TLDR 2019-02-06

In an update coming out today, Facebook Messenger users will be able to delete their messages after they have been sent. The new feature allows users to delete their messages within 10 minutes of sending them. Facebook had previously been criticized as Mark Zuckerberg (and possibly other executives) had been able to delete messages, unlike average users.

Reddit is raising up to $300 million in its next ‘Series D’ round of funding, rumored to be lead by Chinese giant, Tencent. The funding could put the valuation of Reddit at nearly $3 billion. Reddit has recently been making a big deal out of selling their new cost-per-click ads, which helped push the yearly revenue of the site to over $100 million in 2018.

The Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AI2) today released an online Pictionary-style game called Iconary. Iconary is designed as a tool to help computers learn common sense by interpreting pictures that users draw, based on phrases that the computer hasn’t seen before. Users will draw scenes based on a text description, and the algorithm will have to identify what objects are in the picture, figure out how these objects relate to each other, and translate the image into text that humans can understand.

A Chinese research team has developed a wireless brain-to-brain system that allowed a human to control and move a ‘rat cyborg’ through a maze. Researchers were able to translate signals from an electroencephalogram attached to humans into instructions that stimulated a rat’s brain to move in a certain direction. While scientists have previously been successful in creating other brain-to-brain control systems, this is the first time it has been used to solve a complex navigation task.

Gitin is a tool to allow users to explore GitHub repositories directly from the command line in MacOS and Linux. It is an alternate and interactive way to explore the commit history. Users can also implement changes directly through the tool. The repository contains a GIF that quickly demonstrates the different functions and how the tool can be used.

This GitHub repository contains a guide on producing readable, reusable, and refactorable code in Typescript. The principles used in this guide are from Robert C. Martin's book, Clean Code. It is packed with examples of good and bad code, organized by sections, with clear explanations on why certain methods of formatting are more efficient, effective, and readable.

The Original Poster of the thread reflects on how, even though they barely remember any details from the book ‘Freakonomics’, their way of thinking changed completely after reading the book. They ask for more recommendations for books that might have a similar effect. The replies to the thread are full of great recommendations along with quick descriptions of how the recommended books changed the poster’s way of thinking.