Hasnain says:

Learnt a lot about urban design from this one.

“Creating compliant sidewalks and trails is a high priority for agencies seeking to avoid litigation and serve pedestrians on the most basic level. Although that has some benefits, it isn’t enough. Whether actively undermining walkability (like removing crosswalks to achieve ADA compliance) to simply not doing enough (adding a new curb ramp to an otherwise wheelchair-hostile sidewalk), we need to go much further.

To make walking and rolling a desirable, everyday activity, we need facilities that are compliant, safe and dignified. We have many examples in our communities of great pedestrian ways — but we have a long way to go to make it universal, and truly move the needle toward walking.”

Hasnain says:

“This self-reflection in the scientific research community is important. To address research misconduct, it must first be brought into the light and examined in the open. The underlying reasons scientists might feel tempted to cheat must be thoroughly understood. Journals, scientists, academic institutions and the reporters who write about them have been too slow to open these difficult conversations.

Seeking the truth is a shared obligation. It is incumbent on all those involved in the scientific method to focus more vigorously on challenging and reproducing findings and ensuring that substantiated allegations of data manipulation are not ignored or forgotten — whether you’re a part-time research assistant or the president of an elite university. In a cultural moment when science needs all the credibility it can muster, ensuring scientific integrity and earning public trust should be the highest priority.”

Hasnain says:

Great read on the history of the restaurant, covering a bit of its evolution and the industry in general.

“The Cheesecake Factory breaks rules in a way that most of us don’t feel like we can. It’s practically comedic: This thing that shouldn’t exist, especially in a notoriously unforgiving industry, somehow does. Better, fancier, more coherent restaurants have all bit the dust, yet this mall girl-approved, Byzantine spectacle with a pseudo-industrial name keeps chugging along. At the Cheesecake Factory, “something for everyone” doesn’t just mean a hilariously exhaustive menu served amid America’s most chaotic high-low aesthetic mix; it also means a homemade combination of comfort, nostalgia, and deliciousness that can’t help but work.”

Hasnain says:

Not sure what’s worse here, the fact that this encryption was so bad or the fact that state agencies let this go on and happily exploit it for almost 2 decades.

“Brian Murgatroyd, chair of the technical body at ETSI responsible for the TETRA standard, objects to calling this a backdoor. He says when they developed the standard, they needed an algorithm for commercial use that could meet export requirements to be used outside Europe, and that in 1995 a 32-bit key still provided security, though he acknowledges that with today’s computing power that’s not the case.”

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!”