Web Review, Week 2024-44
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-44.
What You Can Learn from Just Seven Pages by Hannah Arendt
Tags: tech, philosophy, history, politics
A very precious philosopher from the 20th century. Her texts are still very precious and resonate today. In this piece it’s focusing about tech relevant excerpts, she had plenty to say about today’s politics as well.
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/what-you-can-learn-from-just-seven
The Open Source AI Definition
Tags: tech, foss, ai, machine-learning
Nice initiative from the OSI. It is timely, such a definition was surely needed. The data information part seems fairly weak though… for sure you could make a system which doesn’t respect the four freedoms that way.
https://opensource.org/ai/open-source-ai-definition
Does Open Source AI really exist?
Tags: tech, foss, ai, machine-learning
Like me, you find the Open Source AI Definition weak on the training data information side? You’d be right and there’s a reason for it… it’s probably hiding quite some open washing for the larger models. This is a good explanation of the motives and consequences.
https://tante.cc/2024/10/16/does-open-source-ai-really-exist/
Platform Strategy and Its Discontents
Tags: tech, web, mobile, react, framework, criticism
This is definitely true. As long as web frontends are dominated by large frameworks, the web will always have subpar experience on mobile. And the solution isn’t going to come from the mobile providers too happy to gatekeep their app store.
https://infrequently.org/2024/10/platforms-are-competitions/#fn-failure-on-repeat-2
Matrix 2.0 Is Here!
Tags: tech, matrix, protocols
This is definitely getting there in terms of performance and usability. The mobile clients seem mature enough, just need the desktop clients to catch up before this becomes really something I’d feel confident enough to recommend and push for.
https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/
What’s New in POSIX 2024
Tags: tech, unix, posix
It’s nice to see the standard still moves. Some of the additions are definitely welcome.
https://blog.toast.cafe/posix2024-xcu
Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone
Tags: tech, time, culture, internationalization
Time management and timezones are definitely complicated. In a way it’s culture colliding with computers and localisation… it can’t be simple.
https://ssoready.com/blog/engineering/truths-programmers-timezones/
Improving SSH’s security with SSHFP DNS records
Tags: tech, tools, ssh, dns, security
Nice technique for automating the verification of SSH host keys. It’d be nice to see wider adoption.
https://blog.apnic.net/2022/12/02/improving-sshs-security-with-sshfp-dns-records/
Introducing zizmor: now you can have beautiful clean workflows
Tags: tech, github, ci, security, tools
Definitely an interesting tool. GitHub Actions workflow aren’t easy to setup while ensuring they’re secure, having a tool analyzing them for issues can only help.
https://blog.yossarian.net/2024/10/27/Now-you-can-have-beautiful-clean-workflows
Toward safe transmutation in Rust
Tags: tech, rust, type-systems, memory
Interesting progress on safe type casting in Rust. This should bring nice zero copy parsing of binary data in some cases.
https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/994334/5e1f97f08916b494/
Lessons learned from a successful Rust rewrite
Tags: tech, c++, rust, legacy
This is a good view of what you’re getting into with the “rewrite it in Rust” knee-jerk reaction.
https://gaultier.github.io/blog/lessons_learned_from_a_successful_rust_rewrite.html
Vector Databases Are the Wrong Abstraction
Tags: tech, postgresql, databases, ai, machine-learning, language
I definitely like the approach of having vectorisation in the RDBMS directly. This is one less moving part, less complexity at the application level to synchronize everything together. In this case it’s a Postgres extension.
https://www.timescale.com/blog/vector-databases-are-the-wrong-abstraction/
Database Remote-Copy Tool For SQLite
Tags: tech, sqlite, databases, tools
Interesting, there’s now an official tool to replicate sqlite databases. It’s still early days, we’ll see which features it’ll get.
How to profile a performance issue using Spring Boot profiling tools
Tags: tech, java, spring, profiling
A quick tour of the available tools to profile Spring Boot applications.
https://foojay.io/today/how-to-profile-a-performance-issue-using-spring-boot-profiling-tools/
Working with stacked branches in Git is easier with –update-refs
Tags: tech, git, tools
Yet another Git option I missed. This is definitely useful, I’ll try it out.
https://andrewlock.net/working-with-stacked-branches-in-git-is-easier-with-update-refs/
pygfx
Tags: tech, python, 3d, webgpu, data-visualization
Looks like a very interesting Python library to build interactive 3d visualizations.
https://docs.pygfx.org/stable/index.html
Rudimentary 3D on the 2D HTML Canvas
Tags: tech, 2d, 3d, graphics, mathematics
Ever wondered how to simulate 3D from 2D based primitives? Here is a nice experiment explaining how to approach it.
https://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2024/09/Rudimentary-3D-on-the-2D-HTML-Canvas.html
Classic 3D videogame shadow techniques
Tags: tests, 3d, graphics
A nice list of the techniques used to render shadows in games.
https://30fps.net/pages/videogame-shadows/
On Crafting Painterly Shaders
Tags: tech, 3d, graphics, shader
Very nice deep dive into a post-processing shader to create a painted scene effect.
https://blog.maximeheckel.com/posts/on-crafting-painterly-shaders/?ck_subscriber_id=2669647738
The Basics
Tags: tech, craftsmanship, learning, career
Indeed, those are fundamental traits to make sure you learn and make progress on your journey.
https://registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/the-basics
Background Work - by Kent Beck
Tags: tech, learning, career, craftsmanship
Another excellent piece from Kent Beck, he’s right that the real differentiator in our profession is about digging deep on topics, seeing them through even if that’s on the side. Curiosity is a key trait.
https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/background-work
the death of the architect
Tags: tech, agile, architecture, history
Good explanation on how the agile movement scaled down about design over time in its literature. It’s probably its biggest failure. The good thing is that the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction a bit (that’s probably why Beck is now working on a book series on software design).
https://explaining.software/archive/the-death-of-the-architect/
How to make Product give a shit about your architecture proposal
Tags: tech, quality, product-management, project-management
This is accurate in my opinion. Engineering and product teams need to properly negotiate, otherwise quality will suffer.
How to not be a prioritization machine
Tags: tech, project-management, product-management, decision-making
Interesting guidelines idea to help teams manage the priorities themselves. It’s written in the context of a product manager but I think it is lightweight and generic enough to apply in other contexts.
https://productmanagers.substack.com/p/how-to-not-be-a-prioritization-machine
We Fell For The Oldest Lie On The Internet
Tags: science, complexity
It’s sometimes extremely difficult to get to the original source of a scientific claim. Our corpus of science is so large and complex now that finding where a claim comes from can be a daunting task.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgo7rm5Maqg
Changes in primary visual and auditory cortex of blind and sighted adults following 10 weeks of click-based echolocation training | Cerebral Cortex | Oxford Academic
Tags: science, neuroscience
This is an amazing example of the brain plasticity. It’s also great to have a patch for increased quality of life with a training of only a few weeks.
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/34/6/bhae239/7696241?login=false
Bye for now!