Alexandre Storelli

Technical

Quand le code informatique prend la forme d'un poème

Les développeurs aventureux connaissent pour certains le brainfuck [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Brainfuck], langage de programmation ésotérique volontairement illisible, dont le "Hello World" s'écrit de la façon suivante: > ++++++++[>++++[>++>+++>+++>+<<<<-]>+>+>->>+[<

Advertising

Advertising and Mixed Motives (Sergey Brin & Larry Page, 1998)

The vision Google founders had in 1998 about the relationship between their search engine and advertising is, years later, quite ironic: > Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.

Science

Equium: la thermoacoustique pour démocratiser les pompes à chaleur

La société Equium développe un procédé permettant d'améliorer le fonctionnement des pompes à chaleur (PAC) actuelles. En exploitant les propriétés thermodynamiques d'ondes acoustiques intenses, il deviendrait possible de se passer de fluides réfrigérants polluants ainsi que de certaines parties mobiles dans les PAC. Si le projet

Society

Décroissance, sobriété, minimalisme: des pratiques de riches? (Slate)

La crise climatique s'aggrave et pose nombre de défis environnementaux, sociaux et économiques, conduisant aujourd'hui 26% des Français à placer l'environnement en tête de leurs préoccupations. Alors que nos manières de consommer évoluent, la crise sanitaire semble avoir accentué le phénomène, venant développer la

Science

The Joule-Thomson Effect and The Models We Know (Matt Ferraro)

Here's a brain teaser that seems easy but is actually very hard: We've got a cylinder split in half by a diaphragm. On the left side is some Helium gas at 0°C and 1 atmosphere of pressure. On the right side is a perfect vacuum.

Science

The chase for fusion energy (Nature)

(…) Long derided as a prospect that is forever 30 years away, nuclear fusion seems finally to be approaching commercial viability. There are now more than 30 private fusion firms globally, according to an October survey by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) in Washington DC, which represents companies in the sector;

Science

Teplator: heat cities with spent nuclear rods (DW)

Czech researchers develop revolutionary nuclear heating plant –  A team of scientists has come up with a radical solution to heat cities using spent nuclear rods, which they say is cost-effective and greener than natural gas. As the EU moves away from coal, many are interested. Almost every major city in

Technical

Profiling media workloads in Firefox (Mozilla)

It will come as no surprise that playing video and audio in a web browser requires a certain attention to performance. Whether it is by getting the design right, using good implementations of codecs (potentially with hardware acceleration), taking care of using memory properly and avoiding unnecessary copies, or ultimately

Society

Les balises 3–6–9–12

Le psychiatre Serge Tisseron a mis au point la méthode "3 - 6 - 9 - 12" qui vise à aider parents et enfants à vivre de façon harmonieuse en présence d'écrans. Aussi de donner les bonnes clefs aux jeunes pour apprivoiser les outils numériques. Elle

Society

Turkmenistan’s Dirty Secret (Bloomberg Green)

The former Soviet republic is one of the world’s worst emitters of planet-warming methane. Its exported natural gas is becoming crucial to China. Carrie Herzog was sitting at her desk in Montreal one day in early 2019, studying satellite images for signs of mud volcanoes. These geological oddities, common

Business & Economy

Les États-Unis veulent-ils éliminer l’industrie de défense française ? (Meta-Defense)

Ces dernières années, les États-Unis ont souvent ravi au nez et la barbe de la France d’importants contrats de Défense, parfois même en pesant pour que le client choisissent un autre prestataire, du moment que celui-ci n’était pas français. Qu’il s’agisse des hélicoptères Caracal polonais, des

Advertising

Lobbys publicitaires contre la loi climat (Marie Bénilde, Le Monde diplomatique)

Ce 27 novembre 2020, à France Télévisions, les caméras du service public tournent une émission un peu spéciale intitulée « Les États généraux de la communication ». De Mme Mercedes Erra, présidente exécutive de Havas Worldwide, à M. Franck Gervais, ancien vice-président du groupe Accor et président de l’Union des marques,

Science

Why does it take so long to get to Mercury? (ESA)

Earth is on average ten times closer to Mercury than Jupiter, but missions to both planets can take a similar amount of time to reach their science orbits. Why is that? (…) The energy our spacecraft needs to shed is on a completely different scale to using brakes to slow down

Management

Why software projects take longer than you think: a statistical model (Erik Bernhardsson)

Anyone who built software for a while knows that estimating how long something is going to take is hard. It's hard to come up with an unbiased estimate of how long something will take, when fundamentally the work in itself is about solving something. (…) If my model is

Comics

Élan School

Élan School was a private, coeducational, and controversial residential behavior modification program and therapeutic boarding school in Poland, Androscoggin County, Maine. It was a full member of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP). The facility was closed down in 2011 due to allegations of abuse, many from

Society

iOS 15, Humane: How Apple Could Help Us Reclaim Our Attention (Potential)

We believe technology should help us live well. It can and should be designed to help us be intentional, to do the things that truly matter. Yesterday, iOS 15 was introduced to the world. It's an exciting update, and includes meaningful steps towards more comprehensive tools for digital

Society

Le numérique peut-il être écologique et responsable ? (France Culture)

Décrié pour son rôle dans le réchauffement climatique, le numérique serait responsable de 4% des émissions de gaz à effet de serre et pourrait afficher un taux de 8% d'ici 2025. Or, force est de constater qu'il remplit aussi un rôle indispensable, comme il le fut

Science

Graphene sandwiches that form moiré superconductors (Quanta Magazine)

An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second discovery have revealed that emergent quasiparticles may be behind the effect. (…) Two papers published in the journals Nature and Science described (…) a three-layer graphene sandwich with the “bread” sheets aligned and the filling

Society

Les pistes législatives pour verdir le numérique (Next INpact)

C’est fin mai que la Commission du développement durable et de l’aménagement du territoire examinera la proposition de loi adoptée le 12 janvier au Sénat. Ses rapporteurs sont, au fond, Vincent Thiébaut, et pour avis, Éric Bothorel. Panorama des dispositions destinées à verdir le numérique en France, déjà

Science

The strange fate of a person falling into a black hole (BBC Earth)

It could happen to anyone. Maybe you're out trying to find a new habitable planet for the human race, or maybe you're just on a long walk and you slip. Whatever the circumstances, at some point we all find ourselves confronted with the age-old question: what

Science

Firing Lasers to Tame the Sky (Astronomy Picture of the Day)

> Why do stars twinkle? Our atmosphere is to blame as pockets of slightly off-temperature air, in constant motion, distort the light paths from distant astronomical objects. Atmospheric turbulence is a problem for astronomers because it blurs the images of the sources they want to study. The telescope featured in

Society

Le Kivu, cette région de la RDC condamnée au crime (Courrier International)

Le 22 février, l’ambassadeur italien en RDC a été tué par une bande armée près de Goma. L’occasion pour ce reporter de guerre de La Stampa de revenir, désabusé, sur le macabre destin d’une terre en proie à des conflits sans fin. La forêt du Kivu est

Culture

La fabrication du Roquefort

J'ai récemment lu quelques articles sur le processus de fabrication du roquefort (délicieux fromage !) et souhaite vous en partager certains extraits ici. La légende raconte qu'un berger a oublié il y a fort longtemps sa tartine de pain de seigle avec du caillé de brebis pour

Science

Reverse Engineering the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (Bert Hubert)

Welcome! In this post, we’ll be taking a character-by-character look at the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine. (…) Now, these words may be somewhat jarring - the vaccine is a liquid that gets injected in your arm. How can we talk about source code? This is

Technical

The world in which IPv6 was a good design (Avery Pennarun)

(…) The IETF people, when they were thinking about IPv6, saw this mess getting made - and maybe predicted some of the additional mess that would happen, though I doubt they could have predicted SDN and wifi repeater modes - and they said, hey wait a minute, stop right there. We