 2024-08-28T07:14:38+0000
Fixing a Bug in Google Chrome as a First-Time Contributor
A rundown of my experience finding and fixing a bug in the Chromium/Google Chrome browser - specifically in the devtools. It includes details about the bug itself as well as notes about what it was like working on the Chromium project as a first-time contributor.
Hasnain says:
“Although it took a while and a good bit of effort, I'm very glad I spent time time to get this bug fixed. It was very unique compared to the kind of development I've done in the past, and it was cool to experience how software gets built at Chromium's scale.
One of the main things motivating me to do this was the knowledge that if I succeeded, code I wrote would be part of an application that eventually makes its way onto millions (billions?) of devices.
Even though the change itself is niche and concerns developer tooling rather than the main browser, that kind of impact is very alluring to me.
Now that I've gained this experience contributing to Chromium, I'll certainly be on the lookout for more bugs that I might be able to fix in the future. I don't think I'll go out of my way to seek them out, though, due to the huge amount of time it takes to tackle the Chromium codebase from scratch.”
Posted on 2024-08-27T07:12:23+0000
The staggering death toll of scientific lies
From Don Poldersmans and Francesca Gino to faked Alzheimer’s data, the scientific field needs a better handle on allegations and consequences of fraudulent research.
Hasnain says:
Another case where I read an article and think “there should be jail time involved here right?”
“Millions of surgeries were conducted across the US and Europe during the years from 2009 to 2013 when those misguided guidelines were in place. One provocative analysis from cardiologists Graham Cole and Darrel Francis estimated that there were 800,000 deaths compared to if the best practices had been established five years sooner. While that exact number is hotly contested, a 27 percent increase in mortality for a common procedure for years on end can add up to an extraordinary death toll.”
Posted on 2024-08-27T07:11:37+0000
How San Francisco’s bureaucracy is condemning its night markets to mediocre food
Despite the hype and good vibes surrounding the recent officially sanctioned night market events that San Francisco has put on, the city’s food game is weak.
Hasnain says:
“Despite the legalization of street food vending at the state level, San Francisco continues to lag behind other California cities in creating a viable pathway for street food vendors to get inspected and go aboveboard. Entry into one of the night markets, a potential game-changer for street vendors, requires so much paperwork and upfront money that it limits access to the chosen few. I doubt folks like the Cambodian ladies at the Stockton market would bother, and San Francisco’s food scene is poorer for it. Notably, New York City’s equivalent to San Francisco’s annual event vendor fee is just $70”
Posted on 2024-08-25T02:05:38+0000
Stop using the term ‘centrist’. It doesn’t mean what you think it does | Arwa Mahdawi
If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy, wrote Orwell. That applies today more than ever
Hasnain says:
“Centrism we are told, is being pro-Israel and pro-business, no matter what. This piece came out while Shapiro was facing criticism from the left for an old essay he wrote in which he called Palestinians too “battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own”. He has never properly apologized for this, nor will he ever have to, because being racist against Palestinians is a centrist position.
As Orwell wrote, atrocities can be defended, “but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties”. If the Democratic party were to be honest about why it is doing very little to stop the carnage in Gaza and the settlements in the West Bank, the bluntest argument would be along the lines of: “Israel is an important tool in maintaining US imperialism and western interests. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is expedient to those interests. Human rights law doesn’t apply to atrocities enabled by the west.” Of course, being pro-ethnic cleansing doesn’t quite square with the do-gooding branding of the Democratic party. Instead, we are bombarded with the idea that massacring children is somehow a centrist and moderate position.”
Posted on 2024-08-23T07:18:30+0000
A Palestinian American’s Place Under the Democrats’ Big Tent?
Though the Uncommitted movement is lobbying to get a Palestinian American on the main stage, the Harris campaign has not yet approved one. Will there be a change before Thursday—and does the Democratic party want that?
Hasnain says:
“But what I saw was an ethnocracy, where half the people are first-class citizens, and the other half are something less. And this is a system sponsored and endorsed by the United States of America. The endorsement is not contradictory. For most of its history, America too was an ethnocracy in democratic clothing. The ostensible triumph over that old system, which we call Jim Crow, is one of the most uplifting stories America tells itself, one that has been repeatedly invoked at the DNC. How odd I find it that a people, presently brutalized by a similar system, whose relatives are being erased by that system’s wanton violence, are also being erased from the stage.”
Posted on 2024-08-22T07:35:29+0000
Speaking Plainly About Who Is Robbing You
Politics as racketeering.
Hasnain says:
“To sum up: the Biden administration’s attempt to stop this predatory industry from skimming money from Americans’ retirement savings is being blocked because the predatory industry itself has paid money to politicians in Congress to help it keep robbing the public. It is also being assisted by a Supreme Court that was purchased at great expense by business interests funding decades worth of right wing legal and lobbying groups. Because this issue touches on issues that can be made to seem esoteric and hard to understand—as soon as you say the word “fiduciary,” it sounds like you are talking about something that requires some serious financial expertise—it has flown under the radar of the general public. That could be remedied somewhat if we just spoke about this issue in plain and direct terms. Republicans who have been paid off are trying to ensure that an industry that exists to rob you can continue robbing you. That is what is happening here.”
Posted on 2024-08-14T14:46:34+0000
As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel
The long read: This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree
Hasnain says:
Long, sobering account from an Israeli historian and world renowned expert on genocide. He goes into both history and the recent past.
“But another part of my apprehension had to do with the fact that my view of what was happening in Gaza had shifted. On 10 November 2023, I wrote in the New York Times: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is now taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. […] We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.”
I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans – most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so-called safe zone – demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, the rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since 7 October was now being translated into reality – namely, as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, that Israel was acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm, or inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction”.”
Posted on 2024-08-14T06:30:41+0000
How to Ask Great Questions
Most leaders need to get better at it.
Hasnain says:
““Question everything,” Albert Einstein famously said. Personal creativity and organizational innovation rely on a willingness to seek out novel information. Questions and thoughtful answers foster smoother and more-effective interactions, they strengthen rapport and trust, and lead groups toward discovery. All this we have documented in our research. But we believe questions and answers have a power that goes far beyond matters of performance. The wellspring of all questions is wonder and curiosity and a capacity for delight. We pose and respond to queries in the belief that the magic of a conversation will produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Sustained personal engagement and motivation—in our lives as well as our work—require that we are always mindful of the transformative joy of asking and answering questions.”
Posted on 2024-08-13T06:34:37+0000