Hasnain says:

IGN had come out in support of the Palestinians in a way I had never seen any US corporation do before - ever - and it was so well lauded. A lot of people, myself included, were really disappointed when it was (inevitably) taken down.

This offers more insight into just how that happened and I am glad the employees are taking a stand against corporate.

“Importantly, we feel the latest statement dangerously turns what was a matter of supporting innocent civilians facing a humanitarian crisis into a harmful case of “both sides”-ism. Helping children and civilians harmed by the horrors of war should be uncontroversial no matter who the two sides are, and is in keeping with IGN’s ongoing efforts to highlight causes that are important to our team — such as our support for Black Lives Matter last year and our more recent celebration of AAPI Heritage Month and joining the call to end AAPI hate. The victims here deserve the same support.”

Hasnain says:

“AI is a field dominated by emotionally immature white and Asian men. If you can ignore all of the brilliance of human interactions and focus your soul on calculus you can become a rising star in the field of AI. All you need to do is beat the benchmarks and come up with clever formulae and you can be great. What Timnit said resonated closely with me because when I had gone to that conference with Meg I saw an engineer present his findings regarding police profiling systems. A researcher from UCLA had presented a system for determining whether or not a given dispatch was “gang related” so that the police could bring “the appropriate amount of force”. Several other people had asked him about the biases of the datasets his system consumed and he had canned answers for those questions. I asked him: (paraphrasing) “Let’s assume that all of those concerns are irrelevant and that your system perfectly predicts whether or not a dispatch is gang related. Are you at all concerned that the informational advantage you’re giving to the police might cause the gangs to unilaterally raise their force profile thereby making a bad situation worse?” His response: “Man I’m just an engineer.” I decided that the best response was to sing Tim Lehrer’s “Werner von Braun” into the microphone.”

Hasnain says:

“The speed has been extraordinary. As I've talked with folks who have expressed interest in the jobs we're hiring for, they've been asking what to expect, and I told them that if anything, this will feel like they're hitting an accelerator from what they've come from. I lived fast-growth startups prior to coming to Google, I lived some bets, company initiatives at Google, and then at Google Ventures got to see companies grow to go public. This feels like any one of those busiest days is a typical day here.”

Hasnain says:

Pretty interesting read on corporate cultures, investigations, and the real kernels of truth in this story.

“There’s just one problem: Montañez didn’t invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, according to interviews with more than a dozen former Frito-Lay employees, the archival record and Frito-Lay itself.

“None of our records show that Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot test market,” Frito-Lay wrote in a statement to The Times, in response to questions about an internal investigation whose existence has not been previously disclosed. “We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market.”

Hasnain says:

Oooof, what the heck?! And there are people out here saying racism isn’t systemic.

“Former players who suffer dementia or other diagnoses can be eligible for a payout.

Under the settlement, however, the NFL has insisted on using a scoring algorithm on the dementia testing that assumes Black men start with lower cognitive skills. They must therefore score much lower than whites to show enough mental decline to win an award. The practice, which went unnoticed until 2018, has made it harder for Black former players to get awards.”

Hasnain says:

The US finally decided to issue some condemnation, but this totally misses the mark because it *only* focuses on journalists as if those are the only lives that matter.

When will this all end?!

“White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Saturday that the U.S. had “communicated directly to the Israelis that ensuring the safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility.””

Hasnain says:

All the news has been depressing to read and ingest over the last few days. No day should be like this for anyone. Let alone Eid. :(

And this is amidst reports that a ground invasion is planned for later today. I’m hoping that turns out to not be the case when I wake up.

“Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the overall death toll since the start of the latest offensive stood at 69, including 17 children and eight women as of early Thursday. More than 390 others have been wounded.”

Hasnain says:

Interesting catalog of COVID history that is trying to preserve an archive for when the dust settles. I’m definitely interested in following this one.

“One of the most bizarre episodes in public health had resolved, and was almost instantly memory-holed. Now it was those not wearing masks who were stigmatised- those who adopted the prevailing view of March 2020 only a few months later found themselves accused of psychopathy or toxic masculinity.

But how on earth and why did this happen? Was this a noble lie? a fumble? self correcting science? We’ll be exploring all of that next week”

Hasnain says:

I am glad he is no longer at apple. The article links to more quotes and…

Hasnain says:

I feel like if anyone submitted this as the plot to a movie it’d get shot down as being too unrealistic. But here we are. As long as it gets them to wear masks I guess?

““I am going to be watching these vaccine shedding stories like a hawk,” wrote another man on Twitter. “Is my family going to need to wear masks to protect ourselves from the vaccinated?””