Web Review, Week 2024-36
On my way to Akademy, looking forward to meeting people there. Even though I’m traveling with spotty Internet access for now, let’s not loose good habits. Here is my web review for the week 2024-36.
The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending - The Verge
Tags: tech, copyright, law, library
This is really bad news… Clearly the publishers cartel would try to outlaw libraries if they were invented today.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/4/24235958/internet-archive-loses-appeal-ebook-lending
In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening to Your Phone’s Microphone to Serve Ads for Stuff You Mention
Tags: tech, privacy, surveillance, advertisement
There, now this seems like a real thing… your phone recording you while you’re not aware for advertisement purposes. Nice surveillance apparatus. Thanks but no thanks.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-partner-phones-listening-microphone
Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, art, learning, cognition
An excellent essay about generative AI and art. Goes deep in the topic and explains very well how you can hardly make art with those tools. It’s just too remote from how they work. I also particularly like the distinction between skill and intelligence. Indeed, we can make highly skilled but not intelligent systems using this technology.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art
Challenging The Myths of Generative AI
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, criticism
Does a good job listing the main myths the marketing around generative AI is built on. Don’t fall for the marketing, exert critical thinking and rely on real properties of those systems.
https://www.techpolicy.press/challenging-the-myths-of-generative-ai/
Is Linux collapsing under its own weight? On Rust for Linux
Tags: tech, linux, rust, kernel, foss, politics
Interesting analysis. For sure the Rust for Linux drama tells something about the Linux kernel community and its complicated social norms.
https://sporks.space/2024/09/05/is-linux-collapsing-under-its-own-weight-on-rust-for-linux/
Rust for Linux revisited
Tags: tech, linux, rust, kernel, politics, foss
Politics in the Linux kernel can indeed be tough. The alternative path proposed to the Rust-for-Linux team is indeed an interesting one, it could bear interesting results quickly.
https://drewdevault.com/2024/08/30/2024-08-30-Rust-in-Linux-revisited.html
LSP: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Tags: tech, semantic, programming, protocols, language
Interesting view about the LSP specification, where it shines, and where it falls short.
https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly.html
Python Programmers’ Experience
Tags: tech, python, community, data-visualization
Indeed this is a much better visualization. It shows quite well how the Python programmers pool is growing.
https://two-wrongs.com/python-programmers-experience
OAuth from First Principles
Tags: tech, oauth, security
Nice post explaining the basics of OAuth. If you wonder why the flow seems so convoluted, this article is for you.
https://stack-auth.com/blog/oauth-from-first-principles
Things I Wished More Developers Knew About Databases
Tags: tech, databases
Lots of things to keep in mind when dealing with databases. This is a nice list of “must know” for developers, false assumptions are widespread (and I fall in some of those traps myself from time to time).
https://rakyll.medium.com/things-i-wished-more-developers-knew-about-databases-2d0178464f78
The Latency/Throughput Tradeoff: Why Fast Services Are Slow And Vice Versa
Tags: tech, performance, latency
An old article but a good reminder: you have to choose between latency and throughput, you can’t have both in the same system.
The impact of memory safety on sandboxing · Alex Gaynor
Tags: tech, security, safety, memory, sandbox
Interesting point. As the memory safety of our APIs will increase, can we reduce the amount of sandboxing we need? This will never remove completely the need if only for logic bugs, but surely we could become more strategic about it.
https://alexgaynor.net/2024/aug/30/impact-of-memory-safety-on-sandboxing/
LazyFS: A FUSE Filesystem which can be used to simulate data loss on unsynced writes
Tags: tech, tests, storage
That sounds like a very interesting tool to simulate and test potential data loss scenarios. This is generally a bit difficult to do, should make it easier.
https://github.com/dsrhaslab/lazyfs
Greppability is an underrated code metric
Tags: tech, programming, craftsmanship
Good set of advices on naming variables, types, etc. Indeed this makes things easier to find in code bases.
https://morizbuesing.com/blog/greppability-code-metric/
Reasons to write design docs
Tags: tech, architecture, design, documentation, communication
Very good article. I wish I’d see more organisations writing such design documents. They help a lot, and that allows to have a way to track changes in the design. To me it’s part of the minimal set of documentation you’d want on any non trivial project.
https://ntietz.com/blog/reasons-to-write-design-docs/
Differing Values In A Team Are Costly
Tags: tech, values, organization, team, management
Aligning people with differing core values in a team is indeed necessary but difficult. It can kill your project for small teams, for larger teams you will likely need to think your organization keeping the misalignment in mind.
https://rtpg.co/2024/08/31/cost-of-a-values-gap/
Twelve rules for job applications and interviews
Tags: tech, hiring, interviews
Good set of advices. I wish more people applying for a job would follow them.
https://vurt.org/articles/twelve-rules/
Is My Blue Your Blue?
Tags: colors, cognition, funny
One of those essentials questions in life now has some form of answer. Where is the blue/green boundary for you?
Bye for now!