🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #192

Wednesday is here - let's keep pushing toward the weekend!

P.S. - It’s Website Wednesday! Our new section!

#GigEconomy - Apparently, Zomato's delivery partners are raking it in, with 28,000 rupees in average monthly earnings. But, let's be real, they're still working long hours - 6-8 hours a day - just to make ends meet. And, btw, Deepinder Goyal thinks it's "fairly attractive" compared to other gig jobs.

#ChineseAppsFTW - The (1 day) ban on TikTok seemed to have done the opposite - more Chinese apps are now getting popular! Younger generations are flocking to new Chinese apps like RedNote, Clapper, and Flip after TikTok's short-lived ban, with some apps seeing hundreds of thousands of new downloads!

#InstagramCensorship - Instagram users noticed that search results for #Democrats or #Democrat were not showing. Instead, users were met with a message stating, "We've hidden these results" This glitch caused a huge uproar, with many accusing the Meta-owned platform of political bias.

#ExcelWorldChampionship - We had written about Excel World Championship. It took place last month and it’s no small event. Here’s a video link that gives you a glimpse about the hype around it and how it is conducted no less than any other E-Sports event!

IMDB Founder Steps Down, Passing Torch To First Female CEO
Col Needham, who founded IMDb in 1990, is stepping down as CEO. Nikki Santoro, who has served as the Chief Operating Officer since 2021, has been appointed as his successor. Santoro is the first woman to become the CEO of IMDb.

Walmart Partners With Indian Startups To Enhance US Supply Chain
Walmart has announced pilot projects with three Indian startups. These collaborations aim to improve product quality, reduce waste, and promote sustainability.

Y Combinator Opens Spring 2025 Batch Applications
Y Combinator (YC) is a top startup accelerator, investing in 4,500+ companies like Airbnb & Dropbox since 2005. Now, for the first time, it's accepting Spring batch applications until Feb 11, 2025, with a goal to support more founders, especially with the rise of AI-driven startups.

AMD Vs Nvidia: Linux Gaming Performance Gap Widens
A YouTube channel just tested how games run on Linux with both types of cards. Turns out, if you're a gamer thinking of switching from Windows to Linux, you might want to stick with an AMD card - they perform about the same on both systems, but Nvidia cards take a hit in performance on Linux. Don't worry, I'll keep you updated on the tech world!

Meta Accounts Center - Added support for WhatsApp, enabling cross-platform status and post sharing, and single sign-on for seamless log-in.

New Section! Every Wednesday we will have this section (in place of Trending Code section). Please give us feedback on this. You can reply to any of our emails to reach out to us.

Agent Recipes - Explore common AI agent recipes with ready to copy code to improve your LLM applications.

The Nokia Design Archive - Before Apple, there was Nokia. Here’s an archive of all the designs that went into creating mobile phones by Nokia. Peep into history.

Motion Primitives - Tired of all the same type of Frontend CSS libraries? Want something different? Here’s a UI kit to make beautiful, animated interfaces, faster.

Ace Your Performance Review
Learn how to write an effective performance review by creating a separate "Work Summary" doc to organize your key highlights. Structure it with areas, projects, and links to docs, and summarize your weekly recaps into a concise narrative for your review. Avoid common mistakes like overusing unexplained acronyms and jumping into specifics without context.

Hybrid Roles In Tech
As the lines between disciplines blur, companies now seek "hybrid" professionals who can bridge traditional role boundaries, sparking both excitement and anxiety among specialists who invested years mastering a specific domain, with experts predicting a growing need for generalists who can complement deep expertise with skills from other areas.

Taming The Hydra Of Endless Projects
Software Development. A familiar challenge for many coders: struggling to finish personal projects due to the allure of new ideas, fear of finality, and the comfort of ongoing work. This phenomenon, dubbed the "Hydra Project Effect," leads to frustration and stagnation. How to break the cycle and "slay the Hydra" of endless beginnings and unsatisfying middles?