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2023-05-24

Apple announces multibillion deal with Broadcom to make components in the USA

  • Apple has announced a multibillion-dollar deal with Broadcom to make several key components for Apple devices in the United States.
  • The multi-year agreement involves the use of 5G radio frequency and wireless connectivity components designed and manufactured in America, including FBAR filters.
  • The investment will help Apple meet its $430 billion commitment to the US economy, and there will be continued investment in automation projects and training programs for technicians and engineers.

Industry Reactions

  • Apple partners with Broadcom, invests $430 billion in a North Carolina facility to create 15,000 jobs and produce components for Apple products in the US.
  • Some concerns are raised about infrastructure, wages, and sourcing critical parts from China despite final assembly happening in the US or Mexico.
  • Broadcom will supply wireless components for Apple products, generating $15 billion in revenue, but concerns are also raised about the company's history of problematic hardware and drivers for open source operating systems.

FBI misused surveillance powers more than 280k times in a year

  • The FBI misused surveillance powers over 280,000 times to conduct warrantless searches on individuals involved in George Floyd protests, January 6th riots, donors to a congressional campaign, and other surveillance.
  • The surveillance powers were authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is meant to permit surveillance on foreign individuals outside of America to prevent criminal and terrorist acts.
  • Although this law is not supposed to be used to surveil American citizens, the government has historically used this data to monitor activists, journalists, and others without obtaining a warrant, and these communications can be used to prosecute people for crimes.

Industry Reactions

  • The FBI misused surveillance powers over 280k times in a year, raising concerns about privacy violation for US citizens.
  • Lack of accountability and transparency of the intelligence community has led to increasing mistrust of government institutions among some Americans.
  • The Five Eyes agreement allows for legal spying on citizens through foreign proxies, but there is a risk of cyber attacks and information misuse.

Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

  • Recipe writers often lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions, claiming that it only takes 5-10 minutes when it actually takes around 35-40 minutes.
  • Many popular cookbooks use this misleading information, but there are some writers who tell the truth about the proper caramelization process.
  • While some recipe writers claim to have shortcuts or different techniques for caramelizing onions faster, these methods still take twice the amount of time they claim and do not result in true caramelization.

Industry Reactions

  • Recipe writers often use imprecise language, leading to confusion for readers and subpar results.
  • Authentic caramelized onions require a longer cooking process than most recipes specify.
  • The quality of the pan and stove can impact the outcome of caramelizing onions.

Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber

  • Waymo and Uber have announced a new strategic partnership that will bring Waymo's autonomous driving technology to the Uber platform starting in Phoenix.
  • The integration will launch later this year with a set number of Waymo vehicles across Waymo's operating territory and include local deliveries and ride-hailing trips.
  • Uber users will experience the safety and delight of the Waymo Driver on both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, and riders can still hail a Waymo vehicle directly through the Waymo One app.

Industry Reactions

  • Waymo and Uber have partnered to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber's app, benefitting both companies.
  • Tesla's potential for competing with Waymo and the uncertain nature of the long-term negotiations between Uber and Waymo are concerns.
  • Waymo One, Google's self-driving car arm, already serves customers in Phoenix, AZ and has an advantage as a one-sided marketplace.

Kanboard: free and open source Kanban project management software

  • Kanboard is an open source project management software that uses the Kanban methodology.
  • It provides a clear and visual overview of your tasks and allows for simple drag-and-drop task management.
  • Kanboard has a simple query language to search and filter tasks and provides multiple authentication backends, including OAuth2 providers.

Industry Reactions

  • Kanboard is a free and open-source Kanban project management software with an Obsidian plugin and other plugins for users.
  • Users can back up their Kanban boards using Git or sync them across multiple devices via a cloud service.
  • Other suggested Kanban board alternatives include physical corkboards or Taiga.io, and WeKan is another popular Kanban board.

How to start a Go project in 2023

  • The blog post offers a comprehensive guide for starting a Go project in 2023, including installation, setting up, dependencies, testing, and more.
  • The guide provides tips for both newbies and experienced developers, with topics covering linting, profiling, deploying, and helpful resources for learning.
  • A pattern for creating multiple entry points to an application is to create a directory inside the root package and placing main.go files in there.

Industry Reactions

  • The post debates whether to use vendoring for dependencies in Go projects, with some advocating for it and others suggesting using a cache-proxy instead.
  • The use of UPX to strip binaries is also discussed, with opinions divided on its effectiveness.
  • The article covers various tools and patterns for Go development, making it ideal for newcomers. One user suggests using "goda" to analyze package dependencies and reduce binary file size.

Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

Industry Reactions

  • Common Paper, a contract management platform, has launched a series of standard, open-source contracts for free use, with feedback and suggestions from users similar to code contributions.
  • The platform charges for additional features, including contract management and support, and has seen success persuading Fortune 500 companies to sign six-figure deals on its paper.
  • Common Paper's contracts are released under a CC BY 4.0 license and are intended to help startups avoid costly legal fees; it aims to change the culture around legal documentation and incentivize lawyers to use standardized contracts.

RWKV: Reinventing RNNs for the Transformer Era

  • RWKV is a new method for enhancing the performance of RNNs (Recurrent Neural Networks) in natural language processing tasks.
  • This new method incorporates techniques from the Transformer architecture, which is the basis of popular models such as BERT and GPT-2.
  • RWKV reportedly achieves state-of-the-art results on four different NLP tasks, including language modeling and sentiment analysis.

Industry Reactions

  • Attention mechanisms in models are being questioned as token size increases and the granularity loss is a concern.
  • Transformers perform better for referencing within context, but require more memory and compute power.
  • RWKV is an innovative model architecture combining the parallelizable training of transformers with efficient inference of RNNs, leading to more efficiency and larger models on smaller datasets.

SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

  • SimCity 4, a popular city-building game, turned 20 years old.
  • Despite its initial flaws, the game is hailed as the best-ever SimCity game due to its large cities, 3D terrain, and customizable buildings.
  • The game's thriving modding community and the Network Addon Mod, in particular, have extended its lifespan and continue to make it popular among players.

Industry Reactions

  • Debate over the best version of SimCity and criticism of the added complexity of SimCity 4
  • Recommendations for other sim games, discussion on prioritizing graphics over content in modern games, and praise for level editors
  • Nostalgia and reminiscing about SimCity 2000 and the desire for more realism and supply chain management in city building games

Ableton Push 3

  • Ableton Push 3 is a standalone instrument that gives musicians independence from their computers while making music.
  • It has 64 MPE-enabled pads that respond to finger movement and pressure, giving the user more expressive sound design and control.
  • Push can be used as a creative hub for different musical setups and has a long lifespan with user-upgradeable parts.

Industry Reactions

  • Ableton has released the Push 3, an updated MIDI controller that can also function as a standalone device for music production without a computer.
  • The device features advanced pads with MPE, upgradeable components, and integration with Ableton Live, making it a must-have for many musicians.
  • Discussions revolve around preferences in music creation workflows, with some users preferring physical instruments or MIDI keyboards over pad controllers like the Push, while others praise its self-explanatory controls and slick movement.