Mark Smith’s Newsletter - Saturday 31st July, 2021
10 year anniversary special - Short wave radio, Vim, 808, EDM, RVing, Digital Nomadism, Pilgrimages in Japan, Individualism in the USA, Web Components, Free Speech, Cloud Native Deployments, History
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
It’s a bit a a special week for me - it’s been 10 years that I’ve been posting links to my linkblog!
It ended up being quite a hectic week, with a lot of interesting stuff in my podcast feeds. So this week is 100% podcasts, and I’ve relaxed the rules about the topics I include.
It’s a very eclectic mix from old school tech, to awesome tools, music, travel and even history.
Grab some snacks and chill with some of the best podcasts in the world.
That’s all from me this week…
I hope you enjoy the links!
As usual all the articles from the linkblog in chronological order are included below, which is also a good way to explore, there are some pieces there amongst the main summary items that didn’t make it into the main themes, but these are interesting in their own right, and often end up developing into something more substantial further down the line.
Special mentions
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Stuff from me
🚀 Today is the 10th anniversary of my linkblog! I don’t have much commentary to add, apart from I’m glad that I made it this far, and hope that over the next 10 years I’ll be able to share more great things from the world wide web :) markjgsmith.com #
I’m still having power cable issues, but it started working again, so I’m back online, not sure for how long though wikipedia.org #
Stuff from around the web
Articles
No articles this week :(
Podcasts
20000 Hz Podcast - The Buzzer - Really well produced episode, very much in the audio documentary style that makes the 20 000 Hz podcasts really great, this episode has mystery, intrigue and old school tech in the form of short wave radio, I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would 20k.org #
The Changelog Podcast - Why we 💚 Vim - I’ve been using VIM for many years now, so I really liked this episode, the care and attention to detail in how it was put together, and I even learnt a few things - VIM is awesome :) changelog.com #
20 000 Hz Podcast Ep #72 - 808 - I browsed back through some of the old episodes and noticed I hadn’t listened to this one, it features some of the most iconic samples, loops and sounds that are now part of the international cultural soundscape, explores their origins, and the stories around how electronic sounds gradually got integrated into music - It’s a great listen 20k.org #
Resident Advisor Podcast Ep #790 Cici - 2021.07.25 - I wasn’t too keen on the description but this mix has some rather good bits, the first half is a bit patchy, but the overall progression is kind of cool, some fun bouncy acid and electronic/house/tech, then into break beat, drum & bass and jungle tracks, interesting selection of uptempo and occasionally bassey EDM - Momentarily transported me back to the late 90s - It’s nice to hear old sounds and rhythms sometimes ra.co #
This Week in Travel Podcast Ep #286 - John Argento - RVing in Europe - Nice detour from Tech into Travel, very interesting account of a recent RV trip - Also an unexpected mention at the end of a new movement called Podcast 2.0 being led by Proto-Podcaster (and RV enthusiast) Adam Curry - I think it can be summarised as Podcasting + Bitcoin + Tipping while you listen, and sounds like it could be an interesting direction libsyn.com #
Deviate Podcast Ep #168 - Japan’s Shikoku Pilgrimage - I felt a sort of kinship with the interviewee since, like on his pilgrimage, I am currently experiencing the challenges associated with walking around in small shoes rolfpotts.com #
Freakonomics Podcast Ep #470 - The pro’s and cons of America’s (extreme) individualism - I really enjoyed this episode, it was very focussed on the USA, and it would have been nice to hear about the UK a bit more, but it nonetheless paints quite a good high level picture of the cultural tides that shape the world around us - I don’t think any country got painted in particularly negative light, things are just different in different places, it’s nice to have a cultural map like this, I’d be interested to hear about similar maps created by other nations omny.fm #
Shop Talk Show Ep #473 - Brad and Ian Frost - From meteorologist to web developer - There’s a nice story of career change into web development, but the thing I found interesting is their discussion about web components, which they have been using as a way to reuse frontend functionality across apps, dropping them into different frameworks such as React and View that handle the orchestration - They have found that this way of building fits in well with larger companies that have many different frameworks across their organisation, but still want a consistent look and feel to their apps shoptalkshow.com #
Tech Dirt Podcast - Free speech, elections, vaccines, and social media - Level headed discussion about the most pressing free speech issues currently arising in the tech industry soundcloud.com #
The New Stack Podcast Ep #1266 - Cloud native deployments bring new complexities to the developer - Interesting discussion around how the move to cloud native infrastructure is affecting developers, how they are now having to get involved in devops activities and how a defacto architecture is emerging based around Kubernetes google.com #
Conversations with Tyler Podcast - Niall Ferguson on Why We Study History - I won’t try to describe in detail the topics covered since the episode description does a far better job than I could do, but I really enjoyed this, it’s a very high-brow look at some interesting aspects of UK history, from the perspective of a Scott who has studied the relevant history in great depth and formed some controversial views - One aspect I liked and share with him is a dislike for the common practice of reviewing the past using the current world view, anyway I was really wanting to hear some stuff about the UK recently, because so much of what I listen to has a US focus, and this episode was exactly that, I’d love to hear similar stuff from english/welsh/northern-irish folks to get a more complete picture of the UK - I don’t know if the interview is live or if the questions are shared in advance, either way, it’s a real pleasure to listen to libsyn.com #
Tropical MBA Podcast Ep #608 - The History of Digital Nomadism - Interview with James Clark, all about the digital nomad movement and phenomenon, really great episode listened to last night, posting it now tropicalmba.com #
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Thanks for reading!
Mark Smith‘s Newsletter is a weekly roundup of some of the best javascript, tech and web development links published to my daily linkblog.
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!