AI and the Small Web
There is a fear right now that AI-centered changes in the web search landscape might end up killing the World Wide Web as we know it. The…
Pier-Luc Brault's Blog
The English posts from the blog of Pier-Luc Brault, a computer science teacher and former software developer.
Latest posts
The Tale of My Retrocomputing Infrastructure
My Mastodon bio reads as follows: Computer science teacher and former software developer. Free / open-source software, self-hosting and home…
I Used NumPy to Plan for My Home Renovations
My partner and I have been homeowners for over a year now, and it has been great. However, the time has now come for us to start seriously…
The Mysterious Case of the Off-Brand Cartoon
I was perusing a thrift store yesterday when I came across this DVD on sale for 2$: That's right, this is a DVD of The Hunchback of Notre…
My Journey to Stop Using My Phone
At some point this past summer, I decided I needed to find ways to stop myself from using my phone. Not completely, of course. Smartphones…
How I Really Started Self-Hosting
I tend to think that I got into self-hosting about six years ago when, after reading Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard…
On Moving My Home Automations
In the last year, I became a homeowner for the first time, moving out of the house I had been renting. As a DIY home automation enthusiast…
Magic 2.0: A Creative Blend of Tech and Medieval Fantasy
I recently finished reading a fun little fantasy/sci-fi series called "Magic 2.0" by Scott Meyer. This series is probably best known for its…
I Coded Something Dumb And I'm Proud of It
I recently got back into the development of an open source game I released last summer, You're the OS!. It is a browser game, written in…
I Used Netscape Composer in 2024
As a geek born in the early 1990s, who has been playing with computers from a young age, I think fondly of what tech looked like in the late…
I Created the Nerdiest Game Ever
It was in last November that I texted the following to my good friend Sam, a fellow computer nerd: “Imagine a videogame where you are an…
The Problem With Frameworks
When it comes to selecting techs that will be used in a software development project, I see mostly two approaches: picking a framework that…
Programming Is Like Driving: Check Your Blind Spots
I am currently both a member of a software development team and a computer science teacher. As a teacher, I recently taught a lesson about…