Web Review, Week 2025-49
Let’s go for my web review for the week 2025-49.
Steam Machine today, Steam Phones tomorrow
Tags: tech, valve, gaming, foss
Don’t trust the title, it misrepresent the content in my opinion. Still the interview is interesting, it shows quite well all the effort Valve is pouring into the Free Software ecosystem.
https://www.theverge.com/report/820656/valve-interview-arm-gaming-steamos-pierre-loup-griffais
Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
Tags: tech, social-media, politics, science, research, psychology
A paper showing that social media algorithms foster political polarization and societal division. Who knew?? Sarcasm aside, the real value of the paper is showing that by modifying those algorithms we could quickly have positive effects. Most of the participants didn’t even notice they changed how they perceive others.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu5584
How Should We Peer Review Software?
Tags: tech, science, research, politics
This is indeed one of the big issues of the computer science research community. It’s also something of importance in fields relying on simulations… which is almost all scientific fields nowadays. Peer reviewing the paper is well practiced, but the software is another story entirely. It’d require some investment in research… but that’s not where we’re headed at all.
https://mirawelner.com/posts/peer_review.html
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
Tags: tech, business, politics, journalism
Unsurprisingly the big tech players want their own information bubble too. This kind of propaganda machine isn’t really new, but they feel like they need their own now.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/29/big-tech-silicon-valley-ceo-media
Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea.
Tags: tech, hardware, geospatial
I don’t even get why this became a topic of conversation but here we go. At least this thought experiment is a good way to learn about electronics in space.
https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horrible-no-good-idea/
AI Is still making code worse: A new CMU study confirms
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, quality, programming
The trend keep being the same… And when the newer models will be trained on FOSS code which degraded in quality due to the use of the previous generation of models, things are going to get “interesting”.
https://blog.robbowley.net/2025/12/04/ai-is-still-making-code-worse-a-new-cmu-study-confirms/
Google Antigravity Exfiltrates Data
Tags: tech, ide, ai, machine-learning, copilot, security
IDEs allowing to spawn actions in the user environment are still a big security risk.
https://www.promptarmor.com/resources/google-antigravity-exfiltrates-data
GitHub → Codeberg: my experience
Tags: tech, git, tools, forgejo, github
This kind of migration is apparently easier than it sounds.
https://eldred.fr/blog/forge-migration/
pgFirstAid - PostgreSQL Health Check
Tags: tech, databases, postgresql, reliability, performance, health
Looks like a nice kit to add to your tool belt. Does some handy checks if you have a Postgres database to manage.
https://randoneering.tech/blog/pgfirstaid/pgfirstaid/
So you wanna build a local RAG?
Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, search, self-hosting, foss
This is getting more and more accessible. It’s also one of the uses which makes sense for LLMs.
https://blog.yakkomajuri.com/blog/local-rag
Landlock-ing Linux
Tags: tech, linux, kernel, security, sandbox
This is a nice application level sandboxing feature on Linux. We should probably have more applications use it.
https://blog.prizrak.me/post/landlock/
How CRDTs and Rust are revolutionizing distributed systems and real-time applications
Tags: tech, rust, crdt, distributed
I admit I like CRDTs as well. They really are the foundation of cool use cases. Of course it raises questions related to security to broker properly the sessions between users. Still, it’s nice to see them more and more used.
In defense of lock poisoning in Rust
Tags: tech, multithreading, rust, safety, failure
Very Rust focused, still it’s an interesting debate. It gives a good overview of the different types of lock behaviors in case of failures. It’s very much advocating for the poisoning approach which is indeed an interesting one (coming with its own tradeoffs of course).
https://sunshowers.io/posts/on-poisoning/#fnref:1
Rust pattern: Display adapter
Tags: tech, rust, design, pattern
Another illustration of how to use a new type to declare intent for display of values.
https://articles.bchlr.de/display-adapter-pattern
Out of the Box Dynamic Dispatch
Tags: tech, rust, type-systems
Shows that you don’t always need to put stuff in Box to get dynamic dispatch.
https://llogiq.github.io/2020/03/14/ootb.html
An Array of Pointers vs. a Multidimensional Array
Tags: tech, c, c++, memory
A reminder that small details at declaration can have large impacts on memory layouts.
https://nullprogram.com/blog/2016/10/27/
Standard Ranges
Tags: tech, c++
An old one now, but still a very good overview of what C++ ranges brought to the table.
https://ericniebler.com/2018/12/05/standard-ranges/
How to choose good names in your code
Tags: tech, quality, craftsmanship, c++
It’s all written oriented toward C++ use. That said I think most of it equally applies whatever the language.
https://www.fluentcpp.com/2017/01/30/how-to-choose-good-names/
Treat test code like production code
Tags: tech, tests, quality
This needs repeating but yes, quality matters in test code too.
https://blog.ploeh.dk/2025/12/01/treat-test-code-like-production-code/
Architectural debt is not just technical debt
Tags: tech, architecture, business, organization
This is a good way to see that the architecture questions are multi-layered. And yes, in enterprise contexts they go all the way to the company strategy level.
https://frederickvanbrabant.com/blog/2025-10-31-architectural-debt-is-not-just-technical-debt/
Maximizing Developer Effectiveness
Tags: tech, organization, team, productivity, devops, developer-experience
A bit too high on the “positive caricature scale” to my taste. That said there’s a kernel of truth there, focusing on the developer experience will lead to improved impact.
https://martinfowler.com/articles/developer-effectiveness.html
How to do effective video calls
Tags: tech, remote-working, video, conference
I agree with most of the points here. They make all the difference. The audio is too often underestimated.
https://martinfowler.com/articles/effective-video-calls.html
Reflections of an “Old” Programmer
Tags: tech, engineering, career, learning, knowledge
Some areas of our industry are more prone to the “fashion of the day” madness than others. Still there’s indeed some potential decay in what we learn, what matters is finding and focusing on what will last.
https://www.bennorthrop.com/Essays/2016/reflections-of-an-old-programmer.php
On Being A Senior Engineer
Tags: tech, engineering, craftsmanship, expertise, knowledge, learning
An old one and a bit all over the place. Still, plenty of interesting advice and insights.
https://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/
Software Failures and IT Management’s Repeated Mistakes
Tags: tech, quality, project-management, ethics, risk, failure
Decades that our industry doesn’t improve its track record. But there are real consequences for users. Some more ethics would be welcome in our profession.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/it-management-software-failures
We see something that works, and then we understand it
Tags: science, research, knowledge, innovation
Indeed, innovation is far from being a linear process. It’s actually messy, the breakthroughs already happened already and we describe it after the facts.
https://lemire.me/blog/2025/12/04/we-see-something-that-works-and-then-we-understand-it/
Lazy Expert Syndrome: How to Stay on Top of Your Game
Tags: learning, teaching, mentoring
Or why it’s important to mentor others and not stay in your own bubble.
https://www.riskology.co/lazy-expert-syndrome/
Grow slowly, stay small
Tags: business, management, life, work, craftsmanship
An excellent piece, I like this kind of thinking. It works in fact as several level in your life.
https://herman.bearblog.dev/grow-slowly-stay-small/
Interviewing for Evidence
Tags: hr, interviews
Lots of good advice for better interviews. I like the structure it brings making sure you got balanced evidences.
https://dannorth.net/blog/interviewing-for-evidence/
A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages
Tags: tech, programming, language, satire, funny
OK, this is old so I wish it’d go beyond 2003. Still, that’s quite a funny read.
http://www.nerdware.org/doc/abriefhistory.html
Your next gaming dice could be shaped like a dragon or armadillo
Tags: tech, physics, mathematics, funny, research
Definitely fun research. Let’s not be fooled though it also has practical use.
Bye for now!