Émile Grégoire

« Il est foutu le temps des cathédrales. »

- L. Plamondon

I hear colleagues praising AI agents as they used to praise promising junior engineers. Isn't it terribly saddening? Andy got his brand new Buzz Lightyear, forget about Woody. Except this time, Woody is an actual human being, eager to learn and grow.

My enjoyment of writing software has declined a lot recently. I feel like a dinosaur when I write everything by "hand", and I feel soulless when writing with AI. I don't recognize myself in my work, even with a lot of manual editing. I don't have an attachment to what I produce with AI.

Your text resonated with me.

When I was a student, teachers were lecturing us on the software craft, saying we were artisans, comparing us to sculptors of cathedrals. Our cathedrals feel like khrouchtchevka nowadays.

Male Baltimore orioles are beautiful.

I just watched "Shall We Dance", the original 1996 version by Masayuki Suo. What a beautiful movie ❤️

Je la trouve très jolie et humaine cette nouvelle définition du romantisme.

They rarely played together after Genesis, but there's also a performance of "Sledgehammer" with Phil on the drums at the Prince's Trust Rock Gala in 1988. Peter was tired vocally though, it was just after the "This Way Up" tour (the video you shared was from this tour).

The studio version has Phil Collins on the drums in the chaotic middle section.

The whole Athens show is masterpiece to watch. Welcome to my special interest.

C'est intéressant le karaoké à travers la francophonie. Goldman est très populaire au Québec pour "J'irai où tu iras" avec Céline. Balavoine, c'est le nom que les québécois ne reconnaissent pas quand ils choisissent "Tous les cris les S.O.S." (popularisée par Marie-Denise Pelletier ici).

Balavoine chantait beaucoup trop aiguë pour le commun des mortels imho.

First movie I saw in 2026, "Marty Supreme" was magnificent. Great storyline, the best performance of Chalamet, awesome soundtrack, great characters. I loved it, 10/10.

Thoughts and prayers

"Je l'aime a mourir" on the album "Les chemins de traverse".

I fear a generation raised with LLM. Their mental model unchallenged, their opinions outsourced to a comforting algorithm, their lives detached from human interactions. Maybe I'm overreacting, but currently, my feelings towards it is fear.

Universities and schools are writing guidelines on LLM usage in class without even considering if we actually want LLM in our education system. It's marketed as inevitable, with a strong FOMO culture and we're buying it. Current studies (sparsed) are suggesting that LLM are detrimental in education.

Merci du partage, ça fait du bien à lire. Remplacer la dopanime artificielle par le confort de la sensualité, reconnecter l'humain à l'humain. Ça peut sonner bobo, mais c'est tellement nécessaire.

- The subject is a true Quebecer, his heart is in Québec.
- Pis y'a l'Ontario dans l'cul aussi

J'espère que tu as apprécié la leçon de sacre.

I'm not a fan of Carney, he's very disconnected from the reality of Québec. He represents the classic Toronto banker who considers Québec to be a nuisance. I'm also disappointed by the right shift of the Liberals. Campaigning on tax cuts and eliminating carbon tax won't get my vote.

My understanding of the situation is that he captured the strategic vote against the Conservatives. NDP and Bloc are getting washed away to make sure Poilièvre and his trumpian discourse is not elected. We'll see the results tonight.

Absolutely! For American companies, Canada is cheap labour with a high degree of education. We (Canadians) subsidize those companies by paying for accessible healthcare and education, while giving them tax cuts (R&D tax credits, low corporate tax that is easily avoidable, etc.)

So take some time today to take a picture of your home, your office, a loved one cooking, your child doing their homework, your parents watching TV, or whatever. You'll be happy to have those pictures in a couple of years.

I often take pictures of special events, of travels, of peculiar happenstance, but the pictures I cherish the most are often the normal days of yesteryear. It looks uninteresting when you live it, but it gets emotional to look back at it in the future.

The equipment you're referring to is a synchroscope, a very simple but interesting device. It usually comes with a dial that rotates left if the generator goes too fast, or right if it's too slow, to help you adjust the governor.

Yes, that feeling is caused by the alternating current passing through your body. It's also the humming sound you hear near transformers (60 Hz is around a musical B, but flat, 50 Hz is a G, a little sharp).

It does not. Usually, when you are islanded, there's no power from the utility, so no frequency to sync with. Your inverter will try to limit the disturbance when switching between modes. When reconnecting, it will sync with the grid before closing the point of common coupling.

It's quite more complicated than that. To become grid-forming (to work in islanded mode), an inverter needs advanced control algorithms, it has to do protection with limited fault-current, it lacks inertia, etc. The transition between grid-forming and grid-following also requires precise timing.

The number of poles of a synchronous generators dictates that. f = N * P / 120 e.g. a 2-pole generator rotating at 3600 rpm generates a 60 Hz frequency. You can also add a gearbox to add an additional ratio, or to adjust variable speed (e.g. wind turbines).

synchronization generators with the grid - YouTube

You might enjoy this series: youtube.com/playlist?lis...

As a comparison, here are data for my city (Québec City) for 2017. The bars are "car driver, car passenger, public transport, active transport (bike + walking), car and public transport". We are so bad here...