Excursions

Has the political realm across the world always been this messy? Or is it that I read more about it now and hence am more aware? I am left anguished every time I read anything around politics. No morals. No civility. Pure egocentrism on display.

It is to capture discussions like this that I had initially built Micro.threads. I eventually added many capabilities to it that I wanted to address. However, it is heartening to see it still come handy for it’s initial intended purpose - to save and share the recommendations.

What are the recommended, non-tech, non-news newsletters? Other than NextDraft, of course. I have realised the newsletters I subscribe to tend to get repetitive. I do not want to know of the thoughts on same tech/non-tech US news 🙂

Design is not how it looks. Design is how it works.

A nice reminder from Patrick Rhone (@patrickrhone) - every designer should hang this over their desks. Also this.

Every time you add a page you add work for the visitor.

Indian Government wants to put control on Tik Tok - this is a fall-out of the fake-news debacle with WhatsApp. It wants to make sure there are mechanisms in place to contain misinformation and also set accountability when that happens. Not too overreaching if done well.

Spending a quality time with close family amidst nature is the most effective way to get rejuvenated.

I managed to catch up on two great television series - Doc Martin and The Good Place, both highly recommended by the community here. Need to especially thank @macgenie for the recommendation for former - boy, I am love with the seaside village of Portwenn. Had some fun days.

A great thread by Destin of Smarter Every Day on how crazy minds are fooling YouTube algorithms with AI.

I just figured something out I want to talk about it. Let’s talk about weaponized bots, algorithm exploitation, countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures.

I published my thoughts on the wonderful movie “Bhai: Vyakti Ki Valli”. It’s celebration of a life — the movie, the experience left me completely nostalgic. Just wish it was an equally good biopic though. It is a must watch nonetheless.

Introducing Codeblog - “Why isn’t the internet more fun and weird” →

Codeblog makes coding as easy as blogging. It’s an open-source blogging platform where, instead of just words, you can also write code that runs in the blog post.

I feel updates to m.b discover feed have slowed down significantly. May be @macgenie too is getting ready with some nice little announcements to make after Manton? 🤔

In a year marred by media tirade for their sheer disregard for user’s privacy, Facebook continues to grow unhindered. Their income grew more than 60% this quarter, even MAU increased. No wonder Mark believes FB’s too important for the world — be ready for more apologies.

Just when I thought that I was done with theming my online presence, I’m being tempted to think otherwise. First, this wonderful discussion on a design from @vincent that I adore. Now the updates around custom themes for Micro.blog. Ah, time to stay focused.

Just a glance down the Twitter timeline and it fills one with rage. There’s just too much negativity on display. And a big source for that are likes and retweets and replies. But, deleting Facebook account was a lot easier. I had no use of that - can’t say that for Twitter.

Apple finally blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps. The ties between the two companies drop to an all time low. Facebook considers this as a critical issue. However they should have seen this coming. They can’t expect a pass just because they are a major player.

Bluetooth headphones suck big time if used for listening to any form of music. They are good only for podcasts/audiobooks or calls. Videos are more terrible. I carry an extra pair of wired headphones, just in case. I empathise with all those who cursed “courageous” Apple.

There’s a planned change in how DNS responds to queries from non-complaint systems and it can potentially affect your domain availability. You can do a quick check at DNS Flag Day if you own any domains.

Apparently, Hover DNS systems I use aren’t fully ready. Interesting.

Derek Sivers wrote a wonderful piece on the benefits he has realized via his diaries and journals. He talks about why he likes keeping his daily diary.

We so often make big decisions in life based on predictions of how we think we’ll feel in the future, or what we’ll want. Your past self is your best indicator of how you actually felt in similar situations. So it helps to have an accurate picture of your past.

It was especially fascinating looking at the list of topics he keeps a journal about. A great, great inspiration for any one looking out for what to journal about. He puts down a prime example.

I especially like my “Regrets” journal. Whenever I do something I regret, I write it down there, noting why I regret it, what I wish I would have done instead, and how I hope to prevent this in the future.

Derek has given me so much to ponder on. I have bookmarked this, I may reference this every time I question my resolve to journal more. Even outside of a journal, I think this is a great suggestion to write everything.

Ask yourself questions, then question your answers.

To be frank, it was when I read his account that I got to know that diary and journal are not the same. Apparently, diary is for an account of one’s daily activities while journal is for more comprehensive thoughts on specific topics. Some may say that’s minutiae, but it’s good to know.

I intend to stop publishing the weekly digest from this week onward, at least in its current form. It was turning out to be an effort against a post I wasn’t going for initially.

Surprisingly (or not may be), I was dearly missing the system-wide emojis from Mac as I switched to Windows — before I realized, of course, they are available. I need to spend some time finding everything about the platform I have decided to move to now.

I understand the argument of this GDPR article on Verge, but, as a developer, I also believe that the data these companies hold on you is very complicated to be presented in any form which isn’t a bit messy. You’ll need a reference to parse the data, which should be acceptable.

What do you do with your old electronic devices? I find this decision especially tricky with laptops and tablets. They may be unusable for me, but I know for a fact that there would be a section that will find these to be useful.

I never like to sell them — for some reason, the trade makes me uncomfortable. I am seriously considering donating them to someone less fortunate.

I am making conscious efforts to avoid the fillers in my writing, and whenever possible in my talking too. I have realised I use them a lot and the prose sounds significantly clearer without them.

None of unnecessary “I think”, “so”, “I guess” etc going ahead.

It’s been a year today since I became part of the micro.blog community. It was a fascinating year of finding the lost love for writing and of learning loads from the wonderful people here. I thought I would get a page which I can look at for flashback. Hence, on this day.

Around a year ago, I got enthralled by the IndieWeb principles and started experimenting with them on my website. Exactly a year ago today, I had started contributing on the Micro.blog platform. And it has been a very productive year writing-wise since then.

I have expressed myself a lot more in the past year. I have thought a lot clearer, a lot better as a result. It is all thanks to the wonderful interactions on the platform.

What it also means is that I have a year worth of posts to look back upon. And I thought what better way to do so than getting the On This Day page added to my blog. I have done that. It presents how the journey started - if nothing else I myself can follow the thoughts along as they evolved.

Will it stick in this same form? May be not. I may experiment a bit on how I see this feature. But I have got the base working now for my blot-based blog.

PS: This feature is based on the wonderful project Micro Memories by Jonathan LaCour for the micro.blog hosted blogs. I have just customized and simplified it as per my needs.