Search the archive

THERE'S STILL NO SILVER BULLET

Developers need to choose the right tools for the job instead of trying to use the same tool for every job.

THE DRUGS DO TO YOUR BRAIN

Ketamine may be able to treat nonpsychotic treatment-resistant depression at least as well as electroconvulsive therapy.

TALENT

Canada is developing a dedicated pathway to permanent residency for workers in the STEM sector employed by foreign companies.

THE DEEP SEA

Scroll down to the deepest point of the ocean and discover the different forms of life at every depth.

DEEPMIND CLAIMS ITS NEXT CHATBOT WILL RIVAL CHATGPT

DeepMind's Gemini large language model was trained using techniques from AlphaGo, the first AI system to defeat a professional human player in the board game Go. Gemini can plan, solve problems, and analyze text. It combines the strengths of AlphaGo-type systems with the capabilities of large language models. Gemini's development was spurred by the failures of Bard, Google's chatbot project. Jeff Dean, Google's most senior AI research executive, directly participated in the project.

AMAZON WILL NOW PAY YOUR COFFEE SHOP TO DELIVER PACKAGES

Amazon is connecting with a range of small businesses across the US to build out its package delivery network. Participating businesses are required to have a physical location and be available for delivery seven days a week. There are no long-term contracts and businesses bring their own staff, vehicles, and devices. Amazon hopes to connect with 2,500 drivers operating out of these small businesses by the end of the year. Small businesses can apply to become an Amazon Hub Partner online.

THIS DRUG CAN GIVE US AN EDGE IN THE BACTERIA-ANTIBIOTICS ARMS RACE

Bacteria can evolve genetic survival tactics much faster than humans can find new drugs to kill them. Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine discovered that a drug commonly used as a topical antiseptic significantly slows the evolution of bacteria and makes cipro, the second most prescribed antibiotic in the US, much more effective at fighting infection. Their study suggests that it may be possible to slow down pathogen evolution to the point where the body's immune system can deal with the infection without antibiotics. Global antibiotic resistance was responsible for nearly 1.3 million deaths in 2019.

LIMITS

Researchers at NIST and Georgia Tech have developed a new type of miniature atomic clock called a chip-scale beam clock. The technology promises improved timing over weeks and months compared to existing chip-scale atomic clock systems. The device, currently still in a prototype stage, is the size of a postal stamp and initial tests show scarcely worse performance than existing chip-scale atomic clocks. The team is confident that they will be able to increase precision by a factor of 10 and stability by a factor of 100 over weekly periods.

MYCELITE

Mycelite was created to make it easier to build local-first applications that sync across devices. It allows developers to synchronize changes from one instance of SQLite to another. Mycelite currently only supports one-way synchronization, but the team is working on integrating two-way synchronization.

A SENIOR ENGINEERS GUIDE TO FAANG INTERVIEWS

This guide to FAANG interviews was created by interviewers for candidates. The authors spent hundreds of hours talking to current and former FAANG interviewers about their processes. While FAANG interviews can seem daunting, they are much easier once you learn a company's operating metaphors: what they reward, what they punish, and what they're blind to. Learning a company's metaphors shows interviewers that you're part of their tribe.

2023 ENGINEERING SALARY EXPECTATIONS TRENDS REPORT

This report focuses on the impact of minimum salary requirement trends on software engineers. Ongoing layoffs have created a saturated job market, making it easier for employers to attract candidates at a reduced cost. Workers are now emphasizing the importance of culture, career growth, work-life balance, and stability. Employees are likely to continue to place equal or more importance on these non-monetary benefits as the economy rebounds.

AI IS KILLING THE OLD WEB, AND THE NEW WEB STRUGGLES TO BE BORN

This article looks at the potential effects AI will have on the future of the internet. The web used to be a place where individuals made things, but then companies took over and created platforms. Layoffs and AI-generated content are killing these platforms. AI systems can scale effortlessly and their output may potentially overrun the platforms people use for news, information, and entertainment. The decisions that we make now will determine who makes information in the future, how it is accessed, and who gets paid for it.

VECTORS ARE THE NEW JSON IN POSTGRESQL

Vectors are a mathematical structure and JSON is a data interchange format - both these representations have become essential to modern application development.

PASS, INTERNAL EMAILS SHOW

Microsoft wanted to start acquisition talks with several game companies to expand Xbox Game Pass to more audiences, but it is unclear whether the strategy was approved.

NEW TOOL TO SECURE YOUR GITHUB ACTIONS

action-permissions is a tool that monitors GitHub Actions workflows and recommends the minimum permissions required to run them.

STABILITY AI HEAD OF RESEARCH RESIGNS FROM STARTUP

Stability AI lost both its Head of Research and Chief Operating Officer in June.

WERE FAKE

Social app IRL is shutting down after an internal investigation by its board of directors found that almost all of its 20 million users were bots.

INTRODUCING THE MAGIC NIX CACHE

The Magic Nix Cache is a GitHub action that can dramatically speed up Nix-related workflows for free with just one line in a YAML configuration.

AMAZON'S VISION: AN AI MODEL FOR EVERYTHING

Amazon's long-term strategy is to create a single point of entry for businesses to tap into both open-source and closed-source generative AI models. Matt Wood, vice president of product for Amazon Web Services, is leading Amazon's response to the AI war. This article features an interview with Wood where he discusses how Amazon views the AI market, the company's approach to winning the AI battle between the tech giants, the future of the internet, and more.

DEVELOPMENT WITH LARGER THAN 30-INCH SCREEN

Apple will launch an Apple Watch Series 9 and a second-generation Apple Watch Ultra alongside the iPhone 15 lineup this fall. Updates to the Mac lineup are not expected until later this year or early 2024. Apple is working on a new 24-inch iMac and a new iMac with a screen larger than 30 inches. The iPad Pro and iPad Air will see updates in 2024. The third-generation AirPods Pro, a new Apple TV, and other smart home products are currently in early development.

ROCKET

Elon Musk says that SpaceX needs another six weeks or so to finish implementing over a thousand changes to its Super Heavy/Starship rocket and launch pad before it will be ready for a second attempt to reach orbit. SpaceX will also need FAA clearance for the launch. The modifications include using hot staging for the stage separation system, redesigning the Raptor's hot gas manifold, and a stronger launch pad that will allow the rocket to take off at a higher throttle setting. The Super Heavy/Starship program has so far cost SpaceX over $2 billion and investment could approach $3 billion by the end of the year.

Midjourney 5.2 was released on Thursday. It includes a new zoom out feature that automatically builds larger scenes around a central synthesized image. Unlike similar features on other AI models, Midjourney's zoom out feature only works on images generated within Midjourney. The Midjourney Discord server is still the official interface for the model, but there are plans to change that. Examples of images generated with Midjourney 5.2 using the zoom out feature are available in the article.

EMBEDCHAIN

embedchain is a framework for creating large language model-powered bots over any dataset. It abstracts the entire process of loading a dataset, chunking it, creating embeddings, and then storing it in a vector database. Users can create bots by linking to media like videos, PDFs, blog posts, or websites. The project aims to make it easy for anyone to get a chatbot running over any dataset in less than a minute.

TRY

try allows users to test commands before using them on a live system. It will show the effects of a command and then prompt users to see whether they want to commit the changes made at the end of the command's execution. try is still a prototype and not a full sandbox so users should not use it to test commands that will remove everything or write zeros to a disk.

HAS XBOX REALLY LOST THE CONSOLE WARS?

Phil Spencer recently took the stand during the FTC v. Microsoft hearing to discuss Microsoft losing the console wars, competition with Sony, and Xbox's struggle to compete. Spencer's promises that Microsoft won't pull Call of Duty from PlayStation resulted in some testy exchanges with FTC's lawyer. A representative from Google also appeared at the hearing to talk about Stadia. This article takes a look at these testimonies and examines the arguments that the companies make.

OPENAI PPUS: HOW OPENAI'S UNIQUE EQUITY COMPENSATION WORKS

OpenAI's capped profit model means that the company will be able to generate more value than it would owe investors. Its employees receive a base salary and equity in Profit Participation Units (PPUs). This article explains how OpenAI's PPUs work, how OpenAI distributes them, and other benefits that OpenAI offers to employees. A link to a compensation benchmarking tool for employers is available near the end of the article.

AI

Open source licenses, which are based on copyright law, are not a good fit for large language model models and datasets so they must be updated in ways that will make sense.

AIRBNB CEO @BCHESKY SAID A LOT OF THINGS THAT WERE WORTH FURTHER THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION DURING HIS FIRESIDE CHAT WITH @ZOINK

This Twitter thread summarizes some of the key points from a recent chat between Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and Figma CEO Dylan Field at this year's Figma Config.

GOOGLE'S NEXT GAMING PLAY MIGHT BE MINI PLAYABLES IN YOUTUBE

YouTube is internally testing a product called Playables for playing online games on mobile devices and desktop computers.

GPT-4'S SECRET HAS BEEN REVEALED

GPT-4 is actually a mixture of eight 220 billion parameter models put cleverly together.

WHY DID THE #TWITTERMIGRATION FAIL?

Many people joined the fediverse with the November 2022 influx, but most did not stick around and the number of active user numbers has dropped off a cliff.

EV BATTERY SWAPS: NOW AS FAST AS FILLING YOUR TANK

Ample's battery swapping stations can replace the battery on an electric vehicle in about five minutes.

OPENAI PLANS APP STORE FOR AI SOFTWARE, THE INFORMATION REPORTS

OpenAI plans to launch a marketplace for AI models built on top of its technology. Enterprise customers often tailor OpenAI's technology to their specific use cases. The marketplace would allow these customers to make their models available to other businesses. It will compete with other app stores, including one by Microsoft, and help OpenAI's technology reach more people.

RIVIAN IS THE NEXT AUTOMAKER TO ADOPT TESLA'S CHARGING PLUGS

The Combined Changing System (CCS) standard's connector and cable are big and unwieldy, unlike Tesla's more elegant alternative, the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Rivian will start building NACS ports into its vehicles in 2025. It will make adaptors available for its customers. Tesla charging sites will be added to Rivian's mobile and vehicle navigation apps.

DEEPMIND'S CO-FOUNDER SUGGESTED TESTING AN AI CHATBOT'S ABILITY TO TURN $100,000 INTO $1 MILLION TO MEASURE HUMAN-LIKE INTELLIGENCE

Mustafa Suleyman, formerly head of applied AI at DeepMind and now CEO and co-founder of Inflection AI, believes that the Turing test is an outdated method to test AI intelligence. The Turing test doesn't reveal information about what systems understand, whether they have established complex internal monologues, or if they engage in planning over abstract time horizons. Suleyman proposes a concept called artificial capable intelligence (ACI), where bots are able to complete short-term goals and tasks with little human input. Bots can achieve ACI by passing a modern Turing test that involves turning a $100,000 seed investment into $1 million. Suleyman believes that AI will be able to achieve that milestone in the next two years.

ROBOCAT: A SELF-IMPROVING ROBOTIC AGENT

RoboCat is a self-improving AI agent for robotics. It learns to perform tasks across different arms and then self-generates new training data to improve its technique. RoboCat can solve and adapt to multiple tasks across different robots. It learns much faster than other state-of-the-art models, picking up new tasks with as few as 100 demonstrations. A video demonstrating RoboCat's abilities is available in the article.

NOVEL

Novel is a Notion-style editor with AI-powered autocompletions. It can be deployed to Vercel with one click. A 30-second video demo is available.

HOW TO USE GITHUB COPILOT: PROMPTS, TIPS, AND USE CASES

This guide shares examples and best practices for communicating with GitHub Copilot. Generative AI coding tools are transforming the way developers work, but just like with any emerging tech, there is a learning curve. Learning how GitHub Copilot processes information can help developers adjust how they communicate with it.

NOT THAT KIND OF OPEN

Some Mastodon/Fediverse administrators have pledged to preemptively block Meta's upcoming ActivityPub service. ActivityPub makes social networking truly open. Blocking Meta from participating in the protocol seems to go against that ideal. There are billions of people who use Meta's services and there is no reason to cut them off from the ActivityPub social world.

EVERYONE HAS A SIDE HUSTLE NOW. IS THAT A GOOD THING?

Almost everyone has a side hustle. Even many leaders have significant side hustles. Remote work means that people no longer have to hide their other gigs from their co-workers. Many founders and CEOs don't like this. Side hustles are a distraction to workers' full-time jobs. While people can be good at doing more than one thing, being truly great requires full commitment.

EMERGING ARCHITECTURES FOR LLM APPLICATIONS

This post shares a reference architecture for the emerging LLM tech stack that shows the most common systems, tools, and design patterns used by tech companies and startups.

ARGUABLY

arguably turns functions into command line interfaces, automatically generating help messages using docstrings.

IOS 17 AND MACOS SONOMA AUTOMATICALLY GENERATES APPLE ID PASSKEYS

iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma users are automatically assigned a passkey to their Apple IDs for use on iCloud and Apple sites.

PG_EASY_REPLICATE

pg_easy_replicate is a command-line orchestrator tool that makes setting up logical replication between two PostgreSQL databases simple.

AI IS A LOT OF WORK

This article tells the story of the people that sort and tag the data that AI learns from.