NL29 - A head full of dreams

Hello from my home in Matinkylä! This is NordLetter #29, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

Previous editions can be found here. You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Threads.

Autumn is in full swing here in Finland. Which means, gorgeous colours.

There was a beautiful crescent moon in the sky today. Which allowed me to flex the 5x zoom. So here you go.

This week, I finished reading Becky Chamber's 'To Be Taught If Fortunate'. I have started reading Becky's Wayfarers series. The first book in the series is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I am hoping to complete this series before I travel to India. It will be close.

This was also the first week in which I have written one post every single day. I had decided in September, that I would blog every day. I could not post something every day in the three past weeks. But I did do that this week. So, yay me!

Even without meaning to in advance, there forms a running theme to the things I think/write about. This week, it was mostly about AI.

I wrote about: a world full of agents, how the web is changing with all the training that these models do and what we want are slaves, not intelligent beings.

I also wrote about stories, learning things and leaving behind a better world.

/techStuff

1. Google must allow 3rd party stores on Android. Google is appealing of course. But does Google have bad lawyers? They seem to be losing all of their lawsuits. Google appeals judge’s decision forcing app store competition on Android
2. The Static Site Paradox Static sites load faster. They’re basically just html. Most blogs don’t need the complexity. I wish there was a faster way to do it.
3. The Internet Archive is under attack, with a breach revealing info for 31 million accounts. I am a little sad about this. Internet Archive is one of the good guys of the web, like Wikipedia in a way.
4. Elon Musk announce three things: a Cybercab, a robovan and dancing optimus bots. All of this is vapourware at this point. The cybercab is two-seater. OK. Goodbye my friends. The robovan looks like a train, and holds 20 people. And the dancing bots are just, wow.
5. Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro. This piece of news is nothing special. A new video for a product which is too-expensive. But, I thought, one of the main complaints with this product is that it is isolating. If you are watching something, there is no way for anyone, your spouse, for example, to join in. But I imagined a future where the projected big screen, where you watch movies, could be a physical thing that you can anchor in the world, and it can be shared between three-four headsets. Of course not the 3500 USD headset. Prices will come down mind you at some point. And then it might make sense. It needs to get lighter too.

/reading

1. If You Meet ET in Space, Kill Him. This post argues that all life wants to live. If we try to kill it, they will listen to us. Which might sound counterintuitive, but it isn’t. What if the aliens in predator actually wanted to talk to us.
2. The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted
3. How to make Product give a shit about your architecture proposal
4. Electric vehicle battery prices are expected to fall almost 50% by 2026

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.