Gamsblog - Gamsblurbs

Would you rather: be hungry for the rest of your life, with a guaranteed doubled lifespan. continue what you’re doing with a guaranteed halved lifespan. Guaranteed is the key point Because I think most people wouldn’t want to sacrifice for future promises, because they’re just that: promises. I heard a lot of times people continuing th... Read More

You know how AI is really bad at generating text in images and videos? I just thought… It’s kind of like kids. They can understand the world reaaaally well, in a very short amount of time. They can’t draw like AI, but I bet their dreams are like current AI videos. Kids can’t write. They can write gibberish letters though. Like AI. What we’... Read More

Uderzo had 6 fingers Having 6 fingers at birth is surprisingly frequent. Yet you probably don’t know someone that is born with 6 fingers. Or they never told you. Before the Internet, you might even believe that it’s not true. But it is… That doesn’t mean you should believe everything you see on the Internet. Sometimes unbelievable things ... Read More

No, it’s time for winter coats and boots The days of waiting for boots in stores are over, just because you’re trying to tell us otherwise. Winter clothes season is winter. You can get them beforehand, but we need them during winter. And to all the salespeople saying it’s not the right time and trying to make us feel bad—stop. It’s pointles... Read More

Stop eating crap food. Stop normalizing what the food industry wants It’s not “easier than before” to eat gluten free, or anything healthy If your great grandmother was celiac, she just noticed she couldn’t eat bread and stopped. Done. Easy. Now, you can’t only do that because it’s everywhere. It’s in every meal, every side meal, every cond... Read More

Is it better with the phone’s built-in microphone? YouTube Shorts Bluesky X/Twitter Read More

Quantum computing is now a reality Google made it happen. What does is do for you? Nothing, just like computers didn’t change anything for the vast majority of people in the early days. Typeshare X/Twitter Bluesky LinkedIn Read More

I tried using a microphone on my phone It sounds weird … I kind of like it, but I’ll need to figure out a better way. Playing the beginning of “Toccata and Fugue” YouTube Shorts Read More

I like walking in the evening I started out of necessity, but it has several advantages: I have nothing after. Nothing. I can walk for hours if I want to I can stay in my head, because there is no one else There is more life than the day, like skunks … Typeshare X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

Don’t start a business, and don’t start coding Unless your life depends on it Typeshare X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

The Musical Experience - Week 5 Fifth week of part-time coding, the game can now generate music that is a bit more coherent. Choose the instrument you want, if you want multiple instruments at once, if you want random durations, or if you want to have a chord progression. This is just a start, but this is what the game should look like, with ... Read More

I just learned about Dark Flow I was thinking (and calculating) about this idea that the big bang is a humongous black hole that exploded. And that our “universe” is surrounded by other similar black holes. So it makes me think that it’s perhaps just that. Dark flow is (in summary) a bunch of galaxies that are attracted by something that is... Read More

Reflections on Life, Health and Code - Martin Gamsby Sean & Allie in the Moooooorning! (This is a “podcast” about me 😮) https://youtu.be/nLoh_IzX-Gc YouTube X/Twitter LinkedIn Bluesky Read More

I shaved for the first time in 2 years It had been 2 years since I shaved. I was afraid of my nerves. Would I feel a cut and keep going too hard, too long? Probably not. Would my muscles move the right way? The way I want them to move? Probably not. But today, I have confidence again. I will move my hands the right way. I will not hurt m... Read More

Coding is easy, really What’s hard is making it do what the specifications want. So AI can code easily, but you need good specifications. And you know what makes the best specifications? Not words, but code. Code is the best specification. AI won’t replace coders, it’ll help make the code easier to write. Typeshare X/Twitter Blue... Read More

Being sick is the worst Being sick screws your schedule screws your habits screws your chores screws you … And you just have to rest, sleep and recover. But don’t let sickness linger for too long. I don’t mean “don’t be sick for too long”, I mean “get back up as fast as possible” As soon as you can, get back on track. One ch... Read More

Are you sick? Injured? No? Go do the thing. Typeshare X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

What life is all about, from Gandalf’s perspective Gandalf is not human. He’s a demigod in the world of Lord of the Rings. A Maia. So Gandalf is immortal. But what is Gandalf doing? He’s making… Fireworks! He can do magic a hundred times stronger and more impressive, he knows almost everything. Yet (when the world is not in danger) he please... Read More

Behind every expert … is hours of pretending they know what they’re doing? I don’t think so. I think that: Most will pretend and get stuck. Some will aim at excellence and break their own beliefs. X/Twitter Typeshare Read More

Randomly beautiful In 2017, I created something to generate music, but it’s not quite as I expected it to be. Here’s an example: https://youtu.be/SgnzwZTlSbc But the problem is … I don’t have a way to know if the music created is good or not (apart from listening to it myself). So, I decided to take the problem from the bottom and measure a ... Read More

The Musical Experience - Week 2 Second week of part-time coding, the game can now generate semi-random music. It’s pretty ugly, but it’s a start, I’ll have to go find my tests from 7 years ago, adapt them and add my new musical knowledge to make better music. But first, I’ll make the experience a game, so that the user can understand and comp... Read More

Literally, totally transparent, new banks were built. Banks have trust issues. People are becoming more aware of manipulation and lack of transparency. Banks can give at least 10x what they were given, so you couldn’t take it all out at once. New banks were opened: just a bunch of money, inside a safe made of tempered glass. That way you ca... Read More

Your job is not your identity Being tall is not an identity Being short is not an identity Being pro-Trump is not an identity Being anti-Trump either Liking music is not an identity Being smart is not an identity Don’t get me wrong: These things can be important for you. They can be part of you you are (IN THIS MOMENT) But ... Read More

20 years of learning distilled into one idea I just hit a 20 days streak. For exercise, and writing. I feel much better, and like I accomplished a lot more than what I thought 20 days could do Only 20 days works wonders. But I couldn’t have gotten here without doing one day at a time. I’ve been thinking about this concept… In the last 20 ... Read More

Writing challenge; imagine if a mundane task became something you can no longer take for granted, because now it comes with some consequence Donut day Pizza party Bagel treat Hot-dogs Barbecue These are all gone now. Worse, they’re not gone, they’re just tempting me. Everyone does it. Everyone asks. Everyone. But not me. Eating these makes i... Read More

The Musical Experience - Week 1 After a week of coding, the game can generate midi files, and play them, but not with the usual bad midi sound, with better sounds for instruments. I started a small interface. I should find a name eventually. I was thinking of “Music experience” and maybe put the words together, but it’s too weird “Musexperie... Read More

Just a few hours of practice, easier than you think! I learned this with very little practice, by following instructions. Sometimes, listening to someone instead of trying it yourself pays off! https://youtube.com/shorts/Ln043bg7zlc Typeshare X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

I wrote a short story — Mr. Generic, you are dying Dr. White, a white man with white hair, was breaking the news to a patient: a white man in his thirties. — But I feel fine! It can’t be, doctor! — I’m afraid so. It’s a very rare disease and you can do everything you could do before, so you can continue your story without it looking like you... Read More

Piano for 15 years vs 15 weeks - My first composition I started doing “real” piano (learning an actual piece) 15 years ago. I learned it by heart in 3 weeks. And since then, I’ve been playing it once in a while, learning a song once in a while, without much progress. A few months ago, I started taking piano classes, and after ~15 weeks of 0 ... Read More

Reduction or correction Today I learned that a massive layoff can be disguised as a “reduction”, it looks better I guess. It’s the same vibe as “correction” for a 10% price drop in the stock market. Typeshare X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

Massive layoff Well, massive layoff today at my job. Looks like I’m fine, for now… Let that be a reminder that companies never have your best interest at heart. Bluesky X/Twitter Typeshare Read More

I started coding a video game I’ve been thinking about it for years. I don’t really know why I waited so long. It’s not because I don’t know how to do it. I made my first game when I was 11, with a game designer. Then I learned to code applications without a game designer. And then games. But then I started going to school to program. Th... Read More

No more hiccup You’ve heard multiple ways to stop the hiccup. Stop breathing Drink water Get scared Swallow dry, granulated sugar Public speaking Some people like to pinch I’ve noticed that all the remedies have something in common. That something is … surviving. So let’s imagine that you have the hiccup riiiiiiight when you’... Read More

Who else eats kiwi skin? The hairs are so little! And they’re not actually hair, otherwise yeah that would be pretty bad TIL: They’re called trichomes Bluesky X/Twitter Typeshare Read More

Simple is not always better What’s the easiest language to learn? Smurf. You can basically replace any word you don’t know with a variation of “smurf”. But at what cost? Simplest to learn, but hardest to understand. The languages that are more complex are clearer, have more nuances. Typeshare X/Twitter LinkedIn Bluesky Read More

If I were to have a Ted Talk I would talk about how the agriculture is dying because of industrialization and capitalism. Farmers want to make money, so they make crops that have subventions from the government, but know it’s not sustainable and would not do that without the money incentives. Partly because they have to put more and more pest... Read More

Puffy head, bird legs “Puffy head, bird legs” is when astronauts get too much blood in their head, and not enough in their legs. Because we have evolved to work with gravity, so our heart closer to the top of our body, since the bool is usually countered by gravity, but it’s not slowed down in micro gravity. You can’t just “hang” them, obviou... Read More

If you feel like you’re hitting a ceiling, punch a hole through it. Typeshare Read More

Burnout To understand how rough the working conditions were at blizzard: We worked overtime a ton the pay was not very good. It was a bad time so I went to Amazon game Studio which is about 4 minutes away from blizzard in Irvine and in my first month I went to my boss and I said: “Hey, I don’t feel like I’m doing very good work I feel like I... Read More

People like stories for different reasons. What makes a story compelling to you? For me I think it needs to be something new, that I never encountered or thought about. Like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas was very long, but it was new, and it wasn’t so repetitive, if I skipped the scenes describing fish. Robinson Crusoe was very, very... Read More

The good things we get from life often come when we overcome our fears. and another one linked as a bonus: “The regrets we have for having done certain things fade away in the long run. Those that come from what we didn’t do will haunt our whole lives. X/Twitter Typeshare Bluesky Read More

Freedom 35 I’m thinking of writing a story called “Freedom 35”, is that a good idea or not? X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

Everything beautiful and good that men have done, they have built with their dreams… Typeshare LinkedIn Bluesky Read More

I broke my 50 day streak Yesterday, I didn’t write. I wrote every day for 50 days before. I could get discouraged. I could say to myself “what’s the point, I have to start again”. But you know what? I wrote 50 times more than if I never started. Not so bad. The important thing is not to have no hickups. The important thing is to get bac... Read More

I was thinking about something somewhat that the other day … I was like “you know when you pick up the phone, there’s that tone” … yeah no, they don’t. How young do you have to be to not know about the landline tone? Not that young… Typeshare X/Twitter Read More

Could dark energy simply be multiple (far) black holes, quadrillions of years old? I’ve always been interested in astrophysics, and I’ve had a question that I can’t stop thinking about for the past years. I would like someone to help me understand what I’m missing, because I couldn’t find anything about it, and couldn’t find anything against it... Read More

An idiot WITH a plan, will beat a genius WITHOUT a plan Planning is the most underrated part of … everything (almost!) The problem is that too much planning is also bad. But too much of anything is bad, so it’s not an excuse. Plan everything and anything, maybe it’ll even make you reconsider even making the thing in the first place, and save... Read More

Never underestimate others For several reasons, but especially when someone has more experience than you. Read the instruction manual Ask for help at the hardware store Listen to your parents (at any age) Take lessons For example, I started taking piano lessons. I started playing piano a long time ago, about 15 years, and learned a... Read More

Vegetables and meat That’s all I ate for 2 weeks. Sometimes I added a bit of olive oil. Maybe a few nuts. But everything outside of vegetables and meat was a risk. I needed to remove as much variety as possible to know what was wrong. Because everytime I ate, I felt bad, really bad. Every. Single. Time. Can you imagine being scared of eat... Read More

The Centauri Ark (working title) Today was Clement’s first day at work. Fresh out of technical school, with the looks of a teenager, the age of a young adult, and the ambition of a sixty-year-old. Which is to say, zero. So he had landed the dream job. Not everyone’s dream, but the dream of every graduate of the “star categorization” program, a... Read More

Going to the restaurant (like changing habits) is a hit-and-miss I’ll never be able to enjoy any restaurant again, and it’s not even entirely because of the food, it’s because of the people… If I go to the restaurant, I have to go where they offer a gluten-free option. Not because I want to. If I get traces of gluten, I get sick. If I get m... Read More

I thought I didn’t have a dream car… But I found one! My dream car is a car that: Doesn’t need any kind of fuel/energy Goes very fast, without accidents Goes at 99% the speed of light Or I guess teleports Never breaks I guess my dream car is a free teleporter. Why are we always limiting ourselves with what’s possible? Before For... Read More

Being a parent is easy Parenting is not hard in itself. I mean … you can be a father and literally never see the child. But obviously we’re talking about actually taking care of your child. But are we? Parenting is hard because there’s no limit. There’s an infinity of options, from inexistent parent to helicopter parent. And even though a... Read More

I just watched “the Martian” - Humanity saving a stranded astronaut It’s nice seeing so many people trying to save one person. The whole world is rooting for NASA to save him. They’re deploying all they can. They’re spending a lot. I’m just wondering… Why don’t we have so many people trying to save the thousands dying everyday from prevent... Read More

Amazon Amazon’s great customer experience comes at the cost of a horrible experience for every single person in the chain. And the chain is reaaaaaally long. (I know that for a fact, from firsthand, secondhand and thirdhand experience) If you didn’t know, well now you know. X/Twitter Typeshare LinkedIn Read More

The most fulfilling thing in life Dan Koe said “You can feel the pull. Towards something more. Your mind craves it. Unplug. Reset. Treat tomorrow like it’s the first day of your new life. […]” Let me add: And if you ever feel the urge to go back, do nothing. That doesn’t mean losing the battle. That means literally doing nothing. Stare at t... Read More

You don’t know what you don’t know (Obviously) One of the biggest problems of all of the health issues that are plaguing the world right now is when people: don’t know what being fit feels like don’t know what eating healthy feels like don’t know what sleeping well feels like don’t know what NOT using alcohol/cigarettes feel like So... Read More

Meditation is easy, actually. The #1 thing that I learned from Chade-Meng Tan is that meditation is not just one thing. One single breath can be meditation. You also don’t need to meditate in the lotus position. You can even meditate while walking! No excuses. Do it now and breathe, consciously, just breathe, nothing else. X/Twitter ... Read More

A moving city What if cities were on a “threadmill” / conveyor belts? Let me explain: A part of the city is on a platform that can move. Not all the time, but periodically. For example, schools move every year. That way, families don’t change houses, and the school comes to them. The high school comes to them. And so on. But we can appl... Read More

Do you suffer from Thalassophobia? Sometimes I see images that should: inspire motivate make you think or just be “beautiful” But for me, they create anxiety. Not all of them, no, I’m talking about the ones that are in the water. We all have different fears, to different degrees. We can’t think that something will please everyone... Read More

IT or software. Do you know the difference? It happened again: Someone thought that I was in IT. I’m not it IT. I do software. If you don’t know how to say it. Or if you don’t know the difference. Here’s a taxi analogy Let’s compare computers with taxis. There’s a taxi driver. That taxi driver is working in software (using the taxi / comp... Read More

100 days until January 1st If you wanted a reason/milestone to start something. Today’s the day. Also, it’s easy to find milestones if you want to. And for some reason, it works better. Not sure why our mind likes significant dates, but it does, so use that in your favor. X/Twitter Typeshare Read More

Type 3 diabetes? You probably have it But there’s something to do about it! Some call Alzheimer’s “Type 3 diabetes”. It starts in your 20s, so you probably have it. Unless you: Exercise everyday and high intensity a few times a week Eat healthy that means AT LEAST no added sugar Sleep well ... Read More

Electricity, Germs, Religion, Pork, Power, Witches, Revolution and Thriving If you could bring one piece of technology back to 100 years before it was invented, what would you choose (E.g. Steam Engine was patented 1698 so you go back to 1598 and spread steam engine technology) This is a discussion I had around that question: Me: I bring... Read More

No data on my phone this morning, disaster? I have 1h40 of public transport to do. At first, I admit that I said to myself this: Disaster! But why? I took the bus for years without a phone. And years without data. I never needed it… Why do I want it now? I can pass the time by writing this text, but maybe I should take advantage of the o... Read More

The secret to feeling better, always at hand Are you feeling good, right now? No matter what your answer is, I can guess what it is, by asking you another question: how were you feeling, a minute ago? And it’s probably the same thing. If you feel good right now, same thing a minute ago. If you don’t feel good right now, same thing a minute ... Read More

An idea you can apply to everything, from 20 years of learning I just hit a 20 days streak. For exercise, and writing. I feel much better, and like I accomplished a lot more than what I thought 20 days could do, but only 20 days works wonders. But I couldn’t have gotten here without doing one day at a time. I’ve been thinking about this con... Read More

AI for president? (hear me out) It wouldn’t have full power. It would just make some calls. BUT, they wouldn’t be instant. Maybe they only get applied 2 months after its decision or something. And if something doesn’t seem good, the AI could be voted out any day, and everything it said stopped. Then we wouldn’t need to vote every 4 years, b... Read More

A PhD in your pocket Yesterday, ChatGPT released their new model. It thinks before answering. I have always been saying that LLMs are doing our “fast thinking” equivalent. It makes mistakes, like us. But now OpenAI also started doing the “slow thinking” part. And let me make a prediction: in a few weeks (days?) nobody will care, it’s going ... Read More

Be careful what you wish for When we get something, we want it less. It happened to me with software. I now know that I could do anything. Automate anything. Sometimes I do, but it also gave me the urge to go back to our roots (as a species). Like farming. As many devs did before me… It’s surprisingly common, there’s memes of it and all…... Read More

Wisdom Do you have to be wise to recognize wisdom? How do you determine the wisdom of someone wiser than you? X/Twitter Read More

Burnout I believe that unfortunately, there’s no way to prevent burnout, BEFORE you have had it once. Because nobody thinks it can happen to them. X/Twitter Bluesky Read More

Alcohol or sugar? Alcohol is present in our lives, whether we like it or not. Because everyone talks about it, it’s always offered, it’s in movies, ads, etc. I don’t drink it. Don’t congratulate me, I’ve never wanted to. I know some people who are addicted though. At different levels, so I consider myself lucky not to have had this curse. ... Read More

(NOT) Drop out of school, use Google instead? I admit I agree… a little. (I saw someone say this today: School is useless, use Google, because the best is EXPERIENCE.) Let’s start with the easy part: yes, it’s better to become a salesperson than to study sales. At least for ~99% of people. Same thing for several jobs. But to say that schoo... Read More

Programming, a love-hate relationship? (Not just programming) Have you ever tried programming? Have you ever hated a language? (The image says: “I hate myself,” then the self-hating person is shown: “c++” [a programming language], and they say “Wow! I hate that even more!”) Personally, I never hated C++. I found it fascinating. I don’t kno... Read More

Why is the sky blue? (And everything else) It finally happened. My daughter asked me to tell her “everything I know”. I did the same thing to my father, and now I have to explain that it’s impossible to say “everything you know” at once. She paused, then replied, “Then tell me 5 things a day.” She’s one step ahead of me… I have no problem ... Read More

Stop hustling, enjoy chores I would 100% rather have fully booked days, full of chores. For 50 years. Rather than having to work 30 years and scramble chores, hustling, burning out, never being fully satisfied during that time, and then not having to do chores for the next 20 (and probably being bored). Enjoy your mundane chores. You probabl... Read More

When did self-help become negative? I recently heard that the answers to beautifying our society should be collective, not individual. I can see that. But when it becomes “hustle culture”, it becomes a problem. I still think that we can’t make good societal changes without being ourselves at a certain level. Wanting to be the best for yours... Read More

Sometimes self-care means doing the things you’ve been putting off. Spas, massages, relaxations, getaways, campsites, walks, meditation, yoga, relaxation. That’s all good. You have to do it. Maybe even plan some, if you have trouble doing enough. On the other hand, sometimes it is better to do important tasks that you do not want to do. Do ... Read More

When People Underestimate the Power of Excel I saw a Microsoft ad, showing Excel, in 1990. In summary, they demonstrate that Excel can extend data, creating projections from trends. Well, in 1990, not everyone knew, 17 years ago. But in the comments, I saw someone reply “and he’s still the only one who knows how to do it”. I shouldn’t have,... Read More

I’m afraid of soup Today I was making noodle soup for my daughters, then I got a drop of broth in my eye. After a few seconds, I felt my face swelling and I started having difficulty breathing. For a few hours. After a few minutes, I started to feel less in my fingers, then my whole body. For a few hours. I had a little trouble walking straig... Read More

Falling sensation You know that feeling when you swing too high. Or on the roller coaster, or in the car, or in the elevator. My kids say it “tickles their taste buds,” and I think that’s the best description I’ve ever heard. (Because I’ve never heard a name for this phenomenon…) Did you know that this sensation is due to the fact that your... Read More

Alzheimer’s can be prevented “You have belly fat? That’s brain damage”*** I always thought that Alzheimer’s was just a fact of life. That Alzheimer’s happens to everyone, at different ages, but that it’s inevitable. You either die from something, or you gradually lose your memory. But no. A few years ago, I discovered that Alzheimer’s ... Read More

Can Bitcoin Price Be Predicted, From the Beginning? I made a model of the price of Bitcoin. I have always found the models either very approximate or too localized (they only work “after the first bull run”, “the first years do not count”). But if the first years don’t count… Why would it work in the next few years? And if there is a huge ra... Read More

Parents are adapting I used to think that children had to adapt to their parents. Now that I’m a parent, I know it’s the opposite. Not all parents understand this, but it’s what needs to happen. The role of the parent is not to model the child, but to support him. And the child has characteristics that may be completely different from the p... Read More

Shtandartization Sometimes it can feel like there are too many choices. Too many USB ports, too many messaging apps, too many pronouns… XKCD shows it well, and I decided to call it “shtandardization”. (That’s not a word… Google says it can’t find anything 🤷‍♀️) Source: https://xkcd.com/927/ Typeshare X/Twitter Read More

Wet mattress Fun fact of the day: mattresses are surprisingly hard to dry. Bonus french tongue twister: sans séchage au séchoir à cheveux Typeshare X/Twitter Read More

Gandalf reconciled me with life Myers-Briggs is a pseudoscience, which puts humanity in 16 boxes. Four categories, two choices per category, that gives 16 personalities with 4 letters. I won’t go into the details of “pseudoscience”, but let’s say that I identify with INTPs. Some famous INTPs are: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincol... Read More

English ruined my life Why I’m never going to learn another language Bonjour Hi, English Ruined My Life Not Literally. Not Directly. But every time I want to do something, I have to think about English (I usually speak/write in French). When I go on Google, I sometimes have to ask in English because the answer doesn’t exist in French. It... Read More

Magic If magic existed, we would call it science. Magic is just a mystery. If it is debunked (and it always is), it loses its magical status and becomes science, or a visual trick - an illusion - that has been perfected with scientific methodology. In this sense, either magic does not exist, or it is everywhere. It is up to you to decide. G... Read More

Fabulator Human beings have an incredible brain. They are capable of great things. So much so that sometimes they imagine themselves to be better than they really are. When faced with a difficult choice or an irrational desire, the brain will invent a rational story to give a reason to this desire. See the old texts “l’espèce fabulatrice” by Ro... Read More

Mathematician Nowadays, in school, mathematics is necessary, for many good reasons. The problem is that only a tiny fraction of students are interested in it. As a result, grades are low, so teachers lower the level, since they think it is too difficult, which only makes the course less interesting and less liked. The real problem is not the d... Read More

Hasty Generalization In ancient Greece, a certain Socrates denounced the sophists of his time, who claimed to hold the truth, while their logic was fundamentally flawed. One of the mistakes they made was hasty generalization. It is not because something happened to your mother-in-law that it will necessarily happen to all the mothers-in-law in ... Read More

Second The unit of time can be difficult for children to understand. Why do an hour of sleep, an hour in the car and an hour of play seem to be hours that have a completely different duration? Because of the perception of time that is different. There are too many factors to know what is happening in the marvel of complexity that is our brain. ... Read More

Déjà Vu “Déjà vu” are actually brain reconstructions of a similar situation that has already happened, since storing all the details would be useless and too costly for our lazy, or rather oportunist, body. So it’s nothing special, it’s not a premonition, nor a special power, and it’s not spiritual. It’s just a “brain fart”. Guide for: * Dé... Read More

Personalities On the Internet, there are 4 types of personalities. “Exploiters”: make money on the backs of others. “Exploited”: give money to exploiters, or contribute unwittingly, by watching ads on “free” sites. “Altruists”: sell real value, would give if they didn’t need money to survive… Some don’t ask for it anyway. Trolls: Seem ... Read More

Homeless Be original. Try to avoid phrases like “spare some change to eat”, at the risk of being answered “don’t eat that, you’ll choke!”. Also, avoid yelling at each other on your cell phone. Passersby tend to avoid giving you their change if it’s to pay your monthly plan. (FICTION) Guide for: * Homeless * : from the novel Interverti ... Read More

Hypocritical Hypocrisy, in short, is saying something and then thinking something else. This behavior can be practiced by almost anyone, even those who claim to be victims of it, sometimes doing it without even realizing it. For example, some people say they are altruistic, because they help people in need, but what they do borders on uselessne... Read More

Conference This term may seem outdated, but this trend has gained momentum again, since only real-world training is allowed for the annual continuing education tax credit, since the training scandal a few years ago. For those who are wondering what it is, a conference is essentially a video training, but not on the Internet… Why the government... Read More

Web 5.0 1.0: data goes in one direction only: from the website to the user. 2.0: data goes in both directions: Internet users can interact with websites. 3.0: we don’t talk about it… it’s marketing. The “cloud” and social networks, which are not an innovation in themselves, but simply another way of presenting what already existed, daydreamin... Read More

Sleeper The miracle “recipe” to fall asleep quickly. I feel a little ridiculous for not having noticed it before, but I finally found a crucial point to fall asleep. Yes, there are the things that all insomniacs in this world know: exercising helps, but it’s hard; going to bed and waking up always at the same time helps, but I love staying in b... Read More

Intermittent Fasting The food industry benefits if you eat. Often. This industry is owned by the only two companies that really exist today, who control everything with their products and marketing. They decide what you eat and when you eat it. Not what is best for you, but rather what is best for their wallet. When I realized this, I did some... Read More

Grand Metropolitan What a ridiculous name. Since the Great Reputation (also really original), names have to match what they really are. To avoid misrepresentation (especially in often misleading advertisements). Obviously, only a few days after the event, a few scammers found loopholes and we were back to square one, with the added bonus of nam... Read More

Goldfish Everyone seems to agree that goldfish are stupid and that they only have a 3-second memory. These people would be disappointed to know the memory time of humans, barely higher. A few seconds too. But there is long-term memory that compensates for this deficiency, fooling us into thinking that we remember everything. This memory, gold... Read More

Agnostic When we think of death, we often think of this tunnel with a white light at the end, as several stories testify. This tunnel could be just a last hallucination of the brain lacking oxygen and stimuli. There may also be something else after death. The problem is that you have to die to know, and the dead don’t argue much. The agnosti... Read More

Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Typeshare X/Twitter Read More

Upside down organisation Can organisation be messy? Yes. As I said before, your two hemispheres do not work in the same way, and one of them may be dominant. If it is your right hemisphere, then you will not have too many problems, it likes the so-called “classic” organisation, the conventional organisation. If, on the other hand, it is you... Read More

Less organisation for better performance? Before I begin, I don’t want you to make me say what I didn’t say: organisation is necessary to perform well. Some people need more organisation than others, but everyone, without exception, has some form of organisation. So the question is not whether you need to have organisation to save time, but w... Read More

The BIG advantage of school I said bad things about school before, but there is not only bad in the school system, quite the contrary. What helped me the most, motivated me to continue, gave me a reason to continue, is what is best about school. Unfortunately, it is not their idea, and many others use it, and rightly so. Without it, the scho... Read More

Example of association Picture this: you are at home, learning, let’s say… Japanese (it could be anything, it’s your imagination after all). Your brother comes in and decides to watch a news report (I know it’s not very realistic, it’s just for the example). Obviously, you are distracted by this noise. What are you going to do? You can, of c... Read More

My teacher’s secret One day, my Spanish teacher told me how he learned vocabulary. To learn at a reasonable speed, he set himself a goal: learn 3 vocabulary words or 2 verbs per day. To do this, he wrote these words or verbs on a piece of paper on the refrigerator! That was very clever of him. His reasoning was as follows: if I want to learn ... Read More

Ah, the holiday season (one tourtière at a time) In Quebec, a holiday custom is to eat tourtière. On the evening of the 24th, it’s very good, the next morning too… by noon we’re starting to get tired of it, in the evening it almost becomes torture, and the next day we eat it by force so as not to waste the leftovers. Tourtière is very good, b... Read More

Why 80% of wealth belongs to 20% of people, and why it matters for everything What is the connection between wealth and learning, you might ask? I could tell you that with the help of the advice I give you, you will have the opportunity to make a lot of money: by landing the best jobs after an interview, scholarships, etc. However, this is no... Read More

Your Brain Injuries Here is another instance where your body and its abilities are strangely similar to your brain and its performance, taken from a real-life story… right now: I injured my ankle more than 6 weeks ago and it still hasn’t healed. In fact, it’s been two weeks since my condition improved, and I would even say that some days it g... Read More

I learned the most important lesson from school, 4 years ago … 4 years ago, I wasn’t very good at school. Why? Simply because no one had taught me how to learn. Despite my 10 years spent at school, surrounded by teachers, no one had taken the trouble to explain to me how I should study, how I should listen, how I should learn. Besides, no o... Read More

Start to finish Let me explain: It is vital to have specific goals and to organize yourself to achieve them. No matter what your goal is, if you have confidence you can achieve it… but on one condition: take the first step. Even if you don’t know where to start, and you’ve been thinking about it for hours, it’s not by thinking about it for ... Read More

Are you afraid? 15 years ago, I wrote an autobiographical essay as part of a course… Until too recently for my taste, I always avoided what I could avoid that seemed too difficult or too long. I could dodge fundamentally important - even essential - questions by simply telling my someone, or myself, that I was not capable, or that it was to... Read More

The house contractor vs Learning Let me tell you a little story. I will put you in the shoes of the main actor: the contractor. So you are a contractor to build a house. What will you need to build your house? Wood, to make the structure of the house; Shingles, to protect from the rain with the roof; Pipes, to have running water; Co... Read More

Train your brain Training and exercise are similar. Here’s why I’m telling you about them: Since everyone does physical exercise (walking and breathing counts!), everyone can understand the principles that I’m going to compare to learning. In other words, it will be easier to understand… how to understand, using examples that you... Read More