TLDR 2024-12-11

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AMAZON IS OFFICIALLY IN THE ONLINE CAR SALES BUSINESS

Amazon Autos is an e-commerce business that lets customers find, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs from dealerships. It launched on Tuesday with Hyundai in 48 US cities. Amazon Autos will allow customers to secure financing and e-sign paperwork. It will also handle trade-ins. Customers can only buy new cars. Amazon will add more cities, additional auto manufacturers, leasing, and expanded financing options in 2025.

CRUISE EMPLOYEES ‘BLINDSIDED' BY GM'S PLAN TO END ROBOTAXI PROGRAM

Cruise CEO Marc Whitten announced that GM would no longer fund the company in a Slack message on Tuesday afternoon. Cruise will be absorbed into GM and combined with the automaker's own efforts to develop driver assistance features and eventually fully autonomous personal vehicles. It is unclear whether employees' jobs are safe. Several employees reported feeling blindsided by the decision - they had been following a roadmap to launch a driverless service in Houston in 2025.

THE GOOGLE WILLOW THING

Google Willow is a new 105-qubit superconducting chip. It has been used to demonstrate an error-corrected surface code qubit as well as a new, bigger quantum supremacy experiment based on Random Circuit Sampling. The development is a real milestone for the field. This article discusses Google Willow and its implications for the field of quantum computing.

NASA'S JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE REVEALS UNIVERSE EXPANDING FASTER THAN THOUGHT

The universe is expanding about 8% faster than initially assumed possible. New measurements from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that the long-established discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the rate we thought possible based on our knowledge of the cosmos is potentially due to the influence of dark matter and dark energy. The discrepancy suggests that something is missing in our understanding of the early universe. The new data confirms that the universe is expanding faster today than it did during its first few billion years.

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NOBODY GETS FIRED FOR PICKING JSON, BUT MAYBE THEY SHOULD?

JSON is famously simple, but its formal definition is quite complicated. The biggest problem with JSON is the incredible diversity of parser behavior and non-conformity across and within language ecosystems. Everything is implementation-defined, which can result in data loss and other issues. This article looks at how JSON is designed, how it is used and misused, and how its 'human readability' features can cause headaches for users.

LIMBO

Limbo is an in-process OLTP database management system. It features an in-process OLTP database engine library, asynchronous I/O support with io_uring, SQLite compatibility, and JavaScript/WebAssembly bindings. Limbo is still a work in progress.

HOW WHATSAPP ATE THE WORLD

WhatsApp contains an ecosystem of services, features, and connections that make many businesses possible. It is the world's most widely-used messaging app, with 2 billion daily users sending more than 100 billion messages a day in 60 languages across 180 countries. WhatsApp achieved its global dominance in large part by enabling cheap, private, and reliable messaging on almost any phone almost anywhere in the world. The app has transformed into a sort of 'everything app' in the decade since Meta acquired it. This article takes a look at how the app is used in different places and the possibilities it has enabled.

FROM WHERE I LEFT

The creator of Redis is returning to the project after a four-and-a-half-year break. He will be working with Redis' new CEO to tune the future of the company's relationships with the community and the code base direction. He will help be a bridge between the company and the community and also help produce programming demos, invent and describe new patterns, and create documentation, videos, and blog posts about new and old stuff.

COURT ORDERS MULLENWEG AND AUTOMATTIC TO RESTORE WP ENGINE'S ACCESS TO WORDPRESS.ORG

The court has also ordered Automattic to restore WP Engine's access and control of the popular Advanced Custom Field plug-in.

INSTAGRAM ROLLS OUT ‘TRIAL REELS' THAT AREN'T SHOWN TO A CREATOR'S FOLLOWERS

Instagram's trial reels will give creators a chance to test out new content by publishing videos that don't appear to their followers, allowing creators to experiment with new ideas and see what performs best without having to worry about how their followers may react.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT COMPILERS

Misconceptions about compilers have led many engineers to believe that they do things that they don't, or that they don't do things that they do.

THE DEPTHS OF WIKIPEDIANS

This article features an interview with Annie Rauwerda, the owner of the famous Depths of Wikipedia account, which shares factors from some of the most arcane, interesting, and surprising pages on Wikipedia.

THE AGE OF CHIPLETS IS UPON US

This article looks at two recently unveiled chiplet-enabling technologies and examines the benefits of chiplet-based designs and some reasons why they may not make sense.

DIGITAL CONSUMPTION KEEPS ME FROM GETTING BETTER AT MY JOB

The fast consumption of digital content is harmful to the brain, mind, and soul.