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The Changelog

Retreat to attack (Friends)

104 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

104 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Artificial Intelligence, Software Development, Science & Discovery

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Alive Internet Theory: Spencer Chang created a website demonstrating real human connection online through Internet Archive content from 2004 to present, countering the dead internet theory which claims 50% of new articles are AI-written. The project shows humans still seek each other, answer calls for help, and share authentic moments despite increasing AI-generated content flooding the web.
  • Forward Deployed Engineers: Job postings for FDEs increased 800% as companies like Anthropic and OpenAI embed engineers directly with customers for weeks or months. These roles require AI fluency plus communication and problem-solving skills to tailor models, implement features, and translate between AI systems and human needs rather than just writing code in isolation.
  • React as AI Substrate: AI coding tools like Cursor and v0 hard-code React into system prompts because models trained on vast React documentation give developers the best success rate. React usage spiked dramatically starting in 2023 when coding agents emerged, with 13 million-plus sites deployed in the last twelve months, making it the unassailable foundation layer for AI-generated web development.
  • Dependency Reduction Strategy: Building with AI agents enables developers to replace small utility libraries and even medium-sized dependencies like markdown parsers with custom implementations in minutes. This approach reduces attack vectors, eliminates unnecessary surface area, and creates exactly what's needed rather than pulling in generic 17,000-line libraries for simple functionality requiring only 500 lines.
  • Meshtastic Off-Grid Networks: This open-source mesh network uses inexpensive LoRa radios to create decentralized communication infrastructure with a record range of 331 kilometers. The system supports encrypted messaging with excellent battery life and optional GPS features, providing reliable communications in areas without existing infrastructure or during internet outages for businesses and individuals.

What It Covers

Adam and Jared explore the Alive Internet Theory as a counter to dead internet pessimism, discuss Forward Deployed Engineers as the fastest-growing AI role, examine React's dominance in AI-generated code, and share experiences building software with AI agents while debating compression algorithms and mesh networks.

Key Questions Answered

  • Alive Internet Theory: Spencer Chang created a website demonstrating real human connection online through Internet Archive content from 2004 to present, countering the dead internet theory which claims 50% of new articles are AI-written. The project shows humans still seek each other, answer calls for help, and share authentic moments despite increasing AI-generated content flooding the web.
  • Forward Deployed Engineers: Job postings for FDEs increased 800% as companies like Anthropic and OpenAI embed engineers directly with customers for weeks or months. These roles require AI fluency plus communication and problem-solving skills to tailor models, implement features, and translate between AI systems and human needs rather than just writing code in isolation.
  • React as AI Substrate: AI coding tools like Cursor and v0 hard-code React into system prompts because models trained on vast React documentation give developers the best success rate. React usage spiked dramatically starting in 2023 when coding agents emerged, with 13 million-plus sites deployed in the last twelve months, making it the unassailable foundation layer for AI-generated web development.
  • Dependency Reduction Strategy: Building with AI agents enables developers to replace small utility libraries and even medium-sized dependencies like markdown parsers with custom implementations in minutes. This approach reduces attack vectors, eliminates unnecessary surface area, and creates exactly what's needed rather than pulling in generic 17,000-line libraries for simple functionality requiring only 500 lines.
  • Meshtastic Off-Grid Networks: This open-source mesh network uses inexpensive LoRa radios to create decentralized communication infrastructure with a record range of 331 kilometers. The system supports encrypted messaging with excellent battery life and optional GPS features, providing reliable communications in areas without existing infrastructure or during internet outages for businesses and individuals.

Notable Moment

One host described attending a retreat where leaving his phone in the cabin all day felt strange at first, constantly tapping his pocket out of habit every few minutes. After twelve hours disconnected, he experienced unexpected freedom from the device despite initially feeling withdrawal symptoms, revealing how deeply connected modern professionals have become to their smartphones.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Change Log and Friends, a weekly talk show about zSTD. Thanks as always to our partners at fly.io, the public Cloud built for developers who ship. We love Fly. You might too. Learn more at fly.io. Okay. Let's talk. Well, friends, Agentic Postgres is here, and it's from our friends over at Tiger Data. This is the very first database built for agents and is built to let you build faster. You know, a fun side note is 80% of Claude was built with AI. Over a year ago, 25% of Google's code was AI generated. It's safe to say that now it's probably close to a 100%. Most people I talk to, most developers I talk to right now, almost all their code is being generated. That's a different world. Here's the deal. Agents are the new developers. They don't click. They don't scroll. They call. They retrieve. They parallelize. They plug in your infrastructure to places you need it to perform, but your database is probably still thinking about humans only because that's kinda where Postgres is at. Tiger Data's philosophy is that when your agents need to spin up sandboxes where migrations query huge volumes of vector and text data, well, normal Postgres, it might choke, and so they fix that. Here's where we're at right now. Agentic Postgres delivers these three big leaps, native search and retrieval, instant zero copy forks, and MCP server plus your CLI plus a cool free tier. Now if this is intriguing at all, head over to tigerdata.com. Install the CLI, just three commands, spin up an agent to postgres service, and let your agents work at the speed they expect, not the speed of the old way. The new way, agent to Postgres is built for agents, is designed to elevate your developer experience and build the next big thing. Again, go to tigerdata.com to learn more. So we are supposed to be in San Francisco, but we're not in San Francisco. No. We're not. What a sadness. You know? Well, happy I'm not stuck in an airport or trying to get to some place. But, for those who don't know, our government is shut down, and therefore, the FAA and TSA and all the acronyms a are not showing up a. And so It's t L A. We would have a bad flight a. Show up a. Yeah. You know what I'm trying to say? Let's get to San Francisco, a. Therefore, we canceled our friends, you know, we told them, hey, don't come record with us this week. We're gonna be in San Francisco. However, we are not in San Francisco. So we are here in our home studios ready to friends, and we're gonna do kind of a, you know, a grab bag. A director's cut. ChangeLock news, director's cut. Deep behind the scene. I would say extended cut. Yeah. You know, extended director's cut, you know. Take the ten minutes, make it, you know, …

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Books, tools, and gear mentioned in this episode

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Tools

  • AI coding tools like Cursor and v0 hard-code React into system prompts because models trained on vast React documentation give developers the best success rate.
  • AI coding tools like Cursor and v0 hard-code React into system prompts because models trained on vast React documentation give developers the best success rate.
  • Spencer Chang created a website demonstrating real human connection online through Internet Archive content from 2004 to present, countering the dead internet theory.
  • MeshtasticRecommended
    Meshtastic Off-Grid Networks: This open-source mesh network uses inexpensive LoRa radios to create decentralized communication infrastructure with a record range of 331 kilometers.

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