Tech links: music, old editors, the physical internet, and more

[sonia]

If you like music and use git source control, you will likely enjoy this video. Re:bass, a song about commitment (4:34 min) by Dylan Beattie. Fun to watch and listen to.

We Need to Rewind the Internet by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon. "When we simplify complex systems, we destroy them, and the devastating consequences sometimes aren’t obvious until it’s too late."

How the Web Became Unreadable by Kevin Marks.

As screens have advanced, designers have taken advantage of their increasing resolution by using lighter typeface, lower contrast, and thinner fonts. However, as more of us switch to laptops, mobile phones, and tablets as our main displays, the ideal desktop conditions from design studios are increasingly uncommon in life.

Ever wondered why the heck the vim editor uses h j k l for movement keys? And why it uses the darned inconvenient ESC key all the time? Wonder no more! by Peter at catonmat.net.

The Cloud Under the Sea by Josh Dzieza. A fascinating look at the slender cables that carry internet traffic across the oceans, the undersea deep repair ships that keep them functioning, and how very dependent the modern world is on this fragile physical network.

I am not a supplier by Thomas Depierre.

I am going to define what is usually meant by Supply Chain and suppliers, why we are applying to software. And then why attempts at bringing FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) under that definition are deeply misguided.

Paying maintainers: the HOWTO by Luis Villa.

As part of the xz discussion, some asserted that “paying maintainers doesn’t work—we tried to give people money and they wouldn’t take it.” Suffice to say, at Tidelift, we think that’s wrong, and we have been proving it for years.

Software Engineer Portfolios by Noah Gibbs. Why and how to keep brief descriptions and screenshots of your projects as a software engineer.

RSpec Tips and Tricks by Goulven Champenois. "Here are some ways to run only the tests you need using Rspec (automated testing framework), to stop wasting time staring at the screen."

Comments

[silveradept]

I've always known that there were lots of undersea cables carrying the fiber-optics, but I didn't know how little money and people are involved in the fixing and repair of those cables that already exist. The article makes it feel like there's always going to be one major disaster away from a near-complete collapse, unless we can do a better job of investing in maintenance and repair.

Which is also why I liked the explicit disclaiming of being a supplier of software, and the piece about what you can be paying software maintainers for. Maintenance and repair is always one of those things that definitely needs to happen and that rarely has enough budget allocated for it.

[sonia]

Yep, completely agree about maintenance and repair, and the fragility of our infrastructure because we don’t devote nearly enough time and attention to maintenance.