Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2023-03.


AI’s Jurassic Park moment - by Gary Marcus

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, ethics

Very good piece about that dangerous moment in the creation of the latest large language models. We’re about to drown in misinformation, can we get out of it?

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/ais-jurassic-park-moment


OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour: Exclusive | Time

Tags: tech, ethics, ai, machine-learning, gpt

The human labor behind AI training is still on going. This is clearly gruesome and sent over to other countries… ignoring the price for a minute this is also a good way to hide its consequences I guess.

https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/


U.S. No Fly List Left on Unprotected Airline Server

Tags: tech, airline, security

That’s an “interesting” leak, both for how it happens and what it contains. I shows serious biases in the “no fly list” used by airlines.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/no-fly-list-us-tsa-unprotected-server-commuteair/


New T-Mobile Breach Affects 37 Million Accounts – Krebs on Security

Tags: tech, security

That’s really a massive leak again! The amount of personal data in the wild… will likely help with identity theft too.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/01/new-t-mobile-breach-affects-37-million-accounts/


Jack’s Blog - Revisiting KDE

Tags: tech, kde

Nice to see kind words out there. A couple of issues are pointed out of course but nothing which seems critical I think.

https://jackevansevo.github.io/revisiting-kde.html


How to improve Python packaging, or why fourteen tools are at least twelve too many | Chris Warrick

Tags: tech, python

Yes… python packaging is a mess. I wonder when it’ll get properly unified and get a proper single tool and workflow.

https://chriswarrick.com/blog/2023/01/15/how-to-improve-python-packaging/#summary


The Elusive Frame Timing | by Alen Ladavac | Medium

Tags: tech, 3d, performance

Excellent analysis and explanation of the stutter problem people experience with game engines. It’s an artifact of the graphics pipeline becoming more asynchronous with no way to know when something is really displayed. Extra graphics APIs will be needed to solve this for real.

https://medium.com/@alen.ladavac/the-elusive-frame-timing-168f899aec92


Use.GPU Goes Trad — Acko.net

Tags: tech, web, webgpu, 3d, frontend

This WebGPU framework is getting interesting. Definitely something to keep an eye on and evaluate for productive uses. Obviously requires WebGPU to be widely available before banking on it.

https://acko.net/blog/use-gpu-goes-trad/


Examples of floating point problems

Tags: tech, programming, mathematics

Nice set of problems encountered when using floating point numbers. Definitely to keep in mind.

https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/01/13/examples-of-floating-point-problems/


Examples of problems with integers

Tags: tech, programming, mathematics

Problems with integers now. Kind of better known usually, still to keep in mind as well.

https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/01/18/examples-of-problems-with-integers/


We invested 10% to pay back tech debt; Here’s what happened

Tags: tech, programming, technical-debt

Excellent piece about technical debt. The approach proposed is definitely the good one, it’s the only thing which I know to work to keep technical debt at bay.

https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/tech-debt-day


From Story Points to Slam Dunks — Planning for Success

Tags: tech, project-management, estimates, kanban

Interesting approach regarding estimates. Might especially make sense combined with kanban like project management.

https://medium.com/agileinsider/from-story-points-to-slam-dunks-planning-for-success-c3e067354d9b


The CARL framework of reflection | The University of Edinburgh

Tags: tech, project-management, hr, management, interviews

It’s coming from the job interview domain… but I wonder if it could be more largely useful due to how simple it is (but not easy mind you). I guess I’ll experiment with it for my next project postmortem.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/carl


Writing Is Magic - Marc’s Blog

Tags: tech, communication, writing

A reminder for me, I write quite a bit, but I feel that I don’t write nearly enough. It’s very important for plenty of cases though.

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/11/08/writing.html


These Gorgeous Photos Capture Life Inside a Drop of Seawater | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

Tags: photography, science, biology

Really amazing pictures! All this life we usually can’t see with our own eye.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-gorgeous-photos-capture-life-inside-drop-seawater-180981297/



Bye for now!