Links for 2020-04-22

content/links/20200422.md

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+title = "Link for 2020-04-22"
+date = 2020-04-22
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["links", "principles", "manifesto", "google", "privacy", "ai",
+"terms and conditions", "pandoc", "vim", "yaml", "oath", "amazon",
+"dependency injection", "rust"]
++++
+
+Valuable Dev Principles, Terms and Conditions for Stealing Ideas, Google
+"Privacy", Google Biased AI, Pandoc for Books, YAML, Oaths, Amazon, DI in
+Rust.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+# [The Valuable Dev Principles](https://thevaluable.dev/page/principles/)
+
+I know we are all tired of those manifestos and such, to the point that we are
+signing those without even reading the whole thing. But this isn't this kind
+of article: It discusses a lot of what the "value" we, developers, produce.
+
+(Ok, it is _not_ a manifesto, but you have to agree that the title sound like
+one.)
+
+# [Hundreds of companies assert usage rights over all ideas sent through their services](https://mailchi.mp/8b0a4a81ae08/new-blog-post-why-economists-need-bureaucracy-9265154?e=4dca83bc3b)
+
+I mentioned the perils of picking a license a few days ago, and today we have
+an article about the perils of... licenses to use. 
+
+Basically, one very prominent app have a clause that says they can use
+everything that goes into their services, including "any ideas, inventions,
+concepts, techniques or know-how disclosed wherein". Sounds awesome, doesn't
+it? You're there, discussing some wild ideas with your friend, you guys come
+with the next big app idea and suddenly... this company releases it before you
+two. You think "I'll sue them", and they will just point to the terms and
+services and show that you _allowed_ them to do this.
+
+Ok, hyperboles, I know. But the fact that terms and conditions are so large
+and so hard to read shows that we have a problem[^1].
+
+# [Google can still use Bluetooth to track your Android phone when Bluetooth is turned off](https://qz.com/1169760/phone-data/)
+
+While Apple abuses its walled garden to get some things outside some
+ecosystem, Google does what Google does: Capture your data even when you say
+you don't want data to be captured.
+
+This should come with no surprise to anyone watching Google in the last years.
+
+# [Google Cloud's AI recog code 'biased' against black people – and more from ML land](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/13/ai_roundup/)
+
+There are a bunch of topics there, but the one that caught my eye was exactly
+the "Google AI biased against black people". It's not the first time I read
+something like that: When Google Photos got auto-labeling, it tagged black
+people as "gorillas".
+
+It seems Google still doesn't understand how those things work: If you hire a
+bunch of white people -- and only white people -- what do you think will
+happen with your learning profiles?
+
+Also, remember these two stories next time Google do a promotion for MLK day.
+
+# [Writing a Book with Pandoc, Make, and Vim](https://keleshev.com/my-book-writing-setup/)
+
+One thing I took from this: Pandoc can convert Markdown files directly into
+PDF.
+
+# [YAML: probably not so great after all](https://www.arp242.net/yaml-config.html)
+
+I mentioned this before: Sometimes, the problem with the configuration format
+is not the format itself, but the way the configuration _options_ were
+created.
+
+And I know that, when talking about configuration files, YAML is the favourite
+format to get some bashing.
+
+But you can agree that some options here make sense, but aren't being
+processed in the right way.
+
+... although I have to wonder if some issues would be solved by processing the
+YAML in a language that has strong types, so the incoming "013" would be
+processed as a string instead of an octal. Maybe we need a YAML-schema format
+to feed into the YAML processing libraries so they know the type? And if
+that's the case, can't we come up with a format that already has a type
+definition in it?
+
+# [Types Over Strings: Extensible Architectures in Rust](http://willcrichton.net/notes/types-over-strings/)
+
+How to do a proper dependency injection in Rust.
+
+# [Collections: Oaths! How do they Work?](https://acoup.blog/2019/06/28/collections-oaths-how-do-they-work/)
+
+Completely unrelated to technology -- which is what I usually post -- but this
+article about the meaning and workings of an oath and a vow is really
+interesting.
+
+# [Amazon fires three critics of warehouse conditions in pandemic](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-warehou/amazon-fires-two-employees-critical-of-warehouse-working-conditions-idUSKCN21W0UI)
+
+You know, there is something _really stupid_ when someone is criticizing their
+own company and that company fires that person. What would you expect? People
+claiming "Yeah, you can't bad mouth your company!"?
+
+---
+
+[^1]: This is kinda getting the catchphrase for these posts, isn't it?
+
+---
+
+This list of links was build with the help of:
+
+* [Adrian Cochrane](https://floss.social/@alcinnz)
+* [HN Tooter](https://mastodon.social/@hntooter)
+* [IT News](https://schleuss.online/@itnewsbot)
+* [Lili Saintcrow ](https://raggedfeathers.com/@lilithsaintcrow)
+* [newsbot](https://mastodon.social/@newsbot)