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  Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  Remote: Yes (I prefer in-person work, but I am flexible). 
  Willing to relocate: Yes
  Technologies: Backend - Python, Rust, Golang, Java, TypeScript, Scala
  Résumé/CV: https://www.tareqak.com
  Email: see Résumé


  Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  Remote: Yes (I prefer in-person work, but I am flexible). 
  Willing to relocate: Yes
  Technologies: Backend - Python, Rust, Golang, Java, TypeScript, Scala
  Résumé/CV: https://www.tareqak.com
  Email: see Résumé


Sometimes, treating a facetious/sarcastic request seriously helps disarm the facetiousness. Other times, it does not.


English is my first language but I don’t understand this use of “disarm”.


You counter the facetiousness in a way it stops spreading and possibly even spark a constructive discussion is how I understand it (ESL though). I certainly observed this phenomenon myself (although as the person being facetious, I often feel like "I was joking, I actually agree, that's indeed what I was actually implying, but good you made it clear and explicit I guess")

I guess you'd disarm the person being facecious rather than the facetiousness, like you'd disarm someone about to cast you a magic spell.


> I guess you'd disarm the person being facecious rather than the facetiousness

No, you disarm the facetiousness, the same way you'd disarm a trap. Disarming the person wouldn't make sense.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disarm

> 2. (transitive) To deprive of the means or the disposition to harm; to render harmless or innocuous.

> [quotations] to disarm a man's wrath


Interesting, in French, you can both disarm someone or a gun.

https://fr.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/d%C3%A9sarmer


You can disarm a person in English, but you can't disarm them of their mood.


In French neither, I took this as a figure of speech where facetiousness is likened to a weapon.


At this point, answering to a "rewrite it in Rust" comment which doesn't go into details is a cultural faux pas, you just smile or roll your eyes and move on :-)


How is Kagi compensating the sources for its news beyond the sources section at the bottom of each story (the part that appears after clicking a headline)?


From the article:

> Goldman Sachs is set to roll out a new policy requiring incoming analysts to regularly affirm their commitment to the firm, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

> Under the proposed plan, junior bankers will be asked every three months to confirm they haven’t accepted offers from other employers.

> JPMorgan Chase & Co. recently told incoming graduates that accepting offers from other companies within their first 18 months on the job would lead to termination, a firm reminder of how seriously banks view early exits and the disruption they can cause.


An interesting aside and/or follow-on:

> Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) is a computer science textbook by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman. It is known as the "Wizard Book" in hacker culture.[1] It teaches fundamental principles of computer programming, including recursion, abstraction, modularity, and programming language design and implementation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_o...

Another one:

> "Be, and it is" (Arabic: كُن فَيَكُونُ; kun fa-yakūn) is a Quranic phrase referring to the creation by God′s command.[1][2] In Arabic, the phrase consists of two words; the first word is kun for the imperative verb "be" and is spelled with the letters kāf and nūn. The second word fa-yakun means "it is [done]".[3]

> (image of verse 2:117) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:002117_Al-Baqrah_Urd...

> The phrase at the end of the verse 2:117 > Kun fa-yakūn has its reference in the Quran cited as a symbol or sign of God's supreme creative power. There are eight references to the phrase in the Quran:[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be,_and_it_is

I wonder if “Be” would be imperative or functional. Is “Be” another name for `Unit()`? Or, would it be more Lisp-like `(be unit)`?


“be” was a reserved keyword in early Rust, intended to be used in place of “return” (or “ret”, as it was spelled at the time) for tail calls.


> However, 1 death = 1 coverage is clearly not how anyone expect the media should operate.

How often should the media report deaths? Each time a group of people die? Each time bodies are found?

> How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting? Does that mean the BBC has a anti-Sudan bias?

Are you familiar with the saying, “when a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, then does it make a sound”?

> Moreover should each death really merit equal coverage?

I would assume that an individual or a group of people that aspire towards neutrality, fairness, and humanitarian principles would treat one life as the same as another.

For reference, here is the BBC mission and excerpts from its charter available at https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/mission .

>> Our mission is "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain".

>> The Charter also sets out our five public purposes:

>> 1. To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them

>> The BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people’s understanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world. Its content should be provided to the highest editorial standards. It should offer a range and depth of analysis and content not widely available from other United Kingdom news providers, using the highest calibre presenters and journalists, and championing freedom of expression, so that all audiences can engage fully with major local, regional, national, United Kingdom and global issues and participate in the democratic process, at all levels, as active and informed citizens.

>> 2. To support learning for people of all ages

>> The BBC should help everyone learn about different subjects in ways they will find accessible, engaging, inspiring and challenging. The BBC should provide specialist educational content to help support learning for children and teenagers across the United Kingdom. It should encourage people to explore new subjects and participate in new activities through partnerships with educational, sporting and cultural institutions.

>> 3. To show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services

>> The BBC should provide high-quality output in many different genres and across a range of services and platforms which sets the standard in the United Kingdom and internationally. Its services should be distinctive from those provided elsewhere and should take creative risks, even if not all succeed, in order to develop fresh approaches and innovative content.

>> 4. To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom

>> The BBC should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom both in its output and services. In doing so, the BBC should accurately and authentically represent and portray the lives of the people of the United Kingdom today, and raise awareness of the different cultures and alternative viewpoints that make up its society. It should ensure that it provides output and services that meet the needs of the United Kingdom’s nations, regions and communities. The BBC should bring people together for shared experiences and help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the United Kingdom. In commissioning and delivering output the BBC should invest in the creative economies of each of the nations and contribute to their development.

>> 5. To reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world

>> The BBC should provide high-quality news coverage to international audiences, firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality, and fairness. Its international services should put the United Kingdom in a world context, aiding understanding of the United Kingdom as a whole, including its nations and regions where appropriate. It should ensure that it produces output and services which will be enjoyed by people in the United Kingdom and globally.

> Would it be biased if BBC ran more pieces about the sad plight of Ukrainian soldiers compared to Russian soldiers?

Yes, it would be biased in the same way that the BBC runs more pieces about Ukrainian civilians than it does about Palestinian civilians. There are likely more published BBC articles about Ukrainian civilians with photographs, audio, video, and documents than there are about Palestinian civilians.

There is BBC staff reporting from Ukraine and/or with the help of Ukrainian media affiliates and Ukrainian sources.

Where are the BBC reporters in Gaza?


A European news agency reporting more about a war in Europe than a war outside Europe is relevance bias, not a pro-Israel bias. I get more weather reports for my state than for outside it. That isn't a bias against the weather in Mexico by my local news.


I would agree with you if the BBC simply chose to not report any news on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

However, as luck would have it, the BBC published 3 separate pieces of news about Israel/Palestine today.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mz8gxzg82o

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rp31lk7mzo

3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k14n9d8y9o

I’ve read all three articles, and I skimmed them again quickly to verify that none of the three mention that “At least 78 Palestinians have been killed since the morning” like Al Jazeera does (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/7/8/live-israel...).

If the BBC is willing to publish 3 separate articles about recent developments in the Israel/Palestine conflict in the same day, then why does the BBC not also report the casualties of said conflict that happened on said day? Not even breaking news with reports of unknown casualties. Just nothing about it and no indication of anything having happened at all.


Your Al Jazeera link goes to a page that now states at 'least 95 Palestinians killed' but when I click the link next to that stat it takes me to an article that gives no numbers, no sources for numbers. I'm not sure why you would expect the BBC to publish something like that or why you hold that up to be good journalism?


I also find these live blog style news pages confusing. Scrolling down, I find the following

> Gaza death toll hits 95 as Khan Younis attack casualties rise

> At least 95 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks since dawn, hospital sources in Gaza tell Al Jazeera.

> According to Nasser Hospital in the southern part of the enclave, the death toll of the Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis that we reported on earlier has increased to seven people.

then there is this tweet that is Arabic and contains a video > https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1942671277883273250

with the following translation

> Translation: A Palestinian boy injured in an Israeli bombing asks his sister for food as he is starving while he waits to receive treatment.

My reply still stands in that BBC still has made no visible attempt to report a story with any casualty figures for Gaza this day even though they did publish 3 other pieces of news concerning the conflict. Therefore, the "relevancy bias" does not apply to the BBC here because the BBC considers the conflict relevant enough to report on 3 times within 24 hours.

Why does the BBC not consider the daily toll of casualties in this very same conflict sufficiently relevant to report on?

No "preliminary estimates on this breaking story"?

No "unconfirmed reports at this time"?

Nothing.


Looks like we reached the message reply limit, so I am replying here.

Pasting again

> At least 95 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks since dawn, hospital sources in Gaza tell Al Jazeera.

> According to Nasser Hospital in the southern part of the enclave, the death toll of the Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis that we reported on earlier has increased to seven people.

We will have to agree to disagree if hospital sources and the Nasser Hospital are not sufficient.

What source would be sufficient?

This approach towards determining relevancy is what I meant by “if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, then does it make a sound” earlier.

Update:

> Dr Mohammed Saqr, the director of nursing at Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, said he had personally witnessed countless mass casualty incidents in recent weeks.

> “The scenes are truly shocking – they resemble the horrors of judgment day. Sometimes within just half an hour we receive over 100 to 150 cases, ranging from severe injuries to deaths … About 95% of these injuries and deaths come from food distribution centres – what are referred to as the ‘American food distribution centres’,” Saqr said.

> On Wednesday, between 20 and 44 people were killed, according to officials in Gaza.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/09/gaza-aid-worke...


'doctors say hundreds' isn't a reportable real number though. That isn't an official number from a hospital. The reportable real numbers are from the Gaza Ministry of Health but those are cumulative numbers, not from the incident. This is basic journalism stuff that applies to every conflict, not BBC bias.


I mean you still haven't established that there is a source that this story you want published could accurately report on.


> Where are the BBC reporters in Gaza?

Israel doesn't allow reporters in Gaza, and has systematically murdered the ones who were there.


In addition, not all Zionists are Jews.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

> Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land.[1] Likewise, it holds that the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with biblical prophecies transmitted through the Old Testament: that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levant—the eschatological "Gathering of Israel"—is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[1][2][3] The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.[1][4][5]


Defence contractors hire a lot of people which in turn create a lot of ancillary jobs to support said industries.

Defence contractors are also becoming increasingly sophisticated so they use more software, more chips, more clouds, and more information security.

Almost all of MAFANG has some defence-related footprint, and some have multiple. You might see a few defence/defence adjacent companies in the monthly WhoIsHiring posts as well as https://www.workatastartup.com .


I believe there are religious exemptions for some Israeli Jews that legally permits them to not serve in the IDF. In addition, I believe that Israeli Arabs are not required to serve in the IDF, but some do serve willingly. Finally, there are Israeli conscientious objectors who end up serving a prison sentence in order to avoid serving in the IDF.

Please correct me if I am wrong.


Yes, but I don't see how that helps - it's still mostly conscripts who didn't really choose to enlist, let alone choose to fight in Gaza, let alone commit any war crimes.


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