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BRANDS FACE A ‘CLIMATE OF GRIEVANCE'

Business remains a trusted institution, but is now operating in a “climate of grievance” in which 4 in 10 people endorse “hostile activism”.

8 TIPS TO LAND IN INBOX AND AVOID SPAM FOLDER

To improve email deliverability, use plain text instead of complex HTML templates, simplify your signature to only include your name and title, and update your campaign copy every 2-4 weeks.

SOCIAL MEDIA FONT SIZE CHEATSHEET

A font size guide to ensure your social media text is readable on mobile devices.

EVOLVING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE THROUGH THE MESSAGING SYSTEM MODEL IN DROPBOX

Dropbox's asynchronous platform initially struggled with scalability and developer productivity. To address these issues, its team implemented a Messaging System Model (MSM), inspired by the OSI model, which organizes the platform into five layers: frontend, scheduler, flow control, delivery, and execution. This layered approach simplified the asynchronous interface for Dropbox, making it better to use.

TYPESCRIPT ENUMS: USE CASES AND ALTERNATIVES

TypeScript enums can act as both objects mapping keys to values and types restricting allowed values. Common use cases for enums include creating namespaces for constants and defining custom types with unique values. This post covers exhaustiveness checks and member enumeration for enums and their alternatives, along with when to use enums versus alternative patterns.

5 TECHNICAL JAVASCRIPT TRENDS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IN 2025

JavaScript trends in 2025 include serverless architectures, WebAssembly integration, and localized state management. Serverless frameworks, especially with edge functions, will improve performance and developer experience, while WebAssembly will optimize performance-intensive tasks. The rise of microfrontends using tools like Webpack Module Federation will enable more scalable development.

THE ESSENCE OF SUCCESSFUL ABSTRACTIONS

Software complexity is unavoidable, but it can be managed by strategically locating it. Successful abstractions, like Rust's borrow checker or TypeScript's type system, isolate complexity into specific areas (e.g., "unsafe" blocks in Rust), preventing it from pervading the entire system. This controlled complexity allows developers to focus on other aspects of the program without constantly managing low-level details.

MOVING ON FROM REACT, A YEAR LATER

A year after abandoning React, Scholarly maintains a server-rendered stack (Rails, Stimulus, and MySQL) supplemented by Turbo and ActionCable for interactivity. This approach prioritizes server-side logic, resulting in faster page load times (86ms p50 and 350ms p75) and fewer testing complexities compared to client-heavy architectures. JavaScript is actually viewed as a liability during development, so its usage is heavily reduced, if used at all.

with GitHub/GitLab

REANIMATED 4 IS NEW, BUT ALSO VERY FAMILIAR

Reanimated 4 Beta, a React Native animation library, has been released. This update incorporates CSS-compatible animations, making it familiar to developers already comfortable with CSS while retaining the performance benefits of native animations. Despite the new CSS-based approach, Reanimated 4 maintains its worklet-based APIs for scenarios requiring real-time responsiveness and platform integration.

WEB TARGET – BIG PROGRESS, FIRST 3 DEMOS TO TRY!

Three early web demos that showcase Castle Game Engine's new WebAssembly capabilities using WebGL and cross-platform code. They are now available for testing.

SYNTAX FINDER

SyntaxFinder is a Ruby gem that uses Prism to find and count specified syntax patterns in Ruby code. It offers parallel processing for improved performance and provides examples for custom pattern creation.

ARE LLMS MAKING STACKOVERFLOW IRRELEVANT?

Stack Overflow's question volume has plummeted to 2009 levels. This decline began before ChatGPT's release in late 2022 and is influenced by factors like stricter moderation policies and a lack of innovation from Stack Overflow.

AGENTS

AI-powered agents are systems that perceive and act upon their environment using tools and planning. Agents use tools for knowledge augmentation, capability extension, and performing actions. Opportunities are available for careful tool selection and the potential for failures. Planning is an important aspect of agent functionality, with different planning granularities, control flows, and methods for reflection and error correction.

GUIDED BY THE BEAUTY OF OUR TEST SUITE

This developer improved his software project with a comprehensive testing suite. This involved setting up GitHub Actions for cross-platform CI testing, introducing snapshot testing to visually verify screen renders, and using a novel static panic prevention technique. He also used cargo-fuzz to compare his Rust interpreter with a hand-written assembly version, which helped reveal and fix several discrepancies and bugs.

TRUMP HIGHLIGHTS PARTNERSHIP INVESTING $500 BILLION IN AI

US President Trump announced a $500 billion joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and others called Stargate that aims to build AI-related infrastructure, primarily data centers and power generation, in Texas.

TODAY I LEARNED THAT BASH HAS HASHMAPS

You can make hashmaps in bash with the built-in command ‘declare' and do standard hashmap operations like iterating, inserting, and making it read-only.

EVO

Evo is an open-source, offline-first version control system that emphasizes workspaces over branches and has intelligent merge capabilities.

SIGSTORE

Sigstore is an open-source project that automates code signing and verification for open-source software.

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ALL THE RUMORS ABOUT THE IPHONE AIR

The iPhone Air may mark the biggest design shift for the line in many years. Rumors suggest that the super-thin iPhone will debut as part of the iPhone 17 lineup this fall. There are enough rumors to infer that something real is in the works. This article rounds up all of the current rumors about the upcoming device, which will sacrifice some function for a sleeker, slimmer design. Apple is likely using the device as a testing ground for new technologies, including its in-house wireless and cell modem chips and the smaller tech needed to eventually build a folding iPhone.

THE 850 BILLION REASONS APPLE AND OTHERS AREN'T TAKING A CHANCE ON TIKTOK

TikTok has been removed from app stores in the US despite the Biden administration issuing a statement that it didn't intend to try to enforce the law and Trump saying there would be no liability for ignoring the law while he tries to suspend the ban. The law allows for app stores to be fined $5,000 per user, which would be a massive blow even for a company of Apple's size. It is not clear whether Trump has the power to shield companies from this liability. The providers that have resumed service for TikTok are rapidly accruing tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars of liability.

OPENAI'S AGENT TOOL MAY BE NEARING RELEASE

A software engineer claims to have uncovered evidence of OpenAI's long-rumored Operator, an AI tool that can take control of users' PCs and perform actions on their behalf. OpenAI may be releasing the tool this month. The company's site and apps now contain hidden references to Operator. While AI agents are risky and speculative, tech giants are already touting them as the next big thing in AI. Analysts say the market for AI agents could be worth $47.1 billion by 2030.

CHINA TO HOST WORLD'S FIRST HUMAN-ROBOT MARATHON AS ROBOTICS DRIVES NATIONAL GOALS

Beijing is holding a marathon for humans and robots in its Daxing district in April. Around 12,000 humans will run alongside robots from more than 20 companies at the event. Prizes will be offered to the top three runners. China is ramping up efforts to develop artificial intelligence and robotics to gain an edge in its tech rivalry with the US and combat the challenges of an aging society and a falling birth rate.

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DEEPSEEK CRUSHES OPENAI O1 WITH AN MIT-LICENSED MODEL—DEVELOPERS ARE LOSING IT

Chinese AI research lab DeepSeek has unveiled its latest reasoning models, DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-R1-Zero. DeepSeek-R1 is fully open-source and distributed under the MIT license. The lab has released six distilled models, ranging from 32 billion to 70 billion parameters. They are designed to address tasks in math, code generation, and reasoning.

WHAT SEPARATES THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE IN QA/QAE/SDET/AUTOMATION FROM THE AVERAGE ONES?

This post looks at what makes people successful in QA/QAE/SDET/Automation. It covers mindsets, professional attributes, approaches to work, knowledge and growth, and personal properties. Successful candidates tend to have technical competency beyond just coding, prioritize problem-solving over pure coding ability, communicate clearly across technical leveling, take ownership of quality, have a deep understanding of the business domain, and possess a strong internal motivation. The post also shares a set of discussions gathered from various forums on the topic.

THE MAKING OF COMMUNITY NOTES

This article contains an interview with the team that built X's Community Notes feature where they discuss the design process and the philosophy behind their approach to combating false information on the platform. The idea for Community Notes started around the end of 2019 with the observation that people wanted to get accurate information on social media while there was obvious misinformation going around. The main approaches that were used by other companies at the time were slow, didn't scale well, and suffered from a fundamental trust problem - people don't want a tech company deciding what is true. Wikipedia showed that crowdsourcing was a potential solution space, and follow-up studies by the team confirmed the idea was worth implementing.

TWELVE DUDES AND A HYPE TUNNEL: SCENES FROM THE ‘SUPER BOWL FOR EXCEL NERDS'

The Microsoft Excel World Championship was held last month in the Las Vegas e-sports arena. During the event, finance professionals fluent in spreadsheets gathered to solve complex Excel puzzles in front of an audience of around 400 people, with more watching on livestream. There was a $5,000 prize. The organizer, Andrew Grigolyunovich, hopes to turn competitive Excel into a popular e-sport where pros compete for million-dollar prizes.

KRONOTOP

Kronotop is a Redis-compatible, distributed, and transactional document database that is horizontally scalable and sharded by default.

X IS ROLLING OUT A DEDICATED VERTICAL VIDEO FEED FOR US USERS

X is adding a video tab to the app's bottom bar for users in the US.

AWS DECLARES IT'S ICEBERG ALL THE WAY UNTIL CUSTOMERS SAY OTHERWISE

AWS bet on the Apache Iceberg open table format in response to demand from customers already using its popular S3 object storage.

I AM (NOT) A FAILURE: LESSONS LEARNED FROM SIX (AND A HALF) FAILED STARTUP ATTEMPTS

Failure teaches you a lot, which makes you grow, and this can add up to a good life at the end of the day.

OSV

OSV helps developers identify known third-party open source dependency vulnerabilities.

MALICIOUS EXTENSIONS CIRCUMVENT GOOGLE'S REMOTE CODE BAN

This article looks at the various approaches that malicious extensions in the Chrome Web Store use to run unapproved code.

Your users trust you. Let's keep it that way.

DEEPSEEK'S NEW REASONING MODEL SURPASSES OPENAI'S O1

DeepSeek says that its latest reasoning-focused AI model outperforms OpenAI's O1 model on specific benchmarks, citing improvements in logical inference and factual accuracy.

OPENAI QUIETLY FUNDED INDEPENDENT MATH BENCHMARK BEFORE SETTING RECORD WITH O3

OpenAI's record success with the o3 model on the FrontierMath benchmark revealed its undisclosed funding of the project. Despite excellence in solving complex math problems, a lapse in transparency was admitted by benchmark developer Epoch AI. Future collaboration promises improved openness, particularly regarding funding and data access.

PERPLEXITY AI SUBMITS BID TO MERGE WITH TIKTOK

Perplexity AI has submitted a bid to merge with TikTok US as a TikTok ban approaches. The proposal aims to combine Perplexity, TikTok US, and new equity partners while allowing ByteDance investors to retain their equity. Perplexity's merger offer seeks to integrate more video content into its AI search operations.

3D RECONSTRUCTION OF MICROSTRUCTURES

OpticFusion is a multimodal neural implicit 3D reconstruction of microstructures that fuses white light interferometry and optical microscopy.

DEEPSEEK R1 PAPER

DeepSeek has released a paper along with its strong MIT licensed reasoning models. Importantly, the paper shows that there is no need for extremely fancy process reward models. DeepSeek simply used accuracy of answer, a formatting reward, and large scale RL to encourage reasoning in the model. It found that distilling this reasoning ability via SFT to smaller models gave an incredible boost in final performance.

EVOLVING DEEPER LLM THINKING

Contrary to the direct R1 approach, this work from DeepMind uses an evolutionary strategy, guided by a language model, to modify and propose new responses. This leads to strong reasoning ability, specifically in planning tasks that require some exploration.

here

FAST 4K MESH GENERATION

CaPa can generate high-quality 4K textured mesh under only 30 seconds. It can produce 3D assets for commercial applications such as games, movies, and VR/AR.