142 / Basic Things

Hey hey, happy easter to everyone celebrating! 🐰

Toot of the Week

If you use homebrew (on a mac or linux), please run brew update; brew upgrade; immediately. This will downgrade the xz package and the lzma library to remove malicious code that has been introduced in the current versions. — @mrtnsnp@mastodon.social

Software

• Zig, Rust, and other languages (notes.eatonphil.com)

  Phil Eaton compares Zig, Rust and Go on terms of their standard library and way of allocation.

• Basic Things (matklad.github.io)

  Alex Kladov has a list of “basics things” to get right when developing software.

Observability

• Redefining Observability (hazelweakly.me)

  Hazel Weakly introduces her own definition of Observability and explains why she thinks it’s the best.

• A Commentary on Defining Observability (ferd.ca)

  Fred Hebert replies on Hazels post in a yes, and… way, going further into socio-economic topics.

• Re-Redefining Observability (aparker.io)

  Austin Parker writes about observability 2.0, also replying to Hazel and Fred.

xz backdoor

• Everything I know about the XZ backdoor (boehs.org)

  Evan Boehs has summary blogpost about what happened with xz. Thanks, Eric!

• A Microcosm of the interactions in Open Source projects (robmensching.com)

  Rob Mensching summarizes the first interaction of the xz attacker and maintainer, and why this common pattern needs to change.

• FAQ on the xz-utils backdoor (gist.github.com)

  Sam James wrote a very technical summary of the xz backdoor.

Cutting Room Floor

• The Dumber Side of Smart People (collabfund.com)

  Morgan Housel explains why people, who became known for being smart in a specific area, are having a hard time moving on.

• The Most Hackable Handheld Ham Radio Yet (spectrum.ieee.org)

  Stephen Cass explains their love for a affordable, hackable, handheld ham radio.