Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-32.

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A New Type of Neural Network Is More Interpretable - IEEE Spectrum

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, neural-networks, physics

Exciting new type of neural networks. There are limits to use them at large scale for now. Still, they have very interesting properties like the interpretability. And also, they tend to give similar performance to traditional neural networks for a smaller size.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/kan-neural-network

What do people really ask chatbots? It’s a lot of sex and homework

Tags: tech, ai, gpt

If you’re wondering what people do with chat bots, there are some clues here.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/04/chatgpt-use-real-ai-chatbot-conversations/

Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case - The Verge

Tags: tech, monopoly, law

Looks like the US Department of Justice is back pushing for antitrust trials. This is likely a good thing, will it go all the way to breaking down some of the big tech companies? I doubt it but it’d probably be welcome.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/5/24155520/judge-rules-on-us-doj-v-google-antitrust-search-suit

Google Search speculation

Tags: tech, google, mozilla, law

Interesting guesses at what could change with the Google ruling. It doesn’t look too good for Mozilla.

https://micro.webology.dev/2024/08/06/google-search-speculation.html

Y’all are sleeping on HTTP/3

Tags: tech, quic, http, networking

Clearly there’s a silent transition going on. It’s not necessarily bad that it’s on-going without making too much noise.

https://kmcd.dev/posts/yall-are-sleeping-on-http3/

How to Get or Create in PostgreSQL

Tags: tech, databases, postgresql

Definitely not as simple as it sounds. The devil is once again in the details.

https://hakibenita.com/postgresql-get-or-create

Go debug your core dumps somewhere else

Tags: tech, debugging

You need to understand how core dumps work? This article is for you.

https://trace.yshui.dev/2024-08-copy-core-dumps.html

Code auditing productivity multiplier.

Tags: tech, c++, tools

Looks like an interesting tool for indexing and querying C++ code.

https://github.com/trailofbits/multiplier?tab=readme-ov-file

The difference between undefined behavior and ill-formed C++ programs

Tags: tech, programming, c++, safety

This is a very important distinction to keep in mind. It’s one of those source of bad mistakes in C++.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240802-00/?p=110091

Enum class improvements for C++17, C++20 and C++23

Tags: tech, c++

Enum classes keep being improved. Nice features are already available, more might be coming through reflection in C++26.

https://www.cppstories.com/2024/enum-improvements/

[JDK-8303099] Null-Restricted and Nullable Types (Preview) - Java Bug System

Tags: tech, programming, java, safety

This would definitely be a nice change to the Java language.

https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8303099

What the heck are reverse mapped types?

Tags: tech, typescript, type-systems

The TypeScript type system is really a beast. There are little known features in this, looks definitely like one of them.

https://andreasimonecosta.dev/posts/what-the-heck-are-reverse-mapped-types/

Reliable JavaScript benchmarking with Tachometer

Tags: tech, javascript, benchmarking, tools

Looks like a nice tool for benchmarking Javascript in the browser.

https://nolanlawson.com/2024/08/05/reliable-javascript-benchmarking-with-tachometer/

GM Shaders Guest: Radiance Cascades

Tags: tech, 3d, shader

Very neat technique for global illumination. Very effective but still has some issues.

https://mini.gmshaders.com/p/radiance-cascades

Store Code Discussions in Git using Git Notes

Tags: tech, tools, git, version-control, codereview

I like the idea of getting all the review comments back into Git once things are merged. This works offline, makes you less dependent on the forge for historical data etc. Now we’d probably need to have the notes feature easier to use somehow.

https://wouterj.nl/2024/08/git-notes

Build metrics and budgets with git-metrics

Tags: tech, tools, git, version-control, quality

Maybe we could store metrics about the code in the history as well? This would indeed reduce vendor lock-in. This tool makes it easy. Unsurprisingly seems built upon git notes.

https://dev.to/jdrouet/build-metrics-and-budgets-with-git-metrics-4pb4

Humans >> Data - by Kent Beck

Tags: tech, engineering, productivity, metrics

Aren’t we loosing something if we focus on productivity numbers too much? A good reminder that intrinsic motivation is an important driver in people behavior. I wouldn’t throw all the metrics out of the door but they’d better be a limited amount and they’d better be informative rather than objectives.

https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/humans-data

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Bye for now!