IT IS POSSIBLE to fall out of love with technology. I have seen skilled, successful software engineers give up their laptops to become farmers or therapists or realtors. They may use spreadsheets and software to manage their crops, but code is no longer their main concern; they're more worried about the disposition of their goats.
No one wants to talk about it at the morning stand-up, but everyone is thinking: How could someone turn their back on the future? Especially when so many people are trying to find their way in. But replacements are hired, memories fade, and new JavaScript frameworks are released. "Remember Jeff?" people say. "One of his goats gave birth on Instagram."
The basic ethos of tech is that once you're in, you're in for life-after you launch your first app, you'll never want to do anything ever again but make more apps, or manage other people as they make apps. Merely wanting a paycheck is suspect; passion is required. Which is why, whenever I fall out of love with technology-as has happened to me perhaps five times I keep my mouth shut. I'm a professional software-liker and the cofounder of a software startup. I browse GitHub for fun and read random code. So I cannot, must not, tell people that one day last month I was getting coffee before a meeting and looked up from Slack and thought, "Man, coffee is hot and liquid, and people drink it. I would like to do things that have flavors and temperatures."
This story is from the May 2023 edition of WIRED.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the May 2023 edition of WIRED.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE WATCHFUL INTELLIGENCE OF TIM COOK
APPLE INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A PLAY ON \"AI,\" THE CEO INSISTS. BUT IT IS HIS PLAY FOR RELEVANCE IN ALL AREAS, FROM EMAIL AUTO-COMPLETES TO APPS THAT SAVE LIVES.
COPYCATS (AND DOGS)
Nine years ago, a pair of freshly weaned British longhair kittens boarded a private plane in Virginia and flew to their new home in Europe.
STAR POWER
The spirit of Silicon Valley lives onat this nuclear fusion facility's insane, top-secret opening ceremony.
A Full-Term Gig - Hiring someone to carry your baby to term is a booming business.
Hiring someone to carry your baby to term is a booming business. The market for surrogacy is expected to expand to $129 billion by 2032, fueled by older parents, rising infertility, and more same-sex families. Silicon Valley contributes to the growth too: Tech companies like Google, Meta, and Snap pitch in up to $80,000 toward the six-figure cost of the process.
Inside the Uncanny World of TikTok Home Remodeling - Turn a tree into a luxury apartment. Retrofit a bedroom for a million children. The videos are bizarre-and going very viral. Who's behind them?
If you've been on TikTok at any point in the past six months, chances are you've stumbled across them, as I first did during a fairly routine doomscroll one night this summer. For me it started with two videos somewhat incongruously tagged #homeremodeling and #housedesign. One of them featured a CGI man summoning a baby phoenix outside of a tree that he planned to turn into an apartment. Then a robotic AI voice started to narrate how the CGI man, identified as Little John, was going to build it. Over the next 90 seconds, Little John transformed the tree into a maniacally space-efficient luxury unit in an AI-generated ballet of flying galvanized square steel, ecofriendly wood veneer, and expansion screws.
The Hole in the Map of the World - On the surface, there's nothing unusual about it. just a spot of ocean. but beneath the waves lurks something incredible: a massive waterfall. and in its mysterious depths, the fate of the world churns.
Tip of Iceland, you'll find what's often called a marginal body of water. This part of the Atlantic, the Irminger Sea, is one of the stormiest places in the northern hemisphere. On Google Maps it gets three stars: very windy, says one review. It's also where something rather strange is happening. As the rest of the planet has warmed since the 20th century-less in the tropics, more near the poles-temperatures in this patch of ocean have hardly budged. In some years they've even cooled. If you get a thrill from spooky maps, check out one that compares the average temperatures in the late 19th century with those of the 2010s. All of the planet is quilted in pink and red, the familiar colors of climate change. But in the North Atlantic, there's one freak splotch of blue. If global warming were a blanket, the Irminger Sea and its neighboring waters are where the moths ate through. Scientists call it the warming hole.
The Eternal Truth of Markdown -An exegesis of the most ubiquitous piece of code on the web.
Markdown is not just a piece of software. It's also a markup language it's used to format plaintext, which then appears the way you want it to on, say, the internet. Markdown the markup language was designed to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible, according to creator John Gruber's syntax guide. A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it's been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.
Terminal Velocity - Murphy, a competitive runner since high school, was an avid user of the exercise app Strava, and he frequently checked the app while traveling to see where locals liked to run.
It was 2 am at Denver International Airport, and Jared Murphy was only a few hours into a planned 17-hour layover. His options at this quiet hour, in the expansive halls of the concourse, were pretty much nil. There would be no nibbling on ahi tartare at the Crú Food & Wine Bar for at least another seven hours, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's signature caramel apples had long since been cached for the night.
What's the future for Western 'super apps'?
Super apps create a single interface to unify a broad ecosystem of services such as messaging, e-commerce, and transport. With consumers making all of their purchases within one walled garden, the user engagement and data benefits for the app owner are obvious and substantial. These apps have become a major part of the Chinese technology landscape, so we asked two leading experts: Could the concept successfully break through in Western markets?
THE TELEVISUAL HIJACKING OF ALFONSO CUARON
Gravity, Children of Men, the best Harry Potter film-and now a seven-part miniseries?
