跳至主要内容

2023-05-29

Why I Left Rust

  • An expert in the field was disgraced by Rust and RustConf for having a controversial blog post on reflection in Rust.
  • The speaker was downgraded from keynote speaker without any discussion of the ramifications, leading to his resignation and the author's departure from the Rust project.
  • Rust must be held accountable for its cruel actions, and questions must be answered about the decision-making process, path explored, and safeguards put in place to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

Industry Reactions

  • RustConf speaker withdrawn from lineup due to accusations of "uncomfortable technical viewpoints" and lack of transparency in Rust community
  • Community split over decision, with some calling out potential discrimination and others criticizing community's handling of situation
  • Discussion around governance, management, and culture within Rust community highlighted, as well as effectiveness of codes of conduct for addressing harmful behavior in tech communities.

YouTube removed dislike counts, so this guy made Rotten Tomatoes for YouTube

  • YouTube made the decision to make dislike counts private across the entire service, removing a valuable metric for viewers to evaluate YouTube videos.
  • Favoree, a new site, allows users to rate and review YouTube channels, similar to Rotten Tomatoes for movies.
  • Favoree is still in its early stages and needs more users to submit ratings and reviews to be effective.

Industry Reactions

  • YouTube has removed the dislike count feature, causing concerns that misleading videos may go undetected.
  • Some users suggest alternative methods to implement negative feedback, such as multiple dislike reasons or verified reviews.
  • There are also concerns that YouTube is suppressing negative comments, making it difficult to gauge the trustworthiness of the content.

Health officials delayed report linking fluoride to brain harm

  • A long-awaited report by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) on the possible cognitive and neurodevelopmental impacts of fluoride exposure in humans was delayed by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after criticism from health and dental organizations advocating for community water fluoridation.
  • The report found that a link between typical levels of fluoride added to water and possible harm to brain development is unclear, but it did find a possible link to cognitive harm at approximately two times the current recommended water fluoridation level.
  • Experts suggest that current water fluoridation levels may potentially be unsafe for developing fetuses and young children, as many common foods and drinks also contain fluoride.

Industry Reactions

  • Adding fluoride to water has been linked to brain harm and is debated for its safety and benefits
  • The controversy around fluoride is a complex issue that deserves further study and highlights the importance of informed decision-making
  • Alternatives to fluoridated drinking water include fluoridated salt and high-concentration fluoride toothpaste, and calcium fluoride toothpaste is suggested as a non-poisonous alternative to conventional toothpaste.

Lua: The Little Language That Could

  • Lua is a simple and easy-to-learn programming language used in various software, including Redis, NGINX, Wireshark, World of Warcraft, and Roblox.
  • Its simplicity allows for easy learning and use, and it can be compiled to various other languages with Lua interop, making it a great choice for domain-specific languages.
  • Lua's ability to be embedded in almost anything, along with a supportive community and available libraries through LuaRocks, makes it a reliable choice for many small applications and extensions.

Industry Reactions

  • Lua programming language is discussed on its 30th birthday
  • Debate over the 1-based indexing of "tables", some find it useful, while others find it frustrating
  • Comparisons made with other programming languages and alternative indexing ranges

Rust: The wrong people are resigning

  • A former member of two private online discussion spaces for Rust people expresses disappointment in the poor execution or lack of resources/process/manpower when dealing with drama within the community.
  • The writer suggests that a lack of communication and engagement with the Rust project resulted in disappointment and frustration among those who were not privy to private discussions and official statements.
  • The writer calls for better communication and engagement within the Rust community, emphasizing the need for accountability and competent criticism to promote improvement in the project's future.

Industry Reactions

  • The Rust community is experiencing internal conflict due to the resignation of key members and concerns over governance and leadership.
  • Criticisms have been directed towards certain individuals, and there are calls for more transparency and community input to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.
  • The drama in the Rust community has generated interest in the governance style and politics surrounding the language, and has raised questions about identity and attachment to programming languages.

ARM's Cortex A53: Tiny but Important

  • ARM's Cortex A53 is a low-power CPU, optimized for power efficiency and non-CPU sensitive tasks.
  • A53's design is achieved through smaller, less power-hungry caches, and in-order execution.
  • A53's strength can be seen in its widespread use in the mobile market and in various low-power applications after its days in cell phone SoCs.

Industry Reactions

  • Cortex A53 microarchitecture has remained largely unchanged for over a decade and is used in millions of phones worldwide.
  • Newer and less power-efficient designs, Cortex-A7x and Cortex-X, are now the focus, while SiFive's U74 and XuanTie C910 show that Cortex-A57 has been surpassed in performance, power, and area.
  • Article also discusses the design goals of Cortex-A55 and Cortex-A510, intended to be paired with big and medium-size cores, prioritizing improved ISA's and design enhancements that lead to greater performance.

Libuv – Linux: io_uring support

  • Libuv, an open-source library that provides asynchronous I/O capabilities, has introduced support for io_uring on Linux.
  • This io_uring support enables several file operations such as read, write, and fsync, to be more efficient and reduce latency.
  • Performance tests with the new feature have reported up to eight times better throughput when reading small chunks from "/dev/zero".

Industry Reactions

  • Libuv now supports io_uring, a modern asynchronous I/O system for Linux.
  • Node.js v21 is anticipated to be very fast with the inclusion of io_uring support in Libuv.
  • Benchmarks have shown an 8x improvement in throughput, largely limited to file I/O bound workloads.

Octopuses are building small "cities" off the coast of Australia (2017)

  • Octopuses, known to be solitary animals, have been found building their own "cities" off the coast of Australia.
  • Researchers suspect octopuses have been building group habitats for a long time and have been previously undiscovered because they are usually solitary.
  • These octopuses gathered around the rocky outcroppings due to shelter and food, with their social behaviors evolving over time.

Industry Reactions

  • Octopuses are building small cities off the coast of Australia and Greece.
  • Discussions on moral implications of enhancing animal cognitive capabilities.
  • Speculations on octopus intelligence, behavior, and potential commercial applications.

The Gemini protocol seen by this HTTP client person

  • Gemini is a new wire protocol and documentation format emerging from a movement against developments considered wrong on the current web.
  • Gemini has been designed to reduce surveillance and tracking by eliminating cookies, negotiations, authentication, and compression, using instead TLS client certificates for keeping state between requests.
  • The protocol is minimalist, not visually attractive to users, and lacks the power to accomplish many things possible on the current web, but is expected to allow more server and client implementations.

Industry Reactions

  • Gemini protocol is a new minimal markup format for text documents, aimed to offer an alternative to the complicated and centralized modern web.
  • The protocol focuses on privacy, performance, and ease of implementation, and replaces HTML with basic text-format supporting simple design.
  • The use of TLS and mandatory secure connections limits Gemini's adoption by hobbyists and devices, and features like POST are blocked, but Gemini is gaining popularity among hobbyists who enjoy playing with a protocol that doesn't have to deal with ads and tracking.

Private spies hired by FBI and corporations infiltrate Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp

  • Surveillance firms known as "threat intelligence" are creating fake online personas to gain access to private corners of the web, including Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp, and dark web message boards.
  • These firms provide corporate and government clients with insight into private conversations to help them keep tabs on potential threats, such as political hacktivists and those involved in illegal markets.
  • Many of these firms have close ties to law enforcement and government agencies, and there are concerns that the push for more surveillance of private online communities risks violating civil liberties.

Industry Reactions

  • Private spy firms hired by both the FBI and corporations have been infiltrating online platforms with fake personas to extract and sell a range of information that includes social media posts, data associated with online payment tools, and geolocation tracking.
  • Activists and civil liberties advocates call for more transparency and oversight, concerned that this private industry's power and activities is not subject to public scrutiny.
  • The use of private contractors by government agencies raises concerns about an extension of law enforcement without the appropriate legal oversight and the potential for these entities to undermine constitutional protections.