Saturday 9th December, 2023 - Swimming in Nested For Loops (Issue #144)
Another slightly quiet news week, but there’s some interesting podcasts about the future of social media, the future of money and the future of societies.
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
After all the OpenAI craziness these past two weeks have seemed a bit dull and slow moving. But it’s actually a good time to catchup on some of the more in depth topics that are worth spending time pondering. This week there are a few interesting pods about the next phase of social media as we move back towards decentralisation. ActivityPub appears to be the most popular but there’s also Nostr and Bluesky that are doing interesting things. And don’t forget that you can still get a lot of functionality using humble, tried and tested RSS. Sometimes simplicity is what’s called for. Personally I like that there are many options. I just wish I had more time and resources to test them all out.
There also some pods on money, AI, data, society and building open source front end frameworks. It’s once again a good mix, even if it’s a little low key.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of coding. I’m trying to modify my static site generator’s archives plugin so the month pages include content rather than just a list of days. I want to be able to link to a day, but with the surrounding context intact. That way people can see what I was linking to, but also then easily scroll backwards and forwards in time and see what else I’ve posted around that period. At the minute I’m only able to link to a specific day in the archives.
It’s been a bit confusing but I think I’ve figured out a way to achieve the desired effect. It’s tough going doing it all on a small screen, but I’ll hopefully get it done over the next few days. I’ve been immersed in nested for loops for days now, iterating over various calendar folder structured data. Quite timely I guess since it’s issue #144 :)
Podcasts
Conversation with Tucker Carlson, Plus OpenAI Chaos Explained Ep#155 (All-In Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbGxpbmNoYW1hdGhqYXNvbi5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw/episode/MWVkMzgyZTYtYzgxOS00NjVlLTk0NDYtNTBhYjE0ZjI0ZDM2?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiQleyx2_-CAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQNg
The state of the 2023 tech market Ep#23 (Changelog & Friends Podcast) - Tech https://changelog.com/friends/23
David Brin: Privacy, AI and the Values of a Transparent Society (Into the Impossible Podcast) - Exactly what the title says, important things to think about as we move forward into an AI tech future. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaW50b3RoZWltcG9zc2libGU/episode/NTA4YTc4OTgtOTAyYS0xMWVlLWEwZWEtY2Y2YTMwOTI0MWRj?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahgKEwiQleyx2_-CAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQ9gE
Snarfing Up the Data Ep#578 (Core Intuition Podcast) - What all the AIs being trained on our data means, from the perspective of social media devs. https://coreint.org/2023/12/episode-578-snarfing-up-the-data
Currencies & Debt w/ Lyn Alden (Bitcoin Fundamentals Podcast) - Just some great fundamentals. https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/currencies-and-debt-w-lyn-alden
Can the government keep spending money for ever?! (Eurodollar University Podcast) - Mind bending but good to consider to situate one’s self in the craziness of the current economy https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL21ha2luZy1zZW5zZQ/episode/MDFhZGZiZTktOTAyNS00NDU5LTg3YjQtYWQyNTA0MWJhZGI1?sa=X&ved=0CAYQuIEEahcKEwiIv6_U24GDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
Story - From 486 to Vue.js - Evan You’s Full-Time Gamble on Open Source (Co-recursive Podcast) - Great story of how to build frontend frameworks open source. https://corecursive.com/vue-with-evan-you
ActivityPub and the End of Walled Gardens with Evan Podromou (Dot Social Podcast) - The n next phase of social media is decentralised protocols. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9razhid2VJSw/episode/NDdjODQzYzMtZmVhZi00MjRhLTk1OTQtZjA3MTVjYzUyZjJl?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjI_umG3IGDAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
Nostr Adoption with Miljan of a Primal (Citadel Dispatch Podcast) - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy80NTU2M2U4MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/OGEyNDkyMDUtMDQxMC00ZGRkLWFiODktNzMzZTEzODIzZTlm?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiW4tCd44GDAxUE8bsIHY1TAjwQ8qgGegQIARAE
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
There’s a lot of cool stuff in the notes this week.
Please check them out:
https://markjgsmith.com/notes
That’s all from me…
Best reguards,
Mark
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Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!