Saturday 15th July, 2021 - Synthetic Biology Inside (Issue #123)
The whirlwind passing through the world of social media continues, while a new very far out and quite strange paradigm of computation starts to gain some traction.
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
It’s been a busy week. Most things seems to have been tangentially centred around Threads and social medias, which I’ve been enjoying. It’s nice to have a fresh and clean interface again. I wonder how long it will be like that for. I haven’t found a way to auto post linkblog items there yet. I have the daily linkblog items being posted to Twitter, it would be cool to have that for any social media.
I had a bit of a rush to add a newsletter signup link to each page in the blog. Seemed like an important thing to have right as people from Threads that visit the sight might want to signup. I figured it would just take a few minutes, which technically it did, it’s just it looked horrible. Several hours later, following a lot of CSS tinkering and tweaking, I got it looking ok. CSS is so darn difficult sometimes. All the while the world around me seemed to be getting more and more annoyed with me. Hey world, I didn’t invent CSS, you did!
My mutilated face from last week looks somewhat better, but I’ve currently got a big mark under my eye, and there’s also a scar. Seems like that’ll be somewhat permanent. Oh well, just another mutilation, nothing to see here, please move along. A new mutilation cycle appears to have started yesterday, with gang stalkers doing their harassment thing all yesterday evening and this morning. I guess it will escalate as usual until I get mutilated again. I had to buy some new flip flops day before yesterday and mysteriously everywhere I went there was nothing in my size. Each time afterwards some small gang would materialise and say ‘you learn’ to me.
I ended up having to buy 2 sizes smaller than what fits. After a couple of days I can already feel my feet are feeling a bit weird, like blisters are forming around the edges of my heel because they don’t fit properly. So likely that will be the source of the mutilation this time. Like I’ve said before, once total destruction of the multiverse has been initiated, and who knows how that happens, then eventually one way or another I get mutilated. A lot of people with big rings have been popping up everywhere.
In these moments the world feels very fighty. Everything feels zero sum. All sorts of people getting offended for absolutely no reason. Everything you do is wrong. Say something, you are wrong, don’t say something, you are also wrong. This paragraph is no doubt totally outrageously wrong.
I still don’t have a title for this week’s issue. I’m going to try to make it positive, maybe about synthetic biology. I’ll keep moving for now…
I wrote two blog posts, one about my frustrations with some finance writing, the other about a small cosmetic change to the linkblog that actually makes a big difference visually. Maybe some of you will like them:
Nicer looking linkblog - One small change in the HTML, but perhaps a big leap in how the linkblog looks visually. Just a quick writeup explaining the change. https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2023/07/11/nicer-looking-linkblog
The problem with some finance writing - Some finance writing is terrible. It feels like it’s systematic, like things are made deliberately hard to understand. I disect a particular example of this and wonder how this type of thing affects the world as a whole. https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2023/07/11/the-problem-with-some-finance-writing
If you liked and/or thought these were insightful in some way then please share them with others.
Podcasts
Google Reader, Sticky and Overflow, and Figma Thoughts (Shop Talk Show Podcast) - The guys have quite a thorough discussion about RSS, feed readers, social media etc. I value their opinion so it was one of my favourite items this week. I almost forgot, there’s a fun music banjo segment at the start. I had no idea Chris had such serious banjo skills. https://shoptalkshow.com/573
Nostr is Freedom with Miljan of Primal Ep#106 (Citadel Dispatch Podcast) - I’m still very curious about Nostr, because of the decentralisation and freedom aspects, but it’s also potentially a great development platform. However the usability and intuitiveness is just a total show stopper for me currently. Threads on the other hand just works, it’s got a clean interface, it just feels stress free, and life is so darn complicated at the minute. Anyhow it was interesting to keep up with what’s happening on Nostr from a developer perspective. https://www.podpage.com/citadeldispatch/cd106-nostr-is-freedom-with-miljan-of-primal
From Lab to Life: Exploring Synthetic Biology with Drew Endy, John Cumbers and Jennifer Holmgren (Bankless Podcast) - I’ve been hearing people name drop synthetic biology more and more these past few months. There’s a growing interest from folks on the All-in Podcast to Lex Friedman Podcasts and now the Bankless guys. I’m part way through listening to this episode. The world has been playing silly games with me, every time I pick it up to finish listening to it, something happens and I get interrupted. 4-5 times so far. Hoping to finish listening over the weekend. It’s kind of mindblowing, the next computation paradigm where we master biology at a fundamental level and develop the ability to grow everything around us. Basically it’s transforming atoms to DNA sequences, then to bits, then use the computational tool chains we have developed over the last 60 years to make modifications, and finally print back from bits to synthetically created molecules and atoms, and if you’ve done the right modifications in the digital realm, growth of a thing that you want ensues, no need for complicated supply chains and factories, just use local materials and grow it. http://podcast.banklesshq.com/from-lab-to-life-exploring-synthetic-biology-with-drew-endy-john-cumbers-and-jennifer-holmgren
Links
Will gold pave the yellow BRICS road? - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are thinking to club together and create a gold backed currency to rival the US dollar. What's more, around 1/2 of the G20 countries have expressed interest in joining. Why are they doing this and could it actually work?
Podcasts could unleash a new Age of Enlightenment - Really interesting piece that makes the observations that podcasts are changing how people interact, then draws some very compelling parallels with the enlightenment, which it turns out was the period where parasocial relationships emerged. It's a nice painting, I just wish I had more personal experience of the changes he speaks of, sadly though I listen to a ton of podcasts, I don't interact socially with many podcast listeners, though it's nice to hear that it's thing. https://www.wired.com/story/podcasts-speech-thought-history-enlightenment
Stars leave Oppenheimer premiere as Hollywood actors' strike called - Hollywood actors join the already striking screenwriters. Interestingly, directors aren't on strike as their association reached an agreement recently. Maybe they should make a massive crazy movie with everyone protesting and picketing, with all movie universes colliding in the biggest blockbuster extravaganza movie of all time. It could be part improv, part AI generated, part papier maché collage. Get all their custumes made in France using the new clothes repair government subsidies program. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66196357
Elon Musk's Tesla poised to launch British household electricty supplier - Interesting time to enter the UK energy market after a couple of years of turmoil and high prices. Could be a good base to roll out services into the EU. It’s likely part of a bigger strategy because I would have thought that the UK energy market would be a bit too small to get Musk interested. Start in a place where you know the language, then expand? Wouldn't it be cool if Musk announced he was moving to the UK? Maybe he's going to buy a 3rd division football team. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/11/elon-musk-tesla-launch-british-electricity-supplier
Elon Musk’s new xAI company launches to ‘understand the true nature of the universe’ - I think this announcement strengthens my wild prediction that Elon is moving to the UK. What better place to figure out the universe than the birthplace of science, while also expanding his ventures across mainland Europe? https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/12/23792553/elon-musk-xai-artificial-intelligence-company
There are lots more great links on the daily linkblog, with light commentary by yours truly, but also bonus contextual links that don’t appear in Substack. Check them out:
https://markjgsmith.com/links
That’s all from me…
Best reguards,
Mark
Consider becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated
Thanks for reading!
If you liked this newsletter you might like my blog, daily linkblog or experimental podcast :)
I’m a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer, consider hiring me!
Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!