Something Different #2
Hello! Given that ..nothing at all.. has happened over the past week or two I said now would be an objectively rational time to share another update (a la something different).
Firstly, some thoughts.
This whole thing has been growing much faster than I expected, I’ve had some time to reflect on the “why”. I promise (hope?) this paragraph has not wandered itself into this post as a thinly veiled “humble brag”, but rather, as a brief, ~unconventional, take.
For really the first time, I’m writing in a purely self-serving way. What primer will I write next? Whatever complex topic I find satiating. When will I release it? Whenever I feel the pull to do so.
I’ve found that this mindset has removed all of the (self-inflicted) pressure that comes with running this type of thing. Which has, ironically, made me more consistent. Go forth, and write selfishly!
** Updates. What I’ve been up to, etc. **
Ok, I will cede to recency bias and give a brief shoutout to the wonderful team at Charm. A friend mentioned them last Friday + I spent more time than I care to admit last weekend tinkering around with their various CLI libraries.
Here’s a shell script I wrote with Charm (well, gum) that enables any of you that are new here to subscribe to Why Now. ! How convenient !
#!/bin/sh | |
CHOOSE=$(gum choose "subscribe" "follow me on twitter" "subscribe" "follow me on twitter") | |
SCOPE=$(gum input --placeholder "reason for subscribing?") | |
SUMMARY=$(gum input --placeholder "favorite dev tool?") | |
gum confirm "Subscribe to Why Now? Really?" && open https://whynowtech.substack.com/ |
I also stumbled upon some of Basement’s work (that GameCube throwback 🥲) who have worked with the likes of Vercel, Scale + MrBeast. This led me down the rabbit hole of finally tinkering around with three.js: mack.work/cube.html.
Here’s the code if, you too, want a rotating cube on your site.
Modeling in 3D again brought back a bunch of nostalgia — I used to design YouTube intros using Cinema 4D in my early teens. Long ..really cool.. story. So I decided to pick up Blender a couple of weeks ago.
** Thankfully, I also spent every other waking moment of my youth playing rugby **
I am generally a fan of “serious software” like Blender, Godot, and After Effects, where you can granularly edit every property, pannel, view, etc. Having a lot of fun (pain) atm modeling a 3D Gengar which will replace my rotating cube! </rip>
Blender is very much the deep end though. Bezel +/ Spline does a good job of abstracting some of the complexity of 3D away if any of you are interested in dabbling too.
I, almost contemporaneously, came across Kyle at Banana.dev’s “let’s build the internet from scratch!” series of live streams. Highly recommend.
There’s something to watching someone iterate on their understanding of a technology live vs. reading a polished primer (guilty) async.
Hardware folk, I have something for you — as a result of the above thought, I picked up the Razor Kiyo Pro and Razor Seiren X condenser capsule. The condenser mic has a “super cardioid” pickup pattern, meaning that it picks up audio from the front, but suppresses audio from the side/back.
..I also definitely didn’t pick up a 12” ring light which is kind enough to accommodate 192 LEDs..
The thought here is that I may emulate Kyle’s approach & occasionally release a “raw” mack.work primer! Figured it may be interesting, if not voyeuristic, for some to see the trials and tribulations (Wikipedia) I go through when learning something new.
** Why Now **
Given all of the work/thinking I’ve been doing in the realm of computer graphics of late, I think it’d be remiss of me to not tackle WebGPU.
Here are some of the other technologies I’ve been looking into recently:
Mongo’s queryable encryption. A bit of a fallacy? Maybe. But, all roads lead to FHE, IMO.
Nextflow: a bioinformatics workflow scheduler. *Broadly* similar to Lyft’s Flyte (which I believe LatchBio uses).
Unison: a whole new approach to distributed computing. Worth digging into this over an afternoon. I may revisit this in a future primer.
Kindelia: an arguably more fundamental model of computation — Interaction Combinators. This admittedly took me a while to grok but was a lot of fun.
Wireguard: something hoping to eat OpenVPN’s lunch. A simple yet fast and modern VPN that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography.
I’d love your thoughts on the above + I’m always open to suggestions. Feel free to say hello at alex[at]tapestry[dot]vc or on the thread associated with this newsletter.
Thanks for reading as always + lmk what you think of these occasional updates/polls.
If you have a friend that you think may enjoy reading future primers with a sprinkle of some Irish self-disparagement, I’d appreciate you sharing this newsletter with them.