Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-39.

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We have lift-off! Element X, Call and Server Suite are ready!

Tags: tech, matrix, ux

Definitely a big announcement for Matrix. Could it be the beginning of going mainstream? I suspect it’ll be now or never. I’m slightly concerned about the desktop support being apparently ignored, the UX there is far from great still.

https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-server-suite-are-ready/

Firefox tracks you with “privacy preserving” feature

Tags: tech, mozilla, privacy, surveillance, gdpr

It was to be expected that complaints against Mozilla could happen in Europe. They’ve been asking for it lately…

https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-feature

No Data Lasts Forever

Tags: tech, data, culture, history, ecology

Excellent piece, we’re a civilisation whose culture is built on shifting sands and… toy plastics. Guess what will survive us?

https://lilysthings.org/blog/no-data-lasts-forever/

They stole my voice with AI | Jeff Geerling

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

This is clearly less high profile than the Scarlett Johanssen vs OpenAI one. Still this shows it has the potential to become a widespread (even though shady) practice. This might need some regulation fairly soon.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/they-stole-my-voice-ai

Forget ChatGPT: why researchers now run small AIs on their laptops

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

This is indeed important to be able to run such models locally. Will still require more optimization but it’s slowly getting there. The reproducibility it brings is especially necessary for science.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02998-y

OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, security, safety

People are putting LLM related feature out there too hastily for my taste. At least they should keep in mind the security and safety implications.

https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-for-large-language-model-applications/

Millions of Vehicles Could Be Hacked and Tracked Thanks to a Simple Website Bug

Tags: tech, automotive, security

Could we just stop connecting cars with web access for features we don’t really need? Please?

https://www.wired.com/story/kia-web-vulnerability-vehicle-hack-track/

Peering Forward: C++’s next decade

Tags: tech, c++, security, safety

Lots of good stuff definitely coming. This should definitely help make it more approachable to lots of people.

https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2024/blob/main/Presentations/Peering_Forward_Cpps_Next_Decade.pdf

Eliminating Memory Safety Vulnerabilities at the Source

Tags: tech, c++, rust, security, safety

Excellent proof of why you don’t want to “rewrite it all in Rust”. It’s important to respect the old code and focus on applying safety practices on the new code. This is also why the upcoming changes to C++ are worth it, it might improve the interoperability factor almost for free.

https://security.googleblog.com/2024/09/eliminating-memory-safety-vulnerabilities-Android.html

Committing to Rust in the kernel

Tags: tech, linux, kernel, rust

Despite the drama, Rust is slowly making its way into the kernel.

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/991062/b0df468b40b21f5d/

Waiting for many things at once with io_uring

Tags: tech, linux, system

Wondering what io_uring is for? This is a good explanation.

https://mazzo.li/posts/uring-multiplex.html

Overview of cross-architecture portability problems – Michał Górny

Tags: tech, cpu, portability

Nice list of common portability issues one can encounter at the machine architecture level. But don’t be fooled, this doesn’t have implications only for C and C++, those problems leak in higher level languages as well.

https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2024/09/23/overview-of-cross-architecture-portability-problems/

The Python Package Index Should Get Rid Of Its Training Wheels

Tags: tech, python

Interesting problem I didn’t realize PyPI had. Indeed I hope they start looking into reproducibility issue to reduce the bandwidth and space they use.

https://kristoff.it/blog/python-training-wheels/

Refactoring Python with Tree-sitter & Jedi

Tags: tech, python, refactoring

Interesting trick to help with project wide renames for Python codebases.

https://jackevans.bearblog.dev/refactoring-python-with-tree-sitter-jedi/

I Like Makefiles

Tags: tech, tools

What can I say? I love Makefiles as well.

https://switowski.com/blog/i-like-makefiles/

git-absorb: git commit –fixup, but automatic

Tags: tech, tools, version-control, git

Ooh! This looks like a really neat improvement. I wonder how reliable this is, I’ll definitely test it.

https://github.com/tummychow/git-absorb

similar, but different

Tags: tech, software, design

Nice short post about cohesion in software design. Also gives clue about what proxy we can use to gauge this cohesion.

https://explaining.software/archive/similar-but-different/

Resilient Microservice Applications, by Design, and without the Chaos

Tags: tech, architecture, microservices, reliability, research

I’m obviously not in love with the complexity this type of architecture brings. That being said, this thesis brings an interesting approach to better detect failure scenarios in such systems.

https://christophermeiklejohn.com/publications/cmeiklej_phd_s3d_2024.pdf

Conway’s law

Tags: tech, architecture, organization, conway

This law is unfortunately too little known. Here is a nice and short primer. Be careful though, it’s short but packed with information, might require more reading around the concepts highlighted in this article.

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Conway%27s+law

DORA Metrics At Work. How we doubled our team’s delivery…

Tags: tech, project-management, quality, metrics

When I read the content of this article I wonder how useful the metrics really were. I mean clearly they helped the team realize which changes to bring… but the practice changes were all somewhat conventional in a way. You go a long way when you focus on quality and create the space for it.

https://medium.com/booking-com-development/dora-metrics-at-work-46c835a86a89

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Bye for now!