Hasnain says:

“Even professors who have incorporated directory structure into their courses suspect that they may be clinging to an approach that’s soon to be obsolete. Plavchan has considered offering a separate course on directory structure — but he’s not sure it’s worth it. “I imagine what’s going to happen is our generation of students ... they’re going to grow up and become professors, they’re going to write their own tools, and they’re going to be based on a completely different approach from what we use today.”

His advice to fellow educators: Get ready. “This is not gonna go away,” he says. “You’re not gonna go back to the way things were. You have to accept it. The sooner that you accept that things change, the better.””

Hasnain says:

This has it all: murder mystery, corruption in government, government incompetence, criminal coverups, and a human interest story.

“As the mystery unravelled, Susan and I spent our evenings on the phone sipping Sauvignon Blanc and quietly patting each other on the back. It had been Susan's dedication, persistence and operating skills that had broken the case where all the detectives in Mayfield and the state police had failed, through neglect and inefficiency.

In March 2007, Susan was summoned to Francfort, Kentucky, to receive the first-ever Kentucky Citizenship Award at a public ceremony.

I would like to say the story has a happy ending but that's not the case. I returned to Mayfield in 2011 to work once more with Susan and try and get answers to some outstanding questions, including why the MPD investigation had been so grotesquely ineffective. What we discovered poses troubling questions about the Mayfield police but there is still more to uncover.”

Hasnain says:

“Nothing about the r/HermanCainAward, a dark record of a dark, dark time, is decent or kind or particularly fair. Even using Cain as the model is uncharitable; he was actually among the conservatives who didn’t deny that COVID was real. He advocated following CDC guidelines including social distancing and even masks on his radio show, despite not always adhering to those recommendations himself. I’m not sure that matters; no one could argue that a place where people gather to mock the dead is “moral,” or accuse it of hypocrisy, or of virtue signaling, or of coastal elitism. It is an anti-persuasive venue, a place that dispenses with rational appeals for people to behave better in favor of something much more primal and horrifying. And who knows? Maybe it’s persuading people specifically because it’s not trying to. “

Hasnain says:

Great read on profiling and chasing down every last bit of unexpected memory usage.

“While the results we achieved are not as good as a complete rewrite in a language that lets us account for every byte, they are a huge improvement over the previous behavior. We feel that careful attention to memory usage is an important skill for systems programming, even in garbage-collected languages.”

Hasnain says:

“Conversations with 11 former and current ERG members, a union organizer and a labor lawyer paint a complex picture of ERGs — one that shows how these groups can sometimes function as a safe space for employees with similar backgrounds but can also do little to effect real change in the workplace. And, in some cases, workers say companies can use ERGs against them and ultimately undermine union efforts.”

Hasnain says:

“Yet Ms. Holmes is also exceptional for the basic fact that she is a woman. Time and again, we see that the boys’ club that is the tech industry supports and protects its own — even when the costs are huge. And when the door cracks open ever so slightly to let a woman in, the same rules don’t apply. Indeed, as Ms. Holmes’s trial for fraud continues in San Jose, Calif., it’s clear that two things can be true. She should be held accountable for her actions as chief executive of Theranos. And it can be sexist to hold her accountable for alleged serious wrongdoing and not hold an array of men accountable for reports of wrongdoing or bad judgment.”

Hasnain says:

I have never heard of a policy before this where people were willing to pay extra taxes for it by this large a margin. I’m sure they exist but this is the first I’ve seen.

More leave is sorely needed for all workers IMO.

“It’s difficult in these divided times to find issues that Americans overwhelmingly agree on, but paid leave is one of them. Seventy-five percent of U.S. voters across party lines support a national paid family and medical leave policy, according to a survey conducted by Invest in America and Data for Progress. That includes 64% of Republicans and 91% of Democrats. In another survey, by the Global Strategy Group, 69% of likely voters across seven battleground states told pollsters they’d even be willing to pay more in taxes in exchange for the protection of a national law.”

Hasnain says:

I kept bouncing between how this is such a well written parody of tech and the realizations that a lot of this hit too close to home.

"“More engineers” will usually *not* solve your problems. Because the real problem is often a strategy problem, culture problem, interpersonal problem, trust problem, creativity problem, or market problem. More engineers *will* solve your “I don’t have enough engineers” problem."

Hasnain says:

“Dockworkers refused to unload containers that had McDonalds equipment in it. Printers refused to supply printed materials to the stores, such as menus and cups. Construction workers refused to build McDonalds stores and even stopped construction on a store that was already in progress but not yet complete. The typographers union refused to place McDonalds advertisements in publications, which eliminated the company’s print advertisement presence. Truckers refused to deliver food and beer to McDonalds. Food and beverage workers that worked at facilities that prepared food for the stores refused to work on McDonalds products.”

Hasnain says:

This was a great read.

“Beyond that, there are specific – and highly sought after - cybersecurity skills that neurodiverse people seem to excel in, such as cryptography, data analytics, and reverse malware engineering. Their different ways of processing information enable them to see patterns neurotypical people like me do not. “