Found on the Web: The 3 hot trends in Silicon Valley horseshit

I am not a fan – at all! – of the Silicon Valley culture that is a big influence in my work domain (actually, scratch that: in our entire life!), but this article points out a lot of beef I have against the start-up/IoT mindset. Interesting read I am sharing.

It was also just one of a whole constellation of companies that now operate under an ingenious model: take some banal product that has been sold forever at low margins, attach the disposable part to a proprietary system that pretends to improve it but really just locks pepole into a particular vendor, add a touch screen manufactured by Chinese tweens, call it “Smart,” and sell it to schlubby dads too indebted to buy a midlife crisis car and too unattractive to have an affair.

Link: The three hot trends in Silicon Valley horsehit

I swear: I read Playboy for their articles!

Perusing through a pile of old Playboy a friend collects, he showed me this, knowing my sphere of interests in history. I always said it: I read Playboy for their articles!
#wow #latergram #playboy #politics #wwii #ww2 #nazi #albertspeer #fuckingintense #interview

Because nazism and fascism seem to be “back in fashion”

“His productivity reflected his sense of urgency: the book was conceived as a kind of message to the future. It is a law of history, he wrote, “that contemporaries are denied a recognition of the early beginnings of the great movements which determine their times.” For the benefit of subsequent generations, who would be tasked with rebuilding society from the ruins, he was determined to trace how the Nazis’ reign of terror had become possible, and how he and so many others had been blind to its beginnings.”
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Mais pourquoi bloguer en 2017?

Depuis le début de l’année, j’ai vu beaucoup de discussions sur la question “Mais pourquoi bloguer en 2017?” (par exemple, ici), tant sur les blogues-qui-reviennent-à-la-vie des gros “noms” du blogroll québécois (je blague…juste un peu ;P ) que sur les médias sociaux. Je me permets un petit extrait du texte qui m’a marqué ici:

Même si les blogues n’ont jamais disparus, leur nature a changé, ils se sont trouvé un travail comme on dit. On trouve maintenant nombre de blogues sur les sites de nouvelles ou d’entreprises avec un but clairement affiché. Même ceux qui sont animés de manière indépendante s’alignent généralement avec des objectifs de marketing personnel. Les authentiques blogues d’humeur, parsemés d’inanités ou de réflexion profondes mais “inutiles” sont rares et trop clairsemés, noyés dans la masse d’information, pour obtenir la masse critique nécessaire à reproduire l’atmosphère qui prévalait dans le bon vieux temps.

Le timing est assez bon pour se poser la question, on dirait bien: autant il y a le Yulblog (ce soir, dès 19h, à la Quincaillerie), autant j’avais justement une discussion en privé avec un proche sur la nature du partage de nos connaissances, de notre quotidien en général avec les autres.

Pour moi, bloguer – ou simplement partager ce que je sais, connais, et ai vécu – restera toujours un plaisir, un gros fun noir de juste partager tout ce qui me passe en tête. Et non, je ne cherche pas trop une “valorisation” de ma personne au travers de ce partage de connaissances et de vécu: je ne cherche pas, à priori, une “monétisation” de mon partage avec le monde extérieur. Si ce que je partage amène une réflexion, un questionnement, un débat chez les autres, et bien good! Si j’ai le sentiment de bloguer seule dans mon petit coin de l’Univers Web, et bien tant pis! Si je prends la peine de noter ici tout ce qui me passe par la tête (partager mes coups de coeur, mes shit et mauvaises expériences de vie), ce n’est pas pour m’en faire un “personal branding” sur lequel je capitaliserai dans un futur hypothétique. C’est, en tout premier lieu, parce que je veux recenser tout ce qui se passe dans ma vie, comme tout bon chroniqueur du quotidien le ferait pour les historiens du futur. Secundo, c’est toujours le fun se relire 1, 5 ou même 10 ans plus tard, et voir l’évolution, tant dans nos vies que sur le mental/psychologique…

Bloguer m’a ouvert des portes insoupçonnées vers des occasions que je n’aurais jamais imaginé dans ma vie: j’ai rencontré des gens extraordinaire à travers les blogues et les meetups sociaux (tant relié au Yulblog et médias sociaux qu’au monde professionel auquel j’appartiens); j’ai bien souvent eu des commentaires de gens en privé qui m’ont indiqué que ce que je partageais les avait fait réfléchir/changer/sourire. Et juste pour ça, je trouve que c’est amplement en masse comme raisons pour bloguer (pour moi).

Faque dans le fond, je blogue tout simplement parce que…je vis!
Je blogue, donc je suis 😉

My 2017 Online Sources: Web/Tech edition

Last week, I was asked at work to share with the team all my current online sources of news in my work field, and I was thinking “Hey, that’s something I could also share on my blog! I never actually shared my sources, could be useful…”. And thus, this list.

For now, I am sharing only my 2017 Web-related sites and newsletters links, but I will also create another one for all my other interests not tech-related.

Enjoy!

NEWSLETTERS

RSS FEED

IT Infosecurity  and Backend sources:

Frontend sources:

Design sources:

P.S. It WILL be edited throughout the year…

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Broken Symphony of Life

Sometimes, I feel like an old broken object, like this piano in the picture.

Broken by empty promises from my past.

Empty because of those other broken people who lied to me.

 

I will just let my nature surface.

Give me back my verneer, repair my broken pieces.

And in the end, I’ll sing the most beautiful symphony you will ever hear!

Text by me
Picture from Fragments http://bit.ly/2iiabgH

From my feed: The Greatest Books of all time list

So many books to read, so little time! *sobbing loudly*

I stumbled on another good post from Brain Pickings, this time talking about the “Greatest books of all time” (their title, not mine), and while I did read some of them (probably 15-20), I added tons more on my To Read list (fuck, it’s getting HUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEEE). I’m sharing the link with you, so I won’t be alone crying about the lack of time to read so. Many. Great. Books!

The Greatest Books of All Time, As Voted by 125 Famous Authors

From my Feedly: “A modern nation state cannot be built on an ontological notion of who belongs and who does not,…”

The Trump election; the Migrants situation in Europe and the Middle East; Black Lives Matter…

Last year was quite active in the rise of a very scary xenophobic public speech, maintained by uninhibited people who are now grabbing many powerful seats in our public institutions and governments all around the world. And I must admit, it scares me. As someone who studied history for many years, I can only see patterns that could cause the same mess humanity was at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of my close friends are telling me I am an alarmist, but still… I worry a lot when empathy, social values and community disappear in the public sphere, to make way to more individualistic purposes, shrouded by racism, sexism and savage capitalism. Yes, put me in the Carebear and “Socialist” camp, but I was raised to believe and want to live in a multicultural social-democratic country. I hate all the hate we now find more and more in the medias and public.

“A modern nation state cannot be built on an ontological notion of who belongs and who does not, whether it’s outright ethnic or pseudo-cultural. It needs to build on the notion of the nation as a community — a community including those who were born here, those who came to stay and those who will stay for a while and then return to their homes. The rights and duties of the members of this community should be defined by their achievements, and by the rule of law — not by whether they eat schnitzel or wear a head scarf.”

Anna Sauerbrey, What Is German?
from i never knew – mini

From my Feedly: Why Love Hurts: The Sociology of How Our Institutions Rather Than Our Personal Psychological Failings Shape the Romantic Agony of Modern Life

For the last couple of years (and probably because it’s part of what most of the mid-thirties people surrounding me are going through crisis), I had a lot of time – and occasions! – to reflect upon Love and relationships in our modern time. Mostly around the questions of why is it a sin to admit to our failures in our relations, why people shun us when we separate (or have a rough period), and why we should automatically hurt and become tragicomic drama queens ( to our friends and entourage) when we go through a separation or divorce (and for once, I prefer the Gwyneth Paltrow’s way, conscious uncoupling 😛 ).

Anyway, thought I could share with you one of the articles that generated tons of introspection, personal writing and discussions.

“To perform gender identity and gender struggles is to perform the institutional and cultural core dilemmas and ambivalence of modernity.”
from Brain Pickings: http://bit.ly/1Pq75Qp