mostsignificant monthly - February 2025 issue

mostsignificant monthly - February 2025 issue

Email spam, Jevons paradox, AI court ruling, a video game history library, $1.5bn Ethereum stolen

This is a re-post from my monthly newsletter with curated tech news, insights, and blog posts worth exploring.

There’s an increasing amount of non-insightful content on the internet — articles you read and forget as soon as you close the tab. In the age of digital noise and social media puffery, it’s becoming harder to find what truly matters. Don’t give away your valuable time and attention to superficial distractions.

What was news-worthy in February 2025?

  • 📨 A recent email threat analysis revealed that over 90% of all emails identified as spam — including a growing number of AI-generated ones that are increasingly used for phishing and scams: TechRadar

  • 🖥️ The maintainer of Asahi, a Linux distribution for macOS, stepped down due to burnout, sparking long overdue discussions about the workload faced by open-source maintainers: The Register

  • 👨‍⚖️ AI companies scraping the internet for copyrighted material, repackaging it, and selling it is not covered by fair use, a court ruled in favor of Thomson Reuters in a landmark decision: The Register

  • 🎮 The Video Game History Foundation opened their digital library to the public, featuring development artefacts, artwork, promo materials, magazines and more: VGHF

  • 🥷 The largest cryptocurrency theft to date occurred this month — Ethereum worth $1.5bn was stolen from Dubai-based firm ByBit. The FBI identified North Korean hackers as the perpetrators: AP News

What was read-worthy in February 2025?

  • 📈 The Jevons Paradox states that increasing efficiency lowers costs, leading to higher consumption. The AI boom suggests that even as models become more efficient, overall energy demand will still rise: NPR

  • 🩺 Should software be built with greater care? Does its impact on humans demand more ethical responsibility? A collection of articles call for a Hippocratic Oath for software engineers: Medium

What did I do in February 2025?

  • 📱 I improved my mobile app ABZ Game by adding test automation. Writing tests as an afterthought is always more complicated than doing it from the start: Medium or GitHub

  • 🛠️ TypeScript makes JavaScript safer, so I migrated my mobile app. It took far longer than a few hours on a quiet Sunday afternoon — but it was worth it: Medium or GitHub

Video Bonus:

  • 🧠 Technology Connections explores in detail how algorithms are breaking the way we think and reminds us of the days when we actively sought out content rather than having it fed to us: Youtube

Quote of the month:

A computer can never be held accountable.

This excerpt is from an IBM training in 1979 feels more relevant than ever as AI takes on an increasing role in decision-making.

Welcome spring and have a great month!