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Transcript for Changelog News #126
Jerod Santo:
What up, nerds? I'm Jerod and this is Changelog News for the week of Monday, January 6th, 2025.
Well, how did your 2024 `exit`? Did you close open file descriptors, delete temporary files & free allocated memory? Or was it more of a seg fault & core dump kinda finish? I'm still holding on to a couple of loose threads, but I managed to return 0 & I'm ready to execute again.
So, let's get into this week's news.
Break:
Jerod Santo:
[10 big predictions for 2025](https://spyglass.org/10-big-predictions-for-2025/)
Tech journalist, M.G. Siegler, goes way out on a limb with some BIG predictions of things that *could* happen this year, one of which he believes has a chance... 😆
Here's his list, with all reasoning removed (because why not, right?)
1. Apple buys an AI company
2. Someone buys Warner Bros Discovery
3. Intel gets bailed out
4. Elon Musk bails on the White House
5. Amazon's Alexa overhaul proves less than "remarkable"
6. Microsoft and OpenAI kiss and make up, or break up
7. NVIDIA comes back to Earth, a bit
8. Threads passes Xitter in active users
9. Google starts to feel real pressure on search
10. Mark Zuckerberg unchained
Some of these sound not too outlandish to me. Specifically, I can see numbers 1, 4, 5, 7 & 9 happening. What do you think?
Break:
Jerod Santo:
[Things we learned about LLMs in 2024](https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/llms-in-2024/)
Simon Willison's year-end roundup is a must-read and perhaps the only thing you have to read to get up-to-speed on the state of the LLM. He also comments on much of the *commentary* around LLMs, which I whole-heartedly agree with:
> I think telling people that this whole field is environmentally catastrophic plagiarism machines that constantly make things up is doing those people a disservice, no matter how much truth that represents. There is genuine value to be had here, but getting to that value is unintuitive and needs guidance.
>
> Those of us who understand this stuff have a duty to help everyone else figure it out.
Break:
Jerod Santo:
[An unreasonable amount of time](https://allenpike.com/2024/an-unreasonable-amount-of-time)
Allen Pike describes a method for magic:
> The pianist whose fingers seem supernaturally nimble, the presenter whose message seems viscerally compelling, and the artist whose paintings seem impossibly realistic all wield the same magic: they’ve invested more time than you’d expect.
>
> It can be difficult, psychologically, to commit yourself to spend an extreme amount of time and attention towards a goal, no matter how worthwhile. Doing impossible things feels, well, impossible.
Allen also provides a formula for getting over the fear of commitment. I'll give you a hint: it's similar to the formula for eating an elephant...
Break:
Jerod Santo:
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Break:
Jerod Santo:
[The magic of small databases](https://tomcritchlow.com/2023/01/27/small-databases/)
Tom Critchlow:
> We’ve built many tools for publishing to the web - but I want to make the claim that we have underdeveloped the tools and platforms for publishing collections, indexes and small databases. It’s too hard to build these kinds of experiences, too hard to maintain them and a lack of collaborative tools.
He goes on to think through what's needed in this space, list existing tools / examples & make this overall point:
> I want to empower more individuals to publish, maintain and collaborate on small indexes. To build a million tiny libraries, community databases, weird collections and indie indexes.
Break:
Jerod Santo:
[Parkinson's Law: It's real, so use it](https://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/parkinsons-law-its-real-so-use-it)
Parkinson's Law (work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion) is counter-intuitive, but that doesn't make it wrong! This is why I've staked the claim that [arbitrary deadlines are actually awesome](https://changelog.com/posts/arbitrary-deadlines-are-actually-awesome) & it's why James Stanier agrees with me:
> Projects that don't have deadlines imposed on them, even if they are self-imposed, will take a lot longer than they need to, and may suffer from feature creep and scope bloat.
>
> By setting challenging deadlines you will actually get better results. It's all about manipulating the Iron Triangle of scope, resources, and time.
I wish it weren't true, but it is. Deadlines *really* help human beings get things done. Acknowledge it. Embrace it. Use it.
Break:
Jerod Santo:
That's the news for now, but also scan the companion newsletter for even more stories worth your attention. Like hitting OKRs vs doing your job, nobody gets fired for picking JSON, but maybe they should, and the Ghosts in Spotify's Machine.
ICYMI, our last episodes of 2024 were a couple of bangers! Our final interview was with Mitchell Hashimoto talking Ghostty, which is publicly available now, btw, and our final Friends was state of the "log" 2024 with 12 listener voicemails + BMC remixes. Scroll back in your feed if you haven't listened to those yet, and hang tight for some awesome pods this week as well: On Interviews, [Rachel Plotnick](https://rachelplotnick.com) joins us to talk buttons, knobs & switches, and on Friends: It's only [Mat Ryer](https://github.com/matryer) with his guitar & a list of ridiculous topics to discuss
Have a great week! Leave us a 5-star review if you dig our work, and I'll talk to you again real soon.