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WHEN DYING PATIENTS WANT UNPROVEN DRUGS

The FDA requires two adequate trials before it approves a drug, a process that can take years, but some patients don't have that time.

FIDELITY RUMORED TO MAKE “SEISMIC” CRYPTO MOVE SOON

Fidelity, the third-largest global asset manager, is rumored to be planning a big move in the crypto markets. This could involve either buying out Grayscale or filing an application for a Bitcoin spot ETF. Such a move, along with BlackRock's recent filing of a Bitcoin spot ETF application, could position these firms to dominate the US digital asset space. Grayscale, which operates several cryptocurrency trusts, has been unsuccessful in its attempts to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot Bitcoin ETF due to regulatory obstacles.

UK CRYPTO, STABLECOIN LAWS APPROVED BY PARLIAMENT'S UPPER HOUSE

The UK Parliament has approved the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which could help set a regulatory framework for the country. Introduced to leverage post-Brexit freedoms and empower regulators over the UK financial system, the bill is now entering its final stages before enactment. While the bill initially proposed to regulate stablecoins, amendments to cover all crypto activities and supervise promotions were later included. With the bill's approval, specific rules for the crypto sector could arrive within a year, as the UK seeks to align with the EU's crypto regulations.

BNB CHAIN LAUNCHES EVM-COMPATIBLE LAYER 2 NETWORK OPBNB ON TESTNET

BNB Chain has launched an L2 network, opBNB, on testnet. opBNB is based on the Optimism OP Stack, uses optimistic rollups, and aims to enhance transaction speed and lower fees. In comparison to BNB Smart Chain's 2,000 tps and average cost of $0.109 per transaction, opBNB is expected to support over 4,000 tps and cost less than $0.005 per transaction. The EVM-compatible nature of opBNB will allow for seamless interaction with Ethereum-based applications. OpBNB’s mainnet is anticipated to launch in the third quarter of this year.

CONTRACT SOURCE CODE

Ethereum blockchain explorer Etherscan has introduced an AI tool to help users understand smart contract source code. Developed using OpenAI's technology, the tool allows users to query the entirety or parts of a smart contract's code and understand the "read" and "write" functions of the contract. This allows users to make better decisions when interacting with the contracts and understand how to use these contracts in their applications.

HOW TO BREAK INTO WEB3 (WHILE WORKING FULL-TIME JOB)

This blog explains from a firsthand account how to get into web3 while working a demanding full-time job. Key lessons learned in this process included identifying a reason or purpose for the career change, setting clear and achievable goals, and structuring daily routines to maximize efficiency. Staying focused on one learning journey and contest at a time helped this engineer manage his workload, and acknowledging that everyone's journey is different allowed him to take inspiration from others without trying to mimic them.

FUNGIBLE - AN ARTHUR HAYES ESSAY

In this essay, Hayes examines the US financial system, discussing why long-term bonds continue to be held in portfolios despite low returns. He discusses the difference between the behaviors of the "mass affluent" and the "extremely wealthy," and how capital's fungibility supports crypto despite regulatory uncertainties. He also highlights the ongoing trade war between China and Japan and its potential to boost crypto. Despite uncertainties around regulations and market downturns, Hayes has high conviction and sees the potential devaluation of the Chinese Yuan as a catalyst for crypto.

2,048 ETH

Ethereum core developers are contemplating increasing the maximum validator balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, while the minimum would remain at 32 ETH. This change would help larger node operators manage their resources more efficiently and provide auto-compounding validator rewards, boosting staking yields. However, it also carries risks such as higher penalties for errors. Currently, the network has 600,000 active validators and 90,000 more waiting for activation. If this proposal were to go through, it would decrease the count of individual validator nodes running, giving a more accurate picture of the number of entities actually staking.

A debate is set to occur among financial institutions like the Bank of England, JPMorgan, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore on the topic of stablecoins vs tokenized bank deposits. Contrary to the commonly held view that stablecoins are riskier, this thread previewing the debate suggests that tokenized deposits may carry more risk due to their fractional reserve models. Further, it's argued that the future of stablecoins could likely incorporate aspects of tokenized deposits and Treasury Bills as the market strives to deliver perceived stability and increased yield.

HOW WE RESCUED FUNDS FROM A BRICKED SAFE WITH EIP-1271

Yearn's "yTrades" multisig contract was recently compromised, leading to an unusable Gnosis Safe and trapping about $1M in assets. The situation was resolved using EIP-1271, leaving all user funds completely intact.

HE WENT AFTER CRYPTO COMPANIES. THEN SOMEONE CAME AFTER HIM.

In 2022, successful cryptocurrency litigator Kyle Roche was secretly recorded discussing his potentially unethical relationship with client Ava Labs during a business meeting. The recordings, later released, insinuated Roche had manipulated cases for Ava Labs' benefit. This led to lawsuits, a damaged reputation, and Roche's resignation from his own firm.

EXPECT ‘TRIPLE-A CONSOLE-STYLE’ WEB3 GAMES IN 2024

Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung is predicting a shift towards triple-A console-style games in the web3 gaming space is around the corner.

HOW CANVA SAVES MILLIONS ANNUALLY IN AMAZON S3 COSTS

Canva stores more than 230 Petabytes of data from its production environments in Amazon S3, with the single largest S3 bucket coming in at a whopping 45 Petabytes. In this blog post, Canva’s engineering team dives into how they have visibility over these vast quantities of data and how moving large amounts of this data to Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval met their use cases and saved them millions of dollars annually. The team analyzed the usage of various pieces of data in their system and identified what kinds of data worked best to be moved off of the main S3 bucket. These data use cases included log retrieval and backups. As a result of these changes, Canva saves over $3.6 million annually.

TYPESCRIPT 5.2'S NEW KEYWORD: 'USING'

TypeScript 5.2 will introduce a new keyword - 'using' - that can be used to dispose of anything with a Symbol.dispose function when it leaves scope. The ‘using’ keyword will be extremely useful for managing resources like file handles, database connections, and more. This article goes through various use cases with detailed explanations and code examples.

HOW TO CREATE A MULTI-REGION NODE.JS LAMBDA API

This article shows how to build a multi-region Node.js Lambda API using Serverless Framework and pair it with a serverless multi-region CockroachDB database. Both CockroachDB Serverless and AWS Lambda operate on a pay-as-you-go basis, making this pairing a cost-effective solution for serving data to end users fast, no matter where in the world they may be.

AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF SKILLS SENIOR ENGINEERS NEED BEYOND CODING

Addy Osmani, the head of Google Chrome’s developer experience team, lists some skills that senior engineers need beyond coding. These include knowing how to write a proper design doc, how to influence other teams, and more.

6 LESSONS FROM LAID-OFF TECH WORKERS ABOUT FINDING A NEW JOB

Being laid-off and subsequently finding a new job is incredibly difficult. This article explores the experiences of 5 tech workers who experienced layoffs and eventually found their next career destination. The lessons they learned along the way are compiled into 6 noteworthy points that can help you too.

HOW TO REDUCE COMMUNICATION GAPS AT WORK

Effective communication is a key ingredient to working together, advancing your career, and making work a happy experience. When communication breaks down at work, time is wasted in filling gaps in alignment and expectations, and less time is used in productive work. This article will help you to avoid the pitfalls of poor communication so that you and your teams can function at their best.

OPENLLM

OpenLLM is an open platform for operating large language models (LLMs) in production. It allows developers to fine-tune, serve, deploy, and monitor any LLMs with ease. OpenLLM comes with support for state-of-the-art LLMs, flexible APIs, first-class support for services like LangChain and HuggingFace, streamlined deployment, and more.

SKETCH.SYSTEMS

Sketch.systems helps software designers think about complex product behavior. Software creators can sketch out states, add prototypes, and clarify questions quickly. It’s also free.

CHERRYBOMB

Cherrybomb is a CLI tool written in Rust that helps prevent incorrect code implementation early in development. It works by validating and testing your API using an OpenAPI file. If any problems are found, Cherrybomb gives you a detailed report with the exact location of the problem so you can fix it easily. Its main goal is to reduce security errors and ensure your API functions as intended.

THE WORK-FROM-HOME FUTURE IS DESTROYING BOSSES' BRAINS

The article discusses the challenges and anxieties executives face due to the shift towards remote work. It argues that traditional full-time employment often involves an expectation of ownership over the employee's time, which is disrupted by remote work. The shift to remote work is seen as threatening to the corporate structure as it devalues the role of middle management and exposes organizational dysfunctions. The return to office move is more of a corporate power move rather than a productivity move.

OUR LESSONS FROM THE LATEST AWS US-EAST-1 OUTAGE

On June 13th of 2023, AWS experienced an outage on their AWS Lambda APIs in the us-east-1 region. This retrospective article takes a look at the problems this caused for one company and the measures they took to fix the problem and protect their infrastructure going forward.

THE REDDIT BLACKOUT IS A LESSON IN RISK MANAGEMENT

The Reddit API is not a public good and developers shouldn’t feel entitled to freely access it. While the API resource may not have cost developers anything in the past, it has been an ongoing cost for Reddit. As we progress through tougher economic times, we should expect less free things from the internet subsidized by venture capital money fueling growth as companies are expected to start turning a profit sooner (Reddit is still not profitable almost two decades after launch). Devs should take into account the fact that platform risk exists as a form of risk management when developing on a free API or platform.

I DON’T NEED YOUR QUERY LANGUAGE

This article makes a strong case for why we should consider just sticking with SQL.

TOLGEE

Tolgee is a developer & translator friendly web-based localization platform. It comes with a host of features, such as in-context translation, translation memory, one-click screenshots, and more. It also has integrations for all major JS frameworks, like React, Angular, and Next.js.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM TWO YEARS OF TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL CS

A high school teacher’s retrospective on teaching Computer Science. He found that for teaching computer science, there is no one size fits all solution. Students have distinct interests and we need to find ways for students to explore CS content through the lens of what interests them.

File uploading is a common requirement in web development projects. But handling file uploads in Node.js can be complex and time-consuming. That's where Multer comes in. This article will teach you how to leverage the power of Multer to streamline your file upload process.

DON'T REOPEN

Some moderators participating in the protest against the Reddit API changes received messages from the company saying to reopen their subreddits or be removed from their positions. Many large subreddits have reopened out of fear that their mod teams will be forcibly replaced. A Reddit spokesperson has confirmed that moderators taking part in the protest may be in violation of the code of conduct. The company is planning to pursue changes that would let regular users vote moderators out more easily.

INTRODUCING VOICEBOX: THE MOST VERSATILE AI FOR SPEECH GENERATION

Voicebox is an AI model from Meta that can perform speech generation tasks that it wasn't specifically trained to do through in-context learning. It can produce high-quality clips and edit pre-recorded audio while preserving the content and style of the audio. Voicebox is multilingual and can produce speech in six languages. Examples of clips generated by Voicebox are available in the article.

BPClip is a cell phone attachment that can measure blood pressure with comparable readings to those taken with a traditional cuff. It consists of a plastic clip with a spring mechanism that lets the user squeeze the device. An ultra-low-cost blood pressure device could help make diagnosis and treatment for hypertension more accessible to marginalized populations. The design still needs to be refined before it is ready for mass production. Details about how the device works are available in the article.

NEW NANO-TATTOOS DON'T NEED BATTERIES OR WIRES

Researchers from Istanbul have created nanotattoos capable of passive wireless communications with nearby devices without the need for an external power source. Backscattering-based nanotattoo sensor (BNTS) tattoos are made by painting a zinc oxide ink containing embedded nanowires on top of a graphene aerogel conductive ink using separate needles. As the tattoos change shape, they convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. Data from the tattoos can be extracted using a smartphone. The tattoos can be placed on any surface, not just on the human body.

GPT ENGINEER

GPT Engineer can generate entire code bases based on a prompt. It is easy to adapt and extend and it can learn code styles. GPT Engineer will ask for clarification before it starts to build. A video demo is available.

PANDA

Panda is a universal styling solution for the modern web. It allows developers to write type-safe styles with ease. Panda has TypeScript support out-of-the-box, a low learning curve, and a great developer experience. It generates modern CSS code at build-time with features like cascade layers, :where selectors, and CSS variables. Panda works everywhere, including in server components.

MARK ZUCKERBERG WAS EARLY IN AI. NOW META IS TRYING TO CATCH UP.

Mark Zuckerberg saw the promise for artificial intelligence a decade ago and invested large amounts of money into its advancement, hiring one of its early visionaries, Yann LeCun, to lead the charge. Meta fell behind in the field and is now scrambling to refocus its resources to generate usable AI products and features. It previously prioritized academic discoveries while struggling to capitalize on their commercial potential. Meta had attempted to launch several chatbots before ChatGPT was released but these systems were criticized for their incorrect and biased answers.

GPT-4 CAN USE TOOLS - NOW THAT'S A BIG DEAL

The GPT API was recently updated with a tool called function calling. Function calling allows GPT to call out to external code, databases, or other APIs whenever it needs to. GPT can decide which tools to use and when. This ability makes GPT models significantly more powerful as it helps them overcome many of their limitations. It also makes some open-source projects obsolete. OpenAI's release should remind developers that projects built at the infrastructure layer can be easily obviated by a future OpenAI update.

HEADQUARTERS

The 30-year project will include over 3 million square feet of office space and 7,000 residential units.

LANGUAGE MODELS

This package makes it easy for learners and educators to explore how large language models intersect with modern software development on any computer with 512MB of RAM.

THIRD-PARTY DATA

Similarweb reported a 6.6% drop in traffic for Reddit on June 13.

IMAGINARY PROBLEMS ARE THE ROOT OF BAD SOFTWARE

Intelligent people will make up imaginary problems when tasks are boring - this can lead to the creation of solutions that ignore clients' basic requests.

HOME, SMART HOME

Homes built in California's first planned smart solar-powered residential microgrid community can proactively respond to and manage energy use, for example, by changing power sources or reducing energy use when prices and demand spike.

MODERN CSS FOR DYNAMIC COMPONENT-BASED ARCHITECTURE

This article explores modern web project architecture, features to improve code organization, and examples of context-aware components that use cutting-edge CSS techniques.

POSTMAN

API performance testing can help you ensure your API can handle expected loads, optimize and improve API performance, and identify any bottlenecks or issues to determine the scalability of a system. Postman, an API client, can be used to simulate load by having multiple parallel virtual users hit your endpoints. It can also visualize the performance of your APIs under the simulated load in real time. Postman allows you to observe response times, throughput (requests hit per second), and error rates so you can keep tabs on your API performance metrics.

LINKING MODULAR ARCHITECTURE TO DEVELOPMENT TEAMS

This article recounts the journey of a software company that managed to achieve a 60% reduction in average cycle time, an 18-fold improvement in development costs, and an 80% reduction in team startup costs by shifting their team topologies to match a modular architecture while investing in the developer experience. It dives deep into the architectural principles that enabled these results.

HOW TO IMPROVE API PERFORMANCE

This system design refresher by ByteByteGo breaks down various methods to improve API performance, such as pagination, caching, and payload compression. It also goes over other useful topics, such as how Discord stores over a trillion messages, Netflix’s overall architecture, and more.

FINDING STAFF-LEVEL SCOPE

One of the hardest parts of getting promoted from senior to staff engineer is finding projects that have staff-level scope. Engineering work meets the Staff bar based on a few high-level characteristics, including high complexity, significant impact, and a large workstream size. Finding staff-level scope can be difficult, but this article gives multiple tips on how to do it.

SMART GUY PRODUCTIVITY PITFALLS

The author notes that working around high-productivity professionals like John Carmack made him realize that if you want to excel, then you have to work hard and focus the whole time. One technique he uses is to play a CD while working, and if he was not being productive, he'd pause the CD player. He'd then measure his output for the day by how far he got down in his CD stack. You can replicate this method today using a long soundtrack or playlist on YouTube, Spotify, or other music applications.

9 PIECES OF EXPERT SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ADVICE

Software engineering is more than just coding - the job involves many other aspects that one must be proficient at to be successful. This post lists 9 pieces of advice to keep in mind for your career to progress fast and do well.