Nhảy tới nội dung

2023-09-04

I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

  • Nela Dunato prefers working independently, collaborating with other creatives on a project basis instead of expanding her freelance design studio into an agency.
  • She argues that agency norms don't align with her work style and place importance on her personal creative projects.
  • Dunato advocates for a lifestyle business that aligns with individual values, encouraging others to make decisions based on their own goals.

Reactions

  • The post explores the decision to maintain a small, focused freelance design studio instead of expanding into an agency, discussing the potential negatives that growth can bring on businesses.
  • Several aspects of work and business are considered, including post-college experiences, pay and promotions, platform freelancing, plus the pros and cons of freelancing compared to traditional employment.
  • The discussion emphasizes the perks of freelancing, remote work, the freedom of project selection, and the need for maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Climate Change Tracker

  • Climate Change Tracker is a platform that tracks climate change, global warming, and greenhouse gas emissions, providing up-to-date data and insights.
  • It offers key indicators of global climate change including rising temperatures and human emissions and absorption of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.
  • The platform also provides charts, articles, and livestreams, while respecting user privacy. The latest version (0.9.6) was updated on September 4, 2023.

Reactions

  • The discussions delve into various topics around climate change, including the efficacy of reducing carbon emissions through vehicle electrification vs. production of fossil fuels from waste matter, and the necessitation of transformation in agriculture to avert disastrous outcomes.
  • Compelling points were raised about the complexities and contemplations when investing in nuclear power as opposed to other renewable energy sources, the role of personal measures and pragmatic alterations in battling climate change, and the requirement for scalable carbon-neutral energy solutions.
  • Additional debates included the feasibility and efficiency of hydrocarbon synthesis and carbon capture technologies, the pros and cons of electric vehicles, their environmental impact, and the consequence of automobile-focused cities on population growth and livability.

The Raft Consensus Algorithm (2015)

  • Raft is a consensus algorithm integral to distributed systems, demonstrating fault-tolerance and ensuring agreement across servers.
  • It's known for its ease of understanding and practical usage, making it a popular subject in university courses, with multiple resources available for learning and implementation.
  • Numerous software projects are based on Raft, each unique in terms of programming language used, licensing, and popularity.

Reactions

  • The article delves into the Raft Consensus Algorithm, highlighting its value and implementation obstacles in production systems.
  • Emphasis is placed on the importance of understanding the algorithm's correctness and the challenges that arise with tangible hardware.
  • The post concludes by referencing other implementations of Raft, sharing personal experiences with the algorithm, and directing readers to resources for further understanding of consensus algorithms.

Pesticide safety limit for salmon farms watered down after industry lobbying

  • The proposed safety limits for emamectin, a toxic pesticide used in salmon farms in Scotland, have significantly increased due to pressure from the industry.
  • The allowed emamectin concentrations in sea loch sediment grew from 12 to 272 nanograms per kilogram between 2017 and 2023, a decision that has been criticized by environmental campaigners.
  • The Scottish Government is currently conducting a consultation to decide when these weakened safety limits should be implemented, suggesting their influence from the salmon farming industry.

Reactions

  • The study reveals weakening of pesticide safety limits on salmon farms due to lobbying, raising concerns about health, environmental impacts, and medication resistance in animals.
  • Critics link this situation to a focus on profitability over efficiency that's fostering unregulated industrialization with adverse effects on the environment and human health.
  • Solutions discussed include regulating GMOs, being wildlife-friendly, implementing biodiversity strategies, restoring savannah lands, promoting plant-based diets to minimize the need for agricultural land, and educating the public on waste reduction and proper cooking.

Harry Browne’s Rules of Financial Safety (1999)

  • The article explores Harry Browne's 17 Golden Rules of Financial Safety which stress the significance of creating wealth via one's profession, distinguishing investing from speculating, and acknowledging future unpredictability.
  • It advocates following these rules to boost financial security and success, and discusses various investment approaches like the Permanent Portfolio that diversifies investments to safeguard against potential crises.
  • The article underscores the importance of prudence, perceptiveness, and a pragmatic approach to investing, aligning these investing principles with general life rules, thereby acknowledging uncertainty and managing expectations.

Reactions

  • The discussions principally cover various financial subjects including asset allocation, investments strategies, utilization of leverage, significance of cash and gold, and the need for financial literacy and expert counsel.
  • Participants offer diverse viewpoints on the topics under discussion, engaging in debates around the merits and risks associated with different financial strategies.
  • The dialogues also consider the possible implications of geopolitical factors on investment decisions.

Cola: A text CRDT for real-time collaborative editing

  • The blog post presents the application of a text Conflict-free Replicated Data Type (CRDT) called "cola", written in Rust, for real-time collaborative editing.
  • It explores the technical design of sequence CRDTs in representing plain text documents. It addresses issues and resolutions in implementing collaborative editing effectively by employing strategies and data structures like tombstones, version vectors, run-length encoding, linked lists, B-trees, and a G-tree.
  • Comparatively, "cola" continues to be quicker than other CRDTs, but it doesn't support undoing deletions, which the post highlights as a critical area for improvement.

Reactions

  • Cola is a text Conflict-free Replicated Data Type (CRDT), a data structure designed for real-time collaborative editing, which utilizes a dynamic array for storing nodes and indices for referring to other nodes.
  • The implementation has been benchmarked against other CRDTs, showing satisfactory performance in terms of operational speed. However, it currently doesn't support rich text formatting.
  • Cola is written in Rust and is openly available on GitHub under the MIT license, celebrating its approachability and potential for future enhancements.

Sag-AFTRA votes unanimously to expand its strike to include the games industry

  • The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has decided to extend its ongoing Hollywood strike to the gaming industry.
  • The union demands improved wages, work environment, and protections against unchecked use of AI impacting performance capture artists.
  • Several major companies, including Activision, Disney, EA, Epic Games, Insomniac, Take 2, and Warner Bros, are involved in the negotiations with SAG-AFTRA that represents around 160,000 media professionals in the US.

Reactions

  • The discussion examines AI and automation in the entertainment industry, including their implications on jobs, content creation, and actors' rights and compensation.
  • Important points raised include the union's strike authorization vote in the games industry and the role of unions in bettering work conditions and income distribution.
  • Other crucial topics include the debates on AI-generated content and the relevance of voice acting in video games as compared to film and TV, touching on issues of job displacement and solidarity among actors and workers.

Google preemptively banned hundreds of millions of 'pirate' URLs last year

  • Google has informed the US Patent and Trademark Office that it has blocked hundreds of millions of URLs even before they surface on its search engine, aiming to fight online piracy.
  • The tech behemoth allows rightsholders to report URLs even before they are indexed, offering preemptive takedowns. It also accepts takedown notices for potential future piracy instances like live streaming events.
  • Besides blocking URLs, Google demotes sites promoting piracy in search results, resulting in an average loss of 89% of the site's clicks. The company expresses its commitment to investing in new tools and methodologies to further combat piracy.

Reactions

  • Users are expressing dissatisfaction with Google's search results, citing the surfacing of spam and fake websites, instead advocating for alternative search engines like Yandex, DuckDuckGo, and Bing.
  • There are ongoing discussions surrounding Google's enforcement of piracy laws and the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), as well as potential abuse of search engine power and issues of censorship and propaganda online.
  • Speculations about Russia's influence in Serbia, and its potential involvement in future conflicts, are noticeable topics within these discussions.

Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

  • Dr. Jenny Bulstrode initially claimed that Henry Cort plagarized his iron-making process from Jamaican slaves; however, this allegation was later rebutted by Oliver Jelf.
  • The controversy underscores the importance of thorough scrutiny and critical review in academic research to ascertain validity and accuracy.
  • The article encourages skepticism towards narratives in history due to their potential for distorting perception and omitting essential information.

Reactions

  • The article underlines the issues faced by academics and historians in presenting factual and unbiased research, citing the influence of social justice norms and funding prerequisites, which can cause facts distortion.
  • It insists on the significance of skepticism and critical analysis in historical narratives, drawing attention to the drawbacks of the peer-review system and the ideologically driven biases that might color research publications.
  • The piece involves the discussion of the Boeing 737 MAX controversy and its MCAS system as a part of the discourse, emphasizing the broader challenges of historical research and the crucial need for critical engagement with narratives.

Vale.sh – A Linter for Prose

  • Vale.sh is an open-source command-line tool aimed at helping users maintain consistency and adhere to editorial style guides.
  • The tool offers superior performance and customization with user-defined rules, running offline to guarantee content privacy.
  • Vale.sh is backed by several sponsors and supporters, such as Netlify, Algolia, and Hugo.

Reactions

  • Vale.sh is a customizable prose linter that has been compared to tools like Grammarly, write-good, and typosaur; however, users have a variety of opinions regarding its effectiveness.
  • There are ongoing discussions concerning the value of language analysis tools such as Vale.sh and iA Writer, with some users asking for clearer usage examples and explanations.
  • Users have noted that Vale.sh can be used as an offline alternative to Grammarly and for continuous integration with documentation platforms, although there is a need for clarity on its purpose and how to integrate it with platforms like Kong and VSCode.