Faisal’s Web Site
Monday, 21 July 2025
In the Shadow of Silicon Valley
Rebecca Solnit, London Review of Books: “I thought of this place in terms of liberation and protection; we were where the environmental movement was born; we were the land of experimental poetry and anti-war marches, of Harvey Milk and gay rights, of the occupation of Alcatraz Island that galvanised a nationwide Indigenous rights movement as well as Cesar Chavez’s farmworkers’ movement in San Jose and the Black Panthers in Oakland. We were the left edge of America, a refuge from some of its brutalities and conformities, a sanctuary for dissidents and misfits and a laboratory for new ideas. We’re still that lab, but we’re no longer an edge; we’re a global power centre, and what issues from here – including a new super-elite – shapes the world in increasingly disturbing ways.”
Saturday, 12 July 2025
Accidental find in planetarium show could shift scientists’ understanding of our solar system
Jacopo Prisco, CNN: “The problem with trying to imagine what the Oort Cloud looks like is that scientists have never seen it, even though we are technically surrounded by it.”
Tuesday, 1 July 2025
This paint sweats to cool off buildings. No energy required.
Anthropocene: “Air-conditioning uses 7% of the world’s electricity.”
Friday, 27 June 2025
Mamdani Did All the Things the Establishment Hates. He Won Anyway.
Elizabeth Spiers, The New Republic: “The only major polling firm that predicted that Mamdani would win was Public Policy Polling, which discarded the usual assumption that polling firms make that the people who will vote in the upcoming election are the same people who voted in the last one.”
Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Still booting after all these years: The people stuck using ancient Windows computers
Thomas Germain, BBC: “(Microsoft declined to comment for this article.)”
Thursday, 15 May 2025
Approximation
Mike Hoye: “… carefully curated training data will be a key differentiator, operationally the proverbial moat. Librarians are way, way more important than anyone realizes, and a great dataset librarian will be the bedrock under every great engineering organization.”
Sunday, 11 May 2025
USENIX ATC ANNOUNCEMENT
USENIX: “And in the spirit of our ever-evolving community, field, and industry, we announce the bittersweet conclusion of our longest-running event, the USENIX Annual Technical Conference in July 2025, following USENIX ATC ‘25.”
Tuesday, 22 April 2025
MAHA and “soft eugenics” revisited: The “autism tsunami,” Dr. Oz, and your “patriotic duty” to stay healthy
David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine: “If a condition is underdiagnosed, for example, its observed prevalence could easily increase with increased awareness, better screening, and decreased stigma in the case of conditions for which there was formerly a stigma.”
Monday, 21 April 2025
REPOST: Hacking The Papal Election
April 14, 2005 – Bruce Schneier: “when an election process is left to develop over the course of a couple thousand years, you end up with something surprisingly good.”
Saturday, 19 April 2025
April 18, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson: “What Newman and Pulling did was simply to honor their friendships and their principles and to do the next right thing, even if it risked their lives, even if no one ever knew.”