Welcome to the second issue of Tech Tuesdays!
Here’s what I found interesting this week:
US internet speeds 91% faster in 2020 according to user speed tests
US average broadband speeds overtook western EU countries like the UK, France, and Germany for the first time in 5 years.
hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet
A part of the equation is that Cloudflare turned it on on all its websites. hCaptcha has grown into the largest independent cybersecurity service in the world.
CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American
Filed in technology because this is obviously an opportunity that can be fixed by improving the execution.
Why is Apple's M1 chip so fast
The M1 is not a CPU, it is a whole system of multiple chips put into one large silicon package. The CPU is just one of these chips.
YouTube temporarily suspends, demonetizes OANN
YouTube has barred One America News Network from posting new videos for a week and stripped it of its ability to make money off existing content after the Trump-friendly channel uploaded a video promoting a phony cure for COVID-19.
Salesforce is in talks to buy Slack
Salesforce is lately expanding their portfolio of tech businesses left and right. Looks to me like they are trying to become an industry behemoth like Microsoft. They tend to buy mission-critical businesses where the primary capital is the audience instead of the tech.
Comcast Got $1 Billion in Public Subsidies. Now It’s Charging the Public New Data Fees.
Maybe it’s time for a wide push for municipal or community-owned broadband bands. It will expand the provider pool and give Comcast the much-needed competition.
‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase
“Most people of color working in tech know that there’s a diversity problem, but I’ve never experienced anything like Coinbase.”
Apple is lobbying against a bill aimed at stopping forced labor in China
Major U.S. companies, reportedly including Apple, are lobbying against a new piece of legislation that seeks to prevent forced labor in China.
I launched a paid community in one month
250 paid subscribers within the first month.
Scale went Viral! 150,000 users in 24 hours
They create high-quality open-source illustrations.
The Tech Stack of a One-Man SaaS
There’s just something fascinating about getting to know what’s under the hood of other people’s businesses. It’s like gossip, but about software.
Java is better than C++ for high-speed trading systems
It really depends on the edge that needs to be captured though. "If you have an unlimited amount of time and resources, the best solution for speed will be coded in FPGA."
An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools
Google prioritizes developer experience and developer tools in a way unlike most other companies. Googlers and ex-Googlers have the benefit of firsthand experience of using first-class dev tools that add a huge amount of leverage to their natural talents and abilities.
How io_uring and eBPF Will Revolutionize Programming in Linux
io_uring
is the brainchild of Jens Axboe, a seasoned kernel developer who has been involved in the Linux I/O stack for a while.
Edward Snowden on the Dangers of Silicon Valley Censorship [Video]
To clarify, Snowden still believes that big private platforms should be allowed to have some rules. "There are real problems with the abuse of these [internet] platforms. We do want things like calls to genocide from people in positions of power to be removed."
A rainbow table is a precomputed table for caching the output of cryptographic hash functions, usually for cracking password hashes. Tables are usually used in recovering a key derivation function up to a certain length consisting of a limited set of characters. It is a practical example of a space-time tradeoff, using less computer processing time and more storage than a brute-force attack.
Microsoft's Creepy New 'Productivity Score' Gamifies Workplace Surveillance
Microsoft rolled out its new “Productivity Score” feature this month, which lets bosses track how their employees use Microsoft’s suite of tools. If that sounds like an Orwellian nightmare in the making to you, you’re not alone—privacy experts are criticizing the company for essentially gamifying workplace surveillance.
Scientists discover the first animal that doesn’t breathe oxygen to live
The parasite—which lacks mitochondria, and the genes and proteins needed for breathing—yet again expands our horizons for the possibilities of life on Earth.
SpaceX's Starlink satellites are about to start impeding scientific ground-based observations
And significantly increase the risk of the Kessler syndrome causing trouble for future space missions.
Solar Power Stations in Space Could Be the Answer to Our Energy Needs
It sounds like science fiction: giant solar power stations floating in space that beam down enormous amounts of energy to Earth.
AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology
It has occurred decades before many people in the field would have predicted. It will be exciting to see the many ways in which it will fundamentally change biological research.
Scotland to be the first country to have universal free period product
MSPs at the Scottish Parliament unanimously approved a bill bringing in the legal right of free access to items such as tampons and sanitary pads for everyone.
Oslo got pedestrian and cyclist deaths down to zero
More cities are starting to pedestrianize central zones to minimize cars and eliminate deaths on public roads.
Walmart and McDonald’s have the most workers on food stamps and Medicaid, new study shows
This is essentially externalizing costs and it’s a tactic that business owners have been using for a long time.
Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder
Of Trump's surprising ascendance, one of the DeploraBall interviewees explained: "We memed him into power... We directed the culture."
1% of farms operate 70% of the world's farmland
Think what you want about Karl Marx, but his prediction about the increasing concentration of capital was correct.
World’s Biggest Wind Park to Be Built Offshore U.K.
The world’s biggest offshore wind park is a step closer to construction.
Tasmania declares itself 100 per cent powered by renewable electricity
The Tasmania government has declared that it has become the first Australian state, and one of just a handful of jurisdictions worldwide, to be powered entirely by renewable electricity.
They had coronavirus. Now they’re showing up at memory clinics with serious cognitive loss.
“We are going to have a population of people with some level of disability that may be on the path to cognitive impairment. We’re trying to reverse that impact. That’s what you can do with rehabilitation. We are starting to formulate programs.”
Glucose metabolism responds to perceived sugar intake more than actual intake
The study indicates that blood glucose level in people with type 2 diabetes is influenced by the perception of sugar consumption.
Your Brain Is Not for Thinking
In stressful times, a surprising lesson from neuroscience may help to lessen your anxieties.
Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
Reduced sleep duration and sleep deprivation have been associated with cognitive impairment as well as decreased white matter integrity as reported by experimental studies.
We can genetically engineer a kombucha SCOBY to produce psilocybin while it ferments
They can do this by printing genes from magic mushrooms and embedding them into the SCOBY’s DNA. Once we make a single psiloscoby, it can grow and divide and be shared among friends, to brew their own psilobucha.
Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients
The federal government has taken first steps to allow psilocybin-assisted therapy. A Victoria non-profit says much more can be done.
Mike Tyson says psychedelic drug 'told me to come back and start getting in shape'
Tyson said Friday, referring to psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT during an interview on the day of the official weigh-in. “It really blew my mind. It told me to come back and start getting in shape.’’
Diego Maradona died this week
An 80s legend to many of us. A political activist. In Argentina, there is a religion where Maradona is seen as a prophet, the Maradonian Church. At his peak, this man achieved the undisputed best performances by a football player ever seen. [Bonus video]
The Promise That Tested My Parents Until the End
“Couples pledge many things to one another. When my father grew ill, one promise tested everything about my parents' long and happy life together, and forced my mother to wonder how she would keep her word—and also whether she should.”
“The victims, while less happy than the controls, still rated themselves above average in happiness, even though their accidents had recently rendered them all either paraplegic or quadriplegic.”
How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People
A Ponzi scheme can be used in any part of your life.
Thanks for reading!
If you got any comments or just want to brainstorm, email me at jacob@unhype.com.