Web Review, Week 2024-51
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-51.
Advice for First-Time Open Source Contributors
Tags: tech, foss, community
Definitely a good list of advices for first time contributors.
https://www.yegor256.com/2024/12/15/open-source-beginner-advice.html
Europe’s Starlink competitor is go - The Verge
Tags: tech, internet, geospatial
IRIS² is the friendly reminder that tens of thousand of low orbit satellites is not the only design… and likely not the smartest one.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/16/24322358/iris2-starlink-rival-europe-date-cost
Buying a TV in 2025? Expect lower prices, more ads, and an OS war. - Ars Technica
Tags: tech, tv, attention-economy, advertisement
The TV market is really turning into an anti-consumer one.
Re: Re: Bluesky and Decentralization
Tags: tech, social-media, bluesky, fediverse, architecture
Yet another long piece in this interesting and in depth conversation about Bluesky. The fact that it stays civil is called out explicitly and this is appreciated.
https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/
Bluesky at a crossroads as users petition to ban Jesse Singal over anti-trans views, harassment
Tags: tech, social-media, moderation, bluesky, politics
Bluesky is already hitting growth pains regarding moderation and its guidelines. By being centralized it is also more at risk within the current US political climate.
Yes, That Viral LinkedIn Post You Read Was Probably AI-Generated
Tags: tech, social-media, linkedin, ai, machine-learning, gpt, fake
Kind of unsurprising right? I mean LinkedIn is clearly a deformed version of reality where people write like corporate drones most of the time. It was only a matter of time until robot generated content would be prevalent there, it’s just harder to spot since even humans aren’t behaving genuinely there.
https://www.wired.com/story/linkedin-ai-generated-influencers/
AI and Internet Hygiene - by kate wagner - the late review
Tags: tech, internet, web, ai, machine-learning, gpt, fake, knowledge
Indeed, we’ll have to relearn “internet hygiene”, it is changing quickly now that we prematurely unleashed LLM content on the open web.
https://www.late-review.com/p/ai-and-internet-hygiene
Is AI progress slowing down?
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, criticism
A good balanced post on the topic. Maybe we’ll finally see a resurgence of real research innovation and not just stupid scaling at all costs. Reliability will stay the important factor of course and this one is still hard to crack.
https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/is-ai-progress-slowing-down
Analog AI Startup Aims to Lower the Power of Gen AI - IEEE Spectrum
Tags: tech, analogic, ai, machine-learning, neural-networks, hardware
It looks like analog chips for neural network workloads are on the verge of finally becoming reality. This would reduce consumption by an order of magnitude and hopefully more later on. Very early days for this new attempt, let’s see if it holds its promises.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/analog-ai-2669898661
When should we require that firmware be free?
Tags: tech, hardware, foss
A good question, it is somewhat of a grey area at times. We need to come up with better answers.
https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/70895.html
In search of a faster SQLite
Tags: tech, databases, sqlite, asynchronous, rust, system, filesystem
Interesting explanation of a research paper exploring the possibility of a faster SQLite by focusing on async I/O.
https://avi.im/blag/2024/faster-sqlite/
Java in the Small
Tags: tech, java, tools
I wouldn’t use it as much as advocated in this article, still this is a good reminder that Java became way more approachable for smaller programs in recent years.
https://horstmann.com/unblog/2024-12-11/index.html
How do you do, fellow web developers? A growing disconnect.
Tags: tech, career, complexity, learning
It tries hard at not being a “get off my lawn” post. It clearly points some kind of disconnects though. They’re real. I guess it’s to be expected with the breadth of our industry. There are so many abstractions piled onto each other that it’s difficult to explore them all.
https://rakhim.exotext.com/web-developers-a-growing-disconnect
Visitor Pattern Considered Pointless - Use Pattern Switches Instead
Tags: tech, design, pattern, java, type-systems
One of my favorite of the traditional design patterns in object oriented languages. Now obviously when you get pattern matching in your language… you don’t need the visitor pattern anymore.
https://nipafx.dev/java-visitor-pattern-pointless/
Estimating projects sells them short (and that’s okay)
Tags: tech, project-management, estimates
I don’t exactly use this approach to factor in the uncertainty… but I guess there’s something to be made out of this proposal. I’ll keep it in mind for my next project.
https://ntietz.com/blog/estimating-projects-short-sale/
The One Way I Know a Team is in Trouble
Tags: leadership, management, communication
Interesting ideas about leadership lacking in impact. Indeed it should be seen as a communal function, it’s not about individuals leading each in their own directions. Think about it in a systemic way.
https://suzansfieldnotes.substack.com/p/the-one-way-i-know-a-team-is-in-trouble
Seven quiet breakthroughs for climate and nature in 2024 you might have missed
Tags: ecology, politics, law, energy
This is not all bad news, there are a few things to rejoice about.
Bye for now!