2015 Gates Annual Letter
See how the lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in the next 15 years than they have in any other time in history. And join us!
Hasnain says:
Gates rocks his annual letter as always. I really love the initiative
Posted on 2015-01-22T17:16:31+0000
Using NYC Taxi Data to identify muslim taxi drivers
Remember that NYC Taxi data set that allowed you to see who visited a gentlemen's clubs and which celebrity took a taxi where? Reddit user uluman now seems to have found a way to distinguish muslim...
Hasnain says:
Hidden patterns in data can always be creepy as well as cool
Posted on 2015-01-22T17:08:49+0000
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It is the world's first Sim that makes you chat with WhatsApp absolutely free of charge and with no limits. Anywhere in the world.
America’s best-selling cars and trucks are built on lies: The rise of fake engine noise
The engine growl in some of America’s best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing or digitally faked altogether — and it’s driving car enthusiasts insane.
Hasnain says:
“If you’re going to do that stuff, do that stuff. Own it. Tell customers: If you want a V-8 rumble, you’ve gotta buy a V-8 that costs more, gets worse gas mileage and hurts the Earth,” Brauer said. “You’re fabricating the car’s sexiness. You’re fabricating performance elements of the car that don’t actually exist. That just feels deceptive to me.”
Posted on 2015-01-22T02:26:56+0000
A Comprehensive Guide to Building a Scalable Web App on Amazon Web Services - Part 1
How to Think About AWS & Scalability, Key AWS Services, Architecture Concepts including Security, Dockers, Containers and more
Hasnain says:
I've only skimmed this but this looks insanely helpful
Posted on 2015-01-22T02:12:51+0000
Our Exclusive Hands-On With Microsoft's Unbelievable New Holographic Goggles | WIRED
The prototype is amazing. It amplifies the special powers that Kinect introduced, using a small fraction of the energy. Project HoloLens’ key achievement—realistic holograms—works by tricking your brain into seeing light as matter.
Retiring Python as a Teaching Language
I'm James Hague, a recovering programmer who has been designing video games since the 1980s. This is Why You Spent All that Time Learning to Program and The Pure Tech Side is the Dark Side are good places to start.
Hasnain says:
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Especially given I learnt programming with JavaScript
"I expect some horrified reactions to this change of thinking, at least to the slight degree that one can apply horrified to a choice of programming language. Those reactions should have nothing to do with the shortcomings of Javascript. They should be because I dismissed so many other languages without considering their features, type systems, or syntaxes, simply because they aren't natively supported by modern web browsers."
Posted on 2015-01-21T17:26:41+0000
HealthCare.gov sends personal data to dozens of tracking websites
The Associated Press reports that healthcare.gov–the flagship site of the Affordable Care Act, where millions of Americans have signed up to receive health care–is quietly sending personal health information to a number of third party websites. The information being sent includes ones zip code, inco…
Hasnain says:
That query string...
" smoker=1&parent=&pregnant=1&mec=&zip=85601&state=AZ&income=3500
"
How Uber and Lyft have exploited long waits, slow travel and poor service to crack open...
An inside look at the behavior of riders in San Francisco.
Hasnain says:
" In one of their more striking findings, Rayle and co-authors found that 66 percent of the trips taken by people who use these app services would have been twice as long if taken by public transit instead (that's if nearby transit was at least available). That number includes all of the time spent just waiting for the trip to begin. "
Posted on 2015-01-21T17:12:07+0000
Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?
A new 600-page, two volume epic about how to get rid of the homeless in SimCity.
Hasnain says:
" "To me video games are the so-called 'real America,'" he said. "The real America operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is neo-liberalism, and that absolutely manifests in San Francisco, that to me is the epicenter of inequality. In San Francisco you either have a Tesla and you drink a seven dollar cappuccino or you're homeless in the streets.""
Posted on 2015-01-21T17:04:40+0000