Links for 2020-04-24

content/links/20200424.md

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+title = "Links for 2020-04-24"
+date = 2020-04-24
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["links", "databases", "wallpapers", "studio ghibli",
+"creative commons", "cc", "california", "covid", "lockdown",
+"contact tracing", "gact", "python", "corotines", "facebook", "privacy",
+"paradox", "writing"]
++++
+
+Understanding Databases, Studio Ghibli Wallpapers, Creative Commons, The Good
+Side of COVID, Contact Tracing, Corotines in Python, Facebook, Privacy
+Paradox, Writing.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+# [Things I Wished More Developers Knew About Databases](https://medium.com/@rakyll/things-i-wished-more-developers-knew-about-databases-2d0178464f78)
+
+A very long article about the different things different databases do.
+Although it doesn't focus on specific databases, a lot can be inferred from
+the points.
+
+... although it focus on relational databases only.
+
+Another point that I could add here is that you should pick a database for
+making your data _read ready_. For example, if you built some sort of response
+and it basically doesn't change, it is ok to put the whole thing in a database
+(in JSON format or using a key-value database instead). Putting the work of
+doing sums and averages and whatnot _outside_ the database can really save
+your butt.
+
+# ["Studio Ghibli Wallpaper" for use in web conferences, etc.](http://www.ghibli.jp/info/013251/)
+
+Studio Ghibli, of "Princess Mononoke" and "My Neighbor Totoro" released a
+bunch of wallpapers for people to use as background of their videoconferencing
+or even computer wallpapers.
+
+And it's free.
+
+(This was a pain to finally find it in full: It was a toot on Mastodon, which
+took me to BoingBoing, with pointed to OpenCulture, which _finally_ went to
+Studio Ghibli website with the images.)
+
+# [Understanding Free Cultural Works](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/freeworks)
+
+Creative Commons, known for their licenses-for-not-software (sorry, I can't
+find a better description) released an article explaining the different types
+of licenses they have.
+
+And yes, I'm sharing this 'cause I am, again, worried about the amount of
+stuff that doesn't get a proper license and may be abused.
+
+# [Crashes and Traffic Are Down by Half, Saving State $40 Million Per Day During Shelter-In-Place](https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/california-covid-19-traffic-report-finds-silver-lining/)
+
+While we sit on our houses, wondering when we can get out again -- some of us
+wondering _if_ we could get out at some point -- some things seem to be
+improving outside the COVID problem.
+
+After India reported [dramatic reduction in
+pollution](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/india-s-coronavirus-lockdown-is-having-a-dramatic-impact-on-pollution/ar-BB11ZmD5),
+now California is reporting that, due people staying at their homes, the
+number of traffic accidents reduced the costs taking injuries, damages and
+deaths.
+
+Not that we should raise a statue to COVID, but at least some good things are
+coming out of this lockdown. Let's hope we can make these results permanent in
+the end.
+
+# [Google Apple Contact Tracing (GACT): a wolf in sheep’s clothes.](https://blog.xot.nl/2020/04/19/google-apple-contact-tracing-gact-a-wolf-in-sheeps-clothes/)
+
+Contact Tracing is one of those things that look good in theory, but when
+confronted with the challenges of privacy, doesn't seem so great.
+
+The idea behind Contact Tracing is to make mobile devices talk to each other,
+so in case someone finds out they got some transmittable disease, like COVID,
+authorities can trace back who had contact with that person. It's good 'cause
+you can alert those people earlier, preventing some huge explosion of
+contamination cases around.
+
+But the problem is that the owner of said mobile device can't opt out of this.
+The data is not kept in a secure place -- like the person mobile device -- but
+shared on the respective device company.
+
+And how long till COVID is gone and this is used to trace, say, who some
+journalist spoke when they got some information that puts pressure on a
+government? True, I'm again jumping into the slippery slope of fallacies, but
+we need to worry about those things when mobile devices are basically part of
+us: We don't recall our appointments 'cause our devices do that for us; we
+don't remember our friends phones 'cause it is in the device.
+
+# [Building Finite State Machines with Python Coroutines](https://arpitbhayani.me/blogs/fsm)
+
+I found more curious that Python has corotines than the idea behind using them
+for state machines.
+
+The only point I see is how weird the floating `yield` appears in the code and
+how non-Pythonic the corotine appears (`send`? Where that came from?)
+
+# [How Does Facebook Know So Much About Me?](https://theprivacyissue.com/data-tracking/how-does-facebook-know-so-much)
+
+Dunno if it is because I cancelled my Facebook account, but I've noticed some
+decline in the number of news about Facebook privacy "standards".
+
+This is a short summary of what Facebook does to collect information about
+you, even some without your consent -- a few weeks ago, there were some news
+about a board member admitting they have "dark profiles", information about
+people that do _not_ have a Facebook account.
+
+# [Decoding the Privacy Paradox](https://theprivacyissue.com/privacy-and-society/decoding-privacy-paradox)
+
+Knowing that our data is being captured everywhere and doing nothing to change
+that is the so called "privacy paradox".
+
+An interesting and sad read.
+
+# [Doing more with less time: critical skills for productive programmers](https://codewithoutrules.com/2020/04/20/productivity-skills/)
+
+While this is focused on developers, one thing really hit me hard:
+
+> Output = Productivity × Time Worked
+
+Why? Because a lot of things around here in Brazil -- industry, specially --
+try to focus on increasing output by changing the "Time Worked" instead of
+focusing on "Productivity", using better tools or investing in better
+equipment.
+
+And while it is not mentioned in the post (although it mentions the limit of
+"time worked" though), we, developers, can also take a look on increasing
+Productivity. The easiest way is to automate the heck of what we can: The less
+time we waste on bureaucratic/repetitive actions, the more we can produce.
+Some harder way is to change our current tools to something that can take less
+of our time, and that's harder 'cause we believe we will "lose time" learning
+something new or changing our workflows.
+
+# [On Writing Well](https://syften.com/blog/post/writing-style/)
+
+For someone like me who is constantly writing something -- either blog posts,
+either translating/writing a book, or just outputting small opinions about
+diverse topics, like I'm doing right now -- having a proper idea on how to
+write is important.
+
+And I feel like I need to share this 'cause what I put on this kind of post is
+only a short amount of what I read. Most of the links I save to read later
+prove to be just short pieces of opinions but some are very complex and hard
+to follow due their writing style. If I get tired reading, I won't get the
+point and if I don't get the point, I don't think I should reshare -- no
+matter how interesting the topic at hand is.
+
+---
+
+This list of links was built with the help of :
+
+* [Boing Boing](https://tooot.im/@boingboing)
+* [HN Tooter](https://mastodon.social/@hntooter)
+* [newsbot](https://mastodon.social/@newsbot)
+* [Sean O'Brien](https://mastodon.social/@diggity)