Welcome to ISSUE #165 of The Overflow! This newsletter is by developers, for developers, written and curated by the Stack Overflow team and Cassidy Williams. This week: talking quantum computers with a materials scientist, taking constructive criticism better, and tasking yourself with writing better tech specs.
From the blog
The nature of simulating nature: Q&A with IBM quantum computing research stackoverflow.blog We chat with Dr. Jeannette (Jamie) Garcia, Senior Research Manager of Quantum Applications and Software at IBM Quantum, about their 433 qubit quantum computer and what the real-life applications of quantum computing are today.
Three layers to secure a software development organization stackoverflow.blog This affects the individual developer writing insecure code, the engineering team blindly trusting their dependencies, and the organization thinking that their best bet is to roll their own security controls.
Engineering’s hidden bottleneck: pull requests stackoverflow.blog CI/CD needs a CM—continuous merge—to get the SDLC moving smoothly.
The AI that writes music from text (Ep. 535) stackoverflow.blog The home team discusses why it seems like everybody needs subtitles now, the AI that generates music from text, and a list of open-source data engineering projects for you to contribute to.
Introduction to Data Modeling Virtual Event with MongoDB promotion Uncover the most important factors to consider when setting up your data model in MongoDB. Learn more by attending MongoDB’s free webinar on February 22nd at 11am ET.
Interesting questions
What do you do when you’re stuck? mathoverflow.net When you’re missing a piece in a math proof, add it as an assumption and continue.
How to get better at taking constructive criticism? workplace.stackexchange.com It’s not about you, it’s about your job.
Is it possible to tell the difference between a young star that is just “big” and an older red giant? physics.stackexchange.com The color gives it away.
How can lossless compression ever exist? softwareengineering.stackexchange.com You can losslessly compress some of the inputs some of the time, but you can’t compress all the inputs all of the time.
Links from around the web
Reinventing search with a new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge, your copilot for the web blogs.microsoft.com Will Bing move on up in search engine popularity with the new AI changes?
How to build a magazine layout with CSS grid areas www.smashingmagazine.com CSS Grid can be challenging to work with, but it’s powerful!
It’s the future — you can stop using JPEGs daniel.do The future of images is here. Check out the new formats!
Writing an effective tech spec yougotthis.io Understanding what to build and how to build it is some of the most challenging work in software engineering. Here’s a great chat about doing just that!
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