Saturday 30th December, 2023 - Happy New Year (Issue #147)
New Year Edition - Loads of great techish podcasts for the holiday break. Happy 2024 everybody!
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
I’m still not able to schedule new issues properly on Substack. None of the settings pages scroll so I can’t get to the scheduling form, or the place to set the URL. I’ve emailed support and Tweeted at them. I was able to schedule this issue in a really hacky way but the URL will be weird because I can’t edit it!
Anyhow just putting this together so at least something gets sent out. The most Christmassy nerdy podcast I’ve listened to this week has got to be this one:
The USB-C Holiday Spec-tacular (Vergecast Podcast) - Had you told me when I was still in school that one day I would be listening to Christmas special’s based entirely around a computer connector, I most definitely would not have believed you. Laugh a lot and learn what a god cable is in this classic episode. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/MmRlZWU5MGUtNDlhZS0xMWVkLWE2ZGMtZmZkNzdjYTQ1NWZi?sa=X&ved=0CAQQ8qgGahcKEwj40_nO3quDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
Happy New Year! Best wishes to you all for 2024!
Update: It’s Saturday morning now, I found some time to add some podcasts to this week’s issue.
Podcasts
Global trade disruption, Adobe / Figma canceled, realtors sued, Trump blocked (All-in Podcast) - Lots of interesting stuff in this episode including trade route geo-politics, the current M&A scene, the new startup environment and real estate. I thought the discussion around public companies was particularly interesting. If M&A is shut off (seems to be the case), and crypto is leading us into a more truthy world, why wouldn’t all companies eventually just start out as public right from the start? https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbGxpbmNoYW1hdGhqYXNvbi5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw/episode/ZWNjMWRiNzktMTkyYS00ZDFhLThiMzAtNzE0ZTYzZDdkZjZm?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiwhYPr47WDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQNg
Dr Nicholas Fox, head of science at Nasa (Desert Island Discs Podcast) - She’s worked on some incredible missions. Can’t say I like all her music choices, but the Nasa stories are great, plus she’s a fellow IC alumni. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001stn6
Nobel Loreate Donna Strickland: Experimental Physics is Fun! (Into the Impossible Podcast) - I haven’t heard many conversations between physics experimentalists, so this was an interesting insight into a very important side of physics. It’s a bit like listening to two web developers talking about their main interests. Theoretical physicists are a bit more like web designers. So of course as a web developer I found this a fascinating window into the world of physics. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaW50b3RoZWltcG9zc2libGU/episode/OTQ3ZjAxMGMtYTBhOC0xMWVlLWFlOTMtOTNhMTIxM2Y3ZmFh?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwiAyOnq5LWDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQDA
The Old Farts Gather - A Retrospective Journey through 2023 and Beyond (This Week in Tech Podcast) - I haven’t listened to this lot for years. There was a bit of a lull in content right after Christmas so I did a search on Apple Podcasts for tech stuff, their show popped up. Glad I listened in. These were some of the big names in web tech when I came online in the early 2000s. Great show, interesting discussions. https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/959?autostart=false
2023’s biggest tech stories (Vergecast Podcast) - Probably the best roundup of this year’s tech stories that I’ve listened to do far over the holidays. Some good and fun commentary too. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/Nzg2N2Q3YzAtMzUwZS0xMWVkLWFjNmUtOGJkODU2Njc3NzFm?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahgKEwiAyOnq5LWDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQ1AI
The Year of the Crypto ETF with Cathie Wood Ep#202 (Bankless Podcast) - Cathie Wood always seems to be talking a lot of sense. What will all the ETF stuff happening, this was a very relevant convo. https://www.bankless.com/early-access-the-year-of-the-crypto-etf-with-cathie-wood
The Free Speech Solution - Primal’s Miljan Bratisevic (We Study Billionaires - Bitcoin Fundamentals Podcast) - I’m still really interested in the Nostr protocol. I think it has a lot of potential for building apps. Technical in places, with s focus on free speech topics. Lots of things to ponder, the topics they discuss ultimately affect all social media online. https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/bitcoin-fundamentals/the-free-speech-solution-primal-miljan-braticevic
The Random Show - New Year’s Resolutions Ep#712 (Tim Ferris Podcast) - This one has a fun holiday vibe, lots of nerdy tech topics, some futurism, a bit intense on the health supplements but interesting nonetheless. Enjoyed listening in on their conversation, even if at times there appears to be some sort of weird no-really-your-the-best competition going on which is amusingly ridiculous, but not quite so ridiculous that you can definitely say it’s ridiculous. It could be us men are just terrible at receiving compliments. Then again perhaps it’s a new martial art expressed via extreme and elaborate bowing. Anyway whatever, two mates having a banter about tech stuff, fun listen. https://tim.blog/2023/12/27/the-random-show-2024-new-years-resolutions
Charles Crowson: Against the Chronic Short termism that undermines how we think about money and value (Keen On Podcast) - This was a very insightful discussion, sone important topics, I think are very relevant to the zeitgeist. I couldn’t get out of my head how much Charles reminds me strangely of Zuck, and his backdrop is so quintessentially british it’s almost like it was shot from a television set or a museum display or something. In any case, it was actually a really interesting convo. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy56ZW5jYXN0ci5jb20vZi9QSWFNTl9BZC5yc3M/episode/MTdjZjIzMzEtODE3YS00NTJjLWI5NTYtN2IxODc3MzZjZmU0?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahgKEwiAyOnq5LWDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQ2gY
Coin Bureau’s Guy Turner Interviews Ryan and David (Bankless Podcast) - Great conversation, and awesome to hear some British accents in crypto. Also interesting since theirs is a YouTube show, so it’s a bit of a different vibe. I wish they had an up to date podcast feed, I’d definitely add them to my podcasts list. https://www.bankless.com/coin-bureaus-guy-turner-interviews-ryan-david
Links
Lots of interesting links this week. You can find them all by scrolling up. Please check them out:
https://markjgsmith.com/links/2023/12/#23Dec2023
Notes
The new permalinks also work for notes, you can see them all here. Again to see the notes for the whole week just scroll up:
https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/#24Dec2023
That about wraps it up for this year. I’ve spent much of this week thinking about Bitcoin and layer 2. I’m really not liking the fact that bitcoiners sell the whole Bitcoin philosophy based on layer 1 values, but that in practice we will all be using layer 2, because the fees will make layer 1 just for big organisations. Layer 2 has very different properties. At best it’s disingenuous to bait and switch people like that, and potentially even dangerous. I’ve been vocal about it on Twitter. It feels like this topic isn’t being covered. Why is that?
I’ve also been listening to episodes about Solana and Eigenlayer. I’m mildly horrified by how complicated it is, though there is undoubtably a lot of power in this tech. It worries me that we are doing crazy futuristic stuff before we’ve mastered the basics. Are these folks drunk on power? If LOTRs Golem had 1 ring, and that was difficult enough, then this tech is basically infinity rings. Anyway, what do I know, I’m just some guy with a newsletter, who can’t even schedule it properly.
I wrote a relevant note about banking transaction neutrality. It makes me very uncomfortable that these payment networks are multi-purpose.
https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/28/164400-markjgsmith.com
And one about communism which is relevant given my current predicament:
https://markjgsmith.com/notes/2023/12/29/062100-markjgsmith.com/
Isn’t it unbelievably strange that the same week I introduced the permalinks where you can scroll to see the other links from that week, that scrolling on Substack stopped working for me. What are the chances?
I have more build minutes as of yesterday evening, so I’m going to get back to development on my static site generator later today. Some new features I’m pretty excited about.
Anyhow that’s what I’m thinking about as we head into 2024.
I hope we all have a great year! :)
I hope to be with you again via the newsletter next year :)
That’s all from me…
Best reguards,
Mark
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Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!