Hasnain says:

Great reflections on a software project and its evolution. Interesting even if you're not into Rust.

"Maybe you've nodded your head about one or two of the things above and think they're good ideas -- "hey, maybe we should have had a BDFL!" -- though more likely you think they're terrible. But the point of this post isn't just to lob a bunch of suggestions about direction at the current project, or grind a bunch of long-dull axes, or even to make myself look bad in public.

The point is to indicate thematic divergence. The priorities I had while working on the language are broadly not the revealed priorities of the community that's developed around the language in the years since, or even that were being-revealed in the years during. I would have traded performance and expressivity away for simplicity -- both end-user cognitive load and implementation simplicity in the compiler -- and by doing so I would have taken the language in a direction broadly opposed to where a lot of people wanted it to go."

Hasnain says:

Reminds me of various corporate incentive structures.

"But! Grenada could also do the math. They quickly worked out that an own goal of their own would lose them the match (2-3) but let them go into the finals on goal difference. And, just as quickly, Barbados realised that they couldn’t let that happen – so they had to defend not only their own goal, but their opponents’ goal too!

For the final five minutes of regular time, fans were treated to a truly bizarre sight. Grenada was trying to score a goal in both directions: if they won or lost by one point, they would have the greater victory. And to stop them, Barbados was defending both goals at the same time – blocking both attempts at their goal, but also attempts by Grenada to score an own goal."

Hasnain says:

Need to try this place ASAP.

"The latest trendsetter? West Berkeley’s Afghan Burrito, whose namesake specialty comes generously stuffed with kebab-inspired chicken or steak, rice, beans and — crucially — a signature “Golden Sauce” so top-secret that co-owners Khalid Popal and Hani Kharufeh are reluctant to tell me any of its ingredients. (“There’s water,” Kharufeh conceded the third time I asked the question.)"

Hasnain says:

Finally made my way through this, and oof. One quick takeaway was definitely around how the memes poking fun at crypto bros who've now become AI bros means AI has hit it mainstream and uh...

"These aren’t the only misleading stories Mostaque, 40, has told to maneuver himself to the forefront of what some are calling the greatest technological sea change since the internet — despite having no formal experience in the field of artificial intelligence. Interviews with 13 current and former employees and more than two dozen investors, collaborators and former colleagues, as well as pitch decks and internal documents, suggest his recent success has been bolstered by exaggeration and dubious claims."

...

"Following a string of abandoned startups (including a crypto project centered on a digitized Quran), Mostaque founded Stability in 2019 as an AI-powered data hub that global agencies would use to make decisions about Covid-19. "

Hasnain says:

“Making the choice for the legislature — that’s exactly what this Supreme Court now does, on a regular basis, and on a range of key issues. It takes issues decided by the people’s representatives and then re-decides them in a manner that pleases the conservative supermajority on the bench. So an elected, and Democratic-controlled, Congress can write and pass a progressive law, but an unelected and very conservative Supreme Court can just rewrite it.

Confidently. Brazenly. Shamelessly.

These are not neutral judges. These are politicians in robes

Hasnain says:

““I haven’t been on the job long enough to make any significant changes,” Chief Green said. “Yet we’re losing officers left and right. It’s hard not to think that they just don’t want to work under a Black supervisor.”

The interesting thing is that according to Chief Green, despite the reduction in staff, crime — already low — has gone down in Golden Valley. The town plans to staff the department back up, just not right away. “I’ve heard that the police union is cautioning officers from coming to work here,” Mr. Harris said. “But that’s OK. We want to take the time to hire officers who share our vision and are excited to work toward our goals.””

Hasnain says:

Did not know much about professional bowling before this (played a lot as a kid though). The novelty of the approach sometimes reminds me of how deep learning based game AIs come up with crazy novel strategies because they learn from a blank slate. How many innovations do we lose out on because we educate humans to think a certain way? (Not that I think we shouldn’t, but still..)

“His destiny was sealed shortly before his birth, when his parents, who knew almost nothing about the sport, opened a bowling center near their home in Orange, Australia, some 160 miles northwest of Sydney. As a toddler, unable to manage the 10-pound house balls with one hand, young Jason rolled them down the lanes with two. At age 7, he tried bowling one-handed for all of 10 minutes—“just sucked,” he once said—and never looked back.

The criticism assumed a plaintive tone at first. “It was, Come on, you’re a big boy now. It’s time to bowl properly,” Belmonte recalls. As a 10-year-old, when he was beating bowlers five and six years his senior, the accusations grew more hurtful, impugning his character: cheat. “There was frustration on why I wouldn’t convert, and that was where I felt a loneliness,” he says. “Because when you’re young you want to feel part of the community. And I didn’t. No one wanted to coach me. They all wanted to convert me. And so there was a point where it was like, I’m just going to do this myself.””

Hasnain says:

“As we redefine our society’s stance toward these fascinatingly protean substances, then, we should be mindful of their category-defying history.
�Psychedelics have been an integral part of human culture and experience since long before the concept of “drugs” even emerged. Perhaps one lesson of these mind-expanding substances is that to truly harness their potential, we will need to expand the ways we think and talk about them, too.”

Hasnain says:

Did not know this was a thing.

“The National Library Service was quoted saying that the Braille version of the magazine had about 500 regular readers in 2000, the most recent figures available. But the special edition might be in peril again — but from a different angle. Many young blind people are increasingly reliant on their smartphones for reading, and as of 2012 only one in 10 blind people can read Braille.”

Hasnain says:

“Glynn said there is a common misconception that men work more in general. While men work more hours for pay, “women work more in ways where they not only don’t get paid but also that supports the paid employment of men by freeing up that time for them to be engaging in work that they receive wages for,” she said.”