Tuesday 21st March, 2023 - Mid-week special: Catching up
Another week of great javascript, tech and web development links
It’s been a colossal week in tech, particularly on the finance side of things. Lots of funding problems for tech companies because of issues in the banking sector. Governments and central banks have stepped in to ensure things keep ticking along. But folks are kind of spooked. It’s difficult to sort hyperbole from reality, there are a lot of vested interests. This comes at the same time as a wave of AI software is taking the world by storm.
I suspect a lot more will ultimately need to be found to help the folks in trouble. How that happens, and what the safest way to do that is unclear. Move too quickly and we break the existing fragile system, move too slowly and people will continue to suffer. And a lot of people are suffering. Are we ready to accept that it will take 1000X, possibly a lot more, to get things to a stable place? That’s the reality.
It’s a very difficult time.
Things for me have been particularly narly, and last week’s issue suffered considerably, hence this midweek special with a bunch of the links and podcasts that I had planned to include but had to be jettisoned just to be sure something got sent out.
I’ve also removed most finance / monetary system / bitcoin stuff because I’m conscious that the last few issues have been way too much in that arena and way too little about web development. The finance stuff is super interesting, and right now is definitely the best time to learn all about that, it’s fascinating, but it ain’t tech, javascript and the web.
I recommend subscribing to some of those podcasts in your podcast client of choice, if you are still interested in those topics. You’ll find many of those shows in the past few issues. These are important topics to be aware of, especially if you plan on running a business in the future.
I suspect I’ll need to do the same for AI related content some time in the future, but for now that stuff is what’s happening in tech even if it isn’t web development related much of the time.
I hope you find something interesting in this week’s podcasts and links…
Podcasts
Reliable Serverless Functions with Tony Holdstock-Brown of Inngest Ep#121 (Jamstack Radio Podcast) https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/jamstack-radio/ep-121-reliable-serverless-functions-with-tony-holdstock-brown-of-inngest/
Spotify’s Redesign, Streaming Boxes Suck, and Gigi Sohn withdraws from FCC nominations (Vergecast Podcast) https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/NzRmY2JiMTQtMzUwZS0xMWVkLWFjNmUtYzMxY2IyMmNhZThj?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjQv43vtuz9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBQ
Celebrating Eleventy 2.0 Ep#266 (JS Party Podcast) https://changelog.com/jsparty/266
Fine Hypertext Products with Jason Kottke Ep#370 (The Talk Show Podcast) https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2023/03/11/ep-370
The Business of War (Flying Frisby Podcast)
David Sedaris, writer (Desert Island Disks Podcast) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001j3ld
Who Owns the Internet of the Future? (TED Talks Daily) https://www.ted.com/talks/ordinary_things_who_owns_the_internet_of_the_future?rss=172BB350-0207
Sam Harris Ep#365 (Trump, Pandemic, Twitter, Elon, Bret, IDW, Kanye, AIs and UFOs (Lex Fridman Podcast) https://lexfridman.com/sam-harris-2/
The Goliath is Amazon: After 100 years Barnes and Noble Wants to Go Back to It’s Indie Roots (Decoder Podcast) https://www.theverge.com/23642104/barnes-and-noble-amazon-bookshop-ecommerce-decoder-podcast
Links
Government to meet tech firms following collapse of Silicon Valley Bank UK https://stocks.apple.com/Audt09vrdSDqNJrTR5oDWXw
HSBC swoops in to rescue UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64937251
The fault, dear VCs, is not in your stars https://www.ft.com/content/6ba95c9b-9be6-4d62-b4ac-b12e1e7ed68e
Rishi Sunak: China represents challenge to world order https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64943445
Silicon Valley Bank: Global bank stocks slump despite Biden reassuranceshttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64935170
Ask HN: Has your view of Silicon Valley changed in the last 72 hours?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35146563
Meta announces plans to stop working on NFTs https://www.theblock.co/post/219462/meta-announces-plans-to-stop-working-on-nfts
US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64947695
Introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot, the world’s first copilot in both CRM and ERP, that brings next-generation AI to every line of businesshttps://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/06/introducing-microsoft-dynamics-365-copilot
WhatsApp: Rather be blocked in UK than weaken security https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64863448
Elon Musk thinks Twitter has “a shot at being cash flow positive next quarter.” https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/7/23629442/elon-musk-thinks-twitter-has-a-shot-at-being-cash-flow-positive-next-quarter
Web Stable Diffusion This project brings stable diffusion models to web browsers. Everything runs inside the browser with no need of server support https://mlc.ai/web-stable-diffusion
Paul Graham on Twitter: "We can't all use AI. Someone has to generate the training data."
Low Background Steel For AI - Some known good data https://lowbackgroundsteel.ai
OpenAI announces GPT-4 AI language model https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/14/23638033/openai-gpt-4-chatgpt-multimodal-deep-learning
Google announces AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/14/23639273/google-ai-features-docs-gmail-slides-sheets-workspace
Kottke.org Is 25 Years Old Today and I’m Going to Write About It https://kottke.org/23/03/kottke-is-25-years-old-today
William says Diana would be disappointed at level of homelessnesshttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64970278
TikTok: UK ministers banned from using Chinese-owned app on government phones https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64975672
Bandcamp United - Employees of the music social media site have unionised, it’s important because the site is very influential in the music/bands/gigs space https://www.bandcampunited.org