New service trials often result in persistent follow-ups and marketing emails, turning initial outreach into relentless sales pitches.
The sales process is often tedious and time-consuming, especially in large companies, with products frequently not meeting expectations and offering limited support.
Customers often switch to better open-source alternatives, leading to a quiet departure from the original service despite retention efforts.
Small startup owners face challenges when dealing with large businesses, such as unnecessary demos, price comparisons, and lengthy procurement processes, leading to increased charges for big businesses. - The sales process is often inefficient, involving unnecessary meetings and frustrating tactics, highlighting the need for transparency, straightforward communication, and flexible options. - A successful approach involves creating a service that is easy to integrate, delights customers, and offers a simple pricing model, despite the common issues of unread documentation and unethical sales tactics.
Kenney.nl is renowned for providing high-quality, free game assets that are particularly useful for game development and quick prototyping.
The platform has gained a strong following, earning Kenney the nickname "Asset Jesus" for his contributions to the game development community.
Additional resources for free game assets include OpenGameArt.org and Itch.io, while royalty-free music can be found from artists like Kevin MacLeod and Heatly Bros.
The Illustrated Guide to a PhD by Matt Might emphasizes the importance of pursuing a problem you love and the continuous quest for knowledge in the PhD journey.
The discussion addresses challenges in academia, such as the pressure to publish and the risk of prioritizing quantity over quality in research.
The guide highlights the value of the PhD experience for personal growth and career opportunities, stressing the importance of choosing the right advisor and exploring interdisciplinary work.
The author transitioned from Clojure to Common Lisp due to frustrations with Clojure's slow startup times for command-line interface (CLI) applications and perceived lack of community concern.
Common Lisp was chosen for its ability to create fast-starting standalone executables, compatibility with the Vim text editor, support across Windows, Mac, and Linux, and its strong community and ecosystem.
The author shares their experience to assist newcomers in understanding the benefits of Common Lisp and how they adapted to using it effectively.
The author highlights Common Lisp's dynamic system, which allows problem-solving even without the original source code, showcasing its flexibility and robustness.
SBCL, a Common Lisp implementation, is praised for enabling quick issue resolution, even in scenarios where the source code is unavailable.
The discussion also covers the importance and limitations of version control, particularly when the repository is lost, and includes comparisons of Lisp with languages like Clojure and Julia.
Historically, general AI approaches have outperformed specialized ones, as seen in fields like speech recognition and computer vision. - Richard Sutton's "The Bitter Lesson" emphasizes that general methods using computation are more effective than those relying on human domain knowledge. - The post suggests that AI founders should focus on creating products that leverage model improvements rather than compensating for current model limitations, as this is a more sustainable strategy.
AI startups encounter a fundamental challenge in providing context, as AI systems require specific information and steps to function effectively. - Successful AI startups will likely focus on ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes to supply necessary context, emphasizing the importance of training data and search capabilities. - The AI industry may evolve similarly to the smartphone sector, with large companies dominating due to data ownership, but startups can succeed by developing domain-specific models and managing complex systems integration and data management.
Aaron Swartz was a renowned technical genius and activist, contributing to projects like RSS, Markdown, and Creative Commons, but faced legal challenges for downloading academic articles from JSTOR.
The post contrasts Swartz's activism with Sam Altman's corporate success at OpenAI, raising questions about legality and ethics in the tech industry.
The discussion highlights differing perspectives on the positive contributions of both individuals to tech culture and the disparity in legal treatment between individuals and corporations.
The Dlang community has integrated a C compiler within the D compiler, known as ImportC, to address unresolved issues in Standard C, now at C23. - ImportC enables functions to be executed at compile time, facilitating compile-time unit testing without the need for separate builds. - It also supports forward referencing and importing declarations without .h files, simplifying the development process.
Header files in C distinguish between public and private interfaces, appreciated by some developers for simplicity and ease of use. - Modern tools like Rust's cargo doc provide efficient management of documentation and interfaces without code duplication, appealing to others. - The choice between these methods often depends on personal preference, project needs, and team workflow.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is worried about a proposed industrial complex by AES Andes near its Paranal Observatory in Chile, which may cause light pollution affecting astronomical research. - The Paranal Observatory is vital for projects like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), emphasizing the importance of preserving the dark skies. - ESO is advocating for the relocation of the industrial project to safeguard the observatory's environment.
An industrial megaproject in Chile, led by AES Andes, aims to produce hydrogen, electricity, and ammonia using wind and solar power, potentially impacting the world's darkest and clearest skies.
Critics express concern that the project, situated near a key telescope site, could hinder astronomical observations, sparking a debate on whether to relocate the project.
The situation underscores the conflict between industrial development and the preservation of unique natural resources, with some advocating for economic benefits while others prioritize environmental conservation.
A "Bad Apple" video was recreated in the text editor Vim using search queries, with each of the 6,500 frames represented as a 120x90 grid of binary digits.
Python was utilized to process the frames, and various algorithms were tested to optimize the search strings for better performance in Vim.
The project was a creative experiment conducted at The Recurse Center, showcasing the use of Vim macros to play the video by cycling through search patterns.
A project using 6,500 regular expressions (regexes) in Vim to animate "Bad Apple" initiated a lively discussion, showcasing creative and technical prowess.
Participants shared similar projects, such as running "Bad Apple" on a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and utilizing Vim macros, highlighting algorithmic challenges and tech demos.
The conversation also explored the cultural impact of "Bad Apple" and included debates about the content of Touhou games, reflecting diverse opinions and interests.
Adobe Lightroom's AI Remove feature mistakenly inserted a Bitcoin image into a bird photo, prompting discussions on AI's influence in photography. - Users criticized the AI's "shimmer" effect, preferring the original photo, which underscores challenges in digital photography, such as managing clipped highlights and AI tool limitations. - This incident highlights broader concerns regarding AI's role in creative tools and the quality of AI-generated content.
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, has disbanded the WordPress Sustainability Team, leading to significant backlash from the community.
The team was dissolved following the resignation of team representative Thijs Buijs, who cited leadership issues, and Mullenweg's claim that the team was not meeting its objectives.
Critics have accused Mullenweg of hypocrisy, as he initially supported the team's formation, and the disbandment has raised concerns about the future of sustainability initiatives within WordPress.
Matt Mullenweg disbanded the WordPress Sustainability Team, leading to criticism and concerns about the impact on WordPress's brand and community.
Critics highlight Mullenweg's significant control over WordPress as problematic, suggesting a potential need for changes in governance.
The disbanded team was working on initiatives such as a carbon footprint plugin, raising questions about WordPress's commitment to sustainability and leadership stability.
The article by Geoff Huston provides an annual update on IP addresses, focusing on the slow transition from IPv4 to IPv6 despite the predicted need for a larger address space.
It discusses the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, the role of address transfers, and challenges in adopting IPv6, highlighting the fragmentation and market dynamics of IPv4 addresses.
The piece examines IPv6 allocation trends, noting regional differences and the impact of large allocations, and reflects on broader implications for the Internet's future, including network neutrality and market consolidation.
The discussion highlights the vastness of IPv6 address space compared to IPv4, noting that IPv6 provides significantly more addresses. - Concerns are raised about inefficient allocation practices, with large corporations receiving excessively large IPv6 blocks, which could lead to future shortages. - Challenges in IPv6 adoption are discussed, including technical limitations and companies' reluctance to allow direct device connections, alongside ongoing issues with IPv4 scarcity and market pricing dynamics.