markjgsmith

Linkblog

2024/07/20 #

  • Quantum computers aren’t what you think...they’re cooler | Hartmut Neven (TED Talks Daily Podcast) - A look into the weird science behind quantum computing where huge computations can be carried out using parallel universes. It’s very early days for this technology, but we will soon be able to use quantum computers to solve problems in medicine, AI, neuroscience and more. All sorts of interesting examples of what we might be able to do in the future. We might even be able to discover the dynamics of consciousness, and perhaps even ways to expand it. www.ted.com #

  • Caitlin Long and the Conundrums of Europe Ep#183 (Goats Gold 'n Guns Podcast) - Caitlin Long who runs Custodia Bank is on the show to discuss the recent elections in the UK and France, and how they have been affecting the markets. She also goes into her difficult experiences trying to setup a crypto focused full reserve bank, Trump and crypto, Tether & US treasuries, and the unconstitutional structure of the FED. podcastindex.org #

  • Bicep Ep#722 (Resident Advisor Podcast) - Interview with Irish duo Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar. Setting up a label, their background in graphic design and advertising, tech gear, the writing process, live shows vs writing albums, mixing seminar at Abbey Road, upping their game and working with tech wizards, working as a duo, Belfast vs London, people’s differing views on emotions, writhing with purpose, being maximal with minimal, negative spaces, giving your brain space, taking the essence out and striping it back, teasing the audience, harnessing energy, 1 word song titles, the Brit awards, creativity during the pandemic, fear & worry in the community, signing with Ninja Tune, performing live vs DJing, being on the road, Glastonbury, first Essential Mix, first Beats in Space mix, first show in Japan, rave energy and clubs in general, blogging their sets, artistic kinship, making tunes and getting them out as quick as possible, collaborating, and shooting video for visuals. ra.co #

  • Nvidia and Mistral’s new model ‘Mistral-NeMo’ brings enterprise-grade AI to desktop computers - This feels like it could be one of those low key announcements that goes mostly unnoticed but then ends up being quite important. The model is not anywhere near as powerful as the latest OpenAI models but it’s open source, and runs on your own personal hardware, rather than on a data centre monster GPU. Turns out there are many applications that don’t require the bestest model, but do require much more privacy, because small busineses want to be in control of their data. venturebeat.com #

  • Bicep - Bicep 2017 - A Pitchfork review of their self titled debut album. I couldn’t find anything in podcast form that I could download, but this review popped up. I love reading electronic music reviews, they are often pieces of art in their own right, capturing the vibe in textual form, of something that attempts to capture the vibe of something in audio form. There’s something very magical happening when it works. It’s funny because I imagine they probably read like total gibberish to folks that are not familiar with the genres. I assure you though, there really is an undiscovered parallel dimension, or several, to all this modern electronic stuff. pitchfork.com #

  • 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Fiction, Art, Music, Aliens & Evolutionary Biology (Issue #173) markjgsmith.com #

  • A Developer's Review of a Snapdragon X Laptop (Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x) - Interesting to see a price and spec comparison with MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Looks like, as I suspected, 16GB RAM is pretty much the minimum these days for a development machine. Makes sense, even my now defunct MacBook Pro from 2013 had 16GB of RAM, and these days they need to run AI coding copilot tools. Any less RAM just isn’t viable. www.wezm.net #

  • SqLite for NodeJS - They are adding Sqlite to nodejs core, so you’ll be able to write database driven apps right out of the box. Very cool! github.com #

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