The hottest Infrastructure Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

The Dawn of Ronin

Ronin’s Newsletter • 73 implied HN points • 30 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Ronin blockchain has experienced significant growth in daily active users, market capitalization, and total value locked throughout 2023.
  2. The upgrade to Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) strengthened Ronin's security and decentralized the network, paving the way for more infrastructure development.
  3. Ronin introduced innovative features like Mavis Market for NFT creators, Ronin Name Service (RNS) for gamertags, and the Ronin Wallet with over 1.2 million new addresses in the past year.

Atomic Energy! Can nuclear power our 100GW AI factories?

State of the Future • 29 implied HN points • 12 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Nuclear energy might not fully power the future's huge AI data centers, but it could play a significant supporting role. It offers reliable and flexible energy, especially where renewable sources might struggle.
  2. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) could address the increasing energy demands for AI, but their high costs and complicated regulations are big hurdles. They might work well as part of a mix with other energy sources instead of being standalone options.
  3. The market for nuclear power is growing, driven by needs for cleaner energy and the specific power requirements of data centers. Big tech companies are already looking into using nuclear to meet their future energy demands.

Op-Ed: Is the Stargate AI project bold vision or grand illusion?

philsiarri • 22 implied HN points • 22 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. The Stargate AI project has a huge amount of funding, starting at $100 billion and possibly growing to $500 billion. This shows a strong interest in AI technology.
  2. There are a lot of big promises being made about this project, but some people are worried that it might be overhyped and not deliver on its potential.
  3. The project's success will depend on managing many challenges, like building the right infrastructure, getting through regulations, and making sure it benefits everyone.

Confidential AI: The Dog That Didn't Bark In The Night

State of the Future • 29 implied HN points • 05 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. We need to prioritize data privacy as AI gets more personal. New technologies could help us protect our information while still allowing AI to learn.
  2. Building fair and unbiased AI models is crucial, as biased models can worsen social inequalities. We have tools to help create better AI that considers everyone fairly.
  3. There's a big opportunity to use decentralized systems for AI training and inference. This could make AI more accessible and less dependent on a few large companies.

The Choice

Comment is Freed • 88 implied HN points • 09 Sep 23
🌍 World Politics Infrastructure
  1. The government will need to spend over 45% of national income on public services, benefits, and debt repayments by the mid-2040s.
  2. There are limited options for the next government as previous strategies to avoid high costs are no longer viable.
  3. Despite potential economic growth, tough decisions and budget constraints lie ahead for the government.
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The rough edges of Terraform that I awkwardly stumble over

Basta’s Notes • 122 implied HN points • 07 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Terraform allows writing code to describe infrastructure in production, automating deployment and management across various cloud platforms.
  2. Securing secrets in Terraform state files can be a challenge, requiring manual handling to avoid storing sensitive data.
  3. Terraform's manual and serial nature requires human oversight for changes to avoid unintended consequences, making automation challenging.

US: AWS to invest $11 billion in Georgia for data center expansion

philsiarri • 22 implied HN points • 08 Jan 25
💼 Business Infrastructure
  1. AWS plans to spend $11 billion to expand data centers in Georgia. This will help support cloud computing and AI technologies.
  2. The investment is expected to create around 550 jobs. Georgia is popular for data centers because of its low electricity costs and tax incentives.
  3. Local people are concerned about the effects of new data centers on housing and electricity needs, leading to some restrictions on where they can be built.

Taiwan’s Power Crunch vs AI Ambitions

Taipology • 22 implied HN points • 19 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Taiwan aims to develop its own AI called 'Sovereign AI,' but it faces challenges in powering the necessary data centers.
  2. Currently, Taiwan struggles with electricity supply, limiting its ability to support large data centers needed for AI development.
  3. The government could restart mothballed nuclear reactors to increase power supply, which may be crucial for Taiwan to keep up with global AI advancements.

How to make history with LLMs & other generative models

Leigh Marie’s Newsletter • 74 HN points • 21 Sep 23
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. LLMs like Github Copilot can augment developer productivity and provide new opportunities for AI-enabled developer tools startups
  2. Generative models can significantly enhance efficiency for knowledge workers in fields like consulting, legal, medical, and finance, offering potential for startups in these areas
  3. New infrastructure opportunities exist around running large models locally, providing compute resources for model training, and challenging incumbents in ML frameworks and chips

Hard Assets

Net Interest • 54 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
💰 Finance Infrastructure
  1. Sydney Airport is a profitable asset with stable earnings and unique market position
  2. Infrastructure investing is a rapidly growing market opportunity
  3. Large asset owners are increasing their allocations to the infrastructure asset class

Pilings, nothing more than Pilings

Street Smart Naturalist: Explorations of the Urban Kind • 99 implied HN points • 08 Jul 21
🎭️ Culture Infrastructure
  1. Pilings are important for building urban structures over water, especially in places like Puget Sound. They allow cities to expand and develop their waterfronts.
  2. The process of driving pilings into the ground is complex and labor-intensive. Special machines called pile drivers use heavy weights to push long wooden logs deep into the muddy ground to secure foundations.
  3. While pilings helped cities grow, they also caused environmental damage by reducing natural habitats and using a lot of wood from local forests.

Locating Machine Learning Engineers

Gradient Flow • 59 implied HN points • 27 Jan 22
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. The role of 'machine learning engineer' has emerged as a key position for implementing data science in production, bridging the gap between data products and machine learning models.
  2. Geographically, machine learning engineers are distributed across various regions, with companies and industries in different locations employing them.
  3. Advances in computer hardware design, coupled with improvements in models and algorithms, are expected to significantly enhance model training efficiency.

What does DigitalOcean do?

Technically • 14 implied HN points • 18 Feb 25
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. DigitalOcean is a service that rents out servers to developers for building web applications. It helps developers run their apps without needing their own hardware.
  2. Unlike bigger companies like AWS or Google Cloud, DigitalOcean is independent and not owned by a massive tech giant. This makes their approach more focused on users.
  3. They focus on simplicity and user experience, making it easier for developers to use their services compared to other cloud providers.

Mini Exasperation #3

Exasperated Infrastructures • 14 implied HN points • 31 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. The government needs to rethink how it manages construction and infrastructure projects, possibly shifting oversight to agencies like the Department of Defense for better efficiency.
  2. We should consider changing the Department of Transportation to a Department of Mobility to reflect current needs and focus on how people move rather than just transportation modes.
  3. There’s a call to rethink funding approaches, possibly allowing states more control over their infrastructure budgets, which could help create discussions about the importance of federal support for these projects.

Thoughts on coding with GPT

Logos • 19 implied HN points • 21 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. The tools to deploy and host code are quite complicated and not user-friendly. This makes it tough for non-technical people to bring their coding ideas to life.
  2. GPT can help generate code, but it struggles to understand the deeper intentions behind the questions asked. Humans can often interpret needs better and provide more useful answers.
  3. There’s a big opportunity to create a platform that simplifies the entire coding process, from writing code to hosting and tracking analytics, making it easier for anyone to make their ideas a reality.

How Did Blocking Stuff Become Left-Coded?

I Might Be Wrong • 14 implied HN points • 03 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. Many people feel frustrated with the slow processes that delay housing and infrastructure projects. They want things to move faster so that communities can improve.
  2. There's a concern that building new housing might change the character of some neighborhoods. People worry about gentrification and displacing existing residents.
  3. More housing could help make neglected areas more livable. It could also lower rents and improve safety instead of letting decay continue in those neighborhoods.

How big is your government?

Bretton Goods • 55 implied HN points • 27 Jun 23
🌍 World Politics Infrastructure
  1. The Index of Economic Freedom doesn't consider government ownership of the economy in measuring government size.
  2. Land ownership and regulations have a strong impact on the economy in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.
  3. The Index should account for corporate economic power and positive freedoms in evaluating economic freedom.

Amtrak is still riding the nostalgia train

Urben Field Notes • 32 implied HN points • 26 Feb 24
💼 Business Infrastructure
  1. Long-distance trains are nostalgic but may not be the most efficient way to provide rail service to small towns and neglected regions.
  2. Expanding long-distance train routes could reach more Americans, but issues include unreliable trip durations, inconvenient schedules, and high costs.
  3. Optimizing rail routes by focusing on shorter, higher-demand trips could be a more cost-effective and efficient way to improve passenger rail service in America.

What's happening at the intersection of ML and Engineering.

Arkid’s Newsletter • 17 HN points • 30 Sep 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. AI and machine learning are creating a lot of hype, but it's important to separate the noise from the real value. Just like in the dot-com boom, there will be winners, but it won't be easy to find them.
  2. Many companies are wasting money on consultants who offer little help without delivering real results. To succeed in AI, businesses need to focus on building intelligent products that can learn and iterate based on user feedback.
  3. There's concern about AI taking over jobs in software and machine learning, but skilled professionals will still be needed. It’s crucial for entry-level workers to build solid expertise in their field and adapt to new developments in AI.

Interviewing my mother, a mainframe COBOL programmer

kelsey’s Substack • 319 implied HN points • 09 Jul 16
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Mainframe COBOL programming is a crucial and irreplaceable aspect of the banking world, despite its less popular status compared to modern languages like Java.
  2. Banks running on mainframes face challenges like aging programmers, maintaining legacy systems, and transitioning to more modern technology.
  3. Working as a mainframe COBOL programmer for a bank involves dealing with large amounts of transaction data, intricate databases, and complex IDE like ISPF.

Issue #103

Infra Weekly Newsletter • 9 implied HN points • 20 Feb 25
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Hashitalks 2025 event is happening now, and you can check it out for the latest in technology.
  2. You no longer need a DynamoDB table for remote state locking in Terraform when using S3, which simplifies the process.
  3. The Infra Weekly Newsletter covers infrastructure and programming topics, providing useful updates and tutorials each week.

Three percent more Monaco: Links in Progress, infrastructure edition

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 11 implied HN points • 30 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. A new airport opened in Nuuk, Greenland, making it easier for larger planes to land and boosting travel from locations like New Jersey.
  2. Vietnam is planning an impressive high-speed rail line between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which will cost around $67 billion and open in 2035.
  3. Monaco is expanding its land area by reclaiming land from the sea to build a new district, highlighting its ambition to develop upscale real estate.

Issue 17: No great stagnation in cruise ships

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 12 implied HN points • 05 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Cruise ships show that new ideas and growth are still possible in design and urban living, even as some land technologies seem to stall.
  2. Madrid has successfully built its metro system much faster and cheaper than cities like London and New York by using smart planning and incentives for local leaders.
  3. Many animals, like horses and crabs, are essential for creating life-saving chemicals, reminding us that we still rely on nature, even as technology advances.

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

Vasu’s Newsletter • 13 implied HN points • 25 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) helps businesses create a separate and secure online environment to manage their resources. This means they can control who has access to what information.
  2. With a VPC, administrators can set rules to protect incoming and outgoing internet traffic. It's like having a security system for their online resources.
  3. VPCs come with useful features like VPN connections and load balancers, which help improve communication and manage traffic effectively. This can make online services run more smoothly.

Overthinking Transportation Funding Reform & Policy: Steelmanning Reauthorization II(a)

Exasperated Infrastructures • 12 implied HN points • 25 Nov 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. Reading transportation bills can be tricky because they are full of legal jargon. Most of the text isn't that important, so focus on the key sections that really change policies.
  2. Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) play a crucial role in transportation planning. They help ensure local needs are considered when deciding how to spend federal money.
  3. Transportation laws evolve over time, reflecting changes in society and policies. It's important to stay updated on these changes to understand how they affect public transportation and infrastructure.

Software engineering practices you should probably be following in 2024

The Tech Enabler • 3 HN points • 27 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Prefer statically typed languages over dynamically typed ones as they offer better reliability and help catch errors earlier.
  2. Utilize automatic code formatting tools for consistent code style and to save time on debating formatting during code reviews.
  3. Consider using queues as data sources in event-driven systems for better scalability and leverage infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform for repeatable and manageable infrastructure.

Vesuvius Challenge is hiring!

Vesuvius Challenge • 9 implied HN points • 21 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. The Vesuvius Challenge is looking for team members to help recover texts from ancient scrolls. They need people for two key roles: research in computer vision and platform engineering.
  2. The computer vision role focuses on using advanced tech to read the scrolls, which involves solving complex problems with CT scan data.
  3. The platform engineering role is about creating tools and systems to manage and share large datasets, making research easier for the community.

Mini Exasperation #2

Exasperated Infrastructures • 9 implied HN points • 24 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. Executive Orders can change policies quickly in the government, but they often create a lot of confusion and uncertainty, especially about funding for projects.
  2. There's a worry that some people in power want to create chaos in our systems so they can privatize everything and take away public benefits.
  3. To help improve our communities, we must focus on mutual aid, sustainable systems, and protecting our institutions from harmful changes.

5 Essays I'm Excited to Write This year

Exasperated Infrastructures • 9 implied HN points • 09 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. The writer plans to explore ways to spend federal transportation money more effectively. They want to understand past spending to improve future projects.
  2. There will be a focus on making air travel better by looking into its economics. The goal is to encourage airlines to adopt practices that benefit travelers and boost profits.
  3. The writer wants to investigate how municipal bonds can fund infrastructure projects. They aim to understand state spending behavior to create more resilient financial systems.

A New Atlantis

Model Thinking • 2 HN points • 01 Apr 24
💼 Business Infrastructure
  1. Housing in Britain is currently unaffordable due to bloated planning restrictions, costing residents in terms of space, age of homes, and financial burden.
  2. The proposal to reclaim land from Dogger Bank for housing development comes with an estimated cost of £97.5bn, with potential present value benefits of £622bn, showing a promising cost-benefit ratio.
  3. The development of a new city on Dogger Bank has the potential to significantly impact economic activity, urban infrastructure, land prices, and GDP gains, making it a complex but potentially beneficial endeavor.

Sensor Strategy, Monitoring Platforms

Dataplane.org Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 04 Apr 22
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. Sensor nodes monitor internet activity and contribute to data collection without generating traffic, resembling a mix of darknet collector and honeypot.
  2. Choosing hosting providers involves factors like unique origin, support for secure payment methods, provider reputation, and fraud detection practices.
  3. Monitoring platforms like Censored Planet, NLNOG Ring, OONI, and RIPE Atlas offer unique approaches to internet censorship measurement through distributed systems.

API Preview and Signal Stats

Dataplane.org Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 07 Mar 22
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. The API Preview allows users to search data with a subset of current data and provides documentation for various queries and returns.
  2. The Signal Statistics page offers graphical insight into daily event summaries, aiding both the organization and the community.
  3. The commentary on UA and RU signals highlights the organization's operational status in these regions amidst recent events, emphasizing the importance of monitoring and preparedness.

Potential U.S. Space Force Changes

Ill-Defined Space • 19 implied HN points • 22 Feb 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. The U.S. Space Force's missions, assets, and services are mostly about support to combat services like the Army and Navy.
  2. The Space Force relies on old systems which require specialized training, hindering transition to more modern, interoperable systems.
  3. The Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) will bring more capable and interconnected systems, requiring a shift in mindset and cooperation among space operators.

The damage caused by sea level rise to cities

Klement on Investing • 2 implied HN points • 11 Aug 25
🌞 Climate & Environment Infrastructure
  1. Sea level rise can seriously damage city infrastructure, making some areas nearly unsellable. Insurance companies struggle to assess risks, especially in places like Miami.
  2. Most climate models suggest that sea levels will rise less than one meter by 2100, which is manageable for cities. However, cities like Osaka may face more significant challenges.
  3. We have three choices: do nothing and risk the worst, speed up efforts to reduce carbon emissions, or adapt our infrastructure to cope with rising sea levels. The future depends on the actions we take today.

The Anti-Mobility Playbook

Exasperated Infrastructures • 26 implied HN points • 07 Aug 23
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Infrastructure
  1. The Republican message focuses on telling people what to do while resisting being told what to do.
  2. There are two main theories in government - Conflict and Mistake - that don't always align with political parties.
  3. The Anti-Mobility Playbook highlights how Republicans resist investing in transportation modes that could benefit everyone, contributing to the lack of progress in transportation planning and infrastructure.

Links in Progress: Expanding the Mediterranean's busiest port

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 8 implied HN points • 05 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Infrastructure
  1. There's a new rail tunnel in Switzerland that cuts travel time between Switzerland and Italy by an hour. It's called the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
  2. A massive tunnel is being built between Denmark and Germany that will make travel faster by replacing a ferry with a quick car drive. It will be one of the longest tunnels in the world.
  3. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is getting a driverless monorail to connect different areas. It's part of a bigger plan to improve public transport in the city.