Xavier’s blog

It has been a lot of fun to look at all those reactions regarding our action HonkAtMe.org
Some were highly emotive, many rants, but hopefully also many clever and openmind persons (either on the for than on the against side).

From the very beginning (for the courageous who read all the reactions -in French- back from July 2007), we knew that our action was not perfect. But still, we made it because it is by far better than nothing. At least we make people think about that issue and more importantly, we do that without hurting anyone (even the car does not have any scratch due to our action).

But we read all the reactions carefully and while we did that, we were looking for a way to improve our action. To make it better.

So, now it’s time to introduce HonkAtMe.org 2.0
and we gonna call it “ObjectiveLessEmission.org“.
One website to gather all Europeans who dream of greener cars.
There will be two stickers:
- One for green cars (less than 150gr of CO2 per km; and yes there are family cars which reject less than that)

- And one for red cars (All other vehicle, 4×4 included but not only).

Stay tuned because more details are coming…
 

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Here we are! I’ve finally taken my courage in my hands and I start learning Japonese. A whole program!

I’m fortunate though as my girlfriend, Mari, is giving me a special course every evening.
I try to keep the rhythm of 10 new signs a day (10 hiraganas).
But this is theory. Because since I’ve started (last Wednesday, so 5 days ago), I’ve learned 25 hiraganas only
Argh!

Ok, here there are (just for fun)
あいうえお
かきくけこ
さしすせそ
たちつてと
なにぬねの

That’s a good beginning

I just would like to mention a very great tool to learn such different language.
It’s called Provoc (screenshot beneath) and it’s, of course, only for Mac. It helps you memorize vocabulary for any foreign language you may wish to learn.
I’m building my own Provoc file with, at the moment, only hiragana signs and 26 simple vocabulary.

- Download Provoc for Mac
- Download my own vocabulary file (always in progress)
- Free vocabulary list for many many languages

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I know I’m not the only one who like doing thousand things at one time.
I’ve always 36 windows opened simultaneously and my workflow is always interrupted by many web IRQ such as twitter, gtalk, msn, email and so on…

This situation results to a productivity drop. The very first symptom being that famous question at the end of the day “What the hell have I done today?”.

Months ago I’ve written a post about a way to improve that situation using a very clean desktop (unicolor wallpaper, no menu bar, and one application at a time using Spirited Away for MacOSX).

I was using this for a while but now I’ve come up with a brand new idea that I think is even more productive:

Create one user per project.

It’s a kiss (Keep It Simple & Stupid) idea and it changed my life (… or not, but at least it made me more productive on my different projects).

Why is that great?
First, it is simple. Even Windows users have this functionality built-in on Windows XP!
Second, it allows you to only see documents, emails, contacts, images, that have a direct link with your project.

Example:
I’ve now two users on my MacBook: xdamman (the administrator and main one) and KlaxonneMoi, dedicated to the KlaxonneMoi.org project.
When I switch to the latter account my emails, IM contacts, photos (on iPhoto) and so on are only relevant for that project.
So, when I open Firefox, I’ve only bookmarks and saved loggins and passwords for my xdamman@klaxonnemoi.org accounts (either on gmail, scoopeo, youtube, …).

When I need to exchange files between my main account and the new one, I just use the drop box (/Users/klaxonnemoi/Public/Drop box). It works fine!

I’m not interrupted by my main contacts (family, friends, …) when I’m working on the project, and I don’t have to deal with private mails and photos and all these stuffs that put my attention away of my workflow.

The only issue is the memory usage. As applications stay open when you switch user, the memory usage increases. Better to have one giga of memory (I’ve only 756MB and it is limit).

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Wow, I’m really don’t write post on a regular basis. Too bad.
Anyway, here are the latest news:

1) I’ve been graduated: I can now handle the title of Civil Engineer in Computer Science. Oh, btw, I even got a grade: “distinction” (it was really unexpected though).

2) Mari is back in Belgium! She’s gonna stay here till the 29th of September.
 It’s really cool!

3) We just came back from a one week holidays in France with our bicycles! We only cycled 254km though (we made some shortcuts by bus). It was really funny and we had very good time. We staid in a very cool camping hold by a very kind a generous family in Choiseul. They propose bio food and it was so good! If you travel around Nancy, you should definitely make the detour to Choiseul (although their website is really crappy at the moment).

4) Tonight, we go to Nathan’s house. He’s waiting for us with a geant couscous! Can’t wait! Then, we’ll directly go to Spa till Sunday for the Francofolies!

KlaxonneMoi.org is launched. We sold 120 stickers and printed one thousand (so far). Check the rants (in French), there are funny!

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Need your help one more time guys;

TRIBAL.be is getting old. Almost 5 years that the site holds the same blue skin. I recently removed the full width style and added some ajax features (the thumbs up, thumbs down), but it definitely needs much more.

Sebastien (from dynasite.be) is working on.
Here is the mockup he made. What do you think about? (full image here)

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Oufti, it has been a long time I didn’t write on my blog. Sorry for this. I’ve been very busy with my thesis. Actually it isn’t finished yet. Deadline: 5th of June.

Anyway, here I’m back with a new idea I want to share with you.

My father just bought a SUV (you know those mini big trucks completely useless). At the time of pollution, global warming and so on, it is really a very very bad idea.
I tried to convince him but no way; his choice was made.

So, I decided to fight! (with your help!)
I’m going to launch KlaxonRevolution.org. The aim is simple: Anyone can order stickers with “Je pollue, klaxone-moi!” (I’m polluting, horn me!). These stickers should be put at the rear of SUV cars. Every time you are behind such vehicle and that you see the sticker, just horn!

Of course, I will start with my father’s car. And every week I will update KlaxonRevolution.org with the number of times he has been horned during the day.

If you wanna be part of this revolution, be my guest! Anyone is welcomed to stick stickers or to help me build the website or just to communicate!

Spread the word, revolution is coming!

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Mais quelle belle initiative que celle du Télémoustique et d’Electrabel que d’offrir ce DVD du documentaire d’Al Gore “Une vérité qui dérange”.

Pour 1,8O€ vous avez le télémoustique et le DVD dans votre poche!
Courrez vite chez votre libraire car ils partent comme des petits pains!

Plus d’infos sur http://www.telemoustique.be

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Et oui, nous petits Belges ont peu déjà donner les résultats! Trop cool
Bon, bein alors voilà, sans surprise malheureusement c’est Sarko le nouveau président (il aurait comptabilisé entre 53 et 56% des voix).

Amis français (soit 44% des français), la Wallonie est une terre d’accueil*, soyez les bienvenus!

* Bon d’accord, on a refusé Johny Halliday, mais c’est parce qu’il ne faisait pas partie des 44%.

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Bon, bein voilà, le premier tour est passé et finalement, très peu de surprise.
Ce que j’avais pronostiqué de n’est donc pas passé. J’avais sous-estimé la capacité de nos voisins à apprendre du passé (et du 21 avril 2002).

Les gens ont massivement été voté, et ont voté utile. Regardez le score exceptionnellement bas des petits candidats (dont la plupart de trouvent à gauche) et vous avez compris que ce premier tour était en faite le 3e tour de l’élection de 2002.

Et tout le monde de s’en réjouir: “On a (enfin) fait reculer l’extrême droite”.
Mouais, je me réjouirais pas si vite. Je dirais même plus que pour moi, l’extrême droite a gagné!
Car certes, l’extrême droite n’a pas réussi à mettre son propre candidat au second tour, mais par contre, il a réussi à mettre ses sujets de prédilection dans la bouche du candidat vainqueur. C’est affolant.

Autre chose affolante de ces élections, c’est la grandeur de la France et l’absence totale du concept “Europe”. Avec cela, c’est sûr que la France ne sera plus un acteur pro-européen. Et c’est bien triste.

Aller, faut voter Royal maintenant. Certes elle est très mauvaise candidate, mais bon, entre ça et un Berlusconi Sarkozy, y a pas photo.

Technorati Tags: élection france royal sarkozy présidentielle

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Il y a 4 mois, je faisais une petite simulation mathématique pour pronostiquer le résultat des élections françaises d’avril 2007.
Le but étant à l’époque surtout de mettre en garde nos voisins d’ouest sur les raisons du Le Pen au second tour en 2002.

A à un mois des élections, force est de constater que beaucoup de choses ont évoluées depuis novembre dernier.
Dont quelque chose que je n’avais absolument pas imaginé; la montée en puissance du centre (et de François Bayrou).

D’un premier côté, Sarko s’est mis fort à droite afin d’essayer de séduire les électeurs du FN (probablement par opportunisme en voyant leur excellent résultat en 2002, ce qui est une erreur car il est avéré qu’un grand nombre de ces électeurs ne sont pas réellement de l’extrême droite mais sont juste des votes contestataires).
De l’autre, Ségolène s’avère être une très mauvaise candidate (on ne compte plus ses bêtises en public).
Bref, un trou énorme s’est créé au centre et Bayrou l’exploite à merveille.

Tags: bayrou, France, politique, présidentielles, ségolène, soleil

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