Blogs

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2025-17.


Privacy is power

Tags: tech, privacy, philosophy, politics

Reminder of why privacy matter and why we shouldn’t collectively give in to the data vultures.

https://aeon.co/essays/privacy-matters-because-it-empowers-us-all


Librarians are dangerous

Tags: book, culture, learning

Very nice praise to an underrated and underpaid job. Can we have more librarians please?

https://bradmontague.substack.com/p/librarians-are-dangerous


I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice and received the GPLv3 license

Tags: tech, licensing, foss, funny

OK, that’s a funny experiment. I don’t think many people post such requests anymore.

https://code.mendhak.com/gpl-v2-address-letter/


How decentralized is the fediverse really?

Tags: tech, fediverse, infrastructure, decentralized

Nice experiment. When looking at the actual infrastructure used, the servers are indeed nicely decentralized. For the users the picture would be different though.

https://discuss.systems/@ricci/114396317436420669


Government censorship comes to Bluesky, but not its third-party apps … yet

Tags: tech, social-media, bluesky, censorship

That happened fast, censorship demands already reached Bluesky and got applied. Third-party apps are not affected for now, likely due to their limited audience.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/23/government-censorship-comes-to-bluesky-but-not-its-third-party-apps-yet/


Getting Forked by Microsoft

Tags: tech, foss, microsoft

Such a nice and responsible citizen… FOSS is about extraction for them, not giving back.

https://philiplaine.com/posts/getting-forked-by-microsoft/


Former Google CEO Tells Congress That 99 Percent of All Electricity Will Be Used to Power Superintelligent AI

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, surveillance, politics, energy

Are they really believing their own lies now? More likely they’re trying to manipulate clueless lawmakers at this point. They can’t afford to let the circus end.

https://futurism.com/google-ceo-congress-electricity-ai-superintelligence


Coding as Craft: Going Back to the Old Gym

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, craftsmanship, learning

The metaphors are… funny. But still I think there’s good lesson in there. If you use generative AI tools for development purposes, don’t loose sight of the struggle needed to learn and improve. Otherwise you won’t be able to properly drive those tools after a while.

https://cekrem.github.io/posts/coding-as-craft-going-back-to-the-old-gym/


AI Horseless Carriages

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

Clearly to really benefit from LLMs there’s quite some thinking around UX design to be had. This can’t be only chat bots all the way.

https://koomen.dev/essays/horseless-carriages/


The Gruen Transfer is consuming the internet

Tags: tech, web, social-media, attention-economy, psychology

If you wonder why more websites become confusing… It’s not exactly an accident.

https://sebs.website/blog/the%20gruen-transfer-is-consuming-the-internet


Understanding the Origins and the Evolution of Vi & Vim

Tags: tech, unix, editor, vim, emacs, history

Very nice account of the history behind vi and vim. Also some special mentions of Emacs and why it has such a different lineage.

https://pikuma.com/blog/origins-of-vim-text-editor


Beej’s Guide to Git

Tags: tech, version-control, git

Looks like a very comprehensive resource about Git.

https://beej.us/guide/bggit/


Store and manage dotfile configs in a bare repository

Tags: tech, version-control, git, config

Cool tip showing what can be done with got bare repositories.

https://alexalex.dev/posts/dotfiles-bare-repo/


Python’s new t-strings

Tags: tech, programming, python

A new type of strings to keep an eye on in the upcoming Python release.

https://davepeck.org/2025/04/11/pythons-new-t-strings/


14 Advanced Python Features

Tags: tech, programming, python, type-systems

Good list of interesting features in Python. Some are tied to the gradual typing system but not all of them. Definitely tricks to keep in your bag.

https://blog.edward-li.com/tech/advanced-python-features/


C++26: more constexpr in the core language

Tags: tech, c++, metaprogramming, optimization

On the ever expanding domain of applicability for constexpr, more is coming to C++26. This is definitely welcome, should keep making it easier to use.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2025/04/23/cpp26-constexpr-language-changes


Does using Rust really make your software safer?

Tags: tech, programming, rust, memory, safety, fuzzing, tests

This is a nice little experiment. Not statistically relevant (there are other papers for that), but shows in the details how introducing Rust can impact the way people work. This is interesting because it means the safety gains are not only strictly coming from the (now infamous) borrow checker. We can’t rely on everyone applying all the techniques necessary but for sure they’re cheaper to put in place than with C.

https://tweedegolf.nl/en/blog/152/does-using-rust-really-make-your-software-safer


Zig -> allocators -> Rust ergonomics

Tags: tech, programming, memory, rust, zig

The concept of allocators in general and arena allocators in particular is too little know. Here is a little article which rediscover the motives behind them. It’s a good introduction to the topic.

https://www.capturedlambda.dev/blog/zig-allocators-rust_ergo/


pahole: Analysing Memory Layout of Complex Data Structures With Ease

Tags: tech, memory, performance

This is indeed a nice tool to explore and check the memory layout of data structures.

https://pramodkumbhar.com/2023/11/pahole-to-analyz-data-structure-memory-layouts-with-ease/


Linux syscall table

Tags: tech, linux, kernel, system

Nice table of the Linux syscalls. You can search for them based on ABI and version. It even points to their definition.

https://syscalls.mebeim.net/


Marching Events: What does iCalendar have to do with ray marching?

Tags: tech, date, time

Interesting way to look at solving recurrence rules in iCal.

https://pwy.io/posts/marching-events/


Defold - Cross platform game engine

Tags: tech, 3d, game, foss

Looks like an interesting game engine. Didn’t know about its existence.

https://defold.com/


Feature Toggles (aka Feature Flags)

Tags: tech, architecture

A good post covering the feature flags concept and the different type of toggles you might have in a project.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/feature-toggles.html


YAGRI: You are gonna read it

Tags: tech, databases, debugging

Indeed, more metadata in your database can be a life saver.

https://www.scottantipa.com/yagri


Give it time

Tags: tech, architecture, design, time, ddd

Interesting food for thought. It’s important to also approach domain models based on their workflows and events, not just their static relationship graphs.

https://ismaelcelis.com/posts/2025-04-give-it-time/


Design in TDD - by Kent Beck

Tags: tech, tdd, design

Yes, there’s plenty of room for design in a TDD cycle. This is a good explanation of when it happens and the challenges you can have doing so.

https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/design-in-tdd


When TDD doesn’t work

Tags: tech, tests, tdd

Indeed a good reminder that TDD might not be possible to properly apply at the physical boundaries of the system.

https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/04/30/When-tdd-does-not-work.html


Implementation-Inspired Tests

Tags: tech, tests, tdd

Struggling with TDD? Really feel like you need to write the implementation first? This is a fine approach. One caveat though, you have to be very disciplined in the way you uncomment the code, otherwise you’ll quickly loose the benefits.

https://arne-mertz.de/2017/02/implementation-inspired-tests/


Extreme Programming is as relevant now as before

Tags: tech, agile, xp

This is funny how this article written a long while ago now is still relevant… These are all good reasons for reading Kent Beck’s book about XP.

https://f3yourmind.net/2014/01/06/the-relevance-of-xp/


The perils of estimation

Tags: tech, project-management, estimates

If you’re asked a broad project estimate, building a very fine grained user story list is likely not the best approach.

https://dannorth.net/the-perils-of-estimation/


Advice for time management as a manager

Tags: tech, management, leadership

Good tips for time management indeed. I apply some of those but think I will borrow some extras from this article.

https://www.benkuhn.net/tmgr/


How to manage a team of remote employees

Tags: tech, management, remote-working

A bit shallow, but there’s good advice to get started. Very often the quality of the communication medium is underestimated.

https://qz.com/230998/how-to-run-a-team-of-people-who-never-see-each-other


Good engineering managers aren’t just hard to find – they don’t exist

Tags: tech, engineering, management, leadership

This is indeed almost always leadership you need in your organization. An engineer who want to manage, maybe be careful about their skills and motives.

https://venturebeat.com/business/good-engineering-managers-arent-just-hard-to-find-they-dont-exit/


Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

Tags: tech, organization, communication, decision-making, diversity

Indeed, arguments have a function. If they’re used they need to be regulated, otherwise you won’t get the best ideas possible in your organization due to competition.

https://www.kateheddleston.com/blog/argument-cultures-and-unregulated-aggression


Tools for better thinking

Tags: decision-making, problem-solving

Nice list of tools and models to use for better decision making and problem solving. Can all be done on paper of whiteboard. This is a good reference.

https://untools.co/


The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great – Technologizer by Harry McCracken

Tags: tech, history, art, culture

Ever realized raccoons had something to do with the history of computing? And children illustrations? Work of art if you ask me… we have to get back to the time of the computer magazines.

https://technologizer.com/home/2025/04/22/pc-connection-ads-raccoons/



Bye for now!