דלג לתוכן הראשי

2023-07-17

Discord is not documentation

  • Discord is a popular real-time communication platform that can be used for getting help and staying updated on what others are working on.
  • However, Discord is not a substitute for proper documentation. The author of the post is frustrated with a development platform that only provides a basic setup guide and expects users to ask all other questions on Discord.
  • Lack of proper documentation leads to difficulties in finding relevant information, lack of threaded conversations, and snippy responses from experienced users. The author suggests that comprehensive documentation should be provided to address common questions and issues.

Industry Reactions

  • Startups are using Discord for support, but users find it difficult to navigate and search for solutions within Discord.
  • Some suggest that startups should prioritize public documentation instead of relying solely on Discord.
  • Alternative platforms like Matrix and Zulip offer better threading and documentation features.

Who employs your doctor? Increasingly, a private equity firm

  • Private equity firms have started buying doctors' practices in the healthcare industry.
  • A new study reveals that more than half of all specialists in certain U.S. markets are owned by these firms.
  • This trend is relatively new and has gained attention due to the increasing involvement of private equity in healthcare.

Industry Reactions

  • Private equity firms profit from loopholes and exploit the economy without improving society, shifting the risk onto employees and customers.
  • Factors like low interest rates and difficulty obtaining traditional funding contribute to the rise of private equity.
  • Criticism surrounds the involvement of private equity in healthcare, as it raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest, compromised patient care, and the need to balance financial considerations with ethical obligations.

How I run my servers (2022)

  • The author describes their setup for running servers, including the use of VMs, Debian 10, and server software written in Rust.
  • They explain their use of systemd for starting the server, a deploy script for copying the binary, and the use of SQLite for databases with redundant backup solutions.
  • The author also discusses the use of nginx as a reverse proxy for TLS termination and serving static files, highlighting the simplicity and robustness of this setup.

Industry Reactions

  • HTTP triggered cloud functions are highly praised for their simplicity and performance.
  • The use of a reverse proxy like nginx or Apache is beneficial for TLS termination, rate limiting, and caching.
  • The author emphasizes simplicity and cost-effectiveness in their server setup, with a focus on maintaining and monitoring their own infrastructure.

The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

  • The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is a rare and unique creature found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. It is the only known amphibious species of cephalopod.
  • The tree octopus has advanced behavioral development and explores its arboreal world using its sensitive suckers and eyesight comparable to humans. It displays emotions through changing the color of its skin.
  • The tree octopus is currently endangered due to habitat destruction, road construction, predation by foreign species, and pollution. Immediate action is needed to protect its habitat and prevent extinction.

Industry Reactions

  • The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer.
  • The website has been commonly referenced in Internet literacy classes and used in studies on children's gullibility.
  • This post is special because it highlights the importance of critically evaluating information found online.

6 days to change 1 line of code (2015)

  • A company needs to change a setting in their software to increase their backlog limit from 3 months to 4 months in order to keep everyone busy and avoid layoffs.
  • It takes 6 days for a programmer to change just one line of code to implement this setting change.
  • The programmer faces challenges and setbacks, including having to fix preexisting errors, gaining access to necessary systems, and addressing naming and documentation requirements.

Industry Reactions

  • The core issue highlighted in the post is the pushback from reviewers when making changes to code, which can lead to delays and scope creep. The importance of making focused pull requests (PRs) and pushing back against reviewer demands for scope creep is emphasized.
  • The post discusses the value of code reviews in catching bugs and promoting shared knowledge of the codebase. The challenges of code reviews and potential issues with comment overload are addressed.
  • The story revolves around a critical one-line code change that needed to be made urgently to prevent layoffs. The bureaucratic processes and requirements for code review, testing, and documentation caused delays and frustration for the programmers involved. The urgency and impact of the code change make it unique and interesting for readers, as it demonstrates the real-world challenges faced by software engineers in large organizations.

Underwater ears everywhere

  • Hydrophones and wide-area sonar are important military surveillance technologies that are used to detect and locate submarines underwater.
  • Submarines are difficult to detect and communicate with underwater due to the attenuation of radio signals by salt water, leading to the use of acoustic modems for communication.
  • The US Navy's Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), now known as the Integrated Underwater Surveillance System (IUSS), is a secret underwater surveillance system that uses hydrophone arrays to detect and classify submarines. IUSS has also found dual-use in marine biology research.

Industry Reactions

  • The article discusses the use of passive sonar and hydrophones to detect submarine movements around the world.
  • There is speculation about whether the Navy withheld information on the detection of the implosion of the Titan submersible from searchers.
  • The ability to detect sounds underwater, such as the SOFAR channel phenomenon, plays a crucial role in the underwater arms race.

SoundStorm: Efficient Parallel Audio Generation

  • SoundStorm is a model for efficient audio generation that produces high-quality audio faster than previous methods.
  • It uses bidirectional attention and confidence-based parallel decoding to generate neural audio codec tokens.
  • The model can synthesize natural dialogues and mimic different speakers' voices based on transcripts and voice prompts.

Industry Reactions

  • The development of SoundStorm, a parallel audio generation system, has reached a significant milestone in creating synthetic dialogue that sounds indistinguishable from human speech.
  • In the past, the quality of text-to-speech (TTS) systems was poor, but recent advancements in AI have led to the creation of more realistic voices.
  • While the technology has potential applications in various fields such as gaming and accessibility, there are concerns about its impact on the job market, particularly for voice actors.

Forth: The programming language that writes itself: The Web Page

  • Forth is a flexible programming language created by Chuck Moore that allows for easy modification of values and uses a stack-based approach for manipulating data.
  • Forth's syntax, known as Reverse Polish Notation (RPN), is unique and places operators after operands.
  • Forth is used in various computing environments, from astronomical observatories to embedded systems and parallel computing.

Industry Reactions

  • Forth is a programming language that allows you to define new "words" that become part of the language itself, providing a high level of flexibility not commonly found in other languages.
  • Forth is an extensible language, allowing programmers to customize and extend the language in a fundamental way, similar to the macro system in Lisp.
  • Forth has practical applications such as Bitcoin script and PostScript, and is used in some aerospace chips.

How to register a Kei truck in Pennsylvania

  • Kei trucks are a special type of Japanese car that have small engines and dimensions and are available for purchase in the US due to Japan's tax incentives.
  • The process of registering a Kei truck in Pennsylvania involves finding a truck that is at least 25 years old, obtaining necessary paperwork from the seller, translating the export certificate, proving the weight of the truck, getting insurance, and submitting the paperwork to PennDot.
  • The registration process can be lengthy and may require patience, but ultimately allows for road-legal ownership of a Kei truck in Pennsylvania.

Industry Reactions

  • There is a push at the state level to disallow the registration of kei trucks in certain states, led by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.
  • Kei trucks are popular in the Pacific Northwest and have utility for hauling capacity and off-road adventures.
  • The US car market often prioritizes size and power over efficiency and practicality.

How to Use AI to Do Stuff: An Opinionated Guide

  • The post provides an opinionated guide on how to use AI for various tasks.
  • It covers the current state of AI, including the most powerful AI systems available to the public.
  • It offers recommendations for AI tools for writing, creating images, generating ideas, making videos, working with documents and data, and acquiring information.

Industry Reactions

  • Current AI services may store and use inputs without clear definition of abuse prevention or option to disable safeguards.
  • OpenAI's data retention policies and API access differ from other LLM vendors.
  • Some users express frustration with OpenAI not releasing a better model and question the trustworthiness of different vendors.
  • Specialization in AI models improves quality for different tasks.
  • AI models like Claude 100K and Whisper have potential for various applications.
  • Some users discuss the annoyance of login walls on certain websites.