Web Review, Week 2025-22
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2025-22.
The two types of open source
Tags: tech, foss, community, supply-chain, marketing, business
I’m not sure this dichotomy is enough for building a taxonomy of FOSS projects. But I guess it’s a start and captures something often missing in other such attempts.
https://filiph.net/text/two-types-of-open-source.html
SteamOS massively beats Windows on the Legion Go S
Tags: tech, linux, gaming, kde, power, performance
Looks like Linux is now the best operating system for gaming on the go.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/05/steamos-massively-beats-windows-on-the-legion-go-s/
Why old games never die (but new ones do)
Tags: tech, gaming, vendor-lockin, culture
It’s funny how old games can still have a cult following. It’s unlikely to stop too… That’s the good thing about limited lock in. Self hostable private servers, ability to play offline, tools to produce mods… They all contribute to such very long term successes.
https://pleromanonx86.wordpress.com/2025/05/06/why-old-games-never-die-but-new-ones-do/
Own Your Email Domain
Tags: tech, email, self-hosting, dns
You don’t need to self-host the mail itself, but you definitely should control the domain.
https://matthewsanabria.dev/posts/own-your-email-domain/
How to fix email encryption
Tags: tech, email, security, cryptography, ux
Worth trying indeed. I’d love to see at least some of that widely adopted.
https://weddige.eu/en/articles/lets-encrypt-emails/
A Company Reminder for Everyone to Talk Nicely About the Giant Plagiarism Machine
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copyright, satire
Nice little satire, we could easily imagine some CEOs writing this kind of memo.
At Amazon, Some Coders Say Their Jobs Have Begun to Resemble Warehouse Work
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, productivity, management, business, quality
If you expected another outcome on the average developer job from the LLM craze… you likely didn’t pay attention enough.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html
Google has a big AI advantage: it already knows everything about you
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, google, surveillance
Are we surprised they’ll keep processing personal information as much as possible? Not really no…
https://www.theverge.com/tech/671201/google-personal-context-ai-advantage-data
The Who Cares Era
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, quality, culture
Nice piece. In an age where we’re drowning in bad quality content, those who make something with care will shine. They need to be supported.
https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-05-23-who-cares/
Large Language Models Reflect the Ideology of their Creators
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, politics, research
Interesting research, this gives a few hints at building tools to ensure some more transparency at the ideologies pushed by models. They’re not unbiased, that much we know, characterising the biases are thus important.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.18417
Tools
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copyright, ethics
LLMs are indeed not neutral. There’s a bunch of ethical concerns on which you don’t have control when you use them.
https://adactio.com/journal/21926
The magic developer wand…
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, ethics, ecology, copyright
Not only the tools have ethical issues, but the producers just pretend “we’ll solve it later”. A bunch of empty promises.
https://gomakethings.com/the-magic-developer-wand…/
A Vibe‐Coding Experience
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, programming, complexity
An honest attempt at “vibe coding”… but once again the conclusion is “when it grows to non-trivial size, I’m glad my experience allowed me to finish the thing myself”.
https://github.com/clauderouxster/kriegspiel/wiki/A-Vibe%E2%80%90Coding-Experience
On “Vibe Coding”
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, quality, economics, politics
It definitely has a point. The code output isn’t really what matters. It is necessary at the end, but without the whole process it’s worthless and don’t empower anyone… It embodies many risks instead. I think my preferred quote in this article is this: “We are teaching people that they are not worth to have decent, well-made things.”
https://tante.cc/2025/05/23/on-vibe-coding/
Net-Negative Cursor
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, productivity, quality
Indeed feels bad when there are so many problems in the example of LLM based completion you put on the front page of your website…
https://lukasatkinson.de/2025/net-negative-cursor/
The Recurring Cycle of ‘Developer Replacement’ Hype
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, nocode, hype, business
Just another hype cycle… The developer profession being in danger is greatly exaggerated.
https://alonso.network/the-recurring-cycle-of-developer-replacement-hype/
CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, security, privacy
Or why CAPTCHA might become something of the past. I guess they’ll live a bit longer as they become more and more privacy invasive.
https://behind.pretix.eu/2025/05/23/captchas-are-over/
Remote Prompt Injection in GitLab Duo Leads to Source Code Theft
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, gitlab, security
As LLM assistants get more and more embedded in the development process, it gets harder to ensure they behave safely. Quite a few interesting attack vectors in that one.
https://www.legitsecurity.com/blog/remote-prompt-injection-in-gitlab-duo
GitHub MCP Exploited: Accessing private repositories via MCP
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, github, security
Another example of attack vectors emerging with adding more and more LLM agents in the development process.
https://invariantlabs.ai/blog/mcp-github-vulnerability
How I used o3 to find CVE-2025-37899, a remote zeroday vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s SMB implementation
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, security, audit
Looks like it’s getting there as a good help for auditing code, especially to find security vulnerabilities.
Pain in the dots
Tags: tech, version-control, git, tools
I often tumble on this. The two and three dots notations means different things between git log and git diff. It is a tad annoying.
https://matthew-brett.github.io/pydagogue/pain_in_dots.html
Writing your own CUPS printer driver in 100 lines of Python
Tags: tech, linux, printing, cups
A good reminder that writing CUPS printer drivers doesn’t have to be complicated.
https://behind.pretix.eu/2018/01/20/cups-driver/
The future of Flatpak
Tags: tech, linux, flatpak, community
Flatpak is at a crossroad I’d say. The project really needs to find a way to move forward.
https://lwn.net/Articles/1020571/
Memory Access Patterns Are Important
Tags: tech, programming, cpu, memory, caching, performance, multithreading
A bit dated perhaps, and yet most of the lessons in here are still valid. If performance and parallelism matter, you better keep an eye on how the cache is used.
https://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/2012/08/memory-access-patterns-are-important.html?m=1
Isolates and Compressed References: More Flexible and Efficient Memory Management via GraalVM
Tags: tech, java, memory
Interesting advanced features of GraalVM to better manage the memory of complex Java programs.
Revisiting Loop Recognition in C++… in Rust
Tags: tech, rust, c++, programming, memory, performance, benchmarking
Interesting comparison between C++ and Rust for a given algorithm. The differences are mostly what you would expect, it’s nice to confirm them.
https://blomqu.ist/posts/2025/loop-recognition/
Threads Beat Async/Await
Tags: tech, programming, multithreading, asynchronous, python, dotnet, javascript, java, rust
Or why I’m still on the fence regarding async/await. It’s rarely the panacea we pretend it to be.
https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/11/18/threads-beat-async-await/
Rust streams and timeouts gotcha
Tags: tech, programming, rust, asynchronous
Indeed, bugs with async/await can be subtle in Rust.
https://laplab.me/posts/rust-streams-gotcha/
parking_lot: ffffffffffffffff…
Tags: tech, debugging, multithreading, rust
Nice deep dive into a bug lurking inside a lock implementation.
https://fly.io/blog/parking-lot-ffffffffffffffff/
Concepts vs type traits
Tags: tech, c++, type-systems
Good comparison between concepts and type traits in C++. Clearly at this point concepts should be favoured as they convey more intent to compilers and humans alike.
https://akrzemi1.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/concepts-vs-type-traits/
dynamix: A new take on polymorphism
Tags: tech, c++, design, object-oriented
A library bringing the mixins concept to C++.
https://github.com/iboB/dynamix
Pyrefly vs. ty: Comparing Python’s Two New Rust-Based Type Checkers
Tags: tech, python, type-systems, rust
Early days but it looks like we got two interesting type checkers coming up for Python. Definitely worth keeping an eye on them.
https://blog.edward-li.com/tech/comparing-pyrefly-vs-ty/
Thousands separators
Tags: tech, programming, python
Nice trick for numbers formatting as strings in Python.
https://mathspp.com/blog/til/thousands-separators
Why are 2025/05/28 and 2025-05-28 different days in JavaScript?
Tags: tech, date, time, javascript
Date parsing is generally complicated… In JavaScript it is just insane.
https://brandondong.github.io/blog/javascript_dates/
Car Physics
Tags: tech, game, mathematics, simulation, physics
Nice explanation of everything you need to simulate to make a realistic car simulation in a game.
https://www.asawicki.info/Mirror/Car%20Physics%20for%20Games/Car%20Physics%20for%20Games.html
Test Isolation Is About Avoiding Mocks
Tags: tech, tests, tdd, design
Even if you do use mocks to isolate your tests, at least don’t nest them.
https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2014/test-isolation-is-about-avoiding-mocks
Visualization Mnemonics for Software Principles
Tags: tech, design, object-oriented
A funny way to illustrate the principles behind the SOLID acronym.
https://daedtech.com/visualization-mnemonics-for-software-principles/
Design driven development
Tags: tech, architecture, tests, tdd, design
Both TDD and design docs complete each other well indeed. They just don’t focus on the same activities in the project. That said, both later provide important insights on all the decisions taken to produce some code.
https://underlap.org/design-driven-development
Reinvent the Wheel
Tags: tech, programming, supply-chain, learning
For studying it makes sense. But don’t shun other’s work away only because of trust or ego issues.
https://endler.dev/2025/reinvent-the-wheel/
On work processes and outcomes
Tags: tech, engineering, processes, quality, safety
Interesting ways to look at processes and their outcomes. Depending on the mental model you won’t ask the same questions when investigating incidents.
https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/05/10/on-work-processes-and-outcomes/
Managing strong personalities
Tags: management, team
I prefer aiming for egoless positions in teams… But if it doesn’t work, I guess this little trick can help turn someone around.
https://betterthanrandom.substack.com/p/managing-big-egos
How to make sure nothing gets done at work
Tags: organization, bureaucracy, management, communication
You’ve see a co-worker doing this, right? They’re unlikely to be spies, but still they’re inadvertently using sabotage tactics.
https://fortune.com/2015/09/30/workplace-bureaucracy-simple-sabotage/
Models and science
Tags: science
A nice little explanation of scientific work and enquiry.
https://lemire.me/blog/2025/05/23/models-and-science/
Bye for now!