I spent the last weekend idling around; I did not do anything that I have always considered "productive". No reading novels. Or catching up on my read later lists. Or writing. Or working on the short story in progress. Nothing. I spent the whole two days lying on my sofa, enjoying a movie marathon with my family. I did all that without judging myself, as I had recently decided.
It's so easy to idle the whole days away. As James Clear has said, "our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient". It's only understandable then that it takes too much effort to break this built-up inertia of not doing anything. Time, then, is spent generously lazying around, scoring easy joys.
The thought also reminds of this exchange between Dan Buettner and James Hamblin during one of their interviews.
Buettner: In the long-term view, you’re better off buying experiences than some new gadget. Buying things does produce some spike in joy or appreciation, but that wears off over time. A good experience actually gains luster.
Hamblin: Despite knowing that, when I actually go to spend money on traveling or even just tickets to something, I think about how soon that will be over and gone. And if I buy a couch, I have it for years.
Buettner: But the joy from the couch wears out. You’ll still flop down on it, but it won’t provide that bump of joy.
With time as the most valuable currency, what is, then, the parallel in real life to the "gadget", the thing that time can buy? Is it the worthless, hollow hours that one spends on streaming the same, old movies or TV shows? Or is that an experience?
What Buettner refers to as joy when talking about the product vs experience discourse, is satisfaction when moved over to real life. We should judge if the activity is an experience by the longevity of the satisfaction it brings.
There's no doubt that a whole day of movie marathon can lend momentary joy. But does it do that without being a burden on your mind? If so, then it is an experience. Else you have just carelessly wasted the most valuable currency for owning a thing and it will soon stop giving you joy.
What are other examples of such experiences that time can buy?
Seriously, I am tired of proving to Google that I'm human by selecting grids with zebra crossings in them. This task has to be a lot easier for bots than it is for me because I suck at it every time.
I think, maybe, just maybe we need some other ways to test if users online are humans. Just test us for what we suck at.
Keep showing usoptical illusions and check how we freak out. Our eyes keep making a fool of our minds and we let them. Of course, we are already being crazies by training computers to fall for optical illusions. Why, why?
Show us a street full of people coughing and sneezing around openly and ask a single question "what's the risk that you will get coronavirus if you walk out on this street without a mask?" Apparently, no human will say 100%.
Show the departure time of the flight. Show us the distance to the airport, the traffic en route. Ask us then when should we leave the house. Bots will always make us reach in time. Humans, on the other hand, will be either too early or too late, even when provided with all the data.
Show us a video of people playing basketball and make us count the passes. Then just make us randomly predict when will the pandemic end. If a user selects "before August starts", has to be Human. Yeah, and also show us next the walking, chest-thumping gorilla that we missed in the video.
Just put a simple multiple-choice question, "What will you name some random street?" with one of the options as "I don't know… name it whatever the fuck man". Majority humans apparently will select that.
You get the idea. Don't judge us by our smartness. If there's anything that the last few months have proven, it is that we ain't an intelligent species. It is our dumbness, our frailties that make us humans now.
The problem is that most of us have come to accept micro-stresses as just a normal part of a day. We hardly acknowledge them, but cumulatively they are wearing us down. And what’s worse is that the sources of these micro-stresses are often the people — in and out of work — with whom we are closest.
The point is that these micro-stresses are all routinely part of our day and we hardly stop to consider how they are affecting us, but they add up. They may arise as momentary challenges, but the impact of dealing with them can linger for hours or days.
I know the burn out caused by the micro-stresses. It is pretty common especially with enterprise roles. However when you look at the possible relationships that can lead to such frictions, it is only natural that the causes can be, many a times, way closer to home.
A really insightful look at the problem and possible ways to mitigate them.
I have finally made my mind. I am not going to pay for HEY. It is a wonderful service, no doubt. I love it. I just don't need it.
I have been using HEY for almost two weeks now and since last few days, I have hardly acted on any emails the way the team wants me to. Most emails have been filtered out. Tells me an email as a communication medium is already pretty worthless for me. I can't pay so much for something that's worth so little. Here's my state from yesterday as I responded to an ongoing conversation.
HEY makes my email even more worthless than it already is for me. I hardly see any emails getting filtered through to me. I'm yet to decide if it's a good thing or a bad one.
I have always been a user of the free Gmail service until now. I have evaluated many email services over the years, but haven't paid for any. I do not run my livelihood over my personal email. Neither do I receive so many emails that managing them becomes a hassle of any sort. I could just sit down for a few minutes and handle all of them together. I hardly have to triage them -- snooze or reply later are all nice features. But I rarely need them.
If all the other emails services failed to pique any interest in me earlier, why did HEY even come so close? Well, because I do see how all the features they tout as game-changing can actually solve the problems many people face with their email. No wonder then that even I want to use all the features. But my current lifestyle just doesn't have any need for any of those.
But the screening and the feed and the paper trail?
Well, I spent the last couple of hours on Gmail to clean my filters -- and with that, I have now got a pretty similar workflow in place with the help of filters and customized priority inbox. Here's how my inbox looks.
Will I be able to maintain it? No idea. I have managed to sail through for so long. I had no clue about the sheer amount of emails even my current system was already "screening" out. So, I believe I would be fine.
Won't I love if a system did that for me? Well, sure I would love that. But you see Hey doesn't want to be that system. Here's an excerpt from their manifesto.
Email’s better with a human at the helm. That’s you. You’re better at deciding where things go, what your intentions are, and how you want things set up. The machines have a lot of learning to do before they'll be able to second-guess whether you actually wanted to see that email, whether it was a receipt or a newsletter, and even what you should be writing someone. At HEY, it's human intelligence over artificial intelligence.
The whole workflow in HEY begins with me screening the first time senders before they arrive at my inbox. Well, nice. However, am ok to take the same decision after it has reached my inbox -- I will create a filter. That's ugly, manual work sure. But it doesn't cost me $99/year worth of my time.
I have already created labels for feeds and paper trail. And many more. Because you see, my emails don't just fit in these two categories. I have a lot many more filters. And I have pretty simple rules for each.
I need this mail in my inbox, unread.
I need this to skip my inbox, but stay unread. I will get to it.
I need this to skip my inbox and get marked as read.
I need this to be deleted.
That's it. All my filters do just this. I will continue to do so manually. (I do wish though that the Gmail's Android app allowed creating simple filters in their app.)
And am ok to lose the email address I want?
Well, I've currently shared my Gmail address everywhere. Even if I shift to HEY, I have to change the email address registered with many of the services. I think if I am ever to go through all this trouble, it would be for one with my custom domain. In which case, it won't matter what email address I get on the service.
All in all, HEY is a brilliant service with a fresh perspective towards the way we use our emails. It can potentially enliven the email offerings from all the players, just the away Gmail did back in 2004. But I don't face the problem it is trying to solve; I have no use for all its groundbreaking features. So, I can in no way justify paying the price it asks for it.
Give me liberty or give me death? In response, the Pandemic leans forward with a big grin full of rotting teeth. Why not both?Go out! Have some fun. You’ve been cooped up too long. You deserve this.
To all who hear me, you deserve something far better than a fun holiday weekend. You deserve a long and happy life. Tell the Pandemic to get bent. Stay close to home, and cheer our nation’s beginning from your backyard or living room.
I wish more people world around listened to Cheri Baker. I do not stay in the USA. But even when peeking from outside, the attitude of "I live my life on my terms, the world be damn" is pretty clearly evident among Americans.
I am making sure I stay sane, healthy. I am spending time on, for and with myself. I am taking care of myself to the extent that I never did before.
What else could I do?
I am making sure my family stays safe. I am sharing stories, laughing a lot with them. I am playing with my daughter. All her games, without judging them. I go on an unplanned date with my wife right at home every now and then, spend a cosy morning with her in the balcony with a cup of hot tea. I am spending time with my family to the extent that I never did before.
What else could I do?
As I go outside, I always wear a mask. I do not have or present any justification to not wear one. There can't be one. I try to enlighten others, closed ones and those that aren't so, the importance of being responsible once outside of homes.
What else could I do?
Well, there is so much more that I could do. I do not openly express my anguish looking at the adverse situation the impoverished lots are going through. I do not stand for the rights of minorities world around as much as I should. Or contribute towards changing the clearly imbalanced societal status quo.
Or speak up openly when I see a gender bias in play. I haven't yet told that one guy to not keep saying "guys" in a meeting with many of my female colleagues. It is wrong. I cringe every time. But I could also speak up.
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” -- Mother Teresa
Change doesn't always need radical corrections. I could bring the minor shifts in my behaviour and make my surrounding a fair place for all.
So, what else could I do?
Well, I could not ask that question because I know there's so much that I do not do. Let me make an effort to be a better version of myself because there's no doubt that I can never be perfect.
Facebook and Zuckerberg. And I think even the big publications all round, the likes of Wired and NYTimes, need to stop writing about the issues inside Facebook. They call their edits "exclusive", tag them as an inside look at what transpired behind the tall walls. But that hardly matters - nothing ever changes at the crazy place. Because the people who can bring the change, don't want to. For some reason that is hard to fathom to outsiders, they all are conflicted within.
Apple and Google. Too much is said about everything big and small about these companies. It piques interests in readers and so every publication has something to report about them. I can't add anything more to what has already been said, that too by minds a lot smarter than mine. I don't want to add to the noise.
Politics. Talking about the doesn't help my morale. It rather makes me a lot angrier than I need to be. And to no avail.
Meta rants about Blog. Not my writing workflow. Not the minor tweaks I keep making every now and then. Not the struggles I go through to get things exactly right. Just write and edit what I wrote. Keep the place the way I like to see it. Hear what others have to say about the place, the workflow, tweak it if needed and forget.
Things I need to do. Announce them when ready. Instead of writing about it, start doing it. Get started.
I paused at that last word in the title. I was so close to writing "hooked". But then I thought have they really sold the promise yet? No doubt, they are close. But, it's not a done deal yet.
Why is this service so enticing though? I mean it's just an email service. I don't even use the email that much. So why do I keep going back to HEY? It has got something to do with their promise. Of making me care even less for the email.
Every now and then I visit the "Screened Out" section to see all the mails I would have seen had I been using any other email app. And it is a mess in there. These emails never get filtered out with my existed setup. I am tired of setting all the filters in Gmail. It just doesn't work efficiently. Junk emails always end up reaching my inbox.
This hasn't been the case with HEY. Because they have decided on a sane default - everything screened out if not allowed earlier.
We ask every software to side with "opt-in" for every marginal aspect -- something that would split their users on whether they accept it or not. Why can't expect the same from our email service too?
And I haven't even gotten used to all the other features that I think are potential game-changers that many othershave well documented.
I have merged and renamed the threads -- I like the cleaner workflow.
I have set aside the emails and marked them to be handled later. I like the idea.
I do not like the feed; in its current form, it is almost useless. Is it just there so that I can skim through and ignore?
I like the paper trail section. I don't want to see those emails, but want them handy.
I love sticky notes and notes that we can put on emails. Such a simple, but brilliant idea.
However, with all said, I am conflicted. Do I want the clean experience so bad that I am willing to pay the cost? Do the junk email that I have got into the habit of deleting without a second thought bother me so much that I am willing to pay the cost? Can't I just manually screen-out the emails?
Vox Media has an updating list of all the Pixar movies, ranked by their Culture team from worst to best. They have been doing this since last year. So it is interesting to see the list updated with every Pixar release.
Since the release of its very first feature film, Toy Story, in 1995, Pixar has become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated animation studios. Ranging from superhero adventures to tales of a lonely robot on a post-apocalyptic Earth, the studio’s 22 movies to date have earned plaudits for being artistically adventurous and telling stories ostensibly aimed at kids that have just as many adult fans.
Yep, absolutely. I whole-heartedly agree. I and my family had recently watched Onward and had thoroughly enjoyed it. So when Vox says lets ” take a look back at the high highs and low-ish lows of the acclaimed animation studio”, even I want to attempt that. I do not agree with Vox Culture team’s ranking. So I want to put my own rankings out there.
*Nope, not gonna do that. I can’t rank all of them. There are 22 — how can you ever say if The Bug’s Life is worse than Cars 2. So, I will just give out my top ten; this is not a commentary in any sense. I am not a film critic. I can’t explain why one is artistically better than the other. What I can say is why I like, nah, love each movie in here.
10. Cars (2006)
As far as I can recall, this was one of the early movies I saw from the Pixar studio and I was left completely mesmerized. It was also the first time I realized how emotional an animated movie can leave you. The story was wonderful, made me emotional at many moments. And it wove the same magic for my daughter. So this remains a special movie, to this day; doesn’t matter if it is actually a good movie or not.
9. Onward (2020)
We watched the one the most recently as we were stuck at home for more than 3 months. And the fun we had as a family throughout was completely unforgettable. It made us laugh, made us cry and at times even terrified. It made us forget about all the terrible news that was spread through the world outside — makes it a very special movie for me.
8. Monsters Inc. (2001)
Again, another of the early movies from Pixar. I wasn’t a parent then, but it made me aware for the first time what parenting would be. As I watched Sulley and Mike struggle to keep Boo safe, at the same time growing closer to her, it made me worried and equally excited for the parent that I was one day going to be. I fell in love with Boo as she expressed myriad of expressions through her toddler face.
7. Inside Out (2015)
This has to be one of the smartest and most creative animated movies ever made. Such a creative story stitched into a brilliant movie. The colours, the characters, their journeys alone and together. How they drove the central human character was fascinating. This was again a movie that made me realize what I need not do around my daughter as she reaches adolescence one day. The story was clever, the execution was top-notch and the emotional attachment was to the point.
6. Wall-E (2008)
Another clever movie from Pixar. The first half without any spoken words was absolutely brilliant. I still can’t fathom how the studio made us fall in love with a squarish droid. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have any human features. But he expressed so many emotions that many of the well-paid actors fail to do. Wall-E’s struggle to express his love for Eve had me root for this lovely droid throughout the movie. Wish humans didn’t arrive later in the movie to spoil what could have been the finest movie of all times.
5. Toy Story (1995)
Another movie that I watched way back in my teens when I had started to believe I had become too grown up to watch animated movies any more. Pixar prove me wrong — boy what a masterpiece this one is. A movie with a brilliant story that also teaches you so much. Still being so much fun at the same time. Toy Story completely defined the roadmap for future animated films — they had to cater to the kids and the adults with a kid within at the same time. This movie did it so perfectly.
4. Coco (2017)
I love music. And I love getting emotional while watching a movie. Especially if it weaves stories around families. So Coco fit just the right spots for me. Boy, oh boy. Such a wonderful ride it was. Those mesmerizing colours. The peppy, moving music. The story that has you gripped throughout. Coco was an experience of a kind. Again, such a meaningful movie that teaches you the importance of a family. I had a tear rolling down my cheek during the final reunion song.
3. Finding Nemo (2003)
Another film that touched my yet-to-be-a-parent’s heart. I was rooting for the worried, clown-fish dad throughout his transformation. And I can’t recall how many more times have I rooted for this guy since then. I watch this movie every now and then with my daughter. She loves it; she asks me many questions about what plays out in the movie. I pull her close to me into a hug and answer her to the best of my abilities. Knowing very well, that soon she too would want to explore more and I would have to stop being overprotective and let her do that. Anyway, see that’s what even thinking about this movie does to me.
2. Toy Story 3 (2010)
There’s just so much to love about this movie. The friendship, the bond that we’ve seen grow over the 3 movies, comes so close to a culmination here. Full of laughter. Full of life-lessons. Full of heartbreaks. This is one hell of a movie - not just an animated one. Period. As Woody looks at Andy walking away while sitting close to Bonny towards the end, am sobbing away with joy. There are so many plots here and each one betters the last. This one is a string of masterclass at film making, one after another.
1. Up (2009)
Just with that masterful opening montage, this one enters my top ten list any day. I had a lump in my throat right at the beginning. The movie follows it up with weaving such a beautiful story about Carl and his relation with Russel and the many friends he makes over their journey to Paradise Falls. I loved each character in this movie. Russel. Kevin. Dug. Even Muntz for that matter. The movie had me empathize with this antagonist too before he goes all bat-shit crazy, that is. And of course, finally Carl. I loved Carl so much that I had one character based on him in my fictional short story series. Up will always remain a very special movie for me.
Best Moments from other movies
There are of course many other movies from Pixar that didn’t make the list but have some brilliant scenes. When She Loved Me song from Toy Story 2. All the action sequence from The Incredibles. Speech on criticism and creativity in the finale from Ratatouille. These movies could very well have made the list, just for these scenes. But, for me, the others on the list are just very close. So these remain the honourable mentions.
Why do I make things complicated for myself? Why can’t I keep it very simple? There is no need to spend too much time on fighting or working on something that’s not perfect or not exactly the way you want it to be. But it is manageable. Why is manageable not ok for me?
Being satisfied with manageable saves so much time, so much energy. Why do I then waste the time unnecessarily working on finding a solution which anyway won’t be perfect? Sure, may be it would good enough for me. Is that what I want? Manageable, but on my terms? Yep. Absolutely.
I have decided I will learn to live with manageable. At least, attempt to. Somethings are just not worthy enough to spend too much energy to get them perfectly to your liking.
There are three important rules you should live by if you want to survive in this world. First, always look over your shoulder. Second, never trust anyone. And third, never say “sure”.
Not to the shopkeeper that wants you to share your mobile number with him. Not to the neighbour that wants you to help him get some work done in his home. Not to your parents when they message you asking you if they can call now; they tell you it’s not urgent. You should listen to them. Not to your wife that wants you to promise her you would do something for or with her. Not to the politicians that want you to vote for them. Not to the boss that wants you to submit the revised estimates urgently. Not to the friend who wants to add you to a WhatsApp group of batchmates from school.
Because your “sure” is a promise that you know you won’t be able to keep up with. Don’t make any of these promises before you know what you are getting into. Follow their questions with some questions of your own; all should start with a “why”. Get them to be specific. Evaluate and decide what you are signing up for with your “sure”. Never ever lend an easy “sure”.
It is a different sort of day today. Things are very different. I mean what's with the lonliness within? It needn't be this way, but this can't be helped I guess. Anyway.
I am also very much reconsider the way I publish. Am back to thinking the "no-editor" interface is blot is not something I really find attractive at times. Everything is good. But a lack of a nice interface to write and publish does make me look out for alternatives. And WordPress always comes first - mainly due to the web app.
I also looked at Ghost again. This line in its comparison to WordPress left be curios.
If you're looking for a platform that increasingly attempts to do everything and don't mind cutting through the noise to make it work for your publishing needs, then WordPress might be suitable for you.
- Ghost vs WordPress
Is that a positive or negative? Plus according to Ghost, WordPress costs "average managed hosting starts at $115/mo". That sounds too high. Don't WordPress plans start from $5/mo?
Anyway, I will continue to explore stuff. Time for change again, maybe?
Another benefit is edit-on-the-go. Fixing issues with post is so much simpler with WordPress. Not with anything else.
The edit on the go is especially more powerful on desktop! I mean it opens up the editor and you can just add the text. It indeed is very powerful option. The editor is one reason I want to really consider WordPress -- even if I have to pay for it. I haven't finalized it yet though. The biggest deterrent for me is the lack of easy way to add IndieWeb support. I am yet sure if I can live without these -- mainly webmentions and syndication.
I have decided to actively be back on Twitter again. In a way, I never was off Twitter; I have been a passive contributor on Twitter for more than a year now. During that time, Micro.blog became the place that I was most active at. However, recently I have found that the platform just doesn’t attract me. It has got nothing to do with the product or the community there. Both remain brilliant. It is the diversity (or the lack thereof) that just doesn’t fit my lifestyle, my routine.
My timeline is never active when I am. Even those who are active in my timezone do not share my interests and my culture. It is frustratingly difficult to become part of this wonderful community.
I had casually pointed out this challenge during my interaction with Jean on Micro Monday. I am afraid the things haven’t improved much in the 18 months since. I have made many attempts to overcome this. I tried to inspire people that I know, that I am friends with to join the service. I built Micro.Threads to check on the conversations that I missed while I was absent. I even tried to change my routine to better fit in. It was this last attempt that made me cognizant of the limits I was going to to just be an active participant at the service.
I know there are people from my timezone, of my interest that are very much active on the service. I am sure there would be a thread somewhere listing all such folks. But that thread cannot be discovered or be searched for. Those folks cannot be easily found. I have come to realize that neither of these is a challenge with Twitter. No doubt, Twitter has its own set of challenges. But, at least, I can participate as per my routine.
Lack of diversity and discovery remains Micro.blog’s Achilles heel. It’s a wonderful community on there; it just isn’t inclusive enough for me to fit in.
The Mystery of the Blue Train is a typical Poirot mystery, just not presented in her signature intriguing style. There are just too many shifts to the points of view of the supporting characters. The clues are perceivable, but they aren’t backed by any information that is revealed earlier. There were many moments when I knew what was being narrated was important, was a clue to something. But I could just not put my finger on why that was so. The resolution towards the end too did not feel very natural; it felt rushed, forced.
With the way the novel is structured, it felt as if Christie began writing this somewhere in the middle when Poirot is introduced, reached towards the end, and began to wonder how to tie the woven mystery up. All the side characters and their backstories were penned at that point and spread across the novel.
As a whole, the story just didn’t feel coherent. It wasn’t boring; I don’t think Christie can write a boring mystery. But it just wasn’t one of her finest works. I have heard even she has acknowledged this fact.
I received a call from my daughter’s school today, enquiring if all was well with her online schooling. I was left completely clueless on how to respond to that.
My daughter’s school has enabled schooling of 5 subjects via an app. Each week, the app presents a new set of chapters, worksheets, quizzes across all 5 subjects. Besides, each week there are video conference sessions with teachers to recap what was learned in the last week.
Sorry to report, but just two weeks in, this process already seems overwhelming. It is especially so given both me and my wife are working from home.
I knew we weren’t alone. APpublished a brilliant article on how parents in the US are already getting burned through this distance learning — something that is especially tricky with young kids. And they are forced to make a very difficult choice.
Amid the barrage of learning apps, video meet-ups and e-mailed assignments that pass as pandemic home school, some frustrated and exhausted parents are choosing to disconnect entirely for the rest of the academic year. Others are cramming all their children’s school work into the weekend or taking days off work to help their kids with a week’s worth of assignments in one day.
It is just not easy. Parents aren’t trained to be good teachers. The technology was never given a chance to prove it can work independently for teaching. It was always an additive. Plus nothing, nothing can replace the in-person learning from the people who are trained throughout their lives to do that. The comment below from one of the parents is very, very apt.
This is a very crude bandage we’re putting on a very big wound. We’re just doing the best we can. A video can’t look at your child’s face and see the confusion. A teacher can do that.
I recently came across this brilliant article at Quartz at Work suggesting to “move beyond “how are you doing?” and get more serious about the questions we’re asking our colleagues, friends, and family”. It presented a list of questions that one should lead with while talking to others.
I thought I will try and attempt to answer a few of these myself. Maybe you can give it a try too. And if you do, I would like to read how you are dealing with this challenging moment. Here’s my attempt.
How are you taking care of yourself today?
Listening to music — spending some time with myself. It’s been some time that I did that. I used to do that very often. Of course, it was a lot easier to find some lone time. Not that easy any more.
What part of your shelter-in-place residence have you come to appreciate the most?
The corner with my study table, I am happy that I spent some significant time designing it while I was renovating my home. And another room I like to go relax in now and then is the bathroom.
What surprising thing have you been stocking up on (that isn’t toilet paper)?
Body lotion — I do not know why, but I have got many of them now. And biscuits. I never knew I liked biscuits so much.
What’s a story — from a book, a movie, an article, a conversation — that you’ve been gripped by recently? Why did it capture you?
All the stories of sacrifices that get published every single day — when the humans have behaved just the way they should. It has been rare to read about recently.
What habit have you started, or broken, during the quarantine?
I have fallen out of the habit of writing the morning pages. I know I shouldn’t have. But for some reason, there isn’t much that’s different that every new day dawns with.
I have fallen into my old habit of listening to the music — lots of varied music.
I am not listening to podcasts. Or Audiobooks. I am reading lots of books.
Which specific place in your neighborhood are you most looking forward to visiting once this is all over?
Every part of the neighborhood. Everything that’s outside. That’s crowded. The streets. The restaurants.
What’s the easiest part about the quarantine?
Finding stuff to idle the time away with.
What are some things you have realized that you don’t really need?
Air conditioners. Cash.
What’s something you own that feels useful?
Internet. Kindle. Plants and Garden.
What is your COVID-19 nickname/alter-ego?
The chatty, social one. I have been part of many zoom meetings, few even those where I knew no one on the other side.
What problem—either yours, or something more global —do you wish you could solve?
In today’s time of confusion and uncertainty, safety of the food, our essential need, is equally important. Serious eats has a brilliant essay on just this topic. I think the writer or me are not alone who are troubled with all these concerns, and the essay is must read in that regard.
Even so, plenty of folks—myself included—have been confused or curious about the safety of allowing restaurants to continue preparing and serving food. Is it actually safe? Should I reheat the food when I get it home? Is it better to support local businesses by ordering food, or am I only putting workers and delivery people at risk? And if I’m cooking my own food, what guidelines should I follow?
E-paper (or e-ink) displays have the unique property of not needing power to maintain an image. Once a charge blasts across the display and correctly aligns pixels full of black and white balls, everything will stay where it is when the power turns off, so the image will stick around. You might not have thought about it before, but in addition to data, NFC comes with a tiny wireless power transfer. This display is designed so that NFC provides just enough power to refresh the display during a data transfer, and the e-ink display will hold onto the image afterward.
Fascinating use of available technology. This would be brilliant for passive viewing - for dashboards or billboards or all sorts of boards that do not need regular change of content.
I was completely surprised and equally frustrated, to read the only NYTimes reporting of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation. “PM urged citizens to stay at home to dissuade Hindus Pilgrims to flock to the sacred site of Ayodha,” the report read.
The PM called for “resolve” and “restraint” from citizens. I think same is needed from publications. These are not the times to be on the left or the right of the political spectrum. Let’s all first come out of this pandemic together as unscathed as possible. There would be a lot of time again for the political debates.
Is there anyone who can easily find the one emoji that they do not use very often? How many of the 1500+ emojis can one possibly use? There is a limited set of emojis I use regularly. And because they are front and centre every time I open an emoji keyboard, they tend to get used even more often.
Even the way they get categorized is horrible. Which category do you think you will find a loudspeaker in? Objects, you say? What about a balloon? Now the answer to that might differ based on which platform you use. Android puts it under “Activities” while iOS puts it under Objects. Not just do the emojis vary across platforms, even the simple thing like how to categorize them varies.
I think the emojis need a better, simpler replacement. I do not think memoji is that - it calls for too much effort before one starts to use them. Maybe the whole emoji set needs a complete reset. Anyway, how many of the myriad face emojis can you correctly identify and use? Do you know how many we started with? Just two - a smiling face and a frowning face. Now that is manageable.
Find the “YouTube History” section and switch off the setting. Also, make sure both the checkboxes in the section are unchecked — the first one is about the videos you watch and the second one is about the searches you make on YouTube. You do not want recommendations from either. And apparently switching the whole setting off does not disable both by default.
Click on the “Manage Activity” setting and clear all the activity. You can also consider setting it to automatically delete after every 3 months.
(And while you are at it, you should also consider pausing the location history tracking. This does not break any of the Google services.)
You can also make the “Cinema Mode” as default on your video controls. This should leave less space for related/similar videos recommendations from YouTube.
It is easy to get addicted to YouTube - unknowingly spend hours clicking through the myriad of recommendations that algorithms through at you. The experience sucks. I have been burntmany a time. So much so that I spent a month off YouTube this year. It helped.
But staying off YouTube completely is difficult. The above steps have helped me not stay glued to the app for hours. I either access the video directly (if I know what I want to watch) or browse my Subscriptions page (when I don’t know what to watch). The home page is useless without history turned on. And so are other recommendations. Trust me, you do not want them.
Spotify has one job: make a great music player. They execute. Their app has none of these problems. It’s fast and bug-free. Spotify delights.
Even I had recently switched to Spotify. I believed Apple always nails an experience - so they would even for music listening. At least, they would do a better job than other players. But I was wrong. Spotify is far ahead, especially with playlists and recommendations. They rarely get it wrong.
As a side note, I always wonder why companies struggle while designing good music apps. It is such a simple use case, however most fail to get it right.
Note: I was recently held back by the 10th prompt of Microblogvember. I couldn’t come up with a satisfying subplot. I asked my 6-year-old daughter to tell me a story about space. This is her short story — I believe she has a better plot than what I could come up with. She always beats me with her creativity and freedom of thought.
There once was an old spaceship. No one used it. Everyone wanted to use the new spaceship. The new spaceship had too many lights and it flew fast. So all new people wanted to use the new spaceship.
Some old people were talking once how they wished they could go to space and see the stars from close. The old spaceship heard them, it felt sad. So it took them to space. It showed them the stars and the moon. The old people felt very happy.
Some young boys did not like those old people were also going to space. So they stole the old spaceship and hid them. The old people felt very sad that their friend was stolen. So they searched for the old spaceship everywhere. But they did not find it.
One day they got an idea. They announced to the young boys that they have got a very new spaceship. They should come and take it from them. The young boys came to take the new spaceship. But they fell and all the old people held them.
The young boys got afraid and gave the old spaceship back to them. The old people were happy that got their friend back. Now they went to space every day with the old spaceship.
I am on a journey to consciously reclaim focus from the shambles of the distracting digital world. As part of the process, I have started actively following one more routine - I log out of every social media service once I have used it.
I have, since long, not had any social media apps on my mobile device. This has helped me reduce the subconscious pick-ups of the device. At the same time, it was really easy to access the service in a browser. Especially because it is just one tap away in my favourites. That’s as good as having an app on my device.
To deter these, I now log out of every service from my browser once I have used it. So, every time I am tempted to access any of these services, an additional step of logging in is needed. There’s also an added barrier of two-factor authentications for the services that support it. Cal Newport aptly captures this sentiment of mine.
By removing your ability to access social media at any moment, you reduce its ability to become a crutch deployed to distract you from bigger voids in your life.
All and all, this one step alone of logging in every time is enough to fool my lazy mind to stay away from these “crutches”. And hence not subconsciously spend any time on the services.
Update: I have already gotten rid of every social media platform I do not need (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat). I am active only on Twitter and Micro.blog. To reiterate, my logout routine is applicable to every site that serves feed of some kind. Including email, feed readers, instant messaging platforms etc.
Besides, I have started accessing these social services only at my desktop browser in Private mode (the Incognito mode in Firefox). So even if I forget to logout, it does not matter. Once the window is closed, all my session information is lost.
I believe this change should also help me from a privacy perspective. The belief is the cookies from these data-hungry social media services would not follow me as I browse around the Internet.
Can’t they? Won’t they? That’s a whole different discussion. But overall am spending a lot less time absentmindedly scrolling these stupid feeds. I feel a lot less burdened thanks to that.
