Hex on ervin

Web Review, Week 2026-14

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:33:02 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-14.

The Last Quiet Thing

Tags: tech, ux, design, business, attention-economy

A good piece, well designed too. Shows how demanding our current devices are. So much attention requested and so much complexity the user has to deal with. We clearly lost the plot as an industry.

https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing

What we think is a decline in literacy is a design problem

Tags: tech, philosophy, learning, reading, design

Indeed it’s not simply books vs screens. It’s about design and how our attention gets fractured (on purpose). We need to recognise there are many ways to learn and to produce ideas, then design for it. We’d be better off as a civilisation rather than staying with the current attention economy.

https://aeon.co/essays/what-we-think-is-a-decline-in-literacy-is-a-design-problem

Here’s why I’ve installed a Dead Man’s Switch on my home server

Tags: tech, self-hosting, life, death

You’re self-hosting? Better keep in check what happens to the people who depend even indirectly on your services when you’re gone.

https://www.androidauthority.com/home-server-dead-man-switch-3648903/

LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer

Tags: tech, linkedin, surveillance

Are we surprised? Of course depends on the browser and they’re looking mostly for extensions. Clearly they try hard to map what people use, it’s corporate espionage.

https://browsergate.eu/

DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

Tags: tech, embedded, memory, economics, ai, machine-learning, gpt

The price hike on RAM due to the LLM as a service bubble is really killing interesting fields. Can’t we have nice things? Will the arm race end soon?

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market/

Nations priced out of Big AI are building with frugal models

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, research, innovation, economics

Real innovations come from constraints. The frugal AI movement is clearly where we will see interesting things emerging. Interestingly, those approaches are closer to what AI is about as a research field than the industrial complex which got unleashed with all its extractive power.

https://restofworld.org/2026/frugal-ai-big-tech/

The Comforting Lie Of SHA Pinning

Tags: tech, supply-chain, security, git

We’re not helped much by our tools here… Clearly provenance needs to be double checked.

https://www.vaines.org/posts/2026-03-24-the-comforting-lie-of-sha-pinning/

handymkv: A tool to simplify use of MakeMKV and the HandBrakeCLI tool

Tags: tech, bluray, video, codec, tools

You got bluray discs to encode for use on your NAS? This looks like a nice option.

https://github.com/dmars8047/handymkv

Running out of Disk Space in Production

Tags: tech, architecture, storage, failure

Are you sure your understand how your reverse proxy works and the impacts it can have in production?

https://alt-romes.github.io/posts/2026-04-01-running-out-of-disk-space-on-launch.html

your hex editor should color-code bytes

Tags: tech, hex, data-visualization, debugging

Interesting color coding for hex editor. It indeed brings interesting properties.

https://simonomi.dev/blog/color-code-your-bytes/

Git Bayesect

Tags: tech, git, tools, tests

Git bisect won’t help much for flaky tests… but maybe this bayesian approach can.

https://hauntsaninja.github.io/git_bayesect.html

slowql: SQL static analyzer for performance, security, compliance and cost

Tags: tech, databases, sql, tools, performance, security, ci

Looks like an interesting tool to check your SQL queries on the CI.

https://github.com/makroumi/slowql

Joins are NOT Expensive!

Tags: tech, databases, performance

Interesting article which goes deep in comparing joins vs denormalised big tables. The conclusion is in the title, bit it’s worth a read for the other insights.

https://www.database-doctor.com/posts/joins-are-not-expensive

C++26 is done!

Tags: tech, c++, standard, reflection

The new standard is upon us and it’ll be massive. It indeed looks like another C++11. If used it’ll feel like a very different language.

https://herbsutter.com/2026/03/29/c26-is-done-trip-report-march-2026-iso-c-standards-meeting-london-croydon-uk/

What happens when a destructor throws

Tags: tech, c++, exceptions

A good reminder of why destructors shouldn’t throw. It really has to be a last resort measure and only carefully considered. There’s a reason why they are nothrow by default since C++11.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/04/01/when-a-destructor-throws

Why Don’t You Use String Views (as std::wstring_view) Instead of Passing std::wstring by const&?

Tags: tech, c++, c, memory

Indeed be careful at how you use strings when interacting with C APIs. String views are likely not what you want in that context. There is a reason why they don’t have c_str().

https://giodicanio.com/2024/05/14/why-dont-you-use-string-views-like-std-wstring_view-instead-of-passing-std-wstring-by-const-reference/

Watch out for missed warnings on vendor C++ toolchains

Tags: tech, c, c++, compiler, embedded

Vendor toolchains should see only a limited trust. Like in this case they’re often partial or old.

https://blog.poly.nomial.co.uk/2026-03-31-watch-out-for-missed-warnings-on-vendor-cpp-toolchains.html

Why Fakes Beat Mocks and Testcontainers

Tags: tech, tests, fake, failure

I vehemently agree with this piece. Fakes are unfortunately underrated. They’re the most powerful test double, I wish more projects would invest in them (can be quite an investment, which the article doesn’t quite show unfortunately).

https://pierrezemb.fr/posts/why-fakes-beat-mocks-and-testcontainers/

Working software runs locally

Tags: tech, developer-experience, tests

This is indeed very important to ensure the tooling around your project supports running the whole thing locally. Too often projects sacrifice the ability to do this, it’s clearly a hindrance to testability and a short feedback loop.

https://nickmonad.blog/2026/working-software-runs-locally/

Scaling a Monolith to 1M LOC: 113 Pragmatic Lessons from Tech Lead to CTO

Tags: tech, architecture, debugging, observability, orm, backend, frontend, organisation, leadership

Lots of good insights in here. Of course YMMV and some definitely depends on your context. That’s a lot of dimensions to keep in mind though.

https://www.semicolonandsons.com/articles/scaling-a-monolith-to-1m-loc-113-pragmatic-lessons-from-tech-lead-to-cto

Why the verb “to be” is so irregular

Tags: linguistics, history, english

Fascinating origins of “to be”. As usual to understand this kind of phenomenon, or at least start to build a theory, you have to go back quite far in history.

https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/why-the-verb-to-be-is-so-irregular

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-13

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:22:47 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-13.

New York Bill Would Force Age ID Checks at the Device Level

Tags: tech, law, surveillance

This keeps escalating… It needs to be stopped.

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-york-bill-would-force-age-id-checks-at-the-device-level

Zero Days: Electric Motorcycles are a Security Nightmare

Tags: tech, automotive, security

Clearly those are new and the vendors need to put in place proper security practices. Still those are on the road…

https://persephonekarnstein.github.io/post/zero-days/

Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at the kernel level, and the speed gains are massive

Tags: tech, linux, windows, wine, performance

Looks like an important Wine 11. Well done to them!

https://www.xda-developers.com/wine-11-rewrites-linux-runs-windows-games-speed-gains/

GitHub: We are going to train on your data after all

Tags: tech, data, surveillance, ai, machine-learning, copilot

Unsurprisingly, they need to find new data to feed the monster…

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/26/github_ai_training_policy_changes/

Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people

Tags: tech, git, github, forgejo, self-hosting

A reminder that this is an easy migration. Can also be towards you own instance of Forgejo of course.

https://unterwaditzer.net/2025/codeberg.html

Humanity in CS & PL, now more than ever

Tags: tech, science, research, community

Interesting call, our field like anything undertaken by mankind is worthless without community. Also community can’t sustain if you got an anti human agenda.

https://koronkevi.ch/posts/humanity.html

I’m OK being left behind, thanks!

Tags: tech, hype

Indeed, there’s no rush. No need to be first to jump on every new fashion.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/03/im-ok-being-left-behind-thanks/

How LLMs Distort Our Written Language

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, language, culture

Not peer reviewed as far as I can tell. That said if confirmed by other studies this feels like an important paper. The language flattening might be real and this will have lasting cultural impacts.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18161

Is the Future of AI Local?

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, research, business, foss, ethics

I personally think this is where it’ll head after the bubble pops. We should be able to recover enough material to have something viable to run locally. The question will be “where the updated models come from?”, it might be the public sector helping there and hopefully those will be truly FOSS and ethical (like Apertus).

https://tombedor.dev/open-source-models/

Don’t trust, verify

Tags: tech, foss, tests, security

You’d wish more projects would put such measures in place.

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/03/26/dont-trust-verify/

Markdown Ate The World

Tags: tech, microsoft, libreoffice, standard, markdown, complexity

A brief history of word processor formats and how Markdown came to prevail…

https://matduggan.com/markdown-ate-the-world/

Wild RSS

Tags: tech, rss, tools

Interesting tool to test your RSS feeds.

https://wildrss.com/

SSH certificates and git signing

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

Interesting trick in Got, using SSH certificates to prove the origin on commits. This feels a bit rough though, tooling has room for improvement.

https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/blog/p/ssh-certificates-and-git-signing/

Debunking zswap and zram myths

Tags: tech, linux, memory, system

Long and comprehensive look at how zswap and zram work. They each bring their own tradeoffs, it’s important to understand them to choose.

https://chrisdown.name/2026/03/24/zswap-vs-zram-when-to-use-what.html

Shell Tricks That Actually Make Life Easier (And Save Your Sanity)

Tags: tech, shell, tools

Good list of lesser known tricks in shell uses.

https://blog.hofstede.it/shell-tricks-that-actually-make-life-easier-and-save-your-sanity/

Windows Native App Development Is a Mess

Tags: tech, system, windows

Indeed, it looks like Windows gave up on having a nice experience for native app development a while ago…

https://domenic.me/windows-native-dev/

The Good, the Bad, and the Leaky: jemalloc, bumpalo, and mimalloc in meilisearch

Tags: tech, system, memory

Interesting story on how sometimes you can be betrayed by your memory allocator.

https://blog.kerollmops.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-leaky-jemalloc-bumpalo-and-mimalloc-in-meilisearch

Guideline: Rust Style

Tags: tech, rust, programming

Good guidelines for Rust code indeed.

https://epage.github.io/dev/rust-style/

Maximally minimal view types

Tags: tech, rust, type-systems

Interesting proposal for rust borrow checker. I wonder if it’ll get any traction.

https://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2026/03/21/view-types-max-min/

The Three Pillars of JavaScript Bloat

Tags: tech, javascript, complexity, tools

Most JS projects end up incredibly bloated indeed. Luckily there are ways to improve the situation.

https://43081j.com/2026/03/three-pillars-of-javascript-bloat

A rant about resolutions

Tags: tech, graphics, video, marketing

Yes the naming of resolutions is a mess… Couple that with marketing and it becomes misleading quickly.

https://blog.brixit.nl/rant-about-resolutions/

Lines of code are useful

Tags: tech, metrics, engineering, productivity, complexity

A bit more nuance in the “how to use the lines of code metric?” debate. Indeed it’s not the same if you look at complexity or productivity.

https://entropicthoughts.com/lines-of-code

Choose Boring Technology and Innovative Practices

Tags: tech, innovation, organisation

Definitely makes sense, you can be more innovative in your practices and processes than with the tech your depend on. The cost of changing is definitely not the same.

https://buttondown.com/hillelwayne/archive/choose-boring-technology-and-innovative-practices/

A Japanese Glossary of Chopsticks Faux Pas

Tags: japan, culture

Be warned! This is a long list.

https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01362/

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-12

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:49:08 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-12.

The “small web” is bigger than you might think

Tags: tech, web, self-hosting, blog

Also, it’s likely a pessimistic estimate… Indeed, it’s mostly based on a list from Kagi, which likely doesn’t list many sites which would qualify.

https://kevinboone.me/small_web_is_big.html

Have a Fucking Website

Tags: tech, web, social-media, self-hosting

So much this… I’m sick of all those little businesses having only an Instagram or Facebook account or whatever. I wish we’d have proper websites for all of those instead.

https://www.otherstrangeness.com/2026/03/14/have-a-fucking-website/

RIP Metaverse, an $80 Billion Dumpster Fire Nobody Wanted

Tags: tech, facebook, vr, hype

This was stupid hype… Why do we have regularly this kind of fever in our industry?

https://www.404media.co/rip-metaverse-an-80-billion-dumpster-fire-nobody-wanted/

Bluesky announces $100M Series B after CEO transition

Tags: tech, social-media, bluesky, business

The writing is on the wall I think… the real question is not if but when will the enshittification begins? It’s been data harvesting for a while now.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/19/bluesky-announces-100m-series-b-after-ceo-transition/

Open Source Gave Me Everything Until I Had Nothing Left to Give

Tags: tech, foss, psychology, productivity, life

This is an account of how dark things can become when you align your identity with your contributions. Stay healthy, stay safe!

https://kennethreitz.org/essays/2026-03-18-open_source_gave_me_everything_until_i_had_nothing_left_to_give

How Can Governments Pay Open Source Maintainers?

Tags: tech, foss, business, fundraising

Let’s help them help us. There are a few things to have in place for governments to be able to pay maintainers.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/03/how-can-governments-pay-open-source-maintainers/

Tags: politics, democracy

This is definitely a disturbing result. It indeed makes democracies more fragile, all the more reason to build more democratic resilience.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2026.1779810/full

Age Verification Lobbying: Dark Money, Model Legislation & Institutional Capture

Tags: tech, gafam, facebook, law, lobbying, surveillance

It looks more and more likely that the current age verification fever has dark origins…

https://tboteproject.com/

Rep. Finke Was Right: Age-Gating Isn’t About Kids, It’s About Control

Tags: tech, politics, law, surveillance

The commentaries and analysis of those unjust laws continues. The motives behind the people pushing for them are getting clearer and it isn’t pretty.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/rep-finke-was-right-age-gating-isnt-about-kids-its-about-control

Ageless Linux — Software for Humans of Indeterminate Age

Tags: tech, law, surveillance

Good initiative to push these unjust laws to their limits. Hopefully it’ll show how absurd they are.

https://agelesslinux.org/

Lotus Notes

Tags: tech, history, email

On the little known history of Lotus Notes. Crossed its path as a teenager during an internship at a bank. Can’t say I remember it fondly though.

https://computer.rip/2026-03-14-lotusnotes.html

The Most Important Software Innovations

Tags: tech, innovation, history

Interesting list and way to frame the problem. It’s important to maintain this resource, an update is likely needed.

https://dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html

Wayland has good reasons to put the window manager in the display server

Tags: tech, wayland, x11, history, complexity, input

Let’s not forget where we’re coming from and why window managers tend to be merged with display server. It removes some complexity and some latency.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/unix/WaylandAndBuiltinWindowManagers

Containers Are Not Automatically Secure

Tags: tech, containers, security

Kind of obvious I think, but this likely bears repeating. Containers are not a magical recipe for security. There are many attack vectors to keep in mind and evaluate.

https://www.lucavall.in/blog/containers-are-not-a-security-boundary

Why WebAssembly components

Tags: tech, webassembly, rust

Good explanation of where WebAssembly is going and why the current initiatives are important to its success.

https://blog.yoshuawuyts.com/why-webassembly-components/

How many branches can your CPU predict?

Tags: tech, cpu, hardware, performance

Not all CPUs are born equal in term of branch prediction. Interesting little benchmark.

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/03/18/how-many-branches-can-your-cpu-predict/

C++26: Span improvements

Tags: tech, c++, standard

Nice little quality of life improvements coming to std::span in C++26.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/03/18/cpp26-span-improvements

More Speed & Simplicity: Practical Data-Oriented Design in C++

Tags: tech, data-oriented, object-oriented, design, architecture, c++, performance

A very good talk which walks you through how to move from object-oriented design to data-oriented design. Shows quite well how you must shift your thinking and the difficulties you might encounter with data-oriented designs. I appreciate a lot that it’s not just throwing object-oriented design out of the window, indeed you have to pick and choose depending on the problem space. Also it’s interesting to see how C++26 reflection might make some of this easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzjJfKHygaQ

Minecraft Source Code is Interesting!

Tags: tech, 3d, graphics, game, portability, refactoring

Lots of interesting tricks in this code base. Gives also a good idea of the shape and tradeoffs of such ports.

https://www.karanjanthe.me/posts/minecraft-source/

Oxyde ORM

Tags: tech, python, rust, orm

Looks like an interesting ORM which brings advantages of the Django one without all the bagage. It’s still young, let’s see how it evolves.

https://oxyde.fatalyst.dev/latest/

Python 3.15’s JIT is now back on track

Tags: tech, python, performance, jit

Interesting read on how the CPython JIT effort has been saved.

https://fidget-spinner.github.io/posts/jit-on-track.html

The Optimization Ladder

Tags: tech, python, performance, optimisation

Here are the main levers to make Python code faster. Tries also to distinguish the effort level of each approach.

https://cemrehancavdar.com/2026/03/10/optimization-ladder/

XML is a Cheap DSL

Tags: tech, data, declarative, xml, portability

Interesting lesson here. It looks like XML still has its place in our modern tool belts. We should stop dismissing it too quickly.

https://unplannedobsolescence.com/blog/xml-cheap-dsl/

JPEG compression

Tags: tech, graphics, compression

Wondering how JPEG works? Here is a primer.

https://www.sophielwang.com/blog/jpeg

A Decade of Slug

Tags: tech, graphics, fonts, shader, patents

Nice algorithm for rendering fonts. Turns out it’s not patent encumbered anymore, this is good news.

https://terathon.com/blog/decade-slug.html

Video Encoding and Decoding with Vulkan Compute Shaders in FFmpeg

Tags: tech, video, codec, vulkan, computation

Vulkan compute shaders are very much capable nowadays. Exemplified by its use in FFmpeg.

https://www.khronos.org/blog/video-encoding-and-decoding-with-vulkan-compute-shaders-in-ffmpeg

The Best Darn Grid Shader (Yet)

Tags: tech, 3d, graphics, shader, mathematics

Good exploration on how to make grid shaders. It’s definitely not a simple problem.

https://bgolus.medium.com/the-best-darn-grid-shader-yet-727f9278b9d8

A sufficiently detailed spec is code

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot

Or why this latest trend in genAI hype is a fool’s errand.

https://haskellforall.com/2026/03/a-sufficiently-detailed-spec-is-code

Rob Pike’s 5 Rules of Programming

Tags: tech, programming, optimisation, performance, complexity

These are good rules. Take inspiration from them.

https://www.cs.unc.edu/~stotts/COMP590-059-f24/robsrules.html

Invest Your Political Capital

Tags: tech, architecture, organisation, politics

Interesting model for bringing architectural and organisational changes. This is indeed at least in part political games… so you need some political capital to spend.

https://architectelevator.com/transformation/political-capital/

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-11

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:24:38 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-11.

Joint statement of scientists and researchers on Age Assurance

Tags: tech, law, surveillance

This is (IMNSHO) a very important open letter. This confirms to me that the whole set of age verification laws we’re seeing popup everywhere is severely misguided. Had my suspicions before of course but it’s getting clearer with this one. We should stay clear from those laws as a profession, it’s important to not comply, it’d be a disservice to our users.

https://csa-scientist-open-letter.org/ageverif-Feb2026

Secure Communication, Buried In A News App

Tags: tech, cryptography, security, privacy, journalism

Not sure it’ll keep being efficient if the political heat keeps going up. Still this is a nice idea.

https://hackaday.com/2026/03/09/secure-communication-buried-in-a-news-app/

LibreOffice criticizes EU Commission over proprietary XLSX formats

Tags: tech, data, foss, law, europe

We should indeed put an end to those proprietary formats. It’s sad to see the EU Commission contradict itself there.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/LibreOffice-criticizes-EU-Commission-over-proprietary-XLSX-formats-11202165.html

Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

Tags: tech, foss, ai, machine-learning, copilot, values, commons, law

Excellent piece, indeed legal is not the same as legitimate. More often than not the law is lagging behind and things might be wrongly “fixed” at a later date. In that interval that’s when our communities need to build its own tools to protect the commons. We’re clearly reaching such an inflection point. Interestingly, I think there’s is a difference of reaction between the people with a Free Software culture and the ones with an Open Source culture.

https://writings.hongminhee.org/2026/03/legal-vs-legitimate/

Do the Illegible

Tags: tech, programming, engineering, ai, machine-learning, copilot

Obviously the essay from Peter Naur keeps popping up lately. It feels like an important piece, especially in the current atmosphere of vibe coding. This article lays out quite well why vibe coding is the opposite of what we should be doing.

https://ashwinsundar.com/posts/legibility-and-programming/

Moonforge

Tags: tech, linux, embedded

An initiative to monitor I guess. There’s clearly a need for a more “opinionated” setup for Yocto based embedded systems, this is going in that direction.

https://moonforgelinux.org/

The hidden compile-time cost of C++26 reflection

Tags: tech, c++, reflection, metaprogramming

Interestingly the issue for the compile time is not so much the feature itself but the STL headers required. It makes PCH pretty much mandatory.

https://vittorioromeo.com/index/blog/refl_compiletime.html

How to stop fighting with coherence and start writing context-generic trait impls

Tags: tech, rust, type-systems

Looks like an interesting approach to lift some of the limitations around the Rust trait system. The learning curve doesn’t look too great though, clearly requires effort to get into.

https://contextgeneric.dev/blog/rustlab-2025-coherence/

Parametricity, or Comptime is Bonkers

Tags: tech, zig, rust, type-systems, generics

Interesting look at Zig’s comptime feature. It’s not a purely Zig post though, does a good job of explaining parametricity and the implications of loosing it.

https://noelwelsh.com/posts/comptime-is-bonkers/

Ensuring correctness through the type system

Tags: tech, type-systems, safety

A good illustration of making illegal states unrepresentable. This definitely helps with code safety.

https://lindbakk.com/blog/ensuring-correctness-through-the-type-system

SPA vs. Hypermedia: Real-World Performance Under Load

Tags: tech, web, frontend, complexity

Probably somewhat self serving so the numbers would need to be confirmed with other experiments. That said that case gives a good idea of the price in terms of complexity and resources when choosing to go for an SPA.

https://zweiundeins.gmbh/en/methodology/spa-vs-hypermedia-real-world-performance-under-load

FontCrafter: Create Your Handwriting Font for Free

Tags: tech, fonts

This is definitely a cool project. I like the idea.

https://arcade.pirillo.com/fontcrafter.html

Code Reviews Do Find Bugs

Tags: tech, codereview, science

In praise of code reviews. This article does a good job showing all the advantages if properly managed. Teams have to pay attention to latency but otherwise you get lots of benefits for not so much time spent.

https://entropicthoughts.com/code-reviews-do-find-bugs

On The Need For Understanding

Tags: tech, programming, culture, hacking, debugging, complexity, foss

Yes, we have lots of layers nowadays. But you can read them to figure out when something doesn’t work like you expect. This is one of the most important skills of the trade.

https://blog.information-superhighway.net/on-the-need-for-understanding

The story of one of my worst programming failures

Tags: tech, system, programming, failure

There’s always an interesting lesson in this kind of failures. Here clearly it is in part a story of unchecked trust, and not planning for a bigger system. It came with real consequences too.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/DevelopedTooSmallFailure

Prioritize Relatively

Tags: leadership, management, project-management

The point is interesting. Priorities are indeed relative and dynamic. It’s impossible to put an “absolute priority value” on what needs to be done.

https://boz.com/articles/prioritize-relatively

Autonomy and Clarity in Leadership Styles

Tags: leadership, management, organisation

Interesting framework of different leadership styles. They all come with their own pros and cons of course.

https://bjorg.bjornroche.com/management/autonomy-vs-clarity/

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-10

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:10:38 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-10.

A new California law says operating systems need to have age verification

Tags: tech, law, surveillance

The stupid idea of age verification keeps spreading with ridiculous laws…

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/

System76 on Age Verification Laws

Tags: tech, surveillance, law

Those dangerous and stupid laws keep popping out unfortunately. This is clearly a slippery slope as shown from the New York bill… We need to push back or the demands will keep growing. Let’s hope Free Software communities won’t try to preemptively comply, this would be short sighted and self-sabotage.

https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification

Ex-Meta lobbyist put in charge of EU’s digital rules

Tags: tech, europe, law, politics, gafam

What could possibly go wrong? This is really a weird appointment.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/1992574/ex-meta-lobbyist-put-in-charge-of-eus-digital-rules-tech-oligarchy-writing-its-own-rulebook

Breaking Free

Tags: tech, quality, law

Is Norway about to become one of the first countries to become serious about enshittification? Will more follow? This would be welcome.

https://www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree/

AI Translations Are Adding ‘Hallucinations’ to Wikipedia Articles

Tags: tech, wikipedia, ai, machine-learning, gpt, quality

This is concerning, hopefully the amount of issues which get through will be limited.

https://www.404media.co/ai-translations-are-adding-hallucinations-to-wikipedia-articles/

Text is king

Tags: tech, reading, culture, history, social-media

Yes there’s a dip, but this piece presents compelling evidence that it’s not the death of literacy we’re sometimes screaming at. It is also a love letter to reading and writing.

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/text-is-king?ref=DenseDiscovery-378

prek: ⚡ Better `pre-commit`, re-engineered in Rust

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

This looks tempting. I guess I’ll try this one instead of pre-commit when I get the chance.

https://github.com/j178/prek

qman: A more modern man page viewer for our terminals

Tags: tech, documentation, unix, tools, command-line

Didn’t know about this one. Looks like a nice alternative to the venerable man command.

https://github.com/plp13/qman

Message Passing Is Shared Mutable State

Tags: tech, multithreading, reliability

Interesting piece which challenges the shared-memory vs. message-passing dichotomy. It message passing indeed gets rid of data races but nothing more. Of course this is nice already, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have the other families of concurrency bugs creeping in.

https://causality.blog/essays/message-passing-is-shared-mutable-state/

fast-servers

Tags: tech, server, services, performance

We got options beyond poll() nowadays.

https://geocar.sdf1.org/fast-servers.html

Rust zero-cost abstractions vs. SIMD

Tags: tech, rust, optimisation, simd

Yes, Rust like C++ comes with zero cost abstractions. Still they can get in the way of some compiler optimisations. This is an interesting case preventing vectorisation.

https://turbopuffer.com/blog/zero-cost

Hardware hotplug events on Linux, the gory details

Tags: tech, kernel, systemd, hardware

Wondering how udev communicates with the kernel? And then broadcast events? This covers the basics.

https://arcanenibble.github.io/hardware-hotplug-events-on-linux-the-gory-details.html

Log messages are mostly for the people operating your software

Tags: tech, logging

A reminder that logs are not for the developers first but for operation.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/LogMessagesAreForOperation

Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity

Tags: tech, engineering, complexity, management

Rampant complexity in software is also a management issue. Are we sure we’re rewarding the right things?

https://terriblesoftware.org/2026/03/03/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity/

Go Beyond the Test Pyramid: Test Desiderata 2.0

Tags: tech, tests, tdd

It’s been a while that I started to consider the test pyramid as fairly limiting for our thinking about tests. The dimensions proposed here give a more comprehensive model to reason about.

https://coding-is-like-cooking.info/2026/02/go-beyond-the-test-pyramid-test-desiderata-2-0/

Use the Mikado Method to do safe changes in a complex codebase

Tags: tech, refactoring, legacy

You probably want to complete this with a higher level plan if the goal is a larger modernization. That being said, it’s a good approach for mid-level to small goals you’d want to tackle.

https://understandlegacycode.com/blog/a-process-to-do-safe-changes-in-a-complex-codebase/

The Eternal Promise: A History of Attempts to Eliminate Programmers

Tags: tech, programming, history, ai, machine-learning, copilot

This fantasy regularly comes back. Yet, the tools evolve, might improve some things but the core difficulties of programming don’t change. At each hype cycle our industry over promises and under delivers, this is unnecessary.

https://www.ivanturkovic.com/2026/01/22/history-software-simplification-cobol-ai-hype/

Yes, and…

Tags: tech, programming, engineering, ai, machine-learning, gpt

Very good essay on why the developer profession is not going away. On the contrary we need to double down on essential skills and put in the work. This is long overdue anyway.

https://htmx.org/essays/yes-and/

I’m a philosopher who tries to see the best in others – but I know there are limits

Tags: philosophy, trust

Interesting point, looking for agency seems like a good criteria. It highlights it’s not a simple test though. I’d add that trust matters and that’s built over time.

https://theconversation.com/im-a-philosopher-who-tries-to-see-the-best-in-others-but-i-know-there-are-limits-273446

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-09

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 12:41:46 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-09.

Easily Replaceable USB-C Port Spawned By EU Laws

Tags: tech, usb, repair

Since these ports are becoming more and more pervasive, it’s nice to see a replaceable and repairable option on the market.

https://hackaday.com/2026/02/26/easily-replaceable-usb-c-port-spawned-by-eu-laws/

On Alliances

Tags: politics, ethics, culture

The previous piece about the disagreement with Cory Doctorow was a good one even though I didn’t put it in my review. This one is more important though! It’s a necessary reminder that we can’t put allies on a pedestal and then scream at them making mistakes or having different opinions. We can’t afford this kind of purity culture… Especially right now.

https://tante.cc/2026/02/20/on-alliances/

The Slow Death of the Power User

Tags: tech, foss, hacking, culture, business, surveillance, vendor-lockin, knowledge

Clearly the author is angry and he has every right to be. By closing platforms and fighting against tinkering, the big tech companies try to kill of the power user and hacker cultures. By letting this happen we all loose as a society.

https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the-slow-death-of-the-power-user/

Velocity Is the New Authority. Here’s Why

Tags: tech, information, attention-economy, culture, journalism

Interesting food for thought about the information ecosystem we live in. It’s been distorted by the constant stream of content, so it’s very hard to find the good journalism within the noise.

https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/

I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here’s What I Actually Handed Over

Tags: tech, linkedin, social-media, surveillance

Could it get more intrusive than this? It’s really handing over sensitive data to shady companies…

https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy/

I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI - and it only took 20 minutes

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, knowledge, security, trust

One more example that it should be used for NLP tasks, not knowledge related tasks. The model makers are consuming so much data indiscriminately that they can’t easily fine comb everything to remove the poisoned information.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260218-i-hacked-chatgpt-and-googles-ai-and-it-only-took-20-minutes

Facebook is absolutely cooked

Tags: tech, gafam, facebook, attention-economy, ai

If you’re wondering the kind of dumpster fire Facebook is now, that gives an idea. It was crap all along for sure, but clearly they crossed another threshold.

https://pilk.website/3/facebook-is-absolutely-cooked

Child’s Play - Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking

Tags: tech, culture, business

It feels like staring in the abyss… rather sad I’d say.

https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee/

Vulnerability as a Service

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

The OpenClaw instances running around are really a security hazard…

https://herman.bearblog.dev/vulnerability-as-a-service/

Reviewing “How AI Impacts Skill Formation”

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

I was so waiting for someone motivated enough to publish a review of that paper. I indeed threw it away as weak after reading it. Thanks for taking the time to write this up! This is good scientific inquiry… and it shows there were interesting findings in the paper that the authors decided to just ignore.

https://jenniferplusplus.com/reviewing-how-ai-impacts-skill-formation/

The path to ubiquitous AI

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, hardware, performance, power

Still a bit mysterious but could be interesting if they really deliver.

https://taalas.com/the-path-to-ubiquitous-ai/

The power play behind Hyperion

Tags: tech, gafam, facebook, ai, machine-learning, gpt, politics, business, economics, ecology

This planned giant data center by Meta shows how the big players are grabbing land to satisfy their hubris. So much waste all around.

https://sherwood.news/tech/hyperion/

Too many satellites? Earth’s orbit is on track for a catastrophe – but we can stop it

Tags: tech, geospatial, law, politics

There’s clearly a regulation gap for satellites. We’ve been putting way too many of them in orbit the past decade and it’s currently going to accelerate. This jeopardizes the night sky, astronomy and the possibility of space exploration. Clearly we’re making the wrong choices here.

https://theconversation.com/too-many-satellites-earths-orbit-is-on-track-for-a-catastrophe-but-we-can-stop-it-275430

Cosmologically Unique IDs

Tags: tech, uuid, physics, mathematics, funny

Really fun thought experiment. What if we need truly unique IDs at universe scale? Several options are explored.

https://jasonfantl.com/posts/Universal-Unique-IDs/

Making WebAssembly a first-class language on the Web

Tags: tech, web, standard, webassembly

There is indeed a path for better support for WebAssembly on the Web platform. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take a decade to get there.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/02/making-webassembly-a-first-class-language-on-the-web/

Cleaning up merged git branches: a one-liner from the CIA’s leaked dev docs

Tags: tech, git, version-control, tools

Nice little git trick. We can all thank the CIA I guess?

https://spencer.wtf/2026/02/20/cleaning-up-merged-git-branches-a-one-liner-from-the-cias-leaked-dev-docs.html

brat: Brutal Runner for Automated Tests

Tags: tech, unix, posix, shell, tests, tools

Interesting shell based test framework targeting pure POSIX. This makes it fairly portable. It feels a bit raw but there are a few interesting ideas in there.

https://codeberg.org/sstephenson/brat

codespelunker - CLI code search tool that understands code structure

Tags: tech, command-line, tools, programming, search

Looks like a good tool when you need to search for stuff in codebases.

https://github.com/boyter/cs

sandbox-exec: macOS’s Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool

Tags: tech, security, sandbox, apple

Looks like a neat little tool in the Mac ecosystem. It seems to make sandboxing easy despite a couple of caveats.

https://igorstechnoclub.com/sandbox-exec/

Lyte2D

Tags: tech, game, lua

Looks like a neat little lua based game engine for simple 2D.

https://lyte2d.com/

Ordered Dithering with Arbitrary or Irregular Colour Palettes

Tags: tech, colors, graphics

There’s something I find fascinating about dithering somehow. Here are more algorithms and approach to compare side by side.

https://matejlou.blog/2023/12/06/ordered-dithering-for-arbitrary-or-irregular-palettes/

Django ORM Standalone: Querying an existing database

Tags: tech, django, orm, databases

Interesting first article, I wonder what the rest of the series will have in store. In any case this shows how practical it is to use the Django ORM standalone. This opens the door to nice use cases.

https://www.paulox.net/2026/02/20/django-orm-standalone-database-inspectdb-query/

Parse, don’t Validate and Type-Driven Design in Rust

Tags: tech, rust, reliability, failure, type-systems

Short explanation of why you want to make invalid state impossible to represent. This leads to nice properties in your code, the price to pay is introducing more types to encode the invariants of course.

https://www.harudagondi.space/blog/parse-dont-validate-and-type-driven-design-in-rust/

Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures

Tags: tech, algorithm, data

An interesting resource, good way to match problems to algorithms and data structures.

https://xlinux.nist.gov/dads/

SFQ: Simple, Stateless, Stochastic Fairness

Tags: tech, services, distributed, queuing, performance

Interesting approach to provide more fairness to client requests.

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/02/25/sfq.html

Read Locks Are Not Your Friends

Tags: tech, multithreading, performance

A good reminder that on modern hardware read-write locks are rarely the solution despite the documentation claims.

https://eventual-consistency.vercel.app/posts/write-locks-faster

On the question of debt

Tags: tech, technical-debt, organisation, ai, machine-learning, copilot

Interesting point, there are indeed different types of “debt” in the systems we build. It likely help to be more precise about their nature, and indeed assisted coding might help grow a particular kind of debt.

https://medium.com/mapai/on-the-question-of-debt-aca1125d4a62

The Man Who Stole Infinity

Tags: science, mathematics, history

Fascinating story about the little known Cantor big mistake. This also shows once more, that even though we like to put people on pedestals and look for a “lone genius” or a “hero”, discoveries are always a process of several minds playing of each other.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/

How far back in time can you understand English?

Tags: linguistics, history

This is an excellent piece if you like linguistics and its historical component. It shows quite well how much English changed over the centuries.

https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english

We need to talk about naked mole rats

Tags: science, biology, nature, funny

Yes we do need to talk more about them. They are ugly… but they are awesome! (in a scary way)

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/naked_mole_rats

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-08

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:18:20 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-08.

I love the work of the ArchWiki maintainers

Tags: tech, linux, documentation

This is indeed an excellent technical documentation wiki for the Linux ecosystem.

https://k7r.eu/i-love-the-work-of-the-archwiki-maintainers/

Four Lessons From Civic Tech

Tags: tech, politics, commons, business

Interesting lessons indeed. Especially the first one: “Technology is inherently political, and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to hide their politics.” As tech people we too often forget this is all “sociotechnical”, no tech is designed and used in a vacuum.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A72%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D

Hold on to Your Hardware

Tags: tech, hardware, ai, machine-learning, gpt, economics

Are we on the verge to a push toward a mainframe based future? I really hope not, but for sure the hardware prices surging won’t make things easy.

https://xn–gckvb8fzb.com/hold-on-to-your-hardware/

The case for gatekeeping, or: why medieval guilds had it figured out

Tags: tech, foss, community, craftsmanship, ai, copilot, slop

Kind of resonate oddly with the string of talks I gave talking about craftsmanship a decade ago. Looks like FOSS communities at large have no choice but get inspired by such old practice.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-gatekeeping-or-why-medieval-guilds-had-it-figured-out/

Open-source game engine Godot is drowning in ‘AI slop’ code contributions

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, slop, github

Another example of how much of a problem this is for some projects. Of course it is compounded by having so many projects on GitHub, this pushes people to try to farm for activity to attempt to make their resume look good. This is sad.

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/open-source-game-engine-godot-is-drowning-in-ai-slop-code-contributions-i-dont-know-how-long-we-can-keep-it-up/

What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You

Tags: tech, bluetooth, security, privacy

Bluetooth might be convenient, clearly it leads to metadata leakage though.

https://blog.dmcc.io/journal/2026-bluetooth-privacy-bluehood/

Obfuscate data by hiding it in images

Tags: tech, security, cryptography, colors, graphics

I’ve always been fascinated by steganography. It’s a good reminder that the basics are fairly simple.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A172%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D

Self-hosting my websites using bootable containers

Tags: tech, linux, bootc, system, systemd, self-hosting

Interesting setup for self hosting on immutable infrastructure using bootc.

https://yorickpeterse.com/articles/self-hosting-my-websites-using-bootable-containers/

TIL: Docker log rotation

Tags: tech, docker, logging

I find surprising it’s not by default… But here we are.

https://ntietz.com/blog/til-docker-log-rotation/

Compendium

Tags: tech, system, observability, strace, linux

Still very young but it looks like it might become a nice and friendly alternative to strace.

https://pker.xyz/posts/compendium

Linux terminal emulator architecture

Tags: tech, linux, terminal, system

A good one page primer on how terminal emulators are designed.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A90%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D

Runtime validation in type annotations

Tags: tech, python, type-systems

Interesting new tricks with the introspection of Python type annotations.

https://blog.natfu.be/validation-in-type-annotations/

How bad can Python stop-the-world pauses get?

Tags: tech, python, memory, performance

Of course it’s a question of the amount of allocations you need.

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/02/15/how-bad-can-python-stop-the-world-pauses-get/

C++26: std::is_within_lifetime

Tags: tech, c++, type-systems

A small change in the standard, but it opens the door to interesting uses.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/02/18/cpp26-std_is_within_lifetime

spix: UI test automation library for QtQuick/QML Apps

Tags: tech, qt, tests, gui

Still young but looks like a nice option to write GUI tests for Qt based applications.

https://github.com/faaxm/spix?tab=readme-ov-file

Fast sorting, branchless by design

Tags: tech, algorithm, security

Didn’t know about sorting networks. They have interesting properties and are definitely good options on modern hardware.

https://00f.net/2026/02/17/sorting-without-leaking-secrets/

How Michael Abrash doubled Quake framerate

Tags: tech, game, optimisation, assembly, graphics

Interesting insights from optimisations done on the Quake engine almost thirty years ago.

https://fabiensanglard.net/quake_asm_optimizations/index.html

Font Rendering from First Principles

Tags: tech, fonts, graphics

We take font rendering for granted but this is more complex than one might think.

https://mccloskeybr.com/articles/font_rendering.html

Modern CSS Code Snippets

Tags: tech, web, frontend, css

Another nice resource to discover newer CSS idioms.

https://modern-css.com/

Stop Guessing Worker Counts

Tags: tech, distributed, messaging, performance

We got some math for that! No need to guess.

https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_008.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A118%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2Cnull%2Cnull%2Cnull%5D

The 12-Factor App - 15 Years later. Does it Still Hold Up in 2026?

Tags: tech, services, infrastructure, cloud, devops

A bit buzzword oriented, still I think it’s true that most of those principles make sense.

https://lukasniessen.medium.com/the-12-factor-app-15-years-later-does-it-still-hold-up-in-2026-c8af494e8465

The only developer productivity metrics that matter

Tags: tech, agile, productivity, metrics

I agree with this very much. The only productivity metric in the end is the end-user satisfaction.

https://genehack.blog/2026/02/the-only-developer-productivity-metrics-that-matter/

You can code only 4 hours per day. Here’s why.

Tags: tech, engineering, cognition, organisation, communication, productivity

Quite some good tips in there. If you want to do deep work you need to arrange your organisation for it. Using asynchronous communication more is also key in my opinion.

https://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com/p/you-can-code-only-4-hours-per-day

Poor Deming never stood a chance

Tags: management, leadership

Interesting comparison of Drucker’s and Deming’s approaches to management. One is easier while the other is clearly demanding but brings lasting improvements.

https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2026/02/16/poor-deming-never-stood-a-chance/

Tags: audio, music, physics, funny

Can we stop with the audiophile snobbery now?

https://www.tomshardware.com/speakers/in-a-blind-test-audiophiles-couldnt-tell-the-difference-between-audio-signals-sent-through-copper-wire-a-banana-or-wet-mud-the-mud-should-sound-perfectly-awful-but-it-doesnt-notes-the-experiment-creator

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-07

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:44:46 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-07.

The Media Can’t Stop Propping Up Elon Musk’s Phony Supergenius Engineer Mythology

Tags: tech, politics, journalism, business

There’s really a problem with journalism at this point. How come when covering the tech moguls they keep leaving out important context and taking their fables at face value?

https://karlbode.com/the-press-is-still-propping-up-elon-musks-supergenius-engineer-mythology/

But they did read it

Tags: tech, literature, scifi, business, politics

Indeed, don’t assume they misunderstood the sci-fi and fantasy they read and you know. Clearly they just got different opinions about it because their incentives and world views are different from your.

https://tante.cc/2026/02/12/but-they-did-read-it/

Microsoft’s AI-Powered Copyright Bots Fucked Up And Got An Innocent Game Delisted From Steam

Tags: tech, game, dmca, copyright, law

Automated DMCA take downs have been a problem for decades now… They still bring real damage, here is an example.

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/12/microsofts-ai-powered-copyright-bots-fucked-up-and-got-an-innocent-game-delisted-from-steam/

Launching Interop 2026

Tags: tech, web, browser, interoperability

This is a very important initiative. For a healthy web platform we need good interoperability between the engines. I’m glad they’re doing it again.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/02/launching-interop-2026/

How I built Fluxer, a Discord-like chat app

Tags: tech, foss, messaging

Clearly early days… Could that become a good place to land for people fleeing off Discord?

https://blog.fluxer.app/how-i-built-fluxer-a-discord-like-chat-app/

New And Upcoming IRCv3 Features

Tags: tech, messaging, irc

It’s nice to still see some activity around IRC.

https://libera.chat/news/new-and-upcoming-features-3

Uses an ESP8266 module and an Arduino sketch to display the local time on a inexpensive analog quartz clock

Tags: tech, hardware, embedded, ntp, time

This is definitely a cool hack. Now I feel like doing something like this to every clock I encounter.

https://github.com/jim11662418/ESP8266_WiFi_Analog_Clock

LLVM: Concerns about low-quality PRs beeing merged into main

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, foss, codereview

Clearly Free Software projects will have to find a way to deal with LLM generated contributions. A very large percentage of them is leading to subtle quality issues. This also very taxing on the reviewers, and you don’t want to burn them out.

https://discourse.llvm.org/t/concerns-about-low-quality-prs-beeing-merged-into-main/89748

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, foss, commons

I guess when you unleash agents unsupervised their ethos tend to converge on the self-entitled asshole contributors? This raise real questions, this piece explains the situation quite well.

https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/

Spying Chrome Extensions: 287 Extensions spying on 37M users

Tags: tech, browser, security, attention-economy, spy

Oh this is bad! The amount of data exfiltrated by those malicious extensions. Data brokers will do anything they can to have something to resell. This is also a security and corporate espionage hazard.

https://qcontinuum.substack.com/p/spying-chrome-extensions-287-extensions-495

ReMemory - Split a recovery key among friends

Tags: tech, tools, security

Accidents can happen in life. This might come in handy if you loose memory for some reason. It requires planning ahead though.

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/

Penrose

Tags: tech, tools, data-visualization

Looks like a nice option for visualisations.

https://penrose.cs.cmu.edu/

Boilerplate Tax - Ranking popular programming languages by density

Tags: tech, programming, language, statistics, type-systems

Interesting experiment even though some of the results baffle me (I’d have expected C# higher in the ranking for example). Still this gives some food for thought.

https://boyter.org/posts/boilerplate-tax-ranking-popular-languages-by-density/

The cost of a function call

Tags: tech, c++, optimisation

If you needed a reminder that inlining functions isn’t necessarily an optimisation, here is a fun little experiment.

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/02/08/the-cost-of-a-function-call/

It’s all a blur

Tags: tech, graphics, blur, mathematics

Wondering if blurs can really be reverted? There’s some noise introduced but otherwise you can pretty much reconstruct the original.

https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/its-all-a-blur

Simplifying Vulkan One Subsystem at a Time

Tags: tech, graphics, vulkan, api, complexity

There are lessons and inspirations to find in how the Vulkan API is managed. The extension system can be unwieldy, but with the right approach it can help consolidate as well.

https://www.khronos.org/blog/simplifying-vulkan-one-subsystem-at-a-time

What Functional Programmers Get Wrong About Systems

Tags: tech, data, architecture, system, type-systems, functional, complexity

Interesting essay looking at how systems evolve their schemas over time. We’re generally ill-equipped to deal with it and this presents options and ideas to that effect. Of course, the more precise you want to be the more complexity you’ll have to deal with.

https://www.iankduncan.com/engineering/2026-02-09-what-functional-programmers-get-wrong-about-systems/

Modular Monolith and Microservices: Modularity is what truly matters

Tags: tech, architecture, modules, microservices, services, complexity

No, modularity doesn’t imply micro services… You don’t need a process and network barrier between your modules. This long post does a good job going through the various architecture options we have.

https://binaryigor.com/modular-monolith-and-microservices-modularity-is-what-truly-matters.html

Using an engineering notebook

Tags: tech, engineering, note-taking, memory, cognition

I used to do that, fell into the “taking notes on the computer”. And clearly it’s not the same, I’m thinking going back to paper notebooks soon.

https://ntietz.com/blog/using-an-engineering-notebook/

On screwing up

Tags: tech, engineering, organisation, team, communication, failure

Everyone makes mistakes, what matters is how you handle them.

https://www.seangoedecke.com/screwing-up/

Why is the sky blue?

Tags: physics, colors

Excellent piece which explains the physics behind the atmospheric colours. Very fascinating stuff.

https://explainers.blog/posts/why-is-the-sky-blue/

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-06

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:43:36 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-06.

The Retro Web

Tags: tech, hardware, history

This is a nice resource trying to document the history of computer hardware. Really cool stuff.

https://theretroweb.com/

IndieWebify.Me? Yes please!

Tags: tech, web, blog, self-hosting, indie

Looks like an interesting tool to check you’re doing “everything right” on your blog. That said, it looks like quite a few hoops to jump through. I wish there’d be a way to make all this a bit easier.

https://blog.rickardlindberg.me/2026/02/04/indie-webify-me-yes-please.html

Tags: tech, social-media, attention-economy, law

Clearly a trial to keep an eye on. Some of those internal memos might prove decisive.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/tiktok-settles-hours-before-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial-starts/

Backseat Software

Tags: tech, product-management, metrics, ux, attention-economy, surveillance, history

Excellent historical perspective on how we ended up with applications filled with annoying interruptions and notifications. It’s been done indeed one step at a time and lead to poor UX really.

https://blog.mikeswanson.com/backseat-software/

AdNauseam

Tags: tech, web, browser, advertisement, attention-economy, privacy

I’m not sure I’m quite ready to use this… Still I like the idea, make some noise and have companies turning to those invasive ads to just pay for nothing. The more users the better I guess.

https://adnauseam.io/

Europe’s tech sovereignty watch

Tags: tech, europe, business, politics, vendor-lockin

Despite clearly being an advertisement for Proton’s offering, this shows how reliant European companies are on vendors showing strategic problems. We can cheer at the EU policies when they go in the right direction. It’s probably not enough already, but the European companies are clearly asleep at the wheel.

https://proton.me/business/europe-tech-watch

Tags: tech, law, gdpr

The ideas behind GDPR are sound. The enforcement is severely lacking though. Thus its effects are too limited.

https://nikolak.com/gdpr-failure/

Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

Tags: tech, mobile, gps, privacy, surveillance, protocols

Yep, it’s worse than the usual triangulation everyone thinks about. It’s right there in the protocol, or why you’d better not let the GPS on all the time.

https://an.dywa.ng/carrier-gnss.html

Meet Rayhunter: A New Open Source Tool from EFF to Detect Cellular Spying

Tags: tech, spy, surveillance, mobile, hardware

Time to spy on the spies. Or at least know when they’re around.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/meet-rayhunter-new-open-source-tool-eff-detect-cellular-spying

What If? AI in 2026 and Beyond

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, business, economics

Interesting analysis. It gives a balanced view on the possible scenarios around the AI hype.

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/what-if-ai-in-2026-and-beyond/

Selfish AI

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, copyright, ecology, economics, ethics

Let’s not forget the ethical implications of those tools indeed. Too often people put them aside simply on the “oooh shiny toys” or the “I don’t want to be left behind” reactions. Both lead to a very unethical situation.

https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/selfish-ai

The API Tooling Crisis: Why developers are abandoning Postman and its clones?

Tags: tech, web, api, tests

Another space with rampant enshittification… No wonder users are jumping between alternatives.

https://efp.asia/blog/2025/12/24/api-tooling-crisis/

What’s up with all those equals signs anyway?

Tags: tech, email, encodings

If you didn’t know about quoted printable encoding. This is a way to understand it.

https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2026/02/02/whats-up-with-all-those-equals-signs-anyway/

The Disconnected Git Workflow

Tags: tech, git, email

A good reminder that Git doesn’t force you to use a web application to collaborate on code.

https://ploum.net/2026-01-31-offline-git-send-email.html

4x faster network file sync with rclone (vs rsync)

Tags: tech, networking, syncing

Need to move many files around? Rsync might not be the best option anymore.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/4x-faster-network-file-sync-rclone-vs-rsync/

From Python 3.3 to today: ending 15 years of subprocess polling

Tags: tech, python, processes, system

Nice improvement in Python for waiting the end of a subprocess. Explains nicely the underlying options and available syscall if you need to do the same in your code.

https://gmpy.dev/blog/2026/event-driven-process-waiting

Django: profile memory usage with Memray

Tags: tech, python, memory, profiling, django

Looks surprisingly easy to profile the Django startup. Probably makes sense to profile other parts of your application but this is likely a bit more involved.

https://adamj.eu/tech/2026/01/29/django-profile-memray/

Flavours of Reflection

Tags: tech, reflection, type-systems, c++, java, python, dotnet, rust

Looking at several languages and their reflection features. What’s coming with C++26 is really something of another class than anything else. I just have concerned about its readability though.

https://semantics.bernardteo.me/2026/01/30/flavours-of-reflection.html

In Praise of –dry-run

Tags: tech, tools, tests, command-line

This is indeed a very good option to have when you make a command line tool.

https://henrikwarne.com/2026/01/31/in-praise-of-dry-run/

Some Data Should Be Code

Tags: tech, data, programming, buildsystems, infrastructure, automation

There is some truth to this. Moving some things to data brings interesting properties but it’s a two edged sword. Things are simpler to use when kept as code. Maybe code emitting structured data.

https://borretti.me/article/some-data-should-be-code

Plasma Effect

Tags: tech, graphics, shader

Neat little shader for a retro demo effect.

https://www.4rknova.com/blog/2016/11/01/plasma

Forget technical debt

Tags: tech, technical-debt, engineering, organisation

Interesting insight. Gives a lot to ponder indeed. Focusing on technical debt alone probably won’t improve a project much. It’s thus important to take a broader view for long lasting improvements.

https://www.ufried.com/blog/forget_technical_debt/

Bye for now!

Web Review, Week 2026-05

ervin@ipsquad.net (Kevin Ottens) — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 13:14:21 +0000

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-05.

Neocities Is Blocked by Bing

Tags: tech, web, search, microsoft, vendor-lockin

Huh? What’s going on there? I don’t see why they would exclude this domain completely, it makes no sense.

https://blog.neocities.org/blog/2026/01/27/bing-block

The Enclosure feedback loop

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copilot, enclosure, vendor-lockin

Interesting point. As we see the collapse of public forums due to the usage of AI chatbots, we’re in fact witnessing a large enclosure movement. And it’ll reinforce itself as the vendors are training on the chat sessions. What used to be in public will be hidden.

https://michiel.buddingh.eu/enclosure-feedback-loop

No, Cloudflare’s Matrix server isn’t an earnest project

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, matrix, cloudflare, security, failure

Very in depth review of the mess of a Matrix home server vide coded at Cloudflare… all the way to the blog announcing it. Unsurprisingly this didn’t go well and they had to cover their tracks several times. The response from the Matrix foundation is a bit underwhelming, it’s one thing to be welcoming, it’s another to turn a blind eye to such obvious failures. This doesn’t reflect well on both Cloudflare and the Matrix Foundation I’m afraid.

https://nexy.blog/2026/01/28/cf-matrix-workers/

I Was Right About ATProto Key Management

Tags: tech, social-media, bluesky, decentralized

Indeed, it just can’t be called decentralized…

https://notes.nora.codes/atproto-again/

Microsoft Gave FBI BitLocker Encryption Keys, Exposing Privacy Flaw

Tags: tech, microsoft, security, privacy

Are we surprised? Of course not… As soon as you backup the keys on someone else’s server BitLocker can’t do anything to ensure privacy.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/01/22/microsoft-gave-fbi-keys-to-unlock-bitlocker-encrypted-data/

ICE takes aim at data held by advertising and tech firms

Tags: tech, advertisement, surveillance, politics, privacy

What a surprise… No really who would have expected this could happen? I heard so many times “I have nothing to hide” over the years. When something like this happens you suddenly wish you were a bit more careful with your privacy and the privacy of the people around you.

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/27/ice_data_advertising_tech_firms/

The Rise of Sanityware

Tags: tech, privacy, surveillance, attention-economy

Those are indeed getting more popular. In a way that’s unfortunate, we shouldn’t need them so much.

https://thatshubham.com/blog/2026

Blogs Are Back

Tags: tech, rss, blog, tools

Looks like a nice tool to help people to get into RSS.

https://www.blogsareback.com/

Places to Telnet

Tags: tech, networking, funny

Telnet is not dead! We still have fun places to turn telnet clients to.

https://telnet.org/htm/places.htm

10 Years of Wasm: A Retrospective

Tags: tech, web, standard, webassembly, history

Nice retelling of the story behind WebAssembly.

https://bytecodealliance.org/articles/ten-years-of-webassembly-a-retrospective

cppstat - C and C++ Compiler Support Status

Tags: tech, c++, standard, tools

Looks like an interesting tool to follow availability of C++ features in compilers.

https://cppstat.dev/

Why I still teach OpenGL ES 3.0

Tags: tech, graphics, teaching, learning

Good point, it is old but portable and carries the important concepts. This is a good teaching vehicle. Even though it’s unlikely you’d use it in the wild much longer.

https://eliasfarhan.ch/jekyll/update/2026/01/27/why-i-teach-opengles.html

SPAs Are a Performance Dead End

Tags: tech, web, frontend, performance

It’s a solution for a problem long gone. SPAs should be the exception for highly interactive applications not the norm. Most web applications don’t need to be a SPA and would be better off without being one.

https://www.yegor256.com/2026/01/25/spa-vs-performance.html

Functional Core, Imperative Shell

Tags: tech, functional, architecture, tests, tdd

Clearly not a style which works for any and every applications. Still, it’s definitely a good thing to aim towards such an architecture. It brings really nice properties in terms of testability and safety.

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/functional-core-imperative-shell

How I estimate work as a staff software engineer

Tags: tech, estimates, decision-making

The approach is interesting. I wouldn’t assume it’s doable in every contexts though. What’s sure is that you need to embrace the uncertainty and accept to go with the exercise. Estimates are needed to make decisions and help teams to sync.

https://www.seangoedecke.com/how-i-estimate-work/

Is It Worth It?

Tags: tech, failure, organisation, estimates

Solving paper cuts pay off faster than you’d think.

https://griffin.com/blog/is-it-worth-it

Things I’ve learned in my 10 years as an engineering manager

Tags: tech, engineering, management, leadership

Nice advice, there’s a lot of variation on the role. And yet, some things seem to always be there.

https://www.jampa.dev/p/lessons-learned-after-10-years-as

Because coordination is expensive

Tags: tech, team, organisation, communication, complexity

The complexity and cost in organisations is indeed mostly about coordination. This is a difficult problem and largely unsolved in fact.

https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2026/01/24/because-coordination-is-expensive/

Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over “heroes”

Tags: culture

The contrast is indeed very stark. I got my own bias and fondness for heroic failures.

https://shreevatsa.net/post/douglas-adams-cultural-divide/

Bye for now!

Hex on ervin

Web Review, Week 2026-14

The Last Quiet Thing

What we think is a decline in literacy is a design problem

Here’s why I’ve installed a Dead Man’s Switch on my home server

LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer

DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

Nations priced out of Big AI are building with frugal models

The Comforting Lie Of SHA Pinning

handymkv: A tool to simplify use of MakeMKV and the HandBrakeCLI tool

Running out of Disk Space in Production

your hex editor should color-code bytes

Git Bayesect

slowql: SQL static analyzer for performance, security, compliance and cost

Joins are NOT Expensive!

C++26 is done!

What happens when a destructor throws

Why Don’t You Use String Views (as std::wstring_view) Instead of Passing std::wstring by const&?

Watch out for missed warnings on vendor C++ toolchains

Why Fakes Beat Mocks and Testcontainers

Working software runs locally

Scaling a Monolith to 1M LOC: 113 Pragmatic Lessons from Tech Lead to CTO

Why the verb “to be” is so irregular

Web Review, Week 2026-13

New York Bill Would Force Age ID Checks at the Device Level

Zero Days: Electric Motorcycles are a Security Nightmare

Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at the kernel level, and the speed gains are massive

GitHub: We are going to train on your data after all

Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people

Humanity in CS & PL, now more than ever

I’m OK being left behind, thanks!

How LLMs Distort Our Written Language

Is the Future of AI Local?

Don’t trust, verify

Markdown Ate The World

Wild RSS

SSH certificates and git signing

Debunking zswap and zram myths

Shell Tricks That Actually Make Life Easier (And Save Your Sanity)

Windows Native App Development Is a Mess

The Good, the Bad, and the Leaky: jemalloc, bumpalo, and mimalloc in meilisearch

Guideline: Rust Style

Maximally minimal view types

The Three Pillars of JavaScript Bloat

A rant about resolutions

Lines of code are useful

Choose Boring Technology and Innovative Practices

A Japanese Glossary of Chopsticks Faux Pas

Web Review, Week 2026-12

The “small web” is bigger than you might think

Have a Fucking Website

RIP Metaverse, an $80 Billion Dumpster Fire Nobody Wanted

Bluesky announces $100M Series B after CEO transition

Open Source Gave Me Everything Until I Had Nothing Left to Give

How Can Governments Pay Open Source Maintainers?

The price of accountability: corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies

Age Verification Lobbying: Dark Money, Model Legislation & Institutional Capture

Rep. Finke Was Right: Age-Gating Isn’t About Kids, It’s About Control

Ageless Linux — Software for Humans of Indeterminate Age

Lotus Notes

The Most Important Software Innovations

Wayland has good reasons to put the window manager in the display server

Containers Are Not Automatically Secure

Why WebAssembly components

How many branches can your CPU predict?

C++26: Span improvements

More Speed & Simplicity: Practical Data-Oriented Design in C++

Minecraft Source Code is Interesting!

Oxyde ORM

Python 3.15’s JIT is now back on track

The Optimization Ladder

XML is a Cheap DSL

JPEG compression

A Decade of Slug

Video Encoding and Decoding with Vulkan Compute Shaders in FFmpeg

The Best Darn Grid Shader (Yet)

A sufficiently detailed spec is code

Rob Pike’s 5 Rules of Programming

Invest Your Political Capital

Web Review, Week 2026-11

prek: ⚡ Better `pre-commit`, re-engineered in Rust