TLDR 2022-11-11

Elon's first Twitter-wide email leaked 📧, reasons behind Meta's layoffs ‍💻, why designs all look the same 👀

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Big Tech & Startups

Amazon’s new robot is capable of handling millions of different products and could replace human workers (2 minute read)

Amazon's new robotic arm Sparrow is capable of handling millions of different products. It is able to grab items of different sizes and textures and place them in boxes. The robot could replace humans at Amazon's warehouses, but this may require the warehouses to be redesigned. While Amazon aspires to mostly automate its warehouses, the company is sensitive to the perception that it plans to eliminate jobs.

Read Elon Musk's first email to all Twitter employees (3 minute read)

Elon Musk is ending Twitter's 'work from home forever' policy. Employees are expected to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week. Musk wants Twitter to generate at least half of its revenue from subscriptions to become less reliant on advertising. Many advertisers have paused spending until Musk and his team can prove that the platform is being managed effectively. A copy of Musk's first email to all Twitter employees is available in the article.
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Science & Futuristic Technology

CRISPR cancer trial success paves the way for personalized treatments (4 minute read)

CRISPR gene editing can be used to alter immune cells to recognize mutated proteins specific to a person's tumors. The altered cells can then be safely released into the body to find and destroy their target. The treatment for each patient is unique. The manufacturing process for the personalized treatment took more than a year to complete in some cases.

NASA Launched an Inflatable Flying Saucer, Then Landed It in the Ocean (5 minute read)

NASA launched a giant inflatable flying saucer into space on Thursday morning. The Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) is designed to survive falling into the atmosphere at more than 18,000 miles per hour and temperatures over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The inflatable heat shield can fit in a cylinder a bit over four feet wide and one and a half feet high. It will be required in future missions to Mars for landing large payloads.
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Programming, Design & Data Science

Stylify (Website)

Stylify uses CSS-like selectors, variables, components, and custom selectors to generate CSS dynamically. It is compatible with a wide range of popular tools. Stylify is a standalone library and it works in any environment where JavaScript is supported.

Dagger (GitHub Repo)

Dagger is a programmable CI/CD engine that runs pipelines in containers. It allows developers to develop CI/CD pipelines as code in the same programming language as their applications. Dagger executes pipelines entirely as standard OCI containers.
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Miscellaneous

The Reason for Meta's Massive Layoffs? Ghosts in the Machine (2 minute read)

Meta has pursued a lot of projects over the years. The company has continued to keep staff on even after projects have been deemed unsuccessful and shut down. Meta would hire new employees with each new project, and when those projects were over, the employees would just work on experiments and research. If the employees had been exited when their projects were over, Meta's reduction in staff numbers would have been stretched out over time.

Why Everything Looks the Same (10 minute read)

Variety and originality have given way to monotony and conformity across every consumer category. Economic globalization, generational transition, and new technology have flattened out the consumer experience. Blanding is the copy-paste model of brand marketing that follows repetitive patterns at the expense of authenticity and originality. Many startups claim to be unique while following a formula, look and feel, or tone of voice. This article looks at blanding, what causes it, and how to avoid it.
Quick Links

The Weird-Looking, Fuel-Efficient Planes You Could Be Flying In One Day (5 minute read)

In June, NASA launched a competition for US companies to design and build a full-scale next-generation aircraft.

Colossal-AI (GitHub Repo)

Colossal-AI is an integrated large-scale model training system with efficient parallelization techniques.

Accidental $70k Google Pixel Lock Screen Bypass (10 minute read)

The exploit allowed anyone with physical access to a device to bypass lock screen protections and gain complete access to the device.

Only Solve One New Problem At A Time (3 minute read)

The whole point of running a company is to solve problems, but companies should only solve one new problem at a time.

Amazon, in Broad Cost-Cutting Review, Weighs Changes at Alexa and Other Unprofitable Units (6 minute read)

Amazon's devices unit had an operating loss of more than $5 billion a year over recent years.

Google Play to pilot third-party billing in new markets, including US (3 minute read)

Google's user choice billing pilot is now available in the US, Brazil, and South Africa.
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