Dan Davies introduces the concept of "accountability sinks," where organizations obscure the consequences of decisions, making it difficult to hold anyone accountable.- These accountability sinks are prevalent in industries like hospitality, health insurance, airlines, and government agencies, where decision origins become unclear, breaking feedback loops.- The use of AI can worsen accountability sinks by further obscuring responsibility, highlighting the need for new strategies to ensure organizations remain accountable for their decisions.
Organizations, including governments, often create "accountability sinks," which obscure responsibility for decisions, complicating accountability.- Automated systems minimize human interaction, leading to frustrating customer experiences and a lack of direct accountability.- The complexity of modern systems results in decisions being made collectively or through automation, leaving individuals without clear recourse for addressing issues.
The study "QUIC is not Quick Enough over Fast Internet" reveals that QUIC's data rate can be up to 45.2% lower than the traditional TCP+TLS+HTTP/2 on high-speed networks.- The performance gap between QUIC and TCP+TLS+HTTP/2 increases with higher bandwidth, impacting file transfers, video streaming, and web browsing.- The paper identifies high receiver-side processing overhead as the root cause, due to excessive data packets and user-space acknowledgments (ACKs) in QUIC, and provides recommendations for improvement.
QUIC, a protocol aimed at enhancing internet speed, is encountering challenges with fast connections, where some implementations show lower data rates than traditional TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).
The performance issues are attributed to current QUIC implementations being CPU-bound, especially in browsers, rather than flaws in the protocol itself.
Despite offering advantages like reduced latency and improved packet loss management, QUIC's performance on high-speed connections is limited by existing hardware and software optimizations, illustrating the complexities in evolving internet protocols.
The Syncthing Android app has been discontinued from the Google Play Store due to unclear demands and additional work imposed by Google's requirements.
The developer's loss of motivation highlights concerns about Google's increasing control over Android, affecting app functionality and user choice.
Users can still access a fork of the app on F-Droid, an alternative app distribution platform.
The Internet Archive experienced a security breach due to stolen access tokens on their Zendesk email support platform, affecting over 800,000 support tickets.
The breach occurred because the Internet Archive did not rotate exposed GitLab authentication tokens, despite prior warnings.
The attack was motivated by the desire for cyber street credibility, with stolen data, including personal IDs, likely being traded in data breach communities.
The Internet Archive experienced another security breach due to stolen access tokens, prompting discussions on the necessity of decentralized storage to avoid single points of failure.
Suggestions for alternatives include systems like LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), which use a consensus protocol, while IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) faces criticism for inefficiency.
The breach underscores the Archive's security vulnerabilities, with calls for improved management, funding strategies, and debates over its copyright and security practices.
Ribbonfarm, a blog by Venkatesh Rao, will retire on November 13, 2024, concluding its 17-year run, though the site will remain accessible without new content.
Rao reflects on blogging's evolution, noting shifts to platforms like Substack and the emergence of the "cozyweb" era, indicating changes in digital content consumption.
He plans to transition to other media, focusing on technology trends and serialized projects, while expressing gratitude to readers and considering future endeavors.
Ribbonfarm, a blog by Venkatesh Rao, is closing after 17 years, marking the perceived end of the blogosphere era that flourished during Web 2.0.
The decline of blogs is linked to rising interest rates and a move towards paid distribution models, reflecting a broader cultural shift.
Rao introduced the term "cozyweb" to describe the intimate online spaces emerging as alternatives to public blogs and social media, and plans to compile book-length volumes from the blog's archives.
Bitwarden's desktop version 2024.10.0 is no longer considered free software due to a new dependency, @bitwarden/sdk-internal, which limits its use to Bitwarden applications only.
This change has raised concerns among users as it contradicts open-source principles, prompting some to consider alternatives or fork the previous version.
Bitwarden has recognized the issue and intends to address it, emphasizing that the SDK and client are distinct programs, reflecting a broader trend from open-source to proprietary software models.
Bitwarden is experiencing criticism for shifting away from being fully open-source, causing concern among users who valued its open-source commitment.
The move is perceived as a possible precursor to acquisition, drawing parallels to previous actions by CEO Michael Crandell, despite assurances from the CTO about maintaining GPL (General Public License) compatibility.
Users are exploring alternatives such as KeePassXC and Proton Pass, reflecting the broader challenges and criticisms companies face when transitioning from open-source to proprietary models.
Automattic responded to a cease and desist letter about WPFusion's listing by claiming fair use, even though it was part of their paid plans, sparking debate over open-source software and trademark issues.
Critics argue that Automattic's actions blur the distinction between WordPress.org (open-source) and WordPress.com (commercial), raising concerns about the intentions of Matt Mullenweg, a key figure in the WordPress community.
The situation underscores ongoing tensions in the open-source community regarding corporate use and trademark enforcement.
A study categorizes autistic individuals into four subgroups based on shared traits and genetic variants, using data from over 5,000 autistic children.
Each subgroup is linked to distinct biological pathways, with varying challenges in autism traits, from mild to severe difficulties, social challenges, or developmental delays.
The study suggests that genetic profiles could help predict clinical milestones, and further data could refine these subtypes, as reported on medRxiv.
A study by Troyanskaya and colleagues analyzed traits and behaviors of 5,392 autistic individuals, identifying four autism subtypes using a statistical model similar to clustering in data analysis.
The findings suggest that understanding autism's complexity through subtypes may be beneficial, though there is debate about whether psychological diagnoses effectively capture individual uniqueness.
The discussion includes the broadness of the autism diagnosis, the merging of autism and Asperger's, and the challenges of creating scientifically valid and practically useful categories.
Martin Kleppmann criticizes the Redlock algorithm for distributed locking on Redis, highlighting its unsuitability for scenarios demanding correctness due to its dependence on timing assumptions and absence of fencing tokens.
He advises using a single Redis instance for efficiency locks and a consensus system like ZooKeeper for locks requiring correctness, as Redlock's timing assumptions can lead to vulnerabilities such as network delays and process pauses.
Kleppmann emphasizes the importance of understanding Redis's limitations and selecting the right tools for specific locking requirements.
In 2018, a team opted for Postgres over Redis for distributed locking in ticket allocation, valuing its reliability and simplicity.
The team utilized a composite UPDATE statement for distributed locks, which improved accuracy and performance.
The discussion underscores that many distributed systems can rely on traditional database transactions, and not all issues necessitate complex distributed solutions.
The discussion highlights the effectiveness of English, Math, and Programming languages in problem-solving with Large Language Models (LLMs), emphasizing Python's structured nature for expressing problems.- It is suggested that LLMs may perform better with programming languages due to extensive training on examples in these languages, though they face limitations in reasoning and computation.- The debate includes whether math and programming should be classified as languages, noting their formal language characteristics and the impact of language choice on LLMs' problem-solving efficiency.