TL;DR summary of stories on the internet
OpenAI recently introduced GPT-4o, raising the bar for conversational AI with sophisticated reasoning abilities. Meanwhile, PolyAI secured Series C funding for their enterprise voice assistant after significant growth. At Amazon’s Alexa, the focus on customer data protection led to challenging internal processes and bureaucratic issues. The decentralized org structure caused duplication of efforts and hindered […]
Read more »
A recent discovery of medieval game pieces in a southern Germany castle gives a glimpse into leisure time activities of knights nearly a millennium ago. The find includes a six-sided die, flower-shaped game pieces, and a well-preserved chess piece made from antlers. The pieces show signs of use, highlighting their practicality in gameplay. Experts are […]
Databases like Postgres can be memory-hungry, with shared buffers being a major RAM segment. To optimize this, setting shared_buffers to 25% of available RAM is a solid starting point. Work memory, controlled by work_mem, is essential for query processing and tuning this parameter is key. Maintenance_work_mem, dedicated to operations like VACUUM, should be set based […]
In the 1950s, the US Air Force launched a top-secret program involving spy balloons equipped with cameras to photograph the Soviet Union. The Genetrix balloons were ultimately shot down by Soviet MiG fighter pilots, leading to a brief but impactful program. However, the US Air Force managed to recover some camera gondolas containing specialized film […]
In this blog post, the author explores the lack of a canonicalization rule for wheel filenames in Python packaging, despite extensive rules for package names and versions. The post delves into the differences between parsing and canonicalizing wheel filenames for comparison, highlighting the complexity of the wheel filename format compared to source distributions. Surprisingly, the […]
The author has been observing how language models are revolutionizing software development, suggesting a shift towards a new era of local, DIY software creation. They introduce the concept of the “barefoot developer,” hinting at a future wave of innovative, independent creators. The talk offers a bold theory on the potential impact of these advancements, promising […]
Revideo is an open-source framework for programmatic video editing, evolved from Motion Canvas editor to a library for developers to create entire video editing apps. Users can develop video templates in Typescript, create an API endpoint for rendering with dynamic inputs, and use a React player component for real-time browser previews. Some differences from Motion […]
The author recounts their experience making iron gall ink from oak galls found on a valley oak tree. They detail the historical process of creating ink using galls, water, iron sulfate, and gum arabic. The author describes their own trial and error in preparing the ink, noting challenges with dissolving the components and achieving a […]
The Gruen transfer, also known as the Gruen effect, is a psychological phenomenon in shopping malls where consumers become disoriented by intentional confusing layouts, leading to impulse buying. Named after architect Victor Gruen, who opposed such manipulative tactics. The idea was initially realized in Southdale Center in 1956, the first indoor shopping mall in Edina, […]
Krista DeWeese, a marketing professional in the Bay Area, has been laid off four times in eight years, leaving her anxious and struggling to find secure work. Tech companies have slashed roughly 40,000 jobs since 2022, with Silicon Valley experiencing a 15% drop in pay from 2022 to 2023. This decline hits women especially hard […]