Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-24.


Microsoft Will Switch Off Recall by Default After Security Backlash

Tags: tech, microsoft, privacy

Unsurprisingly they had to adjust under the pressure. The most blatant issues might be gone, it is still a bad idea at its core.

https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-recall-off-default-security-concerns/


AI chatbots are intruding into online communities where people are trying to connect with other humans

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

Chatbots can be useful in some cases… but definitely not when people expect to connect with other humans.

https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-online-communities-where-people-are-trying-to-connect-with-other-humans-229473


Malicious VSCode extensions with millions of installs discovered

Tags: tech, vscode, security, ide

How trustworthy are the extensions you get in your editor or IDE? I’d expect most marketplaces to not be well harmed against such attacks.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malicious-vscode-extensions-with-millions-of-installs-discovered/


HTTP/3 needs us (and other people) to make firewall changes

Tags: tech, http, quic, firewall

Good reminder that firewalls need to be adjusted for proper HTTP/3 support.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/sysadmin/HTTP3AndOurFirewalls


HTTP/3 in curl mid 2024 | daniel.haxx.se

Tags: tech, http, quic

Interesting status report about HTTP/3 support in curl. Shows quite well the various alternatives and how special HTTP/3 can be.

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/06/10/http-3-in-curl-mid-2024/


What is PID 0? · blog.dave.tf

Tags: tech, unix, linux, kernel, system, processes

Interesting deep dive in where the PIDs seen in user space come from. And also yes, there is something matching PID 0 which can be traced back to early UNIX systems.

https://blog.dave.tf/post/linux-pid0/


Scan HTML faster with SIMD instructions: Chrome edition – Daniel Lemire’s blog

Tags: tech, cpu, performance, SIMD

SIMD keeps providing interesting performance boosts for parsing work loads.

https://lemire.me/blog/2024/06/08/scan-html-faster-with-simd-instructions-chrome-edition/


Rolling your own fast matrix multiplication: loop order and vectorization – Daniel Lemire’s blog

Tags: tech, c++, compiler, performance, matrix

The ordering used for matrix multiplications definitely matters.

https://lemire.me/blog/2024/06/13/rolling-your-own-fast-matrix-multiplication-loop-order-and-vectorization/


You’ll regret using natural keys

Tags: tech, databases, design

Good advice on designing your database tables. The comments are good too, they allow to complete the picture.

https://blog.ploeh.dk/2024/06/03/youll-regret-using-natural-keys/


Brain dump – Pagination for database objects

Tags: tech, backend, databases

The right and wrong approaches for paginating results coming from a database.

https://www.n16f.net/blog/pagination-for-database-objects/


Optimal SQLite settings for Django

Tags: tech, django, databases, sqlite

Little and to the point reference on safer SQLite use. I should check if some of this would apply or is used by Akonadi as well.

https://gcollazo.com/optimal-sqlite-settings-for-django/


the Gilbert–Johnson–Keerthi algorithm explained as simply as possible

Tags: tech, geometry, mathematics, algorithm

Need to know if two shapes overlap? Good explanation of an elegant algorithm to do it.

https://computerwebsite.net/writing/gjk


Feynman’s Razor - by Defender of the Basic

Tags: tech, documentation, communication, gui

Nice reminder that even though we try to make things simpler to understand to people, there is a point where we can go too far.

https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/feynmans-razor


Foreword for Fuzz Testing Book

Tags: tech, fuzzing, tests, history

Ever wondered where fuzz testing is coming from? This is an important bit of history.

https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bart/fuzz/Foreword1.html


Post-Architecture: An Open Approach to Software Engineering

Tags: tech, software, architecture

Indeed this is not for any environment and projects. So take it with a grain of salt. That said, I think this piece has a core truth to it which is more general. Software architectures shouldn’t be considered as something fixed as soon as they are planned, they need to be validated through use and to be prepared to evolve over time as needed.

https://arendjr.nl/blog/2024/06/post-architecture/



Bye for now!