TLDR 2023-11-23

OpenAI researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery they said could threaten humanity days before Sam Altman's ouster. The letter and algorithm were key developments that contributed to the decision. The development could be a breakthrough in the startup's search for artificial general intelligence. This article collates some of the rumors about what the breakthrough may be.

Tesla has open-sourced all of the design and engineering of the original Roadster. This includes everything from Owner's Manuals to Circuits and Connectors. The next-gen Roadster is now several years behind schedule. The release of the design may be a hint that the next-gen Roadster is close to being produced. Elon Musk had said earlier this year that the final design and engineering of the Roadster will be completed by the end of 2023, so the vehicle should reach production by the end of 2024.

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will be launching a pair of Mars probes for NASA on its first mission. The mission is a relatively low-cost one, with a budget significantly less than any mission NASA has sent to Mars in recent history. It aims to measure plasma and magnetic fields around Mars. Mars launch windows typically come every 26 months, so if the mission doesn't launch by late 2024, the next opportunity will be in late 2026.

A new study found that virtual meetings exhaust the brain more than face-to-face conversations. The rise in remote work and online learning has revealed a phenomenon called Zoom fatigue, a feeling of exhaustion linked with videoconferencing. It results in a deterioration in the quality of communication and collaboration and can impact both professional and personal relationships. The absence of nuanced nonverbal cues makes it challenging for participants to fully engage and connect in a meaningful way.

This article looks at different ways to obfuscate email addresses from bots on websites. The author set up live examples for each obfuscation technique to test how effective they were in blocking spam. It covers obfuscation techniques for both clickable links and plain text.

Developers need to write robust software to handle request failures or they might be presented to users as errors. One of the most common techniques for handling a failed request is to retry it. This post presents a visual exploration of the different methods for retrying requests and demonstrates why some common approaches are dangerous. It aims to present readers with a solid understanding of what makes safe retry behavior and what doesn't.

This blog post was written by someone who worked at Google for 18 years starting in October 2005. They experienced the early post-IPO Google and watched the company throughout the years as it received criticisms for actions that were sincerely intended to be good for society. The culture at Google has changed significantly since it started. The deterioration of its culture will eventually become irreversible as the people who are needed to act as a moral compass are the same kinds of people who don't join an organization without a moral compass.

Anyone who has spent enough time working on spreadsheets will have experienced similar issues. There are similar problems when programming, except there's usually a way to solve them. Spreadsheets are used for storage, presentation, and computation. They are like regular programs in many ways. This article looks at problems with spreadsheets and ways to overcome them.

Block will cut hundreds of employees over the next year by firing underperforming workers quickly.

Sonos is months away from releasing a high-end wireless headphone and reportedly working on a set-top box that would allow users to watch video from a wide range of streaming apps.

This article contains internal memos from both Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI Kevin Scott and CEO Satya Nadella about the recent OpenAI drama.

This article compares M1 and M3 chips to find out what's changed between them so readers can better choose the right chip for their next Apple silicon Mac.

Bard's YouTube extension can now handle complex queries about specific video content.

This article attempts to piece together what happened with OpenAI over the weekend.