Web Review, Week 2024-03
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-03.
Cat and Girl - 4000 of My Closest Friends
Tags: tech, copyright, law, art, ethics
How does it feel to just want to put something creative out there without being exploited? Very touching comic on the topic.
https://catandgirl.com/4000-of-my-closest-friends/
AI: the not-so-good parts - Xe Iaso
Tags: tech, ai, ethics
As an industry we definitely should think more often about the consequences of our actions. The incentives are indeed pushing us to go faster without much critical thinking.
https://xeiaso.net/talks/2024/prepare-unforeseen-consequences/
OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban on Using ChatGPT for “Military and Warfare”
Tags: tech, gpt, war, ethics, business
Unsurprising move, they claim it’s for the betterment of mankind but in practice it’s mostly about capturing as much market share as possible.
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/
AI poisoning could turn open models into destructive “sleeper agents,” says Anthropic
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, security, supply-chain
The tone pointing at “open models” is wrong but the research is interesting. It still proves models can be poisoned (open or not) so traceability and secured supply-chains will become very important when using large language models.
Will the new judicial ruling in the Vizio lawsuit strengthen the GPL?
Tags: tech, foss, law
Very interesting ruling, this opens the door to more parties being able to sue to enforce the GPL not just the authors.
https://blog.tidelift.com/will-the-new-judicial-ruling-in-the-vizio-lawsuit-strengthen-the-gpl
Unity’s Open-Source Double Standard: the ban of VLC - mfkl
Tags: tech, vlc, 3d, foss, business
This is a stupid move on Unity’s part… they’re built on LGPL but ban others in their store to have LGPL dependencies. Shame on them. Good move from Videolabs though, wish them lots of success.
https://mfkl.github.io/2024/01/10/unity-double-oss-standards.html
Pluralistic: The Cult of Mac
Tags: tech, apple, interoperability, security
Apple keep indeed attracting a bunch of cultists… and this allows them to keep abusing their other customers.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones
Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies – The Markup
Tags: tech, facebook, attention-economy, surveillance
Some more insights on the extent of the companies snitching to Facebook.
Meta/Threads Interoperating in the Fediverse Data Dialogue Meeting yesterday
Tags: tech, fediverse, facebook
Interesting notes, there seems to be good faith on the Meta side for now… but this leaves more questions than answers still.
https://reb00ted.org/tech/20231208-meta-threads-data-dialogue/
Where is all of the fediverse?
Tags: tech, fediverse, self-hosting, infrastructure
Interesting stats, not that easy to gather. This gives a good overview of where the fediverse instances are hosted though.
https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/who-hosts-the-fediverse-instances
Making my website faster - Cliffle
Tags: tech, web, fonts, css, optimization
Nice set of tricks to optimize load and render time of webpages.
https://cliffle.com/blog/making-website-faster/
LeftoverLocals: Listening to LLM responses through leaked GPU local memory | Trail of Bits Blog
Tags: tech, gpu, machine-learning, security
Interesting vulnerability, not all vendors are impacted though. GPU memory leaks can have unforeseen impacts.
Speedbump: TCP proxy for simulating variable, yet predictable network latency
Tags: tech, networking, tools
Looks like an interesting tool to simulate difficult network conditions.
https://github.com/kffl/speedbump
Willow Specifications
Tags: tech, protocols, data, networking, p2p
Looks like an interesting protocol for resilient peer to peer data stores. Let’s see how it spreads.
Beware of misleading GPU vs CPU benchmarks
Tags: tech, cpu, gpu, computation, economics
A good reminder that even though GPU tend to be faster, the added complexity and price might not be worth it in the end.
https://pythonspeed.com/articles/gpu-vs-cpu/
Using pre-commit hooks makes software development life easier
Tags: tech, git, craftsmanship, tools
Can definitely recommend. The pre-commit project also make managing those a breeze.
https://itnext.io/using-pre-commit-hooks-makes-software-development-life-easier-ef962827aa96
Using “will” and “should” in technical writing | James’ Coffee Blog
Tags: tech, documentation, writing
Pick your words wisely. If it does happen every time use “will”.
https://jamesg.blog/2024/01/17/will-should/
Everyday storytelling for engineers. The CAO Method.
Tags: tech, engineering, communication
Nice suggestion for talking about your work in various type of situations. Definitely worth trying to frame it like this.
https://tonyfreed.substack.com/p/everyday-storytelling-for-engineers
Does Working from Home Boost Productivity Growth? | San Francisco Fed
Tags: tech, remote-working, economics
Interesting report. Apparently so far a more widespread use of remote work doesn’t seem to boost of hinder productivity growth at large scale.
The warrior culture of ancient Sparta did some weird things to their society.
Tags: history, politics
Or why nationalism and war mongering are unwelcome dead ends. I never understood this fascination for Sparta by some people… if you look at what it was without some misplaced romanticism, it definitely looked like an horrible and paranoid environment to live in.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/sparta-300-warriors-history-slavery.html
Bye for now!