Bas' Take on Tech: Work From Home, AI, DNA, Dominik's Thoughts
Hi there,
thanks for reading my tech newsletter about the recent buzz, Python, and DevOps.
In this issue, Dominik Sumer gives an insight into his current project and shares his goals for the year.
Have a great week ahead!
🌱 Helping People in Turkey and Syria
The tragedy that happened in Turkey and Syria on 6 February killed tens of thousands of people. An earthquake is usually not something you’d expect in a tech newsletter. I want, however, to share a heartwarming story about Tech Volunteers who were rolling out apps to help locate people and distribute aid quickly.
On a personal note, please always be careful with choosing organisations if you like to donate. As a Rotarian, I might be biased, but the Rotary Foundation’s Disaster Response Fund has gained my trust.
📉 Work From Home
Reporting a new layoff did become pointless at this time. However, there is an interesting aspect of GitHub’s recent layoffs: They will go mostly remote. It’s hard to call it a trend, as I’ve written about the return to the office in December. Tech hub cities like San Francisco or New York desperately need tech workers to survive economically. Bloomberg reports that Remote Work is costing Manhatten $12 Billion a year.
In Europe, on the other hand, Work From Home is actively engaged. In the Netherlands, for example, working from home has been a legal right since last summer. In France, the government is prioritizing WFH to improve quality of life in light of labour unions’ response to plans to increase the retirement age.
🤖 AI Wars
Many people have argued that conversational AI, like ChatGPT, is changing search. As I pointed out in a previous issue of this newsletter, I do not see ChatGPT as a revolution but rather as an evolution to personal assistants like Amazon Echo or Apple’s Siri. In my predictions for 2023, I also pointed out that we might see some major flaws in the hyped AI technologies. To some extent, that has already happened: Bing can spill out its secrets. Will we see another new profession? After “prompt engineers”, will we see “prompt security consultants”?
Does anyone remember the 2013 bug in Xerox printing machines? Due to internally used compression algorithms during the digital capture process of scanned documents, Xerox copiers “manipulated” numbers on paper copies and digital scans. There is an exciting thought piece in “The New Yorker” that compares this bug to ChatGPT. And indeed, the “generative” AI we see now is not “generative” at all. It’s rather sheer computing power thrown at recompiling existing pieces.
Back to search: The economist questions Google’s 20-year dominance in search. And Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella is excited about the rebirth of OpenAI-enabled Bing. Forbes, too, suspects that Google may fall behind in the AI boom. There might be something to it as Google employees criticise CEO Sundar Pichai for rushing a ChatGPT competitor.
All in all, there is more to search than a content-summarizing digital assistant. Also, Google has pioneered the AI field with Deep Mind. It’s hard to imagine that Google’s management is “surprised” by something like ChatGPT. On the other hand, it was also hard to imagine that Yahoo could decline. And the financially potent partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft could really change the game.
🗞️ Buzz
Will TikTok be banned in the US? The concern is that private data of Americans cannot be protected from the Chinese government. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is reported to testify in House in March in light of a newly revised legislation initiative to ban the social network.
Outside of the software bubble, some pieces about DNA caught my attention.
Italian researchers found that a gene called BPIFB4 might protect individuals from cardiovascular damage. The researchers mutated this gene into older mice resulting in the rewinding of biological heart age markers.
Another research suggests that 40% of early child deaths may be caused by a genetic disease that can be reversed by genetic editing.
For somewhat less invasive methods of reshaping gene expression, I found a study that researches the genetic expression changes caused by intermittent fasting (time-restricted eating). I’ve been on intermittent fasting for more than a year now and have experienced significant benefits myself.
🗣️ Interesting Discussions and Perspectives
It becomes more and more apparent that the “tech winter” is indeed primarily caused by over-hiring during the pandemic, with Apple being an exception.
How Levels.fyi scaled to millions of users with Google Sheets as a backend
🧑💼 Build Your Resume
There are a lot of people on a job hunt now – obviously.
I have created a GitHub repository that allows you to create a professional-looking resume and have that hosted for free on Netlify, along with automatically updated PDF versions. You can learn a bit about GitHub Actions during the process.
Also, networking is essential. Here is my LinkedIn profile if you want to connect!
📝 Dominik’s Perspective
Dominik Sumer is the co-founder of snappify, an online generator for graphical code snippets. I use snappify on my Twitter feed myself. I asked about his current work and his goals for this year. Here is his answer:
At the moment I’m fully focused on my product snappify. I’m working on it together with my friend Anki and this year we want to make it more widely known in the developer community. It’s a tool to present technical content: from code explanations to marketing materials and even the ability to embed interactive infographics into your website. We’re still learning much on a daily basis. There are so many things when it comes to building a successful product and it’s really challenging to get it out to the right people and find the best way to communicate its value to them. I’m trying to share my learnings on Twitter and other social media platforms if you’re interested
Apart from doing mostly marketing at the moment, I’m also getting my hands dirty with those new AI technologies. It’s also a good fit for our product snappify as it enables our users to easily create code explanations (the AI takes care of writing the explanation of the selected code snippet). I’m really excited about the AI space and how it will influence our lives in the upcoming years!
🚀 What else?
I have changed this newsletter from “occasional” to at least once every two weeks. The new format not only contains curated news and insights from the tech world but also sets the stage for fellow developers.
I will ask people about their journeys in the tech world and also in life. I’m pretty sure there is much to learn from listening to other people’s experiences, and I am excited to share that with you!
Of course, I need your help with this.
Please tell me if you want to share your story with my 500+ readers!
What is something you learned?
What are some books that recently influenced you?
What do you want to share with others about your life, your productivity, your career, and your health?
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Best,
