Articles on eXplorer web corner

Hugo and Emacs/org-mode

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This stack, using org-mode, so Emacs, for writing content and Hugo to transform it into a website, is what I've chosen to build this site. I don't care much for the aesthetics; I chose PaperMod as the theme because it's nice and developed by a community large enough that it'll likely stay active for a few years. Since I'm not selling products, I have no interest in investing more time into building what is, from my point of view, just a vehicle/scaffolding for the text content I want to share. However, this article isn't just an explanation of this small piece of my software stack, which I'll gradually describe in various posts, it's also feedback on how you can create and maintain an aesthetically pleasing (in my opinion) personal website with very little effort.

Humanity, Earth's sustainable carrying capacity and New Deal

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Stimulated by this fresh study I RANT a bit (following my Contra Polis series I'll re-publish soon in this revamped site, the migration is not that automatic) on how we can improve our lives without consuming more non-renewable Earth resources, building a modern society instead of the old capitalist one for the sake of few dictators, born in the neomalthusianism where the nazism was born as well.

It would be interesting to have a study on how much consumption in Western society would plummet if we de-urbanise, the only realistic way to implement the Green New Deal, by building A-class houses and sheds, with photovoltaic up to the latitudes where it makes sense, and enough energy storage to last from one day to the next, in order to charge batteries in a rotating smart-grid, absorbing the maximum production capacity as a network, which can thus be lower than the instantaneous demand for energy. With integrated EVs (bi-directional usage @400V with p.v. battery inverters). By mandating remote working and with it a healthy digitisation of society, causing the failure of the so-called cloud+mobile mainframe model of the present era in favour of a decentralised, distributed one, from currency to contracts, passing through digital identity without giants, with free software and open hardware de jure, thus wiping out, over a few decades, the enormous energy consumption of climate control in large buildings, the inefficiency of commuting to the office, the inefficiency of poor digitisation with all its associated costs, the inefficiency of home-delivered ready meals with their thousand layers of packaging, the waste of fast tech and fast fashion for the city, and IT that moves from proprietary rubbish to desktops with an 8-10-12 year operational life, unlike the LIES of OEMs (UN 2024 PDF report on tech and sustainability) who lobby the United Nations for short-lived mobile devices to increase sales and piles of waste to maximise profits.

On LLMs/AI, big layoffs and PRs

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For some time now, apocalyptic predictions have been appearing in the press, even in much of the IT-themed media about mass layoffs of workers "fired because of AI", "automation that will make human labour useless", and so on and so forth.

In this post, I would like to clarify a few points, distinguishing between the narrative and reality. Will there be many people fired "because of AI"? Some, but not the tsunami that is being heralded. For example, far fewer translators are already needed than in the past because, to translate texts where 10 humans were previously required, today 1 human and an LLM do the same volume of work in the same amount of time, with the human acting as a proofreader for the LLM. In low-criticality areas, identity checks, typically for travel documents, will be carried out where regulations require it using a ticket + biometrics, with a single human hopping between several gates where there are problems, instead of one human per gate.

Shelly Flood sensor and Home Assistant

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It's a hyper-expensive for what it is, small flood sensor device witch is actually:

a binary sensor for floods, based on three separated conductive pin measuring the conductivity of the material the are in contact with, I guess, meaning you can't put the sensor on a conductive surface;
a temperature sensor;
a battery level sensor (lithium 3V battery type CR123A aka 17335).

All packaged in a wifi IoT platform featuring: