Changelog News 116

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+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+What up, nerds? I'm Jerod and this is Changelog News for the week of Monday, October 14th, 2024.
+
+[SpaceX won](https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/13/24269029/spacex-starship-launch-super-heavy-chopstick-launch-tower-return-fifth-flight-test) the weekend by having Starship's "Super Heavy" booster return to its launchpad where the launch tower caught it using arms (nicknamed the “chopsticks.”) 🥢
+
+Meanwhile, I can't even chopstick a serving of fried rice without the aid of my off-hand... Oh well, let's get into the news.
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+[Working from home is powering productivity](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/09/working-from-home-is-powering-productivity-bloom)
+
+Nicholas Bloom, writing for the IMF:
+
+> WFH increased about tenfold following the outbreak of the pandemic and has settled in at about five times its prepandemic level. This could counter slowing productivity and deliver a surge in economic growth over the next few decades. If AI yields additional output, the era of slow growth could be over.
+
+Nicholas' research into the topic focuses on how WFH 1) increases inputs like labor & capital, and 2) grows productivity. However, like all things, it does have its downsides, including the damage to city centers & large reduction in valuations of commercial office space. He concludes:
+
+> Being an economist usually means balancing winners and losers. Analyzing changes in technology, trade, prices, and regulations usually has mixed effects, with large groups of winners and losers. When it comes to working from home, the winners massively outweigh the losers. Firms, employees, and society in general have all reaped huge benefits. In my lifetime as an economist I have never seen a change that is so broadly beneficial.
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+[The expropriation of Advanced Custom Fields](https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/spoon/)
+
+Matt Mullenweg has decided that WP Engine's beatings will continue until morale improves. His latest move: taking over the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, which is used by millions:
+
+> We have been made aware that the Advanced Custom Fields plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress dot org.
+>
+> A plugin under active development has never been unilaterally and forcibly taken away from its creator without consent in the 21 year history of WordPress.
+
+To see it for yourself, visit this ACF plugin page: [wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/)
+
+What you'll see (as I publish this on 2024-10-14) is Automattic's own *Secure Custom Fields* plugin. This is technically inside the realm of Auotmattic's guidelines, which says they can remove any plugin for any reason, but it is NOT inside realm of what's cool/reasonable in the open source world.
+
+DHH [says it](https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings-a8f79d16) well:
+
+> Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes.
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+[Software Engineer pay heat map (US)](https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/)
+
+[Levels.fyi](https://www.levels.fyi), a site started to help job seekers compare pay across different companies, has added a salary heat map!
+
+With it, you can:
+
+1. Explore the interactive heat map of total compensation pay ranges across the United States, organized by DMA regions and accompanied by a color-coded legend
+2. Click into a region and uncover insights on salary percentiles, breakdown of total compensation components, and top paying companies
+3. Send them feedback! What else would you like to see?
+
+Check your chapter image for a screenshot of the heat map in action and try it yourself by following the link in the newsletter.
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+It's now time for Sponsored News!
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+The icing on the cake is always up-to-date change sets. Just like Git, change sets essentially "fork" the entire hypergraph of functions. This allows teams to propose changes, validate the safety / security of their configurations & keep things up-to-date as the environment changes.
+
+To experience DevOps in multiplayer mode, go to [systeminit.com](https://systeminit.com). They have a generous free tier, so please try it out yourself! Once again, that's systeminit.com.
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+[The disappearance of an Internet domain](https://every.to/p/the-disappearance-of-an-internet-domain)
+
+This piece by Gareth Edwards highlights just how fragile the Internet really is:
+
+> On October 3, the British government announced that it was giving up sovereignty over a small tropical atoll in the Indian Ocean known as the Chagos Islands. The islands would be handed over to the neighboring island country of Mauritius, about 1,100 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa.
+>
+> The story did not make the tech press, but perhaps it should have. The decision to transfer the islands to their new owner will result in the loss of one of the tech and gaming industry’s preferred top-level domains: .io.
+
+Once the treaty is signed, the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. Will the .io domain go with it? *Probably* not. There's too much value tied up in it for that to happen, in my opinion. But it certainly _could_! And that's kinda scary...
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+[Cognitive Load is what matters](https://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-load)
+
+Warning: I'm highly tempted to quote this entire article. I will do my best not to, but you have been warned...
+
+> There are so many buzzwords and best practices out there, but let's focus on something more fundamental. What matters is the amount of confusion developers feel when going through the code.
+>
+> Confusion costs time and money. Confusion is caused by high cognitive load. It's not some fancy abstract concept, but rather a fundamental human constraint.
+>
+> Since we spend far more time reading and understanding code than writing it, we should constantly ask ourselves whether we are embedding excessive cognitive load into our code.
+
+That's it! I'm stopping right there. Just go read it. The overarching point: we should reduce the cognitive load in our projects as much as possible.
+
+**Break:**
+
+**Jerod Santo:**
+
+That's the news for now, but also scan the companion newsletter for even more stories worth your attention, like: Chris Wanstrath on life after GitHub, Can you get root with only a cigaretter lighter (Spoiler alert: yes), a sweet firefox theme for the TUI enthusiast & our award-worthy list of unordered links.
+
+Have a great week! Leave us a 5-star review if you dig our work, and I'll talk to you again real soon.