Excursions

Back home after days of travel. It’s always great to be back at home, the “usual stuff” - usualities are welcome.

Folks with blogs on Blot, how do you typically post? Any micropubs? Or is it always save to dropbox from text editors of choice?

I hate reading articles on websites with monospaced fonts. It’s ok for code snippets, but please let’s not use them for long form posts. Not sure if it’s even made for that.

I recently received a great feedback and a query from @cygnoir at Micro.blog.

The links you share are so interesting! I especially love that you give a bit of an excerpt. Are you auto-posting these somehow? If so, would you be willing to teach me (or point me in the right direction to learn)?

Yes, I do read a lot of articles on web and share each one I like. And the reason I share them is I want others to read them too. I think it is difficult to convince people just with a title. So I also include an excerpt from the post that may give the readers an idea what the post is about (sample)

For me this usually happens while am on mobile and so it is just isn’t simple to copy and paste. So I have a system worked out on iOS with iA Writer and Workflow apps that allows me to easily post the links with excerpt.

It starts with a template in iA Writer with placeholders for all the relevant sections - date, title, link and content that is to be shared.

--- title : “” date : {date} --- ★ Liked "<a href="{link}" class="u-like-of" rel="like-of">{title}</a>" > {content}

I then have a Workflow which prepares the actual file with this template. I trigger this Workflow from Safari as Action Extension, which runs through the below process.

1. Gets the current URL and puts it into a variable link.
2. Gets the title of the current page and puts it into a variable title.
3. Gets the contents of clipboard and sets it variable content.
4. Gets the current date in required format.
5. Picks up the above template and replaces appropriate placeholders with the actual values fetched earlier.
6. Creates a new markdown file with this content and opens it in iA Writer for further processing. And publish.

This system, though not perfect, works for me currently. I want to simplify it further - mainly using Micropub endpoint. But haven’t got a chance to implement that yet. Till then, I am going to use this one.

I have similar template and Workflow combinations for reply, image, link posts.

Time to be on a train, a rail road trip with family is always fun!

title: “” date : 2018-07-28 14:40:00+05:30 —

Time to be on a train, a rail road trip with family is always fun!

Every wardrobe has that one shirt that uncovers itself after many days, from beneath the pile of new, blot-less clothes and mirrors back the reality to you. The reality that you have been ignoring the most important possession of yours, your health. It just won’t fit anymore.

You reminisce when this was part of your go-to attire. When nothing else looked good on you, nothing else suited you, fitted you, this one shirt always did. And now it doesn’t. As if it never was yours.

It hasn’t changed much. You, on the other hand, have.

So now the choice is yours. You either accept the signal, get back into shape. Or ignore it, pay for the consequences later.

I think it is the same with life. And those forgotten habits, those expressions that had made you look good. That had suited you, defined you.

And that one event that makes you realise you have changed enough that they don’t suit you now.

That’s when you choose.

I listened to a couple of microcasts today and I get the lure now. It is easier to share quick thoughts via audio than a written words. And I attempted to record couple of notes in Voice Memo. Yep. I think I may make it work.

I hate podcasts, because the medium is demanding. It demands so much time from me, demands focused attention to follow along. I wish I didn’t find them so damn useful to keep giving in to the medium’s demands.

But to do so, I have to alter my regular habits to accommodate podcasts in the daily routine. Time that was consumed by music for majority part of my life is taken over by podcasts now. If I have even a minute free, earphones are plugged and I continue what I was listening to. There are times when I question whether the medium actually deserves so much of attention from me.

So every now and then I look and relook at my subscribed podcasts list to decide which podcasts earn their place. I relook at my habits to see what I can change to make this manageable.

• If there is a podcast which I hardly listen to, it’s unsubscribed.
• If there is one whose last episodes I hardly remember, it’s unsubscribed.
• I rarely stay subscribed to podcasts that might talk about the same sets of topics (that means very few tech podcasts).
• I do not want news from the podcasts, I want views, perspectives.
• None with daily episodes. Rather I prefer podcasts that are spread across the week. So if I find that there are multiple (more than 3) podcasts delivering episodes on the same day, few are simply unsubscribed.
• I always listen at 1.2x speed. “Trim Silence” mode is always on in PocketCasts. I do not care of the lost fidelity. I recently tried to let the silence stay on and I felt everyone was deliberately being a slow speaker.
• There is a big reason I use PocketCasts. Overcast is a loved app amongst the tech community and I tried hard to use it. But it just doesn’t respect data usages limits. It either allows to download all episodes every time or not notify about a new episode at all. I, on the other hand, want to look at the episode, read what it’s about and then decide whether to download. PocketCasts’ a lot more flexible.
• I like if the podcasts, especially long ones, do chapters. It’s easier to skip over the topics I just have no interests in.
• I listen to ad reads if they aren’t robotic, if the host believes in the product. That’s least I can do to contribute for their efforts.

I realised today that Feedbin also supports following Twitter feeds and Podcasts. How usable is this? It really makes me curious, may be it can become one place where I catch up with all the stuff? Any one does that?

This week’s episode of Twit was really fun. Lively debates on varied topic, with logical point of views from smart people. It’s rare that a tech podcast does not regurgitate perspectives on same superficial tech updates.

I find the timeline here on Micro.blog gets overwhelming at times - it’s usually full of conversations that I just can’t make complete sense of without the context. It’s in dire need of some additional views. @manton Pls don’t take the feedback in a wrong way.

It was a slack non-productive post office time today. Binged watched one of those not-so-intelligent but extremely passable shows on Prime - just because my sister thought it would be fun. At times, it’s important to stop thinking and just be with family.

Finally I watched Durkirk. I do not know how I feel about it. Yet.

The weekend rounded off perfectly with a quality family time - a delicious home-cooked dinner followed by a well-fought game of Pictureka. There was eager hooting and rooting. And inane bickering and cackling. With loads of fun. Has to be the best way to embrace Monday ☺️

★ Liked “ Why Is Google Translate Spitting Out Sinister Religious Prophecies? ”

Sometimes, though, it does feel as though the algorithm is channeling uncanny spiritual energies—or even cracking a joke. After all, Google Translate interprets “w hy ar e th e tran stla tions so wei rd” in Somali, for instance, as “It is a great way to make it so much better.”

AI army is getting ready, humouring us up is the first step in their plan.

• ’’ tags : likes, link, social

🎶 Listening to Lag Ja Gale Se Phir. Extreme soothingness in the background, looking at the games clouds playing outside.

It still surprises me to find that there is no way on iOS to look at the call history by contacts - find when all was a contact or a number was called in the past. It is important many times and only way I see now is infinite scrolling.

It was great listening to @EddieHinkle and @macgenie talk about all things IndieWeb on this episode of Micro @monday. It was nice knowing about the journey of Indiegenous too. A good listen 👍🏽

Update on Micro.threads User Discovery section. Rolled out some performance improvements. Added some context around the user recommendations.

I was seriously considering buying a domain name in my daughter’s name today, who is still 5. I do not know if I plan to use it now, but I think if she ever needs one, she may not have it available. But then I also do not want to push my choice on her. I am being too crazy?

I just carried out my customary buy on Amazon Prime Day. And of course it is for an Amazon device. That’s the only stuff with good deals.

I dreamt a horror movie today. I think if produced it can be one of the best horror movies ever made. It sent shivers down my spine. 😧

I’m planning an experiment. The only way I will consume news for next few days would be via my morning newspaper. I think I will be a bit less burdened by the constant pressure of staying in the know. It is not necessary and introduces a lot many distractions.

My hypothesis is with not a need to sought out the news, I would be a tad more focused on the work at hand. The primary source I reach out to for news has been Twitter for some time now. And I had to make that difficult. So I have uninstalled the Twitter client from my iPhone. I intend to use it only as a web app.

Pleasantly, this was an insight given by ScreenTime - so the system looks to be working. I pondered on the option to put app limit, but thought it would be better to just get rid of this distraction. And so I did.