Back from vacations and I did some catch up late at night… So expect a larger selection than usual. Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-36.WEBMASTER@ a manifesto for everyoneTags: tech, web, internet, culture, historyA very uplifting essay in my opinion. Starts with a historical perspective on the webmaster role to then evolve into a manifesto about creation on the web.https://brennan.day/webmaster-a-manifesto-for-everyone/There’s no such thing as Just a ToolTags: tech, tools, philosophy, framework, designIndeed, it’s high time our industry leaves the “it’s just a tool” rhetoric behind. This claim is a way for us to not take our responsibilities in the design of the tools we make.https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such-thing-as-just-a-toolNormalized Fascism in Open Source: $12 Million Given to DHHTags: tech, foss, politicsThere’s no “apolitical” projects. Claiming the contrary is just trying to hide your agenda. While our engineer culture keeps falling for it, really bad actors are benefiting from it…https://brennan.day/normalized-fascism-in-open-source-12-million-given-to-dhh/Meta’s $17 Billion Settlement is a Bad Deal for Teens and All Social Media UsersTags: tech, facebook, social-media, law, surveillanceThis is not indeed the win you’d expect. More surveillance coming pushed by the settlement…https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/metas-17-billion-settlement-bad-deal-teens-and-all-social-media-usersThe actual epistemic crisisTags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, fake, fake-news, knowledge, politicsVery important opinion piece from Cory Doctorow again. The trend was clear of an epistemic crisis brewing and generative AI basically put it on steroids. This is a real blow to our civilisation.https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/20/epistemic-void/#expert-agenciesThe people vs the AI overlordsTags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, politicsClearly there’s a political project behind the design of those tools. Clearly our industry is lacking enough class consciousness to push back against the “AI overlords” agenda.https://anarc.at/blog/2026-08-18-people-vs-ai-overlords/We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training FacilityTags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, ethics, book, knowledgeThis truly makes me sad… The level of cynicism required to destroy rare books is just beyond me. All this to squeeze the last human made tokens available with no real gain in sight.https://www.404media.co/we-tracked-a-shipment-of-rare-books-it-ended-at-an-amazon-ai-training-facility/AI Software Development – What Does The Data Say?Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, engineeringThe executive summary is good. This is also a nice source of reference papers and studies on the topic. It shows quite well why the work is moving to the harnesses rather than the models. Indeed models probably won’t improve much in terms of reliability. It all points once again towards a needed shift of people attention from the shiny toys and towards team practice instead.https://codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/08/12/ai-software-development-what-does-the-data-say/There Is Still No Silver BulletTags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, productivity, engineering, craftsmanshipVery good opinion piece going back to Naur’s and Brook’s important papers about software production. It’s a sobering take on how LLM can’t bring the promised productivity gains. This is not saying it can’t bring productivity gains of course but it’ll never be as dramatic as what the current hype cycle pushes people to believe.https://cekrem.github.io/posts/there-is-still-no-silver-bullet/Copyrightability of LLM-generated code: Can we license “vibe code” into Free Software?Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, copyright, law, fossClearly the situation of copyright around LLM uses is complex. It’s easy to fall into code which can’t be copyrighted if there’s not enough human input to produce the work (and keep in mind that “prompting” is likely not enough input). This also raises questions about potential copyright violations. Looks like following the guidelines of the SFC for contributing to Free Software projects is getting especially important.https://fsfe.org/news/2026/news-20260825-01.htmlAnd then the men with guns tell you to do it anywayTags: tech, security, privacy, politicsOr a reminder that no system can be made to be completely safe and secure. When the political pressure or violence gets in the equation it’s hard to not simply falter and satisfy the demands.https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/and-then-the-men-with-guns-tell-you-to-do-it-anyway/hk - Git Hook ManagerTags: tech, git, tools, lintingMight turn into a nice way to manage your git hooks.https://hk.jdx.dev/Easy Sandboxing on Linux with BubblewrapTags: tech, linux containers, flatpak, security, sandboxA nice and simple approach to sandbox a command. Of course with the system integration it’s a bit porous bit it might be a good base for quite a few uses.https://bxt.rs/blog/easy-sandboxing-on-linux-with-bubblewrap/Hister: Your Own Search EngineTags: tech, search, self-hostingLooks like an interesting personal indexing system for your own files and slice of the web.https://hister.org/Monitoring SystemD services with Healthchecks.ioTags: tech, systemd, monitoringNeat trick to monitor systemd services.https://passbe.com/2022/healthchecks-io-systemd-checks/Python sets and dictionaries can have quadratic-time performanceTags: tech, python, performance, algorithm, cpu, memory, complexityToo often people mistake the algorithmic complexity theory for the real performances you would get. This can’t be further from the truth. The memory layout trumps all. As usual you need to measure.https://lemire.me/blog/2026/09/03/python-sets-and-dictionaries-can-have-quadratic-time-performance/Rewriting in Rust: Performance, Failures, 2026 Reality CheckTags: tech, rust, porting, rewrite, safetyUnsurprisingly it’s not all unicorns and rainbows. This piece tries to highlight the right questions to ask yourself before aiming for a rewrite.https://blog.jetbrains.com/rust/2026/08/10/rewriting-in-rust/Rust concurrency vs Go concurrency: stackless vs stackfull coroutinesTags: tech, go, rust, asynchronous, coroutineComparison of two concurrency models. This is a light read which shows quite well the differences.https://kerkour.com/rust-vs-go-concurrencyConcurrency vs. Throughput: why more parallelism can make databases slowerTags: tech, multithreading, databases, performanceWhen more concurrency might not help. Illustration with the case of database queries.https://planetscale.com/blog/concurrency-vs-throughput-vitess-mysqlSQLite for EverythingTags: tech, databases, sqlite, architecture, funnyAnother love letter to SQLite. It’s meant to be funny but comes with plenty of good arguments and ideas as well.https://joecode.com/2026-08-19-sqlite3/The Browser’s Main Thread Is ExpensiveTags: tech, web, frontend, browser, performanceA reminder that web frontend work isn’t as easy as it sounds. It brings quite some caveats and his difficult to do well. Otherwise you wonder why things stutter or render badly.https://kciter.so/posts/the-expensive-main-thread/en/Ambient CSS — a physics-based lighting system for CSSTags: tech, css, graphics, physicsReally nice tricks you can pull with CSS nowadays. The result is fairly nice visually.https://ambientcss.vercel.app/HTML Can Do ThatTags: tech, html, javascriptMore proofs that HTML is more and more capable by itself.https://chrisburnell.com/html-can-do-that/#example-until-foundSolving copyright & licensing information in client-side JavaScript, CSS and similarTags: tech, web, frontend, javascript, licensing, foss, lawFinally a sensible approach to communicate license compliance for client side content delivered via a browser. It’s not too much of a bother so let’s hope it gets picked up.https://matija.suklje.name/solving-copyright-licensing-information-in-client-side-javascript-css-and-similar-agreeing-on-a-useful-solutionSoftware That Must Not Be Wrong: Property Tests for a Pediatric Dosing CalculatorTags: tech, property-based-testing, tests, rust, type-systemsInteresting case where you want to property test but without a specific property base test tool. Indeed, if you need to be exhaustive and the input space is small enough this is the better decision. This article also comes with interesting point on Rust type system but that’s less central to the main point.https://rust-blog.github.io/post/favi-child-property-tests/Let’s not call it “tech debt,” it’s just “mess”Tags: tech, technical-debt, complexity, maintenance, craftsmanshipA good piece showing some of the problems with how the term technical debt is widely misused. There’s a problem with the metaphor itself, you rarely have the information level needed to call it debt.https://www.simplermachines.com/lets-not-call-it-tech-debt-its-just-mess/Guilt-Driven DevelopmentTags: tech, quality, engineering, craftsmanshipI like this article somehow. Indeed I’d like to see more guilt in the people shipping bugs in production (myself included probably). Also I’m very much aligned with the proposed approach to tame issues: thinking, types, tests, and telemetry.https://markuseliasson.se/article/guilt-driven-developmentReviewing code is a skillTags: tech, engineering, codereview, learning, knowledgeExcellent piece about code reviews. But it goes further than that and shows how our skills could improve. By tackling this question it does a good job showing we don’t know where the ceiling is in terms of skills in our craft.https://typesanitizer.com/blog/code-review.htmlCoachability++Tags: tech, coaching, management, mentoringInteresting slide deck about coaching in tech circles. Clearly provides good inspiration both for coaches or if you’re the one requesting to be coached.https://cate.blog/2021/02/22/coachability/The Expertise TrapTags: expertise, problem-solving, cognition, biasThis is an easy trap to fall into unfortunately. Be mindful of your own biases. They might increase as you gain more expertise in a field unfortunately.https://www.congruentchange.com/the-expertise-trap/Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold?Tags: history, politics, mathematicsDon’t be fooled by the click-bait title. It’s a good piece looking at history and game theory. It gives some lessons about how civilizations collapse… or not.https://thegrimhistorian.substack.com/p/has-america-crossed-the-asshole-threshold?ref=DenseDiscovery-404Meet the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize winnersTags: science, funnyAnother good crop of Ig Nobel this year! I’m not sure which one is my favorite.https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/meet-the-2026-ig-nobel-prize-winners/Bye for now!