Excursions

Login to your Google account and access the activity controls.

Find the “YouTube History” section and switch off the setting. Also, make sure both the checkboxes in the section are unchecked — the first one is about the videos you watch and the second one is about the searches you make on YouTube. You do not want recommendations from either. And apparently switching the whole setting off does not disable both by default.

Click on the “Manage Activity” setting and clear all the activity. You can also consider setting it to automatically delete after every 3 months.

(And while you are at it, you should also consider pausing the location history tracking. This does not break any of the Google services.)

You can also make the “Cinema Mode” as default on your video controls. This should leave less space for related/similar videos recommendations from YouTube.

It is easy to get addicted to YouTube - unknowingly spend hours clicking through the myriad of recommendations that algorithms through at you. The experience sucks. I have been burnt many a time. So much so that I spent a month off YouTube this year. It helped.

But staying off YouTube completely is difficult. The above steps have helped me not stay glued to the app for hours. I either access the video directly (if I know what I want to watch) or browse my Subscriptions page (when I don’t know what to watch). The home page is useless without history turned on. And so are other recommendations. Trust me, you do not want them.

The season finale of The Morning Show was brilliant. Extremely powerful, and so well performed. Not just the leads, but supporting cast too. And the use of opera was brilliant. Over 10 episodes, the makers have managed to make me connect with and care for all the key characters.

Spotify has one job: make a great music player. They execute. Their app has none of these problems. It’s fast and bug-free. Spotify delights.

Even I had recently switched to Spotify. I believed Apple always nails an experience - so they would even for music listening. At least, they would do a better job than other players. But I was wrong. Spotify is far ahead, especially with playlists and recommendations. They rarely get it wrong.

As a side note, I always wonder why companies struggle while designing good music apps. It is such a simple use case, however most fail to get it right.

I started watching a couple more shows from Apple TV+, Servant and Dickinson. I have enjoyed whatever I have seen till now from both of them. 3 episodes in and I have no clue who is playing with whom in Servant. It is creepy as hell, but not disgusting. Dickinson is refreshing. A brilliant, unseen tale.

I’m pleased with the variety of shows that Apple has managed to serve in the first outing. The drama from The Morning Show. The fantasy world of See. And the scifi one of For All Mankind. And now a thriller and a comedy-drama too. Nice!

I loved the position of the lone tree overlooking the valley - seemingly wondering how the life amidst the forest down would be.

I learn that Microblogvember runs through till 6th - I intend to complete the story I’d started at the beginning of the month, but got left behind during holidays. The story about that one night in November. I am pretty excited to see where the night leaves Roy, Mary and Gina.

I was feeling a little down in the morning today, so I stayed in the bed for a little longer. As my 6 year old was leaving for her school, I wished her good bye and told her, as I regularly do, to have fun in the school.

Prompt came her reply. “I will, but you don’t. You take rest, dad. And take care!”

Sigh! I am always amused at how kids can behave way too grown up for their age at times.

I did not realise releasing Twitter handles that are not in use for long would actually be an issue. I understand Dave Winer’s point around link rot. But that exactly is the reason why people should own personal spaces and share everything that matters to them only there.

Also, while linking to something external, it preferably be a website. Because Twitter and others just rent us spaces for our thoughts on their platforms. It is too much to expect from theses businesses to not lend them ever to anyone else. Just own your space and let the lights on as long as you want.

I am sure link rot is a problem that’s not really very high on the list of issues that face these guys. Neither is the goal to be a better citizen of the larger web.

I have slowly started realizing that I still have a use for Twitter. There are some thoughts that are simply too micro or meaningless for them to exists as “posts” on my blog. I feel what exists here on my blog somehow has my name associated with it. Lot more so than what exists on my Twitter profile - it does not have that burden.

May be it is just me. May be I am overthiking this. But some posts (like a quick one line blurb) better exists on the fleeting Twitter timeline than on my website.

This feeling of aloofness towards the service might exactly be the cause of all the problems with Twitter.

The holidays have affected one aspect though - the flash fiction series has been left behind. Not that am complaining, but I intend to catch up and close the story as planned initially. Next chapter tomorrow.