Monthly Archives: April 2026

  • French state moves away from Microsoft

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Politics, Tech

    image of Tux, the Linux kernel mascotFrance is to begin replacing Microsoft Windows on the desktop with Linux, the French Digital Ministry has announced.

    This change is part of a broader initiative to reduce reliance on non-European digital technologies. Each ministry will be required requires each ministry, to develop a plan by autumn 2026 addressing desktop systems, collaboration tools, antivirus software, AI, databases, virtualisation, and network equipment.

    In addition to government departments migrating from Windows to Linux, the National Health Insurance Fund announced a few days ago it was moving its 80,000 employees to France’s own interministerial digital platform’s tools (Tchap secure messaging, Visio and FranceTransfert for the document sharing).

    Announcing the initiative, Public Accounts Minister David Amiel remarked as follows:

    The State can no longer simply acknowledge its dependence; it must break free. We must become less reliant on American tools and regain control of our digital destiny. We can no longer accept that our data, our infrastructure and our strategic decisions depend on solutions whose rules, pricing, change and risks we do not control. The transition is underway: our ministries, our operators and our industrial partners are now embarking on an unprecedented initiative to map our dependencies and strengthen our digital sovereignty. Digital sovereignty is not an option.

  • NATO disbanded by the NYT

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

    For the eagle-eyed observers of bad journalism (and out of work sub-editors. Ed.), page A8 of the New York Times on Friday 3rd April was a facepalming classic, given that getting proper names correct is something that should be hammered into journalists during their training.

    Headline reads A North American Treaty Organization without America?
    Click on the image for the full size version.

    NATO logoYes, you did read that correctly. With one flourish of fingers across the keyboard, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been transformed into the North American Treaty Organization by a New York Times ‘journalist’ seemingly unaware of a relatively common fact-checking tool commonly known to humanity as 5 minutes’ Googling*.


    However, to be fair to the NYT, it did post an apology the same day of X, the alleged social media platform that used to be known as Twitter.

    Post reads A correction will appear in tomorrow's print edition: A headline with an article on Friday about President Trump’s threats to leave NATO misstated the full name of the body. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not the North American Treaty Organization.

    According to Wikipedia, NATO “serves as a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5** of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against one member shall be considered an attack against them all“.

    Just like the British/English, the inhabitants of the 50 federal states comprising the USA have a well-developed sense of exceptionalism, i.e. the idea that a person, country or political system can be allowed to be different from, and perhaps better than, others. This is perhaps best embodied by John Gast’s 1872 painting, American Progress, which depicts buffalo and the original indigenous inhabitants fleeing before the relentless advance of the railway, the telegraph (with the figure of Columbia stringing the wire, possibly as a precursor to Glenn Campbell’s 1968 Wichita Lineman. Ed.), so-called settlers and the stage coach.

    An allegorical representation of the modernization of the west of part of North America. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading civilisation westward with the American settlers. She is shown bringing light from east to west, stringing telegraph wire, holding a school book, and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation. On the left, Indigenous Americans are displaced from their ancestral homeland.

    * = Other search engines are available that do not invade your privacy and sell your data to advertisers. 😀

    ** = Article 5 of the NATO Treaty dealing with mutual defence has only been invoked on one occasion; and that was by, erm, the United States.

  • Twice in a white moon

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    In 1970 musician and poet Gil Scott Heron wrote the poem Whitey on the Moon. It was released as the ninth track of his debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox.

    The poem tells of medical debt, high taxes and poverty experienced at the time of the Apollo Moon landings, as well as criticising the money spent on the US space programme while Black Americans were experiencing social and economic disparities at home on Earth.

    The full text of the poem follows.

    A rat done bit my sister Nell.
    (with Whitey on the moon)
    Her face and arms began to swell.
    (and Whitey’s on the moon)
    I can’t pay no doctor bills.
    (but Whitey’s on the moon)
    Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still
    While Whitey’s on the moon.
    You know, the man jus’ upped my rent las’ night,
    ’cause Whitey’s on the moon.
    No hot water, no toilets, no lights,
    but Whitey’s on the moon.
    I wonder why he’s uppi’ me?
    ’cause Whitey’s on the moon?
    Well I wuz already givin’ ‘im fifty a week
    And now Whitey’s on the moon.
    Taxes takin’ my whole damn check,
    The junkies make me a nervous wreck,
    The price of food is goin’ up,
    An’ as if all that crap wuzn’t enough,
    A rat done bit my sister Nell.
    (with Whitey on the moon)
    Her face an’ arms began to swell
    And Whitey’s on the moon.
    Was all that money I made las’ year
    For Whitey on the moon?
    How come I ain’t got no money here?
    Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon.
    Y’know I jus’ about had my fill
    Of Whitey on the moon.
    I think I’ll sen’ these doctor bills,
    Airmail special to Whitey on the moon


    Nothing much has happened in the intervening 56 years as far as the plight of Black Americans is concerned. There is still racism and discrimination, whilst medical care funding programmes, food stamps and other welfare have been cut by the authoritarian regime of Donald Trump, disgraced former 45th and current disgraceful 47th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon, compulsive liar and golf cheat (who is on a personal quest to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.)

    Another thing that hasn’t changed is the rising prices of everything, not least due to tRump’s illegal attacks on Iran in collusion with fellow war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

    It’s said that history does not repeat itself. While this may be true, history is quite fond of tribute acts. As a tribute act to its triumphs of 1960s and 1970s, NASA has this week launched the Artemis II mission, which has sent four astronauts on a flyby around the Moon and back to Earth.

    Artemis II blasts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center
    Artemis II blasts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    Nevertheless, there have been two significant changes in Artemis II from the 1960s and 70s Apollo missions, one of the four-person crew, Victor Glover, is an African American and another, Christina Koch, is a woman.