Eric Simons
As seen in:
MSN,
MSN UK,
The Independent (UK),
The Washington Post,
Wiley Online Library,
Aol,
Fortune,
Flipboard,
TechRadar,
Miami Herald
and
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Eric Simons
Everyone should be building with AI, and everyone should know its cost
Generic AI tools promise to solve every problem under the sun, from running enterprise CRM to analysing why your cat isn't drinking enough water during a heatwave. And when you try to use one tool with no defined role for every task, results are disappointing and erode trust in technology. Multiply that pattern across hundreds of employees, and you get tokenmaxxing: prompt after prompt, refining AI output until something usable comes out.
Everyone should be building with AI, and everyone should know its cost
Tech News Tube is a real time news feed of the latest technology news headlines.Follow all of the top tech sites in one place, on the web or your mobile device.
Eric Simons set to join Fleming's Test staff as bowling coach
England’s Test coaching operation is moving from planning to delivery. Eric Simons is set to join Stephen Fleming’s backroom team as Test bowling coach, with the formal announcement expected on Monday, the same day England reveal their latest round of central contracts. Within days, the staffing of the Test set-up will be in place. Simons, a South African and a long-time ally of Fleming, brings an operational record spanning head-coaching and specialist bowling roles.
15 years after skipping college to launch 3 startups, I believe the taboo around questioning higher ed is holding an entire generation back Original
Right now, millions of high school seniors are finalizing their college applications and deciding which path to take. But an increasing number of people from this generation are starting to ask if college is actually worth it. Fifteen years ago, at 18, I made what many considered a bold bet: I skipped college and moved from Naperville, Illinois, to Silicon Valley with my childhood friend, the person who’d become my startup co-founder.
15 years after skipping college to launch 3 startups, I believe the taboo around questioning higher ed is holding an entire generation back
3 hours ago A shocking number of students at top universities claim dubious disabilities — and get advantages. America’s top universities are training grounds for the country’s elite – producing a disproportionate number of stars in politics, business, academia, medicine and more. Yet a startling trend has …
India Precipitated Silica Market Records Rise in Domestic Output
Precipitated Silica Market by End-Use Industry (Automobiles, Cosmetics, Electronics, Agriculture), by Application (Rubber, Personal Care, Food, Battery Separator, Coating & Inks, Adhesives & Sealants), & by Region - Global Forecast to 2021.Browse 127 market data Tables and 39 Figures spread through 163 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Precipitated Silica Market”.The automobile end-use industry segment accounted for the largest share of the global precipitated silica market in 2015.
In what sense is insurance agency in Palm Beach Gardens essential?
These give the disabled individuals the expect a far better future where the discomforts of the lack of a body part are totally decreased. Synthetic Arm or legsThe technology bordering the prosthetic arm in Palm Beach Gardens is designed around the working of a regular human arm.
Bolt x Figma - Turn Figma designs into production-ready apps in one click | Product Hunt
Home Product Bolt x Figma This is a launch from bolt.new See 2 previous launches You can now turn any Figma design into a pixel-perfect full stack app. Simply select a frame and put bolt.new in front of the Figma URL to start building rapid prototypes and production-ready apps.
Bolt + Expo - Turn your ideas into mobile apps without writing any code | Product Hunt
Home Product Bolt + Expo This is a launch from bolt.new See 1 previous launch Turn your ideas into mobile apps without writing any code For the first time ever, you can create production-ready mobile apps just by prompting. Bolt's integration with Expo eliminates the traditional barriers of mobile development by combining the power of React Native and Bolt's frontier AI agent.
bolt.new - Prompt, run, edit & deploy full-stack web apps | Product Hunt
Home Product bolt.new Prompt, run, edit & deploy full-stack web apps With bolt.new you can prompt fullstack web applications into existence, see them executed in real-time, debug errors as they occur & deploy a fully functional app—all without ever leaving your browser or personally writing a single line of code! Get free support to start building apps—fast. Maker Shoutouts We couldn't have built this without...
Unbundling the JavaScript ecosystem
There are two ways to make money: bundling, and unbundling. For a long time, the pendulum swung towards bundling. Babel, webpack, and React won the frontend battle, helping a generation of developers deliver experiences that were unthinkable before. Vertically integrated metaframeworks and services pushed this stack even further. As usual with the Web, the pendulum swung back. SWC, and later Oxc appeared as options for Babel. Rollup and esbuild gave us alternatives to webpack.
Fall 2024 Editors' Letter: A Deep Dive
(Courtesy of UC Davis College of Letters and Science) A year ago, Bay Nature editor in chief Victoria Schlesinger asked us to guest-edit this issue while she took some time off to recharge. This is not an easy publication to temp for! It is an incredible privilege to work with the group of editors, writers, illustrators, photographers, and readers that contribute to this community.
Get ready for ViteConf 2024
tl;dr: We’re thrilled to announce ViteConf 2024, happening on October 3rd & 4th, 2024. Get your free ticket to learn about the latest innovations in the web ecosystem! Mark your calendars for October 3rd when ViteConf returns to the virtual stage. ViteConf is one of the most anticipated frontend developer events of the year and like previous years, ViteConf will be free, online, and is designed to be immersive, and interactive.
What is Vite (and why is it so popular)?
In the web development world, it’s hard to go more than a few days without hearing about Vite. Its popularity has skyrocketed since its release in April 2020. At the time of writing this post, the project has blown past 64k stars on GitHub and over 12 million weekly downloads and now powers most open-source frameworks like Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, SolidStart and Remix (just to name a few). At StackBlitz, we’re not shy about how much we love Vite.
Improving the developer experience of enterprise design systems
The following blog post outlines points covered in our recent webinar which you can watch in full here: StackBlitz for Design Systems. For the past several years, enterprise design systems teams have reached out to us for help replicating the workflows we enable for the maintainers of open source projects like Angular, Material UI, and Astro but within the secure confines of their own infrastructure.
The Self-Rendering Eval Shirt
A few months ago I was looking for a way to say “thanks” to our users who came to our meetups, tried out our new products, or took a demo from our team. A free t-shirt fit the bill, but free t-shirts are everywhere. With a few exceptions, most are pretty boring: usually just a logo on a t-shirt. Its a logo… on a t-shirt. Instead, I wanted to challenge ourselves to create a design our community would be genuinely excited to wear.
The best climate books of 2023 — and the titles we’re excited for in 2024
As we hit these milestones, we have also learned that a warming planet does not affect us equally. The climate crisis has always and will continue to disproportionately affect people who are already facing the consequences of racial, socioeconomic and geopolitical injustices. Below are some of the best climate books published December 2022 – December 2023, as well as the books to look out for in the new year.
The challenges of signal interpretation of burials in ground‐penetrating radar
1 INTRODUCTION Archaeologists tend to employ methods such as ground-penetrating radar (GPR) when they work as expected and discard them when they do not, limiting published analyses to the subset of successful applications, which may be in the minority (Jones, 2008). When the method is asked to work beyond the boundaries of established parameters of success, archaeological approaches benefit from greater logical formality (Kvamme, 2003).
WebContainer API is here.
In 2021 we announced WebContainers, a novel WebAssembly-based operating system which enables Node.js to run entirely inside the browser. Over the last two years, millions of developers have used WebContainers each month as it powers, among others, the StackBlitz editor.
Conspiracies abound
Conspiracy theorists, those nattering nabobs of nincompooperism (to paraphrase Spiro Agnew) are relentless. Spreading lies and aspersions with nary a concern for ethics or morality. Vince Phillips is convinced that the entire government is populated by liars. Pretty rich, coming from a guy whose idol, Trump, lied 30,573 times in public while in office (who knows how many lies he told in private).
WebContainers are now supported in Firefox on desktop and Android
Almost exactly one year ago we launched WebContainers, our in-browser operating system capable of running full Node.js toolchains. The ability to instantly build the web using the web struck a chord with developers, and millions of developers now use StackBlitz every month for instant bug reports, live documentation examples, and much more.
How to Make a City Friendly to Butterflies
It’s a rare clear and sunny May day in Golden Gate Park, 65 degrees by ten in the morning— a promising outlook for sighting butterflies at Strawberry Hill, a designated urban island butterfly habitat in the middle of Stow Lake. A pack of garden volunteers roam around the top of the hill following Andy Stone, a park section supervisor with San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department.
The Race Between Hungry Snakes and Neurotoxic Newts
At first glance, a newt seems defenseless. It lacks any of the armaments we deem threatening in the animal kingdom. It has no big claws, no sharp teeth, no stinger. But newts in the Bay Area have something far more potent when it comes to protection. Their skin contains an infamously deadly neurotoxin, tetrodotoxin (TTX), that’s more than 1,000 times more potent than cyanide.
The Winnemem Wintu and a Process of Survival
A quiet cemetery rests behind a metal fence at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Northern California city of Shasta Lake, beyond houses touting American flags. Our white pickup truck slows to a stop in front of the fence as two deer bound across the road, toeing the line between nature and suburbia. Caleen Sisk, chief of the Winnemem Wintu tribe, sits across from me in the driver’s seat, an 84-year reminder of what her people lost etched into the earth in front of our eyes.
Keeping Joe Root Quiet Has Been A Really Pleasing Part Of Our Bowling Attack So Far- Pat Cummins
Australia captain Pat Cummins said that he’s quite pleased that the Australian bowling attack could keep Joe Root quiet so far in the first three Tests of the ongoing Ashes series. The hosts are currently leading the series by 3-0 with three comprehensive wins at Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne. The 4th test match will begin on January 5 in Sydney as Australia is eying for the 5-0 whitewash. England hasn’t won a Test match in Australia since January 2011.
Op-Ed: We Shouldn't Rely on Atmospheric River Miracles
Rather than telling the seasons by temperature fluctuations, Bay Area locals can tell the seasons by the hue of the hills. Are the hills brown? Green? A mixture of the two?
How Birds Keep the Pajaro River Levees Safe
The Pajaro River slithers between the towns of Pajaro and Watsonville, which lie directly within the river’s natural floodplain. Although the river created the fertile soils that birthed this agricultural community, its floodwaters can wreak havoc on the region: a 1995 flood killed two people and destroyed $95 million worth of agricultural crops.
Archaeology’s Role in Finding Missing Indigenous Children in Canada
On the evening of May 27, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that the unmarked graves of more than 200 children had been found on the former grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The story quickly dominated Canadian news media and drew attention beyond our national borders. After the initial Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc announcement, news followed of similar Indigenous community–led investigations taking place across the country.
"It's What I Love About California"
When thick brown clouds of smoke settled into the sky above Point Reyes National Seashore in fall 2020, the artist Tom Killion began packing his car with framed prints he’d made over the past four decades, along with thousands of sketches from a lifetime of hiking through California and the West Coast. For the past four decades, Killion has worked as a lithographer, focusing almost exclusively on scenes from the rugged Northern California coastline and the high Sierra.
New Colony of Rare Bees Found By a Four-Year-Old
Four-year-old Annika Arnout, on a neighborhood outing with her caregiver Targe Lindsay and her pet garden snail Slimy this spring, found not one, but two, colonies of Plebeia emerina, a tiny, stingless bee native to Brazil, adding a new twist to an entomological detective story 70 years in the making.
The Transect Podcast Review
By Kody Huard, Sean Connaughton, and Ian Sellers (hosts) May 12, 2021 Review By Eric Simons The world of British Columbian archaeology is, to most, unknown and inaccessible. This is a shame, particularly in a province whose settler population has such a poor grasp of its long human history.
Meet The Rare Dawn Redwood at a Bay Area Park
I sit under the redwoods of South Berkeley’s Willard Park to find peace and relief from a deadly pandemic and a divided nation. I am in good company. Redwoods have united nations. In 1945, 500 delegates representing 46 nations gathered under the redwoods at Muir Woods National Monument to mourn the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Western Monarch butterflies take an astonishing step closer to extinction
Posted Dec 10, 2020, 10:20 am Eric Simons Bay Nature Two years ago, when volunteers counted only 27,212 monarch butterflies in the Xerces Society’s annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, it meant the butterflies had crossed a threshold identified by scientists as the point past which western migratory monarchs were likely to become extinct. Still, after holding steady through 2019, the numbers trickling out of the count so far this fall have stunned even scientists who expected the worst.
Crow Funerals and What We Can Learn From Them
A crow funeral can happen at any time. Farmers bear witness after shooting unwanted crows in their fields. Powerline workers see them should an unlucky bird zap itself and drop. Occasionally, the funerals occur in a city park. All it takes is one dead American crow plus one fellow crow to spot it and release an alert, harsh and urgent — Caw! Caw! Within moments, a mob of crows arrives.
Shrinking the Keystone | Hakai Magazine
New research is causing the original keystone species, the ochre sea star Pisaster ochraceus, to lose some of its supposed ecosystem-controlling powers. Photo by Jeff Rotman/Alamy Stock Photo New research is weakening the rule of the original keystone species and, in the process, complicating an iconic idea in ecological science. Authored by by Eric Simons Wordcount July 7, 2016 | 950 words, about 4 minutes This story is over 4 years old.
John Robinson on Black Birders Week - Bay Nature
John Robinson isn’t a typical birder, as Bay Nature writer Jeremy Miller found last year while following Robinson on birding trips. He’s got 20/15 vision, for one. Perfect auditory recall, for another. He’s also black in a world that’s almost exclusively white. We caught up with Robinson by phone this week to see what he thought about our national conversation about race, access to nature, and birding, galvanized by a racist incident in New York’s Central Park and the killing of George Floyd.
The Beautiful Geometry of Short-eared Owls
I’m not usually masochistic. But then I spent three months this winter trying to observe extremely elusive short eared owls in a busy park in the inner Bay Area. (I’ll omit the location in order to preserve a semblance of their privacy.) From this I learned patience, frustration, and futility. Each outing was a Zen exercise in holding no expectations. Each day’s outcome disconnected from the one before. Short eared owls exquisitely randomize their behavior.
Photo Gallery: Diablo Range Biodiversity
The Diablo Range is a biodiversity hotspot harboring numerous rare, endemic, or disjunct species. Here are some of the plants and animals you can find there. Read more about “the spine of California” in our spring 2020 feature article. Blunt-nosed leopard lizard, Gambelia sila endangered, San Joaquin Valley endemic. (Photo by Nicholas Hess, iNaturalist CC BY-NC 4.0) Jepson’s milk vetch, Astragalus rattanii var. jepsonianus, North Coast disjunct, California endemic.
Bay Area Parks to Visit in a Time of Social Distancing
Editor’s Note: We’ll update this story if park conditions changes. Last update March 17 at 10 a.m. For now, the Bay Area’s shelter in place orders define “outdoor activity” like “walking, hiking or running” as essential. That means healthy people who aren’t in a high risk category for coronavirus complications can leave the house and drive anywhere in the area to go hiking, provided they maintain six feet from other people and follow other health guidelines.
A New Alpha Coyote in San Francisco's Presidio
Bay Nature last covered the return of coyotes to the Presidio, and ecologists’ efforts to track them, in the January 2018 magazine. We don’t yet know her origin story or how she made it here, but the Presidio in San Francisco has a new top dog. Presidio Trust ecologist Jonathan Young, who has tracked coyotes in the urban national park for four years, says that an adult female coyote he hadn’t seen before arrived in the Presidio in January 2019. Perhaps she came from Santa Cruz.
A Nature Trail Across San Francisco
The San Francisco Crosstown Trail, a newly imagined 17-mile hiking and biking route that cuts like a sash across the city from northwest to southeast, is a journey through the city’s green spaces. First proposed in the city’s 2014 General Plan as a way to connect natural parks to each other for an “urban wildlife trail experience,” the route came together over a year of committee meetings in 2018. The trail opened, though without signs, in May 2019.
A Guide to Bay Area Salamanders - Bay Nature
What salamanders live in the Bay Area? Ahh yes, salamanders. The under-appreciated amphibians, second to their more well-known and vocal (if slightly obnoxious) cousin the frog. For these slimy critters, existence under the forest floor or in murky bodies of water often hides them from even the most enthusiastic of hikers. This is true even in the Bay Area, despite the droves of people who go out into our many parks on the weekends.
Housing Project Pits Regional Goals Against City Plans
Planners, climate scientists, and environmentalists generally agree that two of the most critical measures California should take to reduce its carbon emissions are to build more dense urban housing near transit and to restore carbon-sequestering wetlands.
California Meets "Precipitation Whiplash" - Bay Nature
Much of California enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate where the weather typically swings like a pendulum from warm, dry summers to cool, wet winters. Year-to-year, this pendulum can swing with great variation. If it doesn’t swing toward rain and snow between October and March, it leads to drought; if it does, we might see record-breaking precipitation. In the dry season the pendulum can swing too far into fire weather, creating hot, dry, and windy conditions prime for wildfires.
Spiders that Build Structures in their Webs - Bay Nature
I saw a bunch of spiders hanging from structures in the middle of their webs. What are they and why do they do that? Looks like you’ve stumbled across one of the more interesting web builders of the Bay Area, the spiders of the genus Metepeira! Not only are members of this genus native to California and much of western North America, they have unique webs that are a bizarre mash-up of style and structure. If these spiders were chefs, I’m certain they’d be cooking fusion cuisine.
How to Identify Lacewing Eggs - Bay Nature
I found this on my front door — it looks like needles in a circular motion with white tips. What is it? The small “needles” that start to decorate doors, plants, and just about any surface imaginable this time of year are from an often overlooked family of insects known as the green lacewings (Chrysopidae). These insects, as many gardeners are probably aware, are voracious predators of aphids, mites, whiteflies, and other small soft bodied insects.
A Huge Ranch for Sale in Livermore
You get almost as much a sense of the ecological value of the N3 Ranch property, 50,000 East Bay acres listed for sale for $72 million in early July, from looking at a map as you do from the spectacular drone footage the owners released with the listing. In a regional conservation era defined by linkages and corridors, N3 connects huge swaths of protected lands.
A Sequoia Grove to Rival Mariposa Grove - Bay Nature
The Stagg Tree, believed to be the fifth largest tree in the world. (Photo by Max Forster, Save the Redwoods League) The Save the Redwoods League has announced a deal to acquire 530 acres of giant sequoia forest in the Sierra Nevada east of Tulare. In both size and in the number of ancient sequoias, the Alder Creek property rivals Yosemite’s famed Mariposa Grove.
Face to Face With Mining Bees
Last year, as part of a global citizen science competition, I sat down in a park in the middle of San Francisco and watched a shrub vibrating with insect pollinators, like in a cartoon when the animators want you to know there’s someone hiding inside. From maybe 10 feet away I thought it was just a cloud of honeybees.
The Pacific Heats Up. Is it the Sequel to The Blob?
Sea surface temperature differences, compared to the average from 1981-2010, in the Pacific Ocean on September 12, 2019. (Data from NOAA, via TropicalTidbits.com) An enormous area of warm water is pooling in the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast of North America. It has reminded scientists and headline-writers alike of “The Blob,” an unprecedented area of high sea surface temperatures that spread across the North Pacific between 2013-2016 and resulted in damaging effects on ocean and human health.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Eric
Contact Eric, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack