Just read

This is a running record of things I've just read, watched, or listened to, that people might be interested in. I don't record everything here; if you see something listed here, I found it quite worthwhile and think others might as well.

7/9/24 core.py episode 12: WTF Python

In this episode of core.py, Pablo and Łukasz share bits of Python code, and ask each other what they think will happen. This kind of "WTF" conversation is a common way to poke at a variety of languages, but they use this as a way to talk about a variety of Python internals. Most of these "WTF" behaviors have quite grounded explanations, and as always I came away from this episode amused, and with a better understanding of Python's history and future.

6/26/24 Dot Social episode 11: Entering a New Phase of the Web

Molly White is one of the most astute observers of the current state of the web that I'm aware of. I first started following her based on her work debunking crypto scams, but I've come to appreciate her views and advocacy for a web that serves everyone's needs, not just those in power. The bulk of this episode is about how we can reshape the web in the post-Twitter/Facebook/monolithic social media giant era.

6/24/24 Tech Won't Save Us episode 222: GoFundMe Profits from People's Pain

Nora Kenworthy is the author of Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare. She discusses the actual experience of people who rely on crowdfunding during times of need, rather than the viral success stories. There's also a really important discussion about the impact of offloading critical societal infrastructure needs to for-profit tech platforms.

5/28/24 Django Chat episode 163: Funding Open Source

Jeff Triplett has been involved with Django for a long time, and I always appreciate his perspectives on Django and the larger Python ecosystem. I completely agree with Jeff's refrain of wanting to see "decades of overinvestment in open source".

5/26/24 Starling Birch: Climbing Verstovia's East ridge

There's a guy in my home town who's been making really good videos of local climbs. I haven't been getting to these places as often as I used to, and I love getting to see them documented so well. To really see why I've loved climbing here for so long, check out Climbing Mount Bassie.

5/26/24 Hynek Schlawak: Nox vs tox - What are they for & How do you choose?

Nox and tox are both tools for managing tests when you need to test across different versions of Python, and different versions of your project's dependencies. This is a great comparison of the two tools, by someone whose opinions are quite trustworthy.

5/13/24 Coffeezilla: Exposing a $500,000,000 Scam Gets Dangerous

I really enjoy Coffeezilla's investigations into financial scams. I've known a few people who've fallen for some bad scams, and it's embarrassing and causes real harm.

5/4/24 Django Chat episode 162: Self-Hosted Open Source.

Michael Kennedy runs the Talk Python To Me podcast, one of the longest-running Python podcasts. In this episode he shares a number of reflections on moving from a collection of small servers to one larger server. There's a really interesting conversation throughout the episode about the tradeoffs between self-hosted and managed services.