Make Boring Plans →
Since we often end up in the land of novel technology, we owe it to ourselves and our customers to be boring in other ways. And the most important way that a Platform team can be boring is by writing boring plans.
I have quoted this article more times than I can count at work since I read it.
It's Not Every Day We Get a New Blue →
Nautical, mystical and the de facto shade of several social networks, blue is a color that has deep cultural cachet, while being nearly impossible to find in nature. The blues that abound in nature — a butterfly, a navy beetle, even blue eyes — are not natively blue, according to scientists, but instead are reflections of light, the impression of blue.
Opinion | They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them. →
A source has provided another data set, this time following the smartphones of thousands of Trump supporters, rioters and passers-by in Washington, D.C., on January 6, as Donald Trump's political rally turned into a violent insurrection. At least five people died because of the riot at the Capitol. Key to bringing the mob to justice has been the event's digital detritus: location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing.
That first week shooting was literally a kinda preschool. I've never had any job where so many - of the finest professionals in the world at what they do - would show up on a given day and, honest to God, they didn't have it right what's happening in that scene. That's no slur, no call on anybody, it's just that complicated and that different from movies that came before.
— Nilo Otero, First Assistant Director, Tenet
Bay Area's migration is real, but Postal Service data shows California exodus isn't →
Despite all the talk of people leaving the Bay Area during the pandemic, only a small fraction of residents have left the state, suggesting that reports of an exodus have been exaggerated, according to a Chronicle analysis of United States Postal Service data.
Inside 'TALON,' the Nationwide Network of AI-Enabled Surveillance Cameras →
"I think of it as the Ring doorbell of [Automated License Plate Recognition]," Sergeant JT Maultsby from the Raleigh Police Department wrote in one July 2019 email to colleagues.
Oh, please no.
How To Be a More Influential Engineer →
As every senior engineer will tell you, the longer your career, the more you understand that technology is rarely the "hard part." People, processes, working within teams, prioritizing and sequencing work, are what will trip you up.
The Great Amazon Flip-a-Thon →
Eco-Baby, TrailBuddy, Quility and TapeKing aren't exactly household names, but they're working on it. Their products are among the most popular in their categories on Amazon, accounting for millions of dollars in yearly sales.
They're also owned and operated by a single company called Thrasio, which recently raised $750 million in financing. It's just one among dozens of firms snapping up successful Amazon brands for millions of dollars.
Intel to Build Silicon for Fully Homomorphic Encryption →
Today's announcement between Intel, Microsoft, and DARPA, is a program designed around keeping information safe and encrypted, but still using that data to build better models or provide better statistical analysis without disclosing the actual data. It's called Fully Homomorphic Encryption, but it is so computationally intense that the concept is almost useless in practice. This program between the three companies is a driver to provide IP and silicon to accelerate the compute, enabling a more secure environment for collaborative data analysis.
