🌶️ Hot Fudge Sunday for 2024-08-18

August 18, 2024

🙏 A big thank you to our sponsors. 🙏
(Scroll to the end…)

Fudge Factor 🤔💡🤯🤓

Fudge Factor 🤔💡🤯🤓 is the newsletter and blog of Jay Cuthrell.

Track histogram — Nobody puts baby (Quantum) in the corner?

Okay. Let’s dig in…

Funds, Funding, and M&A

https://www.techmeme.com/240813/p16#a240813p16

💰 + 👮‍♂️ There is probably a slice of the funding data from the origins of various Lord of the Rings named companies that could summarize how effective these founders have become at convincing US Government to part with constituent tax dollars while simultaneously claiming the US Government wastes constituent tax dollars. 💸

https://www.techmeme.com/240812/p25#a240812p25

🤑 + 💳 This could have been a lyric to an Alanis Morissette song.

https://www.techmeme.com/240812/p2#a240812p2

💶 + 🤓 It is important to remember that there is more to the world of startups and technology than just Silicon Valley.

https://www.techmeme.com/240809/p22#a240809p22

💰 + 🤖 Seeing the DevX aka developer experience companies getting funding means that software development is going to become even more interesting in the coming years.

https://www.techmeme.com/240809/p13#a240809p13

💰 + 🤖 Again, DevX is happening and the notion of being a software developer ONLY for a technology company is on a slow decline as more kinds of companies just happen to become more technology oriented.

🤪 Wacky Wednesday for 2024-08-14

Explore the wild and wacky world of shared links from online Slack communities.

One unique thing about online Slack Communities is the use of #random channel. Sometimes you come across some real gems.

Each week I go through dozens of Slack communities and select the most interesting shared links found. This will be a safe for work list.

Join me in this collection of what is being shared that is wow, wild, wtf, and wacky each Wednesday.

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/mayonnaise-may-unlock-never-unstable-nuclear-fusion

But if you watched Disney movies from the late 1970s… you may know the “mayonnaise” (13m 20s) story already… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NfQSurV6Ck&t=800s

https://dfarq.homeip.net/andy-warhols-lost-amiga-art-found/

https://www.theonion.com/cia-realizes-its-been-using-black-highlighters-all-thes-1819568147

🔙 Throwback Thursday for 2024-08-15

Throwback Thursday is based upon the classic Fudge Sunday Weekly newsletter sections for "Shot and Chaser". Basically, this is a look back at a prior prediction or past news coverage and how that worked out in the present.

Past examples of "Shot and Chaser" included embedding tweets. However, as I come across tweets in my newsletter archive, I find the change in Twitter ownership, removed URLs (link rot), and transitions between newsletter platforms rendered this content difficult or, sadly, impossible to follow.

Thankfully, there is Techmeme. Techmeme is pretty great at historical views.

For example, if you were to look back twenty years ago, the first year of LinkedIn was probably slow until it wasn’t. But if you look back almost fifteen years ago, you’d probably wonder how much more LinkedIn could grow from their 2011 success of reaching 100 Millions users globally.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/22/boom-professional-social-network-linkedin-passes-100-million-members/

Today, there are reportedly ~200 Million users of LinkedIn just within the United States.

This week, the attention of tech journalists turned to the growing contributions by influencers and A.I. generated (amplified?) content (noise?) in this increasingly popular destination.

https://www.techmeme.com/240811/p6#a240811p6

✅ Final Thoughts Friday for 2024-08-16

As a reminder, I’ve committed to four events for the remainder of this year.

AI Field Day 5 in Silicon Valley September 11-13, 2024 for Tech Field Day
Monktoberfest in Portland October 2-4, 2024
Cloud Field Day 21 in Silicon Valley October 23-25, 2024 for Tech Field Day
All Things Open in Raleigh October 27-29, 2024 for CLS
SXSW in Austin March 7 - 15, 2025

Speaking of SXSW, I organized an awesome panel with amazing speakers on an amazing topic. I’d appreciate you voting (registering to vote is free) for this panel.

The week in review for me is being thankful for new client work, cooler weather, and catching up with folks. As I decide what the longer term fate of these daily updates and weekly digests become, I’ll probably use this section for a “me” update of sorts.

Switching gears, the bigger tech stories this week seemed to be Patreon (and Apple), Google Gemini, FTC actions on fake reviews, A.I. safety bill contraction, and CHIPS Act grants. My thinking is this:

At some point, deleting the Patreon app is an option as is providing feedback to companies like Patreon to encourage eschewing app investments to instead focus on making far greater value open web first designs that walled garden handheld tiny screen experiences cannot easily match.
Gemini is useful in the Google ecosystem. The demos seem very cool (even the ones that failed) but will it be an iOS experience?
One of the reasons I stopped using Amazon for e-commerce was the reviews seemed remotely authentic, and that was probably 10 years ago — so it highlights just how slow legislation and regulation are relative to the speed of technology.
It was probably inevitable that the first wave of AI safety bills in the United States would be watered down or cut back in response to a whole host of objections that either came directly from the industry or via proxy and likely lobby related communications.
Seeing CHIPS grants happen is exciting and I hope the investments turn into a story that we look back up on fondly — even if I was probably a few years ahead of my time.

https://www.techmeme.com/240812/p17#a240812p17

https://www.techmeme.com/240813/p32#a240813p32

https://www.techmeme.com/240814/p32#a240814p32

https://www.techmeme.com/240815/p29#a240815p29

https://www.techmeme.com/240816/p4#a240816p4

🔮 Sneak Peak Saturday for 2024-08-10

Peak 🏔️ vs. Peek 👀

By Friday, everything seems to be reaching the peak of getting news turned in before a deadline or dread-line. It sometimes seems like we reach a fever pitch in news coverage throughout the week.

Then there is a trope, cliché, or bromide about slow news days and the quietly mentioned news updates sent on a Friday — to try and sneak it past wider coverage. Or, in a nutshell, peak patronizing publishing.

In that spirit, here are a few stories that you might have missed on the slow news of a Friday.