Bizarro Devs - Issue 155
Issue 155🧑🚀🚀 Humanity has entered the 3rd space age. Professional fraud fighter goes undercover at a “Yahoo Boy School.” The AI music app that actually makes good music.Hey there Bizarro Community. Is it really May already? My oh my, the time is flying by. In this edition of your favorite quirky tech newsletter, we’ve got the following headline stories for you:
Plus, we’ve got a cool new tool for WordPress users, a great (free) beginner’s course for aspiring front-end web developers, another code conundrum, and more. Let’s get into it! 📰 From the Newsroom🧑🚀🚀 Humanity Has Entered the 3rd Space AgeLast year, there were a record-breaking 211 successful space launches. The previous record was set the year before that, and the previous one to that one, the year before that. This upward trend is largely due to a shift that’s taken place in the 21st century. While in the 20th century space exploration was dominated by government funding - initially only by two nations, the U.S. and the Soviet Union - nowadays private companies have overtaken governments as the main drivers of innovation.
Much like with all of the other technological advancements that are simultaneously happening, it’s going to be fascinating to see what will result from all this space exploration. I imagine it’s possible that children being born now may witness the first human colony outside of Earth being established somewhere. It might seem farfetched, but no more farfetched than video calls on mobile devices being a part of daily life when I was born.
🕵️♂️🦹♂️ Professional Fraud Fighter Goes Undercover at a “Yahoo Boys School”Frank McKenna is a career fraud analyst and investigator with over 30 years of experience. He recently decided to do a little research into what goes on at “Yahoo Boy Universities.” These are essentially informal education camps, largely based in Nigeria, that teach “students” how to run scams using modern communication tools and social media. During the course of his research, he learned ten fascinating things about how they operate. Here are three that stood out:
In the past, I’ve personally found these types of scamming attempts to be so poorly executed that I never understood how someone could fall for them. However, with all of the advancements in AI tech, they are becoming harder to detect. Poor grammar and spelling mistakes have been solved by ChatGPT and similar tools, and now even video calls and voice calls are being manipulated. Stay safe out there folks. 🤖🎶 The AI Music App That Actually Makes Good MusicI’ve tried a few different AI music generators over the last few months. While some were able to produce some decent-to-good instrumentals, I had yet to come across one that made genuinely good complete music, including vocals - until now. After trying Suno and being absolutely blown away at how good it is, I went and dug up the backstory behind it so I could feature it here.
As I mentioned, I tried using Suno, and just as the writer of the RollingStones article I linked to above found himself saying that the song he generated was “the most powerful and unsettling AI creation [he’s] encountered in any medium,” I too was blown away. Below is one of the songs I generated with Suno, using this simple prompt: 90's hip-hop with jazzy instrumental. The subject matter should be about front-end web development.
⛓️ Ten Must See Links of the Month
🎤 It’s How They Said It"This is, I believe, the Oppenheimer moment of our generation." – Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s foreign minister (said at the start of the Vienna conference entitled 'Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Challenge of Regulation') 🧮 The Numbers Game
⌨️ Code ConundrumSponsored by Optimole, the best image optimization tool on the internet. The winner of last issue’s JavaScript challenge was Bill Hall. Bill’s side project is Rose Ministries. In terms of the solution, there was actually more than one, depending on how you chose to handle the variable declarations and operations. The main problem was the dot in between total and Sum. The code had total.Sum when it should’ve just read as totalSum in all instances. The next challenge is below - this is a Ruby on Rails one: Send me an email once you spot the error. Please put "Code Conundrum" in the subject line. Once again, the first person who emails me with the correct answer (either saying what the error is or sending back the snippet error-free) will get a shoutout in the next issue. Interested in sponsoring this section? Reach out to me with “Bizarro Sponsorship” in the subject line. ⚒️ Tools and ResourcesHyve: If your website runs on WordPress and you’ve got a library of information spread out across multiple pages and posts then Hyve is your new best friend. It’s an AI-powered chatbot plugin that you can load up with approximately 100 posts that have an average of 1500 words per post. Think of it as your private chatbot’s “training data.” If one of your site visitors has a question about any of the information found within this training data, Hyve can access it and provide the information to the person in a natural, conversational way. https://themeisle.com/plugins/hyve/ Front-End Development Bootcamp: Want to start a career in front-end development or perhaps refresh yourself on its fundamental concepts? Do you have 21 hours and 6 minutes to spare? If you answered yes to both questions, then this bootcamp is for you. It covers what you’d expect it to cover: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You’ll also learn about GitHub pages and complete several projects to test your skills. Did I mention that it’s 100% free? https://frontendmasters.com/bootcamp/ 🖼️ What Am I Looking At?Wanna make a lot of money? Then do what the founders of Jolie did - figure out a way to take a normal, inexpensive thing, and make it a bougie, exclusive thing. Jolie sells showerheads for a whopping $165 (or $148 if you join their subscription service). The company has sold more than 200,000 units to date and in 2023 they brought in $28 million in revenue with no venture funding. 💬 What’s the Word?"Fernweh" is a German term that translates to a far-reaching ache for distant places, reflecting a deep-seated yearning to travel or explore unfamiliar territories. Unlike simple wanderlust, which implies a general desire to travel, fernweh suggests a profound, almost painful longing for places one has never seen, stirring a powerful emotional response. In terms of tech, while not directly related to the nature of tech work itself, it does apply to the growing digital nomad community - of which tech workers are a major part. One could argue that digital nomads all suffer from a case of fernweh. 🧑🏻💻👨🏽💻👩🏼💻 Tell a Friend or ColleagueIf you’d like to help us grow, just use the refer a friend button below and if any of your referrals subscribe to Bizarro Devs, then we’ll not only be forever grateful, but we’ll also recognize your efforts in the following way:
* The story or article needs to be relevant to the subject material we typically cover and is subject to editorial approval. In other words, it should be something that we would include in the newsletter naturally. Thanks for reading! If this is the first time you're here at Bizarro Devs and you enjoyed the content, then sign up here to join the fun for the rest of 2024 and beyond. Until we see each other again, Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Bizarro Devs, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. |
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Issue 154.5
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
🧑🍳🍺 The mashup you didn't know you needed: AI x beer. WordPress plugin developer faces backlash for anti-piracy tactic. DALL E-3: Innocent image generator or battlefield tool? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Issue 154
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
🦹💸 Multinational firm loses $25 million in deepfake scam. Swarms of AI killer robots are the future of war. 17 mysteries that researchers still haven't solved. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Issue 153
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
🤖🏆 ChatGPT defeats humans in series of thinking tests. Globetrotting millennial caught selling $7m of weapons parts to Russia. Generative AI is killing the internet but we can save it. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Issue 152
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
🌊🚯 An AI boat may finally solve our ocean pollution problem. Ex-CIA employee sentenced to 40 years for Vault 7 leak. Blogger unveils research misconduct at cancer institute.
Bizarro Devs - 💋 Silicone lip attachment lets users kiss over the phone. AI can analyze surveillance video to learn your associates. How will Slack's new ChatGPT bot affect your workspace?
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Bizarro Devs is a monthly collection of interesting tech links, useful tools, and more. View on the Web Archives 💋 SILICONE LIP ATTACHMENT LETS USERS KISS OVER THE PHONE. AI CAN ANALYZE SURVEILLANCE
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