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EXPERTS RATE 7 MOST TALKED ABOUT BRITISH ADS

From Pot Noodle's controversial ‘slurping ad' to Andrex's frankly bizarre ‘post-poo' euphoria spot — experts critique 7 of Britain's most weird and attention-grabbing campaigns.

USE THIS GPT TO GET DIAGRAMS FOR YOUR PRESENTATIONS IN SECONDS

Create a detailed mind map or other visuals with the “Diagrams: Show Me” GPT.

Read the details and see Paragraph code examples

MKBHDS FOR EVERYTHING

This article discusses the impact of AI, particularly in media, exemplified by Marques Brownlee's candid reviews and the potential for individuals to wield AI as a tool, envisioning a future where sovereign individuals empowered by AI reshape industries.

PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF SELF-DRIVING CARS — CAN THE INDUSTRY CHANGE THAT?

Public unease with self-driving cars has risen due to the industry's slow pace in building trust. Many operators assumed the allure of futuristic, driverless technology and the potential for time savings would automatically win public favor. However, recent incidents have highlighted the flaws in this assumption, showing the need for proactive trust-building measures.

TRANSFORMING RISK INTO INNOVATION

Conventional risk management can be transformed into a dynamic tool for innovation by adopting an iterative approach and fostering a bias towards action. This method involves treating risks as questions that are rapidly tested and iterated, allowing teams to adapt and turn potential setbacks into opportunities for innovation.

HOW TO SHARE YOUR POINT OF VIEW (EVEN IF YOU'RE AFRAID OF BEING WRONG)

It is important to address fears of being wrong by adopting a rigorous approach to validate controversial ideas, thus encouraging more proactive contributions and clear communication based on evidence and logical reasoning.

JUST AND BUT

This piece explores the seductive nature of the words "just" and "but," highlighting their polarizing roles in decision-making processes and the importance of balancing action-oriented "justers" with questioning-oriented "butters" within teams.

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YOUR GUIDE TO ARR PER EMPLOYEE

This article explores what constitutes a "good" ARR per FTE and examines how expectations for this metric are evolving, offering strategies to enhance it and highlighting common mistakes to avoid.

HOW TO CALCULATE CAC PAYBACK PERIOD (THE RIGHT WAY)

This piece explores the significance, calculation methods, components, benchmarks, potential implications, industry variations, and potential pitfalls of the CAC Payback Period.

21 CODE-FREE UX TOOLS FOR SAAS PRODUCT TEAMS

This is a collection of top tools designed to refine UX design, collect valuable user feedback, and develop smooth onboarding processes.

HOW TO RUN USEFUL MEETINGS AS A LEADER (8 MINUTE VIDEO)

The execution-focused 3 on 3 weekly meeting strategy, demonstrated at Twitter and Stripe, addresses complex team dynamics and inefficient communication. This method curtails excessive pairwise conversations by ensuring critical context is shared among core team members, thus reducing redundancy and improving solution quality.

THE ORIGINS OF LEADERSHIP AND BURNOUT

True leadership isn't just joining a team that's already heading in the right direction - it involves actively guiding and influencing change to benefit the team. The greater the challenge and the more resistant the team, the more significant the leader's role becomes. It's in navigating these complexities where real leadership opportunities are found.

AI IS NOT A STRATEGY

AI should be strategically integrated to enhance existing business and product strategies.

AI PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

AI product managers require deep knowledge of the feasibility, usability, value, and viability risks of incorporating AI into their products.

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WHY SQLITE PERFORMANCE TUNING MADE BENCHER 1200X FASTER

A developer found that a webpage that was used for performance tracking was really slow. They discovered that inefficient SQL queries were causing long delays. By understanding the SQLite query planner, the developer added indexes and a materialized view to improve the database query performance and thereby speed up the page load time.

THE ART OF SVG FILTERS AND WHY IT IS AWESOME

SVG filters are a way to apply image-like effects (blur, color shifts, distortion, etc.) to web vector graphics and even HTML elements. They can be used to add effects to text on the web, including borders, bevels, textures, and more. This article shows how through code examples.

WHAT WAS THE MOST GENIUS HACK YOU DID IN WEBDEV? (REDDIT THREAD)

Developers share their web dev “hacks” and stories. One developer improved a slow SQL scheduling algorithm by refactoring the code and converting sub-selects to joins. Others found creative ways to work around limitations in older web tech, like using system commands for a school prank or inventing a precursor to AJAX for a chat application.

WHY YOU NEED A "WTF NOTEBOOK"

A “WTF Notebook” is used to write down observed issues you may encounter while working. After a few weeks, you'll have a list of problems that will resonate with teammates and now you can present solutions to the team for those problems. This lets you take ownership and initiative within the team, allowing you to make changes and show impact effectively.

MOST MICROMANAGERS ARE BLIND TO BEING SEEN AS ONE

LLAMA 3

Meta has released Llama 3, an open-source LLM. It performs better on many benchmarks - its various-sized models have similar or better performance compared to Google's, Anthropic's, and Mistral's models.

RIPL

Ripl is a library that simplifies 2D graphics rendering in web browsers by providing a unified API for both canvas and SVG elements. It focuses on high performance and interactive data visualization.

I ACCIDENTALLY BUILT A MEME SEARCH ENGINE

This developer built a meme search engine as a way to learn about vector embeddings and image encoding. They used OpenAI's CLIP model to encode images into vector embeddings, which are a way to represent images or text as numerical vectors, for similarity searches. These embeddings were stored in a vector database, which then made memes searchable with just natural language.

VULNERABILITIES FOR AI AND ML APPLICATIONS ARE SKYROCKETING

The number of vulnerabilities in AI and ML applications is increasing rapidly. In April 2024 so far, 48 vulnerabilities were discovered in popular open-source projects, which is a 220% increase since November 2023.

GOOGLE IS COMBINING ITS ANDROID AND HARDWARE TEAMS — AND IT'S ALL ABOUT AI

Google is reorganizing its teams to focus on integrating AI into its products. Its newly formed Platforms and Devices team will oversee Pixel products, Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos, and more, while integrating AI natively into all of them.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT JOB POSTINGS ON INDEED IN THE UNITED STATES

The number of software development job postings peaked in early-to-mid 2022 and has dropped since then.

SUPABASE STORAGE: NOW SUPPORTS THE S3 PROTOCOL

Supabase Storage now supports the S3 protocol with a new API and newly supported multipart uploads with the S3 protocol.

CFPB TAKES ACTION AGAINST CODING BOOT CAMP BLOOMTECH AND CEO AUSTEN ALLRED FOR DECEIVING STUDENTS AND HIDING LOAN COSTS

The CFPB issued an order against BloomTech and its CEO, Austen Allred, for misleading students about the costs and risks of "income share" loans and falsely advertising job placement rates.

THE MICROSOFT-DILEMMA - EUROPE AS A SOFTWARE COLONY (44 MINUTE VIDEO)

A documentary on how governments across Europe are reliant on Microsoft software, which can be seen as a conflict of interest.

THIRD-PARTY IPHONE APP STORE ALTSTORE PAL IS NOW LIVE IN EUROPE

AltStore PAL, a third-party iOS app store, is now live in the EU. Access to the store costs €1.50 (plus tax) per year to cover Apple's Core Technology Fee for installing the marketplace. AltStore PAL will integrate its marketplace with Patreon for monetization. It will support developers who want to distribute beta apps as a reward for crowd-sourced funding. AltStore PAL is open to submissions from third-party developers.

TIKTOK NOTES STARTS ROLLING OUT AS A NEW RIVAL TO INSTAGRAM

TikTok Notes is now rolling out to select Android and iOS users for download and limited testing in Australia and Canada. Besides a couple of small tweaks, the app is similar to Instagram. The messaging around TikTok Notes suggests that the app may be populated with users' existing and future public TikTok photo posts unless they opt-out. It is uncertain when TikTok will roll out the app to the US and elsewhere.

BOSTON DYNAMICS' NEW HUMANOID MOVES LIKE NO ROBOT YOU'VE EVER SEEN

Boston Dynamics' next-generation Atlas robot features all-electric 360-degree joints that enable it to move in inhuman ways. The company has retired the previous Atlas' hydraulic system to create a new robot a fraction of the size and weight that also looks like a product. It has some impressive capabilities, like being able to stand up from a lying face-down position. A short video of Atlas demonstrating the new way it moves is available in the article.

NASA CONFIRMS NUCLEAR-POWERED DRAGONFLY DRONE IS GOING TO TITAN

NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft mission is heading to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. The mission has been approved for a 2028 launch with a scheduled arrival at Titan in 2034. The Dragonfly dual-quadcopter drone, powered by a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, is expected to travel hundreds of kilometers during its planned two-year exploration of Titan. The total lifecycle cost of the mission is currently $3.35 billion, approximately double the proposed cost, with increases blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, and design changes.

🤨 Skeptical? Challenge the QA Wolf team

STABLE DIFFUSION 3 API NOW AVAILABLE AS STABLE ASSISTANT EFFORT LOOMS

Stability AI has released its next-generation Stable Diffusion 3 generative AI model. The model is now available for use via an API on the Stability AI developer platform. Making the model production-ready was a key focus for the company as part of the API release. Stability AI has implemented a number of safeguards to prevent the model's misuse. It is planning to release an open model soon. Stability AI has also just released an early beta preview of Stable Assistant, a chatbot powered by Stability AI's text and image generation technology.

PORTR

Portr is a tunnel solution that exposes local HTTP, TCP, or WebSocket connections to the public internet. It utilizes SSH remote port forwarding under the hood to securely tunnel connections. Portr is designed for small teams looking to expose development servers on public URLs and is not recommended for use alongside production servers. It features an admin dashboard for user/team management and an inspector for inspecting and replaying requests.

MANUFACTURING BLISS

The jhanas is a growing meditation trend that has made its way into some corners of tech. Its practitioners claim that it can induce extremely blissful mental states that rival life's peak experiences. Jhanas could open the path to new inroads to understanding and improving how our brains work. This article takes a look at what jhanas are, what the experience is like, how the tech community is embracing the concept, and more.

TESLA ASKS SHAREHOLDERS TO APPROVE TEXAS MOVE AND RESTORE ELON MUSK'S $56B PAY

Tesla is asking shareholders to approve a move to Texas and to re-approve a $55.8 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk that was recently voided by a Delaware judge. The vote will be held at Tesla's 2024 annual meeting on June 13. Renegotiating a replacement compensation plan that Musk would agree to would likely take substantial time and incur new accounting charges of billions of dollars. Musk has not been paid for any of his work over the last six years at Tesla, where he helped generate significant growth and stockholder value, with the company's stock up more than 630% since March 2018.

TIKTOK FACES WASHINGTON RECKONING AS DIVEST-OR-BAN VOTE NEARS

TikTok divestiture legislation already passed by the House will be included in a fast-moving aid package for Ukraine and Israel that the chamber is set to clear on Saturday.

IS ATTENTION ALL YOU NEED?

Several new architectures have recently emerged that are designed to outperform full attention Transformers in long-context learning/generation and inference speed/cost.

DESBORDANTE

Desbordante is a high-performance data profiler capable of discovering many different patterns in data and running data cleaning scenarios using various algorithms.

FINTECH MERCURY, WHOSE B2B BUSINESS IS CAUGHT UP IN REGULATORY SCRUTINY, EXPANDS INTO CONSUMER BANKING

The expansion is a natural move for Mercury, who serves more than 100,000 businesses, many of which are startups and have expressed interest in a personal banking product.

COMPUTE THRESHOLDS ARE INEFFECTIVE

Compute thresholds are a poor tool for policymakers because compute is a cost for AI developers and thus they are heavily incentivized to lower it.