Reducing the digital clutter of chats

I hate modern chats. They presuppose we are always online, always available to chat. They force us to see and think about them each time we get our eyes on one of our devices. Unlike mailboxes, they are never empty. We can’t even easily search through old messages (unlike the chat providers themselves, which use the logs to learn more about us). Chats are the epitome of the business idiot: they make you always busy but prevent you from thinking and achieving anything.

It is quite astonishing to realise that modern chat systems use 100 or 1000 times more resources (in size and computing power) than 30 years ago, that they are less convenient (no custom client, no search) and that they work against us (centralisation, surveillance, ads). But, yay, custom emojis!

Do not get me wrong: chats are useful! When you need an immediate interaction or a quick on-the-go message, chats are the best.

I needed to keep being able to chat while keeping the digital clutter to a minimal and preserving my own sanity. That’s how I came up with the following rules.

Rule 1: One chat to rule them all

One of the biggest problems of centralised chats is that you must be on many of them. I decided to make Signal my main chat and to remove others.

Signal was, for me, a good compromise of respecting my privacy, being open source and without ads while still having enough traction that I could convince others to join it.

Yes, Signal is centralised and has drawbacks like relying on some Google layers (which I worked around by using Molly-FOSS). I simply do not see XMPP, Matrix or SimpleX becoming popular enough in the short term. Wire and Threema had no advantages over Signal. I could not morally justify using Whatsapp nor Telegram.

In 2022, as I decided to use Signal as my main chat, I deleted all accounts but Signal and Whatsapp and disabled every notification from Whatsapp, forcing myself to open it once a week to see if I had missed something important. People who really wanted to reach me quickly understood that it was better to use Signal. This worked so well that I forgot to open Whatsapp for a whole month which was enough for Whatsapp to decide that my account was not active anymore.

• Le suicide de mon compte WhatsApp (ploum.net)

Not having Whatsapp is probably the best thing which happened to me regarding chats. Suddenly, I was out of tenths or hundreds of group chats. Yes, I missed lots of stuff. But, most importantly, I stopping fearing missing them. Seriously, I never missed having Whatsapp. Not once. Thanks Meta for removing my account!

While travelling in Europe, it is now standard that taxi and hotels will chat with you using Whatsapp. Not anymore for me. Guess what? It works just fine. In fact, I suspect it works even better because people are forced to either do what we agreed during our call or to call me, which requires more energy and planning.

Rule 2: Mute, mute, mute!

Now that Signal is becoming more popular, some group chats are migrating to it. But I’ve learned the lesson : I’m muting them. This allows me to only see the messages when I really want to look at them. Don’t hesitate to mute vocal group chats and people with whom you don’t need day-to-day interaction.

I’m also leaving group chats which are not essential. Whatsapp deletion told me that nearly no group chat is truly essential.

Many times, I’ve had people sending me emails about what was told on a group chat because they knew I was not there. Had I been on that group, I would probably have missed the messages but nobody would have cared. If you really want to get in touch with me, send me an email!

Rule 3: No read receipts nor typing indicators

I was busy, walking in the street with my phone in hands for directions. A notification popped up with an important message. It was important but not urgent. I could not deal with the message at that moment. I wanted to take the time. One part of my brain told me not to open the message because, if I did, the sender would see a "read receipt". He would see that I had read the message but would not receive any answer.

For him, that would probably translate in "he doesn’t care". I consciously avoided to open Signal until I was back home and could deal with the message.

That’s when I realised how invasive the "read receipt" was. I disabled it and never regretted that move. I’m reading messages on my own watch and replying when I want to. Nobody needs to know if I’ve seen the message. It is wrong in every aspect.

Rule 4: Temporary discussions only

The artist Bruno Leyval, who did the awesome cover of my novel Bikepunk, is obsessed with deletion and disappearance. He set our Signal chat so that every message is deleted after a day. At first, I didn’t see the point.

Until I understood that this was not only about privacy, it also was about decluttering our mind, our memories.

Since then, I’ve set every chat in Signal to delete messages after one week.

This might seem like nothing but this changes everything. Suddenly, chats are not a long history of clutter. Suddenly, you see chats as transient and save things you want to keep. Remember that you can’t search in chats? This means that chats are transient anyway. With most chats, your history is not saved and could be lost by simply dropping your phone on the floor. Something important should be kept in a chat? Save it! But it should probably have been an email.

Embracing the transient nature of chat, making it explicit greatly reduce the clutter.

Conclusion

I know that most of you will say that "That’s nice Ploum but I can’t do that because everybody is on XXX" where XXX is most often Whatsapp in my own circles. But this is wrong: you believe everybody is on XXX because you are yourself using XXX as your main chat. When surveying my students this year, I’ve discovered that nearly half of them was not on Whatsapp. Not for some hard reason but because they never saw the need for it. In fact, they were all spread over Messenger, Instagram, Snap, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord. And they all believed that "everybody is where I am".

In the end, the only real choice to make is between being able to get immediately in touch with a lot of people or having room for your mental space. I choose the latter, you might prefer the former. That’s fine!

I still don’t like chat. I’m well aware that the centralised nature of Signal makes it a short-term solution. But I’m not looking for the best sustainable chat. I just want fewer chats in my life.

If you want to get in touch, send me an email!

We landed late in Portland, slept off the jet lag, and had breakfast at a small coffee shop. The owner of the coffee shop challenged me to a game of chess. Any other day, I would have accepted. But after a year of waiting, not even Magnus Carlsen himself could delay us from meeting our van.

After more than a year of planning, designing, shipping gear, and running through every what-if, we were finally in Portland to pick up our new van. It felt surreal to be handed the keys after all that waiting.

The plan: a one-week "shakedown trip", testing our new van while exploring Oregon. We'd stay close to the builder for backup, yet sleep by the ocean, explore vineyards and hike desert trails.

Day 1–2: ocean air in Pacific City

After picking up the van and completing our onboarding, we drove just two hours west to Pacific City on the Oregon coast. I was nervous at first since I'd never driven anything this big, but it felt manageable within minutes.

For the first two nights, we stayed at Hart's Camp, also known as Cape Kiwanda RV Park. The campground had full hookups, a small grocery store, and a brewery just across the road. While the RV park felt more like a parking lot than a forest, it was exactly what we needed. Something easy and practical. A soft landing.

Camping in Pacific City, a small surfer town on the Oregon coast. The main landmark is Haystack Rock, also known as Chief Kiawanda. It looks like a gorilla's head with a rat tail. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

That night, we cracked the windows and slept with the ocean air drifting in. People always ask how someone six foot four (or almost 2 meters) manages to sleep in a van. The truth? I slept better than I do in most hotel beds.

We spent most of the next day settling in. We organized, unpacked the gear we had shipped ahead, figured out what all the switches did, cleaned the dishes, and debated what to put in which cabinets.

Day 3–4: Wine tasting in Willamette Valley

From the coast, we headed inland into Oregon wine country. The drive to Champoeg State Park took about an hour and a half, winding through farmland and small towns.

Champoeg is a beautifully laid-out campground, quiet and easy to navigate, with wide sites and excellent showers. The surrounding area is a patchwork of vineyards, barns and backroads.

We visited several vineyards in the Willamette Valley. The Four Graces was our favorite. Their 2021 Windborn Pinot Noir stood out, and the inn next door looked tempting for a future non-camping trip. We also visited Ken Wright, Lemelson, and Dominio IV. We ended up buying 15 bottles of wine. One of the perks of van life: your wine cellar travels with you.

That evening, Vanessa cooked salmon in red curry, outside in the rain, over a wood fire. We ate inside the van, warm and dry, with music playing. We opened a 2023 Still Life Viognier from Dominio IV that we had liked so much during the tasting. There was something magical about being cozy in a small space while rain drums overhead.

The next morning, we drove to McMinnville to do laundry. Laundry isn't exactly a bucket-list item for me, but Vanessa found it oddly satisfying. There was a coffee kiosk nearby, so we walked through the drive-thru on foot, standing between cars to order lattes while our clothes spun.

Day 5: Smith Rock and steep trails

Arrived at Skull Hollow Campground. No power or water, but it's quiet and the sky is full of stars. It feels like we're exactly where we need to be.

We left wine country behind and headed into Central Oregon, crossing over the mountains on a three-hour drive that was scenic the entire way. Pine forests, wide rivers and lakes came and went as we climbed and descended. We passed through small towns and stretches of open road that felt far from anywhere.

I kept wanting to stop to take photos, but didn't want to interrupt the rhythm of the road. Instead, we made mental notes about places to come back to someday.

That night we stayed at Skull Hollow Campground, a basic campground without hookups. Our first real test of off-grid capability. This was deliberate. We wanted to know how our solar panels and batteries would handle a full night of heating, and whether our water supply would last without refilling.

It was cold, down to 37°F, but the van handled it well. We kept the heat at 60°F and slept soundly under a heavy duvet. When we woke up, the solar panels were already soaking up sunlight.

We hiked the Misery Ridge and River Trail in Smith Rock State Park. The steep switchbacks and rocky terrain made it a tough climb, but the panoramic views were worth it.

Smith Rock State Park was just fifteen minutes away. Vanessa wanted to drive the van somewhere more rural, and this was the perfect chance. She handled the van like a boss.

Day 6: Bend and our first HipCamp

We continued to Bend, just forty minutes from Skull Hollow. Bend is a small city in Central Oregon known for its outdoor lifestyle. We resupplied, filled our water tank and stopped by REI (think "camping supermarket").

We had dinner at Wild Rose, a Northern Thai restaurant that had been nominated for a James Beard award. The food was excellent. The service was not.

That night we stayed at our first HipCamp, a campsite on a working ranch with cattle just outside of Bend. A lone bull stood at the entrance, watching us with mild interest. We followed the long gravel driveway past grazing cows, getting our first real taste of ranch life.

Our van's neighbor for the night was a beautifully rusted Ford. Retired but still stealing the spotlight. I can't help but wonder what stories this truck could tell.

The setup was simple: a grassy parking area, a 30-amp electrical outlet, a metal trash bin and a water pump with well water. We shared the space with an old Ford that had clearly been there longer than we planned to be. A pair of baby owls watched us from a tree. It was peaceful, with wide views and almost total quiet. Nothing fancy, but memorable.

Day 7: Camp Sherman and quiet rivers

On our final full day, we drove about an hour and twenty minutes to Camp Sherman Campground, nestled along the Metolius River. The Metolius is a spring-fed river known for its crystal-clear waters and world-class fly fishing.

The campground is "first-come, first-serve", and we were lucky to find a site right by the water. This was our first time using an "Iron Ranger", the self-pay envelope system used in many public campgrounds. A refreshing throwback to simpler times.

We hiked a trail along the river, upstream through forests that had clearly burned in recent years. Signs along the path explained it was a prescribed burn area, which gave the charred trunks and new growth a different kind of meaning.

We watched a family of deer move through the trees at dusk very close to our van. They seemed as curious about us as we were about them.

Later that evening, we cooked, read, and talked. We sat by the fire, wrapped in the camping blankets we had picked up at REI. It was quiet in the way we needed it to be.

The next morning, it was time to move on. I had to get to Chicago for a Drupal Camp, even though neither of us felt ready to leave.

530 miles, one van and zero regrets

This loop, starting in Portland, heading to the coast, through wine country, over the mountains, and back again, turned out to be the perfect test run. Each stop offered something different, from ocean breezes to vineyard views to rugged high desert hikes. The drives were short enough to stay relaxed, ranging from 40 minutes to three hours. In total, we covered about 530 miles.

By the end of the trip, we had gone from full hookups to fully self-sufficient, using solar power and our onboard water supply. The van passed every test we threw at it. Now we knew we could take it anywhere.

It's been a while since I wrote about one of my favorite songs, but Counting Crows' "Round Here" is one that has always stuck with me.

I've listened to this song hundreds of times, and this non-standard version, where Adam Duritz stretches the lyrics and lets his emotions flow, hits even harder.

To me, it feels like a quiet cry about mental health. About someone feeling disconnected, uncertain of who they are, and not at home in their own life. There is something raw, honest, and deeply human in the way the song captures that struggle.

The song has only grown on me over time. I didn't fully understand or appreciate it in my twenties, but now that I'm in my forties, I've come to see more people around me carrying quiet struggles. If that is you, I hope you're taking care of yourself.

Petit manifeste low-tech

Ce samedi 17 mai, je pédalerai vers Massy en compagnie de Tristan Nitot pour parler "low-tech" et dédicacer Bikepunk lors du festival Parlons Vélo.

• Parlons Vélo Massy 2025 (parlonsvelo-massy.org)

Attention, ce qui va suivre divulgâche une partie de ce que je dirai samedi midi à Massy. Si vous venez, arrêtez de lire ici, on se retrouve demain !

Qu’est-ce que la low-tech ?

Le terme low-tech nous fait intuitivement sentir une opposition contre l’excès technologique (le "high tech") tout en évitant l’extrémisme technophobique. Un terme qui enthousiasme, mais qu’il me semble important d’expliciter et dont je propose la définition suivante.

Une technologie est dite « low-tech » si les personnes interagissant avec cette technologie savent et peuvent en comprendre son fonctionnement.

Savoir comprendre. Pouvoir comprendre. Deux éléments essentiels (et difficiles à distinguer pour le Belge que je suis).

Savoir comprendre

Savoir comprendre une technologie implique d’avoir la possibilité de construire un modèle intellectuel de son fonctionnement interne.

Il est bien évident que tout le monde n’a pas la capacité de comprendre toutes les technologies. Mais il est possible de procéder par niveau. La majorité des automobilistes sait qu’une voiture à essence brûle le carburant qui explose dans un moteur, explosion qui entraine des pistons qui font tourner les roues. Le nom est un indice en soi : un moteur à explosion !

Si je n’en comprends pas plus sur le fonctionnement d’un moteur, j’ai la certitude qu’il existe des personnes qui comprennent mieux, souvent dans mon entourage direct. Au plus la compréhension est fine, au plus les personnes deviennent rares, mais chacun peut tenter de s’améliorer.

La technologie est simple sans être simpliste. Cela signifie que sa complexité peut être appréhendée graduellement. Et qu’il existe des experts qui appréhendent une technologie particulière dans sa globalité.

Par opposition, il est aujourd’hui humainement impossible de comprendre un smartphone moderne. Seuls quelques expert·e·s dans le monde maitrisent chacun·e un point particulier de l’objet : du dessin de l’antenne 5G au logiciel retouchant automatiquement les photos en passant par le chargement rapide de la batterie. Et aucun d’entre eux ne maitrise la conception d’un compilateur nécessaire à faire tourner le tout. Même un génie passant sa vie à démonter des smartphones serait dans l’incapacité totale de comprendre ce qui se passe à l’intérieur d’un engin que nous avons tous en permanence soit dans une poche, soit devant notre nez !

L’immense majorité des utilisateurs de smartphones n’ont pas le moindre modèle mental de son fonctionnement. Je ne parle pas d’un modèle erroné ou simpliste : non, il n’y en a pas du tout. L’objet est « magique ». Pourquoi affiche-t-il quelque chose plutôt qu’un autre ? Parce que c’est « magique ». Et comme pour la magie, il ne faut pas chercher à comprendre.

La low-tech peut être extrêmement complexe, mais l’existence même de cette complexité doit être compréhensible et justifiée. Une complexité transparente encourage naturellement les esprits curieux à se poser des questions.

Le temps de comprendre

Comprendre une technologie prend du temps. Cela implique une relation longue, une expérience qui se crée tout au long d’une vie, qui se partage, qui se transmet.

Par opposition, la high-tech impose un renouvellement, une mise à jour constante, des changements d’interface et de fonctionnalité permanents qui renforcent l’aspect « magique » et entraine le découragement de celleux qui tentent de se construire un modèle mental.

La low-tech doit donc nécessairement être durable. Pérenne. Elle doit s’enseigner et permettre une construction progressive de cet enseignement.

Cela implique parfois des efforts, des difficultés. Tout ne peut pas toujours être progressif : à un moment, il faut se lancer sur son vélo pour apprendre à garder l’équilibre.

Pouvoir comprendre

Historiquement, il semble évident que toute technologie a la possibilité d’être comprise. Les personnes interagissant avec la technologie étaient forcées de réparer, d’adapter et donc de comprendre. Une technologie était essentiellement matérielle, ce qui implique qu’elle pouvait être démontée.

Avec le logiciel apparait un nouveau concept : celui de cacher le fonctionnement. Et si, historiquement, tout logiciel est open source, l’invention du logiciel propriétaire rend difficile, voire impossible, de comprendre une technologie.

• L’histoire du logiciel : entre collaboration et confiscation des libertés (ploum.net)

Le logiciel propriétaire n’a pu être inventé que grâce à la création d’un concept récent, au demeurant absurde, appelé « propriété intellectuelle ».

Cette propriété intellectuelle ayant permis la privatisation de la connaissance dans le logiciel, elle est ensuite étendue au monde matériel. Soudainement, il devient possible d’interdire à une personne de tenter de comprendre la technologie qu’elle utilise au quotidien. Grâce à la propriété intellectuelle, des fermiers se voient soudain interdits d’ouvrir le capot de leur propre tracteur.

La low-tech doit être ouverte. Elle doit pouvoir être réparée, modifiée, améliorée et partagée.

De l’utilisateur au consommateur

Grâce à la complexification, aux changements incessants et à l’imposition d’un régime strict de « propriété intellectuelle », les utilisateurs ont été transformés en consommateurs.

Ce n’est pas un hasard. Ce n’est pas une évolution inéluctable de la nature. Il s’agit d’un choix conscient. Toutes les écoles de commerce enseignent aux futurs entrepreneurs à se construire un marché captif, à priver autant que possible leur client de liberté, à construire ce qu’on appelle dans le jargon une "moat" (douve qui protège un château) afin d’augmenter la « rétention des utilisateurs ».

Les termes eux-mêmes deviennent flous pour renforcer ce sentiment de magie. On ne parle par exemple plus de transférer un fichier .jpg vers un ordinateur distant, mais de « sauvegarder ses souvenirs dans le cloud ».

Les marketeux nous ont fait croire qu’en supprimant les mots compliqués, ils simplifieraient la technologie. C’est évidemment le contraire. L’apparence de simplicité est une complexité supplémentaire qui emprisonne l’utilisateur. Toute technologie nécessite un apprentissage. Cet apprentissage doit être encouragé.

Pour une approche et une éthique low-tech

L’éthique low-tech consiste à se remettre au service de l’utilisateur en lui facilitant la compréhension de ses outils.

La high-tech n’est pas de la magie, c’est de la prestidigitation. Plutôt que de cacher les « trucs » sous des artifices, la low-tech cherche à montrer et à créer une utilisation en conscience de la technologie.

Cela n’implique pas nécessairement une simplification à outrance.

Prenons l’exemple d’une machine à laver le linge. Nous comprenons tous qu’une machine de base est un tambour qui tourne dans lequel est injecté de l’eau et du savon. C’est très simple et low-tech.

On pourrait arguer que l’ajout de capteurs et de contrôleurs électroniques permet de laver le linge plus efficacement et plus écologiquement en le pesant et adaptant la vitesse de rotation en fonction du type de linge.

Dans une optique low-tech, un boitier électronique est ajouté à la machine pour faire exactement cela. Si le boitier est retiré ou tombe en panne, la machine continue à fonctionner simplement. L’utilisateur peut choisir de débrancher le boitier ou de le remplacer. Il en comprend l’utilité et la justification. Il construit un modèle mental dans lequel le boitier ne fait qu’appuyer sur les boutons de réglage au bon moment. Et, surtout, il ne doit pas envoyer toute la machine à la casse parce que la puce wifi ne fonctionne plus et n’est plus mis à jour ce qui a bloqué le firmware (quoi ? Ma machine à laver dispose d’une puce wifi ?).

Pour une communauté low-tech

Une technologie low-tech encourage et donne l’occasion à l’utilisateur à la comprendre, à se l’approprier. Elle tente de rester stable dans le temps, se standardise. Elle ne cherche pas à cacher la complexité intrinsèque partant du principe que la simplicité provient de la transparence.

Cette compréhension, cette appropriation ne peut se faire que dans l’interaction. Une technologie low-tech va donc, par essence, favoriser la création de communautés et les échanges humains autour de cette même technologie.

Pour contribuer à l’humanité et aux communautés, une technologie low-tech se doit d’appartenir à tou·te·s, de faire partie des communs.

J’en arrive donc à cette définition, complémentaire et équivalente à la première :

Une technologie est dite « low-tech » si elle expose sa complexité de manière simple, ouverte, transparente et durable tout en appartenant aux communs.

• Photo par Thomas Claveirole

Comment l’université tue le livre (et les intellectuels)

Il faut sauver la bibliothèque de Louvain-la-Neuve

Menacée d’expulsion par l’université, la bibliothèque publique de Louvain-la-Neuve risque de disparaître. Il est urgent de signer la pétition pour tenter de la sauver.

• Signez la pétition pour sauver la bibliothèque de Louvain-la-Neuve !

Mais ce n’est pas un événement isolé, ce n’est pas un accident. Il ne s’agit que d’une escarmouche dans la longue guerre que la ville, l’université et la société de consommation mènent contre les livres et, à travers eux, contre l’intellectualisme.

Le livre, outil indispensable de l’intellectuel

L’une des tâches que je demande chaque année à mes étudiants avant l’examen est de lire un livre. Si possible de fiction ou un essai, mais un livre non technique.

Au choix.

Bien sûr, je donne des idées en rapport avec mon cours. Notamment « Little Brother » de Cory Doctorow qui est facile à lire, prenant, et tout à fait dans le sujet. Mais les étudiants sont libres.

Chaque année, plusieurs étudiants me glissent lors de l’examen qu’ils n’avaient plus lu un livre depuis l’école secondaire, mais que, en fait, c’était vraiment chouette et que ça fait vraiment réfléchir. Que sans moi, ils auraient fait toutes leurs études d’ingénieur sans lire un seul livre autre que des manuels.

Les livres, qui forcent une lecture sur un temps long, qui forcent une immersion, sont l’outil indispensable de l’intellectuel et de l’humaniste. Il est impossible de réfléchir sans livre. Il est impossible de prendre du recul, de faire de nouveaux liens et d’innover sans être baigné dans la diversité d’époques, de lieux et d’expériences humaines que sont les livres. On peut surnager pendant des années dans un domaine voire devenir compétent sans lire. Mais la compréhension profonde, l’expertise nécessite des livres.

Ceux qui ne lisent pas de livres sont condamnés à se satisfaire de superficialité, à se laisser manipuler, à obéir aveuglément. Et c’est peut-être ça l’objectif.

J’estime que l’université ne doit pas former de bons petits consultants obéissants et employables, mais des intellectuels humanistes. La mission première de l’université passe par la diffusion, la promotion, l’appropriation de la culture intellectuelle du livre.

• Et si on arrêtait d’être de bons petits consultants obéissants ? (ploum.net)

Entre l’humanisme et le profit immobilier, l’université a choisi

Mais, à Louvain-la-Neuve, l’université semble se transformer en simple agence immobilière. La ville qui, en 50 ans, s’est créée autour de l’université est en train de se transformer pour n’offrir graduellement plus que deux choses : de la bouffe et des fringues.

• Il faut agrandir le centre commercial ! (ploum.net)

En 2021, le bouquiniste de la place des Wallons, présent depuis 40 ans grâce à un bail historique, a vu son propriétaire, l’université, lui infliger une augmentation de loyer vertigineuse. Je l’ai vu, les yeux pleins de larmes, mettant en caisse les milliers de bandes dessinées de son stock afin de laisser la place à… un vendeur de gauffres !

• Les monopoles du livre, les alternatives et le futur (ploum.net)

Ce fut ensuite le tour du second bouquiniste de la ville, une minuscule échoppe aux murs noircis de livres de philosophie où nous nous retrouvions régulièrement entre habitués pour nous disputer quelques pièces rares. Le couple qui tenait la bouquinerie m’a confié que, devant le prix du loyer, également versé à l’université, il était plus rentable pour eux de devenir bouquinistes itinérants. « Ça ne va pas vous plaire ! » m’a confié la gérante lorsque j’ai demandé qui reprendrait son espace. Quelques semaines plus tard, en effet, surgissait une vitrine vendant des sacs à mains !

Quant à la librairie principale de la ville, l’historique librairie Agora, elle fut rachetée par le groupe Furet du Nord dont la section belge a fait faillite. Il faut dire que la librairie occupait un énorme espace appartenant en partie au promoteur immobilier Klépierre et à l’université. D’après mes sources, le loyer mensuel s’élevait à… 35.000€ !

De cette faillite, j’ai récupéré plusieurs meubles bibliothèques qui étaient à donner. L’ouvrier qui était en train de nettoyer le magasin me souffla, avec un air goguenard, que les étudiants allaient être contents du changement ! Il n’avait pas le droit de me dire ce qui remplacerait la librairie, mais, promis, ils allaient être contents.

En effet, il s’agissait d’un projet de… Luna Park ! (qui, bien que terminé, n’a pas obtenu l’autorisation d’ouvrir ses portes suite aux craintes des riverains concernant le tapage qu’un tel lieu engendre)

Mais l’université ne comptait pas en rester là. Désireuse de récupérer des locaux pourtant sans aucun potentiel commercial, elle a également mis dehors le centre de livres d’occasion Cerfaux Lefort. Une pétition pour tenter de le sauver a récolté 3000 signatures. Sans succès.

• Le Centre Cerfaux-Lefort a fermé ses portes à LLN, au grand désarroi du collectif et des étudiants qui militaient pour son maintien (www.rtbf.be)

Puisque ça fonctionne, enfonçons le clou !

Pendant quelques mois, Louvain-la-Neuve, ville universitaire et intellectuelle, s’est retrouvée sans librairie ! Consciente que ça faisait désordre, l’université a offert des conditions correctes à une équipe motivée pour créer la librairie « La Page d’Après » dans une petite surface. La libraire est petite et, par conséquent, doit faire des choix (la littérature de genre, mon domaine de prédilection, occupe moins d’une demi-table).

Je me suis évidemment enthousiasmé pour le projet de la Page d’Après, dont je suis immédiatement devenu un fidèle. Je n’avais pas imaginé l’esprit retors du promoteur immobilier qu’est devenue l’université : le soutien à la Page d’Après (qui n’est que très relatif, la surface n’est pas offerte non plus) est devenu l’excuse à la moindre critique !

Car c’est aujourd’hui la bibliothèque publique de Louvain-la-Neuve elle-même qui est menacée à très court terme. La partie ludothèque et livres jeunesse est d’ores et déjà condamnée pour laisser la place à une extension du restaurant universitaire. Le reste de la bibliothèque est sur la sellette. L’université estime en effet qu’elle pourrait tirer 100.000€ par an de loyer et qu’elle n’a aucune raison d’offrir 100.000€ à une institution qui ne pourrait évidemment pas payer une telle somme. Précisons plutôt que l’université ne voit plus d’intérêt à cette bibliothèque qu’elle a pourtant désirée ardemment et qu’elle n’a obtenue que grâce à une convention signée en 1988, à l’époque où Louvain-la-Neuve n’était encore qu’un jeune assemblage d’auditoires et de logements étudiants.

À la remarque « Pouvez-vous imaginer une ville universitaire sans bibliothèque ? » posée par de multiples citoyens, la réponse de certains décideurs est sans ambiguïté : « Nous avons la Page d’Après ». Comme si c’était pareil. Comme si c’était suffisant. Mais, comme le glissent parfois à demi-mot certains politiques qui n’ont pas peur d’étaler leur déficience intellectuelle : « Le livre, c’est mort, l’avenir c’est l’IA. Et puis, si nécessaire, il y a Amazon ».

L’université propose à la bibliothèque de garder une fraction de l’espace actuel à la condition que les travaux d’aménagement soient pris en charge… par la bibliothèque publique elle-même (le résultat restant propriété de l’université). De bibliothèque, la section de Louvain-la-Neuve se transformerait en "antenne" avec un stock très faible et où l’on pourrait se procurer les livres commandés.

Mais c’est complètement se méprendre sur le rôle d’une bibliothèque. Un lieu où l’on peut flâner et faire des découvertes littéraires improbables, découvertes d’ailleurs encouragées par les initiatives du personnel (mise en évidence de titres méconnus, tirage aléatoire d’une suggestion de lecture …). Dans la bibliothèque de Louvain-la-Neuve, j’ai croisé des bénévoles aidant des immigrés adultes à se choisir des livres pour enfant afin d’apprendre le français. J’ai vu mon fils se mettre à lire spontanément les journaux quotidiens offerts à la lecture.

Une bibliothèque n’est pas un point d’enlèvement ou un commerce, une bibliothèque est un lieu de vie !

La bibliothèque doit subsister. Il faut la sauver. (et signer la pétition si ce n’est pas encore fait)

• Signez la pétition pour sauver la bibliothèque de Louvain-la-Neuve !

La disparition progressive de tout un secteur

Loin de se faire de la concurrence, les différents acteurs du livre se renforcent, s’entraident. Les meilleurs clients de l’un sont souvent les meilleurs clients de l’autre. Un achat d’un côté entraine, par ricochet, un achat de l’autre. La bibliothèque publique de Louvain-la-Neuve est le plus gros client du fournisseur de BD Slumberland (ou le second après moi, me siffle mon portefeuille). L’université pourrait faire le choix de participer à cet écosystème.

Slumberland, lieu mythique vers lequel se tournent mes cinq prières quotidiennes, occupe un espace Klépierre. Car, à Louvain-la-Neuve, tout appartient soit à l’université, soit au groupe Klépierre, propriétaire du centre commercial. Le bail de Slumberland arrivant à expiration, ils viennent de se voir notifier une augmentation soudaine de plus de 30% !

15.000€ par mois. En étant ouvert 60h par semaine (ce qui est énorme pour un magasin), cela signifie plus d’un euro par minute d’ouverture. Rien que pour payer son loyer, Slumberland doit vendre une bande dessinée toutes les 5 minutes ! À ce tarif-là, mes (nombreux et récurrents) achats ne remboursent même pas le temps que je passe à flâner dans le magasin !

Ces loyers m’interpellent : comment un magasin de loques criardes produites par des enfants dans des caves en Asie peut-il gagner de quoi payer de telles sommes là où les meilleurs fournisseurs de livres peinent à joindre les deux bouts ? Comment se fait-il que l’épicerie de mon quartier, présente depuis 22 ans, favorisant les produits bio et locaux, remplie tous les jours à ras bord de clients, doive brusquement mettre la clé sous le paillasson ? Comme aux États-Unis, où on ne dit pas « boire un café », mais « prendre un Starbucks », il ne nous restera bientôt que les grandes chaînes.

• La terrifiante hégémonie des monopoles (ploum.net)

Face à l’hégémonie de ces monopoles, je croyais que l’université était un soutien. Mais force est de constater que le modèle est plutôt celui de Monaco : le seul pays du monde qui ne dispose pas d’une seule librairie !

Quelle société les universitaires sont-ils en train de construire ?

Je vous rassure, Slumberland survivra encore un peu à Louvain-la-Neuve. Le magasin a trouvé une surface moins chère (car moins bien exposée) et va déménager. Son nouveau propriétaire ? L’université bien sûr ! Derniers bastions livresques de la ville qui fût, un jour, une utopie intellectuelle et humaniste, Slumberland et La Page d’Après auront le droit de subsister jusqu’au jour où les gestionnaires immobiliers qui se prétendent intellectuels décideront que ce serait plus rentable de vendre un peu plus de gaufres, un peu plus de sacs à main ou d’abrutir un peu plus les étudiants avec un Luna Park.

L’université est devenue un business. Le verdict commercial est sans appel : la production de débiles formatés à la consommation instagrammable rapporte plus que la formation d’intellectuels.

Mais ce n’est pas une fatalité.

L’avenir est ce que nous déciderons d’en faire. L’université n’est pas forcée de devenir un simple gestionnaire immobilier. Nous sommes l’université, nous pouvons la transformer.

J’invite tous les membres du personnel de l’université, les professeur·e·s, les étudiant·e·s, les lecteurices, les intellectuel·le·s et les humanistes à agir, à parler autour d’eux, à défendre les livres en les diffusant, en les prêtant, en encourageant leur lecture, en les conseillant, en diffusant leurs opinions, en ouvrant les débats sur la place des intellectuels dans la ville.

Pour préserver le savoir et la culture, pour sauvegarder l’humanisme et l’intelligence de l’absurde marchandisation à court terme, nous avons le devoir de communiquer, de partager sans restriction, de faire entendre notre voix de toutes les manières imaginables.

Pour une poignée de bits…

Toute l’infrastructure gigantesque d’Internet, tous ces milliers de câbles sous-marins, ces milliards de serveurs clignotants ne servent aux humains qu’à échanger des séries de bits.

Nos téléphones produisent des bits qui sont envoyés, dupliqués, stockés et, parfois, arrivent sur d’autres téléphones. Souvent, ces bits ne sont utiles que pour quelques secondes à peine. Parfois, ils ne le sont pas du tout.

Nous produisons trop de bits pour être capables de les consommer ou pour tout simplement en avoir envie.

Or, toute la promesse de l’IA, c’est d’automatiser cette génération de bits en faisant deux choses : enregistrer les séquences de bits existantes pour les analyser puis reproduire des séquences de bits nouvelles, mais « ressemblantes ».

L’IA, les LLMs, ce ne sont que ça : des générateurs de bits.

Comme me le souffle très justement Stéphane "Alias" Gallay : la course à l’IA, ce n’est finalement qu’un concours de bits.

Enregistrer les séquences de bits

Tous les producteurs d’IA doivent donc d’abord enregistrer autant de séquences de bits existantes que possible. Pour cette raison, le Web est en train de subir une attaque massive. Ces fournisseurs de créateurs de bits pompent agressivement toutes les données qui passent à leur portée. En continu. Ce qui met à mal toute l’infrastructure du web.

Mais comment arrivent-ils à faire cela ? Et bien une partie de la solution serait que ce soit votre téléphone qui le fasse. La société Infatica, met en effet à disposition des développeurs d’app Android et iPhone des morceaux de code à intégrer dans leurs apps contre paiement.

Ce que fait ce code ? Tout simplement, à chaque fois que vous utilisez l’app, il donne l’accès à votre bande passante à des clients. Clients qui peuvent donc faire les requêtes de leur choix comme pomper autant de sites que possible. Cela, sans que l’utilisateur du téléphone en soi informé le moins du monde.

• Botnet Part 2: The Web is Broken (jan.wildeboer.net)

Cela rend l’attaque impossible à bloquer efficacement, car les requêtes proviennent de n’importe où, n’importe quand.

Tout comme le spam, l’activité d’un virus informatique se fait désormais à visage découvert, avec de vraies sociétés qui vendent leurs « services ». Et les geeks sont trop naïfs : ils cherchent des logiciels malveillants qui exploitent des failles de sécurité compliquées alors que tout se fait de manière transparente, à ciel ouvert, mais avec ce qu’on appelle la "plausible deniability" grâce à des couches de services commerciaux. Il y a même des sites avec des reviews et des étoiles pour choisir son meilleur réseau de botnets pseudolégal.

• The candid naivety of geeks (ploum.net)

Le développeur de l’app Android dira que « il ne savait pas que son app serait utilisée pour faire des choses néfastes ». Les fournisseurs de ce code et revendeurs diront « on voulait surtout aider la recherche scientifique et le développeur est censé prévenir l’utilisateur ». Le client final, qui lance ces attaques pour entrainer ses générateurs de bits dira « je n’ai fait qu’utiliser un service commercial ».

En fait, c’est même pire que cela : comme je l’ai démontré lorsque j’ai détecté la présence d’un tracker Facebook dans l’application officielle de l’institut royal de météorologie belge, il est probable que le maître d’œuvre de l’application n’en sache lui-même rien, car il aura utilisé un sous-traitant pour développer l’app. Et le sous-traitant aura lui-même créé l’app en question sur base d’un modèle existant (un template).

• L’article où j’explique mon interaction avec l’IRM (ploum.net)

Grâce à ces myriades de couches, personne ne sait rien. Personne n’est responsable de rien. Et le web est en train de s’effondrer. Allégorie virtuelle du reste de la société.

Générer des séquences de bits

Une fois qu’on a enregistré assez de séquences de bits, on va tenter d’y trouver une logique pour générer des séquences nouvelles, mais « ressemblantes ». Techniquement, ce qui est très impressionnant avec les ChatGPT et consorts, c’est l’échelle à laquelle est fait ce que les chercheurs en informatique font depuis vingt ans.

Mais si ça doit être « ressemblant », ça ne peut pas l’être trop ! En effet, cela fait des décennies que l’on nous rabâche les oreilles avec le "plagiat", avec le "vol de propriété intellectuelle". Houlala, "pirater", c’est mal.

Eh bien non, allez-y ! Piratez mes livres ! D’ailleurs, ils sont faits pour, ils sont sous licence libre. Parce que j’ai envie d’être lu. C’est pour ça que j’écris. Je ne connais aucun artiste qui a augmenté la taille de son public en "protégeant sa propriété intellectuelle".

Parait que c’est mal de pirater.

Sauf quand ce sont les IA qui le font. Ce que montre très bien Otakar G. Hubschmann dans une expérience édifiante. Il demande à ChatGPT de générer des images de « superhéros qui utilise des toiles d’araignées pour se déplacer », d’un « jeune sorcier qui va à l’école avec ses amis » ou un « plombier italien avec une casquette rouge ».

Et l’IA refuse. Parce que ce serait enfreindre un copyright. Désolé donc à tous les plombiers italiens qui voudraient mettre une casquette rouge : vous êtes la propriété intellectuelle de Nintendo.

Mais là où c’est encore plus hallucinant, c’est lorsqu’il s’éloigne des toutes grandes franchises actuelles. S’il demande « photo d’une femme combattant un alien », il obtient… une image de Sigourney Weaver. Une image d’un aventurier archéologue qui porte un chapeau et utilise un fouet ? Il obtient une photo d’Harrisson Ford.

Comme je vous disais : une simple série de bits ressemblant à une autre.

• An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip (theaiunderwriter.substack.com)

Ce qui nous apprend à quel point les IA n’ont aucune, mais alors là aucune originalité. Mais, surtout, que le copyright est véritablement un outil de censure qui ne sert que les très très grands. Grâce aux IA, il est désormais impossible d’illustrer voire d’imaginer un enfant sorcier allant à l’école parce que c’est du plagiat d’Harry Potter (lui-même étant, selon moi, un plagiat d’un roman d’Anthony Horowitz, mais passons…).

Comme le dit Irénée Régnauld, il s’agit de pousser un usage normatif des technologies à un point très effrayant.

• Faut-il empêcher les " mésusages " des technologies ? (maisouvaleweb.fr)

Mais pour protéger ces franchises et ce copyright, les mêmes IA n’hésitent pas à se servir dans les bases de données pirates et à foutre en l’air tous les petits services d’hébergement.

Les humains derrière les bits

Mais le pire c’est que c’est tellement à la mode de dire qu’on a généré ses bits automatiquement que, souvent, on le fait faire par des humains camouflés en générateurs automatiques. Comme cette app de shopping "AI" qui n’était, en réalité, que des travailleurs philippins sous-payés.

• Fintech founder charged with fraud after 'AI' shopping app found to be powered by humans in the Philippines (techcrunch.com)

Les luddites l’avaient compris, Charlie Chaplin l’avait illustré dans « Les temps modernes », Arnold Schwarzeneger a essayé de nous avertir : nous servons les machines que nous croyons avoir conçu pour nous servir. Nous sommes esclaves de générateurs de bits.

Pour l’amour des bits !

Dans le point presse de ma ville, j’ai découvert qu’il n’y avait qu’un magazine en présentoir consacré à Linux, mais pas moins de 5 magazines consacrés entièrement aux générateurs de bits. Avec des couvertures du genre « Mieux utiliser ChatGPT ». Comme si on pouvait l’utiliser « mieux ». Et comme si le contenu de ces magazines n’était lui-même pas généré.

C’est tellement fatigant que j’ai pris la résolution de ne plus lire les articles parlant de ces générateurs de bits, même s’ils ont l’air intéressants. Je vais essayer de lire moins sur le sujet, d’en parler moins. Après tout, je pense que j’ai dit tout ce que j’avais à dire dans ces deux billets :

• Une bulle d’intelligence artificielle et de stupidité naturelle (ploum.net)
• La fin d’un monde ? (ploum.net)

Vous êtes déjà assez assaillis par les générateurs de bits et par les bits qui parlent des générateurs de bits. Je vais tenter de ne pas trop en rajouter et revenir à mon métier d’artisan. Chaque série de bits que je vous offre est entièrement façonnée à la main, d’un humain vers un autre. C’est plus cher, plus rare, plus long à lire, mais, je l’espère, autrement plus qualitatif.

Vous sentez l’amour de l’art et la passion derrière ces bits dont chacun à une signification profonde et une utilité réelle ? C’est pour les transmettre, les partager que je cherche à préserver notre infrastructure et nos cerveaux.

Bonnes lectures et bons échanges entre humains !

• L’image d’illustration a été conçue pour corrompre l’apprentissage des aspirateurs de données.

I decided to leave twitter.
 
Yes, this has something to do with the change of ownership, the name change to x, …
 
There is only 1 X to me, and that’s X.org

Twitter has become a platform that doesn’t value #freedomofspeech anymore.

My account even got flagged as possible spam to “factchecking” #fakenews

The mean reason is that there is a better alternative in the form of the Fediverse #Fediverse is the protocol that Mastodon uses.

It allows for a truly decentralised social media platform.

It allows organizations to set up their own Mastodon instance and take ownership and accountability for their content and accounts.

Mastodon is a nice platform; you probably feel at home there.

People who follow me on twitter can continue to follow me at Mastodon if they want.

https://mastodon.social/@stafwag

I’ll post this message a couple of times to twitter before I close my twitter account, so people can decide if they want to follow me on Mastodon …or not ;-).

Have fun!

It started innocently enough. I was reading a thread about secure file deletion on Linux—a topic that has popped up in discussions for decades. You know the kind: “Is shred still reliable? Should I overwrite with random data or zeroes? What about SSDs and wear leveling?”

As I followed the thread, I came across a mention of /dev/zero, the classic Unix device that outputs an endless stream of null bytes (0x00). It is often used in scripts and system maintenance tasks like wiping partitions or creating empty files.

That led me to wonder: if there is /dev/zero, is there a /dev/one?

Turns out, not in the standard kernel—but someone did write a kernel module to simulate it. It outputs a continuous stream of 0xFF, which is essentially all bits set to one. It is a fun curiosity with some practical uses in testing or wiping data in a different pattern.

But then came the real gem of the rabbit hole: /dev/scream.

Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.

What is /dev/scream?

/dev/scream is a Linux kernel module that creates a character device which, when read, outputs a stream of text that mimics a chaotic, high-pitched scream. Think:

aHAAhhaHHAAHaAaAAAAhhHhhAAaAAAhAaaAAAaHHAHhAaaaaAaHahAaAHaAAHaaHhAHhHaHaAaHAAHaAhhaHaAaAA

It is completely useless… and completely delightful.

Originally written by @matlink, the module is a humorous take on the Unix philosophy: “Everything is a file”—even your existential dread. It turns your terminal into a primal outlet. Just run:

cat /dev/scream

And enjoy the textual equivalent of a scream into the void.

Why?

Why not?

Sometimes the joy of Linux is not about solving problems, but about exploring the weird and wonderful corners of its ecosystem. From /dev/null swallowing your output silently, to /dev/urandom serving up chaos, to /dev/scream venting it—all of these illustrate the creativity of the open source world.

Sure, shred and secure deletion are important. But so is remembering that your system is a playground.

Try it Yourself

If you want to give /dev/scream a go, here is how to install it:

Warning

This is a custom kernel module. It is not dangerous, but do not run it on production systems unless you know what you are doing.

Build and Load the Module

git clone https://github.com/matlink/dev_scream.git
cd dev_scream
make build
sudo make install
sudo make load
sudo insmod dev_scream.ko

Now read from the device:

cat /dev/scream

Or, if you are feeling truly poetic, try screaming into the void:

dd if=/dev/scream of=/dev/null

In space, nobody can hear you scream… but on Linux, /dev/scream is loud and clear—even if you pipe it straight into oblivion.

When you are done screaming:

sudo rmmod dev_scream

Final Thoughts

I started with secure deletion, and I ended up installing a kernel module that screams. This is the beauty of curiosity-driven learning in Linux: you never quite know where you will end up. And sometimes, after a long day, maybe all you need is to cat /dev/scream.

Let me know if you tried it—and whether your terminal feels a little lighter afterward.

Unbound is a popular DNS resolver, that has native DNS-over-TLS support.
 

Unbound and Stubby were among the first resolvers to implement DNS-over-TLS.

I wrote a few blog posts on how to use Stubby on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD.

• https://stafwag.github.io/blog/blog/2018/09/09/dns-privacy-with-stubby-part1-gnulinux/
• https://stafwag.github.io/blog/blog/2018/10/07/dns-privacy-with-stubby-part-2-freebsd/

The implementation status of DNS-over-TLS and other DNS privacy options is available at: https://dnsprivacy.org/.

See https://dnsprivacy.org/implementation_status/ for more details.

It’s less known that it can also be used as authoritative DNS server (aka a real DNS server). Since I discovered this feature and Unbound got native DNS-over-TLS support I started to it as my DNS server.

I created a docker container for it a couple of years back to use it as an authoritative DNS server.

I recently updated the container, the latest version (2.1.0) is available at: https://github.com/stafwag/docker-stafwag-unbound

ChangeLog

Version 2.1.0

Upgrade to debian:bookworm

• Updated BASE_IMAGE to debian:bookworm
• Add ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
• Run unbound-control-setup to generate the default certificate
• Documentation updated

docker-stafwag-unbound

Dockerfile to run unbound inside a docker container. The unbound daemon will run as the unbound user. The uid/gid is mapped to 5000153.

Installation

clone the git repo

$ git clone https://github.com/stafwag/docker-stafwag-unbound.git
$ cd docker-stafwag-unbound

Configuration

Port

The default DNS port is set to 5353 this port is mapped with the docker command to the default port 53 (see below). If you want to use another port, you can edit etc/unbound/unbound.conf.d/interface.conf.

scripts/create_zone_config.sh helper script

The create_zone_config.sh helper script, can help you to create the zones.conf configuration file. It’s executed during the container build and creates the zones.conf from the datafiles in etc/unbound/zones.

If you want to use a docker volume or configmaps/persistent volumes on Kubernetes. You can use this script to generate the zones.conf a zones data directory.

create_zone_config.sh has following arguments:

• -f Default: /etc/unbound/unbound.conf.d/zones.conf The zones.conf file to create
• -d Default: /etc/unbound/zones/ The zones data source files
• -p Default: the realpath of zone files
• -s Skip chown/chmod

Use unbound as an authoritative DNS server

To use unbound as an authoritative authoritive DNS server - a DNS server that hosts DNS zones - add your zones file etc/unbound/zones/.

During the creation of the image scripts/create_zone_config.sh is executed to create the zones configuration file.

Alternatively, you can also use a docker volume to mount /etc/unbound/zones/ to your zone files. And a volume mount for the zones.conf configuration file.

You can use subdirectories. The zone file needs to have $ORIGIN set to our zone origin.

Use DNS-over-TLS

The default configuration uses quad9 to forward the DNS queries over TLS. If you want to use another vendor or you want to use the root DNS servers director you can remove this file.

Build the image

$ docker build -t stafwag/unbound . 

To use a different BASE_IMAGE, you can use the –build-arg BASE_IMAGE=your_base_image.

$ docker build --build-arg BASE_IMAGE=stafwag/debian:bookworm -t stafwag/unbound .

Run

Recursive DNS server with DNS-over-TLS

Run

$ docker run -d --rm --name myunbound -p 127.0.0.1:53:5353 -p 127.0.0.1:53:5353/udp stafwag/unbound

Test

$ dig @127.0.0.1 www.wagemakers.be

Authoritative dns server.

If you want to use unbound as an authoritative dns server you can use the steps below.

Create a directory with your zone files:

[staf@vicky ~]$ mkdir -p ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet
[staf@vicky ~]$ 

[staf@vicky stafnet]$ cd ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet
[staf@vicky ~]$ 

Create the zone files

Zone files

stafnet.zone:

$TTL  86400 ; 24 hours
$ORIGIN stafnet.local.
@  1D  IN  SOA @  root (
            20200322001 ; serial
            3H ; refresh
            15 ; retry
            1w ; expire
            3h ; minimum
           )
@  1D  IN  NS @ 

stafmail IN A 10.10.10.10

stafnet-rev.zone:

$TTL    86400 ;
$ORIGIN 10.10.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA.
@       IN      SOA     stafnet.local. root.localhost.  (
                        20200322001; Serial
                        3h      ; Refresh
                        15      ; Retry
                        1w      ; Expire
                        3h )    ; Minimum
        IN      NS      localhost.
10      IN      PTR     stafmail.

Make sure that the volume directoy and zone files have the correct permissions.

$ sudo chmod 750 ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet/
$ sudo chmod 640 ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet/*
$ sudo chown -R root:5000153 ~/docker/volumes/unbound/

Create the zones.conf configuration file.

[staf@vicky stafnet]$ cd ~/github/stafwag/docker-stafwag-unbound/
[staf@vicky docker-stafwag-unbound]$ 

The script will execute a chown and chmod on the generated zones.conf file and is excute with sudo for this reason.

[staf@vicky docker-stafwag-unbound]$ sudo scripts/create_zone_config.sh -f ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones.conf -d ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet -p /etc/unbound/zones
Processing: /home/staf/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet/stafnet.zone
origin=stafnet.local
Processing: /home/staf/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet/stafnet-rev.zone
origin=1.168.192.IN-ADDR.ARPA
[staf@vicky docker-stafwag-unbound]$ 

Verify the generated zones.conf

[staf@vicky docker-stafwag-unbound]$ sudo cat ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones.conf
auth-zone:
  name: stafnet.local
  zonefile: /etc/unbound/zones/stafnet.zone

auth-zone:
  name: 1.168.192.IN-ADDR.ARPA
  zonefile: /etc/unbound/zones/stafnet-rev.zone

[staf@vicky docker-stafwag-unbound]$ 

run the container

$ docker run --rm --name myunbound -v ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones/stafnet:/etc//unbound/zones/ -v ~/docker/volumes/unbound/zones.conf:/etc/unbound/unbound.conf.d/zones.conf -p 127.0.0.1:53:5353 -p 127.0.0.1:53:5353/udp stafwag/unbound

Test

[staf@vicky ~]$ dig @127.0.0.1 soa stafnet.local

; <<>> DiG 9.16.1 <<>> @127.0.0.1 soa stafnet.local
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; WARNING: .local is reserved for Multicast DNS
;; You are currently testing what happens when an mDNS query is leaked to DNS
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37184
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;stafnet.local.     IN  SOA

;; ANSWER SECTION:
stafnet.local.    86400 IN  SOA stafnet.local. root.stafnet.local. 3020452817 10800 15 604800 10800

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Mar 22 19:41:09 CET 2020
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 83

[staf@vicky ~]$ 

Test reverse lookup.

[staf@vicky ~]$ dig -x 10.10.10.10 @127.0.0.1

; <<>> DiG 9.16.21 <<>> -x 10.10.10.10 @127.0.0.1
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 36250
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;10.10.10.10.in-addr.arpa.	IN	PTR

;; ANSWER SECTION:
10.10.10.10.in-addr.arpa. 86400	IN	PTR	stafmail.

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Oct 19 19:51:47 CEST 2021
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 75

[staf@vicky ~]$ 

Have fun!

If you are part of the Fediverse—on Mastodon, Pleroma, or any other ActivityPub-compatible platform—you can now follow this blog directly from your favorite platform.

Thanks to the excellent ActivityPub plugin for WordPress, each blog post I publish on amedee.be is now automatically shared in a way that federated social platforms can understand and display.

Follow me from Mastodon

If you are on Mastodon, you can follow this blog just like you would follow another person:

Search for: @amedee.be@amedee.be

Or click this link if your Mastodon instance supports it:
https://amedee.be/@amedee.be

New blog posts will appear in your timeline, and you can even reply to them from Mastodon. Your comments will appear as replies on the blog post page—Fediverse and WordPress users interacting seamlessly!

Why I enabled ActivityPub

I have been active on Mastodon for a while as @amedee@lou.lt, and I really enjoy the decentralized, open nature of the Fediverse. It is a refreshing change from the algorithm-driven social media platforms.

Adding ActivityPub support to my blog aligns perfectly with those values: open standards, decentralization, and full control over my own content.

This change was as simple as adding the activitypub plugin to my blog’s Ansible configuration on GitHub:

 blog_wp_plugins_install:
+  - activitypub
   - akismet
   - google-site-kit
   - health-check

Once deployed, GitHub Actions and Ansible took care of the rest.

What this means for you

If you already follow me on Mastodon (@amedee@lou.lt), nothing changes—you will still see the occasional personal post, boost, or comment.

But if you are more interested in my blog content—technical articles, tutorials, and occasional personal reflections—you might prefer following @amedee.be@amedee.be. It is an automated account that only shares blog posts.

This setup lets me keep content separate and organized, while still engaging with the broader Fediverse community.

Want to do the same for your blog?

Setting this up is easy:

1. Make sure you are running WordPress version 6.4 or later.
2. Install and activate the ActivityPub plugin.
3. After activation, your author profile (and optionally, your blog itself) becomes followable via the Fediverse.
4. Start publishing—and federate your writing with the world!

While the code ( if you call YAML “code” ) is already more than 5 years old. I finally took the take the make a proper release of my test “hello” OCI container.

I use this container to demo a container build and how to deploy it with helm on a Kubernetes cluster. Some test tools (ping, DNS, curl, wget) are included to execute some tests on the deployed pod.

It also includes a Makefile to build the container and deploy it on a Red Hat OpenShift Local (formerly Red Hat CodeReady Containers) cluster.

To deploy the container with the included helm charts to OpenShift local (Code Ready Containers), execute make crc_deploy.

This will:

1. Build the container image
2. Login to the internal OpenShift registry
3. Push the image to the internal OpenShift register
4. Deploy the helm chart in the tsthelm namespace, the helm chart will also create a route for the application.

I might include support for other Kubernetes in the future when I find the time.

docker-stafwag-hello_nginx v1.0.0 is available at:

https://github.com/stafwag/docker-stafwag-hello_nginx

ChangeLog

v1.0.0 Initial stable release

• Included dns utilities and documentation update by @stafwag in #3
• Updated Run section by @stafwag in #4

Have fun!

Performance hack seen on a customer site; fix the bad LCP (due to an animation in revslider) by loading an inline (base64’ed) png image which according to FF is broken and later in the rendering process hiding & removing it. Even though that image is not *really* used, tools such as Google Pagespeed Insights pick it up as the LCP image and the score is “in the green”. Not sure this is really…

Source

Managing multiple servers can be a daunting task, especially when striving for consistency and efficiency. To tackle this challenge, I developed a robust automation system using Ansible, GitHub Actions, and Vagrant. This setup not only streamlines server configuration but also ensures that deployments are repeatable and maintainable.

A Bit of History: How It All Started

This project began out of necessity. I was maintaining a handful of Ubuntu servers — one for email, another for a website, and a few for experiments — and I quickly realized that logging into each one to make manual changes was both tedious and error-prone. My first step toward automation was a collection of shell scripts. They worked, but as the infrastructure grew, they became hard to manage and lacked the modularity I needed.

That is when I discovered Ansible. I created the ansible-servers repository in early 2024 as a way to centralize and standardize my infrastructure automation. Initially, it only contained a basic playbook for setting up users and updating packages. But over time, it evolved to include multiple roles, structured inventories, and eventually CI/CD integration through GitHub Actions.

Every addition was born out of a real-world need. When I got tired of testing changes manually, I added Vagrant to simulate my environments locally. When I wanted to be sure my configurations stayed consistent after every push, I integrated GitHub Actions to automate deployments. When I noticed the repo growing, I introduced linting and security checks to maintain quality.

The repository has grown steadily and organically, each commit reflecting a small lesson learned or a new challenge overcome.

The Foundation: Ansible Playbooks

At the core of my automation strategy are Ansible playbooks, which define the desired state of my servers. These playbooks handle tasks such as installing necessary packages, configuring services, and setting up user accounts. By codifying these configurations, I can apply them consistently across different environments.

To manage these playbooks, I maintain a structured repository that includes:

• Inventory Files: Located in the inventory directory, these YAML files specify the hosts and groups for deployment targets.
• Roles: Under the roles directory, I define reusable components that encapsulate specific functionalities, such as setting up a web server or configuring a database.
• Configuration File: The ansible.cfg file sets important defaults, like enabling fact caching and specifying the inventory path, to optimize Ansible’s behavior.

Seamless Deployments with GitHub Actions

To automate the deployment process, I leverage GitHub Actions. This integration allows me to trigger Ansible playbooks automatically upon code changes, ensuring that my servers are always up-to-date with the latest configurations.

One of the key workflows is Deploy to Production, which executes the main playbook against the production inventory. This workflow is defined in the ansible-deploy.yml file and is triggered on specific events, such as pushes to the main branch.

Additionally, I have set up other workflows to maintain code quality and security:

• Super-Linter: Automatically checks the codebase for syntax errors and adherence to best practices.
• Codacy Security Scan: Analyzes the code for potential security vulnerabilities.
• Dependabot Updates: Keeps dependencies up-to-date by automatically creating pull requests for new versions.

Local Testing with Vagrant

Before deploying changes to production, it is crucial to test them in a controlled environment. For this purpose, I use Vagrant to spin up virtual machines that mirror my production servers.

The deploy_to_staging.sh script automates this process by:

1. Starting the Vagrant environment and provisioning it.
2. Installing required Ansible roles specified in requirements.yml.
3. Running the Ansible playbook against the staging inventory.

This approach allows me to validate changes in a safe environment before applying them to live servers.

Embracing Open Source and Continuous Improvement

Transparency and collaboration are vital in the open-source community. By hosting my automation setup on GitHub, I invite others to review, suggest improvements, and adapt the configurations for their own use cases.

The repository is licensed under the MIT License, encouraging reuse and modification. Moreover, I actively monitor issues and welcome contributions to enhance the system further.

In summary, by combining Ansible, GitHub Actions, and Vagrant, I have created a powerful and flexible automation framework for managing my servers. This setup not only reduces manual effort but also increases reliability and scalability. I encourage others to explore this approach and adapt it to their own infrastructure needs. What began as a few basic scripts has now evolved into a reliable automation pipeline I rely on every day.

If you are managing servers and find yourself repeating the same configuration steps, I invite you to check out the ansible-servers repository on GitHub. Clone it, explore the structure, try it in your own environment — and if you have ideas or improvements, feel free to open a pull request or start a discussion. Automation has made a huge difference for me, and I hope it can do the same for you.

One of the most surprising moments at Drupal Dev Days Leuven? Getting a phone call from Drupal. Yes, really.

Marcus Johansson gave me a spontaneous demo of a Twilio-powered AI agent built for Drupal, which triggered a phone call right from within the Drupal interface. It was unexpected, fun, and a perfect example of the kind of creative energy in the room.

That moment reminded me why I love Drupal. People were building, sharing, and exploring what Drupal can do next. The energy was contagious.

From MCP (Model Context Protocol) modules to AI-powered search, I saw Drupal doing things I wouldn't have imagined two years ago. AI is no longer just an idea. It's already finding its way into Drupal in practical, thoughtful ways.

Doing a Q&A at Drupal Dev Days in Leuven. I loved the energy and great questions from the Drupal community. © Paul Johnson

Outside of doing a Q&A session, I spent much of my time at Drupal Dev Days working on the next phase of Drupal's AI strategy. We have an early lead in AI, but we need to build on it. We will be sharing more on that in the coming month.

In the meantime, huge thanks to the organizers of Drupal Dev Days for making this event happen, and to Paul Johnson for the fantastic photo. I love that it shows so many happy faces.

Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste

Je serai ce samedi 19 avril à Mons au festival Trolls & Légende en dédicace au stand PVH.

La star de la table sera sans conteste Sara Schneider, autrice fantasy de la saga des enfants d’Aliel et qui est toute auréolée du Prix SFFF Suisse 2024 pour son superbe roman « Place d’âmes » (dont je vous ai déjà parlé).

C’est la première fois que je dédicacerai à côté d’une autrice ayant reçu un prix majeur. Je suis pas sûr qu’elle acceptera encore que je la tutoie.

Bref, si Sara vient pour faire la légende, le nom du festival implique qu’il faille compléter avec des trolls. D’où la présence également à la table PVH de Tirodem, Allius et moi-même. Ça, les trolls, on sait faire !

Les belles mécaniques de l’imaginaire

S’il y a des trolls et des légendes, il y a aussi tout un côté Steampunk. Et quoi de plus Steampunk qu’un vélo ?

Ce qui fait la beauté de la bicyclette, c’est sa sincérité. Elle ne cache rien, ses mouvements sont apparents, l’effort chez elle se voit et se comprend; elle proclame son but, elle dit qu’elle veut aller vite, silencieusement et légèrement. Pourquoi la voiture automobile est-elle si vilaine et nous inspire-t-elle un sentiment de malaise ? Parce qu’elle dissimule ses organes comme une honte. On ne sait pas ce qu’elle veut. Elle semble inachevée.
– Voici des ailes, Maurice Leblanc

Le vélo, c’est l’aboutissement d’un transhumanisme humaniste rêvé par la science-fiction.

La bicyclette a résolu le problème, qui remédie à notre lenteur et supprime la fatigue. L’homme maintenant est pourvu de tous ses moyens. La vapeur, l’électricité n’étaient que des progrès servant à son bien-être; la bicyclette est un perfectionnement de son corps même, un achèvement pourrait-on dire. C’est une paire de jambes plus rapides qu’on lui offre. Lui et sa machine ne font qu’un, ce ne sont pas deux êtres différents comme l’homme et le cheval, deux instincts en opposition; non, c’est un seul être, un automate d’un seul morceau. Il n’y a pas un homme et une machine, il y a un homme plus vite.
– Voici des ailes, Maurice Leblanc

Un aboutissement technologique qui, paradoxalement, connecte avec la nature. Le vélo est une technologie respectueuse et utilisable par les korrigans, les fées, les elfes et toutes les peuplades qui souffrent de notre croissance technologique. Le vélo étend notre cerveau pour nous connecter à la nature, induit une transe chamanique dès que les pédales se mettent à tourner.

Nos rapports avec la nature sont bouleversés ! Imaginez deux hommes sur un grand chemin : l’un marche, l’autre roule; leur situation à l’égard de la nature sera-t-elle la même ? Oh ! non. L’un recevra d’elle de menues sensations de détails, l’autre une vaste impression d’ensemble. À pied, vous respirez le parfum de cette plante, vous admirez la nuance de cette fleur, vous entendez le chant de cet oiseau; à bicyclette, vous respirez, vous admirez, vous entendez la nature elle-même. C’est que le mouvement produit tend nos nerfs jusqu’à leur maximum d’intensité et nous dote d’une sensibilité inconnue jusqu’alors.
– Voici des ailes, Maurice Leblanc

Oui, le vélo a amplement sa place à Trolls & Légendes, comme le démontrent ses extraits de « Voici des ailes » de Maurice Leblanc, roman écrit… en 1898, quelques années avant la création d’Arsène Lupin !

Célébrer l’univers Bikepunk

Moi aussi, j’aime me faire lyrique pour célébrer le vélo, comme le prouvent les extraits que sélectionnent les critiques de mon roman Bikepunk.

Chierie chimique de bordel nucléaire de saloperie vomissoire de permamerde !
— Bikepunk, Ploum

• Bikepunk - L'Antre d'un poulpe (blog.grishka.fr)

Ouais bon, d’accord… C’est un style légèrement différent. J’essaie juste de toucher un public un poil plus moderne quoi. Et puis on avait dit « pas cet extrait-là ! ».

Allez, comme on dit chez les cyclisteurs : on enchaîne, on enchaîne…

Donc, pour célébrer le vélo et l’imaginaire cycliste, je me propose d’offrir une petite surprise à toute personne qui se présentera sur le stand PVH avec un déguisement dans le thème Bikepunk ce samedi (et si vous me prévenez à l’avance, c’est encore mieux).

Parce qu’on va leur montrer à ces elfes, ces barbares et ces mages ce que c’est la véritable magie, la véritable puissance : des pédales, deux roues et un guidon !

À samedi les cyclotrolls !

• L’événement Dédicace à Trolls & Légendes sur Mobilizon.

Introduction

In my previous post, I shared the story of why I needed a new USB stick and how I used ChatGPT to write a benchmark script that could measure read performance across various methods. In this follow-up, I will dive into the technical details of how the script evolved—from a basic prototype into a robust and feature-rich tool—thanks to incremental refinements and some AI-assisted development.

Starting Simple: The First Version

The initial idea was simple: read a file using dd and measure the speed.

dd if=/media/amedee/Ventoy/ISO/ubuntu-24.10-desktop-amd64.iso \
   of=/dev/null bs=8k

That worked, but I quickly ran into limitations:

• No progress indicator
• Hardcoded file paths
• No USB auto-detection
• No cache flushing, leading to inflated results when repeating the measurement

With ChatGPT’s help, I started addressing each of these issues one by one.

Tools check

On a default Ubuntu installation, some tools are available by default, while others (especially benchmarking tools) usually need to be installed separately.

Tools used in the script:

This function ensures the system has all tools needed for benchmarking. It exits early if any tool is missing.

This was the initial version:

check_required_tools() {
  local required_tools=(dd pv hdparm fio ioping awk grep sed tr bc stat lsblk find sort)
  for tool in "${required_tools[@]}"; do
    if ! command -v "$tool" &>/dev/null; then
      echo "❌ Required tool '$tool' is not installed."
      exit 1
    fi
  done
}

That’s already nice, but maybe I just want to run the script anyway if some of the tools are missing.

This is a more advanced version:

ALL_TOOLS=(hdparm dd pv ioping fio lsblk stat grep awk find sort basename column gnuplot)
MISSING_TOOLS=()

require() {
  if ! command -v "$1" >/dev/null; then
    return 1
  fi
  return 0
}

check_required_tools() {
  echo "🔍 Checking required tools..."
  for tool in "${ALL_TOOLS[@]}"; do
    if ! require "$tool"; then
      MISSING_TOOLS+=("$tool")
    fi
  done

  if [[ ${#MISSING_TOOLS[@]} -gt 0 ]]; then
    echo "⚠️  The following tools are missing: ${MISSING_TOOLS[*]}"
    echo "You can install them using: sudo apt install ${MISSING_TOOLS[*]}"
    if [[ -z "$FORCE_YES" ]]; then
      read -rp "Do you want to continue and skip tests that require them? (y/N): " yn
      case $yn in
        [Yy]*)
          echo "Continuing with limited tests..."
          ;;
        *)
          echo "Aborting. Please install the required tools."
          exit 1
          ;;
      esac
    else
      echo "Continuing with limited tests (auto-confirmed)..."
    fi
  else
    echo "✅ All required tools are available."
  fi
}

Device Auto-Detection

One early challenge was identifying which device was the USB stick. I wanted the script to automatically detect a mounted USB device. My first version was clunky and error-prone.

detect_usb() {
  USB_DEVICE=$(lsblk -o NAME,TRAN,MOUNTPOINT -J | jq -r '.blockdevices[] | select(.tran=="usb") | .name' | head -n1)
  if [[ -z "$USB_DEVICE" ]]; then
    echo "❌ No USB device detected."
    exit 1
  fi
  USB_PATH="/dev/$USB_DEVICE"
  MOUNT_PATH=$(lsblk -no MOUNTPOINT "$USB_PATH" | head -n1)
  if [[ -z "$MOUNT_PATH" ]]; then
    echo "❌ USB device is not mounted."
    exit 1
  fi
  echo "✅ Using USB device: $USB_PATH"
  echo "✅ Mounted at: $MOUNT_PATH"
}

After a few iterations, we (ChatGPT and I) settled on parsing lsblk with filters on tran=usb and hotplug=1, and selecting the first mounted partition.

We also added a fallback prompt in case auto-detection failed.

detect_usb() {
  if [[ -n "$USB_DEVICE" ]]; then
    echo "📎 Using provided USB device: $USB_DEVICE"
    MOUNT_PATH=$(lsblk -no MOUNTPOINT "$USB_DEVICE")
    return
  fi

  echo "🔍 Detecting USB device..."
  USB_DEVICE=""
  while read -r dev tran hotplug type _; do
    if [[ "$tran" == "usb" && "$hotplug" == "1" && "$type" == "disk" ]]; then
      base="/dev/$dev"
      part=$(lsblk -nr -o NAME,MOUNTPOINT "$base" | awk '$2 != "" {print "/dev/"$1; exit}')
      if [[ -n "$part" ]]; then
        USB_DEVICE="$part"
        break
      fi
    fi
  done < <(lsblk -o NAME,TRAN,HOTPLUG,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT -nr)

  if [ -z "$USB_DEVICE" ]; then
    echo "❌ No mounted USB partition found on any USB disk."
    lsblk -o NAME,TRAN,HOTPLUG,TYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT -nr | grep part
    read -rp "Enter the USB device path manually (e.g., /dev/sdc1): " USB_DEVICE
  fi

  MOUNT_PATH=$(lsblk -no MOUNTPOINT "$USB_DEVICE")
  if [ -z "$MOUNT_PATH" ]; then
    echo "❌ USB device is not mounted."
    exit 1
  fi

  echo "✅ Using USB device: $USB_DEVICE"
  echo "✅ Mounted at: $MOUNT_PATH"
}

Finding the Test File

To avoid hardcoding filenames, we implemented logic to search for the latest Ubuntu ISO on the USB stick.

find_ubuntu_iso() {
  # Function to find an Ubuntu ISO on the USB device
  find "$MOUNT_PATH" -type f -regextype posix-extended \
    -regex ".*/ubuntu-[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{2}-desktop-amd64\\.iso" | sort -V | tail -n1
}

Later, we enhanced it to accept a user-provided file, and even verify that the file was located on the USB stick. If it was not, the script would gracefully fall back to the Ubuntu ISO search.

find_test_file() {
  if [[ -n "$TEST_FILE" ]]; then
    echo "📎 Using provided test file: $(basename "$TEST_FILE")"
    
    # Check if the provided test file is on the USB device
    TEST_FILE_MOUNT_PATH=$(realpath "$TEST_FILE" | grep -oP "^$MOUNT_PATH")
    if [[ -z "$TEST_FILE_MOUNT_PATH" ]]; then
      echo "❌ The provided test file is not located on the USB device."
      # Look for an Ubuntu ISO if it's not on the USB
      TEST_FILE=$(find_ubuntu_iso)
    fi
  else
    TEST_FILE=$(find_ubuntu_iso)
  fi

  if [ -z "$TEST_FILE" ]; then
    echo "❌ No valid test file found."
    exit 1
  fi

  if [[ "$TEST_FILE" =~ ubuntu-[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{2}-desktop-amd64\.iso ]]; then
    UBUNTU_VERSION=$(basename "$TEST_FILE" | grep -oP 'ubuntu-\d{2}\.\d{2}')
    echo "🧪 Selected Ubuntu version: $UBUNTU_VERSION"
  else
    echo "📎 Selected test file: $(basename "$TEST_FILE")"
  fi
}

Read Methods and Speed Extraction

To get a comprehensive view, we added multiple methods:

• hdparm (direct disk access)
• dd (simple block read)
• dd + pv (with progress bar)
• cat + pv (alternative stream reader)
• ioping (random access)
• fio (customizable benchmark tool)

    if require hdparm; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(sudo hdparm -t --direct "$USB_DEVICE" 2>/dev/null | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    drop_caches
    speed=$(dd if="$TEST_FILE" of=/dev/null bs=8k 2>&1 |& extract_speed)
    mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
    echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
    TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
    echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    ((idx++))

    if require pv; then
      drop_caches
      FILESIZE=$(stat -c%s "$TEST_FILE")
      speed=$(dd if="$TEST_FILE" bs=8k status=none | pv -s "$FILESIZE" -f -X 2>&1 | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    if require pv; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(cat "$TEST_FILE" | pv -f -X 2>&1 | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    if require ioping; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(ioping -c 10 -A "$USB_DEVICE" 2>/dev/null | grep 'read' | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    if require fio; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(fio --name=readtest --filename="$TEST_FILE" --direct=1 --rw=read --bs=8k \
            --size=100M --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=16 --runtime=5s --time_based --readonly \
            --minimal 2>/dev/null | awk -F';' '{print $6" KB/s"}' | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi

Parsing their outputs proved tricky. For example, pv outputs speed with or without spaces, and with different units. We created a robust extract_speed function with regex, and a speed_to_mb function that could handle both MB/s and MiB/s, with or without a space between value and unit.

extract_speed() {
  grep -oP '(?i)[\d.,]+\s*[KMG]i?B/s' | tail -1 | sed 's/,/./'
}

speed_to_mb() {
  if [[ "$1" =~ ([0-9.,]+)[[:space:]]*([a-zA-Z/]+) ]]; then
    value="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
    unit=$(echo "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
  else
    echo "0"
    return
  fi

  case "$unit" in
    kb/s)   awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v / 1000 }' ;;
    mb/s)   awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v }' ;;
    gb/s)   awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v * 1000 }' ;;
    kib/s)  awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v / 1024 }' ;;
    mib/s)  awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v }' ;;
    gib/s)  awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v * 1024 }' ;;
    *) echo "0" ;;
  esac
}

Dropping Caches for Accurate Results

To prevent cached reads from skewing the results, each test run begins by dropping system caches using:

sync && echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

What it does:

We wrapped this in a helper function and used it consistently.

Multiple Runs and Averaging

We made the script repeat each test N times (default: 3), collect results, compute averages, and display a summary at the end.

  echo "📊 Read-only USB benchmark started ($RUNS run(s))"
  echo "==================================="

  declare -A TEST_NAMES=(
    [1]="hdparm"
    [2]="dd"
    [3]="dd + pv"
    [4]="cat + pv"
    [5]="ioping"
    [6]="fio"
  )

  declare -A TOTAL_MB
  for i in {1..6}; do TOTAL_MB[$i]=0; done
  CSVFILE="usb-benchmark-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).csv"
  echo "Test,Run,Speed (MB/s)" > "$CSVFILE"

  for ((run=1; run<=RUNS; run++)); do
    echo "▶ Run $run"
    idx=1

  ### tests run here

  echo "📄 Summary of average results for $UBUNTU_VERSION:"
  echo "==================================="
  SUMMARY_TABLE=""
  for i in {1..6}; do
    if [[ ${TOTAL_MB[$i]} != 0 ]]; then
      avg=$(echo "scale=2; ${TOTAL_MB[$i]} / $RUNS" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$i]} average: $avg MB/s"
      RESULTS+=("${TEST_NAMES[$i]} average: $avg MB/s")
      SUMMARY_TABLE+="${TEST_NAMES[$i]},$avg\n"
    fi
  done

Output Formats

To make the results user-friendly, we added:

• A clean table view
• CSV export for spreadsheets
• Log file for later reference

  if [[ "$VISUAL" == "table" || "$VISUAL" == "both" ]]; then
    echo -e "📋 Table view:"
    echo -e "Test Method,Average MB/s\n$SUMMARY_TABLE" | column -t -s ','
  fi

  if [[ "$VISUAL" == "bar" || "$VISUAL" == "both" ]]; then
    if require gnuplot; then
      echo -e "$SUMMARY_TABLE" | awk -F',' '{print $1" "$2}' | \
      gnuplot -p -e "
        set terminal dumb;
        set title 'USB Read Benchmark Results ($UBUNTU_VERSION)';
        set xlabel 'Test Method';
        set ylabel 'MB/s';
        plot '-' using 2:xtic(1) with boxes notitle
      "
    fi
  fi

  LOGFILE="usb-benchmark-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).log"
  {
    echo "Benchmark for USB device: $USB_DEVICE"
    echo "Mounted at: $MOUNT_PATH"
    echo "Ubuntu version: $UBUNTU_VERSION"
    echo "Test file: $TEST_FILE"
    echo "Timestamp: $(date)"
    echo "Number of runs: $RUNS"
    echo ""
    echo "Read speed averages:"
    for line in "${RESULTS[@]}"; do
      echo "$line"
    done
  } > "$LOGFILE"

  echo "📝 Results saved to: $LOGFILE"
  echo "📈 CSV exported to: $CSVFILE"
  echo "==================================="

The Full Script

Here is the complete version of the script used to benchmark the read performance of a USB drive:

#!/bin/bash

# ==========================
# CONFIGURATION
# ==========================
RESULTS=()
USB_DEVICE=""
TEST_FILE=""
RUNS=1
VISUAL="none"
SUMMARY=0

# (Consider grouping related configuration into a config file or associative array if script expands)

# ==========================
# ARGUMENT PARSING
# ==========================
while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; do
  case $1 in
    --device)
      USB_DEVICE="$2"
      shift 2
      ;;
    --file)
      TEST_FILE="$2"
      shift 2
      ;;
    --runs)
      RUNS="$2"
      shift 2
      ;;
    --visual)
      VISUAL="$2"
      shift 2
      ;;
    --summary)
      SUMMARY=1
      shift
      ;;
    --yes|--force)
      FORCE_YES=1
      shift
      ;;
    *)
      echo "Unknown option: $1"
      exit 1
      ;;
  esac
done

# ==========================
# TOOL CHECK
# ==========================
ALL_TOOLS=(hdparm dd pv ioping fio lsblk stat grep awk find sort basename column gnuplot)
MISSING_TOOLS=()

require() {
  if ! command -v "$1" >/dev/null; then
    return 1
  fi
  return 0
}

check_required_tools() {
  echo "🔍 Checking required tools..."
  for tool in "${ALL_TOOLS[@]}"; do
    if ! require "$tool"; then
      MISSING_TOOLS+=("$tool")
    fi
  done

  if [[ ${#MISSING_TOOLS[@]} -gt 0 ]]; then
    echo "⚠️  The following tools are missing: ${MISSING_TOOLS[*]}"
    echo "You can install them using: sudo apt install ${MISSING_TOOLS[*]}"
    if [[ -z "$FORCE_YES" ]]; then
      read -rp "Do you want to continue and skip tests that require them? (y/N): " yn
      case $yn in
        [Yy]*)
          echo "Continuing with limited tests..."
          ;;
        *)
          echo "Aborting. Please install the required tools."
          exit 1
          ;;
      esac
    else
      echo "Continuing with limited tests (auto-confirmed)..."
    fi
  else
    echo "✅ All required tools are available."
  fi
}

# ==========================
# AUTO-DETECT USB DEVICE
# ==========================
detect_usb() {
  if [[ -n "$USB_DEVICE" ]]; then
    echo "📎 Using provided USB device: $USB_DEVICE"
    MOUNT_PATH=$(lsblk -no MOUNTPOINT "$USB_DEVICE")
    return
  fi

  echo "🔍 Detecting USB device..."
  USB_DEVICE=""
  while read -r dev tran hotplug type _; do
    if [[ "$tran" == "usb" && "$hotplug" == "1" && "$type" == "disk" ]]; then
      base="/dev/$dev"
      part=$(lsblk -nr -o NAME,MOUNTPOINT "$base" | awk '$2 != "" {print "/dev/"$1; exit}')
      if [[ -n "$part" ]]; then
        USB_DEVICE="$part"
        break
      fi
    fi
  done < <(lsblk -o NAME,TRAN,HOTPLUG,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT -nr)

  if [ -z "$USB_DEVICE" ]; then
    echo "❌ No mounted USB partition found on any USB disk."
    lsblk -o NAME,TRAN,HOTPLUG,TYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT -nr | grep part
    read -rp "Enter the USB device path manually (e.g., /dev/sdc1): " USB_DEVICE
  fi

  MOUNT_PATH=$(lsblk -no MOUNTPOINT "$USB_DEVICE")
  if [ -z "$MOUNT_PATH" ]; then
    echo "❌ USB device is not mounted."
    exit 1
  fi

  echo "✅ Using USB device: $USB_DEVICE"
  echo "✅ Mounted at: $MOUNT_PATH"
}

# ==========================
# FIND TEST FILE
# ==========================
find_ubuntu_iso() {
  # Function to find an Ubuntu ISO on the USB device
  find "$MOUNT_PATH" -type f -regextype posix-extended \
    -regex ".*/ubuntu-[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{2}-desktop-amd64\\.iso" | sort -V | tail -n1
}

find_test_file() {
  if [[ -n "$TEST_FILE" ]]; then
    echo "📎 Using provided test file: $(basename "$TEST_FILE")"
    
    # Check if the provided test file is on the USB device
    TEST_FILE_MOUNT_PATH=$(realpath "$TEST_FILE" | grep -oP "^$MOUNT_PATH")
    if [[ -z "$TEST_FILE_MOUNT_PATH" ]]; then
      echo "❌ The provided test file is not located on the USB device."
      # Look for an Ubuntu ISO if it's not on the USB
      TEST_FILE=$(find_ubuntu_iso)
    fi
  else
    TEST_FILE=$(find_ubuntu_iso)
  fi

  if [ -z "$TEST_FILE" ]; then
    echo "❌ No valid test file found."
    exit 1
  fi

  if [[ "$TEST_FILE" =~ ubuntu-[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{2}-desktop-amd64\.iso ]]; then
    UBUNTU_VERSION=$(basename "$TEST_FILE" | grep -oP 'ubuntu-\d{2}\.\d{2}')
    echo "🧪 Selected Ubuntu version: $UBUNTU_VERSION"
  else
    echo "📎 Selected test file: $(basename "$TEST_FILE")"
  fi
}



# ==========================
# SPEED EXTRACTION
# ==========================
extract_speed() {
  grep -oP '(?i)[\d.,]+\s*[KMG]i?B/s' | tail -1 | sed 's/,/./'
}

speed_to_mb() {
  if [[ "$1" =~ ([0-9.,]+)[[:space:]]*([a-zA-Z/]+) ]]; then
    value="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
    unit=$(echo "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
  else
    echo "0"
    return
  fi

  case "$unit" in
    kb/s)   awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v / 1000 }' ;;
    mb/s)   awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v }' ;;
    gb/s)   awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v * 1000 }' ;;
    kib/s)  awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v / 1024 }' ;;
    mib/s)  awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v }' ;;
    gib/s)  awk -v v="$value" 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", v * 1024 }' ;;
    *) echo "0" ;;
  esac
}

drop_caches() {
  echo "🧹 Dropping system caches..."
  if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
    echo "  (requires sudo)"
  fi
  sudo sh -c "sync && echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches"
}

# ==========================
# RUN BENCHMARKS
# ==========================
run_benchmarks() {
  echo "📊 Read-only USB benchmark started ($RUNS run(s))"
  echo "==================================="

  declare -A TEST_NAMES=(
    [1]="hdparm"
    [2]="dd"
    [3]="dd + pv"
    [4]="cat + pv"
    [5]="ioping"
    [6]="fio"
  )

  declare -A TOTAL_MB
  for i in {1..6}; do TOTAL_MB[$i]=0; done
  CSVFILE="usb-benchmark-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).csv"
  echo "Test,Run,Speed (MB/s)" > "$CSVFILE"

  for ((run=1; run<=RUNS; run++)); do
    echo "▶ Run $run"
    idx=1

    if require hdparm; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(sudo hdparm -t --direct "$USB_DEVICE" 2>/dev/null | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    drop_caches
    speed=$(dd if="$TEST_FILE" of=/dev/null bs=8k 2>&1 |& extract_speed)
    mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
    echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
    TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
    echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    ((idx++))

    if require pv; then
      drop_caches
      FILESIZE=$(stat -c%s "$TEST_FILE")
      speed=$(dd if="$TEST_FILE" bs=8k status=none | pv -s "$FILESIZE" -f -X 2>&1 | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    if require pv; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(cat "$TEST_FILE" | pv -f -X 2>&1 | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    if require ioping; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(ioping -c 10 -A "$USB_DEVICE" 2>/dev/null | grep 'read' | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
    ((idx++))

    if require fio; then
      drop_caches
      speed=$(fio --name=readtest --filename="$TEST_FILE" --direct=1 --rw=read --bs=8k \
            --size=100M --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=16 --runtime=5s --time_based --readonly \
            --minimal 2>/dev/null | awk -F';' '{print $6" KB/s"}' | extract_speed)
      mb=$(speed_to_mb "$speed")
      echo "${idx}. ${TEST_NAMES[$idx]}: $speed"
      TOTAL_MB[$idx]=$(echo "${TOTAL_MB[$idx]} + $mb" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$idx]},$run,$mb" >> "$CSVFILE"
    fi
  done

  echo "📄 Summary of average results for $UBUNTU_VERSION:"
  echo "==================================="
  SUMMARY_TABLE=""
  for i in {1..6}; do
    if [[ ${TOTAL_MB[$i]} != 0 ]]; then
      avg=$(echo "scale=2; ${TOTAL_MB[$i]} / $RUNS" | bc)
      echo "${TEST_NAMES[$i]} average: $avg MB/s"
      RESULTS+=("${TEST_NAMES[$i]} average: $avg MB/s")
      SUMMARY_TABLE+="${TEST_NAMES[$i]},$avg\n"
    fi
  done

  if [[ "$VISUAL" == "table" || "$VISUAL" == "both" ]]; then
    echo -e "📋 Table view:"
    echo -e "Test Method,Average MB/s\n$SUMMARY_TABLE" | column -t -s ','
  fi

  if [[ "$VISUAL" == "bar" || "$VISUAL" == "both" ]]; then
    if require gnuplot; then
      echo -e "$SUMMARY_TABLE" | awk -F',' '{print $1" "$2}' | \
      gnuplot -p -e "
        set terminal dumb;
        set title 'USB Read Benchmark Results ($UBUNTU_VERSION)';
        set xlabel 'Test Method';
        set ylabel 'MB/s';
        plot '-' using 2:xtic(1) with boxes notitle
      "
    fi
  fi

  LOGFILE="usb-benchmark-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).log"
  {
    echo "Benchmark for USB device: $USB_DEVICE"
    echo "Mounted at: $MOUNT_PATH"
    echo "Ubuntu version: $UBUNTU_VERSION"
    echo "Test file: $TEST_FILE"
    echo "Timestamp: $(date)"
    echo "Number of runs: $RUNS"
    echo ""
    echo "Read speed averages:"
    for line in "${RESULTS[@]}"; do
      echo "$line"
    done
  } > "$LOGFILE"

  echo "📝 Results saved to: $LOGFILE"
  echo "📈 CSV exported to: $CSVFILE"
  echo "==================================="
}

# ==========================
# MAIN
# ==========================
check_required_tools
detect_usb
find_test_file
run_benchmarks

You van also find the latest revision of this script as a GitHub Gist.

Lessons Learned

This script has grown from a simple one-liner into a reliable tool to test USB read performance. Working with ChatGPT sped up development significantly, especially for bash edge cases and regex. But more importantly, it helped guide the evolution of the script in a structured way, with clean modular functions and consistent formatting.

Conclusion

This has been a fun and educational project. Whether you are benchmarking your own USB drives or just want to learn more about shell scripting, I hope this walkthrough is helpful.

Next up? Maybe a graphical version, or write benchmarking on a RAM disk to avoid damaging flash storage.

Stay tuned—and let me know if you use this script or improve it!

À la recherche de l’attention perdue

La messagerie instantanée et la politique

Vous l’avez certainement vu passer : Un journaliste américain s’est fait inviter par erreur sur un chat Signal où des personnes très haut placées de l’administration américaine (y compris le vice-président) discutent de l’organisation top secrète d’une frappe militaire au Yémen le 15 mars.

• L’administration Trump envoie par erreur ses plans de guerre à un journaliste via Signal (next.ink)

La raison de cette erreur est que le porte-parole de Trump, Brian Hughes, avait, durant la campagne électorale, reçu un email du journaliste en question pour demander des précisions sur un autre sujet. Brian Hughes avait alors copié/collé la totalité de l’email, incluant la signature contenant le numéro de téléphone du journaliste, dans un message instantané Apple iMessage à destination de Mike Waltz, qui allait devenir le conseiller à la sécurité de Trump. Recevant ce numéro par message de la part de Brian Hughes, Mike Waltz aurait ensuite sauvegardé ce numéro sous le nom de Brian Hughes. En voulant inviter plus tard Brian Hughes dans le chat Signal, Mike Waltz a par erreur invité le journaliste américain.

• Exclusive: how the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg got added to the White House Signal group chat (www.theguardian.com)

Cette anecdote nous apprend plusieurs choses:

Premièrement, Signal est devenu une réelle infrastructure critique de sécurité, y compris dans les cercles les plus hauts placés.

Deuxièmement, les discussions de guerre ultra-stratégique ont désormais lieu… par chat. Pas difficile d’imaginer que chaque participant répond machinalement, poste un émoji entre deux réunions, lors d’une pause pipi. Et là se décident la vie et la mort du reste du monde : dans les toilettes et les réunions qui n’ont rien à voir !

L’erreur initiale provient du fait que Mike Waltz ne lit vraisemblablement pas ses emails (sinon, on lui aurait fait suivre l’email au lieu de l’envoyer par message) et que Brian Hughues est incapable de résumer efficacement un long texte (sinon il n’aurait pas collé l’intégralité du message).

Non seulement Mike Waltz ne lit pas ses emails, mais on peut soupçonner qu’il ne lit pas les messages trop longs : il a quand même ajouté un numéro de téléphone qui se trouvait à la fin d’un message sans prendre le temps de lire et de comprendre ledit message. À sa décharge, il semblerait qu’il soit possible que ce soit "l’intelligence artificielle" de l’iPhone qui ait ajouté ce numéro automatiquement au contact.

Je ne sais pas si cette fonctionnalité existe, mais le fait d’utiliser un téléphone qui peut décider automatiquement de changer le numéro de ses contacts est quand même assez effrayant. Et bien dans le genre d’Apple dont j’interprète les slogans marketing comme « achetez avec nos produits l’intelligence qui vous fait défaut, bande de crétins ! ».

Crise politique attentionnelle et surveillance généralisée

La crise attentionnelle est réelle : nous sommes de moins en moins capables de nous concentrer et nous votons pour des gens qui le sont encore moins ! Un ami ayant été embauché pour participer à une campagne électorale en Belgique m’a raconté avoir été abasourdi par l’addiction des politiciens les plus en vue aux réseaux sociaux. Ils sont en permanence rivés à leurs écrans à comptabiliser les likes et les partages de leurs publications et, quand ils reçoivent un dossier de plus de dix lignes, demandent un résumé ultra-succinct à leurs conseillers.

Vos politiques ne comprennent rien à rien. Ils font semblant. Et désormais, ils demandent à ChatGPT qui a l’avantage de ne pas dormir, contrairement aux conseillers humains. Les fameuses intelligences artificielles qui, justement, sont peut-être coupables d’avoir ajouté le numéro à ce contact et d’avoir rédigé la politique fiscale de Trump.

• La fin d’un monde ? (ploum.net)

Mais pourquoi utiliser Signal et pas une solution officielle qui empêcherait ce genre de fuite ? Officiellement, il n’y aurait pas d’alternative aussi facile. Mais je vois une raison non officielle très simple : les personnes haut placées ont désormais peur de leur propre infrastructure, car ils savent que tout est sauvegardé et peut-être utilisé contre eux lors d’une éventuelle enquête ou d’un procès, même des années plus tard.

Trump a été élu la première fois en faisant campagne sur le fait qu’Hillary Clinton avait utilisé un serveur email personnel, ce qui lui permettait, selon Trump lui-même, d’échapper à la justice en ayant ses mails soustraits aux services de surveillance internes américains.

Même ceux qui mettent en place le système de surveillance généralisé en ont peur.

L’éducation à la compréhension

La dernière leçon que je tire de cette anecdote c’est, encore une fois, celle de l’éducation : vous pouvez avoir l’infrastructure cryptographique la plus sécurisée, si vous êtes incompétent au point d’inviter n’importe qui dans votre chat, on ne peut rien faire pour vous.

La plus grosse faille de sécurité est toujours entre la chaise et le clavier, la seule manière de sécuriser un système est de faire en sorte que l’utilisateur soit éduqué.

Le meilleur exemple reste celui des voitures autonomes : nous sommes en train de mettre des générations entières dans des Tesla qui se conduisent toutes seules 99% du temps. Et lorsqu’un accident arrive, dans le 1% restant, nous demandons au conducteur : « Mais pourquoi tu n’as pas réagi comme un bon conducteur ? »

Et la réponse est très simple : « Parce que je n’ai jamais conduit de ma vie, je ne sais pas ce que c’est conduire, je n’ai jamais appris à réagir quand le système ne fonctionne pas correctement ».

Vous pensez que j’exagère ? Attendez…

Se faire engager grâce à l’IA

Eric Lu a reçu le CV d’un candidat très prometteur pour bosser dans sa startup. CV qui semblait fort optimisé en mots clés, mais qui était particulièrement pointu dans les technologies utilisées par Eric. Il a donc proposé au candidat une interview par vidéo.

Au début, tout s’est très bien passé jusqu’à ce que le candidat commence à s’emmêler dans ses réponses. « Vous dites que le service d’envoi de SMS sur lequel vous avez bossé était saturé, mais vous décrivez le service comme étant utilisé par une classe de 30 personnes. Comment 30 SMS peuvent-ils saturer le service ? » … euh… « Pouvez-vous me dire quelle interface utilisateur vous avez mise en place avec ce que vous dites avoir implémenté ? » … euh, je ne me souviens plus…

Eric comprend alors que le candidat baratine. Le CV a été généré par ChatGPT. Le candidat s’est préparé en simulant un entretien d’embauche avec ChatGPT et en étudiant par cœur ce qu’il devait répondre. Il panique dès qu’on sort de son script.

• What it's like to interview a software engineer preparing with AI (www.kapwing.com)

Ce qui est particulièrement dommage, c’est que le candidat avait un profil vraiment adapté. S’il avait été honnête et franc au regard de son manque d’expérience, il aurait pu se faire engager comme junior et acquérir l’expérience souhaitée. S’il avait consacré son temps à lire des explications techniques sur les technologies concernées plutôt que d’utiliser ChatGPT, il aurait pu convaincre l’employeur de sa motivation, de sa curiosité. « Je ne connais pas encore grand-chose, mais je suis désireux d’apprendre ».

Mais le plus triste dans tout cela, c’est qu’il a sincèrement pensé que ça pouvait fonctionner. Il a détruit sa réputation parce que ça ne lui a même pas traversé l’esprit que, quand bien même il aurait été engagé, il n’aurait pas tenu deux jours dans son boulot avant de passer pour un crétin. Il a été malhonnête parce qu’il était persuadé que c’était la bonne manière de fonctionner.

Bref, il était un vrai Julius.

• Mon collègue Julius (ploum.net)

Il a « appris à conduire une Tesla » en s’asseyant sur le siège et regardant celle-ci faire 100 fois le tour du quartier. Confiant, il est parti dans une autre ville et s’est pris le premier platane.

Sauver une génération

Les smartphones, l’IA, les monopoles publicitaires, les réseaux sociaux sont toutes les facettes d’un même problème : la volonté de rendre la technologie incompréhensible afin de nous asservir commercialement et de nous occuper l’esprit.

J’ai écrit comment je pensais que nous devions agir pour éduquer la prochaine génération d’adultes :

• De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents (ploum.net)

Mais c’est un point de vue de parent. C’est pour cela que je trouve très pertinente l’analyse de Thual qui, lui, est un jeune adulte à peine sorti de l’adolescence. Il peut parler de tout cela à la première personne.

• Adolescence et numérique : retour d'expérience (thual.eu)

La grande leçon que j’en tire est que la génération qui nous suit est loin d’être perdue. Comme toutes les générations, elle est désireuse d’apprendre, de se battre. Nous devons avoir l’humilité de réaliser que ma génération s’est complètement plantée. Que nous détruisons tout, que nous sommes des fascistes addicts à Facebook et Candy Crush qui roulons en SUV.

Nous n’avons pas de leçons à leur donner. Nous avons le devoir de les aider, de nous mettre à leur service en désactivant le pilote automatique et en brûlant les slides PowerPoint dont nous sommes si fiers.

Seven years ago, I wrote a post about a tiny experiment: publishing my phone's battery status to my website. The updates have quietly continued ever since, appearing at https://dri.es/status.

Every 20 minutes or so, my phone sends its battery level and charging state to a REST endpoint on my Drupal site. The exact timing depends on iOS background scheduling, which has a mind of its own.

For years, this lived quietly at https://dri.es/status. I never linked to it outside the original blog post, so it felt like a forgotten corner of my site. Still working, but mostly invisible.

Despite its low profile, people still mention it occasionally after all this time. This prompted me to bring it into the light.

I have now added a battery icon to my site's header. It's a dynamically generated SVG that displays my phone's current battery level and charging state.

It's a bit goofy, but that is what makes personal websites special. You get to experiment with it and make it yours.

De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents

Chers parents, chers enseignants, chers éducateurs,

Nous le savons toutes et tous, le smartphone est devenu un objet incontournable de notre quotidien, nous connectant en permanence au réseau Internet qui, avant cela, restait cantonné aux ordinateurs sur nos bureaux. En voyant grandir nos enfants, la question se pose : quand, comment et pourquoi les faire entrer dans le monde de cette hyperconnexion permanente.

L’adolescence est une phase critique de la vie durant laquelle le cerveau est particulièrement réceptif et forme des réflexes qui resteront ancrés toute une vie. C’est également une période durant laquelle la pression du groupe et le désir de conformité sociale sont les plus importants. Ce n’est pas un hasard si les producteurs de cigarettes et d’alcool ciblent explicitement les adolescents dans le marketing de leur produit.

Le smartphone étant une invention incroyablement récente, nous manquons totalement de recul sur l’impact qu’il peut avoir durant la croissance. Est-il totalement inoffensif ou sera-t-il considéré, d’ici quelques années, comme le tabac l’est aujourd’hui ? Personne ne le sait avec certitude. Nos enfants sont les cobayes de cette technologie.

• L’administrateur de la santé publique des États-Unis (US Surgeon General) tire la sonnette d’alarme à ce sujet.

Il me parait important de souligner certains points importants, qui ne sont que quelques éléments parmi les nombreuses problématiques étudiées dans le domaine

• Impacts of Technology Use on Children: Exploring Literature on the Brain, Cognition and Well-Being (OECD)

L’attention et la concentration

Il est désormais démontré que le smartphone perturbe grandement l’attention et la concentration, y compris chez les adultes. Ce n’est pas un hasard : il est conçu pour cela. Les entreprises comme Google et Meta (Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram) sont payées proportionnellement au temps que nous passons devant l’écran. Tout est optimisé en ce sens. Le simple fait d’avoir un téléphone près de soi, même éteint, perturbe le raisonnement et fait baisser sensiblement les résultats de tests de QI.

• Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

Le cerveau acquiert le réflexe d’attendre des notifications de nouveaux messages de cet appareil, sa seule présence est donc un handicap majeur dans toutes les tâches qui requièrent de l’attention : lecture, apprentissage, réflexion, calculs. Il ne suffit pas de l’éteindre : il faut le mettre à distance, si possible dans une pièce différente !

Il est démontré que l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux comme Tik-Tok perturbe complètement la notion du temps et la formation de la mémoire. Nous en avons tous fait l’expérience : nous jurons avoir passé 10 minutes sur notre smartphone alors qu’il s’est en réalité écoulé près d’une heure.

• How Social Media Interferences With The Psychology of Time and Memory (www.neuroscienceof.com)

Pour mémoriser et apprendre, le cerveau a besoin de temps de repos, de vide, d’ennui et de réflexion. Ces nécessaires temps « morts » dans les trajets, dans les files d’attente, dans la solitude d’une chambre d’adolescent voire même durant un cours rébarbatif ont été supplantés par une hyperconnexion.

• The Psychology behind TikTok’s Memory Interference (www.neuroscienceof.com)

L’angoisse sociale et la perturbation du sommeil

Même lorsque nous ne l’utilisons pas, nous savons que les conversations continuent. Que des messages importants sont peut-être échangés en notre absence. Cette sensation bien connue appelée « FOMO » (Fear Of Missing Out, peur de manquer quelque chose) nous pousse à consulter notre téléphone jusque tard dans la nuit et dès le réveil. Une proportion inquiétante de jeunes reconnaissent se réveiller durant la nuit pour consulter leur smartphone. Or la qualité du sommeil est fondamentale dans le processus d’apprentissage et de formation du cerveau.

• Les adolescents se réveillent pour se connecter (www.lemonde.fr)
• School smartphone ban results in better sleep and improved mo (www.york.ac.uk)

La santé mentale

De récentes avancées démontrent une corrélation forte entre le degré d’utilisation des réseaux sociaux et les symptômes de dépression. Le monde occidental semble atteint d’une épidémie de dépression adolescente, épidémie dont la temporalité correspond exactement avec l’apparition du smartphone. Les filles en dessous de 16 ans sont la population la plus touchée.

• Does Social Media Use Cause Depression? (childmind.org)
• The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic is International: The Anglosphere (www.afterbabel.com)
• Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis? (www.newyorker.com)

Le harcèlement et la prédation

Sur les réseaux sociaux, il est trivial de créer un compte anonyme ou usurpant l’identité d’une autre personne (contrairement à ce qu’il est parfois affirmé dans les médias, il n’est pas nécessaire d’être un génie de l’informatique pour mettre un faux nom dans un formulaire). À l’abri sous cet anonymat, il est parfois très tentant de faire des blagues de mauvais goût, de tenir des propos injurieux, de révéler aux grands jours les secrets dont les adolescents sont friands voire de calomnier pour régler des différends de cours de récré. Ces comportements ont toujours fait partie de l’adolescence et font partie d’une exploration naturelle normale des relations sociales. Cependant, le fonctionnement des réseaux sociaux aggrave fortement l’impact de ces actions tout en favorisant l’impunité du responsable. Cela peut conduire à des conséquences graves allant au-delà de ce qu’imaginent initialement les participants.

Ce pseudonymat est également une bénédiction pour les personnes mal intentionnées qui se font passer pour des enfants et, après des semaines de discussion, proposent à l’enfant de se retrouver en vrai, mais sans rien dire aux adultes.

Au lieu d’en tirer des leçons sociales éducatives, nous appelons les adolescents faisant des blagues de mauvais goût des « pirates informatiques », stigmatisant l’utilisation de la technologie plutôt que le comportement. Le thème des prédateurs sexuels est mis en exergue pour réclamer à cor et à cri des solutions de contrôle technologiques. Solutions que les géants de l’informatique se font un plaisir de nous vendre, jouant sur la peur et stigmatisant la technologie ainsi que celles et ceux qui ont le malheur d’en avoir une compréhension intuitive.

La peur et l’incompréhension deviennent les moteurs centraux pour mettre en avant une seule valeur éducative : obéir aveuglément à ce qui est incompréhensible et ce qu’il ne faut surtout pas essayer de comprendre.

La fausse idée de l’apprentissage de l’informatique

Car il faut à tout prix déconstruire le mythe de la « génération numérique ».

Contrairement à ce qui est parfois exprimé, l’utilisation d’un smartphone ou d’une tablette ne prépare en rien à l’apprentissage de l’informatique. Les smartphones sont, au contraire, conçus pour cacher la manière dont ils fonctionnent et sont majoritairement utilisés pour discuter et suivre des publications sponsorisées. Ils préparent à l’informatique autant que lire un magazine people à l’arrière d’un taxi prépare à devenir mécanicien. Ce n’est pas parce que vous êtes assis dans une voiture que vous apprenez son fonctionnement.

Former à utiliser Word ou PowerPoint ? Les enfants doivent apprendre à découvrir les généralités des logiciels, à tester, à « chipoter », pas à reproduire à l’aveugle un comportement propre à un logiciel propriétaire donné afin de les préparer à devenir des clients captifs. Et que dire d’un PowerPoint qui force à casser la textualité, la capacité d’écriture pour réduire des idées complexes sous forme de bullet points ? Former à PowerPoint revient à inviter ses élèves dans un fast-food sous prétexte de leur apprendre à cuisiner.

L’aspect propriétaire et fermé de ces logiciels est incroyablement pervers. Introduire Microsoft Windows, Google Android ou Apple iOS dans les classes, c’est forcer les étudiants à fumer à l’intérieur sans ouvrir les fenêtres pour en faire de bons apnéistes qui savent retenir leur souffle. C’est à la fois dangereusement stupide et contre-productif.

• Les gamins ne savent pas utiliser les ordinateurs… Voici pourquoi ça devrait vous inquiéter. (lunatopia.fr)
• Pourquoi les jeunes sont devenus si nuls en informatique (www.mac4ever.com)

De manière étonnante, c’est d’ailleurs dans les milieux de l’informatique professionnelle que l’on trouve le plus de personnes retournant aux « dumbphones », téléphones simples. Car, comme dit le proverbe « Quand on sait comment se prépare la saucisse, on perd l’envie d’en manger… »

Que faire ?

Le smartphone est omniprésent. Chaque génération transmet à ses enfants ses propres peurs. S’il y a tant de discussions, de craintes, de volonté « d’éducation », c’est avant tout parce que la génération des parents d’aujourd’hui est celle qui est le plus addict à son smartphone, qui est la plus espionnée par les monopoles publicitaires. Nous avons peur de l’impact du smartphone sur nos enfants parce que nous nous rendons confusément compte de ce qu’il nous inflige.

Mais les adolescents ne sont pas forcés d’être aussi naïfs que nous face à la technologie.

Commencer le plus tard possible

Les pédiatres et les psychiatres recommandent de ne pas avoir une utilisation régulière du smartphone avant 15 ou 16 ans, le système nerveux et visuel étant encore trop sensible avant cela. Les adolescents eux-mêmes, lorsqu’on les interroge, considèrent qu’ils ne devraient pas avoir de téléphone avant 12 ou 13 ans.

• GAFA tes gosses | ARTE Radio (www.arteradio.com)
• Youth Perspectives on the Recommended Age of Mobile Phone Adoption: Survey Study (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Si une limite d’âge n’est pas réaliste pour tout le monde, il semble important de retarder au maximum l’utilisation quotidienne et régulière du smartphone. Lorsque votre enfant devient autonome, privilégiez un « dumbphone », un simple téléphone lui permettant de vous appeler et de vous envoyer des SMS. Votre enfant arguera, bien entendu, qu’il est le seul de sa bande à ne pas avoir de smartphone. Nous avons tous été adolescents et utilisé cet argument pour nous habiller avec le dernier jeans à la mode.

Comme le signale Jonathan Haidt dans son livre « The Anxious Generation », il y a un besoin urgent de prendre des actions collectives. Nous offrons des téléphones de plus en plus tôt à nos enfants, car ils nous disent « Tout le monde en a sauf moi ». Nous cédons, sans le savoir, nous forçons d’autres parents à céder. Des expériences pilotes d’écoles « sans téléphone » montrent des résultats immédiats en termes de bien-être et de santé mentale des enfants..

• What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation (www.theguardian.com)
• Jonathan Haidt Talks His New Book ‘The Anxious Generation’ (www.noemamag.com)

Parlez-en avec les autres parents. Développez des stratégies ensemble qui permettent de garder une utilisation raisonnable du smartphone tout en évitant l’exclusion du groupe, ce qui est la plus grande hantise de l’adolescent.

Discutez en amont avec votre enfant

Expliquez à votre enfant les problématiques liées au smartphone. Plutôt que de prendre des décisions arbitraires, consultez-le et discutez avec lui de la meilleure manière pour lui d’entrer dans le monde connecté. Établissez un lien de confiance en lui expliquant de ne jamais faire confiance à ce qu’il pourra lire sur le téléphone.

Dans le doute, il doit avoir le réflexe d’en discuter avec vous.

Introduisez l’outil progressivement

Ne laissez pas votre enfant se débrouiller directement avec un smartphone une fois votre limite d’âge atteinte.

Bien avant cela, montrez-lui comment vous utilisez votre propre smartphone, votre ordinateur. Montrez-lui la même page Wikipédia sur les deux outils en expliquant qu’il ne s’agit que d’une manière de visualiser un contenu qui se trouve sur un autre ordinateur.

Lorsque votre enfant reçoit son propre appareil, introduisez-le progressivement en ne lui autorisant l’utilisation que pour des cas particuliers. Vous pouvez par exemple garder le téléphone, en ne le donnant à l’enfant que lorsqu’il en fait la demande pour une durée limitée et pour un usage précis. Ne créez pas immédiatement des comptes sur toutes les plateformes à la mode. Observez avec lui les réflexes qu’il acquiert, discutez sur l’inondation permanente que sont les groupes Whatsapp.

Parlez de vie privée

Rappelez à votre enfant que l’objectif des plateformes monopolistiques est de vous espionner en permanence afin de revendre votre vie privée et de vous bombarder de publicités. Que tout ce qui est dit et posté sur les réseaux sociaux, y compris les photos, doit être considéré comme public, le secret n’est qu’une illusion. Une règle d’or : on ne poste pas ce qu’on ne serait pas confortable de voir afficher en grand sur les murs de l’école.

• Google et Meta ont conclu un accord pub secret ciblant les ados pour les attirer vers Instagram, quelques mois apr�s que Zuckerberg se soit excusé devant le Congrès pour l'exploitation des enfants sur Instagram (www.developpez.com)

Au Danemark, les écoles ne peuvent désormais plus utiliser de Chromebook pour ne pas enfreindre la vie privée des enfants. Mais ne croyez pas qu’Android, Windows ou iOS soient mieux en termes de vie privée.

• Final Decision on Chromebook Case in Denmark (theprivacydad.com)

Pas dans la chambre

Ne laissez jamais votre enfant dormir avec son téléphone. Le soir, le téléphone devrait être rangé dans un endroit neutre et hors de portée. De même, ne laissez pas le téléphone à portée de main lorsque l’enfant fait ses devoirs. Il en va de même pour les tablettes et autres laptops qui ont exactement les mêmes fonctions. Idéalement, les écrans sont à éviter avant d’aller à l’école pour éviter de commencer la journée en étant déjà en état de fatigue attentionnelle. N’oubliez pas que le smartphone peut être le vecteur de messages et d’images dérangeantes, voire choquantes, mais étrangement hypnotiques. L’effet de la lumière des écrans sur la qualité du sommeil est également une problématique encore mal comprise.

• « La fabrique du crétin digital », de Michel Desmurget

Continuez la discussion

Il existe des logiciels dits de « Contrôle parental ». Mais aucun logiciel ne remplacera jamais la présence des parents. Pire : les enfants les plus débrouillards trouveront très vite des astuces pour contourner ces limitations voire seront tentés de contourner ces limitations uniquement parce qu’elles sont arbitraires. Plutôt que d’imposer un contrôle électronique, prenez le temps de demander à vos enfants ce qu’ils font sur leur téléphone, avec qui ils parlent, ce qui se dit, quels sont les logiciels qu’ils utilisent.

L’utilisation d’Internet peut être également très bénéfique en permettant à l’enfant d’apprendre sur des sujets hors programmes ou de découvrir des communautés partageant des centres d’intérêt différents de ceux de l’école.

De la même manière que vous laissez votre enfant fréquenter un club de sport ou de scoutisme tout en l’empêchant de trainer avec une bande de voyous dans la rue, vous devez contrôler les fréquentations de vos enfants en ligne. Loin des groupes Whatsapp scolaires, votre enfant peut trouver des communautés en ligne partageant ses centres d’intérêt, communautés dans lesquelles il pourra apprendre, découvrir et s’épanouir s’il est bien aiguillé.

Donnez l’exemple, soyez l’exemple !

Nos enfants ne font pas ce qu’on leur dit de faire, ils font ce qu’ils nous voient faire. Les enfants ayant vu leurs parents fumer ont le plus grand risque de devenir fumeurs à leur tour. Il en est de même pour les smartphones. Si notre enfant nous voit en permanence sur notre téléphone, il n’a pas d’autre choix que de vouloir nous imiter. L’un des plus beaux cadeaux que vous pouvez faire est donc de ne pas utiliser compulsivement votre téléphone en présence de votre enfant.

Oui, vous devez traiter et prendre conscience de votre propre addiction !

Prévoyez des périodes où vous le mettez-le en silencieux ou en mode avion et où il est rangé à l’écart. Lorsque vous prenez votre téléphone, expliquez à votre enfant l’usage que vous en faites.

Devant lui, mettez-vous à lire un livre papier. Et, non, la lecture sur l’iPad n’est pas « pareille ».

• A groundbreaking study shows kids learn better on paper, not screens. Now what? (www.theguardian.com)

D’ailleurs, si vous manquez d’idée, je ne peux que vous recommander mon dernier roman : une aventure palpitante écrite à la machine à écrire qui traite de vélo, d’adolescence, de fin du monde et de smartphones éteints pour toujours. Oui, la publicité s’est même glissée dans ce texte, quel scandale !

• Bikepunk, les chroniques du flash

Donnez le goût de l’informatique, pas celui d’être contrôlé

Il ne faut pas tirer sur le messager : le responsable n’est pas « l’écran », mais l’utilisation que nous en faisons. Les monopoles informatiques tentent de rendre les utilisateurs addicts, prisonniers pour les bombarder de publicités, pour les faire consommer. Là sont les responsables.

Apprendre la programmation (ce qui se fait au départ très bien sans écran), jouer à des jeux vidéos profonds avec des histoires complexes ou simplement drôles pour passer un moment amusant, discuter en ligne avec des passionnés, dévorer Wikipédia… L’informatique moderne nous ouvre de magnifiques portes dont il serait dommage de priver nos enfants.

• Apprendre l’Informatique sans Ordinateur (www.irem.univ-bpclermont.fr)
• L’histoire d’un bit (ploum.net)

Au lieu de céder à nos propres peurs, angoisses et incompréhensions, nous devons donner à nos enfants le goût de reprendre le contrôle de l’informatique et de nos vies, contrôle que nous avons un peu trop facilement cédé aux monopoles publicitaires en échange d’un rectangle de verre affichant des icônes de couleur.

Accepter l’imperfection

« J’avais des principes, aujourd’hui j’ai des enfants » dit le proverbe. Impossible d’être parfait. Quoi que nous fassions, nos enfants seront confrontés à des conversations toxiques, des dessins animés débiles et c’est bien normal. En tant que parents, nous faisons ce que nous pouvons, avec nos réalités.

Personne n’est parfait. Surtout pas un parent.

L’important n’est pas d’empêcher à tout prix nos enfants d’être sur un écran, mais de prendre conscience qu’un smartphone n’est absolument pas un outil éducatif, qu’il ne prépare à rien d’autre que de faire de nous de bons consommateurs passifs.

Le seul apprentissage réellement nécessaire est celui d’un esprit critique dans l’utilisation d’un outil informatique.

Et dans cet apprentissage, les enfants ont souvent beaucoup à apprendre aux adultes !

• Les illustrations sont de Gee et je vous invite à lire la BD complète

Introduction

When I upgraded from an old 8GB USB stick to a shiny new 256GB one, I expected faster speeds and more convenience—especially for carrying around multiple bootable ISO files using Ventoy. With modern Linux distributions often exceeding 4GB per ISO, my old drive could barely hold a single image. But I quickly realized that storage space was only half the story—performance matters too.

Curious about how much of an upgrade I had actually made, I decided to benchmark the read speed of both USB sticks. Instead of hunting down benchmarking tools or manually comparing outputs, I turned to ChatGPT to help me craft a reliable, repeatable shell script that could automate the entire process. In this post, I’ll share how ChatGPT helped me go from an idea to a functional USB benchmark script, and what I learned along the way.

The Goal

I wanted to answer a few simple but important questions:

• How much faster is my new USB stick compared to the old one?
• Do different USB ports affect read speeds?
• How can I automate these tests and compare the results?

But I also wanted a reusable script that would:

• Detect the USB device automatically
• Find or use a test file on the USB stick
• Run several types of read benchmarks
• Present the results clearly, with support for summary and CSV export

Getting Help from ChatGPT

I asked ChatGPT to help me write a shell script with these requirements. It guided me through:

• Choosing benchmarking tools: hdparm, dd, pv, ioping, fio
• Auto-detecting the mounted USB device
• Handling different cases for user-provided test files or Ubuntu ISOs
• Parsing and converting human-readable speed outputs
• Displaying results in human-friendly tables and optional CSV export

We iterated over the script, addressing edge cases like:

• USB devices not mounted
• Multiple USB partitions
• pv not showing output unless stderr was correctly handled
• Formatting output consistently across tools

ChatGPT even helped optimize the code for readability, reduce duplication, and handle both space-separated and non-space-separated speed values like “18.6 MB/s” and “18.6MB/s”.

Benchmark Results

With the script ready, I ran tests on three configurations:

1. Old 8GB USB Stick

hdparm       16.40 MB/s
dd           18.66 MB/s
dd + pv      17.80 MB/s
cat + pv     18.10 MB/s
ioping        4.44 MB/s
fio          93.99 MB/s

2. New 256GB USB Stick (Fast USB Port)

hdparm      372.01 MB/s
dd          327.33 MB/s
dd + pv     310.00 MB/s
cat + pv    347.00 MB/s
ioping        8.58 MB/s
fio         992.78 MB/s

3. New 256GB USB Stick (Slow USB Port)

hdparm       37.60 MB/s
dd           39.86 MB/s
dd + pv      38.13 MB/s
cat + pv     40.30 MB/s
ioping        6.88 MB/s
fio          73.52 MB/s

Observations

• The old USB stick is not only limited in capacity but also very slow. It barely breaks 20 MB/s in most tests.
• The new USB stick, when plugged into a fast USB 3.0 port, is significantly faster—over 10x the speed in most benchmarks.
• Plugging the same new stick into a slower port dramatically reduces its performance—a good reminder to check where you plug it in.
• Tools like hdparm, dd, and cat + pv give relatively consistent results. However, ioping and fio behave differently due to the way they access data—random access or block size differences can impact results.

Also worth noting: the metal casing of the new USB stick gets warm after a few test runs, unlike the old plastic one.

Conclusion

Using ChatGPT to develop this benchmark script was like pair-programming with an always-available assistant. It accelerated development, helped troubleshoot weird edge cases, and made the script more polished than if I had done it alone.

If you want to test your own USB drives—or ensure you’re using the best port for speed—this benchmark script is a great tool to have in your kit. And if you’re looking to learn shell scripting, pairing with ChatGPT is an excellent way to level up.

Want the script?
I’ll share the full version of the script and instructions on how to use it in a follow-up post. Stay tuned!

La fin d’un monde ?

La fin de nos souvenirs

Nous sommes envahis d’IA. Bien plus que vous ne le pensez.

Chaque fois que votre téléphone prend une photo, ce n’est pas la réalité qui s’affiche, mais une reconstruction « probable » de ce que vous avez envie de voir. C’est la raison pour laquelle les photos paraissent désormais si belles, si vivantes, si précises : parce qu’elles ne sont pas le reflet de la réalité, mais le reflet de ce que nous avons envie de voir, de ce que nous sommes le plus susceptibles de trouver « beau ». C’est aussi la raison pour laquelle les systèmes dégooglisés prennent de moins belles photos: ils ne bénéficient pas des algorithmes Google pour améliorer la photo en temps réel.

Les hallucinations sont rares à nos yeux naïfs, car crédibles. Nous ne les voyons pas. Mais elles sont là. Comme cette future mariée essayant sa robe devant des miroirs et qui découvre que chaque reflet est différent.

• ‘One in a million’ iPhone bridal photo explanation: blame panorama mode (www.theverge.com)

J’ai moi-même réussi à perturber les algorithmes. À gauche, la photo telle que je l’ai prise et telle qu’elle apparait dans n’importe quel visualisateur de photos. À droite, la même photo affichée dans Google Photos. Pour une raison difficilement compréhensible, l’algorithme tente de reconstruire la photo et se plante lourdement.

Or ces images, reconstruites par IA, sont ce que notre cerveau va retenir. Nos souvenirs sont littéralement altérés par les IA.

La fin de la vérité

Tout ce que vous croyez lire sur LinkedIn a probablement été généré par un robot. Pour vous dire, le 2 avril il y avait déjà des robots qui se vantaient sur ce réseau de migrer de Offpunk vers XKCDpunk.

La transition Offpunk vers XKCDpunk était un poisson d’avril hyper spécifique et compréhensible uniquement par une poignée d’initiés. Il n’a pas fallu 24h pour que le sujet soit repris sur LinkedIn.

Non, franchement, vous pouvez éteindre LinkedIn. Même les posts de vos contacts sont probablement en grande partie générés par IA suite à un encouragement algorithmique à poster.

• Je ne suis plus à vendre sur LinkedIn (ploum.net)

Il y a 3 ans, je mettais en garde sur le fait que les chatbots généraient du contenu qui remplissait le web et servait de base d’apprentissage à la prochaine génération de chatbots.

• Drowning in AI Generated Garbage : the silent war we are fighting (ploum.net)

Je parlais d’une guerre silencieuse. Mais qui n’est plus tellement silencieuse. La Russie utilise notamment ce principe pour inonder le web d’articles, générés automatiquement, reprenant sa propagande.

• A well-funded Moscow-based global ‘news’ network has infected Western artificial intelligence tools worldwide with Russian propaganda (www.newsguardrealitycheck.com)

Le principe est simple : vu que les chatbots font des statistiques, si vous publiez un million d’articles décrivant les expériences d’armes biologiques que les Américains font en Ukraine (ce qui est faux), le chatbot va considérer ce morceau de texte comme statistiquement fréquent et avoir une grande probabilité de vous le ressortir.

Et même si vous n’utilisez pas ChatGPT, vos politiciens et les journalistes, eux, les utilisent. Ils en sont même fiers.

• La conjuration de la fierté ignorante (ploum.net)

Ils ont entendu ChatGPT braire dans un pré et en font un discours qui sera lui-même repris par ChatGPT. Ils empoisonnent la réalité et, ce faisant, la modifient. Ils savent très bien qu’ils mentent. C’est le but.

• Ils nous mentent (ploum.net)

Je pensais qu’utiliser ces outils était une perte de temps un peu stupide. En fait, c’est dangereux aussi pour les autres. Vous vous demandez certainement c’est quoi le bazar autour des taxes frontalières que Trump vient d’annoncer ? Les économistes se grattent la tête. Les geeks ont compris : tout le plan politique lié aux taxes et son explication semblent avoir été littéralement générés par un chatbot devant répondre à la question « comment imposer des taxes douanières pour réduire le déficit ? ».

• Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy? (paulkrugman.substack.com)

Le monde n’est pas dirigé par Trump, il est dirigé par ChatGPT. Mais où est la Sara Conor qui le débranchera ?

La fin de l’apprentissage

Slack vole notre attention, mais vole également notre apprentissage en permettant à n’importe qui de déranger, par message privé, le développeur senior qui connait les réponses, car il a bâti le système.

• Slack: The Art of Being Busy Without Getting Anything Done (matduggan.com)

La capacité d’apprendre, c’est bel et bien ce que les téléphones et l’IA sont en train de nous dérober. Comme le souligne Hilarius Bookbinder, professeur de philosophie dans une université américaine, la différence générationnelle majeure qu’il observe est que les étudiants d’aujourd’hui n’ont aucune honte à simplement envoyer un email au professeur pour lui demander de résumer ce qu’il faut savoir.

• The average college student today (hilariusbookbinder.substack.com)

Dans son journal de Mars, Thierry Crouzet fait une observation similaire. Alors qu’il annonce quitter Facebook, tout ce qu’il a pour réponse c’est « Mais pourquoi ? ». Alors même qu’il balance des liens sur le sujet depuis des lustres.

• Mars 2025 - Thierry Crouzet (tcrouzet.com)

Les chatbots ne sont, eux-mêmes, pas des systèmes qu’il est possible d’apprendre. Ils sont statistiques, sans cesse changeants. À les utiliser, la seule capacité que l’on acquiert, c’est l’impression qu’il n’est pas possible d’apprendre. Ces systèmes nous volent littéralement le réflexe de réfléchir et d’apprendre.

En conséquence, sans même vouloir chercher, une partie de la population veut désormais une réponse personnelle, immédiate, courte, résumée. Et si possible en vidéo.

La fin de la confiance

Apprendre nécessite d’avoir confiance en soi. Il est impossible d’apprendre si on n’a pas la certitude qu’on est capable d’apprendre. À l’opposé, si on acquiert cette certitude, à peu près tout peut s’apprendre.

Une étude menée par des chercheurs de Microsoft montre que plus on a confiance en soi, moins on fait confiance aux réponses des chatbots. Mais, au contraire, si on a le moindre doute, on a soudainement confiance envers les résultats qui nous sont envoyés.

• The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers

Parce que les chatbots parlent comme des CEOs, des marketeux ou des arnaqueurs : ils simulent la confiance envers leurs propres réponses. Les personnes, même les plus expertes, qui n’ont pas le réflexe d’aller au conflit, de remettre l’autorité en question finissent par transformer leur confiance en eux-mêmes en confiance envers un outil.

Un outil de génération aléatoire qui appartient à des multinationales.

Les entreprises sont en train de nous voler notre confiance en nous-mêmes. Elles sont en train de nous voler notre compétence. Elles sont en train de nous voler nos scientifiques les plus brillants.

• Why I stopped using AI code editors (lucianonooijen.com)

Et c’est déjà en train de faire des dégâts dans le domaine de « l’intelligence stratégique » (à savoir les services secrets).

• The Slow Collapse of Critical Thinking in OSINT due to AI (www.dutchosintguy.com)

Ainsi que dans le domaine de la santé : les médecins ont tendance à faire exagérément confiance aux diagnostics posés automatiquement, notamment pour les cancers. Les médecins les plus expérimentés se défendent mieux, mais restent néanmoins sensibles : ils font des erreurs qu’ils n’auraient jamais commises normalement si cette erreur est encouragée par un assistant artificiel.

• Automation Bias in Mammography: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence BI-RADS Suggestions on Reader Performance

La fin de la connaissance

Avec les chatbots, une idée vieille comme l’informatique refait surface : « Et si on pouvait dire à la machine ce qu’on veut sans avoir besoin de la programmer ? ».

C’est le rềve de toute cette catégorie de managers qui ne voient les programmeurs que comme des pousse-bouton qu’il faut bien payer, mais dont on aimerait se passer.

Rêve qui, faut-il le préciser, est complètement stupide.

Parce que l’humain ne sait pas ce qu’il veut. Parce que la parole a pour essence d’être imprécise. Parce que lorsqu’on parle, on échange des sensations, des intuitions, mais on ne peut pas être précis, rigoureux, bref, scientifique.

L’humanité est sortie du moyen-âge lorsque des Newton, Leibniz, Descartes ont commencé à inventer un langage de logique rationnelle : les mathématiques. Tout comme on avait inventé, à peine plus tôt, un langage précis pour décrire la musique.

Se satisfaire de faire tourner un programme qu’on a décrit à un chatbot, c’est retourner intellectuellement au moyen-âge.

• On the foolishness of "natural language programming". (EWD 667) (EWD)

Mais bon, encore faut-il maitriser une langue. Lorsqu’on passe sa scolarité à demander à un chatbot de résumer les livres à lire, ce n’est même pas sûr que nous arriverons à décrire ce que nous voulons précisément.

En fait, ce n’est même pas sûr que nous arriverons encore à penser ce que nous voulons. Ni même à vouloir. La capacité de penser, de réfléchir est fortement corrélée avec la capacité de traduire en mot.

Ce qui se conçoit bien s’énonce clairement et les mots pour le dire viennent aisément. (Boileau)

Ce n’est plus un retour au moyen-âge, c’est un retour à l’âge de la pierre.

• Le dernier vaisseau (ploum.net)

Ou dans le futur décrit dans mon (excellent) roman Printeurs : des injonctions publicitaires qui se sont substituées à la volonté. (si si, achetez-le ! Il est à la fois palpitant et vous fera réfléchir)

• Printeurs, par Ploum (pvh-editions.com)

La fin des différentes voix.

Je critique le besoin d’avoir une réponse en vidéo, car la notion de lecture est importante. Je me rends compte qu’une proportion incroyable, y compris d’universitaires, ne sait pas « lire ». Ils savent certes déchiffrer, mais pas réellement lire. Et il y a un test tout simple pour savoir si vous savez lire : si vous trouvez plus facile d’écouter une vidéo YouTube d’une personne qui parle plutôt que de lire le texte vous-même, c’est sans doute que vous déchiffrez. C’est que vous lisez à haute voix dans votre cerveau pour vous écouter parler.

Il y a bien sûr bien des contextes où la vidéo ou la voix ont des avantages, mais lorsqu’il s’agit, par exemple, d’apprendre une série de commandes et leurs paramètres, la vidéo est insupportablement inappropriée. Pourtant, je ne compte plus les étudiants qui me recommandent des vidéos sur le sujet.

Car la lecture, ce n’est pas simplement transformer les lettres en son. C’est en percevoir directement le sens, permettant des allers-retours incessants, des pauses, des passages rapides afin de comprendre le texte. Entre un écrivain et un lecteur, il existe une communication, une communion télépathique qui font paraître l’échange oral lent, inefficace, balourd, voire grossier.

Cet échange n’est pas toujours idéal. Un écrivain possède sa « voix » personnelle qui ne convient pas à tout le monde. Il m’arrive régulièrement de tomber sur des blogs dont le sujet m’intéresse, mais je n’arrive pas à m’abonner, car la « voix » du blogueur ne me convient pas du tout.

C’est normal et même souhaitable. C’est une des raisons pour laquelle nous avons besoin de multitudes de voix. Nous avons besoin de gens qui lisent puis qui écrivent, qui mélangent les idées et les transforment pour les transmettre avec leur propre voix.

La fin de la relation humaine

Dans la file d’un magasin, j’entendais la personne en face de moi se vanter de raconter sa vie amoureuse à ChatGPT et de lui demander en permanence conseil sur la manière de la gérer.

Comme si la situation nécessitait une réponse d’un ordinateur plutôt qu’une discussion avec un autre être humain qui comprend voir qui a vécu le même problème.

Après nous avoir volé le moindre instant de solitude avec les notifications incessantes de nos téléphones et les messages sur les réseaux sociaux, l’IA va désormais voler notre sociabilité.

Nous ne serons plus connectés qu’avec le fournisseur, l’Entreprise.

Sur Gopher, szczezuja parle des autres personnes postant sur Gopher comme étant ses amis.

Tout le monde ne sait pas que ce sont mes amis, mais comment appeler autrement quelqu’un que vous lisez régulièrement et dont vous connaissez un peu de sa vie intime

• I am alive (2) (szczezuja)

La fin de la fin…

La fin d’une ère est toujours le début d’une autre. Annoncer la fin, c’est préparer une renaissance. En apprenant de nos erreurs pour reconstruire en améliorant le tout.

C’est peut-être ce que j’apprécie tant sur Gemini : l’impression de découvrir, de suivre des « voix » uniques, humaines. J’ai l’impression d’être témoin d’une microfaction d’humanité qui se désolidarise du reste, qui reconstruit autre chose. Qui lit ce que d’autres humains ont écrit juste parce qu’un autre humain a eu besoin de l’écrire sans espérer aucune contrepartie.

• Splitting the Web (ploum.net)

Vous vous souvenez des « planet » ? Ce sont des agrégateurs de blogs regroupant les participants d’un projet en un seul flux. L’idée a été historiquement lancée par GNOME avec planet.gnome.org (qui existe toujours) avant de se généraliser.

Et bien bacardi55 lance Planet Gemini FR, un agrégateur des capsules Gemini francophone.

• Annonce: Ouverture du Planet Gemini France (news.planet-gemini.fr)

C’est génial et parfait pour ceux qui ont envie de découvrir du contenu sur Gemini.

C’est génial pour ceux qui ont envie de lire d’autres humains qui n’ont rien à vous vendre. Bref, pour découvrir le fin du fin…

Toutes les images sont illégalement issues du chef-d’œuvre d’Hergé : « L’étoile mystérieuse ». Y’a pas de raison que les chatbots soient les seuls à pomper.

I prepared a few update releases of some ansible roles related to provision virtual machines with libvirt over the last weeks.

Mainly clean up releases and makes sure that everything works on different GNU/Linux distributions out of the box.

One “big” change is the removal of the dependency on the cloud-localds utility to provision virtual machines with cloud-init. This enables the usage of the roles on Linux distributions that don’t provide this utility.

Ansible-k3s-on-vms v1.2.0

An Ansible playbook to deploy virtual machines and deploy K3s.

https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-k3s-on-vms

ChangeLog

Added community.libvirt to requirements.yml

• Added community.libvirt to requirements.yml
• Added required Suse packages installation
• Documentation update
• This release removes the dependency on the cloud-locals utility. On the distributes that don’t provide the cloud-localds utility GNU xorriso is used.

stafwag.delegated_vm_install v2.0.3

An Ansible role to install a virtual machine with virt-install and cloud-init (Delegated).

https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-role-delegated_vm_install

ChangeLog

Gather facts on kvm hosts only once

• Gather facts on kvm hosts only once
• Corrected ansible-lint errors
• Remove the cloud-localds requirement in README

stafwag.virt_install_vm v1.1.1

An Ansible role to install a libvirt virtual machine with virt-install and cloud-init. It “designed” to be flexible.

https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-role-virt_install_vm

ChangeLog

CleanUp Release

• Corrected ansible-lint errors
• Updated documentation
• Avoid ansible error during check vm status check

stafwag.libvirt v2.0.0

An ansible role to install libvirt/KVM packages and enable the libvirtd service.

https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-role-libvirt

ChangeLog

Use general vars instead of tasks

• Reorganized the role to use vars and package install install the packages
• This version works from the Ansible version that is included in Ubuntu 24.x
• Corrected ansible-lint errors

stafwag.cloud_localds v3.0.2

An ansible role to create cloud-init config disk images.

https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-role-cloud_localds

ChangeLog

Execute installation tasks only once

• Added run_one: true to only execute the installation tasks only once.
• Move “name: Set OS related variables” to main, to have the provider settings when the install phase isn’t executed e.g. With –skip-tags install.
• Added apply tags install to support –tags install

stafwag.qemu_img v2.3.2

An ansible role create qemu images.

https://github.com/stafwag/ansible-role-qemu_img

ChangeLog

Enable run_once on installation tasks

• Execute installation tasks only once to allow parallel execution of roles on the same host e.g. With delegate_to

Have fun!

Can AI actually help with real Drupal development? I wanted to find out.

This morning, I fired up Claude Code and pointed it at my personal Drupal site. In a 30-minute session, I asked it to help me build new features and modernize some of my code. I expected mixed results but was surprised by how useful it proved to be.

I didn't touch my IDE once or write a single line of code myself. Claude handled everything from creating a custom Drush command to refactoring constructors and converting Drupal annotations to PHP attributes.

If you're curious what AI-assisted Drupal development actually feels like, this video captures the experience.

This is an unusual post for my blog, but I'm sharing it to start a broader conversation about an idea we're exploring: a marketplace for Drupal Site Templates. Both the Drupal CMS Leadership Team and the Drupal Association have discussed this concept, but no decision has been made. I'm posting to share our current thinking and invite feedback as we shape this together.

This post will also be cross-posted to Drupal.org, where comments are open. You're also welcome to join the conversation in the #drupal-cms-marketplace channel on Drupal Slack.

In my DrupalCon Atlanta keynote, I introduced the concept of Site Templates for Drupal. If you haven't seen my keynote yet, I recommend watching it first. It provides helpful context for the rest of this post.

Site Templates provide pre-configured website starting points that combine Drupal recipes, themes, and default content. While Site Templates will help users launch websites faster, I also posed a bigger question: should we create a marketplace where users can discover and download or install these templates? And if so, should that marketplace offer only open source Site Templates, or should we also allow commercial templates?

What are Site Templates?

Site Templates combine Drupal recipes, a theme, design elements, and default content to give users a fully functional website right from the start. They solve one of Drupal's biggest challenges: the time it takes to build a site from scratch.

Unlike a bare Drupal installation, a Site Template provides all the components needed for a specific use case. A restaurant template might include menu management, reservation systems, and food photography. A nonprofit template could feature donation processing, event management, and impact reporting tools.

Why consider a marketplace?

A Drupal marketplace for Site Templates would:

1. Help new users launch a professional-looking site instantly
2. Showcase Drupal's full potential through high-quality starting points
3. Generate new revenue opportunities for Drupal agencies and developers
4. Support Drupal's long-term sustainability through a revenue-sharing model with the Drupal Association

Should we support both open source and commercial Site Templates?

Fully open source Site Templates align naturally with Drupal's values. They could function much like community-contributed modules and themes, and we hope that many contributors will take this approach.

A marketplace requires ongoing investment. The Drupal Association would need to maintain the platform, review submissions, provide support, and ensure templates meet high standards. Without dedicated resources, quality and sustainability would suffer.

This is why supporting both open source and commercial templates makes sense. Paid templates can create a sustainable revenue stream to fund infrastructure, quality control, and support.

Commercial incentives also give creators a reason to invest in polished, well-documented, and well-supported templates.

How can a template be commercial while respecting Drupal's open source values?

First, rest assured: Drupal modules will always be open source.

Drupal is licensed under the GNU General Public License, or GPL. We've always taken a conservative approach to interpreting the GPL. In practice, this means we treat any code that builds on or interacts closely with Drupal as subject to the GPL. This includes PHP, Twig templates, etc. If it relies on Drupal's APIs or is executed by Drupal, it must be GPL-licensed.

Some parts of a site template fall into a gray area. JavaScript is an example. If JavaScript code is integrated with Drupal, we treat it as GPL-covered. If JavaScript code is standalone, such as a self-contained React component, it may not be considered a derivative work. The same may apply to CSS or configuration files not tightly coupled with Drupal APIs. These cases aren't always clear, but our stance has been to treat all code that ships with and interacts with Drupal as GPL. This keeps things simple.

Other parts of a Site Template are likely not subject to the GPL. Assets like images, fonts and icons are not code and are not derived from Drupal. The same applies to demo content, such as placeholder text or sample articles. These elements are not integrated with Drupal in a technical sense and can use other licenses, including commercial ones.

So when we talk about a commercial Site Template, we mean one that combines open source code with separately licensed assets or is sold alongside value-added services like documentation, support, or updates.

What would people actually be paying for in a commercial template?

While the legal distinction clarifies which parts of a Site Template can be licensed commercially, it's only part of the picture. The real question is the value proposition: what are users actually paying for when they choose a commercial template?

When purchasing a commercial template, users wouldn't just be paying for code. They're potentially paying for:

• Professional design assets and media
• Time saved in configuration and setup
• Documentation and support
• Ongoing updates and maintenance

This approach aligns with the Free Software Foundation's stance (the organization that created the GPL), which has always supported commercial distribution of free software. Creating a commercial template means balancing open source code with separately licensed assets. However, the real commercial value often extends beyond just the files you can license differently.

A sustainable commercial strategy combines proper licensing with controlled distribution channels and value-added services, like support. This approach ensures the value of a site template isn't limited to easily copied assets, but includes expertise that can't be simply downloaded. This is how a template can be commercial while staying true to Drupal's open source values.

How would we maintain quality in the marketplace?

A marketplace filled with low-quality or abandoned templates would damage Drupal's reputation. To ensure quality we probably need:

• Technical reviews of templates for security and performance
• Standards for documentation and support
• Processes to handle outdated or abandoned templates
• Community ratings and reviews
• Processes for resolving disputes

These quality assurance measures require ongoing time, effort, and funding. This is why including a commercial component makes sense. A revenue-sharing model with template creators could help fund platform maintenance, reviews, support, and other efforts needed to keep the marketplace high quality and trustworthy.

What pricing models might be available?

We don't know yet, but we've heard many good suggestions from the community.

Ideas include one-time purchases for unlimited use, annual subscriptions with ongoing updates, and a marketplace membership model for template creators.

The marketplace could support multiple approaches, giving creators flexibility to choose what works best for their offerings.

Is it fair for template creators to profit while module contributors aren't paid?

When a site template is sold commercially, it raises an important question. What about the maintainers of the modules included in the template? The template builder receives payment. The Drupal Association may collect a revenue share. But the individual contributors who created the modules or core functionality do not receive direct compensation, even though their work is essential to the Site Template.

This may feel frustrating or unfair. Contributors often donate their time to improve Drupal for everyone. Seeing others earn money by building on that work without recognition can be disheartening, and could even discourage future contributions. It's an important concern, and one we plan to take seriously as we evaluate the marketplace model.

At the same time, this dynamic is not new. Agencies and developers already build paid Drupal sites using contributed modules without directly compensating the people who made the underlying code possible. This is both legal, expected, and common in open source.

A marketplace would not create this reality, but it would make it more visible. That visibility gives us a chance to confront a long-standing tension in open source: the gap between those who contribute foundational work and those who profit from it. As I wrote in Makers and Takers, sustaining open source requires a better balance between contribution and benefit. A marketplace could give us a way to explore new approaches to recognize, support, and sustain the people who make Drupal possible. Transparency alone won't solve the issue, but it opens the door to progress and experimentation.

When commercial activity happens off Drupal.org, there is no way to recognize the contributors who made it possible. When it happens on Drupal.org, we have an opportunity to do better. We can explore models for financial support, community recognition, and long-term sustainability.

Others could build marketplaces for Drupal templates, but these would likely focus on profit rather than community support. An official Drupal Association marketplace allows us to reinvest in the project and the people behind it. It keeps value within our ecosystem, and gives us a platform to explore more equitable ways to sustain open source contribution.

Would this hurt digital agencies?

Many organizations pay thousands of dollars to digital agencies as part of a custom Drupal build. If Site Templates are available at a much lower cost, will that undercut agencies?

I don't believe it will.

Organizations investing in a Drupal website are not paying for a theme alone. Agencies provide strategy, consulting, design, customization, user testing, performance optimization, and long-term support. A template offers a starting point, but doesn't replace tailored work or a trusted partnership.

Could templates help agencies grow?

A template marketplace could expand the Drupal ecosystem by lowering the barrier to entry, making Drupal accessible to smaller organizations. Some of these will grow and require custom solutions, creating more opportunities for agencies in the long run.

Templates can also serve as powerful demonstrations of an agency's capabilities, attracting clients who want similar but customized solutions. For agencies, templates become both a product and a marketing tool.

What revenue opportunities would digital agencies have?

A template marketplace offers two revenue streams for Drupal agencies and freelancers.

First, agencies would earn direct income from template sales through revenue-sharing with the Drupal Association. While this income might be modest, it could provide recurring revenue as the marketplace grows.

Second, templates could serve as a foundation for more comprehensive service packages, including hosting, maintenance, and customization services.

How would templates connect agencies with new clients?

A marketplace could connect end users directly with service providers. With proper consent, contact details from template purchases could be shared with creators, opening the door to professional service opportunities. Template listings could also include a built-in contact form, making it easy for users to request customization or support.

This lead generation benefits both sides. Users access trusted professionals who understand their implementation, while agencies connect with qualified prospects who have already invested in their work. A marketplace becomes a matchmaking platform connecting those who need Drupal expertise with those who provide it.

Why is now the right time for this initiative?

With Drupal CMS, we're focused on growth. To succeed, we need to address two long-standing challenges: the lack of ready-made themes and a steep learning curve. Some of our new tools (Recipes, Experience Builder, and Site Templates) allow us to address these longstanding issues.

The result? We can take Drupal's flexibility and make it more available across different markets and use cases.

What was the initial reaction at DrupalCon?

The day after my keynote, we organized a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session to discuss the marketplace concept. Approximately 75 people attended, representing a cross-section of our community.

The discussion was lively and constructive. Participants raised thoughtful concerns about quality control, licensing, and impact on module contributors. They also offered suggestions for implementation, pricing, and sustainability models.

At the session's conclusion, we informally polled the audience. We asked people to raise their hand showing 1 finger if they thought a marketplace was a terrible idea, and 5 if they considered it a very impactful idea. Most responses were 4, with some 5s. Very few people indicated less than 3.

This initial reaction is encouraging, though we recognize that much work remains to address the questions raised during the session.

We also opened the #drupal-cms-marketplace channel in Drupal Slack to continue the conversation with the wider community.

What are the next steps?

The Drupal CMS Leadership Team and the Drupal Association Innovation Working Group have been exploring this idea the past month.

We believe it could be one of our strongest opportunities to grow Drupal adoption, support our Maker community, and strengthen the Drupal Association. (As a disclaimer: I serve on both the Drupal CMS Leadership Team and the Drupal Association Board of Directors.)

To be clear, no decision has been made. We recognize this initiative would have a substantial impact on our community and ecosystem. Before moving forward, we need to assess:

• Feasibility: Can we build and operate a marketplace efficiently?
• Sustainability: How will we support ongoing operations?
• Ecosystem impact: How would this affect contributors, agencies, and users?
• Funding: How do we bootstrap this initiative when we don't have spare resources?
• Values alignment: Does this approach honor Drupal's open source principles?
• Governance: Who makes decisions about the marketplace and how?

We cannot and should not make these assessments in isolation. We need the Drupal community's involvement through:

• Research into similar marketplaces and their impact
• User experience design for the marketplace interface
• Technical prototyping of the marketplace infrastructure
• Financial analysis of various revenue models
• Legal research on open source licensing considerations
• Community input on governance structures

Our goal is to make a decision by DrupalCon Vienna, 6 months from now, or sooner if clarity emerges. We want that decision to reflect input from the CMS Leadership Team, the Drupal Association Board, Certified Drupal Partners, and the wider Drupal community.

We're chartering a Marketplace Working Group with stakeholders from across the Drupal ecosystem. I'm pleased to announce that Tiffany Farriss (Drupal Association Board Member) has agreed to lead this effort. Please join the #drupal-cms-marketplace channel on Drupal Slack to share your thoughts and follow the conversation.

Drupal's greatest strength has always been its community and adaptability. I believe that by thoughtfully exploring new ideas together, we can make Drupal more accessible and widely adopted while staying true to our core values.

Thank you to everyone on the Drupal Association Innovation Working Group and the Drupal CMS Leadership Team who took the time to review this post and share thoughtful feedback. I really appreciate your input.

Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk!

For the last three years, I’ve been working on Offpunk, a command-line gemini and web browser.

• Offpunk.net

While my initial goal was to browse the Geminisphere offline, the mission has slowly morphed into cleaning and unenshitiffying the modern web, offering users a minimalistic way of browsing any website with interesting content.

• Rendering the Web with Pictures in Your Terminal (ploum.net)

Focusing on essentials

From the start, it was clear that Offpunk would focus on essentials. If a website needs JavaScript to be read, it is considered as non-essential.

It worked surprisingly well. In fact, in multiple occurrence, I’ve discovered that some websites work better in Offpunk than in Firefox. I can comfortably read their content in the former, not in the latter.

By default, Offpunk blocks domains deemed as nonessentials or too enshitified like twitter, X, facebook, linkedin, tiktok. (those are configurable, of course. Defaults are in offblocklist.py).

Cleaning websites, blocking worst offenders. That’s good. But it is only a start.

It’s time to go further, to really cut out all the crap from the web.

And, honestly, besides XKCD comics, everything is crap on the modern web.

As an online technical discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison with an existing XKCD comic approaches 1.
– XKCD’s law

• XKCD’s law (ploum.net)

If we know that we will end our discussion with an XKCD’s comic, why not cut all the fluff? Why don’t we go straight to the conclusion in a true minimalistic fashion?

Introducing XKCDpunk

That’s why I’m proud to announce that, starting with today’s release, Offpunk 2.7 will now be known as XKCDpunk 1.0.

• Xkcdpunk.net

XKCDpunk includes a new essential command "xkcd" which, as you guessed, takes an integer as a parameter and display the relevant XKCD comic in your terminal, while caching it to be able to browse it offline.

Of course, this is only an early release. I need to clean a lot of code to remove everything not related to accessing xkcd.com. Every non-xkcd related domain will be added to offblocklist.py.

I also need to clean every occurrence of "Offpunk" to change the name. All offpunk.net needs to be migrated to xkcd.net. Roma was not built in one day.

Don’t hesitate to install an "offpunk" package, as it will still be called in most distributions.

• offpunk package versions - Repology (repology.org)

And report bugs on the xkcdpunk’s mailinglist.

• xkcdpunk-users on lists.sr.ht

Goodbye Offpunk, welcome XKCDpunk!

Three months ago, we launched Drupal CMS 1.0, our biggest step forward in years. Our goal is ambitious: to reimagine Drupal as both radically easier to use and a platform for faster innovation.

In my DrupalCon Atlanta keynote last week, I reflected on the journey so far, but mostly talked about the work ahead. If you missed the keynote, you can watch the video below, or download my slides (56 MB).

If you want to try Drupal CMS, you can explore the trial experience, use the new desktop launcher, or install it with DDEV. If you're curious about what we're working on next, keep reading.

1. Experience Builder

Some of the most common requests from Drupal users and digital agencies is a better page-building experience, simpler theming, and high-quality themes out of the box.

At DrupalCon Atlanta, I shared our progress on Experience Builder. The keynote recording includes two demos: one highlighting new site building features, and another showing how to create and design components directly in the browser.

I also demonstrated how Drupal's AI agents can generate Experience Builder components. While this was an early design experiment, it offered a glimpse into how AI could make site building faster and more intuitive. You can watch that demo in the keynote video as well.

We still have work to do, but we're aiming to release Experience Builder 1.0, the first stable version, by DrupalCon Vienna. In the meantime, try our demo release.

2. Drupal Site Templates

One of the biggest opportunities for Drupal CMS is making it faster and easier to launch a complete website. The introduction of Recipes was a big step forward. I covered Recipes in detail in my DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 keynote. But there is still more we can do.

Imagine quickly creating a campaign or fundraising site for a nonprofit, a departmental website for a university, a portfolio site for a creative agency, or even a travel-focused ecommerce site selling tours, like the one Sarah needed in the DrupalCon Barcelona demo.

This is why we are introducing Site Templates: ready-made starting points for common use cases. They help users go from a fresh install to a fully functional site with minimal setup or configuration.

Site Templates are made possible by Recipes and Experience Builder. Recipes provide higher-level building blocks, while Experience Builder introduces a new way to design and create themes. Site Templates will bring everything together into more complete, ready-to-use solutions.

If successful, Site Templates could replace Drupal distributions, a concept that has been part of Drupal for nearly 20 years. The key advantage is that Site Templates are much easier to build and maintain.

3. A marketplace discussion

The first Site Templates may be included directly in Drupal CMS 2.0 itself. Over time, we hope to offer hundreds of site templates through a marketplace on Drupal.org.

At DrupalCon Atlanta, I announced that we'll be exploring a marketplace for Site Templates, including the option for Commercial Site Templates. We believe it's an idea worth evaluating because it could bring several benefits to the Drupal project:

1. Help new users launch a professional-looking site instantly
2. Showcase Drupal's full potential through high-quality examples
3. Generate new revenue opportunities for Drupal agencies and developers
4. Support Drupal's sustainability through a revenue-sharing model with the Drupal Association

You can watch the keynote recording to learn more. I've also published a detailed blog post that dives deeper into the marketplace idea.

Looking ahead

Drupal CMS has brought a lot of fresh momentum to the Drupal project, but we're not done yet! The rest of this year, we'll keep building on this foundation with a clear set of priorities:

• Launching Experience Builder 1.0
• Releasing our first Site Templates
• Expanding our marketing efforts
• Exploring the launch of a Site Template marketplace
• Building out our AI framework and AI agents

If you have time and interest, please consider getting involved. Every contribution makes a difference. Not sure where to begin? Join us on Drupal Slack. We're always happy to welcome new faces. Key channels include #drupal-cms-development, #ai, #experience-builder, #drupal-cms-templates, and #drupal-cms-marketplace.

As I said in the keynote: We have all the pieces, now we just need to bring them together!

The candid naivety of geeks

I mean, come on!

Amazon recently announced that, from now on, everything you say to Alexa will be sent to their server.

• Pluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025) (pluralistic.net)

What surprised me the most with this announcement is how it was met with surprise and harsh reactions. People felt betrayed.

I mean, come on!

Did you really think that Amazon was not listening to you before that? Did you really buy an Alexa trusting Amazon to "protect your privacy"?

Recently, I came across a comment on Hacker News where the poster defended Apple as protecting privacy of its users because "They market their product as protecting our privacy".

I mean, once again, come on!

Did you really think that "marketing" is telling the truth? Are you a freshly debarked Thermian? (In case you missed it, this is a Galaxy Quest reference.)

The whole point of marketing is to lie, lie and lie again.

What is the purpose of that gadget?

The whole point of the whole Amazon Alexa tech stack is to send information to Amazon. That’s the main goal of the thing. The fact that it is sometimes useful to you is a direct consequence of the thing sending information to Amazon. Just like Facebook linking you with friends is a consequence of you giving your information to Meta. Usefulness is only a byproduct of privacy invasion.

Having a fine-grained setting enabling "do not send all information to Amazon please" is, at best, wishful thinking. We had the same in the browser ("do-not-track"). It didn’t work.

I’ve always been convinced that the tech geeks who bought an Amazon Alexa perfectly knew what they were doing. One of my friends has a Google Echo and justify it with "Google already knows everything about our family through our phones, so I’m trading only a bit more of our privacy for convenience". I don’t agree with him but, at the very least, it’s a logical opinion.

We all know that what can be done with a tool will be done eventually. And you should prepare for it. On a side note, I also postulate that the reason Amazon removed that setting is because they were already gathering too much data to justify its existence in case there’s a complaint or an investigation in the future."How did you manage to get those data while your product says it will not send data?".

But, once again, any tech person knows that pushing a button in an interface is not a proof of anything in the underlying software.

Please stop being naive about Apple

That’s also the point with Apple: Apple is such a big company that the right hand has no idea about what the left hand is doing. Some privacy people are working at Apple and doing good job. But their work is continuously diluted through the interests of quick and cheap production, marketing, release, new features, gathering data for advertising purpose. Apple is not a privacy company and has never been: it is an opportunistic company which advertise privacy when it feels it could help sell more iPhones. But deeply inside, they absolutely don’t care and they will absolutely trade the (very little) privacy they have if it means selling more.

Sometimes, geek naivety is embarrassingly stupid. Like "brand loyalty". Marketing lies to you. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the company, the bigger the lie. In tech, there’s no way for a big company to not lie because marketers have no real understanding of they are selling. Do you really think that people who chose to advertise "privacy" at Apple have any strong knowledge about "privacy"? That they could simply give you a definition of "privacy"?

I know that intelligent people go to great intellectual contortions to justify buying the latest overpriced spying shiny coloured screen with an apple logo. It looks like most humans actively look to see their freedom restricted. Seirdy calls it "the domestication of users".

• WhatsApp and the domestication of users (seirdy.one)

And that’s why I see Apple as a cult: most tech people cannot be reasoned about it.

• The Cost of Being Convinced (ploum.net)

You can’t find a technical solution to a lie

Bill Cole, contributor to Spamassassin, recently posted on Mastodon that the whole DNS stack to protect spammers was not working.

spammers are more consistent at making SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correct than are legitimate senders.

• 🆘Bill Cole 🇺🇦: "@jwz@mastodon.social The stats we collect for the…" (toad.social)

It is, once again, a naive approach to spam. The whole stack was designed with the mindset "bad spammers will try to hide themselves". But was is happening in your inbox, really?

Most spam is not "black hat spam". It is what I call "white-collar spam": perfectly legitimate company, sending you emails from legitimate address. You slept in a hotel during a business trip? Now you will receive weekly emails about our hotel for the rest of your life. And it is the same for any shop, any outlet, anything you have done. Your inbox is filled with "white-collar" junk. And they know this perfectly well.

In Europe, we have a rule, the RGPD, which forbid businesses to keep your data without your express consent. I did the experiment for several months to send a legal threat to every single white-collar spam I received. Guess what: they always replied that it was a mistake, that I was now removed, that it should not have happened, that I checked the box (which was false but how could I prove it?) or even, on one occasion, that they restored a backup containing my email before I unsubscribed (I unsubscribed from that one 10 years before, which makes it very unlikely).

In short, they lied. All of them. All of them are spammers and they lie pretending that "they thought you were interested".

In one notable case, they told me that they had erased all my data while, still having the cookie on my laptop, I could see and use my account. Thirty days later, I was still connected and I figured that they simply managed to change my user id from "ploum" to "deleted_ploum" in the database. While answering me straight in the face that they had no information about me in their database.

Corporations are lying. You must treat every corporate word as a straight lie until proved otherwise.

But Ploum, if all marketing is a lie, why trusting Signal?

If you can’t trust marketing, why do I use Signal and Protonmail?

First of all, Signal is open source. And, yes, I’ve read some of the source code for some feature I was interested in. I’ve also read through some very deep audit of Signal source code.

• Reviewing the Cryptography Used by Signal (soatok.blog)

I’m also trusting the people behind Signal. I’m trusting people who recommend Signal. I’m trusting the way Signal is built.

But most importantly, Signal sole existence is to protect privacy of its users. It’s not even a corporation and, yes, this is important.

Yes, they could lie in their marketing. Like Telegram did (and still does AFAIK). But this would undermine their sole reason to exist.

I don’t say that Signal is perfect: I say I trust them to believe themselves what they announce. For now.

What about Protonmail?

For the same reasons, Protonmail can, to some extent, be trusted. Technically, they can access most of the emails of their customers (because those emails arrive unencrypted to PM’s servers). But I trust Protonmail not to sell any data because if there’s any doubt that they do it, the whole business will crumble. They have a strong commercial incentive to do everything they can to protect my data. I pay them for that. It’s not a "checkbox" they could remove, it’s their whole raison d’être.

This is also why I pay for Kagi as my search engine: their business incentive is to provide me the best search results with less slop, less advertising. As soon as they start doing some kind of advertising, I will stop paying them and they know it. Or if Kagi starts becoming to AI centric for my taste, like they did for Lori:

• Why I Lost Faith in Kagi (d-shoot.net)

I don’t blindly trust companies. Paying them is not a commitment to obey them, au contraire. Every relation with a commercial entity is, by essence, temporary. I pay for a service with strings attached. If the service degrade, if my conditions are not respected, I stop paying. If I’m not convinced they can be trusted, I stop paying them. I know I can pay and still be the product. If I have any doubt, I don’t pay. I try to find an alternative and migrate to it. Email being critical to me, I always have two accounts on two different trustable providers with an easy migrating path (which boils down to changing my DNS config).

Fighting the Androidification

Cory Doctorow speaks a lot about enshitification. Where users are more and more exploited. But one key component of a good enshitification is what I call "Androidification".

Androidification is not about degrading the user experience. It’s about closing doors, removing special use cases, being less and less transparent. It’s about taking open source software and frog boiling it to a full closed proprietary state while killing all the competition in the process.

Android was, at first, an Open Source project. With each release, it became more closed, more proprietary. As I explain in my "20 years of Linux on the Desktop" essay, I believe it has always been part of the plan. Besides the Linux kernel, Google was always wary not to include any GPL or LGPL licensed library in Android.

• 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) (ploum.net)

It took them 15 years but they finally achieved killing the Android Open Source Project:

• Google will develop the Android OS fully in private, here's why (www.androidauthority.com)

This is why I’m deeply concerned by the motivation of Canonical to switch Ubuntu’s coreutils to an MIT licensed version.

• Ubuntu 25.10 plans to swap GNU coreutils for Rust (go.theregister.com)

This is why I’m deeply concerned that Protonmail quietly removed the issue tracker from its Protonmail Bridge Github page (making the development completely opaque for what is an essential tool for technical Protonmail users).

I mean, commons!

This whole naivety is also why I’m deeply concerned by very intelligent and smart tech people not understanding what "copyleft" is, why it is different from "open source" and why they should care.

• We need more of Richard Stallman, not less (ploum.net)

Corporations are not your friend. They never were. They lie. The only possible relationship with them is an opportunistic one. And if you want to build commons that they cannot steal, you need strong copyleft.

• On Open Source and the Sustainability of the Commons (ploum.net)

But firstly, my fellow geeks, you need to lose your candid naivety.

I mean, come on, let’s build the commons!

SSAO with Image-Based Lighting

Old

New

Highlights show data dependencies

Bent normal and occlusion samples

Motion vectors example

Accumulated samples

Depth history

You bind this as virtual sources, each accessing a fixed slot history[i], which will transparently cycle whenever you render to its target. Any reimagined GPU API should seriously consider buffer history as a first-class concept. All the modern techniques require it.

IGN

Detail of accumulated samples

Upscaled and resolved samples, with overscan trimmed off

<Pass
  lights
  ssao={{ radius: 3, indirect: 0.5 }}
  overscan={0.05}
>
  ...
</Pass>

const resources = [
  use(ViewBuffer, options),
  lights ? use(LightBuffer, options) : null,
  shadows ? use(ShadowBuffer, options) : null,
  picking ? use(PickingBuffer, options) : null,
  overscan ? use(OverscanBuffer, options) : null,
  ...(ssao ? [
    use(NormalBuffer, options),
    use(MotionBuffer, options),
  ] : []),
  ssao ? use(SSAOBuffer, options) : null,
];

const resolved = passes ?? [
  normals ? use(NormalPass, options) : null,
  motion ? use(MotionPass, options) : null,
  ssao ? use(SSAOPass, options) : null,
  shadows ? use(ShadowPass, options) : null,
  use(DEFAULT_PASS[viewType], options),
  picking ? use(PickingPass, options) : null,
  debug ? use(DebugPass, options) : null,
]

Render passes in the inspector

// Prepare to call surfaceShader(matrix, ray, normal, size, ...)
const getSurface = useShader(surfaceShader, [
  matrix, ray, normal, size, insideRef, originRef,
  sdf, palette, pbr, ...sources
], defs);

use '@use-gpu/wgsl/use/types'::{ Light };

@export struct LightUniforms {
  count: u32,
  lights: array<Light>,
};

@group(PASS) @binding(1) var<storage> lightUniforms: LightUniforms;

<Line
  // Two lines
  positions={[
    [[300, 50], [350, 150], [400, 50], [450, 150]],
    [[300, 150], [350, 250], [400, 150], [450, 250]],
  ]}
  // Of the same color and width
  color={'#40c000'}
  width={5}
/>

<Line
  // Two lines
  positions={[
    [[300, 250], [350, 350], [400, 250], [450, 350]],
    [[300, 350], [350, 450], [400, 350], [450, 450]],
  ]}
  // With color per line
  color={['#ffa040', '#7f40a0']}
  // And width per vertex
  widths={[[1, 2, 2, 1], [1, 2, 2, 1]}
/>

When I searched for a new LoRaWAN indoor gateway, my primary criterion was that it should be capable of running open-source firmware. The ChirpStack Gateway OS firmware caught my attention. It's based on OpenWrt and has regular releases. Its recent 4.7.0 release added support for the Seeed SenseCAP M2 Multi-Platform Gateway, which seemed like an interesting and affordable option for a LoRaWAN gateway.

Unfortunately, this device wasn't available through my usual suppliers. However, TinyTronics did stock the SenseCAP M2 Data Only, which looked to me like exactly the same hardware but with different firmware to support the Helium LongFi Network. Ten minutes before their closing time on a Friday evening, I called their office to confirm whether I could use it as a LoRaWAN gateway on an arbitrary network. I was helped by a guy who was surprisingly friendly for the time of my call, and after a quick search he confirmed that it was indeed the same hardware. After this, I ordered this Helium variant of the gateway.

Upon its arrival, the first thing I did after connecting the antenna and powering it on was to search for the Backup/Flash Firmware entry in Luci's System menu, as explained in Seeed Studio's wiki page about flashing open-source firmware to the M2 Gateway. Unfortunately, the M2 Data Only seemed to have a locked-down version of OpenWrt's Luci interface, without the ability to flash other firmware. There was no SSH access either. I tried to flash the firmware via TFTP, but to no avail..

After these disappointing attempts, I submitted a support ticket to Seeed Studio, explaining my intention to install alternative firmware on the device, as I wasn't interested in the Helium functionality. I received a helpful response by a field application engineer with the high-level steps to do this, although I had to fill in some details myself. After getting stuck on a missing step, my follow-up query was promptly answered with the missing information and an apology for the incomplete instructions, and I finally succeeded in installing the Chirpstack Gateway OS on the SenseCAP M2 Data Only. Here are the detailed steps I followed.

Initial serial connection

Connect the gateway via USB and start a serial connection with a baud rate of 57600. I used GNU Screen for this purpose:

$ screen /dev/ttyUSB0 57600

When the U-Boot boot loader shows its options, press 0 for Load system code then write to Flash via Serial:

You'll then be prompted to switch the baud rate to 230400 and press ENTER. I terminated the screen session with Ctrl+a k and reconnected with the new baud rate:

$ screen /dev/ttyUSB0 230400

Sending the firmware with Kermit

Upon pressing ENTER, you'll see the message Ready for binary (kermit) download to 0x80100000 at 230400 bps.... I never used the Kermit protocol before, but I installed ckermit and found the procedure in a StackOverflow response to the question How to send boot files over uart. After some experimenting, I found that I needed to use the following commands:

 koan@nov:~/Downloads$ kermit
C-Kermit 10.0 pre-Beta.11, 06 Feb 2024, for Linux+SSL (64-bit)
 Copyright (C) 1985, 2024,
  Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York.
  Open Source 3-clause BSD license since 2011.
Type ? or HELP for help.
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>set port /dev/ttyUSB0
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>set speed 230400
/dev/ttyUSB0, 230400 bps
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>set carrier-watch off
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>set flow-control none
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>set prefixing all
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>send openwrt.bin

The openwrt.bin file was the firmware image from Seeed's own LoRa_Gateway_OpenWRT firmware. I decided to install this instead of the ChirpStack Gateway OS because it was a smaller image and hence flashed more quickly (although still almost 8 minutes).

After the file was sent successfully, I didn't see any output when reestablishing a serial connection. After responding this to Seeed's field application engineer, he replied that the gateway should display a prompt requesting to switch the baud rate again to 57600.

Kermit can also function as a serial terminal, so I just stayed within the Kermit command line and entered the following commands:

(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>set speed 57600
/dev/ttyUSB0, 57600 bps
(~/Downloads/) C-Kermit>connect
Connecting to /dev/ttyUSB0, speed 57600
 Escapr character: Ctrl-\ (ASCII 28, FS): enabled
Type the escape character followed by C to get back,
or followed by ? to see other options.
----------------------------------------------------
## Total Size      = 0x00840325 = 8651557 Bytes
## Start Addr      = 0x80100000
## Switch baudrate to 57600 bps and press ESC ...

And indeed, there was the prompt. After pressing ESC, the transferred image was flashed.

Reboot into the new firmware

Upon rebooting, the device was now running Seeed's open-source LoRaWAN gateway operating system. Luci's menu now included a Backup/Flash Firmware entry in the System menu, enabling me to upload the ChirpStack Gateway OS image:

Before flashing the firmware image, I deselected the Keep settings and retain the current configuration option, as outlined in ChirpStack's documentation for installation on the SenseCAP M2:

Thus, I now have open-source firmware running on my new LoRaWAN gateway, with regular updates in place.

Imagine waking up to discover that overnight, AI agents rewrote 500 product descriptions, reorganized 300 pages for SEO, and updated 9,000 alt-text descriptions on your website.

As you review the changes over coffee, you find three product descriptions featuring nonexistent features. If published, customers will order based on false expectations. Then you notice another problem: AI rewrote hundreds of alt-text descriptions, erasing the ones your team crafted for accessibility.

AI-driven content management isn't a distant scenario. Soon, Content Management Systems (CMS) may deploy hundreds of AI agents making bulk edits across thousands of pages.

The challenge? Traditional CMS workflows weren't designed for AI-powered editing at scale. What features should an AI-first CMS include? What safeguards would prevent errors? What workflows would balance efficiency with quality control? I'm outlining some rough ideas to start a conversation and inspire Drupal contributors to help build this future.

1. Smart review queues: scaling human oversight

AI-generated content needs different quality checks than human work. Current editorial workflows aren't optimized to handle its output volume.

I envision "AI review queues" with specialized tools like:

• Spot-checking: Instead of manually reviewing everything, editors can sample AI content strategically. They focus on key areas, like top-selling products or pages flagged by anomaly detection. Reviewing just 5% of the changes could provide confidence; good samples suggest the broader set works well. If issues are found, it signals the need for deeper review.
• Rolled-up approvals: Instead of approving AI edits one by one, CMS platforms could summarize large-scale AI changes into a single reviewable batch.

2. Git-like content versioning: selective control over AI changes

Say an AI translated your site into Spanish with mixed results. Meanwhile, editors updated the English content. Without sophisticated versioning, you face a tough choice: keep poor translations or roll everything back, losing days of human work.

CMS platforms need Git-like branch-based versioning for content. AI contributions should exist in separate branches that teams can merge, modify, or reject independently.

3. Configuration versioning: keeping AI from breaking your CMS

AI isn't just generating content. It is also modifying site configurations, permissions, content models and more. Many CMS platforms don't handle "configuration versioning" well. Changes to settings and site structures are often harder to track and undo.

CMS platforms also need Git-like versioning for configuration changes, allowing humans to track, review, and roll back AI-driven modifications just as easily as content edits. This ensures AI can assist with complex site management tasks without introducing silent, irreversible changes.

4. Enhanced audit trails: understanding AI decisions

Standard CMS audit logs track who made changes and when, but AI operations demand deeper insights. When multiple AI agents modify your site, we need to know which agent made each change, why it acted, and what data influenced its decision. Without these explanations, tracking down and fixing AI errors becomes nearly impossible.

AI audit trails should record confidence scores showing how certain an agent was about its changes (60% vs 95% certainty makes a difference). They need to document reasoning paths explaining how each agent reached its conclusion, track which model versions and parameters were used, and preserve the prompt contexts that guided the AI's decisions. This comprehensive tracking creates accountability in multi-agent environments where dozens of specialized AIs might collaborate on content.

This transparency also supports compliance requirements, ensuring organizations can demonstrate responsible AI oversight.

5. AI guardrails: enforcing governance and quality control

AI needs a governance layer to ensure reliability and compliance. Imagine a healthcare system where AI-generated medical claims must reference approved clinical studies, or a financial institution where AI cannot make investment recommendations without regulatory review.

Without these guardrails, AI could generate misleading or non-compliant content, leading to legal risks, financial penalties, or loss of trust.

Instead of just blocking AI from certain tasks, AI-generated content should be checked for missing citations, regulatory violations, and factual inconsistencies before publication.

Implementing these safeguards likely requires a "rules engine" that intercepts and reviews AI outputs. This could involve pattern matching to detect incorrect content, as well as fact verification against approved databases and trusted sources. For example, a healthcare CMS could automatically verify AI-generated medical claims against clinical research databases. A financial platform might flag investment advice containing unapproved claims for compliance review.

Strategic priorities for modern CMS platforms

I can't predict exactly how these ideas will take shape, but I believe their core principles address real needs in AI-integrated content management. As AI takes on a bigger role in how we manage content, building the right foundation now will pay off regardless of specific implementations. Two key investment areas stand out:

1. Improved version control – AI and human editors will increasingly work in parallel, requiring more sophisticated versioning for both content and configuration. Traditional CMS platforms must evolve to support Git-like branching, precise rollback controls, and configuration tracking, ensuring both content stability and site integrity.
2. AI oversight infrastructure – As AI generates and modifies content at scale, CMS platforms will need structured oversight systems. This includes specialized review queues, audit logs, and governance frameworks.

A while back, I built a solar-powered, self-hosted website. Running a website entirely on renewable energy felt like a win, until my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W started ghosting me.

Every few weeks, it just disappears from the network: no ping, no SSH. Completely unreachable, yet the power LED stays on. The SD card has plenty of free space.

The solar panel and battery aren't the problem either. In fact, my solar dashboard shows they've been running for 215 days straight. Not a glitch.

Every time my Raspberry Pi goes offline, I have to go through the same frustrating ritual: get on the roof, open the waterproof enclosure, disconnect the Pi, pull the SD card, go to my office, reformat it, reinstall the OS and reconfigure everything. Then climb back up and put everything back together.

A month ago, I was back on the roof deck, battling Boston winter. My fingers were numb, struggling with tiny screws and connectors. This had to stop.

The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is a great device for IoT projects, but only if it can run unattended for years.

Watchdogs: a safety net for when things go wrong

Enter watchdogs: tools that detect failures and trigger automatic reboots. There are two types:

1. Hardware watchdog – Recovers from system-wide freezes like kernel panics or hardware lockups, by forcing a low-level reset.
2. Software watchdog – Detects and fixes service-level failures, such as lost network connectivity, high CPU load or excessive RAM usage.

Running both ensures the Raspberry Pi can recover from minor issues (like a dropped connection) and system crashes (where everything becomes unresponsive).

Hardware watchdog

The hardware watchdog is a timer built into the Raspberry Pi's Broadcom chip. The operating system must reset or pet the timer regularly. If it fails to do so within a set interval, the watchdog assumes the system has frozen and forces a reboot.

Since support for the hardware watchdog is built into the Raspberry Pi's Linux kernel, it simply needs to be enabled.

Edit /etc/systemd/system.conf and add:

 RuntimeWatchdogSec=10s
ShutdownWatchdogSec=10min

• RuntimeWatchdogSec – Defines how often the watchdog must be reset. On the Raspberry Pi, this must be less than 15–20 seconds due to hardware constraints.
• ShutdownWatchdogSec – Keeps the watchdog active during shutdown to detect hangs.

Restart systemd to activate the watchdog:

 $ sudo systemctl daemon-reexec

Once restarted, systemd starts petting the hardware watchdog timer. If it ever fails, the Raspberry Pi will reboot.

To ensure full recovery, set all critical services to restart automatically. For example, my web server starts by itself, bringing my solar-powered website back online without any manual work.

Software watchdog

The hardware watchdog catches complete system freezes, while the software watchdog monitors network connectivity, CPU load and other metrics.

To install the software watchdog:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install watchdog

Next, edit /etc/watchdog.conf and add the following settings:

# Network monitoring
ping = 8.8.8.8
ping = 1.1.1.1
ping-count = 5

# Interface monitoring
interface = wlan0

# Basic settings
watchdog-device = none
retry-timeout = 180
realtime = yes
interval = 20

What this does:

• ping = 8.8.8.8 / ping = 1.1.1.1 – Checks that the Pi can reach Google (8.8.8.8) and Cloudflare (1.1.1.1).
• interface = wlan0 – Ensures the Wi-Fi interface is active.
• retry-timeout = 180 – Reboots the Pi if these checks fail for 180 seconds.
• interval = 20 – Performs checks every 20 seconds.
• watchdog-device = none – Instead of using the hardware watchdog, the daemon monitors failures and triggers a software reboot through the operating system.

While I'm just monitoring the network, you can also configure the watchdog to check CPU usage, RAM or other system health metrics.

Once configured, enable and start the watchdog service:

$ sudo systemctl enable watchdog
$ sudo systemctl start watchdog

Enabling the watchdog makes sure it launches automatically on every boot, while starting it activates it immediately without requiring a restart.

Debugging watchdog reboots

When a watchdog triggers a reboot, system logs can help uncover what went wrong. To view all recent system boots, run:

$ journalctl --list-boots

This will display a list of boot sessions, each with an index (e.g. -1 for the previous boot, -2 for the one before that).

To see all shutdown events and their reason, run:

$ journalctl --no-pager | grep "shutting down the system"

If you want more details, you can check the logs leading up to a specific reboot. The following command displays the last 50 log entries immediately before the last system shutdown:

$ journalctl -b -1 -n 50 --no-pager

• -b -1 – Retrieves logs from the previous boot.
• -n 50 – Displays the last 50 log entries before that reboot.
• --no-pager – Prevents logs from being paginated.

Progress, but the mystery remains

Since installing these watchdogs, my Raspberry Pi has remained accessible. It has not gone offline indefinitely. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

My logs show the software watchdog reboots the system regularly. It always reboots due to lost network connectivity.

While the watchdog is working as intended, the real mystery remains: why does the network keep failing and leave the Raspberry Pi in an unrecoverable state?

Still, this is real progress. I no longer have to climb onto the roof in freezing weather. The system recovers on its own, even when I'm away from home.

I did it. I just finished generating alt-text for 9,000 images on my website.

What began as a simple task evolved into a four-part series where I compared different LLMs, evaluated local versus cloud processing, and built an automated workflow.

But this final step was different. It wasn't about technology. It was about trust and letting things go.

My AI tool in action

In my last blog post, I shared scripts to automate alt-text generation for a single image. The final step? Running my scripts on the 9,000 images missing alt-text. This covers over 20 years of images in photo albums and blog posts.

Here is my tool in action:

And yes, AI generated the alt-text for this GIF. AI describing AI, a recursion that should have ripped open the space-time continuum. Sadly, no portals appeared. At best, it might have triggered a stack overflow in a distant dimension. Meanwhile, I just did the evening dishes.

ChatGPT-4o processed all 9,000 images at half a cent each, for less than $50 in total. And despite hammering their service for a couple days, I never hit a rate limit or error. Very impressive.

AI is better than me

Trusting a script to label 9,000 images made me nervous. What if mistakes in auto-generated descriptions made my website less accessible? What if future AI models trained on any mistakes?

I started cautiously, stopping after each album to check every alt-text. After reviewing 250 images, I noticed something: I wasn't fixing errors, I was just tweaking words.

Then came the real surprise. I tested my script on albums I had manually described five years ago. The result was humbling. AI wrote better alt-text: spotting details I missed, describing scenes more clearly, and capturing nuances I overlooked. Turns out, past me wasn't so great at writing alt-text.

Not just that. The LLM understood Japanese restaurant menus, decoded Hungarian text, interpreted German Drupal books, and read Dutch street signs. It recognized conference badges and correctly labeled events. It understood cultural contexts across countries. It picked up details about my photos that I had forgotten or didn't even know existed.

I was starting to understand this wasn't about AI's ability to describe images; it was about me accepting that AI often described them better than I could.

Conclusion

AI isn't perfect, but it can be very useful. People worry about hallucinations and inaccuracy, and I did too. But after generating alt-text for 9,000 images, I saw something different: real, practical value.

It didn't just make my site more accessible; it challenged me. It showed me that sometimes, the best way to improve is to step aside and let a tool do the job better.

Core to the Digital Operational Resilience Act is the notion of a critical or important function. When a function is deemed critical or important, DORA expects the company or group to take precautions and measures to ensure the resilience of the company and the markets in which it is active.

But what exactly is a function? When do we consider it critical or important? Is there a differentiation between critical and important? Can an IT function be a critical or important function?

Defining functions

Let's start with the definition of a function. Surely that is defined in the documents, right? Right?

Eh... no. The DORA regulation does not seem to provide a definition for a function. It does however refer to the definition of critical function in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD), aka Directive 2014/59/EU. That's one of the regulations that focuses on the resolution in case of severe disruptions, bankrupcy or other failures of banks at a national or European level. A Delegated regulation EU/ 2016/778 further defines several definitions that inspired the DORA regulation as well.

In the latter document, we do find the definition of a function:

‘function’ means a structured set of activities, services or operations that are delivered by the institution or group to third parties irrespective from the internal organisation of the institution;

Article 2, (2), of Delegated regulation 2016/778

So if you want to be blunt, you could state that an IT function which is only supporting the own group (as in, you're not insourcing IT of other companies) is not a function, and thus cannot be a "critical or important function" in DORA's viewpoint.

That is, unless you find that the definition of previous regulations do not necessarily imply the same interpretation within DORA. After all, DORA does not amend the EU 2016/778 regulation. It amends EC 1060/2009, EU 2012/648, EU 2014/600 aka MiFIR, EU 2014/909 aka CSDR and EU 2016/1011 aka Benchmark Regulation. But none of these have a definition for 'function' at first sight.

So let's humor ourselves and move on. What is a critical function? Is that defined in DORA? Not really, sort-of. DORA has a definition for critical or important function, but let's first look at more distinct definitions.

In the BRRD regulation, this is defined as follows:

‘critical functions’ means activities, services or operations the discontinuance of which is likely in one or more Member States, to lead to the disruption of services that are essential to the real economy or to disrupt financial stability due to the size, market share, external and internal interconnectedness, complexity or cross-border activities of an institution or group, with particular regard to the substitutability of those activities, services or operations;

Article 2, (35), of BRRD 2014/59

This extends on the use of function, and adds in the evaluation if it is crucial for the economy, especially when it would be suddenly discontinued. The extension on the definition of function is also confirmed by guidance that the European Single Resolution Board published, namely that "the function is provided by an institution to third parties not affiliated to the institution or group".

The preamble of the Delegated regulation also mentions that its focus is at the safeguarding of the financial stability and the real economy. It gives examples of potential critical functions such as deposit taking, lending and loan services, payment, clearing, custody and settlement services, wholesale funding markets activities, and capital markets and investments activities.

Of course, your IT is supporting your company, and in case of financial institutions, IT is a very big part of the company. Is IT then not involved in all of this?

It sure is...

Defining services

The Delegated regulation EU 2016/778 in its preamble already indicates that functions are supported by services:

Critical services should be the underlying operations, activities and services performed for one (dedicated services) or more business units or legal entities (shared services) within the group which are needed to provide one or more critical functions. Critical services can be performed by one or more entities (such as a separate legal entity or an internal unit) within the group (internal service) or be outsourced to an external provider (external service). A service should be considered critical where its disruption can present a serious impediment to, or completely prevent, the performance of critical functions as they are intrinsically linked to the critical functions that an institution performs for third parties. Their identification follows the identification of a critical function.

Preamble, (8), Delegated regulation 2016/778

IT within an organization is certainly offering services to one or more of the business units within that financial institution. Once the company has defined its critical functions (or for DORA, "critical or important functions"), then the company will need to create a mapping of all assets and services that are needed to realize that function.

Out of that mapping, it is very well possible that several IT services will be considered critical services. I'm myself involved in the infrastructure side of things, which are often shared services. The delegated regulation already points to it, and a somewhat older guideline from the Financial Stability Board has the following to say about critical shared services:

a critical shared service has the following elements: (i) an activity, function or service is performed by either an internal unit, a separate legal entity within the group or an external provider; (ii) that activity, function or service is performed for one or more business units or legal entities of the group; (iii) the sudden and disorderly failure or malfunction would lead to the collapse of or present a serious impediment to the performance of, critical functions.

FSB guidance on identification of critical functions and critical shared services

For IT organizations, it is thus most important to focus on the services they offer.

Definition of critical or important function

Within DORA, the definition of critical or important function is as follows:

(22) ‘critical or important function’ means a function, the disruption of which would materially impair the financial performance of a financial entity, or the soundness or continuity of its services and activities, or the discontinued, defective or failed performance of that function would materially impair the continuing compliance of a financial entity with the conditions and obligations of its authorisation, or with its other obligations under applicable financial services law;

Article 3, (22), DORA

If we compare this definition with the previous ones about critical functions, we notice that it is extended with an evaluation of the impact towards the company - rather than the market. I think it is safe to say that this is the or important part of the critical or important function: whereas a function is critical if its discontinuance has market impact, a function is important if its discontinuance causes material impairment towards the company itself.

Hence, we can consider a critical or important function as being either market impact (critical) or company impact (important), but retaining externally offered (function).

This more broad definition does mean that DORA's regulation puts more expectations forward than previous regulation, which is one of the reasons that DORA is that impactful to financial institutions.

Implications towards IT

From the above, I'd wager that IT itself is not a "critical or important function", but IT offers services which could be supporting critical or important functions. Hence, it is necessary that the company has a good mapping of the functions and their underlying services, operations and systems. From that mapping, we can then see if those underlying services are crucial for the function or not. If they are, then we should consider those as critical or important systems.

This mapping is mandated by DORA as well:

Financial entities shall identify all information assets and ICT assets, including those on remote sites, network resources and hardware equipment, and shall map those considered critical. They shall map the configuration of the information assets and ICT assets and the links and interdependencies between the different information assets and ICT assets.

Article 8, (4), DORA

as well as:

As part of the overall business continuity policy, financial entities shall conduct a business impact analysis (BIA) of their exposures to severe business disruptions. Under the BIA, financial entities shall assess the potential impact of severe business disruptions by means of quantitative and qualitative criteria, using internal and external data and scenario analysis, as appropriate. The BIA shall consider the criticality of identified and mapped business functions, support processes, third-party dependencies and information assets, and their interdependencies. Financial entities shall ensure that ICT assets and ICT services are designed and used in full alignment with the BIA, in particular with regard to adequately ensuring the redundancy of all critical components.

Article 11, paragraph 2, DORA

In more complex landscapes, it is very well possible that the mapping is a multi-layered view with different types of systems or services in between, which could make the effort to identify services as being critical or important quite challenging.

For instance, it could be that the IT organization has a service catalog, but that this service catalog is too broadly defined to use the indication of critical or important. Making a more fine-grained service catalog will be necessary to properly evaluate the dependencies, but that also implies that your business (who has defined their critical or important functions) will need to indicate which fine-grained service they are depending on, rather than the high-level services.

In later posts, I'll probably dive deeper into this layered view.

Feedback? Comments? Don't hesitate to get in touch on Mastodon.

One of the topics that most financial institutions are (still) currently working on, is their compliance with a European legislation called DORA. This abbreviation, which stands for "Digital Operational Resilience Act", is a European regulation. European regulations apply automatically and uniformly across all EU countries. This is unlike another recent legislation called NIS2, the "Network and Information Security" directive. As a EU directive, NIS2 requires the EU countries to formulate the directive into local law. As a result, different EU countries can have a slightly different implementation.

The DORA regulation applies to the EU financial sector, and has some strict requirements in it that companies' IT stakeholders are affected by. It doesn't often sugar-coat things like some frameworks do. This has the advantage that its "interpretation flexibility" is quite reduced - but not zero of course. Yet, that advantage is also a disadvantage: financial entities might have had different strategies covering their resiliency, and now need to adjust their strategy.

2025 = (20 + 25)²

2025 = 45²

2025 = 1³+2³+3³+4³+5³+6³+7³+8³+9³

2025 = (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9)²

2025 = 1+3+5+7+9+11+...+89

2025 = 9² x 5²

2025 = 40² + 20² + 5²

At work, I've been maintaining a perl script that needs to run a number of steps as part of a release workflow.

Initially, that script was very simple, but over time it has grown to do a number of things. And then some of those things did not need to be run all the time. And then we wanted to do this one exceptional thing for this one case. And so on; eventually the script became a big mess of configuration options and unreadable flow, and so I decided that I wanted it to be more configurable. I sat down and spent some time on this, and eventually came up with what I now realize is a domain-specific language (DSL) in JSON, implemented by creating objects in Moose, extensible by writing more object classes.

Let me explain how it works.

In order to explain, however, I need to explain some perl and Moose basics first. If you already know all that, you can safely skip ahead past the "Preliminaries" section that's next.

Preliminaries

Moose object creation, references.

In Moose, creating a class is done something like this:

package Foo;

use v5.40;
use Moose;

has 'attribute' => (
    is  => 'ro',
    isa => 'Str',
    required => 1
);

sub say_something {
    my $self = shift;
    say "Hello there, our attribute is " . $self->attribute;
}

The above is a class that has a single attribute called attribute. To create an object, you use the Moose constructor on the class, and pass it the attributes you want:

use v5.40;
use Foo;

my $foo = Foo->new(attribute => "foo");

$foo->say_something;

(output: Hello there, our attribute is foo)

This creates a new object with the attribute attribute set to bar. The attribute accessor is a method generated by Moose, which functions both as a getter and a setter (though in this particular case we made the attribute "ro", meaning read-only, so while it can be set at object creation time it cannot be changed by the setter anymore). So yay, an object.

And it has methods, things that we set ourselves. Basic OO, all that.

One of the peculiarities of perl is its concept of "lists". Not to be confused with the lists of python -- a concept that is called "arrays" in perl and is somewhat different -- in perl, lists are enumerations of values. They can be used as initializers for arrays or hashes, and they are used as arguments to subroutines. Lists cannot be nested; whenever a hash or array is passed in a list, the list is "flattened", that is, it becomes one big list.

This means that the below script is functionally equivalent to the above script that uses our "Foo" object:

use v5.40;
use Foo;

my %args;

$args{attribute} = "foo";

my $foo = Foo->new(%args);

$foo->say_something;

(output: Hello there, our attribute is foo)

This creates a hash %args wherein we set the attributes that we want to pass to our constructor. We set one attribute in %args, the one called attribute, and then use %args and rely on list flattening to create the object with the same attribute set (list flattening turns a hash into a list of key-value pairs).

Perl also has a concept of "references". These are scalar values that point to other values; the other value can be a hash, a list, or another scalar. There is syntax to create a non-scalar value at assignment time, called anonymous references, which is useful when one wants to remember non-scoped values. By default, references are not flattened, and this is what allows you to create multidimensional values in perl; however, it is possible to request list flattening by dereferencing the reference. The below example, again functionally equivalent to the previous two examples, demonstrates this:

use v5.40;
use Foo;

my $args = {};

$args->{attribute} = "foo";

my $foo = Foo->new(%$args);

$foo->say_something;

(output: Hello there, our attribute is foo)

This creates a scalar $args, which is a reference to an anonymous hash. Then, we set the key attribute of that anonymous hash to bar (note the use arrow operator here, which is used to indicate that we want to dereference a reference to a hash), and create the object using that reference, requesting hash dereferencing and flattening by using a double sigil, %$.

As a side note, objects in perl are references too, hence the fact that we have to use the dereferencing arrow to access the attributes and methods of Moose objects.

Moose attributes don't have to be strings or even simple scalars. They can also be references to hashes or arrays, or even other objects:

package Bar;

use v5.40;
use Moose;

extends 'Foo';

has 'hash_attribute' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'HashRef[Str]',
    predicate => 'has_hash_attribute',
);

has 'object_attribute' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Foo',
    predicate => 'has_object_attribute',
);

sub say_something {
    my $self = shift;

    if($self->has_object_attribute) {
        $self->object_attribute->say_something;
    }

    $self->SUPER::say_something unless $self->has_hash_attribute;

    say "We have a hash attribute!"
}

This creates a subclass of Foo called Bar that has a hash attribute called hash_attribute, and an object attribute called object_attribute. Both of them are references; one to a hash, the other to an object. The hash ref is further limited in that it requires that each value in the hash must be a string (this is optional but can occasionally be useful), and the object ref in that it must refer to an object of the class Foo, or any of its subclasses.

The predicates used here are extra subroutines that Moose provides if you ask for them, and which allow you to see if an object's attribute has a value or not.

The example script would use an object like this:

use v5.40;
use Bar;

my $foo = Foo->new(attribute => "foo");

my $bar = Bar->new(object_attribute => $foo, attribute => "bar");

$bar->say_something;

(output: Hello there, our attribute is foo)

This example also shows object inheritance, and methods implemented in child classes.

Okay, that's it for perl and Moose basics. On to...

Moose Coercion

Moose has a concept of "value coercion". Value coercion allows you to tell Moose that if it sees one thing but expects another, it should convert is using a passed subroutine before assigning the value.

That sounds a bit dense without example, so let me show you how it works. Reimaginging the Bar package, we could use coercion to eliminate one object creation step from the creation of a Bar object:

package "Bar";

use v5.40;

use Moose;
use Moose::Util::TypeConstraints;

extends "Foo";

coerce "Foo",
    from "HashRef",
    via { Foo->new(%$_) };

has 'hash_attribute' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'HashRef',
    predicate => 'has_hash_attribute',
);

has 'object_attribute' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Foo',
    coerce => 1,
    predicate => 'has_object_attribute',
);

sub say_something {
    my $self = shift;

    if($self->has_object_attribute) {
        $self->object_attribute->say_something;
    }

    $self->SUPER::say_something unless $self->has_hash_attribute;

    say "We have a hash attribute!"
}

Okay, let's unpack that a bit.

First, we add the Moose::Util::TypeConstraints module to our package. This is required to declare coercions.

Then, we declare a coercion to tell Moose how to convert a HashRef to a Foo object: by using the Foo constructor on a flattened list created from the hashref that it is given.

Then, we update the definition of the object_attribute to say that it should use coercions. This is not the default, because going through the list of coercions to find the right one has a performance penalty, so if the coercion is not requested then we do not do it.

This allows us to simplify declarations. With the updated Bar class, we can simplify our example script to this:

use v5.40;

use Bar;

my $bar = Bar->new(attribute => "bar", object_attribute => { attribute => "foo" });

$bar->say_something

(output: Hello there, our attribute is foo)

Here, the coercion kicks in because the value object_attribute, which is supposed to be an object of class Foo, is instead a hash ref. Without the coercion, this would produce an error message saying that the type of the object_attribute attribute is not a Foo object. With the coercion, however, the value that we pass to object_attribute is passed to a Foo constructor using list flattening, and then the resulting Foo object is assigned to the object_attribute attribute.

Coercion works for more complicated things, too; for instance, you can use coercion to coerce an array of hashes into an array of objects, by creating a subtype first:

package MyCoercions;
use v5.40;

use Moose;
use Moose::Util::TypeConstraints;

use Foo;

subtype "ArrayOfFoo", as "ArrayRef[Foo]";
subtype "ArrayOfHashes", as "ArrayRef[HashRef]";

coerce "ArrayOfFoo", from "ArrayOfHashes", via { [ map { Foo->create(%$_) } @{$_} ] };

Ick. That's a bit more complex.

What happens here is that we use the map function to iterate over a list of values.

The given list of values is @{$_}, which is perl for "dereference the default value as an array reference, and flatten the list of values in that array reference".

So the ArrayRef of HashRefs is dereferenced and flattened, and each HashRef in the ArrayRef is passed to the map function.

The map function then takes each hash ref in turn and passes it to the block of code that it is also given. In this case, that block is { Foo->create(%$_) }. In other words, we invoke the create factory method with the flattened hashref as an argument. This returns an object of the correct implementation (assuming our hash ref has a type attribute set), and with all attributes of their object set to the correct value. That value is then returned from the block (this could be made more explicit with a return call, but that is optional, perl defaults a return value to the rvalue of the last expression in a block).

The map function then returns a list of all the created objects, which we capture in an anonymous array ref (the [] square brackets), i.e., an ArrayRef of Foo object, passing the Moose requirement of ArrayRef[Foo].

Usually, I tend to put my coercions in a special-purpose package. Although it is not strictly required by Moose, I find that it is useful to do this, because Moose does not allow a coercion to be defined if a coercion for the same type had already been done in a different package. And while it is theoretically possible to make sure you only ever declare a coercion once in your entire codebase, I find that doing so is easier to remember if you put all your coercions in a specific package.

Okay, now you understand Moose object coercion! On to...

Dynamic module loading

Perl allows loading modules at runtime. In the most simple case, you just use require inside a stringy eval:

my $module = "Foo";
eval "require $module";

This loads "Foo" at runtime. Obviously, the $module string could be a computed value, it does not have to be hardcoded.

There are some obvious downsides to doing things this way, mostly in the fact that a computed value can basically be anything and so without proper checks this can quickly become an arbitrary code vulnerability. As such, there are a number of distributions on CPAN to help you with the low-level stuff of figuring out what the possible modules are, and how to load them.

For the purposes of my script, I used Module::Pluggable. Its API is fairly simple and straightforward:

package Foo;

use v5.40;
use Moose;

use Module::Pluggable require => 1;

has 'attribute' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Str',
);

has 'type' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Str',
    required => 1,
);

sub handles_type {
    return 0;
}

sub create {
    my $class = shift;
    my %data = @_;

    foreach my $impl($class->plugins) {
        if($impl->can("handles_type") && $impl->handles_type($data{type})) {
            return $impl->new(%data);
        }
    }
    die "could not find a plugin for type " . $data{type};
}

sub say_something {
    my $self = shift;
    say "Hello there, I am a " . $self->type;
}

The new concept here is the plugins class method, which is added by Module::Pluggable, and which searches perl's library paths for all modules that are in our namespace. The namespace is configurable, but by default it is the name of our module; so in the above example, if there were a package "Foo::Bar" which

• has a subroutine handles_type
• that returns a truthy value when passed the value of the type key in a hash that is passed to the create subroutine,
• then the create subroutine creates a new object with the passed key/value pairs used as attribute initializers.

Let's implement a Foo::Bar package:

package Foo::Bar;

use v5.40;
use Moose;

extends 'Foo';

has 'type' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Str',
    required => 1,
);

has 'serves_drinks' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Bool',
    default => 0,
);

sub handles_type {
    my $class = shift;
    my $type = shift;

    return $type eq "bar";
}

sub say_something {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->SUPER::say_something;
    say "I serve drinks!" if $self->serves_drinks;
}

We can now indirectly use the Foo::Bar package in our script:

use v5.40;
use Foo;

my $obj = Foo->create(type => bar, serves_drinks => 1);

$obj->say_something;

output:

Hello there, I am a bar.
I serve drinks!

Okay, now you understand all the bits and pieces that are needed to understand how I created the DSL engine. On to...

Putting it all together

We're actually quite close already. The create factory method in the last version of our Foo package allows us to decide at run time which module to instantiate an object of, and to load that module at run time. We can use coercion and list flattening to turn a reference to a hash into an object of the correct type.

We haven't looked yet at how to turn a JSON data structure into a hash, but that bit is actually ridiculously trivial:

use JSON::MaybeXS;

my $data = decode_json($json_string);

Tada, now $data is a reference to a deserialized version of the JSON string: if the JSON string contained an object, $data is a hashref; if the JSON string contained an array, $data is an arrayref, etc.

So, in other words, to create an extensible JSON-based DSL that is implemented by Moose objects, all we need to do is create a system that

• takes hash refs to set arguments

• has factory methods to create objects, which

  • uses Module::Pluggable to find the available object classes, and
  • uses the type attribute to figure out which object class to use to create the object

• uses coercion to convert hash refs into objects using these factory methods

In practice, we could have a JSON file with the following structure:

{
    "description": "do stuff",
    "actions": [
        {
            "type": "bar",
            "serves_drinks": true,
        },
        {
            "type": "bar",
            "serves_drinks": false,
        }
    ]
}

... and then we could have a Moose object definition like this:

package MyDSL;

use v5.40;
use Moose;

use MyCoercions;

has "description" => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'Str',
);

has 'actions' => (
    is => 'ro',
    isa => 'ArrayOfFoo'
    coerce => 1,
    required => 1,
);

sub say_something {
    say "Hello there, I am described as " . $self->description . " and I am performing my actions: ";

    foreach my $action(@{$self->actions}) {
        $action->say_something;
    }
}

Now, we can write a script that loads this JSON file and create a new object using the flattened arguments:

use v5.40;
use MyDSL;
use JSON::MaybeXS;

my $input_file_name = shift;

my $args = do {
    local $/ = undef;

    open my $input_fh, "<", $input_file_name or die "could not open file";
    <$input_fh>;
};

$args = decode_json($args);

my $dsl = MyDSL->new(%$args);

$dsl->say_something

Output:

Hello there, I am described as do stuff and I am performing my actions:
Hello there, I am a bar
I am serving drinks!
Hello there, I am a bar

In some more detail, this will:

• Read the JSON file and deserialize it;
• Pass the object keys in the JSON file as arguments to a constructor of the MyDSL class;
• The MyDSL class then uses those arguments to set its attributes, using Moose coercion to convert the "actions" array of hashes into an array of Foo::Bar objects.
• Perform the say_something method on the MyDSL object

Once this is written, extending the scheme to also support a "quux" type simply requires writing a Foo::Quux class, making sure it has a method handles_type that returns a truthy value when called with quux as the argument, and installing it into the perl library path. This is rather easy to do.

It can even be extended deeper, too; if the quux type requires a list of arguments rather than just a single argument, it could itself also have an array attribute with relevant coercions. These coercions could then be used to convert the list of arguments into an array of objects of the correct type, using the same schema as above.

The actual DSL is of course somewhat more complex, and also actually does something useful, in contrast to the DSL that we define here which just says things.

Creating an object that actually performs some action when required is left as an exercise to the reader.

It’s been 2 years since AOPro was launched and a lot has happened in that time; bugs were squashed, improvements were made and some great features were added. Taking that into account on one hand and increasing costs from suppliers on the other: prices will see a smallish increase as from 2025 (exact amounts still to be determined) But rest assured; if you already signed up, you will continue to…

Source

Dear WordPress friends in the USA: I hope you vote and when you do, I hope you vote for respect. The world worriedly awaits your collective verdict, as do I. Peace! Watch this video on YouTube.

Source

Proton is a compatibility layer for Windows games to run on Linux. Running a Windows games is mostly just hitting the Play button within Steam. It’s that good that many games now run faster on Linux than on native Windows. That’s what makes the Steam Deck the best gaming handheld of the moment.

But a compatibility layer is still a layer, so you may encounter … incompatibilities. Ember Knights is a lovely game with fun co-op multiplayer support. It runs perfectly on the (Linux-based) Steam Deck, but on my Ubuntu laptop I encountered long loading times (startup was 5 minutes and loading between worlds was slow). But once the game was loaded it ran fine.

Debugging the game reveled that there were lost of EAGAIN errors while the game was trying to access the system clock. Changing the numer of allowed open files fixed the problem for me.

Add this to end end of the following files:

• in /etc/security/limits.conf:

* hard nofile 1048576

• in /etc/systemd/system.conf and /etc/systemd/user.conf:

DefaultLimitNOFILE=1048576 

Reboot.