Weekly stack: History of IBM PC, Notebook LM, Software Complexity, Data Centers in Arid Lands and 10 Years of Monument Valley
Great reads this week!
The Story of the IBM PC
A long a well written story on the Don Estridge, the man who led the IBM PC team to success. The story has all the elements you’d find in a feel-good innovation story: a group of mavericks working on a project everyone believes would fail only to succeed spectacularly. The one interesting part worth highlighting here on the off-chance you don’t get to read the whole thing:
Estridge was hugely charismatic, although his personal magnetism was drawn from a different source than that of Steve Jobs at Apple or Adam Osborne at Osborne Computing. They were men who sold their own visions. They could create “a reality distortion field” around themselves (a term coined by Apple’s Bud Tribble about Jobs). They could convince you of the value of their ideas and inspire you to give everything in their service.
Estridge was the polar opposite. He listened and supported. His role was to set objectives and provide people with the resources or political cover they needed. This approach inspired a different kind of loyalty from those who worked for him, but it was just as fierce. And it delivered results.
Great read!
👉 The misfit who built the IBM PC
Notebook LM adds Slides Support, expands to 200 countries
I tried Google’s Notebook LM a while back when it was announced but I don’t do as much academic research as it is really optimized for . I had heard nothing about it since then, but this week they did announce that it can now use Google Slides as a data source and is now available in more countries. Still feels in its “experiment” stage, so try it with caution. I recently ended my Evernote subscription with their recent rate hike, and so am in the market for a good notebook app these days. If you have one you like, do let me know!
👉 NotebookLM goes global with Slides support and better ways to fact-check
On Software Complexity
Having been on enough projects that have gone from the beautiful “blue sky” phase to totally chaotic, these laws seem valid enough. It’s a tough balancing act between the the right level of abstractions in your codebase and building rocket-ships for the architecture astronauts in your teams
👉 Three laws of software complexity
Data-centers in drought-prone lands?
Apparently Chile is becoming Latin America’s data center hub thanks to its economic stability, dependable energy supply, good connectivity infrastructure and rising markets. But with so much of the country in drought and the immense demand for water coming from these data-centers, what are the ethics of building these in such nations?
On average, a small data center building that uses a regular water-based cooling system and consumes 1 megawatt requires about 25 million liters of water every year to keep its computers from overheating. Some of the world’s largest data centers require more than 100MW to operate. Chile has registered a national drought, with historically low levels of rain, since 2010.
👉 U.S tech giants are building dozens of data centers in Chile. Locals are fighting back
Monument Valley at 10
A look at how one of the most visually stunning games came to be, but this comment definitely struck a chord with me:
These days there’s less diversity and innovation [in gaming],’ he muses, ‘Something can’t just make a bit of money, it has to make all the money. It’s the antithesis of creativity. We have to allow ourselves to work on the things that exist in the gaps of the algorithm.
👉 Monument Valley at 10: the story of the most meticulous puzzle game ever created
Hi Arpit.. enjoying your newsletter.. had not heard the term "architecture astronaut" before.. and will certainly use it in the future.. as I've run into them many times over the decades in this crazy business... by the way, for me.. the "Three laws..." link is broken.