Excursions

This is such a feel-good post to cheer one up on how a town in Somerset realised the ill effects of loneliness, isolation had and combated the perceived causes head-on.

The Compassionate Frome project was launched in 2013 by Helen Kingston, a GP there. She kept encountering patients who seemed defeated by the medicalisation of their lives: treated as if they were a cluster of symptoms rather than a human being who happened to have health problems. Staff at her practice were stressed and dejected by what she calls “silo working”.

So, with the help of the NHS group Health Connections Mendip and the town council, her practice set up a directory of agencies and community groups.

Of course, the effects were obvious, there to be seen for all.

Helen Kingston reports that patients who once asked, “What are you going to do about my problem?” now tell her, “This is what I’m thinking of doing next.” They are, in other words, no longer a set of symptoms, but people with agency.

This really made me stop and ponder on where we, as community, have reached. I remember way early in my schooling days I was taught that human is a social animal. Slowly amidst the hustle of the life, driven may be by an overly cynical narrative floating all-around, the definition of being social has completely changed.

I remember when I was living with my parents, we used to plan visits to all our friends and relatives when they were not doing well. I used to question then why should you add misery to their already miserable state by being there and making them host guests. My grandfather had explained once, “They are down, and they need people around them to lift them up — more mentally than physically. Hospitals are only paid to take care of the later. It’s the former that is equally necessary and effective.”

I feel we are being deliberately obtuse to not understand that a dull, shallow “get well soon” message rarely affects. Agree, it may lend a moment of tickle. But it is the social contact that has a chance to heal one completely, not a social message.

The world is full of fascinating minds, with a stream of curious thoughts trickling onto the web - day in day out. I came across another one today by Jamie Thingelstad, a version number for oneself.

Yes, this makes total sense to me. A decade is indeed a major version — a chance to reclaim oneself, it’s ok then if it breaks a few of the regularities that worked for you, and for others, earlier. Your routine, your habits. Your likes and your dislikes. Your looks change, so do your thoughts. It’s new you. Hopefully one who is a better, more mature, more compatible than your last major version.

Every birthday is a minor version up. You attempt to change, just a bit. You are forced to change by the surroundings, just that bit more. But the changes aren’t groundbreaking. They are minor. You are still the same you. With more or less the same maturity and compatibility as your last minor version.

Each day hardly changes anything significant. You patch anything that was amiss yesterday. If everything went well, you just glide along the same. And of course, you do not want there to be a need for too many patches, just more regular stuff. So, a version increment, without too many broken things.

Is this analogy with Semantic Versioning perfect? Of course, not - it breaks if we go into the nitty-gritty details. But that’s not the point.

If we live our life with a hope and an attempt that every patch version fixes something broken, every minor version changes some things for better and every major version brings in more maturity, more compatibility, I think we would lead a satisfying life.

v3.3.162 Release Notes

Dave Winer wrote about Google’s recent strike on non-https sites.

When big companies try to force you to change your web site, say no. The web does not belong to them. Defend the web. The answer to Google is no.

I am torn on this. On one hand, I absolutely hate that Google wants every website owner to go through the hassle of obtaining certificates and enabling https — even if it’s a plain simple text blog. But on the other hand, I realise that it’s too much to expect that regular users understand the technicalities of which sites have to be secure and which are ok if they are not.

Making all sites secure will shift the onus to the site owners rather than the readers. Those who know how to, will find a way to do so. Those who don’t are hopefully with platforms, like Wordpress, that are making it simple to enable https. It can’t be a loss for anyone, can it?

Ben Thompson of Stratechery has published a (another) great post on understanding AMP and the reasons behind its lure for publishers and success amongst users on web. It’s a must read to better understand how (and why) Google is aggressively pushing AMP across its product lines.

And of course, he also talks about the core argument against AMP - it’s an open, but still a proprietary standard from Google. And they are blatantly exploiting their monopoly in search and online advertising while promoting it.

The problem with Google’s actions should be obvious: the company is leveraging its monopoly in search to push the AMP format, and the company is leveraging its dominant position in browsers to punish sites with bad ads. That seems bad!

There is no better example than Google’s actions with AMP and Chrome ad-blocking: Google is quite explicitly dictating exactly how it is its suppliers will access its customers, and it is hard to argue that the experience is not significantly better because of it.

Yes, clearly Google wants to improve the end user experience by giving them a “better, leaner web” with AMP. Are they being monopolistic along the way? Definitely. Uncompetitive? Absolutely.

What happens when protecting consumer welfare requires acting uncompetitively?

Now that’s a loaded question — given that web is spoilt deeply with horrific and utter garbage ads spewed across, what other options remain than such hardball tactics?

I do not believe there is a convincing answer to that yet. I am sure the proponents of the open web, myself included, simply do not like Google’s utter disregard for standards in AMP. There are abundance of examples/opinions on problems with AMP.

What’s worrisome for me though is the fact that Google is markedly focused on elevating AMP’s experience on its own browser and in its own search. What if this experience of the web served by Google’s platforms turns so much better that eventually that becomes the only web user know of?

I recently read a great essay by Michael Harris where he dwells into his present-day struggles to read patiently, the old way. With focus.

Paragraphs swirled; sentences snapped like twigs; and sentiments bled out. The usual, these days. I drag my vision across the page and process little. Half an hour later, I throw down the book and watch some Netflix.

I completely empathise with this. I had realised early last year how difficult it had become for me to read, surrounded by the all-time connected gadgets. A ping here. A notification there. And out I was from my reading flow. Into the swirl of unnecessary, untimely, inconsequential “information” blurbs. What followed was a tap-swipe-scan-stare routine through the varied app icons scattered across the screen. Away from the book, the narrative.

That was also the time when I realised something had to change. First of all, the underserving notifications had to be purged.

Second, I had to start reading in a place where I am not surrounded by any connected device. So I take my kindle, walk to my balcony or to my terrace or to the garden and settle there. Without my phone. Or my iPad. Anyone needs my attention, they have to come fetch me. And I realised I was back to being more earnest while reading. Reading more regularly, speedily. Reading more. Period.

And it indeed is important that I read more for me. I realised the slackness in reading also affected my ability to pen words. I stopped writing. I knew the reason, but Michael puts it perfectly.

In Silicon Valley, they have a saying that explains why an algorithm starts producing unwanted results: Garbage in, garbage out. The idea is that an algorithm can only work with the information you feed it. Aren’t writers — all creators — algorithmic in that way? Our job is to process what we consume. Beauty in, beauty out. Garbage in, garbage out.

So maybe that change into a cynical writer can be forestalled — if I can first correct my reading diet, remember how to read the way I once did. Not scan, not share, not excerpt — but read. Patiently, slowly, uselessly.

I just couldn’t agree more. Fortunately or unfortunately, we are stuck in this information world. There is no steering clear of the frivolous interruptions we are assailed with from all sides. All I want is to pluck the opportunities I grant others to interrupt me.

Notifications are distractions, but they don’t have to be — it calls for an aggressive behaviour on user’s part to manage them. Any app that needs my attention first has to convince me that it is worthy of that. It has to convince me that it deserves the right to break into my life, to barge into whatever am doing and make me acknowledge what it has to say.

What that means is no new app gets a default “Yes” from me for its “Enable Notifications” prompt. They are always disabled first. (Same applies to my privacy too. No app gets access to my location, even while running, or my photos or my contacts. No, always a no.)

Every app, at least on iOS, clearly communicates why it needs that privilege - by prompting at appropriate time, during an appropriate task. It is then that I make the call if that cause is indeed genuine.

And then there are those apps that make me anxious for their notifications, for some instant gratification they deliver (e.g. social media likes). I have realised one thing - these apps should not be allowed to light up my screen or vibrate in my pocket. Because valuable minutes and hours are lost in checking if they indeed have lighten up. It also grants me another incentive to access the app and follow what’s going on there. Of course, on my own terms this time.

Attention is a valuable asset, acquired with extreme difficulty, one that costs dearly to regain when lost. That device in your pocket is there to assist you, to save you time. Don’t let it steal this asset throughout the day.

A receding hairline poses a lot of annoyance for the owner of one. And I won’t even get into how painful it is to watch your forehead span further into your scalp with each passing day. That’s manageable. It’s the juggling act that gets played out everyday on your head that is crazy.

The remaining soldiers battling at fore-front start behaving like sore losers, running helter-skelter. But they are also wired for a sole task to cover the scalp, so they keep curling and furling all over the deserting scalp. Of course, failing terribly at their attempt to cover it to any convenient extent.

The dearth of much competition also makes every individual’s development feel brisk, the troop growing longer rather than denser. Given there remain very few of them, they get caressed more by the owner, pulling few out every time they are.

What this leaves behind is a scene akin to a movie theatre playing any recent M. Night Shyamalan movie. Very few that matter occupying the seats, scattered, with tons of empty spaces peeping all across.

This is a really fascinating, and an extremely detailed account from Kashmir hill journaling her experiment of wiring her house to spy on her.

Why? Why would I do this? For convenience? Perhaps. It was appealing to imagine living like the Beast in the Disney movie, with animated objects around my home taking care of my every need and occasionally serenading me (…) But that wasn’t my primary motivation. The reason I smartened up my house was to find out whether it would betray me.

Of course, Kashmir’s being extremely daring (which she is known to be) to open her (and her family’s) life up to be monitored and analysed to such levels. And of course, there are some key findings, some already known (but still appalling), some new. Here are my few key observations.

1. Smart devices are still terrible to setup and keep up. It’s a technology of future, no doubt. But future is still not here.
2. There is still a big void for a single hub that talks to all smart devices. It is a broken bridge with silos all over the place.
3. Majority of the makers of appliances are still dependent on external, barely known solution providers for adding smarts. Dado Labs? Seriously?
4. None of the smart home devices follow any principles around handling the privacy and security of the data they engulf. Rather, no such standard principles are even debated over and agreed upon.
5. Smart home devices tend to ping their original homes, the servers, dial in and report on duty very frequently. Typically, for no good reason.

An exaggerated version of this was seen in the Echo and Echo Dot, which were in constant communication with Amazon’s servers, sending a request every couple of minutes to http://spectrum.s3.amazonaws.com/kindle-wifi/wifistub-echo.html. Even without the “Alexa” wake word, and even when the microphone is turned off, the Echo is frequently checking in with Amazon, confirming it is online and looking for updates.

Finally, your router remains the prominent data collector for your online presence. Your ISP, the prominent data aggregator. And neither are really too keen to protect your data online.

I guess everyone agrees that smart homes are dumb, and there are enough evidences of that pouring in every day. Problem is they are capable of knowing so much about you. And, at times, sending it out there in open without protecting it in any way — lending them a lot of power.

Dumb and powerful, now there’s the super villain from any sane person’s nightmare.

Brent Simmons wrote a great post on why micro.blog is not another App.net. And I completely agree with him. I do want to add a couple of aspects which I believe lends it a better chance to succeed.

Brent has clearly articulated on why micro.blog is different, especially the key parts below.

And so everyone who follows me on Micro.blog sees my blog posts, and I see theirs. Simple.

And anyone who wants to could just read my blog in an RSS reader instead. All good, all open.

If the web is a river, Micro.blog is water, where Twitter and Facebook are dams.

I believe that is also where lies the biggest differentiator for micro.blog. After all, the posts are on one’s personal website too (I would say they exists primarily on the website first). Not locked in some silo. So in way, micro.blog acts as a feed reader for people to discover and follow posts. With an added layer of interaction around them. Every aspect based on open IndieWeb principles. Of course, I am oversimplifying, but it makes it analogous to how people have understood web.

An additional aspect that I think @brentsimmons did not extend the argument to is around adoption. For any platform to succeed it is important that a community of entusiastic adopters join. More importantly, they stay actively involved in using and improving the platform. I think with app.net this aspect was clearly missing — it managed to address the first, but it just couldn’t be different enough from Twitter to take care of later. So it had many users, but hardly any active ones. Eventually, it got crushed under the networking effect of Twitter.

I believe that is not the case with Micro.blog. Fact that one can continue to write on his own website and still be involved in the platform for interaction just makes it a good sell — especially for the proponents of open web like me. We are already seeing the early signs of that — the community is building up, staying active and involved. And it keeps growing (with more prominent developers joining in). So here’s hoping we would finally have all that was good in 2000’s web, adopted for consumption habit of 2018.

#micro.blog #opinion

Steven Sinofsky, in response to an interesting (and hopefully promising) note from Axios, again raised the long debated point.

Adding touch to OS X would bound to be disappointing. Plenty examples of this challenge. Ultimately the use case for touch on legacy desktop OS is minimal. BUT you can’t run iOS without touch and it remains a huge challenge to have a multi-modal API..

I have always been on the side of touch being useless on desktops/laptops. But proponents of this feature have disagreed, putting forth many justifications and success stories, even if anecdotal, with Windows 10 Ultrabooks. Even though I am rarely convinced, I can appreciate how touch can come handy for some activities - mainly clicks and scrolls — especially since iPad with Bluetooth keyboard nullified benefits of laptops in some situations for me.

I believe the request from the proponents to Apple is to not make a decision for the end user, not attempt to identify purpose for, or lack thereof, touch. Put it in, let users benefit if they think they can. Unfortunately, I do not think Apple ever introduces an interface to a platform without their justification for and user story behind it.