Web Review, Week 2025-03
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2025-03.
How This “Basic” Robot Solves REAL Life Problems (without AI) - YouTube
Tags: tech, robots, disability, empathy
This is definitely an excellent use of robotics. Probably one of the best I’ve seen. The things we can do when we’re not just focusing on increasing productivity. These people get a shared sense of belonging they’d have a hard time to have without those robots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iLcOLvNfz0
Common misconceptions about the complexity in robotics vs AI
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, robots
Nice reminder that the tasks necessary to robotics are clearly much harder to develop through machine learning than language.
https://harimus.github.io//2024/05/31/motortask.html
The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing
Tags: tech, surveillance, politics, economics, privacy
The wonderful world of personalised pricing in the age of widespread surveillance… Also becoming personalised wage fixing in the case of gig workers. Shameful.
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-wealthy/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor
I was just censored by Meta
Tags: tech, social-media, facebook, politics, censorship
I think the trend is clear: don’t criticise the powerful or else…
https://boehs.org/node/meta-censorship
Mastodon’s founder cedes control, refuses to become next Musk or Zuckerberg
Tags: tech, social-media, fediverse, foss, politics
Definitely a good move, especially when we see the behavior of the tech moguls…
WordPress is in trouble
Tags: tech, foss, community, wordpress
The WordPress is still unfolding… I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends with a fork.
https://anderegg.ca/2025/01/11/wordpress-is-in-trouble
Speech and Language Processing
Tags: tech, language, nlp
Looks like a good resource if you’re interested in natural language processing.
https://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/slp3/
an autoflusher
Tags: tech, system, programming
This is definitely a neat trick. This way you can flush stdout regularly without modifying the code of a command.
https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/an-autoflusher
Rewrite it in Rust: A Computational Physics Case Study
Tags: tech, rust, computation, performance
More studies needed to confirm this, it is a single data point. Still it looks like Rust could take the HPC world by storm once it gets a better GPGPU story (still early days there).
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.19146
Django vs. FastAPI, An Honest Comparison
Tags: tech, python, backend, django, fastapi
Nice comparison of both approaches. Some of the criteria used I would have left out but otherwise it seems fair.
https://www.david-dahan.com/blog/comparing-fastapi-and-django
Open source and its power demonstrated in PostgreSQL
Tags: tech, foss
Very good demonstration of why you want open source code on your projects. I often end up doing this kind of forensics myself, this is truly powerful.
https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/the-power-of-open-source-in-postgresql/
Thinking About Risk - Sidebar #1: “Exposure” - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Tags: tech, project-management, risk
Interesting extra dimension to think about risks. I don’t think I ever encountered it in the wild but that can make sense to use it.
https://jacobian.org/2025/jan/15/risk-exposure/
Thinking About Risk - Sidebar #2: The Swiss Cheese Model - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Tags: tech, project-management, risk
Or why you can’t consider risks in isolation. It’s too often forgotten.
https://jacobian.org/2025/jan/16/swiss-cheese-model/
The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
Tags: science, research
Wondering what a Ph.D. is about? This is a good illustrated summary.
https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Bye for now!