Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-10.A new California law says operating systems need to have age verificationTags: tech, law, surveillanceThe 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 LawsTags: tech, surveillance, lawThose 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-verificationEx-Meta lobbyist put in charge of EU’s digital rulesTags: tech, europe, law, politics, gafamWhat 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-rulebookBreaking FreeTags: tech, quality, lawIs 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 ArticlesTags: tech, wikipedia, ai, machine-learning, gpt, qualityThis 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 kingTags: tech, reading, culture, history, social-mediaYes 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-378prek: ⚡ Better pre-commit, re-engineered in RustTags: tech, version-control, git, tools, qualityThis looks tempting. I guess I’ll try this one instead of pre-commit when I get the chance.https://github.com/j178/prekqman: A more modern man page viewer for our terminalsTags: tech, documentation, unix, tools, command-lineDidn’t know about this one. Looks like a nice alternative to the venerable man command.https://github.com/plp13/qmanMessage Passing Is Shared Mutable StateTags: tech, multithreading, reliabilityInteresting 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-serversTags: tech, server, services, performanceWe got options beyond poll() nowadays.https://geocar.sdf1.org/fast-servers.htmlRust zero-cost abstractions vs. SIMDTags: tech, rust, optimisation, simdYes, 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-costHardware hotplug events on Linux, the gory detailsTags: tech, kernel, systemd, hardwareWondering 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.htmlLog messages are mostly for the people operating your softwareTags: tech, loggingA reminder that logs are not for the developers first but for operation.https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/LogMessagesAreForOperationNobody Gets Promoted for SimplicityTags: tech, engineering, complexity, managementRampant 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 2.0Tags: tech, tests, tddIt’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 codebaseTags: tech, refactoring, legacyYou 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 ProgrammersTags: tech, programming, history, ai, machine-learning, copilotThis 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, gptVery 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 limitsTags: philosophy, trustInteresting 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-273446Bye for now!