Victor Loux Bookmarks

A feed of interesting articles and websites I have recently read. Check out my newsletter for a digest of the best!

Alsace, dans la tourmente de l'histoire - Documentaire - Public Sénat

publicsenat.fr/emission/documentaire/alsace-dans-la-tourmente-de-lhistoire-e0
Maisons à colombage, cigognes, vin, choucroute, coiffes, accent : ces images et clichés de l'Alsace occupent l'imaginaire de tous les Français ou presque. Peu d'autres régions peuvent se prévaloir d'un patrimoine aussi sympathique et populaire. Mais derrière cette prospérité apparente et l'amour du travail bien fait, se révèle une histoire plus douloureuse. Ravagée par trois guerres en moins d'un siècle, l'Alsace a vu ses habitants contraints de changer quatre fois de nationalité le temps d'une vie humaine. Un destin tourmenté, hors du commun, et mal connu du reste du pays.

Cognitive load

minds.md/zakirullin/cognitive
When reading code, you put things like values of variables, control flow logic and call sequences into your head. The average person can hold roughly four such chunks in working memory. Once the cognitive load reaches this threshold, it becomes much harder to understand things. Let's say we have been asked to make some fixes to a completely unfamiliar project. We were told that a really smart developer had contributed to it. Lots of cool architectures, fancy libraries and trendy technologies were used. In other words, the author had created a high cognitive load for us.

Humphrey’s world: how the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain’s strangest pub chain

theguardian.com/news/2024/dec/19/humphreys-world-how-the-samuel-smith-beer-baron-built-britains-strangest-pub-chain
Since the 1970s, Humphrey Smith has acquired scores of pubs and historic properties around the UK. But time after time, he has left the buildings empty. Why has he allowed his empire to moulder?

The People Deliberately Killing Facebook

wheresyoured.at/killingfacebook/
Enjoy this post? Why not try the podcast version? Please download it, and also all the other episodes. Over the last decade, few platforms have declined quite as rapidly and visibly as Facebook and Instagram. What used to be apps for catching up with your friends and family are now

The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic—Asterisk

asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-loneliness-epidemic
Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment in American history? When it comes to friendship, this isn’t the first time that authorities have cried wolf.

Preferring throwaway code over design docs

softwaredoug.com/blog/2024/12/14/throwaway-prs-not-design-docs
If you have discipline to throw away your first idea, draft, throwaway PRs often drives more progress than a design doc.

Falling asleep at the wheel: Human/AI collaboration in a field experiment on HR recruiters

almendron.com/tribuna/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/falling-asleep-at-the-whee.pdf
" Overall, the results show that maximizing human/AI performance may require lower quality AI, depending on the effort, learning, and skillset of the humans involved."