La 4ème Dimension ouvre une annexe à la préfecture de Bobigny
août 29, 2008 – 10:37
English version coming soon !
Une journée avec SquEEE
août 17, 2008 – 1:28I’ve spent the last 3 weeks complaining about my EEE 901’s keyboard, and suddenly realized it was time to take the matter into my own hands and work intensely on the machine to get used to this keyboard instea of continuously whining about it. So from today until about the end of next week, I’m going to spend as much time as possible working on this Borrowers-sized keyboard until I can type with it decently. After all, getting used to American keyboards during my most recent trips didn’t take more than a few day so things should go just fine, right ?
Vous reprendrez bien un peu de paracorde ?
août 7, 2008 – 11:21A few years ago, as I was spending my very first summer as an of-age, responsible young man behind the registers of supermarket franchise Carrefour to pay for university (they say it builds character), I had found THE perfect messenger bag, the ultimate companion in all my adventures, a Rica Lewis shoulderbag the likes of which you can’t find anymore. It went to a happier place after many years of loyal services no matter how much I tried to patch it, an unfortunate event that left me searching for a replacement that I might eventually find somewhere, someday…My laptop backpack from Targus stood up to the task for a few years, but it just didn’t feel the same - and then at some point during Christina’s parents’ stay, I found a little store selling traveling luggage : and there it was, the successor, the reincarnation, the long-awaited replacement !
But it came with the meanest piece of cheap plastic as a shoulder protection. So I whipped out the paracord, a pair of scissors, macramé patterns…And here’s the result !
First picture : the upper part of the shoulder protection, composed of four cobra stitches braided into the sides of the shoulder protection. If you don’t know how to make cobra stitches, keep in mind you’re only one-click away from Instructables !
Second picture : the lower part of the shoulder protection, braided following a macramé pattern found on a dutch site (thanks to a comment on Stormdrane’s blog, paracord-braider extraordinaire).
it was not very comfortable at first, because brand new paracord can be very rigid. But after one week of intensive carrying around, the paracord got much softer and now that it’s done, no problem, it’s very nice not to have your shoulder being cut into by a cheap piece of plastic and being able to carry around one’s stuff all over the place.
With all this talk of shoulder bags and messenger bags, I feel one step closer to Sarah Jessica Parker. Go figure !
Le beau temps du mois d’Août…
août 7, 2008 – 3:07Yesterday evening, while Christina and I were heading for the local sushi stop, I was explaining that the month of August is easily the hottest month in the French year : whatever Météo France will say, this is that always what springs to mind when someone mentions the last month of the summer vacation around me. And unsurprisingly enough, early this morning (around half past 5 to be precise), we woke up to the sound of lightning and thunder ! Since the weather today hasn’t cleared up and the sky is still spitting on us, we’re staying home with tuna sandwiches and summer veggies salads, each of us working on their own stuff. Which means…Let’s hop on Google Reader and face the wave of feeds waiting since last I logged in.
In the end, I’ve spent 2 or 3 hours browsing through more than 900 posts from a variety of sources. When that happens, I just can’t find the patience to read everything : I have to make a selection, and I believe it’s the same for all of us. First, I tend to focus on information from sites that haven’t updated much while I was away ; then, I open the links to source articles that inspired articles I find especially interesting, and finally cross-reference news items that have been mentioned in a variety of news sites to get an idea of the big news items in the last few weeks before investigating those that tickle my fancy a little further.
And that would be when you ask “And what did you find this time ?”, you curious little monsters. Let’s take a look at what we have today !
Soundbadge is a small site that, based on a few details about you, will create a custom musical tune that describes you for you to use on your blog/website/MySpace/Facebook/you get the idea. Nice, and a little reminiscent of Wordle.
Zombie Harmony because, after all, love is not only for the living and the vampires ! I’m a big fan oh zombie and undead horror movies, for two reasons : I find them funny, and in case a zombie invasion ever happens, at least I’ll be prepared. Now go and find your undead soulmate !
The little ARG that failed - These last few weeks, there’s been a sort of controversy on the planet of social media. it all started with a very interesting rant against Alternate Reality Games on io9. Then more recently, that same site drew the conclusions from its own experimental ARG in this article. Go and take a look at it, think about it, and we’ll get back to it very soon.
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-along blog - Yes, I’m a Joss Whedon fanboy, so what ? Go and watch this 43-minutes long musical about a mad scientist that pays a very, very dear price to obtain what he always wanted to get…And so you can make yourself an idea of how annoying a self-centered super hero can be !
That’s it for today. See ya !
P.S. : The English version of this post will be a little delayed, I need to go and get my new camera from the post office !
P.P.S : All done !
Vous pouvez maintenant reprendre vos activités habituelles !
août 6, 2008 – 4:31Now that Christina’s parents are on their way back to the US, and that my own parents are back respectively southern France and India, everybody can go back to their own daily routine. As far as I am concerned, that means I gets to post on this blog more often (who knows, maybe I’ll be able to do it as well as Spinélie) and resume working on my truth is summer projects : CDImagination, a memorial DVD project for the Find the Lost Ring alternate reality game… I have quite a list.
I’m going to start by translating all the posts that didn’t get that treatment these past few weeks due to a lack of time. Once this is taken care of, we’ll be able to keep moving on.
Deux mois plus tard…
juillet 13, 2008 – 4:08There we go, two months without writing on this blog, it’s a new record !
Don’t go thinking I haven’t been up to anything these last past two months. Caught between the gripping life of a teacher-librarian (do go take a look at my other site, CDImagination.net, with real chunks of National Education Ministry in it) and a few projects for which I’ve had the pleasure to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement, for the acronym-challenged), I have no real time to get bored.
Of course, all this only brings us to late June at best, the date when our students rush to enjoy the summer vacation. Since then ? Well since I’m a good old otaku at heart, I went to attend Japan Expo 9th Impact so I could stand in line for a collector Maliki album (that I ended up not getting, ran out of stock around 11h45 sharp), and seeing friends at the miKu Collection/Wam booth (more preciselie Ophélie, and Spinélie and Amandine of Parapara Angels fame) and the OR-Games as well as a few others who, even if they’re far from the Web, are never too far from one’s heart.
But most importantly, ah…Two attempts at giant hikes through Paris, participating into the Alternate Reality Game Find the Lost Ring - know what I’m talking about ? The game where blindfolded amnesiacs run through labyrinths without bumping into the walls ! - that must amount to about a hundred kilometers distributed on two days. The first attempt on Friday the 4th of July was a complete failure, and I think things would have taken the exact same path without the help of BlueScreenJunky, an long-time fellow of rhythm games fame. So Junky, if you’re reading this…Thanks again ! For those of you who werent’t there, you can download the data of our walk, with pictures included, right there. Tracksticks aren’t so bad after all, even when they die on you several times in one day !
And on this, back to chilling out and watching DVD with Mrs. Christina. Cheers !
Merci le Tanooki !
mai 9, 2008 – 3:58Ever heard of ego surfing ? Apparently, it’s a sport that’s based on having a bunch of search engines looking up your name all together at the same time to try and rate how famous you are on the Internet - I had heard about this a few years ago, but don’t spend my time looking myself up : these last few weeks I’ve been trying to increase the visibility of my websites instead :p This morning, in the middle of the feeds I get in my reader, I found a toolthat aims at making ego-surfing, Addictomatic.
For once I gave in and what do I see ? The Super Mario Bros. pop-up card was featured back in January on The Tanooki ! A very nice surprise, since I never even knew before this morning…I’ve got to admit, when someone mentions your work, it really makes you feel good. Thanks to the Tanooki team, and…Well, I’ll try to make more pop-up cards like these, since people like them !
Mai 2008
mai 2, 2008 – 9:50There we go, 40 years after May 1968. Quite the birthday, huh ?
Personnally, I don’t really realize all that May 1968 has brought to the modern French society. I was born in 1979, long time after the big wave of changes and by that time, the “grand revolutions” brought up by the student movement had apparently become part of everyone’s everyday life. Of course, when you’re not here to see witness the transition between one “age” and another, it’s not really easy to take a step back and consider the situation, hm ? One can always work from what other people say, of course, but that is a little complicated as well, especially for such an anniversary_ish occasion : from idealistic testimonies missing an era that branded them forever to the comments of politicians that make the student revolutions from a few decades ago responsible for the ills of today’s society, it’s not very easy to choose one’s side.
And anyway, I’m not a big fan of manichean positions : I’d rather trade that for a balance between the two extremes, it’s so much better for health. There is good and less than good in everything we do and I believe that whatever shook France 40 years ago has had its good as well as bad sides - one shouldn’t imagine things were too perfect, one way or another. On the other hand, I can perfectly react to what people say today, and ask questions. For example today, on France 2, a former member of the Medvedkine groups was reminiscing that from May 68 onwards, a worker’s child would be able to get the same education than children from more favored social classes. It’s a good thing in itself, the higher the number of smart people in a human society and the more likely the possibility for said society to be balanced, prosperous and able to live in peace with itself and its neighbours.
Back in those days however, instruction was a synonym of climbing up the social ladder. Today it seems like it is no longer the case - is it because the education we try to give our students has changed, is it because the world has become more demanding and social climbing become equally harder ? Is it because our students don’t produce the necessary efforts to make something out of the education we’re trying to give them ? A little bit of all three at the same time ? There are so many reasons why things might have gone wrong that one could spend hours dissecting them all, and one little note in the blog of a young suburbs teacher is certainly going to change things, after four years spent dueling windmills.
But we’ll have to try and understand so the Titanic doesn’t completely sink, one spoonful of salty water at the time, right ? Alright, enough for tonight - Monday is going to be return-to-school day after a very nice vacation shared between Epinay and Paris. And good luck to all of our aspiring CAPES mates !