Welcome back to The Hybrid Hacker!

I'm only on my second issue and I'm already shaking things up with content fine-tuning, layout experiments and the introduction of a new section, "Some Serious Stuff". While technology is my main passion, it often intersects with my other passion, my job. In this new section, I'll be diving into topics such as technical leadership, team management and remote working to bring you the most valuable information and insights in these fields.

I'm always looking to improve and grow, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me with your feedback. I'm all ears and always open to hearing from my readers.

🤓 Bits of Whatever Technology

Building chips in a garage

Sam Zeloof, a 22-year-old from New Jersey, has made a name for himself by building real chips in his garage. His journey began in 2018 when he built his first chip, the Zeloof Z1, which contained 6 transistors. He followed up in 2021 with the Zeloof Z2, boasting 1200 transistors. It's worth noting that these processors are comparable to those of the 1970s, making Sam's achievement all the more impressive, especially given the hardware and chemicals required to build a chip. If you're curious to learn more about this chip-making prodigy, check out his story on Wired or (if brave enough) take a look at his Youtube channel.

NVIDIA Broadcast introduces Eye Contact

Especially if you are a remote worker, you probably know how frustrating it can be when someone is talking to you during a conference call but is not looking at the camera. This can happen for a variety of reasons, such as a distracted speaker, a shy speaker, or simply a speaker who has multiple monitors and may be running a presentation on a different monitor than the one where the webcam is mounted. NVIDIA Broadcast, an app that uses AI technology to enhance the video conferencing experience, has just introduced the Eye Contact feature in its 1.4 version. This new, cool effect moves the eyes of the speaker to simulate eye contact with the camera, enhancing the video conference experience. You can watch a demo of this feature here.

📚 Some Serious Stuff

Leading Understaffed Teams

In these uncertain times, where layoffs and budget spending control are on every executive's agenda, it's important to have a strategy for dealing with understaffed teams. Creating multiple layers of protection for the team by assigning specific roles and responsibilities, implementing processes and procedures, and fostering a culture of communication and collaboration can help ensure that the team can continue to function effectively, even in the face of unexpected challenges or obstacles.

Check out this awesome post to learn more about “Defense-in-Depth” strategy for leading understaffed teams.

💻 Couple of Interesting Git Repositories

• coding-interview-university is an awesome resource for people who want to become software engineers. After following this program, the author of this git repository was hired at Amazon!

• dispatch is an incident management tool created by Netflix engineers. It interacts with all your existing tools, allowing the users to focus on resolving the issue.

• url-animations adds animations to your URLs in the browser. It may seem pointless (and it probably is), but it's also pretty cool!

⌨️ Hands On

Automate your House with Home Assistant

One of my biggest passions is automating things, both at work and in my personal life. Recently, I embarked on the most exciting project yet: automating my house with Home Assistant. Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that allows users to control and automate various devices and actions in their home. It can connect to and control a wide range of devices, including smart lights, thermostats, cameras, sensors of any kind and more. It also enables users to create custom automations and scripts to perform tasks based on the input/output of these devices.

To get started, you only need a Raspberry Pi. However, for more demanding setups, I suggest using dedicated hardware. Intel NUCs are perfect but quite expensive. Personally, I use a cheap Miniforum GK41 and I am extremely happy with it.

Here is a getting started guide to help you learn how to install and take the first steps with Home Assistant.

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