Hasnain says:

"Ted Chiang has only published three SF stories prior to this one and his first, “Tower of Babylon”(1990), won the Nebula Award; another (“Understand”) won the Asimov's Readers Award in 1991, and he won the John W.Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. He is a careful and accomplished writer, and his work is distinguished by originality combined with the high quality of his re-imaging of old SF ideas. This is his fourth published story, his first in more than five years (he seems to have a satisfying life in the Seattle area that leaves him little time for SF writing). It is the longest story in this book and may well be the best. The theme of communicating with aliens was prominent in the SF fiction of 1998, but nowhere better done than here."

Hasnain says:

"With the exception of Grade nine, the winning team , “came from a private school, an exam school, a parochial school, or a public school populated by the children of Apple engineers,” Tough writes.

Except, that is, for middle school grades, the space where Elizabeth Spiegel teaches.

These students didn’t win just one grade, they won every grade they entered. “The roster of schools they beat,” Tough writes, “reads like a wealthy parent’s wish list of the most desirable private schools in the country.

The chess program at IS 318 is one of the best in the country. But why?"

Hasnain says:

Long, compelling, and quite interesting.

Hasnain says:

This is a very good intro to Haskell.

Hasnain says:

This is a really good article on how to become more productive.

"I went through this when I went to id software. I had rationalized that John Carmack's success was just a factor of timing and luck since, hell, he was my age, and I was pretty smart, so what else could it be? Upon my arrival I had a crash course in humility, because he was way smarter than me and way more productive as well.

This took a while to sink in, because until then I was used to believing I was one of the better programmers at a company. And then working with Carmack I realized he was not just a little better, he was orders of magnitude better. And I couldn't dismiss it with a "But I write a lot of code" hand wave, because he also wrote like 80% of the Quake code base."

Hasnain says:

"First: I don’t trust people in Silicon Valley to tell me what’s happening elsewhere in California, let alone what’s happening (or should be happening) in Africa. The steady stream of idiotic products that accompanies every sliver of innovation from the tech world is evidence enough of this. "

I don't necessarily agree with most of the article, but this part rings true.

Hasnain says:

This is a really impressive gigapixel shot taken off the new WTC.

Hasnain says:

It's sad that in this day and age we still rely on modes of transportation that can result in such catastrophic failure.

Hasnain says:

With great powerpoint comes great responsibility.

Hasnain says:

This is long, detailed, and quite interesting.