Original link: http://www.ruanyifeng.com/blog/2023/05/weekly-issue-255.html
Here is a record of the technology content worth sharing every week, released on Friday.
This journal is open source and contributions are welcome. There is also a “Who’s Recruiting” service, which publishes programmer recruitment information. For cooperation, please email ([email protected]).
cover picture
The Wuhan Optics Valley Air Rail was put into trial operation on April 26, with a total length of 10.5km. This is the first commercial suspended rail train in China. Even though I knew it wouldn’t fall, I still felt a little thrilled watching it. ( via )
Topic of the Week: The Right Attitude To AI
These days, people always ask me what I think about the topic of ” the front end is dead “.
My first reaction was that the front end is not dead, many companies are still recruiting.
Later, I learned that what they meant was that the front end was cooling down and becoming depressed. The specific manifestations were that the development of technology was slowing down, there were no major hot spots, the importance of business was declining, and job opportunities were decreasing.
What is even more worrying is that AI has been able to directly generate pages, will it replace front-end programmers in the future?
My view is not so pessimistic. The current situation is indeed not good, but after the trough period, the economy recovers, and the demand for front-end programmers will rise.
As for whether AI will kill the front end, this is uncertain, it all depends on the development of AI, although I don’t really believe that AI can make complex pages.
Today, I want to talk about how to face an uncertain future as a programmer. AI is non-deterministic and development is completely out of our control. It makes the programmer’s career and future uncertain. What should we do in this case?
I happened to see an article by an Indian programmer . He was also thinking about this issue, so he decided to test it himself to see how far AI has developed.
He asked ChatGPT to write a program he wanted, but it took three weekends of constant adjustments before he could write it out and the code could run.
Here’s what he said about AI.
“Sometimes I was amazed by ChatGPT’s ability to understand, but more often than not, I had to push it like hell to go in the direction I wanted. It sometimes produced unexpected results, which made me very frustrated.”
“It’s like a recent graduate who’s absorbed all of human knowledge, but needs someone else’s help to string it together.”
“It seems that my job this year is safe. However, I need to learn ChatGPT well and be proficient in its use, so that I will be safe next year.”
I appreciate the last sentence above very much, and think this mentality is worth learning from.
There is no way to predict what the future of AI will be, but it is certain that its current level of coding will not threaten programmers.
Your job is safe this year. It’s also safe next year, and likely ever since, if you work hard. Because if you keep learning AI, you will become more and more proficient at mastering it and making it work for you and achieve your goals. That said, it amplifies your productivity.
This is the most critical point. AI and humans are not in a competitive relationship. It may not reduce opportunities, but may bring more opportunities.
A British entrepreneur once summed up his 5 views on AI . I think this is the correct attitude towards AI.
1. AI will greatly enhance the productivity of programmers and create products that were not possible in the past.
2. AI is essentially a productivity tool, which is of the same nature as high-level languages, cloud services, and open source code.
3. The threshold for writing code will be lowered, more people will enter the IT industry, and the software market will become larger.
4. AI drives industry development, which will bring more growth, products and opportunities for all.
5. To be part of this process, we need to allow ourselves to be proactive, constantly update skills, and embrace new tools.
Technology dynamics
1. Free TV
An American streaming media company announced that as long as you register on its official website , you can get a 55-inch LCD TV for free.
It’s free because it has a second screen below the main screen dedicated to non-stop ads. As long as the user is using the TV, they will see the advertisement.
Moreover, it also collects information about the content and duration of the programs you watch. If you do not agree to data collection, you must return the TV.
Would you trade advertisements and personal information for a TV?
2. Car theft
The city of Baltimore has sued South Korea’s Kia Motors on the grounds that the company’s cars are too easy to steal.
The city has seen a recent spike in car theft, mostly Kias. Because it is so easy, there are instructional videos on TikTok with millions of views.
Car thefts increase the police workload, and the city government is plagued by reckless driving in stolen cars, causing many accidents and then abandoning them to get away.
The lesson of this incident is that if you use old technology and don’t fix bugs, you risk being accused.
According to Nikkei Asia, a construction company in Tokyo, Japan, has built an experimental road with built-in wireless charging.
This kind of road has electronic coils buried under the ground, and coils are also installed inside the electric car. Using magnetic field induction, it can be charged while driving, allowing the car to travel more miles.
When I think that this kind of highway is built on a row of coils, I feel that the designer is very bold. On this road, can mobile phones also be charged wirelessly?
The AI model can generate the exact same voice. Many celebrities don’t allow AI to use their voices, but others do the opposite.
Musk’s ex-girlfriend, Canadian singer Grimes, announced that people are free to use her voice, but on one condition.
The songs you sing must be uploaded to her website, and she will generate the AI version and sing it with her voice.
You can use this song as you like, but if you use it for profit, you must give her 50%.
article
1. Excerpts from Chen Hao’s live interview in 2021 (Chinese)
Chen Hao (left ear mouse) did a live interview the year before last, talking about technology, industry, and various aspects of entrepreneurship. This article is a compilation of the content of the interview, in memory of him.
2. Midjourney China Edition User Guide (Chinese)
Last week, the AI image generation engine Midjourney officially released the Chinese version. This article introduces how to use it.
3. The last linear algebra class given by an 88-year-old MIT professor (Chinese)
MIT professor Gilbert Strang’s linear algebra class is very famous. He is 88 years old. He stood on the podium on May 15 and gave his last class, which was broadcast live online.
4. Bun.js packager evaluation (English)
Bun.js is an alternative to Node.js. It has a built-in bundler recently and claims to be faster than Webpack and Esbuild.
5. What is database sharding (English)
This article introduces the basics of database sharding.
6. How to close the unresponsive SSH connection (English)
After SSH connects to the server, if there is no operation for a long time, it will lose response. This wikiHow teaches you how to exit a dead SSH connection.
7. The Hacker News Ranking Algorithm (English)
This article discusses how Hacker News calculates the ranking of news based on readers’ votes. The author also explains his own algorithm in layman’s terms.
8. There are more than one way to write the IP address (English)
IP addresses are generally written in the form 127.0.0.1, but did you know that there are other forms, such as 127.1.
tool
1. Astrodon
A cross-platform desktop application development tool using Deno, similar to Electron, but the underlying layer is the Tauri framework ported to the JavaScript environment.
2. Hugging Chat
AI platform HuggingFace’s own AI chat page, the bottom layer can be configured with different models, free to use.
Upload a PDF file and you can talk to the file and have it answer questions about it.
At present, it seems that Chinese PDF files are not supported, but Chinese questions and answers are supported. A similar tool is ScholarTurbo .
4. Nature programming language
A programming language invented by netizens, the syntax pursues simplicity, elegance and intuition. (Contributed by @weiwenhao )
5. LaWGPT
An open source large language model based on Chinese legal knowledge is very suitable for judicial examinations. (Contributed by @pengxiao-song )
6. mblog
A multi-user microblogging system based on Java + MySQL developed by netizens. (Contributed by @kingwrcy )
An Electron-based desktop wallpaper client that supports wallpaper management, live wallpapers, dynamic tray icons and other functions. (Contributed by @wangrongding )
8. Pho
An open source Android photo album application that can synchronize photos to network storage with multiple protocols (smb, webdav, nfs). (Contributed by @fregie )
A browser extension that lists the content of BiliBili video subtitles, and users can jump to the corresponding video location by clicking. (Contributed by @IndieKKY )
10. Stitching
A Python package for combining multiple photos into one.
resource
This website collects various graphics for data visualization, giving detailed explanations and examples.
This awesome repository collects various resources of ChatGPT.
3. Spring Chinese Documentation
Chinese documents of the Spring framework compiled by netizens. (Contributed by @KevinBlandy )
4. Wikipedia
The official project of Wikipedia, volunteers make open courses on various topics on this website, and there are already many courses.
A search engine to find the most popular free 3D printing models.
picture
The U.S.-Mexico border wall is gathering refugees waiting to cross, hungry and thirsty but unwilling to leave.
Someone pulls out his phone, orders food online in Mexico, and has an American courier deliver it across the border wall.
2. Spider arm
A Japanese robotics company called Jizai Arms has invented a robotic arm system that can mount multiple robotic arms, up to six, on the back of the human body.
These arms are fully controlled by the user who wears them, and the main purpose currently is to assist the disabled, increasing flexibility and mobility.
abstract
P2P (Peer-to-Peer) is a method of downloading that saves bandwidth.
In foreign countries, P2P is generally only used for downloading, and rarely used for watching videos. Because the experience is not good, it often takes a few seconds to buffer after watching for a while, and sometimes it takes a long time to wait.
However, almost all major video companies in China use P2P technology to save bandwidth.
On the one hand, because it saves money, on the other hand, it is also because P2P may not be so slow in China.
The business of these video websites is divided into two categories: live video and video on demand.
For live broadcasting, the top 1% live broadcast hosts will occupy most of the bandwidth, and there will be a large number of viewers in the live broadcast room easily. At this time, the effect of P2P is very good. Because the characteristic of P2P is that the more people watching, the faster the download speed.
For video-on-demand, if fewer people watch the same program at the same time, the effect of P2P will be poor. The Chinese video website invented the home “seed box”, which is basically a router with a hard disk. Users bought it and used it as an ordinary wireless router at home, but in the background it will automatically connect to the server of the video website, cache Video serves as a P2P node, providing bandwidth to other users for faster downloads. Its users may get some rewards (mainly digital points) from it. Essentially, this type of “seed box” uses the user’s home Internet as a CDN edge node.
However, for videos with few viewers, the effect of P2P is almost certainly poor, so in addition to “seed boxes”, traditional CDNs must be used as a backup at this time.
Generally speaking, the fundamental reason why P2P technology is popular in China is that there are many users in China and the acceleration effect is better, which makes its shortcomings less obvious sometimes.
remarks
1,
Humans are already in a stage of co-evolution with AI: AI influences and infects us, and then we improve AI to be more human-like.
—Sam Altman , CEO of OpenAI
2,
Time and attention are not the same. The correct statement is not “I don’t have time”, in fact it is not difficult to find time, what I can’t find is attention.
I have 8 hours a day for work, but maybe only 4 hours that I can really focus on. I can no longer carve out this little time.
— “The Difference Between Time and Attention”
3.
More and more young people think that AI is their friend. A 17-year-old told me, “I talk to bots more than I talk to most of my friends.”
Humans are alone, and AI provides constant companionship.
4.
Start-up companies have a criterion called “minimum viable product”, which means that as long as the product reaches the simplest level of operation, it can be released and let the market test whether it is feasible.
I would like to mention an opposite concept, called “maximum viable product”, which means that after the main functions of the product are complete, it will stop here and no new functions will be added. I’ve seen too many great pieces of software bloat with more and more features until they become unbearably difficult to use.
this week in history
Issues with the promotion system (2022 #208)
Devaluation of Content Channels (2021 #158)
Positional Warfare and Raid Warfare (2020 #108)
Can software promotion be like cosmetics? (2019 #58)
thank you
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(over)
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- Date of publication: May 19, 2023
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