La crise, quelle crise ?

Auteur/autrice : marc

  • Apple may (will ?) abandon the headphone jack on the iPhone 7

    Hey, hey, this is the best news in years when it comes to plugs and connections. The jack, and particularly the 3.5mm jack (1/8 inch in the US), is the oldest connector used in modern technology. Actually, I discovered the 6.35mm (1/4 inch) jack, the one style used on most musical professional headset and cabling, dates from 1878… Yes, it’s not a typo, it’s from the nineteenth century. Remember those WW2 movies where you see those telephone operators plugging in cables on wooden panels, well those were 6.35mm jacks…

    Any phone, MP3 player or even laptop today has a 3.5mm jack socket… and once again, Apple may (will? This is only rumors for the moment) lead the way in ditching the 3.5mm jack for a modern connector, like the Lightning port. Of course, abandoning the 3.5mm socket will alienate users of current headsets, some having invested in expensive noise reduction ones for instance. But it will open the way to new benefits: waterproofing the phone, as it’s almost impossible to waterproof a jack socket, or high resolution audio to go beyond the CD sampling rate we are used to today.

    Apple has always created markets with bold moves. I can say that since Steve Jobs passed away, there has not been that bold move we used to see, this could be it! Yes, it’s just a plug, but ditching a 100-year old plug that is THE norm of an entire industry is bold!

    Update! I just discover a petition against the abandon of the jack. The main argument is the following: « Not only will this force iPhone users to dole out additional cash to replace their hi-fi headphones, it will singlehandedly create mountains of electronic waste — that likely won’t get recycled. » Well… nobody forces a current iPhone user to change iPhone and therefore to ditch headphones. Furthermore, for a couple of additional bucks, you can find a lighting to jack adapter which will increase the life of your headphones if you want to keep them. So yes, planned obsolescence is definitely wrong, but innovation requires choice and change. So instead of asking to come back to past technology, let’s see how we can adapt and make technology more relevant.

  • May be I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one

    Dear Reader,

    Four days ago, I was writing about who I am. Of course if you’ve found my blog, found it interesting, came back and, even follow it, then I tend to think we are digital friends and we may be friends in the physical world (actually, I know some of my physical friends are there sometimes, and I like that). Based on a couple of comments over the last days, allow me to explain the title and the URL of this blog. A picture is worth a thousand word they say:

    There are a couple of things to this picture. For those of you who were not born in 1975, it’s the fourth album of Supertramp, one of the iconic rock band of the seventies and early eighties that released hits like Dreamer, Breakfast in America, and It’s Raining Again. Think that in 1975, the year of the release of this album, the world was in the middle of the « oil crisis » with oil prices going to the roof and recession all over the place (sounds a bell no?), and just one year after resignation of president Nixon following the Watergate scandal.

    Now in the middle of these crisis, of the increasing industrial footprint (40 years before the COP 21), sits this guy, relaxing on his lounge chair, getting tanned. Some can see a selfish dude not caring about what’s happening around him, I see hope. And this is the meaning of the title of the album, Crisis? What Crisis? that I chose for this blog (I chose it before realizing it was the title of the Supertramp album, read it here). To me this means that yes, there’s a crisis outside, there are many crisis actually, financial, moral, etc. But since the beginning of mankind, crisis have been ongoing. In other words, there’s always a crisis somewhere. However, we all have the power to act positively against those crisis, to switch off the TV to avoid being bombarded by desperation, and to get happy with the little things in life.

    Finally, in this album you’ll find what I consider not only the best song of Supertramp but one of the best songs of all. A video if worth ten thousand words.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlmoOnZS8xI

    I had the chance last summer to see Roger Hodgson live in Carcassonne, A Soapbox Opera Fool’s Overture (See the correction footnote below) live was the best moment of the show.

    Supertramp may not be your kind of music and I understand this, I can say I love almost all kind of music because I believe in diversity and because music speaks to the soul. But beyond Supertramp, I truly believe in three things:

    1. Our happiness is between our hands. It’s a choice!
    2. The world is the best world right now. You have to live now, not in the past that is gone, not in the future that had not yet happened.
    3. The future is bright. Stop listening to the negative noise of many people, starting with TV. You make your future!

    Dear friend, if like me you want to look at the positive side of things and are constantly looking for ways to enhance your days, then I hope you’ll find ideas and posts that will make your day and contribute to your happiness.

    Crisis? What Crisis?

     

    Correction… I f***d up my mind… A Soapbox Opera is great but I mixed it up with Fool’s Overture, from the album Even in the quietest moments… And by checking my phone, I just realized that I videoed it during the concert in Carcassonne but ran short of memory on my phone. damn it! Anyway, here’s a wonderful version:

    For those who have been knowing me for a while, this was one of the pieces I was playing on my piano (when I played, a long, long time ago). and this is the one I put against Bohemian Rhapsody, not A Soapbox Opera… And this gives me an idea of writing about those two symphonic pieces of rock in a future post.

  • My life, my love, my work

    Happy New Year 2016! To get a new fresh start for this blog, I’m participating in the Blogging 101 of the WordPress Blogging University. As such, during the whole month of January, I’ll have tasks to do to improve the blogging experience, learn new stuffs and increase relevance of this blog to you, my readers. So here’s the result of Day One: Introduce Yourself to the World.

    I am Marc, a Geek at heart, as I introduced my about.me page. I am of this generation that knew the world before Internet, who embraced Internet with sheer delight, and is now moving to prudent usage. I have six passions in life: my family, technology, leadership, productivity, public speaking, and watersports. I have a seventh that has been set aside for the time being which is flying, as I am a licensed wing glider pilot, but cannot, yet, find enough time to fulfill this passion.

    My passion for technology led me to found my own IT company in the 90’s in Paris before selling them in the 2000’s and joining Microsoft in the sunny island of Mauritius. One year leading to another, I am now the Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft in Africa.

    Leadership, productivity and overall personal excellence are dear to my heart, as I believe that with the same 24 hours everyone has, a few uses those to create something bigger than themselves and this require all three.

    Public speaking is an old passion of mine that started in high school with theater and continued all along my professional life as an IT instructor, launch event speaker until my TEDx talk and my national winning speeches at Toastmasters convention.

    Finally, I am an avid fan of watersports like windsurfing, kitesurfing, wakeboarding, scuba diving, waterskiing, catamaran sailing, to name a few.

    So what about blogging? Well blogging is first writing, And writing I did: published 18 books in the 90’s (you can still find some on Amazon, although they are totally outdated), did one eBook and lots of articles in the press and on this blog, for one simple reason: I love writing. Like theater, it started a while back by participating to short stories contests (which I did not win any), then writing my first book in French on IT Training. I did it all by myself using Word for MS-DOS. Yes, I know, may people do not have a clue what DOS is.

    So what’s this blog about? I started it after the subprime crisis, because, although a lot of people were negatively impacted by the crisis, it ended up by becoming hysterical in France and across the world, increasing the gloomy future outlook. I named it Crisis, what crisis? because I felt the crisis, although real for the people who lost money everywhere in the world, because of the « global economy » or their properties in the US mainly, the crisis was created or at least kept up by the media, and people were frozen and felt gloomy, just because of the situation painted by media houses. It was recently I realized this was the title of a famous album by Supertramp, one of my favorite bands.

    So my purpose with that blog was to create a kind of a platform to show people that their future was between their hands and not of somebody else. Then I used it as a digital platform to my leadership articles published weekly in Le Matinal, until my collaboration with the newspaper stopped and I started the one day, one idea motion that led me to publish one article every day for a full year. Then last year was a struggle to keep the pace and the faith. So now, Blogging 101 provides the opportunity to give my blog a new start. Where it will go, I do not know but future and you will tell!

  • Bonne et heureuse année 2016

    https://unsplash.com/itkin
    https://unsplash.com/itkin

    Je vous souhaite à tous une bonne et heureuse année 2016 !

    Rien ne se réalisera par hasard, ce dernier n’existant pas. Tout sera conséquence d’une action ou d’une non action. Je reste fidèle à l’idée qui consiste à dire que ceux qui échouent à planifier, planifient d’échouer. Alors que l’année entame son deuxième jour, quels sont vos plans pour cette nouvelle année ? Quel(s) objectif(s) vous fixez-vous ? Qu’avez-vous envie de réaliser au fond de vous-même, tout au fond ? Nous avons tous une envie folle, un rêve que d’aucun qualifie d’inatteignable, un « truc » qui nous rendrait follement heureux, satisfait, accompli ? Qu’elle est-elle ? Si vous n’aviez aucune limite que feriez-vous ? Et au final, que faites-vous pour réaliser cette envie folle, ce rêve, ce « truc » ?

    Abandonnez-vous comme une large majorité de gens, avant même d’avoir essayé ? Laissez-vous autrui vous convaincre que vous êtes un « grand malade » ? Beaucoup de question me direz-vous et pourtant deux simples réponses : 1. Vous n’avez qu’une vie, elle doit être vécue pleinement, 2. Même le plus grand voyage commence toujours par un premier pas. Ceci implique de savoir ce que vous voulez et de vous y donner à fond. Alors, si vous ne l’avez pas encore fait, asseyez-vous avec un verre ou une tasse de votre boisson favorite, mettez la musique qui vous fait le plus « kiffer », prenez une feuille de papier (oui, laissez tomber l’électronique) et notez ce que vous voulez réaliser cette année. Pas besoin d’avoir cinquante rêves, un seul suffit. Qu’allez-vous faire cette année pour le réaliser ? Notez tout et promettez-vous de mettre en action ce que vous avez noté. Puis vérifiez tous les mois où vous en êtes.

    Sur ce, je retourne à mes objectifs pour cette année, que je publierai ici dans quelques jours. Vous allez me dire pourquoi pas maintenant, là, tout de suite ? Pour la simple raison que mes objectifs doivent être partagés par mon épouse et mes enfants, c’est un effort conjoint qui a besoin du support de tous, cela demande un peu plus de travail pour se mettre d’accord. Je vous souhaite donc une bonne et heureuse année 2016, qu’elle vous soit douce et profitable !

  • Une crise, vous avez entendu parler d’une crise, vous ?

    https://unsplash.com/anthonydelanoix
    https://unsplash.com/anthonydelanoix

    Jour 714 C’est la crise à droite à cause de la vilaine Marine, c’est la crise à gauche à cause du vilain Bartolone, c’est la crise économique à cause de la vilaine finance, c’est la crise des migrants à cause du vilain Bachar, c’est la crise de l’éthique avec le vilain Donald, où que l’on regarde, c’est la crise partout. La vraie crise dans tout ça : celle des médias qui nous abreuvent de leurs commentaires, de leurs peurs et des névroses de tout un chacun amplifiées par les effets papillons et boule de neige. Alors moi je dis, stop ! Y’en avait déjà ras la casquette avant les élections régionales en France et celles présidentielles aux USA, mais là, la coupe est pleine. En fait, non, la coupe est vide. Vide de sens, vide d’idées, vide de courage, vide d’ambition, vide de futur qui chante, vide d’espoir, mais par-dessus tout vide d’intelligence collective.

    Les peuples veulent plus de justice, de partage et de joie, les individus plus de sécurité, de replis communautaire et d’ostracisme. Le monde est en fait devenu schizophrène, car incapable d’imaginer un futur de partage joyeux, presque communisant devrais-je dire. Pas étonnant que les riches soient de plus en plus riches et les pauvres de plus en plus pauvres. Ah, mais c’est ce qu’on vous a dit, parce que dans les pays dits développés, les pauvres sont de plus en plus riches en fait, malgré les écarts qui s’amplifient.

    Alors oui, il y a peut-être une crise, c’est surtout celle des consciences qui se délitent, qui voient le lendemain sans penser au mois prochain, qui voient leurs nombrils sans penser au moi prochain. On en revient alors aux plus simples des fondamentaux : liberté, fraternité, égalité. Terminons par le clivage mondialiste et patriote dans lequel veut nous entrainer le FHaine. Ne peut-on pas être mondialiste et patriote à la fois ? Reconnaitre que le monde est plat et qu’il est riche de ses diversités ? Manger un couscous à midi avec un verre de Boulaouane gris et un petit salé au lentille le soir avec un verre de Crozes Hermitage ? Aimer flâner sur le bord de mer à Maputo, Casablanca, Singapore ou Nice, en appréciant la diversité d’architecture et de culture ? Faire croire que la force d’un pays est dans sa petite monnaie nationale ? Que de questions et que de mensonges. A ces mensonges, je ne réponds qu’une seule vérité : c’est en sortant de chez soi avec un esprit ouvert que chacun s’apercevra que de Dunkerque à Tamanrasset et bien au-delà, il n’est que des hommes égaux et différents, que des peuples uniques et riches de leurs histoires, que des mondes fascinants qui ne demandent qu’à être découverts et partagés.

    Alors, il y a une crise ? Non, pas chez moi, ni chez mes voisins ou chez les personnes que je côtoie. Le monde est le meilleur qu’il peut être au moment où il l’est. Quand on a intégré cette vérité, on vit heureux. Heureux qui comme Ulysse à fait un beau voyage ! Sortez et découvrez que c’est en ouvrant les bras aux autres qu’on continuera à construire plus de liberté, de fraternité et d’égalité. A tchao, bonsoir !