Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning and welcome back to another edition of Friday Inspiration! This week I have 4 articles that have something to do with technology, but the last two also have to do with the very saddening war in Ukraine.
Let’s jump in!
AWS: Here's why we are investing in the Rust programming language
Ok, to fully appreciate this article, let me try and inform you of a couple of important details.
As you probably know, all software is written with programming languages. There are tons of programming languages with different purposes. Rust is a relatively new programming language that has been gaining a ton of traction and excitement.
For reference, Rust was initially released by Mozilla in 2010. While that may seem “old” it is very new. Another language similar to Rust that is also new is called Go, and it was released by Google in 2012.
The reason these are “new” is because of what they are.
Rust and Go are both pretty low-level languages. To fully grasp that concept takes a bit of time, but I’ll do my best.
Computers don’t actually read programming languages. They read those classes 0’s and 1’s. But what are 0’s and 1’s? Well, a computer is made up of tons of tiny wires and transistors. These wires and transistors can perform differently when different electric currents are pumped through. So all a 0 means is that no current is going through a given wire, and a 1 means there is a current. With that combo we can then perform basic operations on a computer.
Well, it takes a long time to type 0’s and 1’s, so we created levels of abstraction.
The next level up from the wires is called assembly language. Some people program in this, but the issue is that assembly languages are processor specific. That means if I write an assembly program that works on my Windows machine, it won’t work on a Macbook.
The solution is to go one more layer up where we created the fastest programming language called C.
That is the language that Rust and Go are taking on. So, yes, they are new because C was made in 1972.
Whoo! Sorry for the rambling.
So AWS wants to start using Rust more. Why?
Well, the issue with C is that you can make a ton of mistakes without knowing, and they can cause fatal issues. Which for AWS, that means a potential clients lost, etc.
Rust doesn’t allow you to make those same mistakes. But the cool thing is that until now the only alternatives to C were safer, but not as efficient.
They theorize that if they use Rust, they can maintain safety, but increase efficiency. In fact, they theorize they will be efficient enough to reduce their power consumption by 50%!
Solana’s Crypto Wallet Phantom Integrates Password Manager 1Password
https://decrypt.co/93419/solanas-crypto-wallet-phantom-integrates-password-manager-1password
I really love the Phantom wallet. It is by far my favorite wallet in the crypto world.
What is a wallet? Well, it’s the same idea of a physical wallet. It’s a place to store your crypto currencies securely. A wallet is different than holding your crypto in an exchange. When you just hold it in Coinbase, then Coinbase is in charge of the keys to your crypto.
What I mean is that Coinbase will hold your crypto in their own wallets. If they get hacked, then your crypto could be lost.
When you have your own wallet, only you have the key. As long as you keep the key secure, no one can touch your money.
It’s the same idea as holding actual cash in your wallet or a safe at home versus in a bank.
The issue with wallets, however, is it does involve a bit of complexity. You have to deal with these private keys which are typically a series of 12 random words. They tell you to write it down and store it somewhere physical, not on your phone or the cloud. Those can be hacked.
But like, that’s a pain.
Phantom has now created a way to integrate with 1Password, which is a very secure password manager! That should make things a lot easier!
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried says the crypto exchange gave cash to all of its Ukrainian users
If you haven’t heard of Sam Bankman-Fried yet, you should give him a follow. He’s a really down-to-earth guy.
He is the CEO of a very new and already extremely popular crypto exchange called FTX.
Sam is also a multi-billionaire because of crypto.
And still drives like his old honda civic or something. He lives very minimalist, and it has been his dream since he was a child to earn a ton of money so he can give it all away.
Get this. A while ago with bitcoin being around $10K, Sam found a trick. He saw that in the US exchanges Bitcoin was sold at $10K, but on Japanese exchanges, it was being sold for $12K. Over the next month, he made about a million dollars a day buying and selling between these two exchanges.
I’m pretty sure Sam is planning to give away billions over the next few years.
One venture he just did was that he transferred $25 to every single Ukrainian citizen that has an account with FTX. I’m not sure how much money that ended up being, but that’s super cool!
Ukraine has also announced they are accepting donations in bitcoin, ethereum, tether, and now polkadot. They have raised hundreds of millions of dollars already! How epic is that?
Google Maps, Apple Maps, and smartphones are at the forefront of modern war
I thought this article was fascinating, and really showcases the power of our technology today and just how much privacy doesn’t exist.
The surprise attack from Japan in WWII I don’t think is possible anymore. I’m sure the militaries have some high-tech stealth stuff that would make it possible, but until I see it, I don’t know.
This article was neat because it showed that before any news outlet even reported on the attacks from Russia, you could see their movement on Google maps.
We knew where Russia had troops located and then all of a sudden in the middle of the night there was a huge traffic jam on Google maps. People started talking on Twitter and realized that Russia was on the move before any news outlets got wind of the situation.
That’s pretty wild!