Excursions

I am currently on a break - I do not have any official work time as such. So this is an opportunity for rethinking things, declutter the stuff around the day-to-day life. I plan to identify what matters to me the most, what I enjoy doing the most. And then only sign-up for that. I have realized there is no point over-complicating too many things with whys and hows, and especially why-nots. It’s better to just do the thing that my mind wants to do without fussing over the right moment or the perfect way. Neither ever arrive.

So I will do anything that I want to do. But to that everything that I am not into, but my brain says I should do - nah. Not happening. This has already ruled some of the projects from my list, mostly dev ones, which I had signed up for just because everyone I come across was doing them. Or so I thought.

Then there are those projects which I want to do, but just don’t have an idea yet about how and when. One such project is my microcast Third-Person Voice. I am pulling it down. I enjoyed the experience, but I need to rethink whether it fits in my life currently.

This signing up and sprinting in all directions had affected what I’ve genuinely enjoyed for the longest time - reading and writing. The hope behind all this decluttering, this tidying up of mind space, is that I can focus again on just the stuff I want to do the most.

In an article on how Instagram “travel influencers” are affecting homeownership around the world is hidden a very unfortunate truth.

Today everything exists to end in a photograph (…) the most influential factor in determining where to vacation is how “Instagrammable” the destination is.

This sad fact holds even for non-influencer, normal tourists. Every time I tour, I see loads and loads of people fighting for a spot, the same, crowded space that everyone around is taking pictures at. I have seen people put their backs to the most wonderful of the valleys and mountains and beaches just so that they would catch themselves and the serenity in the same picture. Doesn’t matter then if it looks equally serene just few feet away from the “instagrammable” spot.

Influencers who come into a community to get something, and who refuse to acknowledge or be curious about the people who make it up—or, worse, who consider those people obstacles—are refusing to participate in the best part of travel: Appreciating what, or who, makes a place different from any other.

I could not say it better. All tourists need to respect the location and the people that dwell there. That picture-worthy spot you are on look out for is a home for many.

Recently David Merfield, the developer behind Blot, documented the steps to expose a JSON feed on a Blot site. I have been running a JSON feed for my blog for quite some time now, with some valuable help from David of course. It is this feed that drives the On This Day page on this blog. I thought I will share my approach so that others with a blog running on Blot can create such a page.

To begin with, follow the guide to get a working JSON feed for your blog. Validate you have a properly formed and accessible feed being served using the JSON feed validator.

Once the JSON feed is available, create a view in Blot for a javascript file. Copy the complete content of the javascript available as a gist* and add them to this new view. Modify the json_feed_url and tz variables appropriately to reflect the URL for the JSON feed and the timezone for your blog, you can refer to the formats in TZ database time zones. This script does the following.

1. Fetches all the posts as JSON objects from the JSON feed
2. Identifies the posts that share the same date and month as the current date (but not the year to avoid loading today’s posts)
3. Renders the posts (or no posts message) in the predefined section detailed below. This also includes some styling via the .className definition, you can remove/modify that as per your liking in fuction renderPost.

Make sure the above created view is accessible at a URL. If not, define a route in the Settings section of the view.

Next, create another view for a page to display these posts; a reference html page is available as a gist. Modify the src in <script src="/flashback.js"></script> to reflects the URL for the javascript created above. The script adds and renders the posts made on this day in earlier years in the div element with id on-this-day.

Do give this a try, it is fascinating to see your thoughts change, or at times stay exactly the same, over the year. Reach out to me if you face any issues or find any step missing.

* This javascript is inspired by and based on the wonderful project Micro Memories by Jonathan LaCour for the micro.blog hosted blogs. I have customized and simplified it as per my needs.

So apparently we, humans, are struggling to prove ourselves as human now - The Verge reports.

Figuring out how to fix those blurry image quizzes quickly takes you into philosophical territory: what is the universal human quality that can be demonstrated to a machine, but that no machine can mimic? What is it to be human?

I am sorry, but we are taking the literal definition of CAPTCHA - Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart - too seriously. It is a good enough system to filter out attacks from majority of the bad actors not so strong both technically and financially. Sure, there would come a day when the AI systems to beat these complicated CAPTHAs would become extremely cheap — might be even sold pay-per-use.

But when that happens, we better be ready with something that can replace this old system of identifying humans online. Authenticating and authorizing an identity online should be made a priority project at all the technology leaders.

I attempted to watch Black Mirror: Bandersnatch today. Netflix managed to solve a lot many technical challenges — it is a well-done interactive film. I think first of its kind. But boy, did it suck as a film. The format just did not click for me — the film worked neither as a science fiction nor as a horror.

To be frank, I am a bit disappointed in this genre of films. There has been so much talk about these choose-your-own-adventure or multiple endings movies/shows. But I find the whole concept a bit distracting. Every time, I was made to choose any aspect playing on the screen, I was pulled out of the flow of the movie. I doubt this interactive form will work for many.

Call me old school. But I want to be driven, I want to view the story from the director’s perspective. I like to see what he or she wants to show me, keeping my mind completely open. I do not want to play a game while I am watching a movie. Because if I do want to, well, I will play a game in the first place.

Sure, this was a good experiment to explore this concept of letting viewers drive the narrative of the film. And although I question its feasibility, I also believe this is just a start. There’s soon going to be lot many such experiments with VR too. Whatever the makers believe, I am sure I would hate that form.

I wish makers spend their efforts on the story, on the screenplay, on all the other aspects that make a movie brilliant. I will any day choose a linear, single ending drama or a thriller that a director has complete control over than a broken, nonsensical story that I can control every aspect of.

I recently watched “Bhai: Vyakti Ki Valli”, a movie I was very eagerly waiting for quite some time now. It is a biopic of a person that I adore, an iconic Marathi writer and a humorist, a brilliant theater artist and an adept musician, a person who inspired me to start writing. That person is Purushottam Laxman Deshpande, lovingly called “Pu. La.” or “Bhai” in the region I am from.

Narrating the life of this towering personality is not a small feat given the sheer number of stream of art he was passionate about. He is a well-known and a well-respected person amongst Maharashtrians of all age. It is through his writing, through the careful study of human nature around him that he taught many what the real happiness is. So it is only just that I was so curious to learn more about this master, through especially the first of this two-part biopic that focuses on his early life.

It was wonderful to know more about this simple person and was refreshing to see the Maharashtra of early 1900. In a way, I thought the people, the society that Bhai dwelt in was a lot more liberal, more open than what we see today. It was pleasing to watch the strong women with definite opinions, the simple marriage or even the relationship that Bhai’s wife and his mother share. The finale with a mind-blowing rendition of Hindustani classical music through a couple of well-known songs was sheer magic on screen - left me with goose bumps down my arms. It is Marathi culture on display. It instantly transported me back to my childhood days when these songs were our morning alarms. Boy, how much do I yearn for the simple life of yesteryears?

No doubt then that it was a brilliant watch for me, and my family. Even my friends share my experience. But all of us already know a lot about the person and the people around him. The list of characters, from the real-life like Bhimsen Joshi or Kumar Gandarva and from Bhai’s imagination like Anna or Namu Parit, that walk the screen are well itched in us Marathi people’s memories. But that may not be the case for people not from this state.

I wish this movie was an equally well-made biography, not just a celebration of the life of this beloved man. I wish the characters were allowed to grow, introduced at the very least. I wish we learned more about the relationship Bhai shared with these characters. I wish this could have been that one movie I would recommend every friend of mine to watch so that they knew what gem of a person Pu. La. was. But, alas.

First thing I did once I was back from the theater was to listen to couple of Pu. La.’s story-telling acts. It was heart-warming for me to see many aged couples who could barely walk taking all the effort to come down to the theater with their family and laughing their hearts out. May be they had spent their golden years together watching Bhai live and now they want to re-live those days. So yes, the movie did leave many, including me, nostalgic. May be that was the win the makers were going for.

Derek Sivers wrote a wonderful piece on the benefits he has realized via his diaries and journals. He talks about why he likes keeping his daily diary.

We so often make big decisions in life based on predictions of how we think we’ll feel in the future, or what we’ll want. Your past self is your best indicator of how you actually felt in similar situations. So it helps to have an accurate picture of your past.

It was especially fascinating looking at the list of topics he keeps a journal about. A great, great inspiration for any one looking out for what to journal about. He puts down a prime example.

I especially like my “Regrets” journal. Whenever I do something I regret, I write it down there, noting why I regret it, what I wish I would have done instead, and how I hope to prevent this in the future.

Derek has given me so much to ponder on. I have bookmarked this, I may reference this every time I question my resolve to journal more. Even outside of a journal, I think this is a great suggestion to write everything.

Ask yourself questions, then question your answers.

To be frank, it was when I read his account that I got to know that diary and journal are not the same. Apparently, diary is for an account of one’s daily activities while journal is for more comprehensive thoughts on specific topics. Some may say that’s minutiae, but it’s good to know.

Around a year ago, I got enthralled by the IndieWeb principles and started experimenting with them on my website. Exactly a year ago today, I had started contributing on the Micro.blog platform. And it has been a very productive year writing-wise since then.

I have expressed myself a lot more in the past year. I have thought a lot clearer, a lot better as a result. It is all thanks to the wonderful interactions on the platform.

What it also means is that I have a year worth of posts to look back upon. And I thought what better way to do so than getting the On This Day page added to my blog. I have done that. It presents how the journey started - if nothing else I myself can follow the thoughts along as they evolved.

Will it stick in this same form? May be not. I may experiment a bit on how I see this feature. But I have got the base working now for my blot-based blog.

PS: This feature is based on the wonderful project Micro Memories by Jonathan LaCour for the micro.blog hosted blogs. I have just customized and simplified it as per my needs.

Martin Weigert talks pretty openly about his love for emails.

Over the years, one frequent type of blog post published by tech heavyweights laments their struggle with managing their emails, often ending in death wishes for this technology.

I however want email to live, to thrive, and to be eternal. Not only because I publish weekly email newsletters (ok, that makes me biased), but also because email offers a huge benefit to every person on this planet with a comparatively little downside for them individually and for society at large.

A couple of points we just can’t overlook while talking about emails.

• They have wasted (and continue to do so) countless productive hours cumulatively of the human race.
• It remains the only open form that is not walled by any one company’s interests; a form that allows communication that is cross-platform, irrespective of who the sender and receivers are and what service or tool they use.

Do I love email? Nope. However, do I hate email, wish death for the form of communication? Absolutely, positively not.

Introducing Tikwadi, a town of fools; a town where the creatures that dwell are busy sucking at everything they do. Two such creatures ride a bus together to get a new adventures going.