This records the weekly technology content worth sharing, released every Friday.([Notice] The weekly column will be on pause for one issue next Friday during the holiday. )
This magazine is open source , and we welcome submissions . There is also the "Who's Hiring" service, which posts programmer job listings. For collaborations, please contact us via email ([email protected]).
Cover image
This is the latest trending spot, the Time Elevator in Taiyuan Botanical Garden. It was originally a coal mining area, later converted into a park. (via)
Hardware engineers are in demand now
This week, I came across a U.S. job market data, wanted to share it with you.
Their hardware engineer recruitment hit an all-time high.
According to statistics, 6% of all job openings in U.S. internet companies were for hardware roles in 2022, and this proportion has now risen to 16%.
This is unprecedented, meaning that for every five software engineers hired, one hardware engineer is hired, which has never been the case before.
The current situation is that both large and small internet companies in the United States are hiring hardware engineers. The giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and others are even more aggressively recruiting hardware talent.
Although China lacks statistics in this area, the situation is similar. Just open any job website and search for "hardware engineer," and you'll get a flood of results, many offering high salaries. Hardware positions are increasing like never before.
Why have hardware engineers suddenly become in demand?
The reason is almost certainly AI . The internet is rolling out AI projects across the board, and everyone is jumping in without hesitation, fearing they might fall behind.
For the software part of AI, there are open-source models, and as long as you follow the documentation and tutorials, you can get them running. No matter what you did before, even if you were a front-end engineer, you can transition into AI.
But when it comes to hardware, it doesn't work that way; professional talent is required. AI cannot do without computing power, and computing power is one hundred percent hardware; software cannot provide computing power.
If internet companies build their own computing power, they need AI chips and AI servers, and some companies will even develop custom integrated circuits (ASIC/FPGA). All of these require hardware engineers. If you invest so much money in AI, you definitely need to hire a large number of hardware engineers, otherwise, there will be no computing power.
However, the supply of hardware engineers is very limited because they are not easy to train. They need knowledge of electronic circuits, an understanding of computer systems, and sufficient hands-on practical experience. As a result, it's often difficult to find the right people, and job openings remain unfilled for a long time, accumulating and exacerbating the market's supply-demand imbalance.
Compared to the booming demand for hardware engineers, the recruitment of software engineers is quite ordinary.
While software positions still far outnumber hardware positions, their growth is slow, especially for entry-level roles, which are even somewhat stagnant. Compared to the peak a few years ago, there has been a significant decline.
Why is the demand for (entry-level) software engineers weak? I can list several reasons.
(1) The development of SaaS and cloud services has enabled many needs to be purchased as ready-made services, eliminating the need for self-coding.
(2) The smartphone market is saturated, and demand for mobile apps has slowed down.
(3) Training classes and bootcamps continuously produce a large number of junior software engineers.
(4) AI can complete simple programming tasks, reducing the demand for junior software engineers.
Looking ahead, if the programming capabilities of AI continue to advance, enabling it to handle complex programming tasks, the current situation will persist: hardware engineers will remain in high demand, while software engineers will maintain steady demand.
What is concerning is that entry-level positions for software engineers are almost certain to decrease in the future, with demand concentrated on mid-level and senior roles. In that case, training for junior engineers will become a challenge, with no external environment, they need to train themselves to become mid-level and senior developers.
Technology Trends
South Korean scientists have cultivated beef cells on rice, creating rice that tastes like beef.
Researchers coated the rice with a nutrient solution and then implanted beef cells onto it, allowing them to grow for about a week until the rice turned into beef rice.
The beef rice appears pink because of the color of the cell culture medium, as the beef cells themselves are colorless.
The benefit of beef rice is that it enhances the nutritional value of rice; a single bowl of rice can provide both starch and beef, making it suitable as outdoor rations and reducing the environmental impact of livestock farming.
A French startup company has developed a ring-shaped aircraft.
The entire aircraft is a giant white ring filled with helium, equipped with multiple propellers controlled by electricity.
Its load capacity is 200 kilograms, and it can only carry two adults, but the seats are long benches attached underneath the ring, so passengers must be very brave.
3, Eliminate the background of the wall
The waiting seats at London Underground stations in the UK are stainless steel benches installed on the walls, with passengers leaning against the wall.
There are too many people sitting, over time, the backs of people are left on the wall, which is neither hygienic nor aesthetically pleasing.
To eliminate the backs, the subway station has thought of various methods. If replacing chairs with backs, the cost is relatively high and very troublesome. In the end, the simplest method was adopted: removing the backs.
Stickers are cheap and convenient, and can be printed with various patterns. If they wear out, just replace them with a new one.
Article
1、Linus Torvalds Latest Interview（Chinese）
The Chinese translation of the latest interview with Linux founder Linus Torvalds, mainly discussing the recent xz backdoor incident and his views on AI.
2、CSS Grid Implementation of Classic Bleed Layout（English）
A very good tutorial explaining how to use CSS grid to achieve a bleed layout on a webpage (where images occupy the margins and fill the entire row width).
3、How to Apply Free ZeroSSL Certificates（English）
ZeroSSL is similar to Let's Encrypt, offering free SSL certificates. It has a user-friendly interface and some paid additional features. This article teaches you how to apply for this certificate.
4、Collaborating with Copilot, I launched a front-end website within 10 hours. （Chinese）
The author only had basic front-end skills, but by using GitHub Copilot, they completed a React front-end project in a short time and summarized some tips for using Copilot.（@LeslieLeung Submission）
5、My Twitter growth strategy （Chinese）
The author started managing their Twitter account at the end of last year and has been very infrequent in posting, yet now has gained 8,000 followers. This article summarizes the growth strategy. (@dongan-beta Submission)
6、JS, Go, Rust: Different Ways to Handle Errors (English)
The author compares the different ways JS, Go, and Rust handle runtime errors, suggesting that JS should learn from the other two.
7、rep and ren: New Tools for Replacement and Renaming (English)
The author introduces two command-line tools he wrote, which can be combined with grep and find to replace and rename files in large quantities.
AI Related
1、Meta AI
Last week, Meta released its own AI service for free, based on the Llama 3 model, capable of "text-to-text" and "text-to-image" generation, with good performance. See Meta'sofficial introduction article for details.
This is likely the strongest competitor OpenAI has faced so far.
Additionally, Meta also has a dedicated Llama chat website llama.dev where you can choose different versions of the model.（@AICodeHunt Submission）
Search Engine DuckDuckGo launched a free AI chat, powered by GPT-3.5 Turbo and Claude 1.2.
This website provides AI model price comparisons and trial links, helping you intuitively choose the most suitable model.（@lvwzhenSubmission）
Users upload images on this website, and it returns a text description of the image (in English). If the image contains text, it also performs OCR recognition.
Here is another similar website Image Describer.
An AI model for model clothing changes, just upload flat clothing images to generate model fitting results.(@ihmily Submission)
An AI automatic reply customer service software, supporting multiple platforms such as WeChat, Qianiu, and Douyin Store.(@alsritter Submission)
This website summarizes the search engine results, and it works quite well.
8、Large Language Models（Chinese）
A free e-book for beginners interested in LLM technology, authored by the team behind the large model survey "A Survey of Large Language Models" published last year.（@acelit Submission）
An easy-to-use image generator that can be deployed locally, backend needs to integrate Dall·E and Stable Diffusion. (@amin2312 Submission)
10、RMBG
An open-source tool that uses AI to remove image backgrounds. (@zhbhun Submission)
Here is also a similar website "Undao AI Background Remover". (@wytxer Submission)
Tool
An open-source software that uses the same mouse and keyboard to control multiple computers on a local network.
2、UnoCssUi
A component library based on Vue3, UnoCSS, and Tailwindcss, with atomic design and no dependencies.（@szluyu99 Submission）
3、drawDB
An open-source database structure diagram and SQL generation tool.（@yingming006 Submission)
A VS Code extension that allows customizing highlight rules for any language and framework. (@Simon-He95 Submission)
5、Easy GitHub 2FA authentication
An open-source browser extension that automatically fills in GitHub two-factor authentication codes. (@Dolov Submission)
A visual recognition project with core functions such as object recognition, face recognition, and reverse image search, developed in Java, requiring local deployment and then calling through a Web API. (@javpower Submission)
7、Shion
An open-source Windows software for tracking and statistics of personal time consumption, automatically recording usage time of various software, and synchronizing browser history. (@hanaTsuk1 Submission)
8、Chat2DB
open-source database management tool, with desktop and web versions, used to browse and operate various databases. (@JerryFan626 submission)
9, Teable
open-source Airtable alternative, no-code database application development, built on PostgreSQL, user-friendly, responsive. (@yingming006 submission)
This JS module claims to offload computationally intensive tasks to the main process without blocking it, while keeping the UI interface responsive to users at all times. Its source code has learning value.
Resources
1、 Illustrated Word2vec (Chinese)
A long article from 2019, an introduction to Word2vec technology. Although it's not very clear, many examples are very inspiring, accompanied by illustrations, and can be referenced English original
2、 Hardcore Hacker----Two Months $12000 ARR Practical Journey (Chinese)
An open-source e-book introducingPodwise ProductThe Entire Process from Inspiration to Monetization.（@SaitoWu Submission）
A new search engine that aggregates results from other search engines. The trial results were excellent.
4、计算机网络简介（An Introduction to Computer Networks）
A free English book introducing computer network knowledge, a textbook from a university in the United States.
Image
On April 8th, a total solar eclipse occurred in North America. Many photographers started preparing for this event early.
A bird photographer came to a small island in Mexico.
The island had many frigatebirds.
The photographer wanted to capture the behavior of birds during the total solar eclipse.
On that day, he finally took breathtaking photos.
A Japanese artist specializes in creating leaf artworks.
Abstract
I've been wearing five-toe socks for the past eight years and highly recommend them.
(1) Five-toe socks are more suitable for toes. Toes can stretch and move freely; if they're cramped together, it's very uncomfortable.
(2) Five-toe socks provide better stability. The larger the surface area of the sole, the more stable the stance. Even with regular athletic shoes, I find the stability is improved with five-toe socks.
(3) There's no sweating between the toes. Regular socks cause sweat to accumulate between toes, but five-toe socks don't have this issue.
(4) When walking long distances, there's no friction between toes that causes blisters, which is important for long-distance runners or hikers. It used to be friction between toes, but now it's friction between the socks themselves.
(5) Five-toe socks are more secure and less likely to slip.
Currently, five-toe socks aren't very common because their manufacturing process is more complex and costly, and people haven't yet gotten used to them. I've convinced many people to try five-toe socks, and everyone finds them great, so you should give them a try too.
言论
1、
Tesla's market value is absurdly high, reaching $480 billion, with total revenue of $81 billion in 2022 and a P/E ratio of 36.
In comparison, General Motors (GM), the largest car company in the U.S., has a market value of $50 billion, total revenue of $172 billion in 2022, and a P/E ratio of 6.
The issue with Tesla is that the market treats it like a tech company akin to Meta and Google, but it is fundamentally a car company. Once the market realizes this, its stock price is inevitably going to fall.
-- Hacker News readers comment on Tesla's continuously falling stock price
2、
With the emergence of modern medicine in the 19th century, human lifespan has been significantly extended, and combined with legal protection of personal property, most wealth and power in the world are now held by the elderly.
An article claims that the most affluent areas in the world's wealthiest cities are inhabited by the elderly.
3、
The revolutionary aspect of the React library lies in the fact that previous web applications were directly built on the DOM, requiring developers to handle the state of the DOM themselves and ensure synchronization between nodes.
React changed everything, making applications脱离 the DOM. You no longer need to manage the state of the DOM; you only need to manage the state of your application. This eliminates much of the tedious and error-prone work involved in complex web applications.
4、
Social media is like an aquarium, where influencers and celebrities are the exhibits—jellyfish, sharks, octopuses, clownfish, and so on. Ordinary visitors are the tourists, amazed by the shapes and colors of the exhibits.
-- "Social Media as a Metaphorical Aquarium"
5、
Agile development has an issue: it requires "new sprints to start immediately after the previous one ends."
With this rule, programmers fall into the trap of endless sprints.
Year-End Review
Domestic single-board computers worth recommending（2023 #251）
China needs to establish a semiconductor department（2022 #201）
What is NFT, I heard it can make money（2021 #151）
The internet is no longer scarce（2020 #101）
（End）