Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2022-05.

Facebook loses users for first time in history - The Washington Post

Tags: tech, facebook, gafam, attention-economy, surveillance

The beginning of the end for this one? Too early to tell and so big it can limp along for a long time. As one could suspect the moves toward VR are to try to counterbalance their current situation which was clearly to come… still can it be their new cash cow? Hard to tell. If only it means that the war for attention and the accompanying surveillance is likely to rage on even more.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/facebook-earnings-meta/

Adblocking People and Non-adblocking People Experience a Totally Different Web – I’m Left Handed

Tags: tech, web, advertisement

I think we’re doomed to never get rid of our adblocking extensions…

https://imlefthanded.com/2022/adblocking-people-and-non-adblocking-people-experience-a-totally-different-web/

GDPR enforcer rules that IAB Europe’s consent popups are unlawful - Irish Council for Civil Liberties

Tags: tech, gdpr, privacy, surveillance

You don’t like consent popups? Luckily you’re not the only one.

https://www.iccl.ie/news/gdpr-enforcer-rules-that-iab-europes-consent-popups-are-unlawful/

In Defence of the Boring Web

Tags: tech, web, low-tech

I obviously agree quite a lot with this.

https://bastian.rieck.me/blog/posts/2022/boring/

Kate Editor Set to Become KDE’s Answer to Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code - It’s FOSS News

Tags: tech, kde, programming

If you didn’t try Kate for a while… the next release in the spring will be a good time to try it again.

https://news.itsfoss.com/kate/

There’s No Such Thing as Clean Code

Tags: tech, craftsmanship, programming

Good reminder that the words we use matter. Fuzzy terms like “clean” indeed hide various dimensions to look at the code and the tradeoffs we make.

https://www.steveonstuff.com/2022/01/27/no-such-thing-as-clean-code

Extreme (Programming) Thoughts

Tags: tech, xp, agile, craftsmanship, tests, refactoring, mob-programming

Interesting musing on the skills required, why it’s actually hard to apply them… clearly it’s because you never find a real place to learn them so that ends up being on the job.

https://ronjeffries.com/articles/-z022/01121/extreme-thoughts/

How Prime Video updates its app for more than 8,000 device types - Amazon Science

Tags: tech, webassembly, rust, amazon, performance, javascript

Interesting use of WebAssembly for fast and very portable code. Also especially interesting is the care in the move to the new software architecture.

https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-app-for-more-than-8-000-device-types

Settings are not a design failure

Tags: tech, design, settings

I like this position. There’s been too much of a move to “kill all the settings!” in some products. Some of them definitely make sense, and the “on boarding” point of view mentioned here makes sense.

https://linear.app/blog/settings-are-not-a-design-failure

the new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed — Ask a Manager

Tags: hr, interviews, hiring, bizarre

Now this is truly bizarre… but apparently this happens.

https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html

Reading on a smartphone affects sigh generation, brain activity, and comprehension | Scientific Reports

Tags: science, reading, cognition

Unsurprising following previous findings with ebooks. It’s interesting to see the potential reasons of why this happens though… the link with respiration is fascinating. Now it’s early days and a small study so usual disclaimers apply.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05605-0

Bye for now!