COVID-19: Winning the War, but Losing All the Battles
It's been more than two months since I wanted to write a follow-up to my previous comments on this pandemic, and I never got beyond the title. I finally decided to put a few things there,…
Language Learning Apps, Revisited: 34 Products + Bonus Links
More than three years ago, I discussed a few apps meant to help you learn a foreign language; while I still believe the best way to learn a language is to use printed manuals with audio…
How to download full-size scans from Gallica.BnF.fr
Online since 1997, Gallica is the digital library of the National Library of France (Bibliothèque nationale de France) and its partners. Among the 4 million available documents, some are scanned newspapers, magazines, and other publications that…
The Last Sleep of the Civilization Part II
In the first part of this series, it was about COVID-19. But the symptoms of the impending death of our civilizations include another one, which was visible for quite some time—but the political correctness managed to…
The Last Sleep of the Civilization Part I
I'm breaking the radio silence out of rage. So much stupidity while living “in the best of times” is unbearable. Given that I gave up any social media presence, here I am, ranting on my personal…
The Sorry State… and the Quick Fix
I was indeed wasting my time: there is a classic answer to the question “what if I want to run Linux instead of Windows on my laptop or desktop PC?” The whole time wasted with what…
Modern Times, Here I (Slowly) Run Away From You
Four months ago, I said I'll switch from Windows 7 to a pure Linux machine. At some point, I said I'll install Neptune (basically Debian 10 with a few tweaks), but here I am, still hesitating.…
Le Twitter des cons
I've given up Facebook long ago; now I have the proof that Twitter isn't any better anymore. A little social experiment proved to be "the last straw" (so to speak). Even as I have little motivation…
When Italian Design rhymes with kitsch
“Italian Design” is synonymous with good taste when used as a qualifier for clothing or cars. How about Linux distros? I'm afraid the things can be very, very different in such a case. Ever since I…
Don’t trust the magazines on choosing an OCR
This covidiocy is so alienating that I wasn't in the mood of writing anything. Better late than never, a few notes on the free OCR software, simply because a stupid British magazine pissed me off. There…
73 Minutes That Define Linux on the Desktop Today—Rather Depressingly
I must be nuts to dedicate a blog post to a videocast by Bryan Lunduke, but there's a good reason for that. For the first time ever, I'm glad YouTube suggested me this particular video. Glad…
KDE and Debian aren’t exactly my cup of tea; or should they?
I'm disillusioned although not dispassionate about everything that's software; but when one sees the catastrophic crap that is Win10, whatever might be wrong in Linuxland becomes almost acceptable. Why are we still using Windows? Five weeks…
Linux Intermezzo: Buggy Indeed, But Win10 Is Worse
Some time ago I said to myself that I should definitely switch to Linux. Returning from Win7 to Win10 in the times of a pathetic 2004 (but which Windows update isn't buggy like hell?) isn't particularly…
In omaggio a John Peter Sloan (1969-2020)
Sono nato inglese ma morirò italiano, said five years ago the most famous language teacher in Italy. Nobody thought though that this would happen so soon. Here's a text I wrote more than one year ago,…
Mon héros, le Pr Didier Raoult
Entretien exclusif accordé à Apolline de Malherbe, sur BFMTV, diffusé le soir du 30 avril. On y trouve énormément de bon sens, et également du savoir. On en apprend beaucoup. Vers la fin, le professeur nous…
End of World Diary N°4: Le monde est tellement con, yet the future is interesting
I hesitated quite some time before starting this post—more than three weeks, actually. The world seems so stupid—in some regards, even more stupid than it was in the Middle Ages—that it's simply pointless for me to…
Back to China
Qihoo 360, which now offers even a vacuum cleaner, and an expensive one at that; and whose antivirus is hated or at least not trusted by many. And yet, I've returned to it. I'll keep using…
End of World Diary N°3: China Just Won
These days 99% of everything seems to be about Covid-19; when it isn't, it's even worse: staying of home has revealed our weaknesses, and our expression in the social media is now a mix of poor…
I really don’t have what to do at home
That is, not counting the thousands of e-books, the thousands of scanned comic books, the thousands of movies (MKV/MP4/AVI), of music (MP3), etc. Tens of thousands of each. Oh, and most of my books are in…
Beyond the Point of No Return: We’re Losing the Battle
Not only it's "not just a flu," but we're going to lose the battle: instead of taking stronger measures than China, we're babbling here in the "civilized" West. It's not just Italy, and Spain, and Germany,…