Excursions

Dave Winer wrote about Google’s recent strike on non-https sites.

When big companies try to force you to change your web site, say no. The web does not belong to them. Defend the web. The answer to Google is no.

I am torn on this. On one hand, I absolutely hate that Google wants every website owner to go through the hassle of obtaining certificates and enabling https — even if it’s a plain simple text blog. But on the other hand, I realise that it’s too much to expect that regular users understand the technicalities of which sites have to be secure and which are ok if they are not.

Making all sites secure will shift the onus to the site owners rather than the readers. Those who know how to, will find a way to do so. Those who don’t are hopefully with platforms, like Wordpress, that are making it simple to enable https. It can’t be a loss for anyone, can it?

Yee-haw! Alto’s Odyssey is here. Farewell to some hours of productivity. And welcome some hours of relaxing glides. 😊

You code. Or you write. Rarely can you do both together. That context switching is not so seamless.

I guess it has to do something with that left brain-right brain thing 🤓

On my IndieWeb Journey, there are few things I haven’t sorted out yet.

To set up a media endpoint for micropub.

To (auto) send webmentions to the linked sites.

To get mentions from Twitter on syndicated microposts. Bridgy’s sending webmentions only to the ones with explicit URLs.

I had been displaying the webmentions on the posts for some time now. Idea was to validate if things were setup correctly. Once I had an idea on which mentions needed to be surfaced and how, I got to work today.

Finally, I feel I have something I am satisfied with.

I got a JSON feed setup for my site. When I began, I did not think it would be this simple. I love this format, I am comfortable playing around with it.

And here’s another reason why I serve this as a static site. I can quickly take such small custom projects & roll them.

Another day, another playground. It’s a feed fixing day — I need to decide how I want to serve my feed. In addition, prominently display the links to feeds on the site.

And get a jsonfeed setup too. I prefer the json format to xml any day. Why shouldn’t I serve my feed as one?

I’m surprised to see the number of blogs run by blot here. I can see the attraction of a simple file-system based posting mechanism.

I guess people just do not want to handle any overheads, be it with hosting or posting. Plain files always win.

As planned, I got a /now page setup for my site. I do not want to load it with too much of text.

This is what I intend. A small write-up on what’s on my mind. Followed by a list of things that are keeping me busy.

And finally, to keep it updated. Hopefully weekly.

So unlocked one more pin with my latest post. Can I say it wasn’t intentional? Planned? 🤗

There are days when her doll becomes her life. Whatever she does, it stays by her side. For her, it becomes “she”. For us, she becomes her.

Today’s one such day.

I sincerely hope the “Reply All” option is higher on @manton’s list of to-dos — I need it throughout the day, multiple times 🤞🏽

I am surprised I never tried VS code earlier. I think there’s something about dev tools that we do not want to change them often - I‘ve been a Sublime Text/BBEdit user.

Makes me think what other Source Code Editors does the community prefer?

I’m really impressed with Visual Studio Code. It works great on Mac (and of course is cross platform), has perfectly useful editor, debugger. Syntax highlighting/code completion‘s without any issues.

Integrated terminal’s amazing. Plus it’s fast, smooth. And free & open.

I plan to get a “Now” page setup for my site. I debated a lot if I would be able to keep it updated regularly. I don’t think I can if I keep it as a page for users.

Rather I want to use it to keep track of my current focus — it might be reading list, trainings or project.

The sheer number of modules available in Node can overwhelm you at times. Think of any utility, small or large, there must exist a module on Github.

It’s been that kind of day today.

“Math is math, why would they change math?”

Gosh, this Incredibles 2 Trailer is awesome. Just can’t wait for this movie to release.

I am reading posts mentioning Apple should have caught rings problem in QA. However I have a genuine question. Is it a valid test case to check effects of a hardware product involving materials against every material surface possible? Is it not a stretch?

Notifications were barging into my life very frequently, throughout the day. And night. I had to take control of this. And I have been extremely aggressive on deciding who deserves that privilege. Some thoughts.

Notifications are distractions, but they don’t have to be — it calls for an aggressive behaviour on user’s part to manage them. Any app that needs my attention first has to convince me that it is worthy of that. It has to convince me that it deserves the right to break into my life, to barge into whatever am doing and make me acknowledge what it has to say.

What that means is no new app gets a default “Yes” from me for its “Enable Notifications” prompt. They are always disabled first. (Same applies to my privacy too. No app gets access to my location, even while running, or my photos or my contacts. No, always a no.)

Every app, at least on iOS, clearly communicates why it needs that privilege - by prompting at appropriate time, during an appropriate task. It is then that I make the call if that cause is indeed genuine.

And then there are those apps that make me anxious for their notifications, for some instant gratification they deliver (e.g. social media likes). I have realised one thing - these apps should not be allowed to light up my screen or vibrate in my pocket. Because valuable minutes and hours are lost in checking if they indeed have lighten up. It also grants me another incentive to access the app and follow what’s going on there. Of course, on my own terms this time.

Attention is a valuable asset, acquired with extreme difficulty, one that costs dearly to regain when lost. That device in your pocket is there to assist you, to save you time. Don’t let it steal this asset throughout the day.

“Google details how Chrome’s optional ad blocking, which goes live tomorrow, will work: which kinds of ads will trigger it, how Chrome will notify users, more”

It’s naive of Google to believe no will think it is intentional on Google’s part.

Biggest shortcomings of humanity come to fore when we stop appreciating others’ and their time’s worth. I see the behaviour play out way too often, in form of carelessness towards rules or towards ones who are following them.

A cause most often? Entitlement to frivolous stuff.

A great post from @colinwalker explaining his learnings from his Write365 challenge. It reminded me of one of my posts expressing a sentiment similar to one of his lessons — here’s my response.

AMP for Email →

Because AMP for Email is an open spec, we look forward to seeing how other email clients will adopt it, too.

Won’t it be available only on gmail, supported only by Chrome? Is it open in the same way as AMP? Or is it another attempt to break the last open system?

I watched the first season of Black Mirror completely. It took me at least a couple of days to get over the gloomy mood clouding my mind. It’s kept me away from the second season.

It is too dark for my liking, the real world as-is is no cheery place any longer.