English posts only
During most of my life, I thought that there was only two ways to give money to someone. Firstly, in exchange of something you want/need but not available without paying. It is called “buying”. The other occasion is giving money for nothing, because you want to help someone in a bad situation and want to [...]
We have entered in an incredible world of free content. If it can be copied, you can find it for free on the Internet. It is as simple as that and it is awesome. We never dared to dream about such a world where every content, every knowledge was free, shareable with everybody. But it’s [...]
Who needs borders and local regulations when you have internet? The answer to this question is why I like Bitcoin so much. It is a trully decentralized currency. But Bitcoin has some major issues, something which was covered by Rick Falkvinge on his blog. The first problem that hits any Bitcoin user is usability. Using [...]
When I explain the tips I use to stay at inbox 0, a common reaction is to pretend to do the same with unread emails, read emails being “archived”. Given how the human brain works, this is unfortunately not true. Firstly, we don’t deal with individual items as we are with groups. Meet 3 persons? [...]
Ce texte en français I’m a book publisher. Maybe I should say “I was”. Or “I’m still”. I’m not even sure what my job is. Nor do I know if I still have a job. I’m currently struggling with the “Publisher’s dilemma”. Should I be happy? Am I lucky or desperate? I have no idea… [...]
A lot of people like to see morality as a clear line dividing the world between good and bad, white and black. As Randall Munroe would say: ” My hobby: making a thought experiment to test where exactly they put this line” (XKCD point, checked). When I told you why I was a pirate, I [...]
Disponible en français In fall 2014, BlackMa.il made the buzz. The startup is nonetheless very discreet. A simple CrowIT logo on a letterbox, a hallway, a lift and I am in the lair. Here, zero multicolored balls lying on the ground, zero ostensious accessories: a handful of grey desks and a dozen employees starring at their screens without paying attention [...]
For more than a decade, Microsoft Outlook has been acting in a weird way, sometimes sending email content or attachments in a file called “winmail.dat”. Most mail clients were unable to open that strange file. The logic behind this behaviour is not trivial but the point is that Microsoft was sending mail in a non-standard [...]
Disponible en français I know it sounds crazy but I want you to give a try to this little experiment. During one year, you will pay for the content you consume on the web: blog posts, music, videos, nice pictures, news and even single tweets! You will pay for everything! What? Paying for the web? [...]
Également disponible en français. Dear artists, A year ago, in order to support the blackout against SOPA, I wrote a blog post explaining why I was pirating your work. A few hours later, the sudden closure of Megaupload gave an unexpected popularity to my text. In the weeks that followed, nearly 100,000 people read it [...]