In my history at the end of 2024
I feel like I'm repeating myself from intro to intro, but these last few months have been really hectic, between work (thanks to the peak in activity which coincided with a colleague's paternity leave and the arrival of a new colleague whom I spent quite a lot of time training = endless days), my search for a flat on the other side of France, the preparation for my move, which came a little earlier than anticipated, the said move, and then settling into my new flat, with its share of plumbing problems, walls to repaint and new furniture to assemble. Suffice to say, I'm as broke as I am exhausted!
But I’ve still taken the time to take breaks, surf the web and read more or less useful stuff, because that’s the only way I can keep up (and working all the time isn’t much fun either).
I hope you enjoy my selection!
Let's start with my ‘top 10’, the gems you shouldn't miss if you don't have the time to read everything!
#1
Knit hard die warm – Thanks to Nico, I found this really cool porject: printing a knitting machine 🤯#2
Basic human decency –« I want for you what you want for Palestinians »
#3
Crochet – At the beginning of September, Hellgy told me about the existence of crochet ‘reading snakes’, a bit like people who knit a scarf or blanket with the temperature/weather every day for a year, but instead of tracking the weather, you track your reading. My first reaction was that it was a really cool idea, but as I'd already read 74 books during the year, I was too lazy to do it...
For your information, for 87 books, it measures 2.39 metres. I made 4 rows for a book I finished, 2 for a book I stopped along the way. It's up to the end of September, but given that I've got 3 books in progress and 3 months left in the year, I think it should reach 3 metres without any problems by the end of December! [Edit end of December: I finished the year at 121 books 🫠)
This was my first real crochet project, it was fun to do, but I really prefer knitting.
#4
Ableism – Please watch Better off dead, it's important. It's available for free on YouTube It's a big slap in the face. Thanks Biou for the discovery.#5
Look – I love the The disciples project so much! It's a series of photos of fans just before concerts.I love it because I love to see the Firstly because I really enjoy seeing the superbly crafted and sometimes very funny looks, and also because I'm impressed by the number of artists who can be guessed at by just one glance at their fans' looks.
#6
Calibri – The font which toppled a government.#7
Witches – I've tried to read Mona Chollet. I tried 2 of her books, several times, and every time they fell out of my hands. I was quite disappointed, because her books were highly recommended to me by lots of lovely people. But the more I step back, the more I read well-argued reviews of her books, the more I realise that it's all right, I haven't missed anything. Latest source:#8
The Matilda effect – The 2024 Nobel Prize for Medicine has been awarded to a man, Victor Ambros, whose wife Rosalind Lee is the first author of one of the articles that is the reason for this Nobel Prize, and who has actively participated in all his research. By his own admission, some of the discoveries that won him the Nobel Prize were made by his wife and co-investigator, as well as a post-doctoral researcher (a woman) from his laboratory (source).So things really haven't evolved. Worse still, we might even say that they are regressing, since in 1903, Pierre Curie imposed that his Nobel Prize be awarded jointly to Marie Curie, by threatening to refuse it.
#9
Photo – The first ever photograph of animals at night. These pictures were taken in 1890 🤯
#10
Maps – I love maps. I love studying maps of big cities, to see how they are organised, whether the various points of interest are spread out over squares (as in Nantes), or along boulevards (as in Bordeaux). Are the river and any islands an obstacle that cuts the city in two or three, or are they well integrated? And then, video games be damned, I've always dreamt of having a map with the ‘fog of war’, revealing which parts of the city I already know, and which parts I've yet to discover. There's been an app that does this for about ten years (Fog of world), but I'd really like to try a small-scale, manual version. I've just moved to Lyon, a city I barely know, and it's the perfect opportunity to launch into this project, because I really want to explore every nook and cranny of it, visit all the little streets, discover the more or less touristy districts, and work out my calves on the slopes of the Croix-Rousse.
I've bought myself a map of Lyon on Joliemap, in their ‘minimal’ style, and I'm planning to colour in all the places I've visited. I'm thinking of using a coloured pencil to mark the streets I've walked along, and maybe a marker on the shops/museums/places I've visited? It's my move-in self-gift, and I have to tell you, I can't wait to start filling it!
- CSS –
« New trolling idea: add random tailwind classes to your code base but never add tailwind. Then when someone tries to copy your style, it turns into garbage. Thanks tailwind! »
- Climate change – Heat killed nearly 50,000 in Europe in 2023. This is fine.
- Crook – I really like the film Catch Me If You Can, and after years of telling myself that one day I'd read the book, I've finally taken the time. It's a quick read, I like the writing style, but Frank Abagnale seems a lot less likeable than the character is in the film. And above all, thanks to a friend whose name I won't divulge, I've learnt that Frank Abagnale's story wasn't just fictionalised, it was almost entirely invented...…
- Writing craftmanship – Don’t make fun of renowned author Dan Brown. I chuckled. Loud.
- Feminism – Feminicide: a political crime.
« Feminicide is not a news item, or a ‘crime of passion’. It is the embodiment of a systemic violence that is deeply rooted in our societies. Every feminicide has a political dimension that cannot be ignored: it is the ultimate and fatal expression of patriarchal domination and control. »
- Surveillance – Surveillance watch, is an interactive map of surveillance companies and the links between them.
- Urbanism – Great video by Not just bikes, as usual: How American Fire Departments are Getting People Killed
- 260km/h – In case you're ever on a train and can't connect to the SNCF WiFi, check that you haven't changed your default DNS configuration. Every time, I spend 5 to 10 minutes checking every conceivable setting, even rebooting, before I think of it.
- Abandonment – Violence, drug overdoses, forced labour: how child welfare worked with unlicensed foster families. Who could have guessed that constantly reducing the budgets of fundamental public services and replacing them with unregulated private players could go wrong? Everyone, but the lives of children in care are apparently less important than saving money.
- Advice – Always go to the funeral.
- This is fine – Drone takes out Super Scooper fighting Los Angeles wildfires
- Design – I really like the design of this phone charging station.
- RSS – What RSS needs. What if we tried to give RSS a new lease of life?
- Baking – Someone tested every possible variation of a classic chocolate chips cookie recipe, so you can find the perfect version for you.
- Ambulances – How a team of Black paramedics set the gold standard for emergency medical response
- Earworm – Because there’s no reason why I should be the only one to have it in mind;
ra-ra-rasputin
ls /usr/local/bin
(source) - Development – Every conference from Devoxx France 2024 is available on YouTube.
- DIY – Tested and recommended, Leroy Merlin's bricolage courses. They cost €25 for 3 hours of lessons, and there are quite a few subjects: plumbing, electricity, painting, plasterboarding, etc. For the moment, I've done the plumbing course, and I plan to do at least the 2 courses on the basics of electricity. A lot of stuff can be learnt from YouTube or books, but for this kind of thing, there's nothing like a teacher to answer your questions directly, or to give you feedback on what you've done (here, we cut/prepared/glued a PVC pipe to a T, then we crimped a fitting onto a multi-layer pipe, and he showed us how to make a filasse joint).
I know that other DIY chains offer courses (Castorama, at least), but I don't know what they're worth. In any case, it's worth having a modicum of autonomy, so you don't have to call a plumber to change a simple joint, with all the time and expense that entails :D - Illustration – Thanks to Public.work, find a lot of illustrations that are in the public domain. Thanks Turbnok!
- Climate – For over 20 years, La Clusaz has been pumping water from a spring to make artificial snow... without authorisation. No sweat.
- Gaza – How Israel fired on cameras filming live. An investigation by Le Monde.
- Climate change – Permeable pavements for cities that are more resilient to flooding.
- Communication –
« Uncommunicated expectations are premeditated resentments »
- Colours – With Is my blue your blue?, test where you place the limit between blue and green, and compare yourself to others.
- Cephalopods – I dreamt I made an appointment for the tattoo idea that's been on my mind for a few years, a big octopus on my thigh, but the tattooist said ‘I can't make an appointment for 10 years, is that OK? No, because in 10 years you'll be covered in wrinkles, so I'd rather ask.
Anyway, I explain my idea to her and she's really excited, really into it, really enthusiastic... Then: ‘Err, what's an octopus?’ - Dataviz – Full of themselves, a study of films that use the title drop, i.e. where a character says the name of the film, possibly face-to-face, possibly in a cringe-inducing scene.
- Justice – It's hard to avoid the ‘PPDA affair’ if you're in France. It's also hard to ignore all the attacks on the women who spoke out, and the excuses made for the man who raped them. And it's hard to remain calm in the face of the realisation (or confirmation, as the case may be) that everyone knew and no one did anything about it. In Impunité, Hélène Devynck looks at the mechanisms at work to protect ‘France's favourite TV presenter’, and at all that is involved in speaking out or pressing charges.
- Resistance – The Edelweiss pirates, teenagers who fought the Nazis, sometimes at the cost of their lives, were recognized as resisters only in 2004.
- Housing – In Lisbon, a referendum against Airbnb coming soon?
- Web – 24 jours de web's website was migrated to Kirby, and Joachim tells how it was done.
- Cartography – The Mercator scandal.
- Technology – Self-driving Waymo cars keep SF residents awake all night by honking at each other
« Silicon Valley’s latest disruption ? Your sleep schedule. On Saturday, NBC Bay Area reported that San Francisco’s South of Market residents are being awakened throughout the night by Waymo self-driving cars honking at each other in a parking lot. No one is inside the cars, and they appear to be automatically reacting to each other’s presence. »
The future is really fantastic.
- Surveillance – Solidaires informatique published a guide for digital union self-defense.
- Youth – Sector by sector, our public services are being destroyed. In today’s episode, youth justice protection. What are we waiting for to react?
- Code – How programmers comment their code.
Funny pics
