Phew, what a month!
I started a 100 squats per day challenge, and lasted 28 days before realizing that not letting my knee get a single day of rest was not going to help with recovery, and then immediately bounced back with a one Commons photo per day challenge.
I wrapped up my final projects at Meta and am now starting to enjoy a few weeks where everyone is on holidays and I don’t have too much to do there. I took a week off work to go to an absolutely wonderful Wikimedia weekend in Saint-Malo and then ETHCC, my first crypto conference, in Brussels. That was very interesting.
I had some printer and phone mishaps. I’ll forgive the printer, which I bought second-hand for 10€ before realizing this model hasn’t been manufactured since 2006 − no regrets there, it still works as a scanner while I look for a new that I can only hope will last 18 years. The phone, though, is from three or four years ago. I bought it second-hand because it’s a work phone and I don’t need to use it that much… and found out that most of the apps I use for work don’t maintain their apps for more than a couple of years, which I find absolutely repulsive.
Also, it’s the Olympics, which means I spend at least half an hour a day crying happy tears because someone is happy they won a game. I love sports, I love the Olympics, and I love that France TV offers a high-quality free broadcast (even though I did shell out 10€ for an Eurosport subscription for a few extra games).
What I’ve read / Texte
📚 Books / Livres
I’m still catching up on my June reads for the book reviews, sorry for the absence of links to detailed opinions!
In English
- Fiction
- The No-girlfriend rule (Christen Randall) is a cute young adult romance with lots of tabletop RPG involved. Found through Autostraddle’s quarterly list of queer literary releases.
- The House of Doors, by Tan Twan Eng, was an interesting historical novel set in colonial Malaysia and a Booker Prize contender.
- My best read of the month was the Women’s Prize contender River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure.
- The Weavers of Alaxama was part 2 of The Daughters of Izdihar, an excellent North African feminist fantasy novel
- Ordinary Human Failings, a contemporary novel by Megan Nolan, was a Women’s Prize contender and follows grief and shame in 1990s Ireland and England.
En français
- Non-fiction
- La fille aux sept noms, mémoires d’une réfugiée nord-coréenne, m’a permis de renouer avec mes fascinations d’il y a quinze ans. C’était super.
- Coup de cœur des bibliothécaires de mon quartier, Les enfants endormis d’Anthony Passeron se révèle à la hauteur. L’auteur y retrace la mort de son oncle Désiré, mort du sida dans la France rurale des années 1980, la mettant en parallèle avec l’histoire de la recherche sur le sida et le VIH en France. Dans le déluge des récits américains, j’ai été fasciné de découvrir une toute autre histoire − et même deux.
Also, The Storygraph has a cute infographic you can easily share, now!
🔍 Papers / Articles académiques
Si besoin, n’hésitez pas à m’envoyer un email ou à me contacter pour que je vous partage tout article payant (indiqué par 🔏).
🔏 SHULZ Sébastien, « Quelles stratégies politiques pour le mouvement des communs ? », Mouvements, 2024/2 (n° 117), p. 173-181.
📰 News and blog posts / Articles
In English
- Social Media Has Created a Crisis in American Slang, The Atlantic
- Straight Old White Guy’s Guide to Talking About Race, Abortion, Feminism and LGBT issues, Lou Plummer
- IndyWeb Carnival – Tools, How Obsidian Cured My Depression, Saved my Job and Gave Me Purpose, Lou Plummer
- 🔏 Fashion brands set to fail their own climate goals as overproduction fuels emissions, analysis shows, Follow the Money. « Clothing brands’ sustainability efforts are seen by experts as insufficient to counteract the environmental impact of the ever-growing number of products they make. »
- Notes on Tajikistan, Matt Lakeman
- How much does the ebook licence cost in Slovenia? by Sara Jakša. « But even more importantly for me, I wanted to know if this was another instance of US screwing themselves with negative externalities to the rest of the world or was that more global? More directly, how does the ebook lending system my public library is using structured? Are the publishers here also trying to squeeze as much from it as possible? »
- Astronauts are stuck on International Space Station indefinitely after problems with Boeing Starliner, The Independent
- Learning to love monsters: Windmills were once just machines on the land but now seem delightfully bucolic. Could wind turbines win us over too? on Aeon
- Here’s Why Jalapeño Peppers Are Less Spicy Than Ever, on D Magazine
En français
Si besoin, n’hésitez pas à m’envoyer un email ou à me contacter pour que je vous partage tout article payant (indiqué par 🔏).
- Foot aux JO 2024 : pourquoi une restriction d’âge pour les hommes et pas pour les femmes, L’Équipe
- 🔏 Adieu avocat et chocolat! Les chefs à l’heure de l’écoresponsabilité, Le Monde
- 🔏 Dans le sport de compétition, les ressorts de la domination masculine, sur Le Monde, parle de la non-mixité et des sports où elle n’a vraiment aucun sens
- 🔏 Les pays du Sud appellent à une réforme du FMI et de la Banque mondiale, quatre-vingts ans après leur création, sur Le Monde
- 🔏 Malgré l’ingéniosité des chercheurs, les moustiques sont à l’offensive, Médiapart parle des avancées scientifiques dans le contrôle de la population moustiquienne
- 🔏 Thomas Piketty : « Il est temps que la gauche se remette à décrire le système économique alternatif auquel elle aspire », dans Le Monde
- 🔏 Dans Le Monde Diplomatique, Peur blanche aux États-Unis parle de la minorité modèle asio-américaine et de comment quand elle a commencé à vraiment réussir, ses vertus ont soudain été dévalorisées
What I’ve watched / Vidéo
📺 TV Shows / Séries
- My partner and I finished season 2 of Girls5Eva, then started season 3. It’s on pause because every evening is spent watching the Olympics, of course.
- I started House of the Dragon season 1. Somehow I powered through half the season, even though I was both bored to death and grossed out. That’s just the usual Game of Thrones feelings I get, which is sad considering how much I’m enjoying my re-read of the novels.
- I’ve watched two episodes of The Bear, which I still call The Chef in my head every time because I’m a simple person. It’s really good. When the Olympics are over and I get some free time again, I’ll resume watching.
- I finished season 4 of Star Trek TNG and am taking an extended break.
- My partner and I are also very much enjoying Nebula’s original reality TV game, The Getaway.
📷 Online video / Vidéos en ligne
In English
- What happened to Italy’s skyscrapers?, by The Present Past, talks about Bologna (which I visited in April!)
- I am currently obsessed with finding good sports video essays. To date my favourite is still the absolutely amazing « No sport for grown women: how figure skating is exploiting girls » duology. In July, I found two still pretty good ones:
- San Marino: the worst national team in the world, by Maqwell, is about football and is really respectful and positive, which the title might not hint at.
- Vox made a video on why underdogs do better in hockey than basketball, also benchmarking football, American football, and baseball.
What I’ve listened to / Audio
🎤 Podcasts
In English
- Adam Eli: How social media is changing queer activism, on LGBTQ&A (Luminary)
- Dictator Decolonization Disco, on Obscuristan (From the Periphery)
- The Fire These Times (From the Periphery)
- The Far right is not inevitable with Aurélien Mondon
- El Salvador’s Gang state with Michael Paarlberg. (Not on their website for some reason.)
En français
- Minuit dans le siècle (Spectre)
- Projets Libres !
🎹 Music
What I’ve played / Jeux
I’ve played a bit of Hades, again, and that one fun single-player RPG: Superhuman Industrial and Immaterial, Incorporated.
Where I’ve been / Lieux
- Saint-Malo: gorgeous
- Bruxelles: so weird. But cool
- L’Écoutou, on a hike that made me face exactly how horribly out of shape I am.