Let’s start with some fun

This newsletter gets dark quickly, so first something to enjoy.

Farrago 2 soundboard for Mac arrives with 50 new features including Shortcuts and Stream Deck integration →

Rogue Amoeba is releasing a major update to Farrago, the great soundboard app for Mac. Farrago 2.0 includes 50 new features ranging from fun emoji art to well-designed Stream Deck interactivity.

Thanks for reading Chinchilla Squeaks! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Microsoft is busy rewriting core Windows code in memory-safe Rust →

Microsoft is rewriting core Windows libraries in the Rust programming language, and the more memory-safe code is already reaching developers.

David Rumsey Map Collection →

111,792 RESULTS Media Type Year Collection Creator Language

Tech makes cutbacks

For years we’ve told people with less job prospects to “learn to code”, now tie cutbacks and AI, what do we tell people instead?

Learning to code isn’t enough →

A decade ago, tech powerhouses the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon helped boost the nonprofit Code.org, a learn-to-code program with a vision: “That every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science as part of their core K–12 education.

Tech companies are finally firing tech workers →

Software engineers made up the biggest portion of tech layoffs in 2023. That advice is starting to feel even less welcome.

Amazon and Microsoft’s AI Gains Mask Cloud Slowdown →

(Bloomberg) -- The buzz around artificial intelligence that’s helped juice gains for Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. this year may also be masking struggles in a business far more critical to the pair’s bottom lines.

AI, when and where will it stop?

Palantir Demos AI to Fight Wars But Says It Will Be Totally Ethical Don’t Worry About It →

Palantir, the company of billionaire Peter Thiel, is launching Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), software meant to run large language models like GPT-4 and alternatives on private networks. In one of its pitch videos, Palantir demos how a military might use AIP to fight a war.

The first babies conceived with a sperm-injecting robot have been born →

Last spring, engineers in Barcelona packed up the sperm-injecting robot they’d designed and sent it by DHL to New York City.

Why I'm no longer writing stories with AI →

Preface: Stories by AI is on hiatus. We may or may not be back soon. If you’d be interesting in writing stories for us, get in touch! contact@storiesby.ai I won’t be publishing any more stories with storiesby.ai. What was once a quirky lark of a side-side-project hits darker now.

Thanks for reading Chinchilla Squeaks! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to d