Excursions avatar

Excursions

Thoughts

I have read reactions to WWDC from many folks now. And almost each one of them has found a different thing to be extremely exited about. Tells you Apple delivered a blockbuster one this year. So many groundbreaking announcements — loads of promises and busy summer for devs.

Watching Agents Of Shield, the series is surprisingly good. Initial few episodes were ok, but it has grown on me towards end of season one. Low expectations of mine - thinking it is just an attempt at milking the Avengers craze - did help. Look forward to more of these agents.

It’s been crazy times recently. Times with changes abound, changes in every facet of my life. At work. Off work. “Renovation” is a possible connotation for change - inherently positive, may be. But one can’t be afraid of change and still sign up to renovate significantly.

When people declare on Twitter they would be at some place in town and are open for a meet, are they looking forward to meet strangers? Don’t think Twitter’s a network of people you know in real life.

I do not understand this narrative of folding phones being the smartphones of future. Why would you carry a device which is physically more prone to damage, is a lot less comfortable to hold in all dimensions — and I believe a lot less useful too, both folded and unfolded 🤔

A hot Sunday Summer afternoon is well spent with the whole family over a game of Dobble. Lots of teasing, lots of fun, lots of laughter. Don’t think there’s any better way to beat the heat.

Managed to book tickets to Endgame — boy, the craze for the movie is off the charts. In recent times, I’ve avoided the frenzied rush to the theaters. But I had to catch the end of this saga in all its glory with its most ardent fans, myself included. I join the frenzy, hence.

I am done binge-watching all the seasons of Brooklyn 99 - it was a refreshing time-out at the end of a work day. I am back sifting through the list of the shows recommended here earlier. I started Sherlock and How to get away with murder again. I may stick with later.

I believe Indian selectors went with the safe options, calm heads over fireworks, while selecting the cricket World Cup squad. Most of the team picked itself - selection of the couple was going to be tricky, whichever way the decision tilted. Overall squad looks fine though.

Do people use Anti-virus software, especially on Windows? I never used one on Mac, but since moving to Windows, that is one aspect I am pretty split on. I have been primarily using Windows defender, but every one around suggests that might not be enough.

I realise I have a very different taste in music than majority of the people out there (or so I am made to believe). I enjoy none of the global trending/top songs, most of them are hip-hop/rap. I am surprised that’s the genre people groove to the most.

This week’s episode of Reply All (#140) was pretty interesting. Of course, the issue being discussed itself was intriguing - Ben’s “car stereo completely breaks” when he listens to one particular podcast. And, of course as usual, it was produced so well - fun and exciting.

“Samsung’s Galaxy A80 is an automated notchless slider with rotating triple camera.” This is getting totally crazy now - that’s too many moving parts, 2 years out of this hardware would be a stretch. We’re going back to the times of absurd designs of pre-iPhone days.

Castro welcomed me today with this screen. Of course, they were expecting an “Aww thanks” from me. But that wasn’t the feeling I had. All I could think was “why”. Stop paying “attention” you guys.

If there’s a one feature on iOS that has remained in my wishlist for too long now is setting defaults. It was browser earlier, it’s tiring to use anything other than Safari. Plus since I started using Spotify more, I again feel a need for this. Am sure Apple won’t like that.

The Golden Age of Half-Truths →

I would argue that we are living in the golden age of half-truths, thanks in part to the evolution of media as a tool for inducing dopamine.

Om Malik says it well, half-truth allows media houses to keep their story engaging without lying.

I am a quarter into Lethal White. Intriguing as always from Rowling, the story moves as the mystery deepens. Of course, the master at work again, building characters that we care for while weaving mysteries that they care for.

When I watched the first couple of episodes of Brooklyn Nine Nine, I instantly gave up. I thought it was too childish — and I had very different expectation. But it has grown on me now, I have started digging the inherent goofiness of all the characters.

State of Mobile Imaging

There has been a lot of positive craze around Huawei P30 Pro’s cameras recently. For me it started with this Twitter thread by Vlad Savov of The Verge where he compared images from this latest phone from Huawei against Pixel 3. Especially, the pitch dark, night-sight pictures. Just look at this specific example from the thread.

That’s simply criminal. Here’s Vlad summarizing his observation in the article.

In the following example, featuring an unlit bathroom where my eyes could detect shapes but no colors, the P30 Pro does the unbelievable by actually focusing and producing a very respectable image.

So now these mobile cameras can do better than our eyes? Nice. And this positive view towards the P30 camera is shared by almost all tech reviewers. Here’s what Engadget says about this.

With less light, zooming, focus and detail should be a struggle, but the P30 Pro mostly shrugged it off. The combination of dual OIS on both the primary camera and the telephoto, in addition to the digital image stabilizing trick, gives the phone a better chance to capture images at reduced noise and do it all better.

Of course, this isn’t the perfect smartphone - far from it. It isn’t even the hands-down best camera quality and experience on a mobile phone. Rene Ritchie has a nice comparison video of the phone with the iPhone XS. It is good to be aware of the capabilities and shortcoming of the overall device.

But I am amazed at the speed with which the imaging technology on the smartphones are improving. It was only few months back when we were surprised looking at what the Pixel 3 could achieve with its night-sight feature. And we already have a device that, if not tops, matches that under most conditions.

The tech pundits always made us believe that camera tech will be the next big differentiator for the smartphones — something that will separate the big, serious players from the emerging ones. However, the way things are going, I don’t think that would be the case. The camera modules will again soon be commoditized and everyone would be back to the drawing board in search of that one differentiator.

This does not bode well for Google’s hardware efforts in smartphones. Apple and Samsung, for whom their brand is the primary selling point, would be pleased with this.

Most people have some filler word they fall back to during public speaking/presentation. I have worked hard to reduce my usage of “actually”. However, I came to the realization that “apparently” has to be one of the worst ones out there. Try it for yourself and you’d agree.

Imagination and Creation

I read this wonderful quote by Charlie Chaplin today - I am going to use this leniently to keep the creative corner of my mind inspired.

Imagination means nothing without doing.

Such a small bunch of words, but oh-so-meaningful. I also came across this post that I had written exactly a year back on using the time we have at our hands well. Especially on why it is important not to stay focused on the things not done or done but in non-perfect way.

(Time that dawns) with a promise to do so much more than there is time for. Till you realise those 24 hours the day dawned with? They just aren’t enough. Not enough for everything. Barely enough for something.

So you can either spend those fleeting moments on (doing) that something, anything. Or get bogged down with the burden of those others things left untouched. Because there’s just not enough time.

This is a good reminder for myself about something that I had realized some time back, but had forgotten recently. I did face a lull in my reading and writing time recently. When I look back, I believe one of the reasons behind that was the fact that I was waiting for that right “space” to work on my thoughts. One that never arrived. I need to stop waiting and spend more time doing stuff than to think whether the moment or the place or the environment or even the words are right. Andy Warhol has put it so perfectly.

Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.

I see iA Writer for Windows finally supports the much needed feature, Library of posts. It’s the one feature that I missed the most from its versions from Apple platforms. I just hope that there would be a way to share the Library across platforms — mainly Windows and iOS.

Joining a new place of work is always full of anticipation, hope for what the day, coming months and possibly years hold. That kind of day today.

A visit to a hair dresser is always a frightful experience. With each question they ask, I can’t help but think things are getting messy. Bloody, you are the experts, you take the call. You won’t like it if a doctor asks you about everything during an operation, would you? 🙄

Pleasing to be back to reading. Keeping my Kindle always next me has helped and I have started carrying it everywhere. I have realised it is extremely difficult for me to find a specific focused time marked just for reading books. Kindle replaces the distracting smartphone.