In my history in November 2025
I've finally reached the point of no return with AI.
I can barelly respond politely when someone suggests using AI for everything and anything, and, to be honest, I can no longer take anyone who uses it seriously.
Using those tools is less efficient, less accurate, less respectful of your audience than doing the work yourself, and that's not even brushing on the environmental and ethical cost.
I don't want to read or watch AI-generated content. Aside from the obvious quality issues, I don't see why I would spend time reading a text that you didn't write yourself. I have a limited amount of time and attention available, and there is no way I am going to devote it to artificially generated content.
It is for all those reasons that I am proud to be a luddite.
Let's start with my ‘top 10’, the gems you shouldn't miss if you don't have the time to read everything!
#1
Training wheels – I just bought a friend's bike, I haven't cycled for 22 years (except for three times when I was cycling home from a party on deserted streets almost 15 years ago), and clearly what stopped me from taking it up again sooner was the fear of cycling in the city among cars.The day I picked up my bike, I rode across the city, and I think 80% of my ride was on dedicated cycle lanes. Thanks to the Croix-Rousse bike tunnel and the Rhône riverbank cycle path, I had almost no contact with cars, which was perfect.
Dedicated cycle paths make it safer for people who already cycle, but they also encourage people who don't cycle to take it up.
It will take me a while to feel completely comfortable in the city, but honestly, I wasn't sure I wouldn't have to walk 80% of the way home with my bike in hand. In the end, I only had to do that for 50 metres, at a very complicated intersection that was under construction.
Anyhoo, I have a bicycle, and I can't wait to use it!
#2
Bike, bis (So, Tandem?) – On the same subject, I saw that on the always excellent Not Just Bike, because cycle lanes are for future cyclists, not for those who already can/want to cycle in fraffic.
(The video is 1 hour and 35 minutes long, but it's really interesting. It talks about John Forester, ‘vehicular cycling’ and how and why one asshole managed to set the US back 50 years in terms of road infrastructure. I've rarely hated a dead guy I'd never heard of before so quickly 🤓).
#3
Books – Here's my last readings. For once, I liked everything I read this month:- Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, a very cute lesbian love story with a space conquest backdrop.
- Femmes Pirates (litt.: Pirate women) by Daniel Defoe, a really short by cool reading: it's the biographies of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, two pirate women who were active in the 18t century.
- L'homme qui plantait des arbres (litt. : the man who planted trees) by Jean Giono, probably my favorite reading of the last few months. I was incredibly moved by this simple short story, and it made me want to read everything Giono has ever written.
- Animal farm by Georges Orwell. Another great classic that I hadn't read yet, and which I loved. I regret not having read it as a teenager, as I would have enjoyed it very much at the time.
- Gazer, mutiler, soumettre : politique de l'arme non létale (litt.: Gas, maim, subdue: the politics of non-lethal weapons) by Paul Rocher. An interesting read. I preferred the first part, which presents a detailed overview of all existing weapons and their uses, to the second part, which is more analytical and overlaps somewhat with other books I have read on the subject. It provides a good overview of the topic.
- Saint Luigi: Comment répondre à la violence du capitalisme (litt.: Saint Luigi: How to respond to the violence of capitalism) by Nicolas Framont. An excellent read.
#4
Inventions – I just discovered the concept of Chindōgu, "unuseless" inventions, aka quirky objects that try to resolve a daily problem without really succeeding.It reminded me of a wonderful book I spent hours reading when I was a kid: Le catalogue des objets introuvables by Jacques Carelman.
#5
Maps – I absolutly love the Mon Paris alphabétique (litt.: My alphabetical Paris) project: one day, Marie decided to visit Paris street by street, in alphabetical order, and to take photos. The result is a beautiful inventory, with an explanation of the name and the interesting buildings ; and another way to discover and reclaim the city.#6
Music – I was lucky enough to see Lawrence for the second time this year, at their concert at Le Bataclan on November 17. It was really great, so I'm using this as an excuse to promote the band once again. Seriously, listen to Lawrence, they're amazing 💚Here's I'm Confident I'm Insecure, the song that introduced me to the band, and Something in the Water, for which they've just been nominated for a Grammy for Best Arrangement (for the acoustic-ish version)::
Their Family Business tour is coming to an end soon, after a few final dates in England, and they will be following it up with a musical on Broadway. I hope they do another tour next year, because they are my favourite band to see live. I went to two concerts on the same tour, but they were very different despite having a fairly similar set list, because Lawrence interacts with the audience a lot, they let us choose part of the set list, and you really feel like it's your own concert and not one of 52 concerts they're doing in a row.
In comparison, I was a little disappointed when I went back to see Tom McRae in February, less than six months after my previous concert, because he said pretty much the same things between songs and interacted with the audience in exactly the same way, getting us to sing the same thing on the same song and giving a speech in the middle of the same other song... It was very good, but it was the same as what I had seen a few months earlier. So, when I saw he was doing another concert in Paris in early December, I decided to skip it. Let's be honest, if he comes back to Lyon next year, I'll buy a ticket, but I won't necessarily travel across France to see him, whereas for Lawrence, I wouldn't hesitate.
#7
Museum – I took advantage of my trip to Paris to return to the Louvre, and I spent almost four hours admiring the statues... and coming up with silly captions for them.Here's a few of my favorites, and I listed them all in a dedicated article:
Children ‘comfortably’ settled down to read
#8
Economy – As usual, Gilles and Marino's explanations are crystal clear!#9
Documentation – The death of community memory, because nope, writing an half-assed report on Slack is not proper documentation, and Discord is the dead of Internet memory. I will never not realy an article that defends a forums comeback.#10
Wokisme – Yet another really good video by Bolchegeek for l'Huma. I recommend it even if you've never seen the Wizard of Oz and you have no intention to see Wicked.- Immigration – + €3.3 billion: the estimated revenue generated by a more humane migration policy, according to France Terre d'Asile. On the one hand, I understand that only financial arguments will have an impact on certain people, but on the other hand, I deplore the fact that we are still allowing racists to dictate the direction of the debate. This utilitarian view, the same one behind anti-war campaigns that show us photos of children with captions like ‘the future Einstein’ or ‘the future Marie Curie’, disgusts me. Do only productive people deserve to flee war and poverty? At what level of contribution to the GDP do they have the right to live? Basic human decency should be sufficient reason to welcome refugees with dignity.
- Mecanical keyboard –
- Neighboors –
« If you're naked on your front porch and the neighbors can't see you, its rural.
If you're naked on the front porch and the neighbors call the cops, it's suburban.
If you're naked on the front porch and the neighbors ignore you, its urban.
If you're naked on the front porch and your naked neighbor (also on their front porch) waves at you, it's Florida. » - Sacred femininity – Influencers made millions pushing "wild" births — now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world. I have rarely felt such a strong urge to punch people. The Free Birth Society goes so far that even the rest of the free birth community finds them extremist.
Encouraging women to have no medical supervision during their pregnancy and to give birth alone, without the help of a midwife, to let their baby not breathe for several minutes after birth without giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or calling for help so as not to deprive them, and I quote, ‘of his ownership over his vital and truly enlivening experience of transitioning independently to full incarnation.’ is simply criminal. Add to that the false promises that everything is fine when women call in a panic because their fifth (!) day of labour is very difficult and there are many signs pointing to a medical emergency, encouraging them to stay away from medical professionals, the guilting of mothers when their babies die or are severely disabled following a birth that went wrong, the encouragement to lie to doctors and the police when they become involved, the threats and silencing of all the victims of their movement, I don't even have the words to describe it.
I think what upsets me the most is that the proliferation of all these predatory ‘alternative medicine’ or even ‘alternatives to medicine’ movements could be prevented or at least curbed with the right public policies:- There is an urgent need to rethink the way we treat childbirth, to give pregnant people back their agency, and to closely monitor the rate of episiotomies (and caesarean sections, and other medical procedures that I am not necessarily familiar with).
- Doctors need to be better trained, particularly in patient care, and we must get rid of abusive caregivers (racist, sexist, fatphobic, ableist, LGBTphobic, perpetrators of sexual violence, etc.) and/or anti-science caregivers (unvaccinated, practising pseudoscience, spreading misinformation about COVID, etc.)
- We need to hire more hospital staff (doctors, but also nurses, nursing assistants, orderlies and all other hospital staff), open more beds, significantly increase budgets, and improve working conditions.
- More hospitals must be reopened throughout France. Medical deserts are absolutely unacceptable.
- We also need (and I don't see this discussed often enough) better education for the general public on all medical topics and science in general. This is absolutely essential if we hope to reduce misinformation on these subjects.
But all these measures require time, money and strong political commitment, and they don't produce visible results in the short term, so I'm afraid we'll have to keep dreaming while watching France plummet in the infant mortality rankings and the US fall faster and faster into total obscurantism. Yay. (Yeah, sorry, I never promised my DMHs would be uplifting and hopeful.)
- Assembly – On IDEA, you'll find algorithmic explanations in the form of Ikea assembly notices:
- Puzzle – In the "little daily game" family, I'm asking for the hidden son of crosswords and Tetris, Tiled Words!
- Lutte – Contre Attaque looks back at the Canut revolt of November 21, 1831.
- Inheritance – Boomers Are Passing Down Fortunes — And Way, Way Too Much Stuff.
- HTML – Click here to see a naked HTML page 👀
- Tumblr –
« TIL The term "scientist" was coined in the 1830s to describe Mary Somerville. A woman. Because the usual term "man of science" didn't apply and she wasn't just a physicist, geologist, or chemist - she was all three. »
« I will now be referring to all men who do science as male scientists. All scientists are female unless indicated otherwise »
- Loser – I love London so much <3
- Ecofascism – The video Paul Watson : une écologie raciste ? (litt.: Paul Watson: A Racist Environmentalist?) provides a good overview of the Sea Shepherd founder and the criticisms he is facing from a large section of the environmentalist community.
- Compulsive – My "shopping" note keeps me from byuing dumb shit all the time. Nothing revolutionary, but a reminder that I needed, and I think perhaps you do too.
- Weather – Open a terminal, copy-paste this instruction :
curl wttr.in/Lyon
, and you'll see the weather predictions for the next 3 days in Lyon 🎉 I love this kind of projects - Murder she draw – James Cook types illustrations with his typewriter, and I really like the result! You can look at his work on Instagram, or read this interview to know more about it. I'm not the biggest fan of his portraits, but the urban landscapes are great:
- Architecture – Thanks to weird estate on Mastodon, I stumbled upon this this architect-designed house with its angles and sloping walls which I think is really cool. It's a shame it's in the US (and about $1.5 million too expensive for me).
- Not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you –
« Traderjoelesbian: You know you've got a powerful mom when she turns your identity into an Olympic sport.
I told her I hated coming out but still wanted the family to know. So instead of handling that like a normal person, she invented a game called "Guess Which One of My Kids Is Gay."
The rules are brutal. Sit down with Uncle So-and-So. He says something about gay people in passing, just casual Sunday dinner nonsense. My mom freezes mid-bite and goes, "There's a gay person at this table right now. Guess which one of my kids it is."
He panics instantly. He looks between the three of us like we're bomb wires and he's holding dull scissors. No one blinks. Mom refuses to continue until he guesses.
The silence stretches like a medieval trial. He has to pick one.
He's sweating through his shirt. We're sipping our drinks in pure serenity. Mom is living her best life.
lokiago: This isn't "coming out." This is tactical closet warfare — and it's beautiful. » - Creepy –
- Musique – A YouTuber has taken it upon himself to teach an octopus to play the piano 👀
- Archives – I've discovered Brrrazero, a place dedicated to queer memories and knowledge, and I'm eager to explore it all. Especially since their website, instead of simply listing the address of the place, has a whole page dedicated to the building's accessibility, with recommendations on the best route to take from public transport, the exact location of the building and its entrances on the plot and a map of the premises, as well as detailed information on steps, ramps and door widths for wheelchair users. It may seem like a minor detail to you, but to me it shows a consideration for others and a desire not to exclude anyone, which are all too rare.
- Mini-disc – You're probably familiar with 45s and 33s, but have you heard of 3-inch mini-vinyls?
- Treats – Tested and approver, Minimalist baker's vegan and gluten-free monster cookies.
- Podcast – I already love her newsletter, The CDLT podcast is also excellent.
- Censorship – I'm impatient to see The Librarians.
- Vaccination – CDC data confirms US is 2 months away from losing measles elimination status. Everything is fine.
- Troll –
« As a white man, I hate AI for appropriating my culture of being confidently wrong about things while using Reddit as a primary source. »
- AI – <3
- Slop – Manipulating document summaries or how using AI to summarise meetings encourages people to adapt their speech to be featured more prominently in the summary. I want to scream.
- Public transport – Iowa City Made Its Buses Free. Traffic Cleared, and So Did the Air. What are we waiting for to make public transport free across the board? (via Kottke)
- Attitudes – Madame Yevonde's photos of high society in the 1930s are fabulous! (via Messy Nessy)
funny pics
