[2024-11-29 Fri] Weekly Links

Zepyr Project Developer Advocate Benjamin Cabé takes us through demos of some of the most exciting new features in Release 4.0, including a new secure storage subsystem, haptics, video and many more additions. Of particular interest to me was the new stepper device driver subsystem (and I wonder if this means I’m no longer on the hook to release my very delayed part 7 of the ESP32/Zephyr tutorial series on YouTube?)

Video | Announcement | Release Notes | Community Q&A Video

FreeCAD has been my go-to tool for 3D-printing designs for many years. However, there have been two outstanding features that I have been waiting for, and now they are finally here. With the release of FreeCAD v1.0 the toponaming problem has been mitigated and there is a built-in assembly module.

Release Article | Video explaining the topological naming problem

Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown) is one of the most talented science educators I know of. In these two videos, he explains in a visual way how Large Language Models. Having used the Manim Python library he created for my own video tutorials, I can only imagine how much effort Grant put into these animations. But his work paid off, as these explainers of Large Language Models are the best that I’ve come across.

Visualizing Transformers and Attention Video | Large Language Models Explained Briefly Video

Hosts Ben Rady and Matt Godbolt discuss “The Cult of Done Manifesto”, particularly in which contexts and situations the principle “People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right” stands up to scrutiny. One standout point from the discussion was the negative impact of a personal habit of mine, namely that I have a tendency to offer unsolicited advice and recommendations even when I don’t have “skin in the game”. Thanks to this episode, I will try to do better!

Audio | Transcript

Host Kris Jenkins takes up a slightly unusual topic (for his podcast) in this interview with Chris Ferdinandi. It helped me better understand ADHD and dispelled some of my preconceived ideas, but also highlighted that I share many of the typical signs and symptoms associated with ADHD, just not to the same degree (I took the tests they linked to in the show notes and I probably don’t have ADHD). I very much recommend listening (or watching) this podcast episode even though there are no deep-dives on compilers or other esoteric technical topics this time around.

Video | Audio