Excursions

Retweets prey on users’ worst instincts. They delude Twitter users into thinking that they’re contributing to thoughtful discourse by endlessly amplifying other people’s points—the digital equivalent of shouting “yeah, what they said” in the midst of an argument. And because Twitter doesn’t allow for editing tweets, information that goes viral via retweets is also more likely to be false or exaggerated. According to MIT research published in the journal Science, Twitter users retweet fake news almost twice as much as real news. Other Twitter users, desperate for validation, endlessly retweet their own tweets, spamming followers with duplicate information.

This is exactly the reason Twitter needs to eliminate retweet feature first — a lot before their proposed killing of the like button. It doesn’t matter how valuable the retweet option is as a signal to Twitter’s algorithm. It has for long been exploited to make it a hostile platform for every voice that should matter. And it needs to disappear first.

But what is true today is that not all Chinese phone software is bad. And when it is bad from a Western perspective, it’s often bad for very different reasons than the bad Android skins of the past. Yes, many of these phones make similar mistakes with overbearing UI decisions — hello, Huawei — and yes, it’s easy to mock some designs for their obvious thrall to iOS. But these are phones created in a very different context to Android devices as we’ve previously understood them.

The Chinese phone market is a spiraling behemoth of innovation and audacity, unlike anything we’ve ever seen. If you want to be on board with the already exciting hardware, it’s worth trying to understand the software.

What Chinese smartphones offer is the feature parity in hardware with high-end devices from well-known brands, like Apple, Samsung, at a price which is affordable to the mainstream market. It is difficult to convince someone to buy an iPhone when all the devices are presented along with their specs. Doesn’t matter then if the software experience is ripped off.

What I feel is troubling though and a thing that gets neglected is the durability of these devices. The maximum life of these is what the warranty is - typically an year. Most often, these devices start failing at performance or battery or overall system level even before it hits that period. And when it does, there always are new cheaper devices to replace them with.

This will never get covered by reviews — because reviewers move on to the new, shiny devices in a week or two. It’s the mainstream that suffers. However, brands that overcome this behaviour outlive ones that fade away sooner.

This is not a post where I be a tech pundit, read tea leaves scattered all over the internet and predict what Apple is going to launch on the upcoming October Apple event. Nope. These are the things I wish Apple launches. Some because I need them now. Some because I would eventually need them.

1. Non-TouchBar Macbook Pro: I need this, my old MBP is crying out loud at this point. It needs to be replaced. I wish Apple updates this version with new keyboards.
2. Macbook Air: If my first wish is not granted or is granted, but does not solve the keyboard problem, I will go with an Air. Current Air is a mockery with that dated screen and processor and the tiny storage. Just update those, keep everything the same. Don’t touch that keyboard (no pun intended). And don’t make Macbook One the new Air in its current form — one port is not enough.
3. Non-Pro iMac: If you can give me a laptop, give me the updated iMac. Again, change nothing big. Just update the processor and if possible, get rid of that 5400rpm hard drive. Just make Fusion drive the default.
4. Mac Mini: You know there is that tiny device being sold on that tiny corner of your website right? Yeah that, update that. I would love to have it run some side projects.
5. iOS changes for iPad: I know you will refresh iPad Pros. But in the current form, the iOS platform seems underwhelming on these loaded iPad devices. Make it do more. To start with, get rid of that static-grid springboard.

I wish Apple goes crazy a bit. It is ok to be doing the stuff thoughtfully, making things that work well. That sell well. But at times, it is also important to stop being “boring” and do more stuff that you don’t know how people will react to. Things like Pencil. Or AirPods. Or even Surface Studio from Microsoft.

These look like such simple questions, but am sure one can’t get all right. Even when you employ the internet. Is that’s the case, how can complex claims made during election period?

This election season before you share, decide, vote, double-check.

It’s time for Apple product launches. And so is the time for all the talks of -gates and sheeples and reality distortion. There’s so much noise this time with iPhone XR screens. Typical comments from most folks.

• “..just 326 ppl in 2018? WTF?”
• “..not even 1080p screen? How will it play 1080p videos?”

I get it, both are facts. iPhone XR is not a full-HD screen and has a pixel density way lower than it’s better sibling XS. But does it deserve all the brickbats? Am not sure about that. This is the screen configurations of all the lowest configuration iPhones over the year (since Retina displays were introduced).

I hope one can get the trend with this. Since the time retina screens were launched, pixel density of lowest configuration iPhone has always been 326ppi. And iPhone XR is that device this year. So it gets that screen. Sure, Apple always has a Plus size device with a better resolution screens. That need is addressed by XS this year.

So am not sure why there is such a huge pushback on XR devices. If reviews are anything to go by, these screens are just as good as Apple’s LCD screens have ever been. Are there cheaper Android devices that have screens with better resolutions? Of course. There will always exists cheaper devices with better configuration on paper than iPhone. But I think one thing tech nerds should have learnt by now, Apple never plays the configuration game.

I have lately felt hindered by the time I am listening to the same repetitive thoughts from other people on podcasts. Experts talking about, dissecting, the tech news. Or blabbering about something I would not be interested in typically.

I realised it had become a problem when these podcasts kept playing as static noise in the background — irrespective of whether I was working or driving or eating breakfast. In that sense, I agree with CGP Grey’s thoughts on podcasts as he dialled down his consumption on the internet.

But podcasts have taken too much ground in my mind: any moment of idleness can be instantly filled with the thoughts of others.

I firmly believe that boredom is good for brain health, and I’m banishing podcasts for the month from my phone to bring boredom back into my life.

I had cut back on my podcast subscriptions just a week before CGP Grey first talked about his experiment on Hello Internet. And the way, he worded his reasons for why giving up on podcasts was a key part of his experiment to reduction just persuaded me to go ahead with my plan.

So I have 10 subscriptions (down from 35) now, with just 3 technology related podcasts. One releases on Monday, another on Wednesday and the last one on Friday. That’s it, the week’s quota of the technology news is covered. One podcasts is a microcast, arrives on Monday. There four are the only ones that are set to auto-downloads. All the remaining 6 are released without any fixed schedule. I decide whether to listen to them only after I read what they are about and if that interests me.

I have been on this “diet plan” of podcasts consumption for at least a month now and I am already observing significant differences. I am listening to music, a lot more, again. My mind has become curious again - there is space for some thought experiments. There are times when I just don’t carry my headphones with me even when I am going to places alone. Anyway, with nothing to listen to, there is no incentive to carry them along. So I either read on my phone or just talk to people around. Surprisingly, I find it a lot better, more effective use of the time.

However, this also means I have some time to fill during my drive to office or the morning/evening runs. To address that, I have renewed my Audible subscription — listening to Audiobooks would at least be better than podcasts. Or so I think, for now.

No-news Experiment

I was also on an experiment 3 months back where I had decided that the only way I would consume news would be via my morning newspaper. And my hypothesis was I would feel a lot less burdened to know what’s going on and so be a bit more focused on the work at the hand.

As an extension, I had also uninstalled all the related apps. No Twitter. No news apps. No notifications from social apps (Messages, WhatsApp). The idea was it is just better to stay away from the temptation to check what’s going on.

I am glad that I have following the set rules for 3 months now and I thought it would be right moment to update on that experiment.

It indeed is a not less burdensome to be away from the news. I do not think I have missed anything major or urgent in these last few months. Newspaper provides me with the detailed reporting and not just blurbs. Opinion pieces provide better context on the important ones. The useless news, whose whole purpose is to satisfy the need for the news website or TV channels to keep “reporting” something, anything new, get filtered out by the editors. After all, there is a limited pace to fill in the pages on the printed paper.

So I am no longer bludgeoned with a constant stream of everything that’s negative. With that, I think there is a lot less crap in the world than I was made to believe.

Is it bad out there? Sure. But at least I ain’t bogged down by the insignificant drivel that the world is full of.

I don’t understand Google’s call screening feature. How does it solve the spam calls problem? Don’t I have to be equally attentive when the call arrives? I don’t think the problem is I have to receive the call, problem is I get the call in the first place.

Rather I am more distracted reading transcripts and making decisions. It looks to be targeted at the automated machine-driven calls. Human spammers/scammers will still have to be handled.

In most cases, the spam calls I get start with a person, a human, asking if it indeed is me. Then goes on to specify the call is about some information related to my account or a service I am using. And then comes the “offer for you” part. I tend to disconnect right at first step when someone wants to know if me is indeed me.

What’s to say the call screening will transcribe something like “This is xyz from abc bank and this is a service information call.”?

Anyway, no doubt Google has a great technology at its hands and the showcase via this use case sounds a lot coherent than the general duplex demo we saw during I/O. I am just perplexed how everyone seems to be already sold that this solves the problem which it isn’t even targeting.

Update: The post isn’t intended to be judgemental of the feature, rather it was, to be frank, in response to the constant perspective of “this is so useful, I need it now” from all around. But I could hardly understand why. John Gruber’s this comment finally triggered this.

man oh man, do I want that feature (Call Screening) on iOS.

Even Sarah Perez described the problem with scam calls succinctly in her opinion piece at TechCrunch.

Nearly half of all cellphone calls next year will be from scammers. And their tactics have gotten much worse in recent months.

They now often trick people by claiming to be the IRS, a bank, government representatives, and more. They pretend you’re in some sort of legal trouble. They say someone has stolen your bank card. They claim you owe taxes. Plus, they often use phone number spoofing tricks to make their calls appear local in order to get recipients to pick up.

I get it, it’s a problem. But Call Screening solves it how? I could not find the answer to that question in the whole post.

Update: David has added a new function “to step around the issues micro.blog was having with images in Blot’s RSS feeds”. This change should allow using the Blot’s caching feature.

For all the defaults templates, David has already deployed the fix. So you should have the issue sorted without any update. If you have a custom template, to enable this change, wrap the html component around with the function absoluteURLs in your RSS file. For example, if you use html, use the below block in your description feed of your rss file (typically feed.rss).

{ {#absoluteURLs}} { { {html}}} { {/absoluteURLs}}

When you publish a micro post (one without title) on Blot which has images in it, Blot uses a CDN by default to store for these images. Though it may be helpful overall in blog performance, it causes some issues while interoperating with micro.blog. You will find that these images are not visible on its timeline.

It’s a known issue where micro.blog is unable to parse these images. To enable the images posted on Blot to appear on micro.blog timeline, make following changes with the configuration.

1. You can disable the blot cdn. This option is available on the Blot settings page under Settings > Services > Cache And Optimize Images. This makes the images be served directly under your blog’s domain. This change does not take much time to propagate, you will see the change reflect in the url for the images.
2. In addition, by default (in most themes), images may have relative urls. For example, you might just put \_images\<IMAGE_NAME> while adding the image to the post. However,these relative paths are again not parsed by micro.blog well (though most feed readers do it well). Anyway, to overcome this problem just include the complete url of the image while adding it (for example, http://<BLOGNAME>/<PATH>).

These changes should be enough to allow your images to be visible at m.b timeline.

It’s been some time now that I have started again to regularly write, post my thoughts. Long and short. One of the key reason for this change in my behaviour, my returned inclination to write has been the changed follow behavior. I am reading interesting posts that make me think, that make me question my beliefs. And for each such question, I have a reaction — a post.

It is all thanks to the community at Micro.blog for convincing me that every post, irrespective of how short it is, is worth putting out there. It is a way to be social. I was doing so on other social networks like Twitter anyway - through all the likes, tweets and retweets. Why not take it to the next level and do the same on, as Brent Simmons had called it, the social network - the web?

But if you think of the years 1995-2005, you remember when the web was our social network: blogs, comments on blogs, feed readers, and services such as Flickr, Technorati, and BlogBridge to glue things together.

And so that is what I have been doing. Reading from the web, reacting on the web - my website.

IndieWeb also played a huge part in helping me to go social on web though. It allowed me to post to my site my reactions to what I was reading on web. I could easily like a post, reply to it or even repost part of it and that in itself became a new post on my site - I called them the social posts. So as long as I had the posts tagged with appropriate microformats and was able to send a webmention to a site, I was interacting on web.

I need not be part of any siloed platform, I need not shout. All that mattered was I expressed. And just with that, I have been the most social I ever was online.

I am a serial procrastinator, I am not proud of it. Any hint of a distraction and I go crazy running behind that.

I also lack the skill to follow a routine. I lack the drive to not miss the day-to-day “schedule” every day, weekday and weekend alike. I think I have been shaped by the societal dislike for any thing routine. “Routine is boring”, I have been told since childhood. But I am slowly coming to realise that a daily routine may be the best solution to my procrastination problem.

My dad loves his routine. He wakes up at exactly the same time daily, carries out the same morning choir. He goes for his morning walk. Follows that up with his morning tea and a newspaper. He gets ready for his office. He has his lunch and drives to his office. Spends the same amount of time working. Comes back at home at exactly the same time. A serial or two on television, then dinner. Plan and prepare for the next day. Gets his end of day dose of news. Finally, he goes to bed just as he wakes up, at same time daily. And I have seen him following this routine of his at least since I remember. And even being close to sixty, he looks a lot less tired and a lot more fresh than any of us in thirties do.

Procrastination is a blanket idea all problems are swept under. But it’s the lack of routine which causes most of the issues in the first place. A routine may lend that time to procrastinate at that odd moment.

And the current lifestyle of mine is largely at fault. I tend to spend time in office till the work is done, which rarely gets done in time anyway. All that causes is random office hours. I do things which do not fit in the regular schedule - I would watch a live match or binge watch a new series late into the night. Weekends are marked for getaways, that means just lazy around, neither being productive nor relieved. I never go to sleep on time, so I never wake at the same time.

So, on this birthday I decided to stop leading my life so. I am going to follow a routine. I have been sleeping on the same time, getting up on the same time. Reaching office and leaving for home at the same time. I next need to plan the rest of the day too, fit my other interests around the routine tasks.

I need to get inspired by my dad. Doesn’t matter then if I get called a bore. I believe it would be worth it if I am at least a tad more satisfied.