Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2021-11.


M.2 on a Raspberry Pi - the TOFU Compute Module 4 Carrier Board | Jeff Geerling

Tags: tech, embedded, raspberry-pi

This looks like a very interesting board to play with. It’s a bit on the pricey range but other than that… Nice specs.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/m2-on-raspberry-pi-tofu-compute-module-4-carrier-board


Tesla (TSLA), Cloudfare (NET) Breached in Verkada Security Camera Hack - Bloomberg

Tags: tech, security, breach, surveillance, iot

That shows one of the issues of the kind of centralization IoT as currently done pushes for. Breach in one company? Plenty more people impacted…

Best part of the article is probably the stated motives: “Kottmann said their reasons for hacking are “lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism – and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.””

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-09/hackers-expose-tesla-jails-in-breach-of-150-000-security-cams


Astronomers detect a black hole on the move

Tags: science, astronomy

Always fascinating when astronomers spot an event we suspected possible but so rare that it wasn’t really witnessed.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-astronomers-black-hole.html


Federal investigators blast Tesla, call for stricter safety standards

Tags: tech, automotive

It was only a matter of time before regulators tried to catch up with car makers regarding self driving cars. Is it the beginning of a new trend there?

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/03/federal-investigators-blast-tesla-call-for-stricter-safety-standads/


Templating for Lawyers — /dev/lawyer

Tags: tech, templating, legal, markdown

Interesting use of templates for markdown based legal documents. Probably got a few ideas on how to use this…

https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/03/13/Templating-for-Lawyers.html


I wrote one of the fastest DataFrame libraries - Ritchie Vink

Tags: tech, rust, data-science

Ah, finally looks like we got an interesting dataframe crate in the Rust world. Performances seems nice too.

To be seen how it behaves in practice. The explanations of how it’s designed are interesting in any case. :-)

https://www.ritchievink.com/blog/2021/02/28/i-wrote-one-of-the-fastest-dataframe-libraries/


Qu’est-ce que la stratégie de sauvegarde 3-2-1 ?

Tags: tech, backup, recovery

Article in French

After the disaster in the OVH centers, a good reminder of a proper backup strategy that should be applied as soon as you manage some data.

https://www.nextinpact.com/article/30278/109000-quest-ce-que-strategie-sauvegarde-3-2-1


Can nuclear bombs stop hurricanes? - YouTube

Tags: science, funny

I think I got a hunch about the size and scale of hurricanes… :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKK2B6OMojU


Ketchup Is Not Just a Condiment: It Is Also a Non-Newtonian Fluid - Scientific American

Tags: science, funny, surprising

Somewhat surprising, never looked at ketchup this way but indeed it’s a fair non-newtonian fluid. I guess it didn’t occur to me because I user and encounter it too seldomly. :-)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ketchup-is-not-just-a-condiment-it-is-also-a-non-newtonian-fluid/


GitHub - kitabisa/teler: Real-time HTTP Intrusion Detection

Tags: tech, go, monitoring, intrusion-detection

This looks like an interesting intrusion detection tool. I like the overall approach they chose.

https://github.com/kitabisa/teler


Why We Don’t Use Docker (We Don’t Need It)

Tags: tech, docker, go, rust

Somehow states the obvious: you don’t always need docker. Still a good reminder, especially true with the trend of single binary web services like what can be achieved with Go and Rust.

https://launchyourapp.meezeeworkouts.com/2021/03/why-we-dont-use-docker-we-dont-need-it.html?m=1


A new Linux Foundation open source signing tool could make secure software supply chains universal

Tags: tech, security, supply-chain

Maybe a way out of the supply chain attacks? Will take time and adoption of course.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/a-new-linux-foundation-open-source-signing-tool-could-make-secure-software-supply-chains-universal/


Wooden floors rotted by fungi generate electricity when walked on

Tags: energy, wood, electricity, science, surprising

Funny way to introduce piezoelectric properties into wood.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2270527-wooden-floors-rotted-by-fungi-generate-electricity-when-walked-on/


GitHub has a Permission Problem.

Tags: tech, github, security

Yes, the permission model of GitHub gives me the creeps as well… A couple of the examples given in there are really problematic and need to be addressed. This is even more important seeing the amount of stuff hosted on GitHub nowadays.

https://games.greggman.com/game/github-permission-problem/


Rust vs. Go: Why They’re Better Together – The New Stack

Tags: tech, go, rust

I like when papers aren’t about “mine is better than your”. This is an interestingly balanced take on those two popular option showing where they fit best. Shows good reasons for a polyglot approach: as usual use the best tool for the job.

https://thenewstack.io/rust-vs-go-why-theyre-better-together/?s=09


Learn LaTeX online for free in beginner friendly lessons | learnlatex.org

Tags: tech, latex

What!? You don’t know LaTeX yet? Go learn it, now! :-)

https://www.learnlatex.org/en/


Charts.css

Tags: tech, css, data-visualization

Looks like an interesting CSS framework for including data visualization in HTML frontends. The fact that you can simply have the data in the HTML is particularly appealing.

https://chartscss.org/


Which color scale to use when visualizing data | Chartable

Tags: tech, data-visualization

Excellent series of posts on how to pick your color scales for your data visualization projects.

https://blog.datawrapper.de/which-color-scale-to-use-in-data-vis/


Deciphering Glyph :: I Want A New Duck

Tags: tech, python, mypy

Oh totally missed that Python 3.8 introduced protocols. Now that makes mypy very useful, I was slightly concerned at how strict interfaces tended to be with nominal types.

https://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2020/07/new-duck.html


Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part I: Spartan School – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Tags: history

Long and very interesting series of posts debunking the myths around Sparta. Where we learn it was a very unequal society… and that on top of being very violent… turns out, once again, all that violence was for nothing. The end of the regime is actually fairly pathetic.

Still somehow they managed to build a myth thanks to a few accomplices. That served them somewhat well but didn’t last long. And now that myth is permeating pop culture and inspires toxic masculinity.

Smoke and mirrors.

https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/



Bye for now!