For transparency

Un outil permettant de projeter des données sur une carte. Cela peut se révéler utile à un certain moment.

Fait par https://mthh.github.io/portfolio/

I find again the same main ideas across blog posts:

• blogging helps clarify the thinking
• the writing is permanent
• you own it
• it improves the writing over time
• it can lead to unexpected opportunities
• it self-documentation
• it can be helpful to others
• the process is itself rewarding

Attribute creep and excessive use of foreign keys shows me is that in order to use ORMs effectively, you still need to know SQL. My contention with ORMs is that, if you need to know SQL, just use SQL since it prevents the need to know how non-SQL gets translated to SQL.

I’ve found myself thinking about the database as just another data type that has an API: the queries. The queries return values of some type, which are represented as some object in the program. By moving away from thinking of the objects in my application as something to be stored in a database (the raison d’être for ORMs) and instead thinking of the database as a (large and complex) data type, I’ve found working with a database from an application to be much simpler. And wondering why I didn’t see it earlier.

Alternatives:

• Fastmail instead of Gmail
• INWX (and own a domain) instead of substack.com
• Mastodon and a bit of Bluesky instead of Twitter
• Nextcloud instead of Google Drive
• Collabora instead of Google Docs
• Immich instead of Google Photos (with Google Takeout https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/photos). Ente seems also a good alternative.
• Nextcloud Deck and Nextcloud Collectives instead of Notion.
• Forgejo (or Codeberg as german forgejo isntance)
• Web search: not so much great alternatives. Kagi (but US-based), DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant
• Firefox instead of Chrome. Hope for Servo or Ladybird.
• Qobuz instead of Spotify. Also an owned Jellyfin streaming server.
• Nextcloud Polls instead of Google Forms

Writing About What You Are Interested in Writing (Or Reading) About

Jim Grey wrote in Blogging in the AI era, part 1: The acceidental contract

People like us who blog just write about things that interested us. Internet fame might be nice, but we’ve learned it’s elusive. We learn to be content that someone, someday, will find our work useful.

Blogging is not (only) a popularity goal stated by Jeff Starr's The Pros and Cons of Blogging:

[P]opularity is not synonymous with success. Blogs that are popular have managed to appeal to the mainstream mentality, but are far from successful on many other levels. Originality, sincerity, authenticity, and truthfulness are just a handful of the different measures of a blog’s success. You don’t have to be like everyone else — dare to be different.

One step further:

Chasing popularity instead of seeking to produce something of value that may be pleasant or useful to people who happen upon it is approaching blogging and internet writing through the lens of social media. More in Creators and More and More Content]

Ten tips for A Better Weblog from Rebecca Blood higlights the opposite of the mainstream social media:

Write about what you love. A weblog is the place for strong opinions, whether about politics, music, social issues, gardening, or your profession. The more engaged you are with your subject, the more interesting your writing will be.

Refuse trend-chasing webdesign: it was a carousel for Adële's All my clients wanted a carousel, now it’s an AI chatbot. Blogs doesn't have to. Prefer your digital home

spotDL finds songs from Spotify playlists on YouTube and downloads them - along with album art, lyrics and metadata.

The niche can be an advantage to get an audience. This is great to build a business, SEO traffic or monetize quickly.

However, if the primarily goal is to write a variety of interests, enjoy the creative process, or build a personal publication, a broader blog can be better.

It offers greater freedom and authenticity. Theses blogs existed long before SEO-driven emphasis. The readers often follow writers for their perspective and quality of writing. That's the difference with the mainstream content.

“Le problème n’est pas seulement que les gens n’ont pas ‘assez’ économisé — c’est que le seuil du ‘suffisant’ ne cesse d’augmenter.” Dans ce contexte, partir devient moins un désir qu’une nécessité : “Pour les baby-boomeurs qui se sentent exclus de la retraite qu’on leur avait promise dans leur pays, partir à l’étranger n’est plus un fantasme de mode de vie – cela devient rapidement la seule manière pour que l’équation fonctionne.”

Le problème est bien là: le suffisant ne cesse d'augmenter.

Imaginez les retraites des prochaines années.

Automate Whatsapp with the CLI.

Documentation: https://wacli.sh/

How Google is slowly killing the web and

If you do care about the web, about people’s ability to participate in it as more than mere passive consumers, this needs to be taken seriously. De-googlifying your mental apparatus becomes more urgent today. Find other search engines, don’t use the Chrome browser. Or wake up in a slopified AOL kind of environment where your access to information is limited to what Google’s synthetic text extruders deem relevant.

Degooleify

The feedback of a developers tired of the stress induced by the job, a disalignment of values and d

About learning between humans, it seems. Josh W. Comeau receently shared that the last course "sell roughly 1/3 as many copies as a typical course launch. [...] There's sort of a double whammy with AI:

1. Many people are wondering whether developer jobs will even exist in a few months.
2. Even if they do want to learn new dev skills, LLMs can provide personalized tutoring so there's less incentive to buy a paid course.

The entire vibe has shifted. The majority of [community] folks are still on Twitter but there’s so much AI grifting and misery and hate in that place. LinkedIn is a parody of itself at this point. Bluesky feels reasonably cosy but way too much of a bubble. The community isn’t there. The forums are dead, the new Discord is quiet.