Web Review, Week 2023-16

Friday, 21 April 2023 | Kevin Ottens

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2023-16.

Tags: tech, surveillance, mozilla

This will be a welcome feature. There are extensions of course but at least users will have it by default when it lands.

https://www.ghacks.net/2023/04/17/firefox-may-interact-with-cookie-prompts-automatically-soon/

Tags: tech, microsoft, windows, surveillance, attention-economy

What not to do… this is slowly alienating the users.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/17/microsoft_windows_start_ads/

Google Assured OSS

Tags: tech, foss, supply-chain

This is a good thing that Google makes such a move. Still, it could be so much more. Tidelift still seems to be the best offer for securing your dependencies.

https://sethmlarson.dev/google-assured-oss

KeePassXC Audit Report – KeePassXC

Tags: tech, security, keepassxc

Good milestone for this project I’ve been using for a long while now.

https://keepassxc.org/blog/2023-04-15-audit-report/

GPT-4 is a Risky Dependency for FOSS Projects - Alys Brooks

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, foss, ethics, copyright, vendor-lockin

Definitely this! Major FOSS projects should think twice before giving their street creds to such closed systems. They’ve been produced with dubious ethics and copyright practices and since they’re usable only through APIs the induced vendor lock-in will be strong.

http://www.alysbrooks.com/gpt-4-is-a-risky-dependency-for-foss-projects.html

Training ChatGPT AI Required 185,000 Gallons of Water: Study

Tags: tech, ai, neural-networks, climate, gpt

There’s the carbon footprint but of course there’s also the water consumption… and with increased droughts this will become more and more of a problem.

https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-ai-water-185000-gallons-training-nuclear-1850324249

Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants for Training Data | WIRED

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, machine-learning, law, copyright, business

This was only a matter of time. It’ll be interesting to see how this will unfold. Potentially it could turn into lawsuit cases being built up, it could also mean content producers get a cut down the line… of course could be both. Since FOSS code also ends up in training those models I’m even wondering if that could lead to money going back to the authors. We’ll see where that goes.

https://www.wired.com/story/stack-overflow-will-charge-ai-giants-for-training-data/

[2302.10866] Hyena Hierarchy: Towards Larger Convolutional Language Models

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, machine-learning

OK, this is a pre-print so to take with a truckload of salt. If further nice results get built up on this it could turn out interesting though. This is a much more intellectually satisfying approach than the current arm race of “let’s throw bigger models at the problem”. This has the potentially of reducing the computational complexity of those models, this is definitely welcome in term of energy and hardware requirements. Let’s wait and see…

https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.10866

Zip-NeRF

Tags: tech, 3d, ai, machine-learning

This is impressive results. Clearly much less artifacts than on previous such models.

https://jonbarron.info/zipnerf/

nvtop: GPUs process monitoring for AMD, Intel and NVIDIA

Tags: tech, gpu, tools

Nice tool for monitoring how processes use the GPU.

https://github.com/Syllo/nvtop

WebGPU Fundamentals

Tags: tech, web, webgpu, gpu, 3d

Looks like a nice reference about WebGPU. Unsurprisingly it covers some 3D basics as well.

https://webgpufundamentals.org/

Defining interfaces in C++: concepts versus inheritance – Daniel Lemire’s blog

Tags: tech, c++, performance

Shouldn’t come as a surprise if you paid attention to C++ evolutions for the past 30 years. We’re now reaping the fruits though, so it’s really become easy to keep both options in sight when designing. This is especially important for performance sensitive code.

Nothing really new here (apart from the “how easy it is these days!”)… Still it needs to be reminded on a regular basis. :-)

https://lemire.me/blog/2023/04/20/defining-interfaces-in-c-concepts-versus-inheritance/

mjg59 | PSA: upgrade your LUKS key derivation function

Tags: tech, cryptography, storage, security

This is definitely something to keep in mind and check if you have any LUKS encrypted storage. The key might be less protected than you think.

https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/66429.html

🐧 linuxwave

Tags: tech, music, funny, linux

Looks like a funny tool to generate music.

https://orhun.dev/linuxwave/

A love letter to make - kmaasrud

Tags: tech, tools

This is indeed one of my favorite tools. Of course, I use it a bit less nowadays… still, I should have written this letter.

https://kmaasrud.com/blog/make

Keep Stuff Linkable (Crash Lime)

Tags: tech, blog, web, linking

Good reminder that links are the soul of the world wide web!

https://animaomnium.github.io/keep-stuff-linkable/

Writing for interfaces - WWDC22 - Videos - Apple Developer

Tags: tech, ux, gui

Plenty of good advises for dealing with text in interfaces. It’s a bit too much focused on phone and watch for my taste glancing over challenges specific to larger form factors. Still this can be useful to keep in mind.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/10037/

Load Balancing

Tags: tech, web, server, performance, http

Nice post explaining the common algorithms used for load balancing. Each having their own trade offs of course. Well done with tiny simulations.

https://samwho.dev/load-balancing/

Offline Is Just Online With Extreme Latency - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

Tags: tech, networking, latency, internet

Interesting way to look at the problem, definitely thought provoking.

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/offline-is-online-with-extreme-latency/

Making a Linux home server sleep on idle and wake on demand — the simple way | Daniel P. Gross

Tags: tech, self-hosting, power

Very interesting trick, definitely something worth doing if you want to host something at home and keep the power consumption low.

https://dgross.ca/blog/linux-home-server-auto-sleep/

Evidence - Business Intelligence as Code

Tags: tech, business-intelligence, reporting, markdown, data-visualization, web

Interesting tool… this is generally done with tools where you’re captured into a GUI. Moving this to text and static generation opens the door to proper versioning etc.

https://evidence.dev/

Becoming a more self-directing Staff+ individual contributor | LeadDev

Tags: tech, leadership, management

Interesting approach to get a better understanding and awareness of your surroundings as a tech lead or lead dev.

https://leaddev.com/personal-development/becoming-more-self-directing-staff-individual-contributor

An Interview Process That Works For Me

Tags: hr, hiring, interviews

Wow, that’s a very thorough hiring and interview process. I’m not sure all organizations have the luxury to do all of it. Still plenty of interesting nuggets in there, it gave me a couple of ideas on how to reword or change some of the control questions I usually use.

https://blog.colinbreck.com/an-interview-process-that-works-for-me/

Expiring vs. Long-Term Knowledge · Collab Fund

Tags: information, knowledge

So much this. It’s important to keep in mind what will last and what is the buzz of the day. Especially since the lines between news and entertainment became so blurry.

https://collabfund.com/blog/expiring-vs-lt-knowledge/

Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

Tags: history, culture

I actually always wondered about this, now I know. :-)

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/port-starboard.html

Space Elevator

Tags: science, geospatial, funny

Very nice resource if you wondered about the journey to space.

https://neal.fun/space-elevator/

Bye for now!