A 50-something French dude that’s old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. Also, I like to write and to sketch.
https://thefoolwithapen.com

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 26th, 2023

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  • This strikes me as abhorrent. But most of the people here call it necessary, preferable and even desirable.

    I don’t and I won’t ‘call it necessary, preferable and even desirable’. That’s a nightmare that’s being build right before our eyes, with the (often unconscious) complicity of a lot of us (me included, for many years).

    Here in France, certain ideas are literally outlawed from any public discussions (it’s in the law, what an impressive feat from a country so proud of its promotion of free speech). But it’s everywhere and at every level, even in the way we’ve learned to not use certain words in our everyday exchanges or to not try to understand something a little better before condemning it—we do like all the people around us, we hate what and who we’re being told to hate.

    That’s why I steer away as much as I can from digital means of communication. And do as much as I can offline and the analog way.

    Younger people have probably never experienced it but good old snail mail (as well as in-person talks) is still private by default (that too is in the law, at least here, doesn’t l mean it’s above the law, which is fine, but at least it’s private). Also, it’s not tracked or algorithmically quantified and validated by anyone.

    Mandatory disclaimer (because we live in this absolute moronic age of ‘either you’re with us, or you’re against us’ angry crowds): me protesting against the growing (self-)censorship of any idea does not mean I endorse any of those censored ideas. It just means that I think censorship is a terrible way to fight any idea. As history have shown us countless times.



  • You need better air flow.

    I had the same issue as a student, when I lived in that pocket-sized 1 room ‘apartment’ with barely any airflow coming through a single and tiny window. The only solution I found to be working was, each morning, to lift the mattress and store it on its side with the bottom/downside face part of it not facing the wall, and let it like that for the rest of the day. The air would do its magic.

    I also raised the bed frame that was very close to the ground.