markjgsmith

home > archives > links > 2024 > 08

Linkblog

2024/08/31 #

2024/08/29 #

2024/08/27 #

2024/08/26 #

2024/08/25 #

  • Telegram app founder Pavel Durov reportedly arrested at French airport - Arrested aboard his private jet, there was a warrant for his arrest. He’s been living in Dubai since he refused to comply with russian government demands to shut down opposition groups on a social media app he used to own. It’s unclear why there was a french warrant out for his arrest. His fortune estimated to be $15.5bn. Telegram has 900 million users. www.theguardian.com #

  • How Lidl accidentally took on the big guns of cloud computing - Lidl is similar in a way to Aldi, it’s sort of a budget supermarket chain, but it’s got quite a unique vibe, stocking lots of lesser known brands, so there’s lots of choice and you often find products you would never normally try. Super interesting they are getting into cloud computing. I wonder if this is a new trend, where large local businesses start running their own clouds and offering services to smaller local businesses. I think it makes a lot of sense. Interesting they ended up buying a security company co-founded by a former boss of Israel’s secret service Mossad. That ticks the security box for sure. Clients include SAP and Bayern Munich football club. Their main offering is experience keeping competitively sensitive data very confidential. www.ft.com #

  • ‘No thanks, I’ll pass on the service charge’: Why UK diners are opting out of tipping - Really not a good sign. It’s crazy to think that waiting staff have to pick up the slack when the economy goes down the tubes. Huge numbers of people are opting out of discretional service charges. Time for those with money to start overtiping, because if these places go out of business, it will be really tough to get them back up and running again. Tipping works great in good times, gives businesses flexibility, not so great in hard times though. www.independent.co.uk #

  • Apple will let developers use the iPhone's NFC chip - Lots of cool examples of how the new chips could be used. I wonder what the privacy implications are for this new technology. Since it will likely become pervassive tech used everywhere, I’d like to know which services are worth the trade off and which it makes sense to just opt out of using. www.indiehackers.com #

2024/08/24 #

  • 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Supercuts, Urban Art, Bitcoin, AI & Aliens (Issue #178) markjgsmith.com #

  • Balaji’s Network State Becomes a Reality in Singapore - I like almost every aspect of this project. I think there's a huge potential to build something truely ground breaking. But I don’t like the idea of focusing on 'Dark Talent' because it makes it sound like some sort of clandestine thing, especially since he explicitly says that legacy institution people aren’t suitable. I don’t like this exclusionary vibe, seems kind of elitist. The main thing that worries me about the network state movement is that it could very easily be used for bad purposes. Imagine a world where secret criminal network states exist, run by mafias, alongside the existing nation states. That seems scary to me. But if it’s all done in the open it could be brilliant. thedefiant.io #

2024/08/23 #

2024/08/22 #

2024/08/21 #

  • Sicilians are brought up to hate our island – but those of us who flee are seen as the enemy - Lots of stuff in the news the past few says about Sicily. It’s interesting to learn some of the details about their expat culture and how it’s connected to long histories of invasions, and is kind of toxic in places. Every country handles expats slightly differently, but there are commonalities for sure. Some of the things she describes ring true to me too. I find it all very complicated. I’m a sort of double expat, having grown up outside the UK, then returned for university and early career then moved away a second time. Being an expat is definitely weird. I wonder whether I’ll ever have english friends again sometimes or if they just think of me as a foriegner too. www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/20 #

2024/08/19 #

  • Digital euro faces skepticism in Germany over privacy concerns - They say "The main motivation for the digital euro is to decrease Europe’s reliance on non-European payment services". Seems like a worthy goal but many countries still prefer cash, worried that a CBDC would enable government surveillence. Apparently their CBDC has an offline mode. I wonder sometimes how good the privacy is with cash since all notes have serial numbers, technically you could trace usage if you really wanted to, though might be difficult at scale. It will probably be a moot point eventually once they track our thoughts with the brain implants. cryptobriefing.com #

2024/08/18 #

2024/08/17 #

2024/08/16 #

  • Kim Dotcom’s Extradition to the U.S. Given Green Light By New Zealand - Weird coincidence / synchronicity, one of the blokes that works in a cafe shop I go to, I realised today, after reading this article, is a total Kim Dotcom doppelganger. Seriously could totally be his brother or cousin or something. Strange world sometimes. Anyhow I hope Kim is okay, he’s one of the early internet heavy weights, both physically but also from an entrepreneurial perspective. Did a lot of crazy stuff. I like his views on free speech and trying to break down old world barriers. From what I’ve read, it appeared he had been somewhat harshly treated, though I don’t know the specifics. Hoping he doesn’t get memory holed. Let’s remember to watch out for updates on this story. torrentfreak.com #

  • Zelenskiy: Ukraine’s troops now in full control of Russian town of Sudzha - I know the war is serious business and I don’t mean any disrespect to either side but I have to say this made me smile a bit. It has a certain comedic sense to it. It reminded me of the opening sequence to Dad’s Army a bit. It’s definitely unnexpected. I heard that the Ukrainian moral was very low, because soldiers had basically lost hope of ever returning home, they had resigned themselves that they would likely remain at the frontline for the rest of their lives. So perhaps this will make things somewhat more interesting for them. Who knows maybe it could unlock a whole new dimension to resolving the conflict peacefully. As I understand it Zelenski used to be a comedian after all. Strange, and sometimes good strange things can happen during wars. Here’s to hoping this is one of those times. Also sorry no disrespect to germans either. I have no idea what they think of Dad’s Army. I grew up watching it, so I’m quite fond of it. Easy for me to say, I suppose, since we were on the winning side. I’d love to see any german satire / comedy from that era if any exists. Is that still a sore point? I really don’t know. Update: Was listening to Duncan Trussel’s latest Jamar Neighbors episode while writing this, and there’s a really really bizarely hilariously synchronous relevant bit 1/3 into it. Weird but kind of funny. www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/14 #

  • Google’s $1,799 Pixel 9 Pro Fold arrives with 8-inch inner display and Gemini - I’m very intrigued by these new foldable phones from Google. They have almost comparable specs to laptop! 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage. The screen unfolded is small compared to a laptop, but 8inch is huge for a phone. And it appears each pane can operate independently, so you could have an editir in one and a browser in the other. Since it’s Android and thus Linux does that mean you can get a bash shell? A small foldout keyboard and perhaps you could do dev work on it? And the AI features look very snazy in the promo video. Seems pricey though, same price as the MacBook Air! techcrunch.com #

  • Sunil Bharti Mittal: who is the Indian tycoon now BT’s largest shareholder? - I’m not saying this is bad per se, but it is a bit suprising that a nation state would allow it’s communications network to be mostly owned by foreign interests. It’s certainly a lot of trust to put in someone. On the other hand, if the trust is merited, having run the main comms network in a country as large as India might be great in terms of experience in getting high performance and value for money. It would be interesting to hear what the sentiment is from current BT staff members. www.theguardian.com #

  • How Spotify started -- and killed -- Latin America’s podcast boom - I find the whole Spotify approach to podcasting very puzzling. CEO Daniel Ek has seemed to be in interviews I've listenned to, a complete audio nerd, with tons and tons of great ideas for podcasting, yet his approach has seemed very anti-podcasting, more of a take over of the entire medium, than helping to build the whole ecosystem up. I don’t get it, why isn’t he putting effort into the whole podcasting 2.0 movement? Seems like an opportunity missed for everyone. It will be interesting to see how the podcasting scene in Latin America develops. restofworld.org #

2024/08/12 #

  • Celsius targets Tether, Badger DAO, Compound, and Netanyahu's niece and nephew in lawsuits - It’s been a while since there was some newsworthy excitenent in crypto markets. That’s why these litigation stories stood out a bit. They involve a company well known to have had a big downfall in the previous cycle and several interesting counter parties including the biggest stablecoin issuer, a company run by family members of a very famous politician, and a service provider that got hacked. Likely lots of interesting facts will transpire, interesting things to learn, and will probably have an impact on the current sideways leaning bull market. www.theblock.co #

  • The Ticking Yen Time Bomb - James Lavish’s explanations of major market incidents are always top notch, and this look at the recent falling apart of the now infamous Yen Carry trade is no exception. Another cracker of an article that perfectly illustrates the dynamics at play, but also packed full of nuance that I didn’t see in any of the other roundups I read. www.jameslavish.com #

  • Imagining a Personal Data Pipeline - Looks at what components you might think of including in an extract, load, transform (ELT) data pipeline for all your personal data. It’s a follow on post expanding on the author’s journey into life logging and quantified self. I found it pretty interesting especially in the context of my static site generator which has some very similar features, but also could interface really easily with something like this. I’ve heard a lot about ELT data pipelines in an enteprise setting, but not much for personal use. Seems very synergistic with my Github powered workflows for content creators idea. www.joshcanhelp.com #

2024/08/10 #

  • Apple Is America’s Semiconductor Problem - There’s definitely some anti-Apple sentiment brewing at the minute. Buffet has been getting out of his Apple position recently. Regulators in the US and EU are going after them for monopoly practices. Add to that they aren’t really innovating products very effectively. This looks at the scale of their market position and influence. www.semiconductor-digest.com #

  • Online Safety Act to be reviewed after Sadiq Khan criticism, says minister - I don’t know specifically about Khan’s criticism, but I’ve read and heard about many crack downs that sound very authoritarian. Regular folks being arrested just for sharing links on social media. It’s made me wonder about whether anything I post could be misinterprated in such a way. For years western countries have been pointing out censorship of repressive regimes abroad. Why is it happening in the west now? Strange times. www.theguardian.com #

  • King Charles sends ‘heartfelt thanks’ to police for restoring order after riots - What worries me about all this is that those that might want to create a widespread chilling effect on online speech, now have a way to do that. The vaste majority of people don’t do all this violence stuff, why should we be paying the price by having our freedoms curtailed? I myself am now worried about what I post, and I in no way consider myself to me part of any extremist groups. Ironically by cracking down on the bullies, you might just be helping them get their way, a repressive society that is inflexible, and can’t handle any sort of disagreement. The internet existed during previous riots, why were there no crack downs on online speech then? Perhaps that was the better approach. Having said all that I like that King Charles is thanking the police, they do in many cases do a very good job under difficult circumstances. www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/09 #

  • Putin signs law on legalizing cryptocurrency mining in Russia - This sounds pretty cool, perhaps nation states really are getting into crypto currencies. How long until they start mining operations themselves I wonder. It’s interesting that the Bank of Russia is involved though somewhat unclear what this means: "the Bank of Russia will have the right to ban the placement of individual issues". tass.com #

  • Meta is closing a beloved first-party Quest studio - I don’t know much about the VR side of the tech industry, but it’s an interesting data point. It’s kind of cool that the way the sector appears to be structured is lots of smaller studios rather than one super large mega company. I wonder why most of the tech industry doesn’t take this form. www.androidcentral.com #

  • What lies beneath: the growing threat to the hidden network of cables that power the internet - Most interesting fact from the article: an underwater cable is cut on average every 3 days. The vaste majority is accidental rather than planed attacks. Small islands need to get multiple cables to hedge against these types of events since it can take weeks to repair a severed cable. New Zealand for example has 7 different cables, whereas Tonga only has one. I guess many likely also use the new satellite constellations. www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/08 #

  • Michael Saylor X Odell Bitcoin Park Fireside (Citadel Dispatch Podcast) - Odell interviews Saylor live at Bitcoin Park. It’s a relatively short interview compared to some of the Saylor interviews I’ve listened to over the years, but it’s interesting because it feels like there’s been a noticeable shift in the overall narrative. This conversation to me felt like it was grounded in actually very practical and immediate topics, rather than a lot of the interesting but sometimes long winded bitcoin philosophy. It seems to coincide with the big recent increase in bitcoin interest from companies and institutions. You get a sense there is a wave coming and people are positioning their businesses for some bitcoin action. It’s not just businesses, countries too. All sorts of useful things talked about including operating companies vs investment trusts, hurdles to companies holding bitcoin treasuries, bitcoin as medium of exchange, stable coin + bitcoin as the perfect combination, building nation State FOMO?, and Bitcoin strategies the US Treasury could take. Great interview. podcastindex.org #

  • Edmund Fawsett compares the future of liberalism and conservatism Ep#2151 (Keen On Podcast) - Edmund’s last name makes me think we are in the fractal version of the simulation currently. Regardless it’s an interesting conversation exploring a topic that I’ve always found quite confusing. Deciding if you are liberal or conservative has always seemed to me to be like deciding to be a fast or slow car driver. Surely, it depends? Needless to say Edmund has a much more complete understanding than my overly simplistic take on things. History, ideas, traditions, and how it all relates back to the current day political environment we find ourself in. It’s all very interesting and I feel like I need to listen to this one again because the world ironically was trying to be both at the same time as I was listening to this yesterday, so it was a bit tricky to focus. This feels like a fundamental topic any person operating in the business world today should better understand, and I think this episode lays out the somewhat amorphous problem space pretty well. podcastindex.org #

2024/08/07 #

  • Elon Musk calls PM ‘two-tier Keir’ over police response to UK riots - I’m not sure how I feel about the Elon vs The Police situation. I wish people would just get along. One thing though is I’m glad Elon, a person developing both powerful AI tools and powerful brain implants, is very much against the concept of a two tier society. In the overall scheme of things I don’t think it matters that much that he’s defending so called far right folks, or that he’s insulting the new prime minister. In fact it might be the most free speech thing possible. If the government really is against a 2 tier society then perhaps this is an opportunity to explore that idea in public in full transparency, because that IMO is the thing we are all worried about. Show us that you really do have all of our backs long term, even after all the riots have passed. www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/06 #

  • Worst far-right violence should be treated as terrorism, says ex-police chief - I’m definitely not a defender of thugery and violence, but at the same time it’s clear that there are many communities that for whatever reason are not able to process the level of change they are being subjected to. The crack down is a short term solution, and of course you have to make sure people are safe, but I hope accompanying this they announce some programs that explore long term how to bring communities that are divided closer together, and ways to stop the festering of resentment. The violence is terrible, but at least you can see where the difficulties are. If all this gets pushed further underground, it might end up being worse long term, for everyone involved. www.theguardian.com #

  • No 10 criticises Elon Musk for ‘civil war is inevitable’ post on England riots - Very interesting that Elon is getting involved here. It’s obviously a difficult situation and police are no doubt doing the best they can, but I think it might be short sighted to rebuf this attention. We’ve had riots in the UK several times before, the difference here is I think the wider context and environment is unparalleled. I’m betting that the AI revolution we are in is freaking people out. They don’t want to be left behind, or find themselves at the bottom of an impossible heap to climb just to live a normal life. Yes the tools create the problems or at least give them a way to surface, but they can also be part of the solution. It’s time to be creative about how we respond. www.theguardian.com #

  • The debauched rise of New York’s wildest bar - The story of one of New York’s most infamous bars where people from Warhol to Lennon went to hang out. I wonder what the equivalent is these days. My sense is that things these days aren’t as drug fueled as they used to be, which is definitely a good thing. Rogan’s got his comedy club which seems to be attaining legendary status. There are quite a lot of Bitcoin related hangout places being setup. What other cultural institutions are springing up these days? www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/05 #

2024/08/04 #

  • Norman Ohler (Joe Rogan Experience Podcast) - I thought this was a pretty fascinating look into a side of german cultural history that has been completely missed. It’s about the drugs that germans were taking around the time of the second world war. The attrocities of the war were of course happening but in parallel, psychadellic drugs were literally being discovered by scientists, and they were having hippie like experiences, hoping to spread love and togetherness to the world. These were the origins of the psychadelic movement in the US. It was also a time where mild stimulants like coffee didn’t exist yet, so people took meth instead! Norman’s research adventure took him deep into the archives of companies working on drug programs, and he discovered a treasure trove of information that paints a much more complete picture of what was actually going on around that time. It’s almost as if the seeds of destruction and it’s solution where somehow being created at the same time. And the story of how Norman got to the information, in it’s own way, is as interesting as the stories he eventually found. Really worth listening to this one. podcastindex.org #

  • Why CSV is still king - I’ve really only used CSV a few times personally, but I can imagine that many businesses do use it all the time. The simplest data exchange formats tend to get widest adoption. These days it’s actually quite rare that I need to export and re-import data between applications, which might be a sign that we are far too silo'd. konbert.com #

  • Government warns that rioters ‘will pay the price’ as wave of violence sweeps UK - Riots across many cities in the UK. It will be interesting to see how the new government handles the situation. Riots as bad as they are, perhaps are a bit like error logging in an application. You obviously don’t want them to happen but they at least do communicate that there are serious issues that need addressing. If you crack down too hard on them, you are really just turning off error logging without addressing the problem. So the resentment still builds but you won’t even know about it next time. In hell there are no flareups, but everything is resentment, but noone can be sure. www.theguardian.com #

2024/08/03 #

  • Kamala Surges, Trump at NABJ, recession fears, Middle East escallations, Ackman postpones IPO (All-in Podcast) - They featured in last week’s newsletter issue, and this latest episode was once again a cracker. The Harris - Trump election build up discussion was great, with some very insightful observations and analysis. That was later followed up with an even better discussion of the Isreal/Mossad/Hamas/Iran assassination situation. The All-In guys are at their best when they are handling geopolitics and relating it back to global macro and Tech. There are some other smaller topics peppered in amongst those. Jason is pulling a Biden this week having caught COVID, but the show was still top notch, though there were signs of a few small resentments festering, which were kind of funny but will no doubt need some fielding from the best moderator in the universe. I bet it’s a tough job keeping the train on the tracks when your team is made up of an alternating current of Sith Lords and Rebel Aliance Jedi knights. Likely that’s why he took the week off in the first place, to see how well balanced everyone is performing. podcastindex.org #

  • Alan Graham (The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast) - Interesting exploration of the homeless and poverty situation in the US by talking to someone that has 25 years boots on the ground experience with his Mobile Loaves and the Fishes organisation, has been organising food trucks and programs to promote hope, meaning and purpose for the chronically homeless. They talk about his background, his religious thinking and how he integrates that with the difficulties and contradictions of modern life. Interesting discussion around some of the core drivers in city regeneration, problems with the education system that have all contributed to the homeless situation that has been getting worse since the 70s. Overall will give you a different way to think about some of these highly politicised problems, which underneath are about real people doing the best they can given the circumstances. podcastindex.org #

  • 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Fractional Reserve Bullying (Issue #175) markjgsmith.com #

2024/08/01 #

  • The US government needs Bitcoin with Luke Gromen & Preston Pysh (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - I wasn’t able to follow everything in this episode, it rapidly gets pretty complicated, but IMO there’s some very important information in there. It’s basically a macro discussion around how Bitcoin is intersecting with the old school financial system, how the interplay between stablecoins and treasuries is shaping up, and how this might affect and be affected by geo-politics. It gets very abstract in places, but they always bring the discussion back to grounded truths and examples. I think even if you don’t fully understand everything, seeing things through a Bitcoin lense gives you the ability to see where things are moving at least directionally. I’m wondering if there are stablecoins backed by chinese treasuries, that’s were the biggest productivity gains from recent years are currently. Somewhat sad to hear that it’s one of the last WBD episodes, it appears they are moving onto other ventures still to be announced. www.whatbitcoindid.com #

  • RA.947 Lydo (Resident Advisor Podcast) - I listenned to this mix by vietnamese - america electronic music artist last night. It’s pretty great, hard techno, gets pretty dark, especially at the end, I could totally imagine listening to this in a club with an incredible sound system. Probably quite good music to code to also. ra.co #

  • Michael Malice (Joe Rogan Podcast) - I think Malice was previously on Rogan, and I think I really enjoyed their conversation. They are very well balanced together, I feel like they bring out the best in each other. It’s a very conspiracy heavy episode, so if you’re into that, you’ll enjoy this episode. All sorts of topics including the Biden body double, deep fakes & cheap fakes, sceptical being the new norm, Elon and free speech, Harris wine mom, Google memory holing, Trump shooter weirdnesses, Silk Road Ross Ulbricht, Prince Charles’ sausage fingers, aristocrats being perverts, prince Andrew loosing ability to sweat, 1000 space monkeys writing the Art of the Deal, and a whole lot more. If you have a few hours to chill, worth listening to. podcastindex.org #

For enquiries about my consulting, development, training and writing services, aswell as sponsorship opportunities contact me directly via email. More details about me here.