Stuff (13)
Bell Labs, Security, AI, and Art
Bell Labs
I just finished reading The Idea Factory. It’s the story of Bell Labs, told via stories of key figures like Kelly, Shockley, Pierce, and Shannon and inventions of transistors, satellite communication, information theory, and the failed Picturephone. AT&T’s monopoly gave Bell Labs a 30 year horizon for innovation. Was that what made them so innovative? Innovation in Silicon Valley is totally different - it’s about speed and iteration. Bell Labs by and large succeeded with its mission. Today, anyone in the world can communicate with anyone else.
On a related note, the AT&T Youtube channel has an archive of many interesting videos.
Security
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4558
High drama Github PR. Stockfish has a simple stack-based buffer overflow. The claim this is a vulnerability was rejected. Debate ensues.
https://crnkovic.dev/testing-converso/
Don’t make bold security claims, or you’ll nerd-snipe hackers. Then they make you look bad.
https://www.nslookup.io/learning/
Articles explaining how DNS works.
AI
https://world.hey.com/jason/you-can-learn-ai-later-08fce896
A hot take - you just don’t need to stay on top of every new tech development. I guess it does depend on your own goals, but it’s true. AI development moves fast - waiting until things are more predictable isn’t entirely unreasonable.
Google I/O. Lots of the same stuff Microsoft had discussed before.
Art
https://pudding.cool/2023/05/kimchi/
A cute story of recipe impermanence.
https://www.hypertalking.com/2023/05/08/1-bit-pixel-art-of-hokusais-the-great-wave-off-kanagawa/
Drawn on a old, black and white macintosh.
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4047
Dinosaur Comics!