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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
I really don’t have what to do at home #lockdown
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…
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…
2020: The Year The World Ended
Friday 13 sounds like the best day for expressing some thoughts regarding the state of the world in the times of the COVID-19 outbreak. (And yes, I know: there is…
Internet Radio, Mon Amour
Listening to dozens of Internet radio streams is my contribution to increasing the carbon footprint. But it's not my fault that everything now is using Internet bandwidth--YouTube videos, Smart TVs,…
24-Hour Shifts: A Planet of Fools
Since I already posted today on an issue involving both logic and common sense, here's another one, in the context of a human tragedy in Romania where it has been…
What divides the Internet is not math
They swear by their PhD in maths or by their experience as a software developer. They invoke PEMDAS or BODMAS as the correct order of operations. Some of them admit…
Choosing the right poison
About one week ago I had exactly 50 types of tea at home. By tea, I don't only understand black-oolong-green-white tea, but also the various plant infusions that are actually…
24 h with Huorong, a week with Comodo 12, a year with Bitdefender 2019 (or not)
While not being that much in the mood for writing, I had to clarify that I put a halt on my CCAV journey. It worked well, but I wanted to…
Living Dangerously: CCAV 2.0 Beta
While I recommended Kaspersky Security Cloud Free to everyone—wife and friends included—as a much better choice than Kaspersky Free Antivirus (for it's much more customizable), I don't use it anymore…
The day the Chinese puzzles took over
I'm really furious when people don't bother to look for the original source of whatever they're posting on the Internet (I feel I have a duty). I'm also angry at…
Should you live with no sense of smell…
...you'd be missing quite a lot. I happen to be a person to whom the olfactory and the tactile senses are crucial—not that I could imagine myself blind or deaf,…