Hasnain says:

Legacy code taken to a whole new level.

“First introduced in the Windows 98 Plus Pack and later included with Windows Me+ directly, Compressed Folders allows billions of Windows users to interact with ZIP files without downloading third-party software. Perhaps surprisingly, the feature was itself was acquired from two third-parties — Microsoft acquired the Explorer integration from Dave Plummer’s “side project”, while a company called InnerMedia claims credit for the “DynaZIP” engine underneath.

Unfortunately, the code hasn’t really been updated in a while. A long while. The timestamp in the module claims it was last updated on Valentine’s Day 1998”

Hasnain says:

Great little debugging story. Also a very surprising set of circumstances that caused it.

“Sometimes the simplest problems might point at big mistakes within. I could’ve probably fixed this by just swapping the order of the arguments right then and there, and it would’ve worked; until someone else came along and changed the order again. Thankfully, now we will be able to look at tubas with correct colors in peace.”

Hasnain says:

The follow up responses sent on the listserv are hilarious.

“Wallace’s email was designed to mock the Stanford Federalist Society for refusing to disavow the many Federalist Society luminaries who fomented the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, including Hawley and Paxton. It worked: The flyer went viral, prompting USA Today to confirm that it was, indeed, satire. But the Stanford Federalist Society was not amused. In March, one of the group’s top officers filed a complaint against Wallace with Stanford’s Office of Community Standards. (This person’s name has been redacted from all documents.) The student alleged that Wallace’s satire “defamed” the Stanford Federalist Society, causing “harm” to the student group and to the “individual reputations” of the officers.”

Hasnain says:

“The binary race norms, when they are used in the testing, assumes that Black patients start with worse cognitive function than whites and other non-Blacks. That makes it harder for them to show a deficit and qualify for an award. Henry and Davenport, for instance, were denied awards but would have qualified had they been white, according to their lawsuit, which Brody dismissed in March, calling it an improper “collateral attack” on the settlement. They have appealed the ruling.”

Hasnain says:

“It is unsurprising that the disinformation campaigns against the 1619 Project and critical race theory come directly after 2020, a year in which many Americans explicitly grappled with police brutality, anti-Blackness, and white privilege. They directly construct and reinforce the idea that traditional white American identity and whites’ status at the top of the economic, political, and cultural hierarchy in the U.S. is under threat, which many political scientists argue led to Trump’s Electoral College victory in 2016. And, like many other disinformation narratives, they build on preexisting conservative white beliefs about race and inequality—that to talk about race is to be divisive, that critiquing the United States is unpatriotic, and that racial inequality is due to individual failings rather than systemic inequalities.

And yet it is precisely actions, or more accurately inactions, like those taken by the UNC board of trustees that demonstrate that systemic racism exists and the 1619 Project is vital. “

Hasnain says:

“America’s living standards at this point are so incredibly abysmal that a child born in a poor Southern county has a lower life expectancy than someone in Bangladesh — one of the world’s poorest, most decrepit nations.”

Hasnain says:

“"If you look at the blueprints for residential schools when they were first built, many blueprints indicated that there were plans for graveyards to be put in," she told BuzzFeed News. "You don’t build a cemetery into a high school for white kids."

She added that there were indications of mass abuse and deaths at these schools as early as the 1920s, but there was never any formal tracking of the violence while they were operational.”

Hasnain says:

“Ms. Stefanik’s rise — and her colleagues’ fall — is not just a parable of Trumpism. It’s a broader omen for a party struggling to reach a 21st-century electorate. She ascended by embracing a movement that is all about relitigating the past rather than welcoming the future. Now she and other new Trump loyalists in Congress are caught between their party and their generations, stuck between their immediate ambitions and the long-term trends. The G.O.P. has embraced a political form of youth sacrifice, immolating their hopes for young supporters in order to appease an ancient, vengeful power.”

Hasnain says:

I still can’t get over the fact that someone forced employees into the office for a six minute meeting. Like... what?!

“A six-minute meeting drove Portia Twidt to quit her job.

She’d taken the position as a research compliance specialist in February, enticed by promises of remote work. Then came the prodding to go into the office. Meeting invites piled up.

The final straw came a few weeks ago: the request for an in-person gathering, scheduled for all of 360 seconds. Twidt got dressed, dropped her two kids at daycare, drove to the office, had the brief chat and decided she was done.”

Hasnain says:

This should win some headline award.

“That argument was a pitch-perfect distillation of how Manchin views the Senate. How it was received—with just six Republicans voting for the commission—would perhaps indicate to a more mutable senator that his view may be out of step with reality and necessitate eliminating the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold for passing bills.

But not for Manchin.”