Hi there.

My name is Jakub (I’m the one on the right in the photo), I’m from Poland (Kraków!), and for over 9 years, I’ve been publishing one of the most popular tech newsletters in Poland. It’s called "unknowNews", and it’s basically a curated "press review" where I share links to interesting materials for developers, Linux admins, DevOps engineers, and the broader IT industry.

I finally decided to take a step I was quite afraid of — I launched a "new" newsletter aimed at English-speaking readers.

Since my nickname ("unknow" – intentionally misspelled), which is part of the original newsletter’s name, isn’t known outside my country, I decided to start fresh with a new brand: WeekByte.

WeekByte is a TRANSLATION of my original newsletter, so it contains the same content (except for links to articles and videos available only in Polish).

The English version is sent out a few days after the Polish one (since we need time for translation) once a week.

My friend Mateusz — a well-known Polish YouTuber — is helping me publish the English version.

His channels:
🇵🇱 Mateusz Chrobok – 149k subscribers
🇬🇧 Matt Chrobok – just starting

I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll just paste the first issue of the newsletter below.

If you find the content valuable, you can subscribe here:
https://read.weekbyte.com/

If you have any advice for me, please share it. This is my first post on this platform.

Welcome to the first release of the Weekbyte newsletter!
Thank you for being with us. We would like to share with you subjectively the most interesting IT content. We hope that you will find something for yourself 🙂.
Mateusz and Jakub

Smart Lighting in Your Home – An Extremely Simple Method
https://blog.tomaszdunia.pl/shelly-smart-oswietlenie-eng/
INFO: Learn how to design and install smart lighting in your home in the simplest way possible using Shelly modules. These modules can be installed in existing electrical boxes and only require a WiFi network for power control—no need for an additional hub. No soldering, no electrical expertise required—just connect the wires, configure the devices, and you're done! A single module costs less than 20 dollars! A well-explained guide!

Does ChatGPT Consume Huge Amounts of Water and Energy? Let’s Find Out
https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-bad-for
INFO: This article debunks the myth that ChatGPT has an extremely negative environmental impact by presenting calculations based on available data. Does typing a single query consume dozens of liters of water and generate tons of CO₂? Is AI development leading us toward a climate disaster? Opinions on AI’s environmental impact vary, but it's important to base them on facts. Here are the data you’ve been looking for.

Golden Kitty Awards 2024 Winners – The Best Apps in Multiple Categories
https://www.producthunt.com/golden-kitty-awards/hall-of-fame
INFO: The annual Golden Kitty Awards 2024 has recognized groundbreaking tech products across various fields, including software development, no-code tools, AI models, and more. This list is a goldmine of useful software—I always discover something new to incorporate into my daily work!

Improve Your Lighting for Remote Work – and Reduce Eye Strain
https://rustle.ca/posts/articles/work-from-home-lighting
INFO: Working from home is great, but your workspace conditions can impact your health. One common issue is eye strain caused by poor lighting—and it's not just about making the room brighter. So how do you create a healthy lighting setup without spending a fortune? What key factors should you consider? If you have control over your work environment, these tips are worth reading and applying in practice!

Seven Lessons from 25 Years in Software Development
https://zverok.space/blog/2025-01-27-7things-euruko.html
INFO: With over 25 years of experience in software development, the author shares insights on career growth, questioning the importance of patterns and methodologies, and the challenges of scaling projects. Seven simple yet valuable lessons worth reflecting on!

Spot the Dark Patterns – A Game to Recognize Manipulative Design
https://games.productartistry.com/games/dark-patterns
INFO: This game teaches players to identify subtle manipulative tactics in web interface design. You'll learn how psychology shapes user behavior, and how companies push you toward decisions you might not want to make. With this knowledge, you can navigate the web more consciously and resist such tricks!

Building a Smartwatch for a Child with Type 1 Diabetes – A Project from Scratch
https://andrewchilds.com/posts/building-a-t1d-smartwatch-from-scratch
INFO: A father of a child with diabetes created a smartwatch to provide easier access to blood glucose data. While many similar devices exist, this one is minimalist, relatively affordable, and designed to avoid distractions at school by focusing only on essential functions. Even if you don’t need glucose monitoring, the process of building a custom smartwatch is fascinating in itself!

How DeepSeek R1 Works – A Super Simple Explanation (Video, 9 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv8frWeKoeo
INFO: This video breaks down the key concepts from the DeepSeek R1 paper in a way that even those with no IT background can understand. It covers step-by-step reasoning, reinforcement learning, and model distillation—all explained without technical jargon. As the title suggests, the video explains like we are five.

Truths and Myths about 'Favors' in Teamwork
https://blog.staysaasy.com/p/management-mantras
INFO: When your boss asks for a small favor or a coworker offers to do you a favor as part of the work—this may sound friendly and nice, but is it okay? This article shows an interesting perspective on workplace organization and highlights how the existence of such favors might point to poorly designed processes in the company.

Protect Your Time When Working in IT – Combat Corporate Predators
https://www.seangoedecke.com/predators/
INFO: As an experienced programmer in a large tech company, you might often find yourself being used by individuals trying to push you into helping with tasks falling well outside your responsibilities. This, of course, distracts you from your projects and causes delays in tasks that matter to you. To protect yourself, you first need to recognize the "predators," but not every request for help is a threat. How can you identify these situations and handle them effectively?

Why My Idea to Shrink NPM Package Sizes by 5% Didn’t Work
https://evanhahn.com/my-failed-attempt-to-shrink-all-npm-packages-by-5-percent/
INFO: The author had a clever and relatively simple idea to reduce the size of all packages in the NPM repository by about 5%. This would mean a global reduction in data transfer and save time when downloading dependencies. Moreover, the solution was backward-compatible, therefore it wouldn’t break any existing tools. What went wrong, and why was this improvement ultimately not implemented?

The Story of Bringing the Amiga 1000 Back to Life
https://celso.io/posts/2025/01/26/the-first-perfect-computer/
INFO: The author shares their experience restoring and upgrading the first computer in the Amiga series, the Amiga 1000. The renovation slightly improved its performance and refreshed its appearance. A fascinating read for retro computer enthusiasts!

Will the Pebble Smartwatch Come Back to Life? There’s a Chance
https://repebble.com/
INFO: After several years of being forgotten, the iconic Pebble smartwatch is back! Google has decided to release the source code for the original PebbleOS, allowing developers to create a new series of smartwatches powered by this system. The recent version will keep the original models’ features, alongside some new additions, while maintaining the long battery life. It’s worth following the links on the website to learn more. This project isn’t an independent attempt to revive the watch but is being carried out by its original creator.

How Does Bluesky Work? – The Distributed Architecture of a Social Network
https://newsletter.systemdesign.one/p/how-does-bluesky-work
INFO: This article explains the architecture of the Bluesky social network, which is based on a decentralized federated model (fediverse), allowing communication between servers without a central network hub. Bluesky cleverly addresses challenges related to scaling. It’s a long but fascinating read!

Database Sharding – What It Is, How It Works, and Why You Need It
https://architecturenotes.co/p/database-sharding-explained
INFO: As the volume of data in databases grows, we inevitably face issues with performance and scaling. One machine might not be enough, and adding more machines becomes necessary. But how do you manage this in terms of data structure? This is where data sharding comes into play, and it can be implemented in various ways, each with its pros and cons. Read to learn more!

Collection of Application Templates for Portainer
https://portainer-templates.as93.net/
INFO: This service is a repository of pre-configured packages ready to be run in Portainer (a Docker container management app) with just a few clicks. You can browse the available images on the site and don’t need to use the service directly. You simply add a dynamically generated JSON file to the app, and when creating new containers, the option to select a base image will appear in your interface. It’s a convenient feature, especially if you experiment with various self-hosted technologies. All packages are sourced from official repositories.

Operator – AI Assistant for Tasks in Your Browser
https://openai.com/index/introducing-operator/
INFO: Operator is a new AI agent from OpenAI that uses a web browser to perform tasks like filling out forms, ordering products, or creating graphics. By utilizing the Computer-Using Agent (CUA) model and its ability to interact with web interfaces, Operator allows LLMs to navigate the digital world. The service is currently available in a test version for Pro users in the USA. Anthropic presented a similar solution last year, but this version is more practical for real-world applications.

What 2,778 AI Researchers Think About the Future of AI – Survey Results (PDF, 39 pages)
https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Thousands_of_AI_authors_on_the_future_of_AI.pdf
INFO: Will we experience an absolute revolution in artificial intelligence in the next 2-3 years, a regression, or perhaps steady growth? What’s the likelihood that AI will surpass human performance in most tasks? Will the far-reaching consequences of AI technology be positive or negative? What do experts fear the most, and where do they see hope? Instead of conducting a street poll, the survey was directed at nearly 3,000 AI experts who work with the technology daily to provide insights on these questions.

The 'Cookie Sandwich' Technique for Stealing HttpOnly Cookies
https://portswigger.net/research/stealing-httponly-cookies-with-the-cookie-sandwich-technique
INFO: Cookies with the HttpOnly flag are theoretically impossible to steal via JavaScript, as the technology cannot access them. However, the article demonstrates a clever method for bypassing this technical limitation and getting access to those cookies in the context of an attack. This is an interesting read for web security enthusiasts.

A Deeper Look at DeepSeek and Its Impact on AI Technology
https://stratechery.com/2025/deepseek-faq/
INFO: How did a Chinese company create a product that theoretically outperforms the market leader, OpenAI, despite American sanctions that prevent access to the computational power available to U.S. companies? What was the model training process, and how did it progress without human involvement? What does this mean for the AI industry? Is this truly a breakthrough, or just a minor blip in the tech market? These and other questions are answered in the article.

Why Sorting in Java Script Is Harder Than It Seems
https://mill.plainopen.com/why-sorting-is-harder-than-it-seems
INFO: JavaScript offers its sorting function, so you think it would be simple. However, problems arise when sorting data of mixed types, such as when some records are numeric and others are text. This situation may seem easy to handle, but several complications pop up. Even if you never need to sort arrays with mixed types, this article will still expand your understanding of how JavaScript works and how it handles comparisons between different data types.

DeepSeek Accidentally Became More "Open" Than Intended - Data Leak
https://www.wiz.io/blog/wiz-research-uncovers-exposed-deepseek-database-leak
INFO: Researchers from Wiz Research discovered publicly accessible data in the ClickHouse database belonging to the DeepSeek startup. The leak included over a million conversation history entries, API keys, and other sensitive data. All of this was readable without authentication. Someone forgot to secure the servers, highlighting how rapid software development, without coordination with security teams, can lead to serious consequences.

ECMAScript proposal: RegExp escaping
https://2ality.com/2025/01/regexp-escape.html
INFO: Creating regular expressions can be complicated, especially when generated dynamically based on user input or database records. ECMAScript introduces a new function to automatically escape special characters, preventing conflicts with regular expression control symbols.

Critical Vulnerability in Subaru Starlink System - Remote Vehicle Control and Tracking
https://samcurry.net/hacking-subaru
INFO: In November last year, a weakness was discovered that allowed access to all vehicles using the Subaru Starlink system in the USA, Canada, and Japan. To take control, it was enough to know the owner's address, email, and the vehicle's registration number. You can learn more about this exposure in the article. Important note: Subaru Starlink is not the same as Starlink from SpaceX – they are two different services named similarly.

Generative AI in Historical Research - How It Helps Researchers
https://resobscura.substack.com/p/the-leading-ai-models-are-now-very
INFO: LLM models (here, focusing on GPT-4o and GPT-o1) have reached a level of skill that allows them to accelerate researchers' work across various fields of study. They are also being used in historical research, but how exactly does this work, and is it useful for science? The article presents three specific research papers where AI has made the researchers' work easier.

How Your Twitter/X Timeline Affects You
https://www.ismyxfeedfucked.com/
INFO: The app analyzes your social media feed based on a screen recording of your app, determining how harmful Twitter/X's algorithm is to you. How much negative content do you see, and how extreme are the political posts you encounter? Are you stuck in an information bubble? It's worth reviewing your profile's statistics and improving them by unfollowing accounts that negatively impact you and muting accounts that the algorithm suggests but you don't follow. Such changes could benefit your mental health.

Build a Minimalist Linux System from Scratch - A Guide
https://blinry.org/tiny-linux/
INFO: INFO: The author describes creating a minimal Linux distribution (weighing 2.5 MB) that can be run from a USB drive on a laptop. The project focuses primarily on compiling a custom, personalized Linux kernel and using Busybox. The guide emphasizes understanding the boot process and using tools like Nix to manage dependencies. If you want to learn how Linux works, this article will definitely expand your knowledge.

Customize macOS to Your Needs - A Collection of Tips
https://gist.github.com/devnoname120/4767a0aa18879217170fd0c68809fc24
INFO: Have you just bought a Mac/MacBook and don’t know what settings or software to install to make your work more comfortable? This tutorial will help you tailor the system to your needs, and if you’ve been using macOS for years, it will introduce you to some new apps.

How to Escape the Google Ecosystem - Alternatives and Strategies
https://itsfoss.com/leaving-google-ecosystem/
INFO: For various reasons, you might decide to leave Google’s ecosystem, but quitting Gmail, their calendar, documents, or Chrome browser isn’t a decision you can make overnight. Where to store notes, and keep files, what to use instead of Google Meet for meetings, and how to cleverly search and back up photos? There are many questions, and the author of this article has spent time finding the answers.

Elite Hacker Group FSB - Behind the Scenes
https://interaktiv.br.de/elite-hacker-fsb/en/index.html
INFO: Journalists from German stations BR and WDR conducted a detailed investigation into a hacker group that has been infiltrating government networks worldwide for nearly two decades. The article presents evidence linking this group to the Russian FSB, including connections to Center-Inform, and reveals the identities of two likely malware creators. The text shows how small digital traces can uncover the workings of one of the most dangerous hacker groups globally.

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