

Coder Radio
The Mad Botter
A weekly talk show taking a pragmatic look at the art and business of Software Development and the world of technology.
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 3, 2023 • 1h
516: There is No Moat
Why open source might be the real AI winner long-term, and Mike gets the ultimate "I told you so."Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:Jupiter Jobs Matrix Chat RoomThere is No Moat Document — An interesting paper from a googler working in research has published an internal paper on how ChatGPT & Bard will essentially be won out by Open Source LLM's‘Godfather of AI’ quits Google with regrets and fears about his life’s work — Geoffrey Hinton who won the ‘Nobel Prize of computing’ for his trailblazing work on neural networks is now free to speak about the risks of AI.Geoffrey Hinton on Twitter — In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.Nathan 🔍on Twitter — To me, Altman's credence seems over 1 in 1000. He thinks "the bad case" is important to say.nxthompson on Twitter — Wow. Geoff Hinton, one of the most important founders of AI, leaves his job so he can speak out about the potential for harm. "“I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have."Big Tech Earnings Spark Hope That Worst Is Over — Shares rise on better-than-expected results, but growth lags behind what Microsoft, Amazon and Google did in pastNews Analysis: Big Tech Shows Signs Of Stability — With just Apple left to report in the tech earnings season, three major trends have emergedAlby: Your Boost companion for the web — Create an Alby Account to get a lightning wallet for payments wherever you go. Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.

Apr 26, 2023 • 56min
515: Codeium Comes for Copilot
We have a laugh at Elon's alt account, why the knives are out for GitHub Co-pilot, and our thoughts on Apple's "major victory" this week.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:Olympia Linux Spring Meetup , Sat, Apr 29 — Let's get together at a local hidden gem, the Boston Harbor Marina.
A classic location, with a covered deck on the water with a snack shack, and easy parking.The Serfs on Twitter — Elon Musk has allegedly revealed a secret alt account where he pretends to be a child version of himself posting a lot of bizarre sexual contentShashank Joshi on Twitter — “FTX was a preoccupation for the [Elon Musk burner account] @ErmnMusk account, which interacted with conspiracy theories—one saying that FTX was a middle party to laundering funds through Ukraine for U.S. Democrats”mousedownmike follows up on a series of topics! — ChatGPT summary and entire email with full context.Apple’s App Store can stay closed, but developers can link to outside payments, says appeals cour — Apple’s closed App Store and security restrictions didn’t violate antitrust law but that Apple couldn’t maintain anti-steering rules that prevent users from learning about alternate payment options.Apple declares victory after decision reached in Epic Games appeal — The decision signals that Apple’s control over the App Store and the fees it charges likely won’t significantly change as a result of an ongoing legal challenge by Epic Games.GitHub Copilot Emits GPL. Codeium Does Not — TL;DR GitHub Copilot trains on GPL code and its nonpermissive filters don’t actually work, while we at Codeium have removed GPL licensed code from our training data, guaranteeing peace of mind to our users.Immersed — Spawn up to 5 virtual monitors from your computer into VR without any additional hardware! Alby: Your Boost companion for the web — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.

Apr 19, 2023 • 51min
514: Designing a Villain
Elon launches another AI company, leaks suggest Apple might enable sideloading, and why we should let Chaos-GPT run free.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:Olympia Linux Spring Meetup , Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 1:00 P — Let's have a local PNW get-together. Espanso — A Privacy-first, Cross-platform Text ExpanderWWDC iOS 17 announcements may include sideloading — In the case of iOS and iPadOS, they "aren't likely to offer major new features." But, they will apparently "satisfy a checklist of user requests with more minor improvements." iOS 17 to Support App Sideloading to Comply With European Regulations — Apple in iOS 17 will for the first time allow iPhone users to download apps hosted outside of its official App Store, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Amazon CodeWhisperer — Build applications faster and more securely with your AI coding companionAmazon's new AI coding tool has one HUGE advantage over Microsoft's GitHub CopilotNow in Preview – Amazon CodeWhisperer- ML-Powered Coding CompanionElon Musk launches AI company — Elon Musk has launched an artificial intelligence company called X.AI, incorporated in Nevada, The Wall Street Journal reported FridayIntroducing the Tailscale Universal Docker Mod — Today, we're introducing a new way to add Tailscale to your Docker containers: our brand new universal Docker mod. Auto-GPT — Auto-GPT is an experimental open-source application showcasing the capabilities of the GPT-4 language model. This program, driven by GPT-4, chains together LLM "thoughts", to autonomously achieve whatever goal you set. As one of the first examples of GPT-4 running fully autonomously, Auto-GPT pushes the boundaries of what is possible with AI.Meet Chaos-GPT — Chaos-GPT, an autonomous implementation of ChatGPT, has been unveiled, and its objectives are as terrifying as they are well-structured. ChaosGPT on Twitter — @chaos_gptTwitter commands and script for AutoGPTCompanies will have to scale up resources in trust and safety areas for A.I. — Rob Leathern, former Google vice president of product management and former Meta senior director of product and business integrity, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss A.I. regulation, the need for transparency in A.I. development, and more. Alby: Your Boost companion for the web — Create an Alby Account to get a lightning wallet for payments wherever you go. Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.ctop: Top-like interface for container metrics — ctop provides a concise and condensed overview of real-time metrics for multiple containers:chatbot-ui — An open-source ChatGPT UI that sits on top of the openAI API.

Apr 12, 2023 • 55min
513: Apple's Golden Hour
Forces beyond Apple's control just reined in their rise, and we ponder the coming sunset.
Plus, the tool we found uses ChatGPT to help you debug errors.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:Olympia Linux Spring Meetup , Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 1:00 PM — Let's have a local PNW get-together. We haven't picked exactly where yet. But we know it will be in Olympia!Burglars steal $500K from Apple store after cutting hole in adjacent store\ — They've never dealt with anything like this in their five years in business at the mall, he said.VS Code snippet generator — Fill out the form to generate a JSON snippet. Double quotes are automatically escaped and the body is automatically split into a string array.Another snippet generator(multiple apps) — VScode, Sublime Text, and Atom.Apple's Mac shipments fall more than 40% — Apple Mac shipments fell 40.5% in the first quarter of 2023, compared with the same time the prior year, market intelligence provider IDC said.TSMC Sales Miss for Second Straight Quarter — TSMC relies on consumer hardware like iPhones to drive salesApple Flexes Muscle as Quiet Power Behind App Developer Group — Company funds more than half of group’s budget, shapes goals.Tim Sweeney on Twitter — Here’s Apple’s fake “small app developer” lobby again using small app developers as human shields to defend its monopoly, misportraying its opposition as larger corporations. Pure, shameless deception by a multi trillion dollar corporation.DoctorGPT brings GPT into production for debuging! — DoctorGPT is a lightweight self-contained binary that monitors your application logs for problems and diagnoses them.Why is it called Python? — When he began implementing Python, Guido van Rossum was also reading the published scripts from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, a BBC comedy series from the 1970s. Van Rossum thought he needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious, so he decided to call the language Python.Alby: Your Boost companion for the web — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.chatbot-ui: An open source ChatGPT UI. — Chatbot UI is an advanced chatbot kit for OpenAI's chat models built on top of Chatbot UI Lite using Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS.

Apr 5, 2023 • 60min
512: The Hysterics Chronicles
Our thoughts on the recent AI hysteria and why it betrays the massive egos involved, our issues with the RESTRICT Act, and we do some Monday morning code review.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:Jupiter Broadcasting Meetup — Two meetups coming up in April.ChatGPT banned in Italy — The country’s data protection authorities said AI service would be blocked and investigated over privacy concerns.Elon Musk joins call for pause in creation of giant AI ‘digital minds' — “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”The Only Way to Deal With the Threat From AI? Shut It Down — We are not ready. We are not on track to be significantly readier in the foreseeable future. If we go ahead on this everyone will die, including children who did not choose this and did not do anything wrong.the-algorithm — The Twitter Recommendation Algorithm is a set of services and jobs that are responsible for constructing and serving the Home Timeline.Twitter posts the code it claims determines which tweets people see, and why — Posted algorithm code includes "is_democrat," "is_republican," and "is_elon."“Patriot Act on steroids”: Left and right unite against "fear-mongering" TikTok ban — Digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a sober rebuke of the legislation Thursday, saying the measure fails to protect private user information.Text - S.686 - RESTRICT Act — To authorize the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries, and for other purposes.The RESTRICT Act Would Restrict a Lot More Than TikTok — The RESTRICT Act has been garnering bipartisan momentum in the Senate, as well as backing from the Biden administrationThe U.S. Restrict Act ExplainedStop the RESTRICT Act and Pass Real Privacy LegislationAlby: Your Boost companion for the web — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.

Mar 29, 2023 • 57min
511: Robot Chat Shack
Mike's spent 90+ days with GitHub Co-Pilot, and shares the surprising conclusion.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:90+ Days With Github Co-Pilo — Today, I want to talk about a tool that has been making waves in the programming community lately – Github Co-Pilot.Introducing GitHub Copilot X — With chat and terminal interfaces, support for pull requests, and early adoption of OpenAI’s GPT-4, GitHub Copilot X is our vision for the future of AI-powered software development. Integrated into every part of your workflow.Nextcloud Ethical AI Rating — Now that Hub 4 has been released, it’s time to introduce the Nextcloud Ethical AI Rating. RadioGPT — GPT powered Radio DJAlby — Lightning for your Browser! — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.LinuxFest Northwest 2023 — October 20-22, 2023 Bellingham Technical College Podverse — Open source podcast app. Available for iOS, Android, F-Droid, and web. #FOSS #AGPLv3

Mar 22, 2023 • 49min
510: Edge of Disaster
Microsoft's moonshot is turning into a crapshoot.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:Berlin Meet Up, Fri, Mar 24, 2023 — Join Brent for an impromptu, short-notice, Nextcloud-esque meetup in Berlin!Berlin Buddies Matrix Chatroom — A room to organize Jupiter Broadcasting fans in Berlin.LinuxFest Northwest Matrix Chatroom — A chat community built around LinuxFest NorthwestJobs chatroom on Matrix — Hiring? Looking for work? Make a Matrix Connection! Ken Thompson - SCaLE 20x - YouTube — We're honored to have Ken Thompson joining us for our closing keynote at SCALE 20x. Ken Co-created Unix, UTF-8, Go and a number of other technologies that are foundational to our community.UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson is… a what user?Microsoft is testing a built-in crypto wallet in Microsoft Edge — Microsoft sleuth Albacore who first spotted the new Edge Crypto Wallet tweeted some screenshots and expressed his puzzlement about the possibility of it ending up as a new Microsoft Edge feature.Albacore on Twitter — Newest in the gauntlet of questionable upcoming Microsoft Edge features, a crypto wallet 💸Microsoft Edge now has a Bing AI chatbot sidebar — The new sidebar appears as a big Bing button at the top left of Edge,Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Announces an Additional 9,000 Layoffs — This recent round of layoffs will affect departments like Amazon Web Services, human resources, advertising, and Twitch live streaming.SVB employees blame remote work for bank failure — SVB included remote work as a risk to its business in its 2022 annual report — in part because of the IT issues posed when employees are dispersed around the country, but also for productivity reasons.Mark Zuckerberg says engineers who joined Meta in-person perform better than those who joined remotely — Pointing to “early analysis” of internal performance data, Zuckerberg said that engineers who started out at Meta in a fully in-person capacity before transitioning to a remote role, as well as those who have remained in an in-person role, “performed better on average than people who joined remotely.”It's time for open-source users to open their walletsAge of Easy Money (full documentary) | FRONTLINE — High inflation. Fear of recession. Disruptions, like the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. How did the U.S. economy get here? A two-hour documentary special traces the road to this moment, and the role of the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank.Fed Panics, Announces "Coordinated" Daily US Dollar Swap Lines To Ease Banking Crisis | ZeroHedge — Sunday 5 pm the Fed announced "coordinated central bank action to enhance the provision of U.S. dollar liquidity" by opening daily Dollar Swap lines with all major central banks, in a carbon copy repeat of the Fed's panicked post-covid crisis policy response playbook.Alby — Lightning for your Browser! — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.

Mar 15, 2023 • 43min
509: The Great Cloud Exodus
We're told companies are abandoning the cloud to save money. But is the trend our friend?Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:LinuxFest Northwest 2023 — October 20-22, 2023 Bellingham Technical CollegeWe stand to save $7m over five years from our cloud exit — The rough math goes like this: We spent $3.2m on cloud in 2022. Just under a million of that was on storing 8 petabytes of files in S3, fully replicated across several regions. So that leaves ~$2.3m on everything else: app servers, cache servers, database servers, search servers, the works. That's the part of the budget we intend to bring to zero in 2023. Then we'll worry about exiting the 8PB from S3 in 2024.White House endorses Senate TikTok bill, urges Congress to pass soon — The RESTRICT Act would empower the Commerce Secretary to mitigate “undue or unacceptable risk” to national security posed by technology transactions in which foreign adversaries have an interest.Text of the Bill [PDF] — LEW23098 - restrict_act_final_text.pdfThe White House is Reportedly Pushing For More Power to Deal with TikTok — Many are concerned about how broad the bill is. Some fear this could give the federal government vast new powers over all social media. Many, though, agree something needs to be done about TikTok.Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on the Introduction of the RESTRICT Act | The White House — We applaud the bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senators Warner and Thune, who today introduced the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act. This legislation would empower the United States government to prevent certain foreign governments from exploiting technology services operating in the United States in a way that poses risks to Americans’ sensitive data and our national security. We Found 28,000 Apps Sending Data to TikTok. — TikTok’s software development kits could undermine Joe Biden's order to stop internet traffic flowing from federal employees' phones to TikTok within 30 days.Alby — Lightning for your Browser! — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.P0302 Code - What It MeansOffice Hours on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First, top-up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.

Mar 14, 2023 • 51min
508: Hybrid Hangover
Our spicy take on the Silicon Valley Bank bailout, how it will impact everyday developers, and how badly this screws over small businesses.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:LinuxFest Northwest 2023 — LFNW October 20-22, 2023 Bellingham Technical CollegeUS guarantees all deposits after Silicon Valley Bank collapse, as Biden promises action — Announcement comes as Signature Bank was closed on Sunday by regulators – the second to fail in a weekU.S. government takes control of Silicon Valley Bank — This is the largest bank failure since Washington Mutual in 2008.The fault, dear VCs, is not in your stars — As the news of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse reverberates through the technology ecosystem — and investors and founders alike furiously Google terms such as “available-for-sale” and “held-to-maturity” — even some of our most prominent financiers, like ‘PayPal Mafia’ member David Sacks, are learning once again how banks work, the hard way.The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) — In fact, Silicon Valley Bank has been technically insolvent for months.Home Depot Founder Tells Americans To "Wake Up" After Silicon Valley Bank Collapse — “I feel bad for all of these people that lost all their money in this woke bank. You know, it was more distressing to hear that the bank officials sold off their stock before this happened. It’s depressing to me,” Gabor Gurbacs on Twitter — This is how the Fed rug-pulled banks and depositors, 4 times in a rowThe Kobeissi Letter on Twitter — TIMELINE OF SILICON VALLEY BANK, $SIVB, COLLAPSERoku says 26% cash reserves stuck in Silicon Valley Bank — Around $487 million, or 26%, of Roku’s cash reserves are stuck at Silicon Valley Bank, the streamer said in a Friday SEC filing."Expect Mass Layoffs..." - The Real-World Impact Of SVB's Failure — Reality is that the contagion of the shuttering of the 18th largest bank in the US are widespread.2023 State of Software Engineers Data Report + Survey Results — Knocking Go to fourth place, Ruby on Rails surfaced as the most in-demand skill for software engineering roles, creating 1.64x more interview requests for the developers proficient in it.Alby — Lightning for your Browser! — Alby brings Boosts to the web.Coder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost into the show via the web. First top up Alby, then head over to our entry on the Podcast Index.

Mar 4, 2023 • 58min
507: Tough Little Liver
Mike's got a new rig, and Ford wants to recall yours automatically! Plus, we get a bit spicy about money.Sponsored By:Linode: Receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account. Promo Code: linode.com/coderTailscale: Tailscale is the easiest way to create a peer-to-peer network with the power of Wireguard. Links:The Coder Robe — The Coder Robe is black and is a one-size-fits-most robe made from 100% cotton terry velour for soft, cozy wear. It is embroidered on the left chest with a classic white on black Coder Radio logo.Path of TitansFord Applies for Patent to Let Cars Repossess Themselves — Ford filed the patent application with the US Trademark and Patent Office in the summer of 2021, but the document was only published last week as part of the review process. Titled “Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle,” the application summarizes a system that would autonomize the repossession process. First, a computer (likely associated with a financing agency) would send a message to the purchaser or lessee of a vehicle informing them of their delinquency. This message would contain a request to confirm receipt.
Ford files patent for system that could remotely repossess a car — Ford says it has no plans to deploy such a system; it just files a lot of patents.Hastings’ Lessons From the Grave — At the time of Hastings’ death, counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke told The Huffington Post that it was possible that Hastings’ car had been hacked; that the known details of the crash were consistent with a car cyber attack.Amazon HQ2 Pauses Construction Amid Layoffs, Remote Work — The delay affects a larger phase across the street. It calls for three, 22-story office towers and the 350-foot-tall (107-meter) Helix, a corporate conference center and indoor garden designed to echo the Spheres, plant-filled orbs at the heart of the company’s Seattle headquarters. Arlington officials granted the 2.8-million-square-foot project, called PenPlace, its most important approval in April.Alby — Lightning for your Browser! — Alby brings Boosts to the webCoder Radio on the Podcastindex.org — Send a Boost from the Podcast Index, first top up Alby, then visit our entry on the Inex, you can Boost right from the web page.