Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-08.


Paying people to work on open source is good actually - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Tags: tech, foss, sustainability

Making sure maintainers are well paid is indeed an ongoing problem. There is currently no perfect solution within the world we live in. This is indeed no reason to blame the maintainers themselves for the approach they picked.

https://jacobian.org/2024/feb/16/paying-maintainers-is-good/


Anatomy of a whistleblowing system

Tags: tech, anonymity, security

Interesting explanation of the guarantees such a system must provide and their consequences.

https://securedrop.org/news/anatomy-of-a-whistleblowing-system/


It Was 33 Years Ago Today: Happy Birthday Lemmings! - The Scottish Games Network

Tags: tech, gaming, culture

Happy birthday indeed. Was an excellent and culturally relevant game.

https://scottishgames.net/2024/02/14/it-was-33-years-ago-today-happy-birthday-lemmings/


A vintage network attack called smurf

Tags: tech, networking, security, history

A trip down memory lane when such attacks were indeed common. Nowadays, we know better though.

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/02/21/bcast/


cohost! - “I broke IKEA.”

Tags: tech, phone, spam, hacking

Very funny glitch. This anti-spam system is smart… too bad the wrong victim got in the crosshair.

https://cohost.org/sirocyl/post/2891449-i-broke-ikea


The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

Tags: tech, streaming, criticism

The streaming trap is getting obvious at this point.

https://blog.raed.dev/posts/goodbye_spotify


100 things you can do on your personal website | James’ Coffee Blog

Tags: tech, self-hosting, blog

Lots of ideas indeed. Having your own website gives so much freedom in what you can do there.

https://jamesg.blog/2024/02/19/personal-website-ideas/


Considerations for a long-running Raspberry Pi # Chris Dzombak

Tags: tech, infrastructure, reliability, self-hosting, raspberry-pi

Looks like an interesting and comprehensive reference to squeeze as much reliability as possible from a Raspberry Pi.

https://www.dzombak.com/blog/2023/12/Considerations-for-a-long-running-Raspberry-Pi.html


ActivityPub Server in a Single PHP File – Terence Eden’s Blog

Tags: tech, fediverse

A little experiment to better understand how ActivityPub works.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/activitypub-server-in-a-single-file/


Tags: tech, git, command-line, tools

Plenty of good tips in there. I knew quite a few, but there are a few nuggets that I’ll test drive I think.

https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/02/16/popular-git-config-options/


A highly customizable changelog generator | git-cliff

Tags: tech, git, command-line, tools, project-management

Looks like a nice way to automate the creation of changelogs.

https://git-cliff.org/


If you’re just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly - The Old New Thing

Tags: tech, api, design

Nice advices for API design. First time I see the term “inert” used in this context. Definitely one I should keep in mind and use when appropriate.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240216-00/?p=109409


How to debug your initramfs init - Linus’s blog

Tags: tech, debugging, systemd, system

Nice tricks to debug the very early boot process, starting at PID 1. gdbserver saves the day here.

https://linus.schreibt.jetzt/posts/debugging-pid1.html


Writing a scheduler for Linux in Rust that runs in user-space

Tags: tech, linux, rust, system, processes

Interesting, I didn’t know that user space schedulers were coming to Linux. It opens the door to exciting experiments.

https://arighi.blogspot.com/2024/02/writing-scheduler-for-linux-in-rust.html?m=1


Floats Are Weird

Tags: tech, floats, mathematics

Or how calculus can give a feel of why approximation errors can be great or small with floats.

https://a.exozy.me/posts/floats-weird/


Blazingly πŸ”₯ fast πŸš€ memory vulnerabilities, written in 100% safe Rust. πŸ¦€

Tags: tech, rust, bug, safety

Check out the docs branch for detailed explanations. This exhibits a loop hole in the Rust compiler allowing to break lifetime inference… and from there all the usual guarantees go through the window.

https://github.com/Speykious/cve-rs


Database Architects: SSDs Have Become Ridiculously Fast, Except in the Cloud

Tags: tech, cloud, storage, ssd, performance

This is indeed an odd situation… there is no good explanation about why this is like this.

https://databasearchitects.blogspot.com/2024/02/ssds-have-become-ridiculously-fast.html?m=1


My Notes on GitLab Postgres Schema Design – Shekhar Gulati

Tags: tech, gitlab, databases, sql, postgresql, performance

Nice exploration of the GitLab database schema. This highlights and finds quite a few of the choices made with an eye on performances.

https://shekhargulati.com/2022/07/08/my-notes-on-gitlabs-postgres-schema-design/


JavaScript Bloat in 2024 @ tonsky.me

Tags: tech, web, frontend, javascript, quality

Something is definitely bonkers regarding the use of JavaScript on the web. The amount of bloat is staggering.

https://tonsky.me/blog/js-bloat/


htmz - a low power tool for html

Tags: tech, web, frontend, htmx

Looks like an interesting trick for more dynamic HTML frontends with very limited used of Javascript. Inspired by htmx it seems to go one step further in the same direction.

https://leanrada.com/htmz/


This message does not exist | Mark J. Nelson

Tags: tech, ux

Or why wording matters… this is clearly a user design fail in this case.

https://www.kmjn.org/notes/message_existence.html


Okay, Color Spaces β€” ericportis.com

Tags: tech, gui, colors, mathematics

Neat article about colorspaces. Definitely worth reading if you’re curious about the topic. It also has interactive bits to ease the understanding.

https://ericportis.com/posts/2024/okay-color-spaces/


Useful Uses of cat

Tags: tech, modules, design, shell

Turns out to be an interesting discussion about modularity. It’s probably a good approach even for a one liner in a script.

https://two-wrongs.com/useful-uses-of-cat


Agile is a tainted term

Tags: tech, agile, project-management, change

Definitely true. This is why I refrain from using the term nowadays… this allows to focus on the principles instead. Takes more time to explain but allow for slow and steady change management. Indeed it’s not perceived as an all or nothing situation anymore.

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


On Managing Expectations - Leadership & Work

Tags: management, business, communication

Definitely this. Managing expectations is a big part of management. It’s also important for customer relationship. In both cases, clear communication and finding misunderstandings early are key.

https://poczwardowski.substack.com/p/on-managing-expectations


Coding interviews are effective

Tags: tech, hiring, interviews

Definitely true, this is mostly about avoiding false positives. Still I don’t like online assessments platforms either… you need to see how the candidate is doing, interact with them, etc.

https://www.pcloadletter.dev/blog/coding-interviews/


Gathering Structures

Tags: management, conference

Very comprehensive list of tips and ideas to organize events and get together. Nice for inspiration if you need to organize such a thing.

https://maggieappleton.com/gathering-structures



Bye for now!