Hasnain says:

This whole release is frightening and worth reading. Kudos to Buzzfeed news for some high quality journalism here.

“The lack of money laundering enforcement had nothing to do with a lack of evidence of suspicious transactions, but a lack of interest by political and law enforcement leadership.’’

The most powerful way to fix the problem might be the simplest: Arrest the executives whose banks break the law. "The bankers will never learn until you start putting silver bracelets on people," Pelletier said. "Think of the message you're sending to repeat offenders."”

Hasnain says:

This was a very engaging technical read.

“I didn’t dislike probability & statistics, I just tried to keep my distance as much as possible. All the algorithms in distributed systems I’d encountered so far involved nondeterminism, sure, but not probability. I’d assumed nondeterminism was just a more flexible way of reasoning about probability. This idea of mine would prove to be a source of great unnecessary confusion as I learned the art of reasoning about probabilistic distributed systems, so I’ll do you a favor and give you the core lesson of this entire post in one sentence:

You cannot model probability with nondeterminism, and you cannot model nondeterminism with probability.”

Hasnain says:

I found this engaging and interesting, and kept nodding along, till they provided more details on the study and uh... not sure I'll buy this given that they never actually studied or touched an actual corporate or business environment. Would love to know if/how I'm wrong here and how the research corrects for this.

"The study, published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, tracked 220 US-based teams to see which team members emerged as leaders across in-person, virtual and hybrid groups. The researchers conducted a series of in-lab experiments with 86 four-person teams, and also traced the communications and experiences of 134 teams doing a semester-long project in a university class (students are commonly used as proxy for workers in leadership research). The study was carried out pre-pandemic, focusing on emergent leaders: those perceived as leaders, and whose influence is willingly accepted."

Hasnain says:

This was an engaging read on what it means to be a more seasoned engineer. There's a lot of sage advice in here and it's hard to pick out just one small, self-contained quote.

"Success looks like seeing conversations about timeline and priorities between ICs start from a shared background. Success looks like having no major blow ups about “How could you suggest we ship this hack?” Instead, folks can talk about technical choices through a business lens: “I know we’re currently low on staff compared to our product ambitions, but is this the right place to simplify?” Success looks like a team with a shared goal for the quality and resiliency of code that we’re writing. Success also looks like other ICs feeling confident in advocating for changes, since they see our team making technical decisions with a consistent goal in mind. When I talk with ICs in 1:1s, there should be no “I’m not sure why I’m doing X” when it comes to code, infrastructure and incidents."

Hasnain says:

As millennials continue to destroy industries, this person took a stand and decided to start a new one.

“He told me that he wanted me to crash his funeral and that he would pay me $7,300 (AUD$10,000) to do exactly what he asked. I was to interrupt the funeral when his best friend was reading the eulogy and to tell his best friend to sit down and shut up. Then I was to explain to everyone that I had something to say on the behalf of the deceased.”

Hasnain says:

How is this a thing?!

"When police officers are presented with a PBA card, they need to make a calculated decision about how seriously to take it. “Imagine you're a police officer, you're out there doing your job every single time, and you give your wife, or your brother, or your kid the card. You say, ‘Just show this to a police officer, and he can always call me and I can talk to him.’” Driscoll said."

Hasnain says:

Interesting read on automated logic and reasoning, and some debates in the mathematical community.

"By the time I’ve reframed my question into a form that could fit into this technology, I would have solved the problem myself."

Hasnain says:

I did not realize software prices had been rising at this rate, I had mostly considered them stable.

"The dramatic price changes from the switch to SaaS have stabilized. If anything, your company may pay less for software this year, as bundles are the new norm again, giving you everything in one package so you need to buy fewer software products."

Hasnain says:

Interesting read focusing on the role of the IETF in the governance of the internet.

"So at its heart, The Internet is for End Users is a call for IETF participants to stop pretending that they can ignore the non-technical consequences of their decisions, a call for broader consultation when making them, and one for continued focus on the end user. Ultimately, end user impact is as least as important as the technical considerations of a proposal, and judging that impact requires a more serious effort to understand and incorporate other non-technical views."

Hasnain says:

2020 is unforgiving :(