A simple metric for code quality code be how easy is it to delete any given piece of code.
There's no algorithmic way to judge quality code, but experienced engineers know it when they see it.
Jeff Atwood's Performance is a Feature blog post gets a lot of mileage with our writers. But code quality isn't on the same axis; it's not a feature you can prioritize. It's part of the development process.
Kordel France has always been infatuated with finding order in chaos - and has carried that way of living throughout his life. He is an engineer by training and schooling, but grew up on a farm. What triggered his interest in AI was the day that his father brought home autonomous driving systems for the farm equipment. His Dad let him tinker with it, and Kordel was hooked.
In college, he studied Physics and Mathematics, as his father always told him that there was a lot of math involved with autonomous systems. Aligned with this, he really enjoyed studying calculus. He saw the relationship between time series and control theory - essentially, autonomous guidance of a vehicle. And to learn to code, he tried to automate the calculation of derivatives. All in all, he considers math a beautiful thing, and sees it behind everything throughout our day to day lives. Post school, he worked for defense companies, specifically on autonomous systems. He also got to work as a mechanical engineer for a while, which helped him to view things from a different discipline. To round this out, he obtained his graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence.
For fun, he practices Jiu Jitsu and plays the drums. In another life, he says he might been a drummer, but in this life, he plays along with a wide spectrum of music - from punk rock to country. Both hobbies allow his brain to turn off, but at the same time, Kordel solves some of his biggest technical problems while he is doing his hobbies.
Way back in college, Kordel started building a codebase around computer vision and detection. He started adding to it over time, made it quite impressive, and figured out a way to monetize the platform. However, coming from the defense industry, he and his co-founder understood the apprehension around the use of AI commercially. They set out to change that.
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(06:53) – Entropy
(15:01) – Consciousness
(31:20) – Quantum gravity
(34:40) – String theory
(48:07) – Time
(1:00:39) – Free will
(1:05:02) – Emergence and complexity
(1:12:14) – The Big Bang
(1:25:13) – Extraterrestrial life
(1:35:35) – Space exploration
(1:43:33) – Fear of death
Join us for a 'mega' episode with three guests! The Markup investigative reporter Adrianne Jeffries leads off with a discussion of Amazon's self-preferencing in search. Stanford Internet Observatory's Renee DiResta joins for our second segment to discuss her story on bottom-up propaganda on social media, something she calls 'ampliganda.' Verge Reporter Zoë Schiffer rounds out the week with a look into the state of worker activism at Netflix and Apple.
Phillipe Kwiatkowski has been addicted to gaming since he was a teenager. He played games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Grand Theft Auto. In the process, he discovered multiplayer mods, that allowed you to play online - which was his first introduction to coding. When he was 16, he got his first freelancing gig building websites. Eventually, he studied computer science at University, and interestingly, he joined an accelerator. There were a ton of smart people, working on very interesting problems. For fun, he enjoys playing soccer, and has played ever since high school. He also enjoys running, and in fact, is sorta prepping for a marathon. Eventually he would love to do a spartan race as well.
During the days when he was involved in the accelerator, Phil started noticing that many founder problems were centered around distribution - or how to get their products in front of customers. He decided to build a better cold email tool, one that solved these problems. And it worked.
Cloudways offers peace of mind and flexibility so you can focus on growing your business instead of dealing with server management. With Cloudways, you get an optimized stack, managed servers, backups, staging environment, integrated Git, pre-configured, Composer, 24/7 support, and a choice of five cloud providers: AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, Google Cloud, and Vultr. Get up to 2 Month Free Hosting by using code "CODE30" and get $30 free hosting credit.
Okay, look, we know you plan on reading the entire 2021 MDDR at some point. But you're busy. Life gets in the way. We get it. Who has the time! Well, we've got the time, but that's beside the point, and honestly... fortunate for you. We've read the report front to back and have decided to cover some of it today on the podcast, but you'll still need to read all 134 pages yourself if you truly want to grasp the entire piece. Unless you want to be that person who listens to a single podcast and pretends they read the whole thing... then go ahead; we won't tell.
In this episode of Security Unlocked, hosts Natalia Godyla and Nic Fillingham are joined by Sian John, Microsoft's director of strategic growth. Sian is currently working with the business development team, exploring growth opportunities for Microsoft to strengthen security, compliance, and identity offerings that address unfulfilled needs in the market. As a security professional with over 25 years of experience, Sian accompanies us as we discuss the 2021 Microsoft Digital Defense Report, which she personally contributed to.
In This Episode You Will Learn:
The history and analysis of the 2021 Microsoft Digital Defense Report
The evolution of cybercrime services that are for sale
What's providing new attackers with access to deeper data
Some Questions We Ask:
How did Microsoft settle on the topics and themes of the 2021 MDDR?
What are some takeaways from the newly added disinformation chapter?
Why isn't Zero Trust being implemented, considering the conversations we've had that it's more critical than ever?
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Christiaan Steyn is the head of a new South African insuretech startup called MiWay Blink. In the second episode of this two-part conversation, Christiaan lets us in on developing an insuretech startup during a pandemic and building on the success of its incumbent parent company.
MiWay Blink was launched in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the thick of the COVID pandemic. In this instalment, Christiaan taps into the launch of MiWay Blink and how the culture of scaling what works and ditching what doesn't has proven to be the right formula. He further expands on how to navigate the corporate challenges and drawbacks that working with established boards can have on startups.
Editorial Disclaimer: MiWay Blink is the presenting sponsor of this two-part podcast conversation. African Tech Roundup maintains complete editorial oversight, and opinions expressed by the podcast host, Andile Masuku, do not necessarily reflect the views of the presenting sponsor, MiWay Blink.
USEFUL RESOURCES:
SUPPORT US: Support African Tech Roundup's independent media-making efforts by becoming a Patreon.
Joshua Whole was born in the Netherlands. Before he was 13, he actually went to 5 different schools. Afterwards, he moved to Switzerland and went into the public school system - which was all in French (which he didn't speak). In his younger years, he started building websites and ultimately started a company, with 35 other high school students building these sites.
Eventually, he moved to London, initially to shape up his computer science background, given he was a self taught developer. He attended a 3 year Computer Science program at King's College, and the last year of University, he attempted to try to start another business. He and his co-founders declined an investment, and never got another one... so the business was out.
After University, he started a company called SuperAwesome - providing tools for safe digital engagement to almost half a billion kids every month, while also ensuring that parental consent was baked in. Seven years after starting the company, he eventually sold this to Epic games, the makers of Fortnite, and at the time of acquisition, the company was 170 people with offices all over the world.
For fun he is a whiskey lover, and has been collecting them for over 10 years now. In fact, once a week, he does a (fully remote) whisky tasting with a friend of his. His favorite is The Ileach, with his backup being a 10 year Laphroaig.
After many self learning adventures in his life, Joshua set out to create a product that would allow people to go through self directed learning online, but in specific learning pathways... and allow them to learn faster in the process. Self taught developer? Be able to prove you went through the appropriate material that you acquired the skills necessary.
Cloudways offers peace of mind and flexibility so you can focus on growing your business instead of dealing with server management. With Cloudways, you get an optimized stack, managed servers, backups, staging environment, integrated Git, pre-configured, Composer, 24/7 support, and a choice of five cloud providers: AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, Google Cloud, and Vultr. Get up to 2 Month Free Hosting by using code "CODE30" and get $30 free hosting credit.
At LinkedIn scale, it pays to save your developers a few minutes or even seconds on repeat tasks. Sara walks us through her experience managing senior engineers, and trying to improve developer experience and tooling, on a massive, global platform with over a billion user interactions a month.
Paul shares some of his firm's latest work, helping to visualize the impact of climate change at Probable Futures. Interested in doing work in software focused on climate change? Paul recommends you learn a bit about NetCDF files.
