Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This Week I Learned -  * GoatCounter is an open source web analytics platform available as a free donation-supported hosted service or self-hosted app. It is a privacy-friendly web analytics alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo. *  MotherDuck  is a collaborative serverless analytics platform that lets you query and analyze data in cloud databases and from cloud storage, using your browser or any of the DuckDB APIs.  * Cloudflare has built its own version of WordPress that solves some security issues with the older CMS—it’s called EmDash. * Apple reported an 84% first-quarter rise in new apps on its App Store, putting it on a pace to surpass 2025’s 600K apps.  * Contrary to the predictions of an AI jobpocalypse, I predict the opposite: There will be an AI jobapalooza! - Andrew Ng * The Batch - As OpenAI prepares to discontinue the Sora app and API, ByteDance added Seedance 2.0, its multimodal video generator, to its popular video-editing app CapCut - the s...

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) has long been the ultimate launchpad for aspiring developers. As Google’s premier global open-source program, it offers contributors the rare opportunity to work on live open-source software projects alongside some of the world’s most respected and seasoned developer communities. But as open-source engineering continues to take center stage globally, getting a foot in the door has evolved from a difficult challenge into an elite competitive arena.   The scale of this competition was fully on display for the GSoC 2026 cohort. Globally, the program saw a massive influx of 15,245 applicants , all vying for a coveted spot. Out of those thousands of hopefuls, only 1,141 contributors were selected worldwide. This places the global acceptance rate at a razor-thin ~7% , a metric that makes GSoC more selective than many Ivy League institutions. Open Food Facts & GSoC For the contributors who do beat the odds, they get to write code that directly ...

Cartoon co-created with ChatGPT. See more of my AI co-creations