Nostr notes by ploum

It looks like #Proton CEO is trying to be a ...

2026-10-30T20:23:56Z

It looks like #Proton CEO is trying to be a Techbro-billionnaire-CEO but without the billions and without understanding that it’s core supporters are the people fleeing techbros.

He probably spend too much time with its chatbot.

People who find LLMs useful when "used correctly" don’t ...

2026-10-14T15:33:16Z

People who find LLMs useful when "used correctly" don’t understand that they manage to use them correctly because they spent 20 years of there life learning their craft without LLMs.

LLMs is the only tool for which the less you use it, the better you become at using it.

I’ve read today a contributor to an open source project says, ...

2026-10-14T13:54:40Z

I’ve read today a contributor to an open source project says, in substance: "If generated code is accepted in the project, I will stop contributing because I don’t want to spend time trying to understand the code in order to contribute just to see it changed the next generated commit".

Accepting generated code, even with mild rail guards, is a Pandora box way scarier than you think.

It is not a question of purity, it is a question of keeping your project alive.

https://ploum.net/2026-10-01-pascal_wager.html

Nostr event nevent1qqs82zcjthl4svputpe3qeh76qkuyvpc4qfhkhfyqmr7kuljgf0ys2qzyqlkmgdg0jd763n45v335xj0s2rqzmn0vqxy2nw95gf25f8yx0346r8c02c

2026-10-11T19:40:02Z

RE: https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qxudeqrdbv6676vzjssrhllo/post/3mxmnl2jz2c24

Les datas centers Russes s’éteignent et, soudainement, « l’engagement » sur les comptes réseaux sociaux d’extrême droite disparait.

Non, la majorité n’est pas fasciste.

Mais la majorité aime se rallier à la majorité.

Il suffit de lui faire croire que la majorité est fasciste.

On a justement construit des algorithmes centralisés qui servent à ça (au départ par pure motivation publicitaire mais, tant qu’à faire…)

C’est aussi simple que ça.

quoting
note1xtk…kg2s

We’ve been talking about this for years.

None of these far-right movements are organic.
https://matsutake.us-west.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:qxudeqrdbv6676vzjssrhllo&cid=bafkreiefxwmt6pelhjfjgwqqmryzynbnc56vaziojxxxxiijbjhkqhgkk4

A software always runs on a computer. A software always do what ...

2026-10-06T12:33:02Z

A software always runs on a computer. A software always do what its creator wants it to do.

If the software doesn’t do what its creator wanted, it is a mistake from the coder, a bug.

If the software runs without the consent of the computer’s owner, it is a malware/virus.

Stopping a software is as easy as shutting down the computer on which it is running.

Terminator and Mission Impossible are hollywood fiction, there’s no such thing as "rogue software".

: you know what seems to have helped a bit? Next to my email, on ...

2026-10-04T08:18:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…8n5d
_________________________

: you know what seems to have helped a bit?

Next to my email, on my contact list, I wrote that "mails should be send by humans else they will be marked as spam, I don’t accept generated emails".

I then tried to have an agent send me an email and it replied "Ploum is asking human only email, you should probably write it yourself"

(I’m sure it would do it given a few prompting but that’s probably enough to stop most of it right now)

: (I felt for the first one because it summarized my book without ...

2026-10-03T22:14:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…kapj
_________________________

: (I felt for the first one because it summarized my book without proposing anything. I thought it was a genuine reader who had asked a chatbot to send me an appreciation email.

So I replied "Don’t use a chatbot to write me an email, tell me what you want"

And then I received a very long generated apologize "You are right, I should have been upfront about what I was offering" with a PR offer.

So the email address was directly connected with the bot itself!

What could go wrong?

: for me, it’s AI-generated "Your book is so good, it ...

2026-10-03T22:12:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…s5jv
_________________________

: for me, it’s AI-generated "Your book is so good, it should be more widely known, hire us to to facebook/instagram PR"

The funny thing is that most of the email is basically summarizing my books, sometimes up to 10 paragraphs.

Nobody would ever summarize a book to its author ;-)

I see a lot of potential behind @npub17gp…nrxn decentralized ...

2026-10-02T09:24:44Z

I see a lot of potential behind Delta Chat (npub17gp…nrxn) decentralized model (which, unlike XMPP, is not federated).

And given the enthusiasm for my own channel, it seems I’m not alone.

Try it out, here are some channels:

https://support.delta.chat/t/collecting-a-list-of-all-public-broadcast-channels/5427

But I want people who try it to be conscious about current limitations so I’ve listed them here:

https://support.delta.chat/t/what-are-actual-delta-chat-limitations/5845

(you can contribute by login into the forum with your #deltachat account, which is awesome. True decentralized identity!)

The AI Pascal’s Wager Should you accept contributions generated ...

2026-09-30T22:28:05Z

The AI Pascal’s Wager

Should you accept contributions generated by LLMs in your Open Source project?

https://ploum.net/2026-10-01-pascal_wager.html

: wow, that’s simply awesome. But you mean that other ...

2026-09-30T15:43:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…4006
_________________________

: wow, that’s simply awesome.

But you mean that other alternative firmware are all "vibecoded"?

I posted on the forum why I believe that @npub17gp…nrxn has ...

2026-09-30T12:52:38Z

I posted on the forum why I believe that Delta Chat (npub17gp…nrxn) has everything to gain from adopting a strong anti-LLM policy and nearly nothing to lose.

The "pragmatic" approach seems to be strongly anti-AI when you try to be "rationale"

But I realize just now that this could apply to many other projects. I’m looking at you, #debian :debian:

https://support.delta.chat/t/any-official-position-on-the-use-of-ai/5039/104?u=ploum

#deltachat

J’ai eu mon premier appel audio sur @npub17gp…nrxn avec ...

2026-09-29T15:44:41Z

J’ai eu mon premier appel audio sur Delta Chat (npub17gp…nrxn) avec [@tirodem](https://mastodon.social/@tirodem ) je suis désormais les canaux de sebsauvage (npub1c8k…7qgu) et de Bruno Leyval (npub1g6p…4vem) , j’ai des discussions avec des contacts.

Bref, alors que je voulais simplement tester, je commence à utiliser DeltaChat pour de vrai ! Et c’est plus léger/rapide que Signal (npub1rkw…5q62) (bon, ça reste encore assez expérimental par bien des aspects).

Plusieurs lecteurs me disent suivre désormais Ploum.net principalement via mon canal:

https://i.delta.chat/#91463CBFF4BCD07D20261E63F5E92D0A56AC4855&v=3&x=xQ6o22jLIE3VA74lglvdp759&j=WTPA7GYIKeYUTfGlopTmeqBO&s=Q-UqlLM_-BA0U0zLEc6Q9Kbb&a=aef1ac7iv%40nine.testrun.org&n=Ploum&b=Ploum.net

#deltachat

: #snac is really fascinating. I wonder if minimalist people ...

2026-09-27T11:13:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…q6yw
_________________________

: #snac is really fascinating.

I wonder if minimalist people could use it to completely replace their Mastodon use, in the long term too (maintainance, keeping up with changes in API, etc)

RE: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/117325137427138728 Just take ...

2026-09-24T10:10:35Z

RE: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/117325137427138728

Just take some time to understand that a lot of the "magic" and "creativity" of chatbots is basically hardcoded. Thousands of humans wrote it.

The AI hype is basically ELIZA 2.0 powered by a nuclear plant.

quoting
note1dq3…ggey

THE FUCKING "CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTIONS" IDEA THAT WON OVER THE NYTIMES JOURNALIST IS FUCKING HARDCODED. ALL THE IDEAS ARE FUCKING HARDCODED. AGI IS HERE BABY!!!!!!

#muse #meta #AIIsGoingGreat #AGI #AGITODAYBABY

Je découvre sur un laptop Ubuntu que Libreoffice est désormais ...

2026-09-18T13:14:17Z

Je découvre sur un laptop Ubuntu que Libreoffice est désormais un paquet Snap qui ne peut pas sauver de fichiers autre part que dans le répertoire snap.

Faut vraiment que je passe tout à Debian. Le temps où Ubuntu était quand même plus facile pour les débutants est définitivement révolu !

: nan mais c’est totalement excellent ! Ça me donne envie que ...

2026-09-16T20:06:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…mud7
_________________________

: nan mais c’est totalement excellent !

Ça me donne envie que vous repreniez la BD à deux mains, c’était hyper fendard !

J’ai parfois l’impression sur le fait qu’il faut enfoncer ...

2026-09-15T11:35:51Z

J’ai parfois l’impression sur le fait qu’il faut enfoncer le clou encore et encore : l’Europe est un laboratoire incroyable de développement des technologies numériques.

On est juste mauvais à en faire des monopoles commerciaux qui exploitent les utilisateurs.

Et c’est une excellente nouvelel ! On ne veut pas d’un Google européen mais de participation aux communs.

https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.html

I sometimes feel the need to repeat again and again that the EU ...

2026-09-15T11:33:19Z

I sometimes feel the need to repeat again and again that the EU is very good at developing technology but is bad at creating commercial monopolies out of it.

And it is a f*** good thing! We don’t want an "European Google"

https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.html

Soyez humains, communiquez ! Pourquoi le moindre humain écrira ...

2026-09-14T09:23:10Z

Soyez humains, communiquez !

Pourquoi le moindre humain écrira toujours mieux que le chatbot le plus perfectionné.

https://ploum.net/2026-09-14-ecrire_et_ia.html

: I’ve been using this metaphor as "doing AI is ...

2026-09-11T11:59:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…wq43
_________________________

: I’ve been using this metaphor as "doing AI is intellectual masturbation":

https://ploum.net/2026-08-17-onanisme_ia.html

But I’ve received numerous complaint that masturbation is, in fact, a good thing and that we should talk about it more openly ;-)

So I changed it to "your weird sexual fetish" in the English version :

https://ploum.net/2026-09-09-ai_policy.html

But, still, some people don’t like the analogy. So be careful !

J’ai posté ma politique IA : "je ne veux pas interagir ...

2026-09-10T06:37:37Z

J’ai posté ma politique IA : "je ne veux pas interagir avec l’IA, ni directement, ni à travers des humains"

https://ploum.net/2026-09-09-ai_policy.html

(à noter que ce billet à été "flaggué" par les modérateurs de Hacker News comme ne respectant pas les règles du site. Intéressant, non ?)

c’est en anglais mais ça reprend essentiellement le billet suivant :

https://ploum.net/2026-08-17-onanisme_ia.html

Hacker News homepage is mostly AI announcement. My latest blog ...

2026-09-09T19:19:10Z

Hacker News homepage is mostly AI announcement. My latest blog post, which is anti-AI, was posted there (not by me), quickly gained traction then disappeared from the home page while older post with less votes where still there.

I don’t feel it is any conspiracy but there’s probably some keywords or mod flagging. Or maybe anti-AI people are so quick to click that they are mistakenly seen as "organized voting".

Anyway, I still have lobste.rs and tilde.news invites!

https://ploum.net/2026-09-09-ai_policy.html

My AI policy is "I don’t want any kind of interaction with ...

2026-09-09T16:39:26Z

My AI policy is "I don’t want any kind of interaction with that thing." And this should be all you need to know.

https://ploum.net/2026-09-09-ai_policy.html

My novel "Bikepunk" is a post-apocalyptic ecological ...

2026-09-07T08:56:32Z

My novel "Bikepunk" is a post-apocalyptic ecological cyclo-story described by Belgian TV as "Madmax with bikes". As there’s no electricity in the book, it was entirely written on a mechanical typewriter. Fuck AI!

In order to convince publishers, I need to have an idea on who would buy an English translation of the novel.

Boost this toot to get 50 extra-watts during your next bike ride!

Of course, #bikepunk is already available in French and, very soon, in Spanish.

https://bikepunk.fr/

Expérience : un canal #deltachat sur lequel j’annoncerai les ...

2026-08-26T20:41:57Z

Expérience : un canal #deltachat sur lequel j’annoncerai les nouveaux billets de blog :

https://i.delta.chat/#91463CBFF4BCD07D20261E63F5E92D0A56AC4855&v=3&x=xQ6o22jLIE3VA74lglvdp759&j=WTPA7GYIKeYUTfGlopTmeqBO&s=aa6cgz_1UkihgnCjvURqz3lo&a=aef1ac7iv%40nine.testrun.org&n=Ploum&b=Ploum.net

Pour celleux qui n’aiment ni le RSS ni la mailing-liste. Je suis pas certain que ce soit utile mais je suis assez fan de Delta Chat alors j’essaye ! C’est l’occastion de tester.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@BenjaminHCCarr/117133958336999789 ...

2026-08-21T18:06:16Z

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@BenjaminHCCarr/117133958336999789

"AI is just a tool, you need to be critical when using it".

Also:

"AI is designed in such a way that it inhibits critical thinking"

: I’m still confused if I should recommend Arcane chat or the ...

2026-08-21T13:06:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…5mke
_________________________

: I’m still confused if I should recommend Arcane chat or the original Delta Chat (npub17gp…nrxn) to the family.

Delta-chat is more coherent if people were to use a desktop version.

Why would non-geeks prefer Arcane?

From an end-user perspective, without consideration for security ...

2026-08-20T21:36:24Z

From an end-user perspective, without consideration for security or network effect, which Whatsapp features are missing from:

1. #Signal - Signal (npub1rkw…5q62)

2. #Deltachat - Delta Chat (npub17gp…nrxn)

3. #ArcaneChat - ArcaneChat (npub1zl3…pq2t)

So, if all your friends were suddenly with all 4 apps on their phone, which one will they eventually end up using? And why?

Avec toutes les canicules, les sécheresses et les incendies, je ...

2026-08-19T17:15:54Z

Avec toutes les canicules, les sécheresses et les incendies, je me demandais où étaient passées les masses d’eau de la planète.

Réponse : elles sont dans mon jardin depuis ce matin.

Oui, c’est la mousson en Belgique !

Belgium’s weather forecaster: till 2025: "It will rain ...

2026-08-17T09:48:24Z

Belgium’s weather forecaster:

till 2025:

"It will rain tomorrow"

in 2026:

"Hopefully, it will rain tomorrow"

See the difference ?

You don’t understand how culturally significant it is. We, Belgians, have been educated to complain about the rain all the time. I’ve never, ever heard someone being happy about it. Until this year…

: ptêtre que le vélo de la maman est électrique et pas celui ...

2026-08-15T13:00:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…cg3x
_________________________

: ptêtre que le vélo de la maman est électrique et pas celui du papa ?

Nostr event nevent1qqsp84kt7gqw5563zxulyx0xrdhwlsytg0erksadtlgnkwwed3tm4sszyqlkmgdg0jd763n45v335xj0s2rqzmn0vqxy2nw95gf25f8yx0346kj9mgc

2026-08-12T05:55:42Z

RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@grumpygamer/117080711335430237

Am I the only Monkey Island fan who think that it would be awesome to have Ron Gilbert on PeerTube (npub17gp…7p4g) ?

(Thimbleweed Park 1 was really awesome, I’m really happy that there will be a 2)

quoting
note133p…pklk

Exclusive for Mastodon users: https://blog2.thimbleweedpark.com/podcasts/

To teach my students the fallacy of "I have nothing to ...

2026-08-11T20:49:19Z

To teach my students the fallacy of "I have nothing to hide", I simply ask them to tell the whole class about the last time they masturbated.

It is surprisingly efficient, they immediately grasp it. I never had someone argues with me on the subject after that.

L’arnaque du bilan carbone Pourquoi nous nous sommes fait avoir ...

2026-08-10T08:32:52Z

L’arnaque du bilan carbone

Pourquoi nous nous sommes fait avoir dans notre soi-disant lutte contre le réchauffement climatique

Et pourquoi il n’existe qu’une solution…

https://ploum.net/2026-08-10-bilan_carbone.html

Unless proved otherwise, I now default to considering an unknown ...

2026-08-03T20:00:40Z

Unless proved otherwise, I now default to considering an unknown Github project younger thant 2024 as vibecoded shit.

No, I don’t care about your number of stars or whatever.

If you are still using Github and don’t have a clear community record, you will have to earn my trust.

That’s it, the #offpunk project received its first ...

2026-08-03T18:19:13Z

That’s it, the #offpunk project received its first Claude-generated contribution.

To the author credit, he admitted directly that the message and the patch were Claude-generated.

So I didn’t even read it. I replied to the author that sending me the prompt he had used with Claude was more helpful than me reading through the whole thing to try to understand what the user had asked Claude to do.

We are there. In a minimalist project which has an explicit anti-AI stance.

https://offpunk.net/dev-guidelines.html

Cette canicule vous est offerte par Total-Énergie. Par respect ...

2026-06-25T20:52:21Z

Cette canicule vous est offerte par Total-Énergie.

Par respect des sponsors, merci de ne plus dire "canicule de juin 2026" mais "Canicule Total-Énergie 2026".

( celle d’il y a un mois étant la "Canicule Bolloré 2026" )

— Look, dad, there’s a satellite which is not moving ! — ...

2026-06-23T07:56:39Z

— Look, dad, there’s a satellite which is not moving !
— That’s a star, son.
— A star? Is that rare?
— Oh no! At least when I was young, that was the only thing you could see in the night sky. But I guess that, with all those satellites, it’s indeed a rare sight.

Je m’intéresse aux microphones de mesure car, étant ...

2026-06-05T12:55:52Z

Je m’intéresse aux microphones de mesure car, étant hypersensible aux bruits, cela m’intéresse de comprendre les phénomènes de résonnance, les sources de bruit et les meiileures façons d’améliorer ça ?

https://www.crysound.com/blog/measurement-microphone-guide/

Vous avez des conseils de matériel et de lectures sur le sujet ?

Des recommandations pour d’éventuels achats ? Des trucs à savoir ? Un hashtag mastodon sur le sujet ?

Nostr event nevent1qqs80vr2y8mxj8kf8ug0f2e5424csk8ax68348tmwyhwuglay55e3pczyqlkmgdg0jd763n45v335xj0s2rqzmn0vqxy2nw95gf25f8yx0346pg7a2y

2026-05-26T08:54:58Z

The invisible man had trans parents.

One of my guilty pleasure was, from time to time, to go to hacker ...

2026-05-07T20:50:30Z

One of my guilty pleasure was, from time to time, to go to hacker news and read random heavily upvoted links.

Those are always easy read, sometimes interesting, sometimes not.

A couple of weeks ago, I did it but nearly all links where about "how I use LLMs to be more productive". The word "Claude" was 17 times on the front page. I could not find one single link I wanted to follow. They were all the same emptyness non-sense.

I was so disgusted, I’ve never visited HN again since that day.

Advice for people on the #smolnet. I’ve seen far too many ...

2026-05-06T10:00:01Z

Advice for people on the #smolnet.

I’ve seen far too many people complaining they have no feedback about their writing but I simply cannot reach them!

- Put an email contact in an obvious place. Too often, it feels like a quest to find your email.

- Be sure that your email works. No, seriously. I’ve several cases of server returning an error.

- If you don’t want to receive emails, write it explicitely so I don’t spend my time looking for your address.

#gemini #geminiprotocol

I believe that all the programmers who like "vibe-coding" ...

2026-04-25T09:40:11Z

I believe that all the programmers who like "vibe-coding" simply have not been exposed enough to a real-world messy codebase.

I remember when banks were writing Java software to encapsulate their Cobol legacy software without touching them, thinking it was the best way to deal with such radioactive codebase.

I’m sure some are already working on "containing" vibecoded stacks that "just work if you don’t sneeze too hard next to them" and are in production.

Just learned today about the Xteink X4 device, which seems really ...

2026-04-24T09:46:17Z

Just learned today about the Xteink X4 device, which seems really nice pocket e-reader (with physical buttons)

gemini://axxuy.com/blog/2026/i-also-got-an-xteink-x4.gmi

And there’s an Open Source firmware:

https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader

Has anybody tested it?

Donc #Linkedin envoie à Microsoft la liste de toutes les ...

2026-04-02T19:49:28Z

Donc #Linkedin envoie à Microsoft la liste de toutes les extensions installées dans votre navigateur.

https://browsergate.eu/

LOL!

Je crois que je vais arrêter de cracher sur LinkedIn, ça devient trop facile et celleux qui sont encore dessus pour ne pas rater le dernier post généré par le ChatGPT du patron le font désormais en pleine conscience.

Et si votre boulot dépend de LinkedIn, il est temps de préparer votre sortie…

https://ploum.net/je-ne-suis-plus-a-vendre-sur-linkedin/index.html

: and it works offline ! ...

2026-03-27T20:04:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…p2cv
_________________________

: and it works offline !

https://ploum.net/2026-01-31-offline-git-send-email.html

: this approach is automatized and crowdsourced to extract the ...

2026-03-07T19:32:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…d0jj
_________________________

: this approach is automatized and crowdsourced to extract the real content from enhshitified webpages.

ftr-site-config is a communautary project to create xpath rules for websites (more than 2000 websites supported currently)

unmerdify is a python library using those rules to parse a webpage.

#Offpunk is a command-line browser using unmerdify by default when available to read a website.

Say goodbye to the enshitified Web!

https://ploum.net/2023-08-01-splitting-the-web.html

Using #LLMs for coding is so "good" that programmers are ...

2026-03-04T10:23:51Z

Using #LLMs for coding is so "good" that programmers are now faking using them so they can still write code by hand while making the management happy…

slow clap!

https://danq.me/2026/03/03/ai-agent-logging/

: with all the split and sell-off, which motorola are we talking ...

2026-03-02T18:15:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…f0dc
_________________________

: with all the split and sell-off, which motorola are we talking about?

The one sold to Google? The lenovo division? Another entity?

Like @npub1dnd…hzjs , I’ve only been realizing very late that ...

2026-02-22T09:58:03Z

Like Charlie Stross (npub1dnd…hzjs) , I’ve only been realizing very late that extremely rich people are necessarily crazy.

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/02/more-in-sadness-than-in-anger.html

It’s logical: non-crazy people will, at some point, hit the "more money than enough even for my craziest fullfilling dreams".

People who are still destroying their social/ecological environment for more money above that level are, obviously, crazy. And dangerous.

Nostr event nevent1qqspjdvt4uy0tfp7q8jla6srq7kxzxvmcz32gru3zfnptuujwuaklzqzyqlkmgdg0jd763n45v335xj0s2rqzmn0vqxy2nw95gf25f8yx0346crqfve

2026-02-21T12:30:49Z

LI;DR = LinkedIn; Didn’t Read

If this new chatbot is so efficient, why do you need to force ...

2026-02-18T13:18:39Z

If this new chatbot is so efficient, why do you need to force your employees to use it? Why do you need to advertise the fact that you are using it? Are you that insecure?

If I truly had a powerful tool, I would not talk about it. I would only show it to my employees, asking them to not tell the competition about it. And I will let the employees discover by themselves how efficient it is by giving bonuses to the most efficient.

Do Not Apologize for Replying Late to My Email. Seriously, ...

2026-02-11T10:18:14Z

Do Not Apologize for Replying Late to My Email.

Seriously, don’t!

https://ploum.net/2026-02-11-do_not_apologize_for_replying_to_my_email.html

#geminiprotocol : gemini://ploum.net/2026-02-11-do_not_apologize_for_replying_to_my_email.gmi

Little reminder for those who still take marketing at face value: ...

2026-02-09T13:35:16Z

Little reminder for those who still take marketing at face value:

If you are paying someone else to use a tool you don’t own, it is not a "technology", it is a "service".

You are not "learning" or "mastering" or "building", you are "spending".

You are not an "entrepreneur", you are a "customer". Or a "fool".

Announcing the release of #offpunk 3.0 ...

2026-02-09T10:26:17Z

Announcing the release of #offpunk 3.0

https://ploum.net/2026-02-09-offpunk3.html

#smallweb #smolnet #python #cli #gemini #geminiprotocol #gopher #offlinefirst

: well, we didn’t wait for the Epstein files. The Gates ...

2026-02-03T22:21:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…nvnd
_________________________

: well, we didn’t wait for the Epstein files.

The Gates foundation is the one to thank for *NOT* having an opensource COVID vaccine. Oxford wanted to make it OpenSource but the Gates foundation threw enough dollars at them to make sure it doesn’t happen.

And that’s for one single reason: avoiding at all cost a case where open source could work and 3rd world coutries would be able not to depend on US tech.

That’s their whole philosophy…

Idea: "The unbillionaires list", to promote contributors ...

2026-01-22T20:04:03Z

Idea: "The unbillionaires list", to promote contributors to the common.

A collaborative website that lists people who created something useful to millions but purposedly choose to put in in the common and didn’t earn money directly from it (or not as much as expected)

Besides those listed in https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.html

I would add Henri Dunant (Red Cross, he died in great poverty), Didier Pittet (who invented the hydroalcoolic gel we now use everyday).

Why there’s no European Google? And why it is a good thing! My ...

2026-01-22T12:40:13Z

Why there’s no European Google?
And why it is a good thing!

My answer to the European Commission "call for evidence on Open Source."

https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.html

#geminiprotocol link: gemini://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.gmi

: It remind me of what I wrote 13 years ago: ...

2026-01-21T21:42:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…ryng
_________________________

: It remind me of what I wrote 13 years ago: https://ploum.net/care-business-model/index.html

some things never change…

: that’s one of the reason which motivates me to develop ...

2026-01-20T11:43:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…n5ax
_________________________

: that’s one of the reason which motivates me to develop #offpunk

No, we don’t all have permanent connectivity!

#offline

Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots How I managed to ...

2026-01-19T18:47:23Z

Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots

How I managed to give an exam while giving the students the choice to use a chatbot or not.

And what I learned in the process.

https://ploum.net/2026-01-19-exam-with-chatbots.html

Nostr event nevent1qqs9aynwyw3kvhwkjj386r44fgzlk2ealfwfxqcgamyz8mr6tj6apaczyqlkmgdg0jd763n45v335xj0s2rqzmn0vqxy2nw95gf25f8yx0346t6ruhm

2026-01-15T14:31:39Z

Reading https://danielpocock.com/en/mailing-lists-vs-discourse-forums-open-source-community-or-commodity/

I believe that the main problem with mailing-lists is that most email clients sucks and people are just trying not to use them.

And seeing how parodicaly bad Outlook is, you start to wonder if it is done on purpose to promote proprietary systems and kill the last open/universal communication network.

This is the evolution of the number of new questions per month on ...

2026-01-06T08:59:42Z

This is the evolution of the number of new questions per month on Stack Overflow.

Which is one of the main source of data for ChatGPT&co.

People using ChatGPT to program will be stuck between 2012 and 2022.

How my students taught me that Github’s monopoly is hurting the ...

2026-01-05T11:26:54Z

How my students taught me that Github’s monopoly is hurting the Open Source ecosystem even more than I thought.

https://ploum.net/2026-01-05-unteaching_github.html

#github #floss

Dear politicians, The problem is not that I disagree with you. ...

2025-12-30T17:32:51Z

Dear politicians,

The problem is not that I disagree with you.

The problem is that your only job is, by definition, to protect the common good. But big corporations managed to brainwash you into thinking that there’s no such thing as the common good.

You are not yet on the level we can disagree with. You are not even on a level we can discuss with. You are a child playing the "elect me game" to distract our attention.

And it works.

That makes me sad…

I ask my students to contribute to the opensource project of ...

2025-12-17T19:20:16Z

I ask my students to contribute to the opensource project of their choice.

I just did a quick grep through the 238 projects I have in my archives.

Of 238, 7 don’t mention "github.com".

On close inspection, 6 of them are because the student forgot to putt the URL of the project repo.

So, on 238 students, only one managed to contribute to a project which is not hosted on Github.

It is even worse than I thought.

https://ploum.net/2023-02-22-leaving-github.html

: my philosophy is now to answer by email all the requested ...

2025-12-17T16:01:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…ujsh
_________________________

: my philosophy is now to answer by email all the requested information. I let organizers dispatching those information. I don’t join any groupchat, I rarely fill any forms. If requested, I say "here are the information".

I’m of course not rigid (it makes sense if the ask speakers to vote or if they ask writers to fill their signing availability schedule)

But, surprinzingly, replying only by email and being straight to the point earned me a lot of respect by organizers.

Mozilla has a new CEO who: - Has been at Mozilla for less than a ...

2025-12-16T19:38:51Z

Mozilla has a new CEO who:

- Has been at Mozilla for less than a year
- Has no prior open source experience (but well in "fintech" and "real estate")
- Has a MBA (aka "brainworm diploma")
- Is all-in on AI

That’s exactly the kind of bingo profile the whole community has been waiting for.

This post will not appear in the timeline of most Pixelfed users. ...

2025-12-04T10:49:32Z

This post will not appear in the timeline of most Pixelfed users.

Because considered at "not pretty enough" for them (despite the great illustration by David Revoy (npub16ys…sjae) )

It worth asking the question:

Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?

https://ploum.net/2025-12-04-pixelfed-against-fediverse.html

Unix - BSD developers : this code should run and be maintained as ...

2025-12-02T15:41:25Z

Unix - BSD developers : this code should run and be maintained as long as computers exist.

Linux - GNU dev : this code should run and be maintained as long as someone is willing to do the work

Consultant: this code should run until the end of my contract.

Enterprise grade B2B software : this code should run till the end of the demonstration to that big customer.

Vibe coding : You are perfectly right. The code doesn’t run. Try this one. You are right, it deleted your hard disk, I’m sorry.

In computer security, it is said that the fact you don’t see ...

2025-11-26T10:37:25Z

In computer security, it is said that the fact you don’t see any vulnerability in the code you write is no proof that your code is secure. It is proof that you are blind to all the mistakes you did in your shitty code.

People *will* exploit your vulnerabilities.

I’m a writer.

When you use a LLM to generate text, the fact that you find the output good doesn’t mean that it is good. It only means that you are blind to the shit you’ve generated.

People *will notice* how stupid your writing is.

- Copilot was forced to nearly every MS user without their ...

2025-11-18T12:01:13Z

- Copilot was forced to nearly every MS user without their consent
- Gemini starts each time an Android user touch his smartphone main button
- Whatsapp users suddenly interact with an AI they can’t disable
- Firefox will soon have its own AI
- Even myself, as a Proton (npub19kd…t56d) and Kagi HQ (npub1zq5…dlp2) user, I received access to multiple chatbots I never asked for

But remember: statistics show that "people are using AI tools !"

If you trust those statistics, you are deep into the delusion bubble.

: every design decision is a political one. You don’t remove ...

2025-11-16T15:23:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…4wcy
_________________________

: every design decision is a political one. You don’t remove feature that people don’t use (especially those as little intrusive and trivial as this one).

You remove feature that you don’t want people to use.

And, as telemetry is optional and subscribing to RSS is rare (and some, like myself, were just right-clicking to copy rss url and paste it elsewhere), I call the "user dont use it" pure BS.

Moziila didn’t have the ressource to keep a "subscribe to ...

2025-11-16T13:10:10Z

Moziila didn’t have the ressource to keep a "subscribe to RSS" button in Firefox but has the manpower to build a full IA inside your browser.

And that’s all you need to know about the end of the web and the IA bubble.

We are reaching the point where Idiocracy will be considered as a ...

2025-11-13T13:34:33Z

We are reaching the point where Idiocracy will be considered as a utopia because, in the movie, government is honestly trying to solve real problems of the citizen.

And health checkup is free.

And, if you don’t have valid papers, you can simply ask a machine for them. (even if you were not sure)

Not to mention that those idiotic people are smart enough to not consider the color of the skin of their president an important matter.

And there’s no AI in every object.

Definitely a utopia…

Est-ce qu’il y a sur le Fediverse des auteurices de BDs qui ...

2025-11-03T19:41:38Z

Est-ce qu’il y a sur le Fediverse des auteurices de BDs qui seraient d’accord de partager leurs expériences éditoriales ? J’aimerais savoir les éditeurs à éviter, ceux qui sont cools, etc.

J’ai déjà reçu de bons retours de Bamboo mais des avertissements sur certains autres.

Le repouet vous fera trouver la BD qui manque à votre collection lors de la prochaine vente d’occasion de votre quartier !

PS: oui, on a fini un dossier éditorial avec un dessinateur, on cherche la perle rare !

#BD

: but by accepting the money, you validate their use of your ...

2025-10-28T19:25:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…x5st
_________________________

: but by accepting the money, you validate their use of your book, right?

I just came accross a web article that starts with: "Scroll ...

2025-10-26T12:33:50Z

I just came accross a web article that starts with:

"Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing."

Scrolling through the web page is, obviously, painful.

I can’t help but think that we even managed to make it nearly impossible to do something as simple as printing a web page.

: people believe anything. I mean, Ripple (xrp) is still one of ...

2025-10-23T20:45:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…v6mn
_________________________

: people believe anything. I mean, Ripple (xrp) is still one of the biggest cryptocurrency out there while being totally centralized and 80% of its token in the hand of a few founders.

In fact, people want "centralised decentralisation" (I mean, they invented "permissonned blockchains" to centralize something which had the only pros of being decentralized with lot of disadvantages).

Talked about this 2 years ago: https://ploum.net/2023-03-03-bluesky.html

I’ve learned that, when using #bluesky , you are tracked by ...

2025-09-05T09:38:15Z

I’ve learned that, when using #bluesky , you are tracked by Statsig analytics.

And Statsig has been bought by OpenAI

gemini://tilde.club/~winter/gemlog/2025/9-04.gmi

It is not an accident. Sam Altman is trying to do wïth BS what Musk did, with great success deispite the laugh, with Twitter : gain political influence.

And it was expected since the start.

https://ploum.net/2023-03-03-bluesky.html

"Those who give up vendor independence for short-term ...

2025-08-31T09:57:37Z

"Those who give up vendor independence for short-term convenience will end up with none of them."

Cory Doctorow (npub1fdr…lvhs) 's law of #enshitification

Did you know that there’s a premium version of Whatsapp which : ...

2025-06-21T09:53:35Z

Did you know that there’s a premium version of Whatsapp which :

- Has no advertising
- Has no mandatory AI integration
- Has no tracking and does not gather your personnal data
- Has increased privacy and stronger encryption
- Is exclusive and allows you to chat with other premium members

Best of all ? It is currently free to join!

Go now to your app store and install it before it is too late!

It is called "Signal"

https://ploum.net/2025-05-23-chats-digital-clutter.html

: J’ai l’impression que ça pourrait être un bug du firmware ...

2025-06-16T14:51:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…vghu
_________________________

: J’ai l’impression que ça pourrait être un bug du firmware dont le fix n’aurait pas été intégré dans [@e_mydata](https://mastodon.social/@e_mydata )

https://9to5google.com/2024/04/21/second-pixel-april-update/

Le Pixel 8 que j’ai commandé chez @npub1hn8…g0mt a un ...

2025-06-16T14:37:47Z

Le Pixel 8 que j’ai commandé chez Murena - choose freedom! (npub1hn8…g0mt) a un énorme problème : il perd la 4G 80% du temps. Plus de data même avec du très bon réseau. Le reboot ne fixe le bug qu’une fois sur 10. C’est inutilisable.

Truc incompréhensible : Whatsapp continue à fonctionner, même sans data !

Pas de réponse du support jusqu’à présent.

Vous avez des pistes à investiguer ?

Gaël Duval - /e/OS & Murena (npub1ruf…fe5f) ?
#eos #degoogled #murena

I just gave to support #Peertube, the free and open alternative ...

2025-05-27T11:53:52Z

I just gave to support #Peertube, the free and open alternative to Youtube

https://support.joinpeertube.org/en/

If they raise 15.000€, they will offer "Peertube Premium" to all users. I laughed ;-)

All my videos are available on Peertube: https://indymotion.fr/c/oneploumshow

Test it, join it, support it!

Librewolf is exactly what Firefox should be. To the point where I ...

2025-05-12T21:40:19Z

Librewolf is exactly what Firefox should be.

To the point where I find in #Librewolf new features I was explicitly missing in #firefox (like clicking on the lock to enable/disable cookies for a specific website)

And, yet, it works perfectly in #debian thanks to extrepo. But, seriously, it should be considered as the default Debian browser.

Congratulations to the team!

Don’t wait on Mozilla, switch to Librewolf !

https://librewolf.net/

LibreWolf (npub1vpu…608s)

plus de liens sur ...

2025-05-12T13:07:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…c8td
_________________________

plus de liens sur https://linuxfr.org/users/ploum/journaux/fork-d-organic-map-et-applis-de-navigation

Y’a du drama et un fork chez @npub1t2q…n4vh : ...

2025-05-12T12:59:32Z

Y’a du drama et un fork chez Organic Maps (npub1t2q…n4vh) :

https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-organic-maps-shareholders-a0bf770c

(c’est la saison, après le drama du membre du board GNOME viré sans aucune explication, même partielle)

: je croyais avoir une preuve mais elle est floue. Sur la photo ...

2025-04-22T11:15:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…jfee
_________________________

:

je croyais avoir une preuve mais elle est floue. Sur la photo qui illustre cet article, on a, dans l’ordre:

https://ploum.net/2023-01-23-culture-libre-toulouse.html

David Revoy (npub16ys…sjae) , ploum, 💖 Pouhiou 💖 (npub1axl…tvjk) et gee Ⓐ⚑ (npub1qmy…m408) (mais j’avoue que, pour le coup, il faut me croire sur parole)

Ptêtre que Bookynette (npub1nmv…av8d) peut également prouver qu’on a dédicacé tous les deux ensembles dans sa librairie ;-)

Très chouette retour d’expérience de @npub10dp…463y sur ...

2025-04-22T10:07:08Z

Très chouette retour d’expérience de Aude Caussarieu 🌻 (npub10dp…463y) sur Mastodon.

Je me suis quand même senti vachement visé avec le coup des hommes blancs qui installent Linux et font du gravel le week-end. Elle a pas dit "barbus" mais elle l’a pensé très fort.

Je tiens à préciser : le gravel, c’est pas que le week-end ! Et pas que Linux. Les BSDs, c’est bien aussi !

https://blogz.zaclys.com/depuis-les-gorces/ma-petite-vie-sur-mastodon

The candid naivety of geeks A tale of being surprised by Amazon, ...

2025-03-28T15:39:01Z

The candid naivety of geeks

A tale of being surprised by Amazon, Apple, spammers and building the commons

https://ploum.net/2025-03-28-geeks-naivety.html

Snac2 is a simple database-less/javascript-free alternative to ...

2025-03-20T22:40:47Z

Snac2 is a simple database-less/javascript-free alternative to Mastodon:

https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2

It looks very nice to run your own #fediverse server

There are some screenshots here:
https://codeberg.org/voron/snac-style

Is anybody using it?

#snarc2

20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) Read chapter 3 of the ...

2025-03-08T13:08:31Z

20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3)

Read chapter 3 of the book I’m currently writing about the history of Linux on the desktop.

https://ploum.net/2025-03-08-linux_desktop3.html

Still looking for an agent or a publisher to make a dead-tree version of it…

#computinghistory #linux #gnome #ubuntu #maemo

: it looks like it’s Oksana Markarova, the ukrainian ambassador ...

2025-02-28T20:09:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…a42r
_________________________

: it looks like it’s Oksana Markarova, the ukrainian ambassador to USA :

https://usa.mfa.gov.ua/en/governance/oksana-markarova

The USA ambassador to Ukraine is Bridget A. Brink :

https://ua.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/our-ambassador/

University professor, circa 2010 : You can’t trust Wikipedia. ...

2025-02-18T18:29:38Z

University professor, circa 2010 : You can’t trust Wikipedia. You cannot use it for your essay.

University professor, circa 2025 : Here are powerpoint sildes on how to use ChatGPT to do your essay.

Personal conclusion: the only problem with Wikipedia was that it was not corporately owned and that it had no marketing budget.

In the movie "Idiocracy" the president Camacho is really ...

2025-02-17T07:50:32Z

In the movie "Idiocracy" the president Camacho is really trying to do his best for his people, going as far as hiring people who did very good on intelligence tests.

When it appears that Joe Bauers is the smartest man on earth and that he can grow plants, he becomes president without any violence.

From all those aspects, you can tell that "idiocracy" is an utopia and feel-good movie.

If you are a Unix nerd and wish you spend less time using your ...

2025-02-13T12:59:13Z

If you are a Unix nerd and wish you spend less time using your mouse while watching flashy colors, I recommend that you give Offpunk a try:

https://offpunk.net/

I’m trying to make it easier to get started with offpunk. Feedbacks and discussions are welcome on the mailing-list :

https://lists.sr.ht/~lioploum/offpunk-users

or on the fediverse, using the #offpunk hashtag. Or on your blog. That would be awesome to read blog posts about people using offpunk

#python #cli #linux #command_line #offline

— Dear traveler from the future, for years I’ve assembled a ...

2025-02-04T08:55:54Z

— Dear traveler from the future, for years I’ve assembled a huge collection of dystopian novels. Now that you are there, tell me! Which one nailed it? Which dystopia is the more realistic.

He took a look before replying softly.

— All. All of them.

"China’s DeepSeek stole what we have stolen" cried ...

2025-01-29T09:26:13Z

"China’s DeepSeek stole what we have stolen" cried OpenAI executives.

End of the story.