This Week in Tech - January 14, 2022

Come one, come all. It’s nearly the weekend and I’m here to kick it off with top tech stories from the week.

 Corrupted OS libraries

Earlier this week, a presumably somewhat disgruntled developer decided to corrupt not one but two open source GitHub libraries, faker.js and colors.js. Any project that was relying on these libraries was rendered useless due to the nefarious code being deployed.

I don’t want to make assumptions about this developer’s motivations, but the whole incident shows developers are people too. Treat your developers well and not like machines that are required to be pumping out code 24/7 and hopefully we can all avoid instances like this happening again.

Tech is the best place to work

Glassdoor has released its findings on where the best places to work are in 2022, using an algorithm to compile and analyse employer reviews from October 2020 to October 2021. Of the companies listed, 38% were either tech or digital focused, with software company ServiceNow, IT consultancy firm AndDigital and Salesforce claiming the podium positions.

It’s great to see tech represented so well, and not simply because of the Google induced gimmicks of sleeping pods, free meals and ping pong tables, that are essentially traps to keep you in an office. Supportive cultures, empowering employees and valuing contributions are always the cornerstones of great working environments.

Kim K and Floyd Mayweather Jr sued over crypto 

Now any regular readers of this blog, and I’m sure this faithful audience is numbering in the millions, will know by now that I really do like to voice my somewhat negative opinion of the cryptocurrency world.

And this week is no exception. A lawsuit has been filed in California against Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr and the creators of EthereumMax for the false and misleading promotion of an alleged “pump and dump” cryptocurrency scheme that lost money for investors.

As much as I hate seeing millionaires rip off the average working person, part of me has some sympathy here. We’d all struggle to find an influencer who doesn’t pedal dodgy products and Floyd Mayweather is notorious for his purely financial motivations (see the recent “fight” with Logan Paul). Either way, if you need evidence to avoid crypto, I’m sure I’ll be able to find some for next week’s blog.