pages tagged technologyhroy.euhttps://hroy.eu/tags/technology/hroy.euikiwiki2023-10-30T21:09:31ZUnderstanding Technologyhttps://hroy.eu/posts/understandingTechnology/2023-10-30T19:54:26Z2015-09-09T12:27:57Z
A collection of links to articles that can help anyone understand technology today.<hr><br><p>A collection of links to <a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/longreads/">great articles</a>
(in <a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/lang:en/">English</a>) that can help anyone understand
<span class="selflink">technology</span> today. I will update this post
from time to time, so <a
href="https://hroy.eu/tags/understandingTech/index.atom">subscribe to the feed to get
updates</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a
href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/group-rules-web">On HTML5
and the Group That Rules the Web — The New Yorker</a><br /> Paul Ford,
Nov 2014 <a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/web/">#Web</a> <a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/W3C/">#W3C</a></p></li>
<li><p><a
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-code/">What
<em>is</em> Code? — Bloomberg</a><br /> Paul Ford, June 2015
<a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/software/">#software</a></p></li>
<li><p><a
href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html">Code Is Law,
On Liberty in Cyberspace — Harvard Magazine</a><br /> Lawrence Lessig,
Jan 2000 <a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/networkNeutrality/">#network
Neutrality</a></p></li>
<li><p><a
href="https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe">Dizzying
but invisible depth</a> <br /> Jean-Baptiste
Quéru<a href="https://hroy.eu/tags/software/">#software</a></p></li>
<li><p><a
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-digital-society.en.html">A Free
Digital Society: What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad? —
GNU.org</a><br /> Richard Stallman, Oct 2011</p></li>
</ul>
<p>If you have suggestions for articles that you think belong here, feel
free to share them with me.</p>
Mais qui est donc Madame Michu?https://hroy.eu/posts/madame-michu/2023-10-30T21:08:07Z2014-03-28T12:11:18Z
<p><strong>Madame Michu</strong> — Personne fictive, purement
abstractive, parfois abusivement prise comme une réalité, désignant
celle qui est d’un certain âge et qui n’a ni prédisposition ni
expérience particulières dans un domaine, tel que par exemple les
technologies informatiques.</p>
<hr />
<p>« Madame Michu » n’existe pas réellement, c’est une évidence. C’est
une fiction, prise pour une réalité, c’est-à-dire une hypostase comme on
en trouve de nombreuses en droit par exemple : le « bon père de
famille » en droit civil français, « l’homme du métier » en droit des
brevets, etc.</p>
<p>Madame Michu, c’est <strong>juste un utilisateur</strong> pour
paraphraser Ted Nelson. Elle est à l’extrémité du spectre de
l’utilisateur, à l’autre bout duquel se trouve l’<a
href="http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/">utilisateur-Turing</a>.</p>
<p>De ce fait, avoir recours à cette notion peut être utile pour tenter
d’imaginer comment une technologie ou une technique seraient
potentiellement reçues ou utilisées par une partie de la population. Si,
en cela, l’emploi de cette expression n’a pas nécessairement l’objectif
de dénigrer, force est de constater qu’on a rarement recours à son
pendant masculin. Monsieur Michu existe encore moins que Madame. Cette
féminisation est-elle toujours utile et pertinente ?</p>
<hr />
<p>Synonymes : profane, béotien, l’utilisateur⋅ice lambda</p>
A Turing complete userhttps://hroy.eu/posts/im-a-turing-complete-user/2023-10-30T21:09:31Z2014-02-28T23:00:00Z
<p>I like to consider myself a <a
href="http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/">Turing
complete user</a>. This is a concept I discovered in a <a
href="http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/">fascinating
essay</a> written by <a
href="http://art.teleportacia.org/olia.html">Olia Lialina</a> on the
<em>concept of users</em> in computing, and the trend best embodied by
Apple to destroy users and all they stand for.</p>
<p>I guess on of the reasons I liked the article is that I totally
recognise myself in this concept of Turing complete user. But I also
find a little bit sad that this is not a widespread species.</p>
<table class="img">
<caption>
<em>“A scientist of the Future”</em> Title picture of Vanevar Bush’s “As
we make think” from Life magazine, 1945
</caption>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="https://hroy.eu/posts/im-a-turing-complete-user/scientist.jpg"><img src="https://hroy.eu/posts/im-a-turing-complete-user/scientist.jpg" width="500" height="336" class="img" /></a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>But I can’t believe it’s going to stay that way indefinitely.
Eventually maybe people are going to stop putting up with how bad their
computers respond to them and start doing something about it. Maybe
<a class="toggle" href="https://hroy.eu/tags/technology/#posts-im-a-turing-complete-user.lifecam">Jan-Christoph</a>
should start a series: “I hate technology.”</p>
<div id="posts-im-a-turing-complete-user.lifecam" class="toggleable">
</div>
I just noticed how it’s funny that [Jan’s homepage][jcborh] currently
features a <a
href="http://jancborchardt.net/img/2010-06-14-web.jpg">collage</a> of
pictures taken for 24 hours while he was wearing a camera on his chest.
Do you see the resemblance with the picture chosen by Olia to represent
the user?
<div class="toggleableend">
</div>
<p>One step towards this is this excellent project, <a
href="http://revealingerrors.com/">Revealing errors</a>.</p>
<p>Anyway, I encourage you to read the <a
href="http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/">essay</a>
or if that’s more your style there’s a video from the last CCC in
Hamburg:</p>
<figure class="video">
<figcaption>
<a
href="http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5547_-_en_-_saal_6_-_201312281730_-_turing_complete_user_-_olia_lialina.html">Turing
Complete User</a> <small>What can be done to protect the term, the
notion and the existence of the Users?</small> <br /><br /> <a
href="https://hroy.eu//cdn.media.ccc.de/congress/2013/webm/30c3-5547-en-Turing_Complete_User_webm.webm">Direct
link to the video</a>
</figcaption>
<video controls="" style="width:100%;">
<source
src="//cdn.media.ccc.de/congress/2013/webm/30c3-5547-en-Turing_Complete_User_webm.webm"
type="video/webm; codecs="vp8, vorbis"">
</video>
</figure>
<hr />
<p>Related: <a
href="https://github.com/hugoroy/user-data-manifesto/blob/master/Manifesto.md">the
user data manifesto</a> (my draft for version 2, feedback welcome)</p>
We need another Hacker Newshttps://hroy.eu/posts/new-hacker-news/2023-10-30T21:07:32Z2013-09-21T22:00:00Z
<p>I stumbled upon a Wired article <a
href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6417084">on Hacker News</a>
this morning, explaining how bitcoin could help homeless people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The bitcoin system could become an equalizer for the country’s
homeless, a place where the stigma of living on the streets isn’t as
pronounced.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The article shows three persons sitting on the floor with dogs and
laptops.</p>
<p>I started reading Morozov’s <a
href="http://clickherethebook.com/">“To Save everything Click Here”</a>
and I thought it was kind of sad that this article wasn’t published
<em>before</em> the book was released. I’m sure Morozov would have had
some brilliant way to depict how insanely absurd this is.
<a class="toggle" href="https://hroy.eu/tags/technology/#posts-new-hacker-news.save-everything">↓↓↓</a></p>
<div id="posts-new-hacker-news.save-everything" class="toggleable">
</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p>
I've suspected this all along: Bitcoin is just an underground government
welfare program for the homeless.
</p>
— Evgeny Morozov (<span class="citation"
data-cites="evgenymorozov">@evgenymorozov</span>) <a
href="https://twitter.com/evgenymorozov/statuses/382164506534608896">September
23, 2013</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="https://hroy.eu//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"
charset="utf-8"></script>
I had to stop reading it when I really had to focus on the bar written
exams which was this week. So far, I liked it a lot and I really
recommend it. I suppose I’ll write a short review soon.
<div class="toggleableend">
</div>
<p>The article was featured on Hacker News. I find this website less and
less interesting. It has its own cycles. For some time, I think the
website should really have been renamed “Startup News.” But now, I don’t
even think that’s what it is any more. I can’t really tell.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I feel that I really lost interest in it. I started
enjoying RSS again when I discovered Feedbin.me (which was recently
published as free software ☺ <a
href="https://github.com/feedbin/feedbin">on github</a>) but this is a
very different kind of source for reading than communities like hacker
news can be.</p>
<p>So I feel like somebody should start a replacement for hacker news.
Maybe something more focused on actual hackery. Why not something else
more focused on political and technological discussions, on software
freedom and larger subjects related to technology and freedom (which are
both at the centre of what hacking means to me).</p>
<p>I had a look at Lamer News, a hacker news clone based on ruby using
redis for handling data. I tried deploying it to heroku but it didn’t
work for me ☹. I will investigate this later. If you’re interested,
please <a href="http://hugoroy.eu/index.en.html#email">get in
touch</a>.</p>
<p>PS: In case you didn’t know, there’s a way to get the best out of
Hacker News. First, go to your profile settings and enable the
noprocrast option which prevents you from procrastinating too much (the
feature is explained in the FAQ). Second, change your bookmark and go
read the best: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/best"
class="uri">https://news.ycombinator.com/best</a> and eventually leave
the rest. (The fact that the “best” of HN is so bad these days is a sign
that the overall quality has really degraded IMHO).</p>