Stanford To Continue Legacy Admissions And Withdraw From Cal Grants

• Stanford will maintain legacy admissions for Fall 2026 despite California’s AB 1780 banning such preferences in private universities receiving state funds.
  



• To comply, Stanford plans to exit the Cal Grant program and replace that aid with private funding internally.
  



• AB 1780 requires annual reporting on compliance and legacy admit statistics but no financial penalties.
  



• Legacy advantages largely favor white applicants and wealthy families, raising concerns about fairness and racial equity, especially after Supreme Court rulings against race-conscious admissions.
  



• Stanford defends the move citing the financial importance of alumni and donor contributions and commits to ongoing analysis while public universities in California have abandoned legacy preferences.

Debian 13 "trixie" Released: Universal OS Advances

• Debian 13 “trixie” released August 9, 2025, after over two years of development with 5 years of security and long-term support.
  



• Supports seven architectures including new riscv64; drops regular support for i386 and last release for armel.
  



• Contains ~70,000 packages with 14,100 additions and 45,000 updates; Linux kernel 6.12 (LTS), GNOME 48, KDE Plasma 6.3, GCC 14.2 among key updates.
  



• Introduces progress toward fully reproducible builds and improved installation options like live images with Calamares and standard installer support.
  



• Enhancements include speech synthesis, btrfs rescue improvements, and secure boot support, targeting robustness for desktops, servers, and cloud environments.

Did California’s Fast Food Minimum Wage Reduce Employment?

• Study finds California’s $20 fast food minimum wage (April 2024) caused a 2.7-3.2% drop in fast food employment relative to other states, equating to about 18,000 lost jobs.
  



• Uses QCEW data and controls for pre-policy trends and employment in other industries to isolate effect.
  



• Highlights ongoing debate in labor economics about trade-offs between wage increases and employment levels.
  



• Invites nuanced discussion on policy impacts beyond raw numbers, including automation and socio-economic consequences.
  

CSS-Only Dynamic Sky Simulation for HTML Day 2025

• Web service created that simulates current sky colors at the user’s approximate location using only CSS gradients, updating every minute without client-side JavaScript.
  



• Simulates atmospheric conditions via absorption and scattering coefficients for realistic yet minimalist rendering.
  



• Source code available on GitHub; utilizes Cloudflare IP geolocation to determine latitude and longitude.
  



• Raises discussion on realism versus simplicity in UI design, supported by server-side computation and modern web infrastructure.

Rethinking Tech Hiring: An Engineer’s Critique

• Critiques common tech hiring practices (LeetCode-style, take-homes) emphasizing wasted time, lack of differentiation, and susceptibility to AI shortcuts.
  



• Argues interviews must reflect real work, respect candidates’ time, and distinguish senior from junior engineers.
  



• Advocates for code review-based interviews reversing usual time asymmetry, revealing collaboration, design judgment, and interpersonal skills.
  



• Stresses hiring as a collaborative process, including meeting future managers to assess cultural fit and leadership.
  



• Warns disrespecting candidates drives away top talent, urging humane, efficient, and insightful evaluation methods.