No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down
Pupils choose their own subjects and motivate themselves, an approach some say should be rolled out across Germany
UAE warns travelers not to wear traditional dress after Emirati visitor is arrested in Ohio
Police and officials in the Ohio town where the incident occurred later apologized.
Home Computers Connected to the Internet Aren't Private, Court Rules
A judge in Virginia rules that people should have no expectation of privacy on their home PCs because no connected computer "is immune from invasion."
Employee 1: Yahoo · The Macro
A conversation with Tim Brady, Yahoo's first employee and current YC partner. Employee 1 is a series of interviews focused on sharing the often untold stories of early employees at tech companies. Tim was the first employee at Yahoo, its Chief Product Officer for eight years, and is now a partner at...
The Universe of Discourse : Don't tug on that, you never know what it might be attached to
This is a story about a very interesting bug that I tracked down yesterday. It was causing a bad effect very far from where the bug actually was.
The Day I Got My Green Card
A London-born writer never felt he truly belonged in the places he and his family were from: India, Pakistan, Britain. In America, finally, he feels free—and at home.
Hasnain says:
Interesting story about intolerance, nationalism, tolerance, and immigration, by Aatish Taseer.
Though I don't get why anyone would put their green card up on the internet (with the id blurred, which can be reversed)
Posted on 2016-07-03T18:12:08+0000
Syria’s Refugee Children Have Lost All Hope
Young Syrians living in Lebanon are attempting suicide in ever greater numbers.
Hasnain says:
“She was between life and death,” Sanaa says, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I asked her, ‘My daughter, why did you drink the poison?’ She said, ‘Mama, there are seven of us and you work and work to feed us, but you can’t keep up. Without me, there will be one less person to feed.’ When she said that, I couldn’t stop crying.”
Posted on 2016-07-02T07:25:56+0000
Mexican woman dies at age 117 just hours after receiving birth certificate
Trinidad Alvarez Lira had been waiting for years to obtain proof that she had been born in 1898 so she could claim government old age benefits
Hasnain says:
She died without getting a single check from the government because she couldn't prove she was old enough.
Now why anyone didn't just look at her and agree that she's over 60 is beyond me...
Posted on 2016-07-01T11:27:10+0000
The dying breed of craftsmen behind the tools that make scientific research possible
Hunkered down in the sub-basement of the Norman W. Church Laboratory for Chemical Biology, underneath a campus humming with quantum teleportation devices, gravity wave detectors and neural prosthetics, Rick Gerhart chipped away at a broken flask.
Hasnain says:
I wonder why they didn't prioritize having him train someone else.
Posted on 2016-06-30T02:33:44+0000
Remarks at the SASE Panel On The Moral Economy of Tech
This is the text version of remarks I gave on June 26, 2016, at a panel on the Moral Economy of Tech at the SASE conference in Berkeley. The other panel participants were Kieran Healy, Stuart Russell and AnnaLee Saxenian.
Hasnain says:
"We should not listen to people who promise to make Mars safe for human habitation, until we have seen them make Oakland safe for human habitation. We should be skeptical of promises to revolutionize transportation from people who can't fix BART, or have never taken BART. And if Google offers to make us immortal, we should check first to make sure we'll have someplace to live."
Posted on 2016-06-30T02:25:24+0000