When my daughter requested recently if she can have her YouTube channel, I wondered if she would manage to keep her interest. She does. She reads, writes and keeps recording. Sure, not everything comes out perfect. But she does not stop. Today, her second video is out. Yay!
After a year of recording and sharing videos with the closed family, my daughter requested for something I knew she would one day, her own YouTube channel. After putting all the checks in place, here’s her video for Kids published on the Web.
Earth’s mysterious red glow, explained →
In 2009, a satellite circled Earth, scanning and sorting the wavelengths reflecting off the planet’s surface. Researchers noticed something baffling: an unexpected wavelength of unknown origin. They tried looking at Earth with only this wavelength, and saw the planet covered in a red hue of varying intensity. So, what was going on?
Cambridge scientists might have possibly detected presence of dark energy.
About a year ago, the XENON1T experiment reported an unexpected signal, or excess, over the expected background. “These sorts of excesses are often flukes, but once in a while they can also lead to fundamental discoveries,” said co-author Dr Luca Visinelli.
It’s curious to read about the scientists talking about their experiments. Their palpable excitement is always contagious.
If you like ebooks, great. Enjoy your dim, gray screen in peace. If you hate them, don’t worry about it. Who says everything must involve a computer?
I love physical books, but I prefer reading the ebooks. I hope the distinction is clear enough. If I could afford, I would purchase both the physical and digital version of a book. Read the digital version, carry around my library in the Kindle always. That affluent me then can gawk at the beauty of the physical book and stack it in his self-designed library.
Source: The Atlantic — “Why Are Ebooks So terrible?”
There’s so much of coverage for Colossal — a firm that plans to resurrect the Woolly mammoths. I have made an entry in the diary. We will remember this day as one when the curious scientists planted the seeds for the massacre at Jurassic Park.
I published a few thoughts on busyness. Over the years, I’ve realized that my mind has become a pool of copious ideas from varied fields. It is like an open pond, extremely prone to ripples from externalities, big and small. I allow that no more.
My potential is mine to fulfill or to waste.
I completed agree with Kimberly Hirsh. When someone says live upto your potential, I don’t understand what that means. Who decided what my potential was? How did you decide that? And the bigger question is, why?
My potential doesn’t define me - what I do, does.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s simply a fear of bad writing. Do enough bad writing and some good writing is bound to show up.
Seth Godin suggests just write something. I agree with him.
If you are not fully vaccinated yet — well, McSweeney’s essay is important for you — you need to search for a genuine reason for that. The only reason that’s genuine is that you physically can’t. Either there aren’t enough vaccines where you live, or you have some physical condition which limits you from getting the shot.
The tension is simple: If a platform is carefully vetted and well-curated, it meets expectations and creates trust. If it’s too locked down and calcifies, it slows progress and fades away.
Seth Godin talking about how open platforms are always in risk of becoming spammy and losing the trust of the users. I entirely agree — it’s a path that most platforms, open and closed, follow.
They enjoy the carefree attention from the excited early adopters who associate with the core values of the platform creators. But as the platform grows, it attracts users which would neither share the excitement nor the patience of the early adopters. They get noisy — they want to use the platform like their old one they are comfortable with. They need features that they are used to, not what the platform provides.
So, eventually, the tension that Seth refers to above gains prominence.
China puts limits on playing video games →
Children and teenagers are now banned from online gaming on school days, and limited to one hour a day on weekend and holiday evenings under government rules
Is that really a government? That sounds utter crazy!?
“As some richer countries hoard vaccines, they make a mockery of vaccine equity.”
Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the Africa director at the World Health Organization, said in an online news conference.
We’re providing more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined”
Mr. Biden said in another press conference.
Both might be be true - but one reeks of elitism, an indifference to the world’s suffering.
Liked Martin MacDonald’s tweet→
My brain is like Chrome. 237 tabs open, 3 are frozen, and I’ve no idea where the music is coming from.
I think all can relate to this! 😊
Soon enough, I’d learn that my idle curiosity was, in fact, a mystery that has baffled and, at times, infuriated botanists for decades. This snack has been widely sold on the streets for decades and yet, somehow, no one seems to know what it is.
A fascinating read - so close to the home and yet I was clueless of this mystery.
[Facebook Wants Us to Live in the Metaverse] (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/facebook-wants-us-to-live-in-the-metaverse) →
“The metaverse is “a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces”
Sigh. Why do we keep putting a new name to the same old stuff? Of course, I know - for monitory purpose.
What Will Happen to My Music Library When Spotify Dies? →
These methods of archiving are either imperfect, impractical, or both—and besides, even if I went through with them, chances are that decades from now, I’d just end up with a monster text file or a long-obsolete hard drive that would be a pain to sync up with some future listening platform.
I lost my music collection some 7 years back and I never attempted to build a personal music library since then. I have accepted the fact that the benefits of streaming services (mainly around discovery) are more valuable to me than my quest for a personal collection of my favorite songs. Unfortunate, but practical.
Could Gen Z Free the World From Email? →
The main problem with email then is not necessarily that there is too much of it, but there is too much competition.
And yet, email continues to stay relevant.
Falling in love with Strangers →
I knew I missed little exchanges with strangers during sheltering in, but I’d forgotten just how beautiful and hilarious humanity really is. We are so silly.
How to (Actually) Save Time When You’re Working Remotely →
During a time of global crisis, it’s healthy to prioritize relaxation, and it’s natural that we might struggle to maximize productivity at work. But as we return to semi-normalcy, what can we do to ensure we use our time savings to pursue meaningful activities that make us truly happy?
After almost 30 years in business, Yahoo has come to be known as a straight-up villain. [T]he company’s most notable characteristic at this point is “the sheer amount of destruction they’ve done to the historical record.”
Ever notice the view is wrong in all first person games that exist today? In reality when we look around our eyes don’t just rotate but actually swing side to side and even up and down. As an example this video shows Skyrim configured for our real vision.
Bug in Notepad Involving Asterisk in Title Bar →
[W]hen you open a text document and change the text by using the Delete key to delete the character ahead of the cursor, the asterisk does not appear in the title bar. If you delete the character using the Backspace the asterisk appears though.
Om Alone →
I have also developed uncanny abilities—not exactly superpowers, but I am now able to read entire books while thinking about other things the whole time. When I first realized that this was happening, I would reread the paragraph or two that I’d missed, but my subconscious—or, more specifically, my third eye—told me that it wasn’t necessary, so I just kept reading and thinking and have now read more books than ever before.
Numbers don’t lie, except when they do. They [statistics] can help remedy our human fallibilities. What’s easy to forget is that statistics can amplify these fallibilities, too.