Friday Links 22-38

Another Mastodon week. Seems like another wave of users is migrating to Mastodon. 

I also looked into on-call ... for reasons.

And I enjoyed the old Barcelona videos and the article about the USE method. 

Mastodon

How OSI got to Mastodon - good to see more institutions and organisations joining and creating their own instances.

The Fediverse Could Be Awesome (if we don’t screw it up)  - the EFF chiming in … without creating their own instance.

Fedi.Directory - the old school directory of Mastodon accounts 

‘Could this be Twitter without the toxic slurry?’ My week on Mastodon - Zoe Williams

Verifying your GitHub profile on Mastodon - better than the hacks 

Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It? - from 2017 

#FediBbuzz - trends in the fediverse 

Scaling Mastodon is Impossible - I can't say I agree 

Mastodon and federation - is it Twitter or Discord servers?

Leadership

How to Create a Developer-Friendly On-Call Schedule in 7 steps - quick overview 

Being On-Call - from the SRE Book

Three ways to remove bias from technical interviews - structure, relevant questions, do deeper 

“If only people stopped interrupting and started listening :)” - we all have been in these meetings 

10x Disagree and Commit - you have to be good at disagreeing and committing

The flying wedge. - yes, I don't like this either.

Engineering 

Rust in the 6.2 kernel [$$$] - nice incremental approach

Using the cloud to scale Etsy - the consultants view 

The USE Method - "The Utilization Saturation and Errors (USE) Method is a methodology for analyzing the performance of any system."

Move faster, wait less: Improving code review time at Meta - improving the code review user experience with nudging 

Sapling: Source control that’s user-friendly and scalable - looks nice, but how compatible, just command line?

Urbanism

Enderrocar per construir [YouTube] - Barcelona uploaded some videos about the construction around the Olympics.

Barcelona Connexió [YouTube] - Another Barcelona video. Some of this is great, some of it is still being fixed now.

Electric vehicle shift alone will not solve urban transport woes, says Portuguese minister - surprise 

Wild boars: Catalonia's growing feral pig problem - feral pigs still going strong in Barcelona

Over 400 Covid-era outdoor seating areas in bars and restaurants regularized in Barcelona - mostly taking space away from cars

Random Colours

A 900-Page Pre-Pantone Guide to Color from 1692: A Complete Digital Scan- this doesn't seem accurate

Best WRC Game Ever? WRC Generations | Rally RACC Catalunya | Gymkhana Action [YouTube] - I was not aware that such rigs are for sale, this is amazing and amazingly expensive.  

Poorly Drawn Lines - Never Give Up [Comic]

Meet your new two-factor authenticator: your Commodore 64  - fun!

Barcelona students to take mandatory climate crisis module from 2024 - protests do work!

The Scoop: Tech Layoffs in 2022 - this is looking pretty bleak

Other Links

• Ben Crowder: Links #52- Ben is even busier than me!
• Weekly Design Links – 11/15/22- love the pixelated clothing
  

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kind of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time you might notice common themes though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday Links 22-37

Another round of Mastodon links. The migration is still ongoing, and Twitter seems to be moving toward the abyss.  

I also enjoyed the $70k Android hack and the weird-old-book-finder.

Mastodon 

bitbang.social - retrocomputing instance

Mastodon Moment - Tim Bray on Mastodon 

Is the fediverse about to get Fryed? (Or, “Why every toot is also a potential denial of service attack”) - Mastodon might have a scaling problem

Mastodon on your own domain without hosting a server - I don't even have a static server at the moment! 

Home invasion - Mastodon's Eternal September begins - pretty negative. I can understand where he is coming from. It is OK to mourn the past, but you have to look forward. 

Exploring Mastodon: Latest Memo: Multiple Mastodon Accounts - Martin Fowler continues his series. I don't really like these work in progress articles. 

A Big List of Mastodon Resources - all the tools and introductions. 

With Twitter in chaos, Mastodon is on fire - CNN

Thousands Have Joined Mastodon Since Twitter Changed Hands. Its Founder Has a Vision for Democratizing Social Media - Time 

Your organization should run its own Mastodon server - yes, especially if you are a media or government organisation.

What is Mastodon, the social network users are leaving Twitter for? Everything you need to know - The Guardian's take

Leadership

Cruel Changes at Twitter - how not to lead 

You should maintain a transition file - "It’s a document that you prepare for whoever ends up succeeding you in your role."

The Seven Levels of Busy - I am aiming for somewhere between Level 3 and 4.

Making a leap into the future - using "leap teams", temporary teams focused on one project to break silos. The pros & cons.

Work

1 in 20 workers will quit if transparency laws reveal they are paid less than co-workers - that seems a lot. Only time will tell.

Elon Musk scraps Twitter’s work from home policy - probably not even legal 

How To Create Serendipity on Remote Teams - this is so hard! Some good ideas anyway.

Engineering

Accidental $70k Google Pixel Lock Screen Bypass - this is a great and random hack 

The Netherlands, Germany and Spain: Which European countries are leading the solar revolution?  - Spain should be leading this 

Euruko ’22: Ruby over Helsinki - a few Jobandtalent people went to the Ruby conference.

Environment

How to move a country: Fiji’s radical plan to escape rising sea levels - "It is not just pulling out 30 or 40 houses in a village and moving them further upfield. I wish it were that simple."

France to require all large parking lots to be covered by solar panels - I have some hope that this means fewer parking spaces

Urbanism

Death of cyclist in Berlin provokes debate over road protests - this discussion is just insane. Another cyclist was killed in Berlin and nobody talks about the truck that killed her. 

El 18 de novembre s’implanten els canvis de mobilitat als quatre nous eixos verds i places de l’Eixample [Catalan] - traffic changes are beginning for the new green corridors / superblocks in Barcelona 

Barcelona Superblock - See details on action set out by the plan for 2030 - overview of the changes

Brasilia: Modernist disaster or deceptively brilliant? [YouTube] - the blocks are a nice idea, but the houses are awful. No wonder people created even worse suburbs. 

Medics get on their bikes to take the load off ambulances [$$$] - London's Cycle Response Unit

Random Adventures

The Interactive Fiction Competition - Some of my first games were text only. I loved Adventure and later the Infocom games. 

weird-old-book-finder - I am mostly entering "cycling" or "bicycle"

CommunityRule is a governance toolkit for great communities. - collection of different community setups 

Garmin Instinct Crossover Series In-Depth Review: It’s Got Hands! - I like this, mechanical hands look pretty 

Our Car Camping Kit - I just discovered this blog. I love camping and really enjoy equipment lists for all kind of activities. 

BookWyrm - kind of Goodreads in the Fediverse. 

vollebak - fancy end-of-the-world clothes

Australia’s Weird Little Time Zone - weirdos

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kind of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time you might notice common themes though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday Links 22-36

Since Twitter has been going downhill for a while and I am mostly leaving Facebook and Instagram, I have been searching for an alternative. 

Mastodon is the obvious candidate. I had created an account a while ago, and it offers an ad and algorithm free alternative. You can also take control by having your personal server.  

Below are some of the links I found helpful. 

And too many other links. 

Mastodon

Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk’s Twitter takeover. I joined them  - I think it is a lot more now.

Martin Fowler: Exploring Mastodon - notes on his journey.

BirdsiteLIVE a Twitter bridge, to keep on following your favourite accounts on Twitter. I haven't tried this yet. 

Masto.host  - a service to host your instance with minimum effort and OK prices. I already started one up. 

fedifinder.glitch.me - find your Twitter people

twitodon - also find your Twitter people 

An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon - a guide

A futuristic Mastodon introduction for 2021 - an intro 

Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse - another guide

Leadership

Why Feedback Hurts -  "Taking feedback personally is a choice. Make good choices." - true, but easier said than done.

Architect(ure) as Enabler of Organization’s Sustainable Flow of Change  [slides] - that looks like a good talk about integrating architecture in different teams and team sizes. 

Advice for Engineering Managers Who Want to Climb the Ladder - in case you would like to become a director … I am uncertain if I can recommend this.  

Shit umbrella is the destroyer of trust - I was a part-time shit umbrella once. It isn't helping anyone.

Better, Faster, and More - what should you want from your new job?

Engineering

I Told You it Was Private - Ruby gem with the nuclear option in case you are using private methods. 

Personal Heatmaps - insight into Strava's heatmap implementation strategy

Technology

How GitHub converts previously encrypted and unencrypted columns to ActiveRecord encrypted columns

OpenSSL vulnerability 

This has been mostly patched now and it delayed the newest Fedora release.

• LWN: OpenSSL 3.0.7 released
• CVE-2022-3786 and CVE-2022-3602: X.509 Email Address Buffer Overflows 
• Schneier: Critical Vulnerability in Open SSL
• OpenSSL warns of critical security vulnerability with upcoming patch  
  

Environment

El miracle que necessita Barcelona perquè aquest 2022 no rebenti el rècord històric de temperatura [Catalan] - Barcelona is continuing to hit temperature records.

Europe’s climate warming at twice rate of global average, says report - possibly up to 3C around Barcelona.

Urbanism

Elon Musk’s first Hyperloop tunnel in California is gone - replaced by parking … that says it all. 

Why car companies should fear the golf cart - "people driving golf carts in her community frequently stopped to chat with neighbors mowing their lawn. “You’re never going to do that if you’re in a car,” she said."

Can Groceries Be Delivered TOO Quickly?! [YouTube] - in cities where it works, most people won't need it.  

New York City Is a Lot Safer Than Small-Town America - nice, but also "Even the safest areas in the US remain killing fields compared with most of Western Europe."

Wie die Mobilitätswende aussehen könnte [German, Video] -  Are cities without cars possible … of course. 

Children take to the barricades to save School Street - children shouldn't have to do this.

Random Compasses 

Magnetic north, true north and grid north align over Great Britain for the first time in history - I just found this interesting somehow. 

Channel 4 News’ first ever transmission from 1982  [YouTube] - A long time ago, but the news seems so familiar. 

When will the EU end seasonal clock changes? Only time will tell. Access to the comments - can we get on with it, please? 

NDAs, Obsessive Buyers, and $400 for Sublime: Inside the Baffling Revival of the Cassette Tape - yes, I am still on that topic. 

How To Communicate Better on Slack - simple tricks to avoid some back and forth

Other Links

• Ben Crowder: Links #50
  
• Ben Crowder: Links #51
• Weekly Design Links – 11/01/22
• Bruce Lawson: Reading List 296 
  

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kind of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time you might notice common themes though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.