Hasnain says:

Of course.

“"Tesla years ago began exaggerating its vehicles' potential driving distance—by rigging their range-estimating software," the article published today said. "The company decided about a decade ago, for marketing purposes, to write algorithms for its range meter that would show drivers 'rosy' projections for the distance it could travel on a full battery, according to a person familiar with an early design of the software for its in-dash readouts."”

Hasnain says:

This takes the whole family business concept to another level.

“Lederer’s only real competitor in the advice-column business was Dear Abby, written by her twin sister, Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips (aka Abigail Van Buren, aka Popo Phillips), who had her own 65 million daily newspaper readers.”

Hasnain says:

Super exciting.

“But as usual, it's a gigantic step to just show that such things can exist. That’s what will shake everyone up well before any applications come along, and if this reproduces, labs around the world will frantically start looking for quantum-well superconducting materials of their own. Who knows what could come out of that? Robust high-current-density room-temperature superconductors are right out of science fiction (SF readers will recall that one such material was a big plot point in Larry Niven’s Ringworld). Electrical generation and transmission, antennas, power storage, magnet applications (including things like fusion power plants), electric motors and basically everything that runs on electricity would be affected. We could stop throwing away so much generated power on heating up the wires that deliver it, for starters.”

Hasnain says:

“Furby: For example, with the Salton Sea drying out, the microbes that normally live in the water might be experiencing extreme stress, the same way that when you're stressed, you sweat and smell bad. But these microbes could be producing hazardous compounds as a byproduct. And then that compound gets attached to the dust and blown into the communities where people are getting sick.”

Hasnain says:

“If you've ever prepared curry from scratch, you'll know it's not simple. It involves considerable time and effort, as well as a range of unique spices, and the use of grinding tools.

So it's interesting to note that nearly 2,000 years ago, individuals living outside India had a strong desire to savor the flavors of curry—as evidenced by their diligent preparations.

Another fascinating finding is that the curry recipe used in Vietnam today has not deviated significantly from the ancient Oc Eo period. Key components such as turmeric, cloves, cinnamon and coconut milk have remained consistent in the recipe. It goes to show a good recipe will stand the test of time!”

Hasnain says:

Great writeup, quite accessible to someone who’s not an architecture expert. My mind was blown when it came out this was detected via fuzzing.

“It turns out that mispredicting on purpose is difficult to optimize! It took a bit of work, but I found a variant that can leak about 30 kb per core, per second.

This is fast enough to monitor encryption keys and passwords as users login!”

Hasnain says:

Interesting reading. Did not realize there have been actual studies looking at brain patterns here.

“But tornadoes, volcanoes, and tsunamis aren’t the only hubris-restraining forces out there. PepsiCo CEO and Chairman Indra Nooyi sometimes tells the story of the day she got the news of her appointment to the company’s board, in 2001. She arrived home percolating in her own sense of importance and vitality, when her mother asked whether, before she delivered her “great news,” she would go out and get some milk. Fuming, Nooyi went out and got it. “Leave that damn crown in the garage” was her mother’s advice when she returned.”

Hasnain says:

Great advice here.

"This took me years to stumble upon, but use a short prefix for each type of random ID you create. Instead of generating an API token of Mk7vuCg9eptiV8qid4mn, make it appMk7vuCg9eptiV8qid4mn. Instead of a user key of zo2iD3x3J9, use userzo2iD3x3J9. Pushover uses a for API tokens, u for user keys, g for group keys, s for subscribed user keys, etc. This makes it easier for users to keep multiple keys/tokens straight when they all look like gibberish and it makes it possible to automate helpful API error responses like "your token parameter has a user key instead of an API token"."

Hasnain says:

"The Kelly Rowland/Nelly song Dilemma features an infamous scene amongst nerds where Kelly Rowland tries to send a message to Nelly using a Nokia 9210 Communicator (like this one that I just happen to have to hand)"

Hasnain says:

Great read on ideation and how inspiration for work comes about.

"We could view my investigations of Cookie Clicker’s mechanisms as ‘basic research’, i.e., research without an immediate application in mind. There is evidence that basic research in the sciences leads to productivity increases in manufacturing. Eloquent arguments have been made that forgoing basic research is costly, that “when academic research starts demonstrating industry relevance is when funding should be cut off, not augmented.”

Or, taking it down a peg, we could simply label what I was doing as gathering ‘useless knowledge’, which like basic research does not have an immediate application in mind, and additionally does not even seek to answer questions considered useful in some way. Here again, mine would not be the first story lending credence to the idea that useless knowledge is, ultimately, useful!

But perhaps the simplest way to view this episode was as a playful, recreational activity which through sheer dumb luck gave me the skills needed to solve an important problem in my work life. My colleague Titus Barik analysed how programmers talk about programming as play, involving ‘spontaneous and creative expression’, ‘experimentation’, and ‘purposeless, ludic activity’. He found that many programmers reflect on episodes of playful programming as joyful experiences that catalysed learning."