In my history in April 2025
At the risk of repeating myself, I really do think that the survival of « handmade », personal and imperfect websites is of the utmost importance. The more I'm force-fed AI-generated content, or what I read, watch and listen to is algorithmically directed; the less varied the content I come across, the more I want in return to share small websites, old stuff, original content.
« What are we doing with all these links, anyway? We’re weaving the web tighter. Making introductions. Maintaining provenance. It’s meaningful, especially now, as AI systems work in the opposite direction: denaturing the links, melting down the chains of connection. »
An, frankly, I wonder if it's not already too late. Or at least if we haven't already lost a whole part of the Internet.
« I'm so disgusted with the state of search these days. It's not just the AI it's the AI slop combined with the mushy "let us tell you what you really meant" search results.
Obscure band names, artists, concepts are "corrected" to more popular words. "ant" is swapped for "art" if I'm looking for anything cute or amusing ("cute art stickers" NO I want "cute ANT stickers")
It's like modern search is trying to make everyone hopelessly basic. Only popular things exist. »
So I'll try to do my part.
Let's start with my ‘top 10’, the gems you shouldn't miss if you don't have the time to read everything!
#1
Gaza – Israel’s latest vision for Gaza has a name: Concentration camp« Israel is preparing to forcibly displace the entire population of Gaza — through a combination of evacuation orders and intense bombardment — into an enclosed and possibly fenced-off area. Anyone caught outside its boundaries would be killed, and buildings throughout the rest of the enclave would likely be razed to the ground.Without mincing words, this “humanitarian zone,” as Magal so kindly put it, in which the army intends to corral Gaza’s 2 million residents, can be summed up in just two words: concentration camp. This is not hyperbole; it is simply the most precise definition to help us better understand what we are facing. »
On the same topic, read Vider Gaza, ce vieux rêve israélien (litt. Emptying Gaza, the old Israeli dream), in Le Monde Diplo.
#2
Floppy – I love the Digital Preservation Jumpers by Leontien Talboom. I'm really tempted to knit a modified version of the Floppy Disk sweater 👀
#3
Music – One of my colleagues makes music, and his band just released a track I really like. If you're a fan of light, upbeat music, this is for you!#4
Shit in, shit out – An excellent idea from Heydon Pickering: a poisoning well to feed LLMs with gibberish and rot their knowledge base.« If you think these crawlers respect robots.txt then you are several assumptions of good faith removed from reality. »
#5
Recipe – I highly recommend Yossi Arefi's rose apple tart. I cooked it for my colleagues a few weeks ago and it was devoured in a few minutes. It's very simple to make, it just takes time. The crust is probably the best pastry I've ever had.
#6
Journalism – Yet another very good episode of Rhinocéros, on the way French television covered the Rassemblement National trial — or rather, the way they did not cover it. Mainstream medias are completely failing their mission of education (or simply information, to be honest). And that's not likely to change any time soon, considering the profile of their owners.#7
Books – I did not read a lot in February and March, but I made up for it in April. First things first, the books I liked:- 34m² by Louise Mey.I love « huis clos » (Stories that are set in one place at one time. Think Twelve Angry men or Hitchcock's The Rope). I love Louise Mey. This book was made for me.
Thanks to Louise Mey's talent, the tension builds up very quickly, and never completely subsides, even in the tender passages where Juliette talks about her daughter. The possibility of violence and oppression are always there, lurking, ready to invade the 34m² of the title.
It's a quick read, because it's only 140 pages long, but you won't come out unscathed. - Hood Feminism — Notes from the women that a movement forgot de Mikki Kendall. Because feminism is about all women, not just white women. If you've already read about intersectionality, misogynoir and the specific needs and problems of black women, you won't learn much, but it's a good first approach.
- La Chasse by Maureen Desmailles (litt. The Hunt). A very good first novel, following 17-year-old Max as they experiences their first love. What makes it special is that Max's gender is never given by the author. As well as being a writing experiment (and a very good example of inclusive writing with no midpoint and no double-flexion, over almost 250 pages), it's interesting to see how Max is imagined very differently depending on the situation, their reactions and the way other people treat them. I really recommend it, especially as it's a very quick read. I just wasn't expecting so many very explicit scenes, so don't read it on the tube if, like me, you blush easily 🥲
- You, Again by Kate Goldbeck. A good romcom that borrows a bit too much from When Harry met Sally, but it's still pleasant to read. I was a bit underwelmed by the very end.
- Le Coût de la virilité by Lucie Peytavin (litt. the cost of virility). Interesting book, even if it left me hungry for more. I've pulled some figures from it that I could use again.
My deceptions of the month:
- Le Club des enfants perdus de Rebecca Lighieri (litt. The Club of lost children). It had been highly recommanded by a friend, so I went in with confidence, but I hated the tone and couldn't force myself to finish it :/
- I tried a few comics this month, and I hated every one of them 🥲: Woogee by Benn, L'affaire des affaires — Clearsteam by Denis Robert & Laurent Astier, Terra Australis by Laurent-Frédérick Bollée, Ayako by Osamu Tezuka, La Troisième personne (litt. the third person) by Emma Grove
#8
Art – The Firefox extension Artelier tab allows you to discover a new work of art each time you open a new tab! Thanks Pierre!
#9
Excursion – Every year in Lyon, as part of the Quai du Polar festival, there's La Grande Enquête », which allows you to explore a district of Lyon in search of clues. The investigation in itself is very simple, as you know exactly where you're supposed to go, we precise instructions, and all you need to know to find the clues is how to read and count, but the walk itself is great fun. It's very friendly and nice (at least, that was the case on Sunday morning this year!), with people helping each other (or shouting out the wrong clues to try and lose the other groups :D) and it's a very nice way to spend one of the first warm weekend of the year.It's free, open to everyone, and when parts of the route are not accessible to people with mobility problems, an alternative route is indicated. This year's route took in Valmy and Fort de Vaise, and I can't wait to see what corner of Lyon they'll be taking us to next year. 😊
#10
Design – What are comunist memorials so different from the others? (thanks Bruno!)- Architecture – By the way, if you know me and want to gift me something (one can dream 🤓), those books were highly recommanded, and they would look very nice on my bookshelves 👀
- Sacred Modernity — The Holy Embrace of Modernist Architecture by Jamie McGregor Smith
- Eastern Blocks and Eastern Blocks II by Zupagrafika
- Do not eat – How Silica gel took over the world (via renchap)
- Earworm –
« 🎶 Dieu que cette fille a l'air triste
Amoureuse d'un complotiste
La groupie du platiste 🎶 »OK, so. I really don't know how to translate this. It's a joke based on a really well-knowed (and really good) old french song, « la groupie du pianiste » (litt. the pianist's groupie), by Michel Berger. The orinal lyrics are « Dieu que cette fille a l'air triste — Amoureuse d'un égoïste — La groupie du pianiste », litteraly « God this girl looks so sad — In love with an egoist — the pianist's groupie », and here « égoïste » is replaced by « complotiste » (litt. conspiracy theorist), and « pianiste » is replaced by « flat-earther ». I swear, when you don't have to preface it by a 5-minutes explanation, it's very funny 🥲
- English – I took the TOEIC test 15 days ago and scored 990 points out of 990 for reading and listening 🎉
I also scored 190/200 for speaking and 170/200 for writing (this is TOEIC's new "four skills" format), so I'm very happy! - Shark – Have you always wanted to see Blåhaj, the Ikea cuddly toy, in all sorts of funny situations? You're in for a treat!
- WTF – Yahoo Mail recently introduced a new feature: a one-line summary of every email, generated by an AI, displayed in place of the email subject, without any mention. What could go wrong? Oh well, not much, the summary could tell thousands of people that they've been drawn into a raffle, while the content of the email tells them that they've lost, for example? AI-generated content is absolutely unreliable and should never be displayed without being clearly identified as such. Or without it being an opt-in at the very least. (Or not at all, really, while we're at it 🤐).
- Snooker – In 97, Ronnie O'Sullivan broke the record for the fastest 147 of history, in 5 minutes and 8 seconds, and it's very impressive. Even if you have no idea what a 147 is.
Seriously, HOW is it possible to systematically put the cue ball back with millimetre accuracy at the right place so you can hit the next ball? I have the same kind of reaction to snooker as I do to a close-up magic trick: I KNOW it's just a question of precision, and thousands of hours of practice, but I still can't believe what I'm seeing.
- La Grange – Did you know? One of ZZ Top's members is beardless... and his name is Frank Beard.
- Corruption – In Ballast magazine, a photo essay on the largest mobilisation in Serbian history, following the collapse of the newly ‘renovated’ roof of a railway station in the country's 2nd largest city last November, which killed 16 people.
- Pig daddy – Thanks Gaëtan for the laughter
- NPA – Philippe Poutou is taking over a library in Bordeaux, Les 400 coups.
- Concours –
« With both Eurovision and the Papal conclave happening in May, it’s gonna be a big month for Europeans who love overly complex, confusing and dramatic ways to select a winner that are run by international bureaucracies, include smoke for dramatic effect and feature excessively extra outfits »
- Fascism – Another very good video by Lumi for Off Investigation: Enquêter sur l'Extrême-Droite : une urgence médiatique (litt. Investigating the Extreme Right: a media emergency).
- 16bit – Are you missing the title screens of 80s and 90s video games? Go visit Title Scream.
- Software – Thanks to Tsadiq for pointing me to Albert, a Linux Alfred equivalent. It only covers the launcher functionalities, but it's cool nevertheless.
- AI – LLMs can't stop making up software dependencies and sabotaging everything. TLDR: Some LLM hallucinate package names, that are copy-pasted as is in code by developpers that don't bother to check. So some
assholessmartasses decided to typo-squat those package with malicious code. 🥲 - Retouching –
« Now this: old photos retouched by AI in Wikipedia articles. Instead of the weathered scan of the original black and white photo, you have a demonic facelift done with a sulphate gun by a robot. Who wants that? What's the added value? It just doesn't make any sense. The whole point of an old photo is PRECISELY that it's the thin authentic link to something that's gone.
Once again with AI, a crap solution to a problem that doesn't exist. » - #MeTooFDO – MeToo in cinema, MeToo in theatre, MeToo in research, in archaeology, in politics, in construction... One day, perhaps, it will be recognised that we're not dealing with a whole bunch of problems confined to this or that field, but with a problem generalised to the whole of society, a systemic problem. In the meantime, I still think that this MeToo, which is specific to a particular area of activity, is important to study separately from the rest, because members of the police force are structurally more complicated to attack when they are aggressors, and they have to deal directly with cases of sexist and sexual violence, particularly domestic violence.
Femmes de gendarme et violences conjugales (litt. police officers' wifes and domestic violence), an episode from les Pieds sur Terre. - Sewing – A great video that explains how to spot clothes that are worth your while in a second-hand shop, whether for the quality of the materials or because the construction means that they will be easy to alter so that they fit you perfectly. (Check out Bernadette Banner's other videos, her content is always top-notch!)
- Miam – Sour Cream and Onion Drop Biscuits 👀
- Evolution – I watched the 3-part documentary on Bertrand Cantat's murder of Marie Trintignant. I think it was important to revisit this case, which was extremely badly covered in the media at the time, with all the usual bingo of domestic violence: ‘crime of passion’, glorification of the attacker, attempts to tarnish the victim's image, ‘he's a victim too’, accreditation of the accident theory, even when it was quickly refuted by the investigation, silence about Bertrand Cantat's lies, media pressure on those who tried to talk seriously about the affair (Lio, not to name her), etc. I do, however, regret the very ‘true crime’ tone of the documentary, which, in addition to being totally disrespectful, tarnishes its credibility. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that this genre is so successful and has made such a mark on the imagination that it's impossible to find productions on the subject that don't have this voyeuristic, sensationalist veneer, even for the quality documentaries with real research work. Nevertheless, it seems to have made a lot of people think about the way they experienced the affair at the time, and this awareness is a very good thing.
- Geocities – If you have known the Web at the end of the 90s or the beginning of the 00s, Cameron's world might rign some bells. A love letter to the Internet of old (via Pierre).
- TV Show – Like pretty much everyone else, I watched the mini-series Adolescence on Netflix. Like pretty much everyone else, I thought it was very well directed and very well acted (Jamie is particularly impressive).
- Funny words – I just discovered the word pernickety (or persnickety in the US):
giving too much attention to small details that are not important in a way that annoys other people
😊 - Drawing – Brooklyn Bridge, 1921, Christopher R. W. Nevinson
- Syndicalisme – The Lyon Labour Exchange celebrates its 90th anniversary!
- Plate techntonics – Do you like bad puns? You're in for a treat.
- Storage – A cool template for 3D printing an SD card storage unit in the shape of a MacOS folder.
- Caffeine – How a Forgotten Bean Could Save Coffee From Extinction. The article is a bit long, but the subject is interesting!
- Urban planning – A nice video on the use of gondolas for public transport, particularly in large South American cities such as La Paz and Medellín.
- Office – Only Office has been warmly recommanded to me. It's an open source office suite that's apparently better than Libre Office, and has an interface closer to that of MS Office, for those who are used to it. Available on Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS, as well as in the browser.
- Architecture – I really like the videos from the YouTube channel Le Nouveau Programme:
- Censorship – Who's surprised? Anti-abortion campaigners intimidated and prevented journalists from doing their job at a demonstration in Lyon earlier this month. Their methods are on par with their nauseating ideas.
- CSS – Thanks to Vincent, I'm discovering nth-child of in CSS, and I 🤯. An example on codepen
- Urbanism – These Ugly Big Box Stores are Literally Bankrupting Cities, Not Just Bikes, as relevant as ever.
- Insult –
« You can tell the guy travels light »
(merci Usul) - Fatigue – ‘An Overwhelmingly Negative And Demoralizing Force’: What It’s Like Working For A Company That’s Forcing AI On Its Developers. Doesn't sound appealing. At all.
- Guibberish – How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner
- Food –
« Following @RappelConso is really the most effective vegan propaganda I've ever seen »
(Martin) - Nature – I'll leave you with this impressive photo of a supercellular thunderstorm by Laura Rowe.
Funny pics
