Hasnain says:

Powerful stuff from the faculty and students here (and at universities across the country as they stand up and get arrested). Was even more jarring for me to learn MLK is a morehouse alum and they still chose to disgrace his legacy by inviting Biden (read the article to learn more about MLK’s stance here)

“Morehouse College has announced that President Joe Biden will be the school’s commencement speaker this year. This announcement comes seven months into Israel’s genocidal siege on Gaza. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children. More than 77,000 have been injured. Every hospital and university in Gaza has been destroyed. None of this would have been possible without the support and sponsorship of the Biden Administration. Any college or university that gives its commencement stage to President Biden in this moment is endorsing genocide.

As faculty members at academic institutions in and around Atlanta—including Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark Atlanta—we did not see this coming. This is not the Morehouse College that history has known and that we have come to treasure. Over the years, Morehouse commencement speakers have amplified the school’s powerful moral legacy, often doing so by quoting the school’s former president, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays: “it will not be sufficient for Morehouse College, for any college, for that matter, to produce clever graduates,” but rather honest graduates “who are sensitive to the wrongs, the sufferings, and the injustices of society and who are willing to accept responsibility for correcting the ills.” President Biden has not demonstrated sensitivity to wrongs, sufferings, and injustices. And as the one person on the planet who has the power to stop an active genocide, he has not accepted responsibility for correcting the ills.”

Hasnain says:

““But what they have seen, beyond even this bill, is Congress’ failure to enact meaningful consumer protections on big tech, and may cynically view this as a diversion, or worse, a concession to U.S. social media platforms,” Warner continued. “

Hasnain says:

“"We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces," she said. "One person noted when an employer merged with an organization whose religious principles conflicted with their own, a noncompete kept the worker locked in place and unable to freely switch to a job that didn't conflict with their religious practices."

These accounts, she said, "pointed to the basic reality of how robbing people of their economic liberty also robs them of all sorts of other freedoms."”

Hasnain says:

“Alex Eisler, a sophomore at Brown University who studies applied math and computer science, regularly uses fake phone numbers and e-mail addresses to make reservations. When he calls Polo Bar, he told me, “Sometimes they recognize my voice, so I have to do different accents. I have to act like a girl sometimes.” He switched into a bad falsetto: “I’m, like, ‘Hiiii, is it possible to book a reservation?’ I have a few Resy accounts that have female names.” His recent sales on Appointment Trader, where his screen name is GloriousSeed75, include a lunch table at Maison Close, which he sold for eight hundred and fifty-five dollars, and a reservation at Carbone, the Village red-sauce place frequented by the Rolex-and-Hermès crowd, which fetched a thousand and fifty dollars. Last year, he made seventy thousand dollars reselling reservations.”

Hasnain says:

“On February 2, 2019, just one day later, Thakur and Gomes shared their anxieties with Nick Fox, a Vice President of Search and Google Assistant, entering a multiple-day-long debate about Google’s sudden lust for growth. The thread is a dark window into the world of growth-focused tech, where Thakur listed the multiple points of disconnection between the ads and search teams, discussing how the search team wasn’t able to finely optimize engagement on Google without “hacking engagement,” a term that means effectively tricking users into spending more time on a site, and that doing so would lead them to “abandon work on efficient journeys.” In one email, Fox adds that there was a “pretty big disconnect between what finance and ads want” and what search was doing.”

Hasnain says:

This weekend another couple of mass graves were discovered at hospitals in Gaza. But that’s out of the news cycle because folks want to condemn people who are protesting against the murder of innocents. Sigh.

So glad the kids are alright though - more power to the students protesting all over the country.

Hasnain says:

“The Netanyahu government has managed to derail even our relations with the United States, as if we have an alternative source for arms and diplomatic backing. The younger generations in the United States, and around the world now see Israel as a racist and violent country that expels millions from their homes, starves entire populations, and kills many thousands of civilians for no better reason than revenge. The results will be felt not only in the coming days and months, but for decades into the future. Even during the worst moments of October 7, Hamas was nowhere near vanquishing Israel. But the ruinous policy of the Netanyahu government following October 7 has placed Israel in existential danger.”

Hasnain says:

“Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor. These firings were clearly retaliatory.

On the contrary, our bosses called the police on its own workers, the Nimbus Nine, who were arrested and taken into custody last night. “

Hasnain says:

Given past work I’ve done here I can say it sucks that things have gotten to this point

“To ensure that the world can trust WhatsApps claims of privacy and safety, Meta must answer the following questions:

Did Meta provide information (including inputs or training data) used by Lavender, Gospel, or Where's Daddy to the Israeli government?

How will Meta prevent private information being used by governments to kill WhatsApp users and their families?

Does Meta believe that Israel's actions towards civilians in Gaza and with Lavender comply Meta's Human Rights Policy?

If not, why has Meta not revoked all access to the Israeli government that may put civilians at risk?

Why has Meta not released their transparency report for the 2nd half of 2023?

What was the level of knowledge of WhatsApp metadata sharing with the Israeli government, including whether it was to be used for military purposes, among Meta leadership, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CISO Guy Rosen?

Will Meta immediately rescind access to any WhatsApp information from the Israeli government, army, and law enforcement?

Without answering these questions, it seems impossible to take seriously any claim that WhatsApp is a private messaging application.”

Hasnain says:

Hard agree with most of this article.

“You've heard it before, but let me repeat it — our greatest asset isn't the code we write. It's us. Our health, our minds, our ability to be present and enjoy life outside of the terminal window. Software Engineers and Tech co-founders, like us, are more prone to hitting the lows. Depression doesn't care about your GitHub stars or how scalable you managed to build your Kubernetes Cluster.

I've learned the hard way that not every problem at work is mine to solve. I used to take every customer issue personally, letting my stress levels hit the roof. But I've gotten better at recognizing what's within my control and what's not. Can't help a customer because of a time difference or because it's outside my expertise? That's okay. There's a team for that, and it's not all on me.

I’ve been burnt out and stressed out, and it took a toll on my work, my relationships, everything. Only after I finally started prioritizing my well-being did things change for the better. I won’t say it’s all rainbows and ponies now, but things have changed. I became a better engineer, a better leader, a better friend, and a happier person than I was.”