Hasnain says:

I think it’s grossly irresponsible that Razor hasn’t canceled outstanding orders and asked people to reorder only after acknowledging this isn’t an N95 mask.

Also this is sadly a fail on the part of US tech journalism which took Razer’s claims at face value and even awarded this a prize at CES (hoping that gets retracted)

“Wu and her supporters' criticisms were twofold. First, that the "N95 grade filters" did not actually have N95 certification, which is designated after meeting testing criteria by the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Second, aside from the filter insert, Wu claimed that problems with the mask's seal and other aspects of its construction compromised the efficacy of the mask itself. Essentially, even if you've got a good filter with N95 protection, there's no guarantee that the hardware you're putting it into will maintain that level of protection along the way.”

Hasnain says:

“I came home one day last May to find that she’d decided to end her pain. As our 13-year-old son waited outside for the paramedics, I tried desperately to revive her. I did a good enough job that by the time we got her to the hospital they could restart her heart, but she was brain dead on arrival. The emergency room doctor assumed that she died from depression. When I told him, “She wasn’t depressed, it was long Covid,” he looked at me with bewilderment and asked, “What’s long Covid?””

Hasnain says:

“The situation is a little embarrassing for Apple, which has often cited its high standards and App Review process as a reason it should be allowed to keep control over which apps run on iPhones and iPads. The review process has been called into question by multiple scams and controversies, but these feel especially blatant — they’re using the same name and have an extremely similar interface to the original. It’s easy to see many people being tricked into thinking that they’re playing an official version.”

Hasnain says:

Very well written piece - it’s a takedown of Manchin but goes into the US political system, the electoral politics and history of Virginia, and interviews a bunch of locals. I learnt a lot.

“I found the road to the mine, but it was closed with a chain-link fence. I drove around to some back roads, and was able to bushwhack up onto a ridge and get a view of the pit. Rock and coal in the ancient mountains were exposed like layers in a wedding cake. Some scrubby locust trees grew in the “reclaimed” areas, where Arch’s mining engineers had piled up dirt to make it look vaguely like a hill. A small lake at the bottom of the pit glowed toxic blue. Twenty years ago, I had stood near this spot and listened to one of those engineers tell me that blowing up mountains was a good thing because it provided more flat land for commercial development. He suggested there would be a shopping mall up here one day, maybe a factory. Hundreds of people would be employed here, he told me. It was a lie then, and it is a lie now. There are 6 million acres of abandoned mine sites in the U.S. Solar panels have popped up on a few, and not far from where I stood, a 35-acre lavender farm employs a handful of former coal miners. Hopeful as those projects may be, they are just lipstick on the coal-country cadaver that Manchin pretends is still alive. Like the disemboweled mountain itself, Manchin is a scar from a time when blasting the Earth to mine coal to burn for energy that cooked the climate was a profitable thing to do. As I stood there on the ridgetop, it occurred to me that if future historians want to tell the story of how humans turned our home into a hell zone of fire, drought, and rising seas, this would be as good of a place as any to begin.”

Hasnain says:

“In his ruling on the documents related to Project Vivian, the NLRB judge describes evidence he reviewed of a situation where a Google attorney proposed to find a “respected voice to publish an OpEd outlining what a unionized tech workplace would look like, and counseling employees of FB (Facebook), MSFT(Microsoft), Amazon, and google (sic) not to do it.”

Kara Silverstein, Google’s human resources director said that she “like[d] the idea” of the op-ed, but that it should be executed so that “there would be no fingerprints and not Google specific.” “

Hasnain says:

Uhhh…

“Though they were recorded explaining the entirety of this encounter, as is common with police, both Mitchell and Lozano lied about what happened, according to the court records. Both of them claimed they were merely catching “images” of Pokémon, not playing a “game.” They also claimed that Pokémon Go is not a “game” but was more of a “social media event” that was not “advertised as a game,” the court records say. Eventually, both admitted to going after the Snorlax because they wanted to “chase this mythical creature.””

Hasnain says:

Depressing but worth reading. I feel for all the parents right now.

“Of course I wish schools could stay open, but I wish for a lot of things. I wish Covid had never happened and nearly a million people in the U.S. hadn't died. I wish my kids and your kids and all our kids hadn't known any of this. That they could have experienced the last two years as children instead of as junior epidemiologists. But wishing won't change the fact that Omicron tears through communities like a hurricane and in-person school doesn't work if half the class can't attend because they’re sick or have been exposed and are in quarantine.”

Hasnain says:

History will not be kind upon the people doing this. I hope the present also forces some action.

“Aid groups estimate that nearly 23 million Afghans, out of a total population of 39 million, already do not have enough to eat. Many also lack solid shelter and money to heat their homes at night, forcing them to choose between food and fuel, and creating additional potential for a full-fledged humanitarian disaster, aid officials said.”

Hasnain says:

For all the great things I see and hear about Roblox, this is really worrying. The abuse happening on platform is sad and I hope they do more to fix it.

“For Anna, success had an unfathomable, life-changing impact. At 16 her monthly income somehow exceeded her parents’ combined salaries. She calculated that she was on course to earn $300,000 in a year, a salary equivalent to that of a highly experienced Google programmer. Anna cancelled her plans to go to college”

Hasnain says:

This was depressing but oh so relatable.

“As a PS, I apologize if this feels like a bummer. But I honestly feel pretty anxious not just about the pandemic, but also about our sudden acquiescence to it, and I really wanted to talk about it somewhere that wasn’t just Twitter. It required unpacking and so here I am, unpacking.”