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January 2, 2026

2025++


2025






Happy New Year !!!

Traditionnel post-modern so here is quick recap of updates I did during 2025:

- New Projects: Project Unreality, Second Reality++

- Experiments: Gray / Grey, Das Experiment, Johnny Cab [Waymo]

- Updated some Projects: Filelander 1.3, git-whale 1.2

- New Big Chapter: Lib45.a

- Blog: Released at least one blog post every month

- Miscellaneous: Auto generated thumbnails for Changelog, Archive and Sitemap.
I did some polish on the website: added icons on download buttons (if needed), increased sitemap link icons by 33%, fixed root index (w/wo www). I created a Bluesky account so now every update is on X/Twitter, Meta/Facebook, Bluesky, Newsletters and RSS.

- Filming Location: Released a filming location blog post every month and 2 in December.

 "Those who keep learning will keep rising in life."
- Charlie Munger


Bugs and wrong path






I typically recap bugs, crashes, defects here, but I'm bowing out.

Things have worsened year over year. This year didn't break the trend. Skills, quality, and knowledge seem to be slipping over time.




Instead of writing up a detailed defect list, I embedded a tweet from gothburz about the Microsoft Teams outage with speculative "fix" and "resolution":

Update from Microsoft.

Teams is down.

Messages are delayed.

Some aren't arriving at all.

We're investigating.

Investigating means the AI is investigating.

The AI that wrote the code.

That broke the code.

That is now debugging the code.

It's a closed loop.

Very efficient.

A user asked why their message didn't send.

I said "we're observing recovery in our telemetry."

They asked what that means.

I don't know what that means.

But the dashboard is green now.

Green means fixed.

Fixed means we changed the threshold for green.

The messages are still delayed.

But the dashboard doesn't know that.

Dashboards don't use Teams.

Someone on the infrastructure team tried to escalate.

Via Teams.

The escalation is still pending.

Somewhere in the queue.

With everyone else's messages.

The irony wasn't lost on them.

But the message was.

We have a backup communication channel.

It's email.

Email is also having issues.

Unrelated, obviously.

The root cause is under analysis.

Analysis means we asked the AI.

The AI said "no issues detected."

The AI wrote the detection system.

It detects what it wants to detect.

Very self-aware.

Not in the good way.

Last quarter I said 30% of our code is AI-written.

Teams is closer to 45%.

We were proud of that.

Past tense.

The AI optimized the message queue.

It optimized it to zero.

Zero messages. Zero latency.

Technically correct.

The best kind of correct.

Enterprise customers are asking for an RCA.

RCA means Root Cause Analysis.

The root cause is velocity.

We shipped faster than we understood.

Understanding isn't in the OKRs.

Shipping is.

We shipped.

Someone asked when Teams will be fixed.

I said "we're continuing our analysis."

Continuing means we started.

Analysis means looking.

Looking means hoping it fixes itself.

It usually does.

If you refresh enough.

Refresh is the user's responsibility.

We provide the experience.

They provide the resilience.

That's partnership.

The outage started at 2:30 PM ET.

Right before the holidays.

Millions of workers couldn't message their teams.

Some called it a disaster.

I called it "an unplanned wellness moment."

Productivity is a spectrum.

We're exploring the lower end.

The AI has proposed a fix.

The fix requires a deployment.

The deployment system uses Teams for notifications.

The notifications are delayed.

We're in a loop.

The loop is also AI-designed.

Very elegant.

From a certain angle.

Satya asked for a status update.

I sent it via Teams.

He hasn't responded.

I assume he's thinking about it.

The stock is up 2% today.

Outages don't move markets.

Narratives do.

The narrative is "AI efficiency."

The reality is "Teams is down."

But reality isn't in the earnings call.

The narrative is.

We're committed to reliability.

Reliability means it worked yesterday.

Yesterday is our SLA.

Thank you for your patience.

Patience means you have no choice.

We're in your enterprise agreement.

For three more years.

The circle of innovation continues.



Of course this is highly speculatif but if you ever worked in a big company, you can see some pattern here... Usually the main bottleneck are the process, workflow, tools and productivity level, not the "people".











































 "In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work."
- Milton Friedman


Random Thought






In recent years, I've come to think that we're living in a blend of Demolition Man, Idiocracy, and WALL-E... Roughly a third of each.

Of the few 2025 films I watched, every one was a reboot, remake, or sequel. 2026 looks the same in this very Microwave era entertainment style. I'll let the best filter "time" do its work and catch the standouts in a couple of years. Meanwhile, I've gone back to older films from the 1960s through the 2010s.

The Canada / U.S.A relationship feels oddly strained for two countries that once had one of the world's best partnerships. Today's "elbow-up" approach seems to ignore Pareto's law (e.g. 80% earning is from 20% client). The U.S. still buys over 70% of Canada's exports. Canada's worst partnership may be with itself. It's often easier for a province to trade with the U.S. than with other provinces. No surprise two or three provinces flirt with independence. Canada should lean closer to the U.S. than to Europe or elsewhere. My hunch is a meaningful deal lands late in the current U.S. administration's term.

I'm not big on predictions, but I suspect entertainment production costs will trend down. Film studios and game productions will favor mid-budget projects over mega-budget swings that flop. Healthier for the industry and better for creativity and quality than the recycled mega-products.

"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
- Thomas Sowell


2026






As with last year, we seem to be in a Cotonelle era (things feel softer than they used to) or if you prefer, a quiet golden age.

My goals remain broadly the same, with some variations:

- Publish at least one blog post per month

- Ship 2-3 new projects

-
Filming Location: Now that I'm in Calgary (moved from LA), I'll still visit and document spots, but posts will be more sporadic than monthly. Long term, I want to travel to specific cities worldwide, see the city and its filming locations.

- Update 2-3 existing projects with new features

- Experiment... a lot!

 2026 will be interesting !!!

"When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear."
- Thomas Sowell

Thanks for reading,

JS.