Happy new year!
I am socially drained and not ready to go back to work, and yet here I am. I am also emotionally drained due to supporting the employees with the yearly Wikimedia France fundraising.
I love my friends but they are chaotic and having sudden additions and removals to the list of people who were around is just not something I can deal with for an entire week (neither is interacting, actually).
I will try to post my 2023 reading retrospective before the end of the month. I’ve also posted 24 low-stakes accomplishments of 2023.
And now, for the December 2023 monthly review!
What I’ve read / Texte
📚 Books / Livres
En français:
- Ada & Zangemann est une fable pour enfants sur le logiciel libre.
- La commune au présent est une approche intéressante et un peu plus ludique que d’habitude de la Commune de Paris.
In English:
- Palo Alto: a history of California, capitalism, and the world was an enormous book, but I didn’t give up and it was worth it.
- Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends is the closest I’ve gotten to new year resolutions for 2024. An excellent read.
- *Refuse to Choose* was inspirational, in the good and the bad sense of the term.
- The other black girl was very good fiction.
📰 News and blog posts / Articles
En français :
- Le Rwanda, un nouveau « gendarme » africain ?, sur Afrique XXI
- L’affaire Dupond-Moretti pour celles et ceux qui n’ont rien compris, sur Frustration Magazine
- La « maladie n°9 » : un symptôme de l’antisémitisme français, sur The Conversation
In English:
- I keep finding myself re-reading Tracy’s Building community out of strangers
- The interested normie’s guide to OpenAI drama, on MaxRead’s Substack
- The Small Website Discoverability Crisis, by Marginalia
What I’ve watched / Vidéo
🎞 Movies / Films
The Ballad of songbird and snakes was nice enough, and definitely not life-changing.
📺 TV Shows / Séries
- Je regarde une fois de plus Hero Corp, mais cette fois, grosse nouveauté : j’ai dépassé la saison 2 !
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians episodes 1 and 2 were very faithful to the books, without really managing to retain the funny overall atmosphere. It’s really well made and I might keep watching, until I inevitably forget to download an episode and never think of the show again.
📷 Online video / Vidéos en ligne
En français :
- Devenez une espionne de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, par C’est une autre histoire : à un rythme effréné, un super tuto… enfin, une vidéo d’histoire avec un beau niveau de recherche
- Le rôle de l’entourage social dans le bien-être des adolescents athlètes, par CerCoG Université Grenoble-Alpes : un podcast de moins de dix minutes par épisode où des doctorantes expliquent leur projet de recherche.
- Oui d’accord s’est mis au streaming!!!! Et c’est super bien fait, comme quand il parle de sport et lutte des classes.
- J’ai découvert Diable Positif sur les conseils de mon pote Ben. C’était très rigolo et instructif, comme dans sa vidéo sur le travail.
In English:
- The genderswap trans nightmare of She’s the Man, by Lily Simpson, is funny and also Gender.
- Why Haiti is dying and the Dominican Republic is booming is a very painful video by RealLifeLore. Every time you think France can’t be worse, turns out it can! For 54 minutes straight!
- That one hbomberguy video. I think dunking on a single person for two hours is not cool and I also see why he did it. The general message of the video is important and, as usual, it is very well produced.
What I’ve listened to / Audio
🎤 Podcasts
En français :
- Hansie Cronje, ou la chute de l’homme que l’Afrique du Sud vénérait comme Mandela, sur Les Grands Récits. Le seul reportage sur le cricket que j’ai envie d’écouter.
- Fantasy et Révolution, avec Léo Henry, sur Penser les luttes de Radio Parleur. Avec du Tolkien-bashing et des réflexions intéressantes sur le rôle des cartes dans la fantasy.
- Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de la révolution des œillets au Portugal, avec Victor Pereira ; grâce à Paroles d’histoire, c’est réglé.
- Les larmes et la colère de la rue d’Aubagne sont un nouvel épisode, avec Valérie Manteau, produit par Arte Radio (la série sur Marseille présentée par Oxmo Puccino).
- Kiffe ta race a produit deux excellents épisodes, ça a été dur de choisir, mais finalement j’ai décidé de vous recommander l’excellent et important Affirmer la lutte contre l’antisémitisme à gauche.
In English:
- Laziness Does Not Exist with Devon Price, an interesting interview on Upstream.
- Libraries: A Community Endeavor, with Don Gardner, was a great interview by Solarpunk Presents on the role of libraries, how we can support them and why we should, and how they survived the COVID-19 lockdowns. It ends with one piece of advice: « the best way to support your local library is to use it ».
- I’ve been reading quite a bit about Armenia. The podcast How Azerbaijan is greenwashing genocide with Karena Avedissian and Anna, on The Fire These Times, is an excellent listen whatever your level of knowledge is.
- If Books Could Kill is as funny and cringeworthy as ever with an episode on The Identity Trap.
- Sarah Marshall talked about Influencers with Taylor Lorenz on You’re Wrong About, and it was fascinating.
🎹 Music
Got a wonderful saxophone CD from the local library: Slaying the Dream by Olga Amelchenko. You should listen if you like smooth instrumental jazz.
Rina Sawayama is super cool. Somehow I had not heard of her, a terrible problem that my friend Sid helpfully fixed.
What I’ve played / Jeux
Completed my first Hades run (#71). Turned god mode off. Stopped playing entirely. I’ll pick it up in a month or two as I always do.
Dusted Quiplash to entertain guests. We played my Jackbox Party Pack (3?) and my friend’s version (9). Both are really fun!
Where I’ve been / Lieux
Went sledding in Chamrousse once, it was nice. More importantly, I’ve bought skiing gear and will hopefully go at least twice in January.