Oxygen Icons is an icon theme for use with any XDG compliant app and desktop.

It is part of KDE Frameworks 6 but is now released independently to save on resources.

This 6.0.0 release requires to be built with extra-cmake-modules from KF 6 which is not yet released, distros may want to wait until next week before building it.

Distros which ship this version can drop the version released as part of KDE Frameworks 5.

sha256: 28ec182875dcc15d9278f45ced11026aa392476f1f454871b9e2c837008e5774

URL: https://download.kde.org/stable/oxygen-icons/

Signed by E0A3EB202F8E57528E13E72FD7574483BB57B18D Jonathan Esk-Riddell <jr@jriddell.org>
https://jriddell.org/esk-riddell.gpg

This project is creating a WS-Discovery client library based on the KDSoap library.

The name is short for Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB Simple Object Access Protocol Web Services Addressing Discovery Client.

It is used by the SMB KIO worker from kio-extras.

kio-extras will have two releases as part of KDE’s 6th Megarelease, one for Qt 5 and one for Qt 6. Distros should build and ship both versions of kio-extras but the Qt5 build should use the internal static copy of kdsoap-ws-discovery-client so does not need to be built separately. The Qt 6 build of kio-extras does need this external build of kdsoap-ws-discovery-client. Distros will need an up to date copy of KDSoap library.

There are no changes compared to 0.3.0 but this one is released as stable ahead of KDE Gear 24.02.

SHA 256: 2cd247c013e75f410659bac372aff93d22d71c5a54c059e137b9444af8b3427a
URL: https://download.kde.org/stable/kdsoap-ws-discovery-client/
Signed by E0A3EB202F8E57528E13E72FD7574483BB57B18D Jonathan Esk-Riddell <jr@jriddell.org>
https://jriddell.org/esk-riddell.gpg

Some time ago, Marco started a series of articles on SObjectizer. It is starting to become the source for all things SObjectizer – it is currently at post number 19 – quite an endeavour.

For those who haven’t met SObjectizer before, it is a framework for writing concurrent applications which supports the actor model, publish-subscribe…

EDIT: The series are available on Marco’s blog as well as on dev.to

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-07.

Non-code contributions are the secret to open source success · GitHub

Tags: tech, foss, community

Good reminder that contributions are not only about code. Documentation, support, release management and so on are very important as well and too often underrated.

https://github.com/readme/featured/open-source-non-code-contributions

Extending our Mastodon social media trial - BBC R&D

Tags: tech, bbc, social-media, fediverse

Looks like the BBC likes the fediverse experiment so far. Engagement is even better than on Twitter at times. Let’s hope they keep expanding.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2024-02-extending-our-mastodon-social-media-trial

European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-endencryption

Tags: tech, politics

Excellent news, let’s hope this thwarts the commission plans as expected.

https://www.eureporter.co/world/human-rights-category/european-court-of-human-rights-echr/2024/02/14/european-court-of-human-rights-bans-weakening-of-secure-end-to-endencryption-the-end-of-eus-chat-control-csar-mass-surveillance-plans/

Estimating the environmental impact of Generative-AI services using an LCA-based methodology

Tags: tech, ecology, energy, ai, machine-learning, gpt

Interesting paper evaluating a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method to estimate the power consumption and environmental impact of generative AI services. This is illustrated on a single service, hopefully we’ll see more such assessments.

https://inria.hal.science/hal-04346102

Short history of all Windows UI frameworks and libraries

Tags: tech, windows, gui

Confused about which UI frameworks are used in Windows? Here is the list in chronological order.

https://irrlicht3d.org/index.php?t=1626

The Stupidity Manifesto

Tags: culture, empathy

Definitely this, it’s better when you don’t make people feel stupid.

https://insimpleterms.blog/the-stupidity-manifesto

RSS is still pretty great

Tags: tech, rss, blog

Good explanation of what RSS is, where its weaknesses and strengths are.

https://www.pcloadletter.dev/blog/rss/

Too dangerous for C++

Tags: tech, rust, c++, type-systems, multithreading

It’s hard to argue that the Rust type system isn’t superior to the C++ type system… it’s definitely nice how it actively prevents data races at compile time.

https://blog.dureuill.net/articles/too-dangerous-cpp/

The History of Python: Why Python’s Integer Division Floors

Tags: tech, python, mathematics, floats

Some reasons why Python and C behave differently on this matter. It’s a source of mistakes.

https://python-history.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-pythons-integer-division-floors.html

CUDA on AMD GPUs

Tags: tech, gpu, amd, nvidia, computation

Interesting project, could bring a boost in AMD GPUs usage for CUDA workloads.

https://github.com/vosen/ZLUDA

Not just NVIDIA: GPU programming that runs everywhere

Tags: tech, python, gpu, computation, webgpu

Interesting to see WebGPU bindings for Python.

https://pythonspeed.com/articles/gpu-without-cuda/

WebGPU Best Practices

Tags: tech, 3d, gpu, computation, webgpu

Looks like a nice list of resources to dive deeper with WebGPU

https://toji.dev/webgpu-best-practices/

Open-source data multitool | VisiData

Tags: tech, tools, data, python

Looks like a nice tool for quick data exploration straight from the command line.

https://www.visidata.org/

Magika: AI powered fast and efficient file type identification | Google Open Source Blog

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, tools, command-line

Interesting tool for file type detection. Seems very accurate too.

https://opensource.googleblog.com/2024/02/magika-ai-powered-fast-and-efficient-file-type-identification.html

Why Bloat Is Still Software’s Biggest Vulnerability - IEEE Spectrum

Tags: tech, security, architecture, dependencies, supply-chain

Definitely this, the software bloat directly impacts the attack surface of what gets shipped. Even though this is far from a panacea in terms of security, it’s time for people to critically examine their dependencies also for other reasons.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/lean-software-development

Mastering Programming - by Kent Beck

Tags: tech, craftsmanship, programming

As always from Kent Beck, an excellent set of advices to improve you programming skills.

https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/mastering-programming

Deciphering Glyph :: Let Me Tell You A Secret

Tags: tech, communication, management, team

This is a bit cartoonish I’d say but there’s some truth to it. I indeed regularly get onto consulting gigs where you find out that the people already had the solution to their problem. In those cases it’s very often because communication channels are broken somewhere (team don’t feel at liberty to share what they noticed, managers having a hard time to listen, etc.).

https://blog.glyph.im/2024/02/let-me-tell-you-a-secret.html

Tracking Engineering Time - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Tags: tech, management, metrics, estimates

Interesting approach when managing at a distance. It tries hard to stay lightweight which is definitely welcome.

https://jacobian.org/2024/feb/7/tracking-engineering-time/

What Is in Your Organizational Closet? - esther derby associates, inc.

Tags: management, organization

Interesting idea… indeed organizations can carry legacy processes and ideas as well.

https://estherderby.com/what-is-in-your-organizational-closet/

Bye for now!

We recently remove the Plucker/Palm support in Okular, because it was unmaintained and we didn't even find [m]any suitable file to test it.

If you are using it, you have a few months to step up and bring it back, if not, let's have it rest.

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-06.

We’ve been waiting 20 years for this - The History of the Web

Tags: tech, web, blog, culture

Excellent piece about the resurgence of old trends on the web.

https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/weve-been-waiting-20-years-for-this/

The European regulators listened to the Open Source communities! - Voices of Open Source

Tags: tech, foss, law

Looks like good progress has been made. A few more adjustments would be welcome before it gets ratified.

https://blog.opensource.org/the-european-regulators-listened-to-the-open-source-communities/

Google workers complain bosses are ‘inept’ and ‘glassy-eyed’

Tags: tech, google, transparency, management

Things don’t look great in this giant… it’s astonishing how much eroding vision and transparency can hurt an organization.

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/google-workers-company-culture-pichai-18653877.php

Netflix: Piracy is Difficult to Compete Against and Growing Rapidly * TorrentFreak

Tags: tech, streaming, video, business

Unsurprising trend… this was a market where there was no chance to have a single dominant platform due to the existing studio behemoths. So now we’re in the streaming wars, people can’t afford to pay for every silos… and they turn to piracy again. Could have been all avoided if we went the “global license” route instead of dumping money on platforms.

https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-piracy-is-difficult-to-compete-against-and-growing-rapidly-240204/

Stract search engine

Tags: tech, search, web

A new search engine trying to grow. The approach seems interesting, we’ll see where it goes.

https://stract.com/about

Browsers Are Weird Right Now – Tyler Sticka

Tags: tech, web, browser

A bit opinionated and sarcastic maybe… still it feels right, the web browsers landscape is in a sad state.

https://tylersticka.com/journal/browsers-are-weird-right-now/

Over the Edge: The Use of Design Tactics to Undermine Browser Choice

Tags: tech, microsoft, browser, vendor-lockin

Not unexpected of course, but at least it makes it clear that Microsoft is actively trying to prevent users from using the browser they want.

https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/over-the-edge-the-use-of-design-tactics-to-undermine-browser-choice/

Microsoft is seeking a software architect to port Microsoft 365 to Rust | TechSpot

Tags: tech, microsoft, rust

If they really commit to it, this means Microsoft will really invest big in Rust. Let’s wait and see…

https://www.techspot.com/news/101739-microsoft-seeking-software-architect-port-microsoft-365-rust.html

Blog - How I Also Hacked my Car

Tags: tech, automotive, security

The infotainment systems on car are not as locked down as one might think. Another proof of it.

https://goncalomb.com/blog/2024/01/30/f57cf19b-how-i-also-hacked-my-car

Rust Won’t Save Us: An Analysis of 2023’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities – Horizon3.ai

Tags: tech, security, memory, rust

Indeed, not all security issues are due to memory related problems. It’s 20% of the security issues. This is of course massive, but there’s still 80% of the security issues coming from wrong authentication, appliances and so on.

https://www.horizon3.ai/analysis-of-2023s-known-exploited-vulnerabilities/

OPML is underrated

Tags: tech, blog, rss, opml

Definitely true. This is a good way to share your feeds with friends or to setup a blogroll.

https://kmaasrud.com/blog/opml-is-underrated.html

s/bash/zsh/g

Tags: tech, zsh, shell

Indeed, use zsh more. It’s good… or at least better.

https://www.arp242.net/why-zsh.html

VirtualBox KVM public release — Cyberus Technology

Tags: tech, linux, virtualization

This is an interesting VirtualBox fork for Linux. Using KVM as backend should bring interesting benefits.

https://cyberus-technology.de/articles/vbox-kvm-public-release

When “letting it crash” is not enough

Tags: tech, erlang, safety, crash, resilience

It’s here to sell something. That said it does a good job explaining the Erlang model and its “let it crash” approach to failures. Also highlights the obvious limitations.

https://flawless.dev/essays/when-letting-it-crash-is-not-enough/

Cool Things You Can Do with SELECT - Edward Loveall

Tags: tech, sql, databases

Indeed, a very underappreciated keyword in SQL. It can do much more than what it’s often used for.

https://blog.edwardloveall.com/cool-things-you-can-do-with-select

Postgres is Enough · GitHub

Tags: tech, databases, postgresql

Nice index pointing to resources to do many things with Postgres.

https://gist.github.com/cpursley/c8fb81fe8a7e5df038158bdfe0f06dbb

<model-viewer>

Tags: tech, web, 3d, webcomponents

Looks like a really convenient web component to display 3D models on web pages.

https://modelviewer.dev/

Method of Differences

Tags: tech, mathematics, history

Interesting explanation of the method of differences to easily compute polynomials.

https://ztoz.blog/posts/method-differences/

How to hire low experience, high potential people

Tags: hr, interviews

Good ideas and questions to interview candidates. I don’t think I would use everything though. Also I think some of what’s proposed here would work for candidates at any level of experience.

https://worktopia.substack.com/p/how-to-hire-low-experience-high-potential

Bye for now!