This article features a few interesting practices that are often not seen in CSS guides. For example, an animation of navigation items expanding could be done by animating each item individually instead of animating the gap or padding, which is much cleaner but could be less performant. The article’s approach to analyzing CSS by adding outlines to all elements can be applied to analyzing the CSS of any site. The article analyzes the CSS choices Threads made.
A couple of months ago, the React team unveiled React Server Components, its latest paradigm shift. Now, React components can run exclusively on the server. This article aims to demystify React Server Components and make them easier to understand.
This interview with a staff engineer who has worked at companies like Twitter uncovers some helpful advice gained on his path to getting to his current position. Staff engineers consistently improve core infrastructure and deliver fantastic products. They also are able to manage effectively and are able to influence without authority.
2023.09.25·
careercutler.substack.com·12 min read·TLDR Web Dev
Bun is a backend JavaScript runtime with a focus on performance. It provides an up to 10x performance increase in package building or handling inbound server requests. Bun achieves this performance peak by using a more performant tech, making performance-centric optimizations, and making some trade offs to prefer performance over ease of use. Bun also reveals the contrast between a venture-funded open source system vs community-contributed open source - Node’s contributors are unpaid, while Bun has raised more than $7M.
2023.09.25·
blog.pragmaticengineer.com·7 min read·TLDR Web Dev
Postgres queue tech consists of two parts: the publish/subscribe pattern and row locks. It’s useful for background jobs, but many don’t use it because they are worried about its scalability. This article shows that Postgres queue tech is scalable and also provides extra features that current replacements might not. Most notably, Redis is the main message broker for background job libraries.
Unity recently introduced a Runtime Fee for which they instantly received tons of backlash from game developers. The company apologized publicly soon after and revealed massive changes to the policy as a response. The Unity Runtime Fee will no longer apply to games built on Unity Personal. Developers on said plan will also be able to now earn up to $200,000 in revenue. They will also no longer be required to use the "Made with Unity" splash screen.
Most of us are used to the annual cadence of performance reviews. It can be a good chance to get aligned with your manager about your priorities. However, frequent and relevant feedback could be a better solution.
Microsoft revealed how much gaming revenue the top 10 biggest companies make, including Google, Apple, and even estimates for Valve's Steam platform. The top three are Tencent, Sony, and Google.
Idempotency refers to the property of an operation or function that produces the same result when applied multiple times as it does when applied only once.
This article takes a philosophical approach to design by placing importance on mindfulness and introspection. Using examples from books and philosophers, the author provides advice on rediscovering joy in design.
Apple signed a 10-year deal last fall to serve as MLS' primary broadcast partner. The deal is set to give Lionel Messi a percentage of the revenue generated from new subscriptions to MLS Season Pass. This was Apple's biggest move yet into the sports business. Apple is methodically working its way into deals with other leagues and broadcasters.
Microsoft held a special event in New York City on September 21. It announced new Surface hardware and detailed its vision for AI-powered features in its products at the event. Microsoft plans to release the next big Windows update on September 26. This page contains a collection of articles that detail the announcements made at the event.
Amazon is rumored to be working on a projector that can turn any surface into a screen. The device has many potential applications for Amazon's smart home ecosystem. Amazon is also working on technology to map homes. Its attempt to acquire iRobot for its home mapping technology has stalled due to regulatory scrutiny.
Many major companies are working hard to assess the impact that a new class of weight loss drugs will have on their businesses. Obesity is an enormous global healthcare issue, affecting around one in eight people. It's extremely expensive in terms of human health and economic costs. Many companies either directly or indirectly profit from obesity, so making the disease less prevalent will likely hurt them.
buzz is a small, statically typed scripting language. It is unambiguous and requires no nonsense coercion. A VS Code extension with syntax highlighting is available.
This essay dives into the world of engineering metrics. It looks at what engineering metrics are and their purpose, how they relate to productivity, and how to make the most from them. Engineering metrics are quantitative measures that provide insight into various aspects of the software development process. They can help understand performance, support decision-making, communicate progress, and ensure quality.
The speculative frenzy in crypto is attracting users and catalyzing the infrastructure necessary to create a thriving crypto civilization. This article draws similarities between the crypto industry and settling a new planet. While some people see crypto as a desolate planet without purpose, others see it as a blank slate on which an upgraded financial system and internet platform can be built. The casino-like speculation is part of the bootstrapping process.
The Most Advanced Yet Acceptable (MAYA) design rule dictates that the ideal design sits between solutions that are completely novel and entirely familiar. Designs that are too novel will be tuned out and familiar designs will be overlooked. A balanced design can make or break the success of innovations. This article uses hits and misses from three high-profile tech categories to illustrate the concept of MAYA.
Most databases use a tree-walking interpreter, a few use stack or register-based virtual machines, a couple use just-in-time compilers, and some do vectorized interpretation.
Apple recently extended its deal with Qualcomm for modems due to issues resulting from underestimating the complexity and technical challenges of developing its own.
Microsoft has unveiled "Microsoft Copilot", an AI companion integrated across Windows 11, Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing designed to provide contextual assistance based on web context, user data, and current activities while prioritizing privacy. The feature will begin rolling out in Windows 11 on Sept. 26. The Windows 11 update will also offer 150+ new AI features in apps like Paint and Photos.
Sounds like the start of a bad joke. Tech titans Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg met in Washington on Wednesday to talk about AI regulation. They were joined by founders from leading AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, now with startup Artifact, believes AI technologies will make people "super-powered" rather than causing harm. Contrasting views of AI's existential risks exist within the tech community. Artifact uses AI to improve news consumption by summarizing articles, countering clickbait, and personalizing feeds, with aims to surface quality content over mere popularity.
You can substantially improve generation quality in Stable Diffusion without any additional training by cleverly shifting around weights and scaling residuals in the UNet. Code coming soon.
This study explores how to make 'student' networks (smaller models) learn better from 'teacher' networks (bigger models) in situations they've never seen before. It introduces a new method called Weight-Averaged Knowledge Distillation (WAKD) that does just as well as current techniques but is simpler to use.
Researchers trained a model that identifies important points on 3D pictures of faces, a process usually done by hand. Their method was almost as accurate as human experts, but much faster.
AI is looking to take on several dying markets and news is just another avenue. This article looks at how AI might be a path forward for news if generated/managed with AI. We’re already seeing this happen with smaller local TV affiliates with some success.
Most Americans think artificial intelligence will negatively affect the U.S. job market, with 75% saying it will decrease the total number of jobs over the next 10 years.
The best opportunities don’t come from LinkedIn. Peer2Peer lets you leverage your network by taking part in a referral community. Read how Bowei, an ML engineer, used Peer2Peer to advance his career
Generating knowledge graphs from unstructured text was a holy grail of natural language understanding - now you can do it with 50 lines of code and an LLM.
Tether has resumed lending, despite previous commitments to halt the practice. As of June 30, the company's assets included $5.5 billion in loans, a slight increase from the previous quarter. This practice potentially poses a risk to the crypto landscape, as repayment is not guaranteed. While the company didn’t make clear whether or not these were new loans, it raised concerns that Tether could be winding up these practices again rather than sunsetting them.
The trustee of the collapsed Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange has extended the deadline for repayments to creditors until October 2024. This news comes one year after the approval of a rehabilitation proposal, planning to pay back approximately 90% of the assets. Notably, the Estate holds about 138,000 Bitcoin and a similar amount in Bitcoin Cash, with a combined value of over $3.7 billion. The exact timing for individual repayments remains undecided.
Pirate Nation, a blockchain-based RPG, has secured $33m in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Greenoaks. Pirate Nation aims to immerse players in the game while avoiding technical barriers. The game's producer, Proof of Play, plans to develop "Forever Games," decentralized games that operate without creator intervention or external servers. Proof of Play is planning to open-source its technology framework, encouraging creation within its game architecture.
Mesh, a startup providing a service for managing and transferring digital assets, has secured $22m in a Series A funding round. The funding will be utilized for enhancing its tools for deposits, payments, and payouts and supporting its go-to-market operations. Mesh offers businesses a platform to allow customers to shift assets, including cryptocurrency, across numerous platforms. The startup, founded in 2020, currently claims to have 70 paying clients from the finance and digital assets industries.
NFTs have seen a boom and bust, crashing after a bull run, leaving the market flooded with assets that lack buyers. A study encompassing over 73,000 NFT collections found colossal imbalances in the market characterized by over 95% of collections having zero value. While that is a staggering portion of NFTs that are deemed worthless, there was a much smaller pool of collections that people actually cared about to begin with, so this figure could be a bit misleading.
Projects like Eclipse, Canto, and Astar are shifting to use Ethereum for their settlement layers due to its secure and cost-effective framework. This blog explains some of the reasons behind these shifts. Eclipse combines the strengths of Solana's tech and Ethereum's strong monetary layer. Canto, initially built on Cosmos SDK, is now migrating to Ethereum as an L2. Meanwhile, Astar aims to expand its reach to Ethereum with the Astar zkEVM, creating interoperability across chains.
Zora Protocol's new Rewards scheme is letting creators earn ETH from their work, even when it's minted for free, in a move that could disrupt the traditional art world. All Zora Mints, including those made by artists, singers, and writers, can now generate value indefinitely, providing creators with a new stream of income every time their work is minted on the platform. The change also safeguards at-risk artists by providing a counterbalance to exploitative economic forces.
This blog explains how crypto can be likened to a newly discovered planet with its unique economic system and potential. Despite criticism and speculative hype, many see crypto offering fresh possibilities like providing worldwide financial services that are transparent, programmable, and more inclusive. Digital currencies such as BTC, ETH, and stablecoins are adopted extensively in nations where traditional systems fail. Despite its dark sides including potential scams and short-term speculation, supporters believe that crypto creates the ability to revolutionize money, finance, and digital property.
These notes gathered by Eric Wall from talking to many experts on the topic explore the challenges of adding ZKrollups/ZKPs to Bitcoin. Wall suggests using a general-purpose VM like WASM for flexibility and future optionality.
This theory from Nic Carter suggests that the NSA invented Bitcoin, citing a 1996 paper and the agency's creation of SHA-256, proposing it was an internal project later secretly released.