Saturday 4th November, 2023 - Social Media Renaissance (Issue #139)
Twitter is imploding but decentralised social media is entering a very interesting moment. AI futurism you just have to laugh at and let’s abstract everything for infiniti. Business as usual.
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
Everything wonderful, everything perfect.
What a crazy few weeks it’s been. I’ve gathered together all my favourite tech podcasts for you here. The general vibe seems to be decentralised social media and what the new reality of a world that isn’t all revolving around Twitter might look like. There’s also some hardware stuff around iPods and Macs.
It’s sort of a repeating motif the universe has, that anytime I near completion of some major bit of software I’ve been working on, anything I’ve really poured my heart and sold into, that there is at that exact moment, news of some other person / group of persons that has completed the exact same thing except 10 times better in 10 times less time. Over the years I’ve documented these you-are-nothing-everything-youve-ever-done-is-worthless incidents on the blog/linkblog happening a lot. It’s almost a tradition at this point.
Well I’m nearing the completion of the interleaved posts redesign with an everything feed. I’m quite happy about it. It isn’t perfect by any means but it feels like the right direction, especially in this moment of decentralised social media renaissance. And guess what, the universe, right on schedule has released a phenomenal bit of AI futurism, detailing that in a year or two all software developers will be obsolete. The economic impact of AI: You’ll be able to have a complete software development company in your pocket, with every role, from marketing to development to engineering and even a CEO all done by AI entities. You’ll be able to build new products in literally minutes!
Seriously though the AI futurism stuff is the first thing I have listened to that even comes close to what I think we are in for. Worth listening to. I think it’s gonna be even weirder.
It’s the best you-are-nothing-everything-youve-ever-done-is-worthless from the universe ever!
35 years of learning and working hard, all for nothing!
How wonderful and perfect :)
Update: It’s Saturday morning now, and I just got the updated and quite difficult archives plugin code to my static site generator working! Take that universe :)
Anyway, here are the podcasts from the past few weeks:
Podcasts
Into the iPad Confusion Zone (Vergecast Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/NzdiOTU0NTItMzUwZS0xMWVkLWFjNmUtYTNhMTE4NTkyMjY1?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjo5On8r6eCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQEQ
The poster’s guide to the new internet (Vergecast Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/YjBlNTk3NzAtMjI1NC0xMWVlLWFkZGItMDc3MzViYmE0ZGUz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjo5On8r6eCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQEQ
Introducing Changelog Beats (Changelog News Ep#67) https://changelog.com/news/67
The next Macs and the next Twitter (Vergecast Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/NzdjYmQ5NTYtMzUwZS0xMWVkLWFjNmUtNGYwY2YzZjU3MGE2?sa=X&ved=0CAgQuIEEahcKEwjo5On8r6eCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBw
The Economic Impact of AI with Mathew Pine & Chester Ney (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-economic-impact-of-ai
Curating All the Answers Ep#574 (Core Intuition Podcast) https://coreint.org/2023/10/episode-574-curating-all-the-answers
LLMs, Links and the death of links (Another Podcast Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9iWjdVMlBFaw/episode/MDk2NjY4YzUtMWI0ZC00NWFlLTgzZTEtMzJkNDBiYWRiZDRm?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwi4qJ38saeCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBg
CSS functions, Read It Later, Making Money in Business, and More (Shop Talk Show Podcast) https://shoptalkshow.com/589
An impossible journey into self hosting (Vergecast Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/YjBmOTAzMzItMjI1NC0xMWVlLWFkZGItMTNmZDhlYjgzNmQ1?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjo5On8r6eCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQKw
The New M3 Chips and Macs Tue 10/31 (Techmeme Ride Home) https://www.ridehome.info/show/techmeme-ride-home/tue-1031-the-new-m3-chips-and-macs
Land of the Giants: What We All Got Wrong About Twitter (Recode Media Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vcmVjb2RlbWVkaWE/episode/YTFkOGUwNGUtMzUwNS0xMWVkLTgzZTgtZWIyMTJiYzNkNjU1?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwi4qJ38saeCAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQEg
Somewhat outside of tech these two podcasts where impressively high level in a head spinning whirlwind of abstraction that I feel I should mention as well. A little bit like being hit by a brick, but less painful. I’m generally quite practical, but I do occasionally like to go off piste to explore these tales of the bizarre, I find that once the dizziness evaporates, a few days later they can inform your practical pursuits in unexpected and useful ways.
Category Theory: Exploring Mathematics Deepest Truths with Eugenia Cheng (Into the Impossible Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaW50b3RoZWltcG9zc2libGU/episode/ZWEyOWUzNGEtNzQwOS0xMWVlLTk0ZTMtODc1YWNjM2JmZDVi?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiTprL5saeCAxUAn_0HHb1oBQUQkfYCegQIARAG
How Bitcoin Fights Tyranny with Eric Cason (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/how-bitcoin-fights-tyranny
Links
Lots of links on the daily linkblog, and they often include extra context links which there isn’t an easy way to include in substack. Please check them out:
https://markjgsmith.com/links
Notes
These are extracts from some of the notes I wrote this past week. Please check out the rest of them:
https://markjgsmith.com/notes
That’s all from me…
Best reguards,
Mark
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