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Daring Bits
How to Hide a $2 Trillion Antitrust Trial - The Google antitrust trial is being held mostly in secret, with the judge, Amit Mehta, deferring to Google’s request for secrecy, resulting in limited public access and a lack of transparency in the trial. “Mehta is far more concerned that Google isn’t embarrassed, and almost wholly uninterested in public access… Conspiracy theorists arguing how the corporations, judges, and the government are in collaboration could look at this trial and have a field day.” Although now it seems the judge has acquiesced to pressure, and will allow trial documents to be published daily - some of which are already getting juicy.
Legendary VC Bill Gurley explains regulatory capture - At the All-In Summit this year, Bill Gurley took the stage and spent an hour detailing how regulatory capture works. Excellent first-hand story about how funds are collected for politicians in exchange for favors, as but a small section of the talk. Watch it so you know how the world works.
Biden Ushers In Net Neutrality Return - The FCC plans to reinstate Obama-era net neutrality rules, preventing internet providers from blocking or slowing down websites and charging more for faster access, with an initial vote set for October 19, following a change in FCC leadership under the Biden Administration. Meanwhile, governments are totally ok with blocking things on the internet if they’re doing the blocking…
Rumble Rejects Parliament - …Video streaming site Rumble releases an explosive letter criticizing the UK parliamentary committee chair’s request to suspend Russell Brand’s advertising revenue on its platform amid sexual assault allegations, emphasizing the importance of a free internet and rejecting parliamentary control over platform content.
Symbol Behavior Mapping - “Let’s talk about Symbol Behavior Mapping and how you should be using it daily to become a better and happier programmer.” This article discusses the importance of focusing on the relationship between symbols (or tokens) in programming and the desired behaviors they create, emphasizing the need to measure and optimize this aspect as a key metric for programming success.
Intuit Reverses Gun-Business Ban - Intuit has reversed its ban on gun companies accessing its payroll and payment processing services following pressure from banking partners Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, with Senator Ted Cruz welcoming the decision after an oversight investigation revealed the discriminatory policies.
OpenTofu Fills the Terraform Void - The Linux Foundation has unveiled OpenTofu, an open source alternative to Terraform’s infrastructure tool, aimed at addressing concerns over Terraform’s recent licensing changes.
Next Generation of Freenet - In this talk, Ian Clarke, founder and architect of Freenet, discusses how to build decentralized apps on the new Freenet platform. The centralization of the internet poses a fundamental threat to individual freedom. In 2023, a few corporations control most internet services and infrastructure, wielding immense power with little accountability. This threatens democracy, as these corporations can censor content, exploit our data, and exclude users from essential services.
Robot Overlords
Toyota Unveils Breakthrough in Teaching Robots New Behaviors - Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has unveiled a breakthrough generative AI approach called Diffusion Policy that efficiently teaches robots new skills, allowing them to perform diverse tasks without the need for manual coding. This is fine.
Tesla Unveils Humanoid Robot Progress - Tesla has unveiled footage of its improved humanoid Tesla Bot, which can now walk steadily, pick up items, recognize objects, and undergo AI training from human movements, marking significant progress from its earlier prototype. This is also fine.
Rapidpages - Generate React and Tailwind components using AI. Rapidpages is a prompt-first IDE for building great-looking pages. You simply describe the UI you desire and it will generate the code for that component using the technologies that are familiar to you (currently only React+Tailwind are supported). This is useful.
ChatGPT Levels Up - Everyone’s amazed that ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak, but we’re stoked that it can finally look at current information, and is no longer limited to data before September 2021. It can turn your napkin sketch into an application.
Boolformer Logic - The Boolformer model is a groundbreaking advancement in machine learning, offering transparency and logical reasoning in solving symbolic logic tasks, surpassing traditional models, and enhancing trustworthiness in AI.
Liberty Toolbox
Turning An Old Car Into A Powerful Generator - Jake von Slatt explains how to transform an old car with a functioning engine, like a Toyota Sienna, into a cost-effective generator for off-grid power, utilizing an Arduino-based system to maintain a steady 60Hz AC voltage output.
Blind Chat - Here’s a brand-new, open-source, privacy-first ChatGPT alternative! BlindChat combines transformers.js with ChatUI for a private and fully in-browser experience.
Linkdump
Lions’ Commentary on Unix
The boiling frog of digital freedom
https://www.animatedknots.com/
Making a 16x16x16 Digital Cube
Early 1950s IBM computer promotional film
The computer chronicles - Windows NT (1993)
