Hi! We’re getting close to the end of the year!
Physically, I am much better than last month. My head is fine, my knee is generally tolerable, I haven’t been sick, all is well!
Mentally, the lack of sunshine is making everything just a little bit harder to deal with, but I’m generally okay. The month was good overall! Given that my ability to enjoy stuff is slightly down this month, the recommendations are also scarcer, although I still have a lot to share 🙂
We held the yearly Assemblée Générale at Wikimedia France. It’s always a stressful time and this was no exception, but outside of journalists suddenly remembering we exist on that week and coordinating their hit pieces like last year, I had a sweet evening and spent some really good time with the old and new members of the board of administrators. I was appointed vice-treasurer this year.
What I’ve read / Texte
📚 Books / Livres
Prompted by nostalgia and a general reading slump, I’ve started two re-reads:
- Discworld novels. My last read-through was in 2022-2023, so the time has come. As usual, I’m reading in chronological order and in French.
- I got all of Stephen King’s books, also in French. I started with After because I normally read in alphabetical order, then read Bazaar. Then I got annoyed that Bazaar was full of little references to previously published Nobel, so I decided to go for the chronological order and read Carrie. Next up: Salem’s Lot.
I’m considering declaring bankruptcy on my book reviews, as they’ve been piling up in my backlog since July, and picking back up from here.
In English
- Fiction
- Last night at the Telegraph club, Malinda Lo, is a sweet lesbian romance in 1950s Chinatown, San Francisco.
- Some strange music draws me in, Griffin Hansbury, starts with the narrator being suspended from his teacher job for transphobia. Which prompts him to remember when he was a young girl, meeting a trans woman in his 1980s US town and discovering a whole new world.
- Non-fiction
- Amusing ourselves to death, by Neil Postman, is US-centric and complains about the young’uns watching TV instead of reading books. I think it’s the best book I’ve read about attention economy and context collapse, and it has held up incredibly well to the four following decades and to the advent of the web. Possibly one of my best nonfiction reads of the year.
- Reactionary Democracy, by Aurélien Mondon and Aaron Winter, differentiates illiberal racism and liberal racism, the whole "post-race" narrative and how it only helps enshrine racism in our systems. Why do we think far right parties are "populist"? Why do we oppose the "working class" and the non-white people who belong to it? Why did Mitterand support the rise of Le Pen? The researchers use examples from the US, the UK and France to support their point.
En français
- Fiction
- Au cœur des ténèbres, Joseph Conrad. Depuis le temps que je voulais le lire, celui-là. C’était ok, c’est vraiment une question de culture générale plutôt que de lecture plaisir, je pense.
- Les hauts de Hurlevent, d’Emily Brontë. Après Rebecca, je continue à choper des classiques britanniques dans la boîte à livres du quartier.
- Non-fiction
- Le petit Narvalo m’a été offert par mon ami Ben et trône dans mes toilettes depuis, sur sa recommandation. C’est un ensemble de petites vignettes, souvent des parodies d’oeuvres culturelles, très rigolo et très Grelou, par les admins de memes.grenoblois.
📰 News and blog posts / Articles
In English
- On Starbreaker’s blog:
- Guys, let’s talk about periods is a great intro and essay on the health of a solid fraction of the population. Being mildly obsessed with hormonal cycles myself, I can only encourage you to learn about them. They’re useful to know about and actually fascinating!
- Speaking English on the multilingual web was surprisingly good, given my usual mistrust of monolingual USians on the web. It was actually good and interesting, I mean.
- Finding the authentic web Vaguely angry thoughts on "labeling" the "good" web.
- The Sad Case of the Tech T-Shirt What does a computer scientist look like? Holly says the usual look includes a branded t-shirt… except they’re not done in women’s sizes.
- Small data, slow data − a SNAIL approach to Wikidata On Wikidata, we’ve been glorifying OpenRefine and all these mass edition tools. But opening Wikidata and adding one little statement is a beautiful way to contribute.
- A woman, blogging: this is a political act Blogging as a woman (or as another political minority) is an act of defiance. Tracy talks about it compellingly.
- Comic Sans Got the Last Laugh
- LA without a car I once walked around downtown Los Angeles for an entire day, as I love doing when I visit a new city. I came back from it both mildly in love with that city and repulsed by it (lots of things in the US trigger this dual feeling in me). I highly recommend the experience, and maybe you can start by reading this great blog post from another wanderer.
- Forget U-hauling: these queer couples don’t want to move in together at all Relatable.
- One practical thing: protect information Choose one thing you like, even the most niche or generic thing. And make it your duty to preserve it.
- Requiem for an empire This post is about the US’s declining influence on the world. I always have mixed feelings when I read these, as the US produces most of the trends and culture that we consume, and it’s harder to block out news about the US presidential election than to follow news about the French one. But this is mostly about NATO and geopolitics, and it’s really interesting.
En français
- Le dictionnaire de l’Academie française ; une institution en crise derrière une façade fissurée L’académie française a sorti son dictionnaire après des décennies et il est, évidemment, à chier.
- La vie sous emprise des jeunes voleuses du métro Un portrait d’une jeune voleuse et TikTokeuse assez fascinant.
What I’ve watched / Vidéo
🎞 Movies / Films
Tried watching Dungeons and Dragons: Honor for Thieves or whatever the title is. Got about 40mins in, I’d say – the story seemed good, most actors were decent, but every time I started getting vaguely interested a new chase/fight scene started to show off the CGI and lost my attention.
📺 TV Shows / Séries
- Made a little progress on The Sopranos, still on season 2.
- Got mid-season 3 of The Good place with my partner.
📷 Online video / Vidéos en ligne
It hasn’t been a very "audiovisual" month for me, really.
What I’ve listened to / Audio
🎤 Podcasts
En français
- Sur Paroles d’histoire : Histoire et historiographie des drogues, avec Erwan Pointeau-Lagadec
- Sur France Inter, Le code a changé : "Les courbes en folie" : faire de l’architecture avec les ordinateurs
- Sur Projets libres !, Framasoft a 20 ans, en deux parties
🎹 Music
Le CD de Debussy dans mon lecteur CD a été remplacé par un CD de fugues de Chostakovitch.
Where I’ve been / Lieux
My colleagues and I had an off-site in rural Perche, waking up all my cottagecore dreams all over again. (My team won the shepherding contest, which consisted of taking eight sheep through a slalom course. It was very satisfying.)