Excursions

I had to stop reading Thinking Fast and Slow. Not sure if it was the audiobook form or my current frame of mind, but it was monotonous, bland chapter after chapter — like a textbook. I will pick this up again some time later, may be. But for now, this isn’t for me.

This particular review from Jacques at Goodreads resonated with me. Especially this part.

There is also the struggle between wanting to speed up the book due to the slow and monotonous narrator, but wanting to slow it down to absorb the information.

I love the simple paintings that my sister makes.

Every now and then, you come across people who are filled with negative vibes. There is nothing constructive that they can ever think of about any activity at hand, individually or for the team. And it is with these people that I find working with the hardest.

Laziness and incompetence are both undesired quirks in a person. But I am fine to have people with these traits on my team than those who are pessimists.

Lazy people can be nudged with a smaller, broken-down tasks. Incompetent people can be trained. Worst case you can decide not to work with them. You only lose that one person.

A negative thought, on the other hand, is contagious — it ruins the environment in a team. It rubs off on to others, bringing down the productivity and the quality of everyone around.

It is even worse if such people are also skilled at one particular job - making timely noise. Because the noise they make first portrays the team in poor light and second dents the morale of the whole team.

Learn to not be a naysayer — wish people could be forced enrolled in such courses too.

1. Duplex on Chrome? Sorry, not for me. Google wants Chrome to be a platform — but it already runs on another platform, my OS. And in here, I want it to stay a browser. Chrome OS can go as wild as Google wants. Not the regular browser. Another reason I stay a Firefox user.
2. Apple today released iOS 13.1.2 and iPadOS 13.1.2. And users are still reporting on some unfixed bugs, even those that Apple claims they have fixed. Has there been any iOS release that has been buggier than this? I hope introduction of iPadOS hasn’t affected the dev team, that was already thin, further. That, at this point, looks to be a strong possibility.
3. When Apple Arcade and TV+ are priced aggressively as they are, the high subscription cost of Apple News+ sticks out. Is it driven by Apple or the publishers? If we don’t see a course correction soon, I doubt it is the later.
4. Music is priced exactly the same. So may be, it is driven by who owns the primary content that Apple provide subscription for?
5. A couple of Surface devices that Microsoft plans to release in their upcoming event have leaked. More than the Surface laptops (which unfortunately look may too similar to MacBook Pros - so much for differentiating), I am always excited about the 2-in-1 devices from Microsoft. I find the hinge designs in there to be really well done, with some crazy low angles!

Every now and then, I wonder about that time when I am at my creative best. It is, rather, everyone’s desire to find that time, that place, those tools that make them more productive at being creative.

However, I have realized over the years that being productive and being creative are antithetical more often than not. There are times when I am at my creative best, I do something that I have never done — say, I doodle the best I ever have — and my brain considers this to be a non-productive use of the time I had at my hands. Why? Because that wasn’t the “plan”.

Productivity can be measured, quantified. Creativity can’t be. As a result, productivity is always driven by one’s overly thinking brain while creativity is a response to a curious mind.

The essential spirit of creativity is captured brilliantly in this quote from Wayne Dyer.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

That’s so meaningful — no doubt that one often fails to think creatively these days. Our minds are ruffled all the time by the distractions of our digital life. So every so often, I am on the lookout for that stillness.

Apple Arcade needs instant play - similar to the instant apps on Android. It is extremely frustrating to wait for huge games to download before you can even try them. With a huge list of games, downloading every one of them is overkill. More so with Apple’s stingy storage plans.

A year ago I wrote “Woke up to find that Amazon brought a bag full of ‘things’, untied it on stage and started throwing it against the wall. No one has any idea if what try hurled is genuine or shit and if it will ever stick.”

Amazon did that again today — a yearly ritual now.

I recently started watching Undone. Actual storyline aside, I am not yet sure if I like this method of animation - rotoscoping. Especially the way it is used in this particular show. It is too close to reality to not be presented as such. Why go through all this trouble?

I recently changed the pair of glasses I was using. I do not like to go through the pains of this whole process.

First, one needs to select a frame that would suit his or her face — something that “looks good” on the face. It is bloody difficult to see if something looks good if it is the see aspect that you have problem with.

“I don’t know how it looks on me because you have taken away from me the very object that I can look through.”

Testing eyesight that follows is a similar hassle. I am surprised that there is still no better and foolproof way to do this than actually putting glasses of increasing powers on your face.

Or if there does exist a better way to do this, may be I need to visit those clinics.

Anyway, thankfully this time I was lucky with my glasses - I think the frame does look good on my face.

I find it fascinating that Twitter recommends me to follow someone that hasn’t been active for more than two years. Why, why should “follow” that person? I am yet to come across any recommendation engine that works.

Recently, I have been seriously considering moving my Wordpress account to a paid plan. It hosts my old blog with posts from ages ago — it currently acts as an archive of the un-migrated posts for me.

There is a reason why I am a bit itchy with my writing workflow. I am struggling to get stuff written across systems, mainly mobile and desktops, at home and work, with drafts kept in sync. Sure, I can use Dropbox as my file store and access the draft posts using iA Writer or other Markdown text editors. However, I am very particular with not signing into and linking anything personal on my work machine, so this workflow does not work at work.

I would have really liked something that is web based. I have been, since long, trying to find a micropub client with a satisfying writing experience for long form posts, along with drafts support. I still haven’t found one. Neither have my attempts to just create one ground up gone anywhere, mainly for the need for multiple working drafts.

I do have a Netlify CMS setup for my main Hugo driven website. However, though it works fine from a desktop, it has a terrible experience on mobile.

Wordpress solves this particular problem for me. I have come to realize finally that it has a nice, clean writing interface on desktop. And with its stable mobile app, the workflow is manageable on mobile too.

But, boy I am ruined by markdown - I can’t write in “Rich Text” any more. Plus, I can’t host my posts on a website which does not have the Indieweb principles baked in. I am aware that Wordpress has a IndieWeb plugin. However, one needs a business account to install plugins. And that’s too much of a cost to sign up for this casual experiment.

So my search for the online writing interface with support for sync and drafts and satisfactory interface on desktop and mobile continues. With Wordpress, it’s so close, but far.

I am tired of people making fun of a feature just because they cannot think of a use for that. This attitude recently came to the fore with Apple’s introduction of “slofies” - the slow-motion selfies. The call for “stop trying to make slofies happen” was loud and clear from the tech community. Apparently, “no one else wants to use it” because we do not want to use it.

That’s a terrible take. Sure, may be the feature can be graded low on the “usefulness” parameter, but it stands high on the fun scale. And our smartphones today are the most personal devices we carry around with us today, and that is not just because they are useful. They are equally fun too.

So stop mocking anything that you will not use. Selfies. Crazy filters. Slow-motion videos. Loop and Bounce effects - the boomerangs. They all make these dull devices a lot more fun. And their fun factor is what makes them sell in masses.

I had no idea that there exists something called Nation Play-Doh Day. It does, and it is today. This “toy” always fascinates me. This also reminded me today of a crazy, rainy evening from my childhood when we friends deferred on not one, but many activities frowned upon.

There are so many of these apparently great films of the 21st century that I haven’t seen yet. I have seen few, but they are mostly from before 2010. I can see a correlation with the changing priorities in my life. And I forgot Gladiator belongs to the current century ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I wonder what’s the best way to make note of the fleeting thoughts, say adding an item to a list of things that one needs to do. I know my memory is not my friend here — it gobbles stuff, but fails to let it out timely.

Digital methods are easy to use, convenient, but are unnatural. You lose touch, context, of the written words after some time. They end up being a plain dump of words with no background.

I can capture more context with analog methods — a quick sketch or the current location — but it isn’t convenient. Either I do not have a piece of paper handy or I can’t stop and capture the thought (being in middle of traffic, let’s say) right at that moment.

I am waiting for the day the digital assistants would be smarter to help capture such thought. Today they aren’t. First, they can’t be easily summoned — “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri” doesn’t work in middle of traffic, blaring horns or loud chatters.

Second, they are terrible at capturing unformed thoughts. They need structured inputs, which quick notes aren’t. Using digital assistants today is a painful battle between reality and expectations. Former is driven by the technology limitations, later by the out-right spurious promises in the advertisements.

With all said and done though, I have recently - and after enduring lot of pain - learned that heavy reliance on one’s smartphone to lead a structured life is not very sensible to do. There is a chance that it can lead to utter chaos when you don’t have your device on you. It can completely paralyze you for thoughts.

If a website doesn’t function on a browser other than Chrome or with content blocking on, it loses me as a visitor. I am tired of web developers being clumsy — prompting that we won’t serve content because you block ads is one thing. A nonfunctional website reeks callousness.

Recent partial failure of the Indian lunar exploration mission — communication loss with the lander Vikram — made me think how crowded the surface of moon must be.

There have been many such hard and soft landings and crashes on the surface of the moon since way before as part of numerous attempted Moon exploration missions, 137 to be precise. And there is a huge list of “artifical” objects that we have magaed to send on the way to the surface of the Moon. Boy, so much to grasp there. Especially dates. Just look at the first entry on there - Luna 2, “the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body”. We, as species, complete 60 years of that achievement today. Fascinating!

Humans have left over 187,400 kilograms (413,100 lb) of material on the Moon, and 380 kilograms (838 lb) of Moon rock was brought back to Earth by Apollo and Luna missions. The only artificial objects on the Moon that are still in use are the retroreflectors for the lunar laser ranging experiments left there by the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 astronauts, and by the Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2 missions.

Apple needs to stop being so stingy with the storages they provide. I do not recall they putting much emphasis on their storage plans, on-device or cloud. It’s worrying that they get mocked all around for this and they are fine with it.

We worry about face recognition just as we worried about databases - we worry what happens if they contain bad data and we worry what bad people might do with them.

A great post by Benedict Evans where he compares our fears around usage of facial recognition technology, and in extension the AI and data hoarding, to the fears we had when data gathering and analysis capabilities of databases was being introduced. Some comparisons are indeed apt. And some fears, of course misguided and misplaced.

Gathering data inherently isn’t bad — it is the fact that it enables bad people to use it in bad manner that everyone knowledgeable worries about. So, the call for regulating the usage of the data isn’t unjustified. However, the exaggerated and far-fetched fall-outs of data misuses, and the recent own goals by the big corps, like Facebook, Google and others, are just making regulators around the world shoot for the easiest target out there — their ability to collect data.

The challenge here, I think, is to work out the right level of abstraction. When Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme imploded, we didn’t say that Excel needed tighter regulation or that his landlord should have spotted what he was doing - the right layer to intervene was within financial services. Equally, we regulate financial services, but mortgages, credit cards, the stock market and retail banks’ capital requirements are all handled very separately. A law that tries to regulate using your face to unlock your phone, or turn yourself into a kitten, and also a system for spotting loyalty-card holders in a supermarket, and to determine where the police can use cameras and how they can store data, is unlikely to be very effective.

Not justifying either side. But the fact that there is a possible conflict of interest with Google’s Project Zero involvement, given it owns competing platforms from Apple and Microsoft, this kerfuffle was bound to happen. Am surprised it didn’t fall out earlier.

For my 5 year old daughter who just watched another magician perform, magic is a skill that is matched by nothing else. It is something that she continues to believe that her father can perform — and something that she is learning to perform.

For me, magic is the silliness that I willingly become part of just to watch my daughter, impressed, giggle. Magic is that feeling when I watch her jump around excitedly after I pull a coin from behind her ear or after I make things disappear and reappear out of thin air.

Magic is what happens when I spend more mindful time with my daughter and my family. When the distractions of the day to day digital life lay forgotten in some corner of the home. When my daughter lends a spontaneous burst of energy and everyone around just joins in on her imaginative games. When there is nothing playing in the background expect for the chatters and guffaws or even complete silence at times. When everyone I love is around me, with me.

That is when magic happens.

Recently, my reading habits have been pleasantly satisfying. If not something that I can be proud of, or anything that’s comparable to the voracious readers I know of, at least I am glad they are far improved. It is only the start of September and I have already met my Goodreads challenge- 4 books ahead of schedule. I understand it was a small target this time - book a month - but I was worried I would not meet even that. I am happy that I did it so comfortably.

It is the use of Audible that has led me to at least stay on track for the “book a month” target. Every credit I got in the month was excitedly utilized. I say “excitedly” because I used to be keen to get a new credit and identify a new book at the start of every month. Of course, it meant I had to change the habits of my “reading” - rather listening. No podcasts. No music in car. It had to be a book.

I thought I would always have one. This month proved that would not be the case always. I was through with the audiobook — the brilliant second in the Discworld series from Terry Pratchett — in the first week itself. Audible is wonderful!

This allowed me time to kindle my reading habit next. So, well, my old Kindle had to get recharged and be ready to serve. And serve it did. It was great to complete reading one book and get in the middle of another — right after finishing the audible book. There are times when I can’t listen — or may be I can avoid listening. Especially when I have a limited time at hand. For example while standing in a short queue. Kindle app on my phone has taken that mind space. It is better than letting the stream of some social network, mainly Twitter or YouTube, pollute my mind with some useless posts.

So August was brilliant from reading perspective for me - 2.5 books read. I want to continue doing so in the remaining year too.

There is one book that I just can’t get back to, the latest in the Cormoron Strike from J.K.Rowling. This one has stayed there in the list of my “currently reading” books for more than a year now. I am ~30% in. And I am no way inclined to pick it up again. It is not that I do not enjoy the Strike series. I do. I have throughly enjoyed the first three books. But there is something about the latest one, or the time when I am reading it and the state of my mind, that makes me uninterested in story it narrates. Or the way it narrates it.

I may have to drop it for now, move it to couldn’t complete. May I will attempt to read it again with a fresh perspective. And at a new phase.

It’s been around a month since I started maintaining a bullet journal (BuJo, as it is called with love). It has been an enlightening month - I have learned so much about my habits and the way my mind works.

Of course, this wasn’t my first attempt at maintaining a journal or of planning myself, my life through an organizer. There have been many failed new year resolutions that have led to me buying, keeping and planning my days and months in the traditional journals - ones with days, months written on every page. With every day that I had failed to make an entry in, I had lost my interest in writing or planning another today. I just wasn’t organized enough each day, everyday to keep myself, well, organized.

However, I love, love updating my personal bullet journal daily. I believe the analog method of doing so is one big reason behind the change. Thoughts flow freely through the pen on to the paper — a lot more so than they do digitally. There is something about the legibility (illegibility, to be fair) of the handwritten words that lowers some mental hurdles. I always wondered, and even subconsciously ridiculed, the fascination a section of my social circle had with the pen and paper - the pen addicts. But I do fathom the allure now.

The fact that I could be more organized with BuJo by being less organized at times was neat. The process of “maintaining” a journal feels a lot less formal and this casualness has done wonders for my journaling/organizing attempts. The whole concept of rapid logging - capturing thoughts as bulleted lists - worked brilliantly for me. It was ok to miss bullets for a day. It was ok to not have any tasks, but only notes for a day. It was ok to not complete tasks on the day, or even in the week that it was written — just migrate it to a new page. It’s perfect for my moody, erratic, unorganized mind.

A month of habit tracking has also been delightful. This is what I was tracking when I started this habit of tracking habits - morning walk/run, publish 100 words every day, measure weight, three meals a day and regular sleep routine.

And boy, have I learned stuff about what makes me carry through any habits. Some habits are easy, some are way too difficult.

• Habits that I thought would be a cakewalk to follow, turned out to be a walk in a desert. Those I thought would need more push from my side came just naturally.
• I had thought 100 words to be published daily would be the most difficult task for me to stick to. Three meals/morning walks would be difficult, but not so much. Nah ah. It is apparently easier for me to do things I enjoy doing (bruh, of course) - so I wrote daily more often than I jogged or controlled eating. However, I thoroughly enjoyed attempting to stick to all the three daily, so I plan to continue to track them.
• Measuring one’s weight daily does nothing but act as a deterrent when you are trying to lose your weight. It is easier to do, but useless. Anything that I shouldn’t be doing daily doesn’t need to be on the tracker.
• Maintaining regular sleep routine was something I did almost daily. But this tracking was also the most ineffective of the lot. I think I know the reason - I just wasn’t specific enough with my target. “Regular” and “routine” are subjective. So any sleep more than 7 hours was fine — didn’t matter if it was pleasant or how I felt when I woke up. I do want to sign myself up for a good sleep routine. So this particular item would need some changes.

With all the learnings, I decided to continue with my habit tracker, with some tweaking. This is what I would track as my daily habits for the next month.

• Rise by 6 AM
• Morning Walk/Run
• Morning Pages
• Publish 100 Words
• 3 Meals/day
• Sleep by 11 PM

Since I started maintaining a bullet journal, I have also started carrying along a small diary that I mainly use for the morning pages. It helps me declutter my mind to a limit. Do I see benefits? I believe it is too early to say. But it is something I do want to carry on.

It has been a wonderful month of reorganizing the way I lead my life with journals. Is it worth all the effort I have to go through? Only time will tell. But it for sure has made some aspects of my life more fun.

I believe I have finally managed to get the Micropub posts - mainly likes and notes - created via Shortcut. Have solved my need for now, mainly link posts with content and notes with syndication. This note is a test for later in a way.

When will the private companies selling consumer products stop assuming they continue to own the product (and especially the data it collects) after it’s sold? And use, monetize and share it as they deem fit?

Doorbell-camera firm Ring has partnered with 400 police forces