Excursions

I had to stop reading Thinking Fast and Slow. Not sure if it was the audiobook form or my current frame of mind, but it was monotonous, bland chapter after chapter — like a textbook. I will pick this up again some time later, may be. But for now, this isn’t for me.

This particular review from Jacques at Goodreads resonated with me. Especially this part.

There is also the struggle between wanting to speed up the book due to the slow and monotonous narrator, but wanting to slow it down to absorb the information.

I love the simple paintings that my sister makes.

Every now and then, you come across people who are filled with negative vibes. There is nothing constructive that they can ever think of about any activity at hand, individually or for the team. And it is with these people that I find working with the hardest.

Laziness and incompetence are both undesired quirks in a person. But I am fine to have people with these traits on my team than those who are pessimists.

Lazy people can be nudged with a smaller, broken-down tasks. Incompetent people can be trained. Worst case you can decide not to work with them. You only lose that one person.

A negative thought, on the other hand, is contagious — it ruins the environment in a team. It rubs off on to others, bringing down the productivity and the quality of everyone around.

It is even worse if such people are also skilled at one particular job - making timely noise. Because the noise they make first portrays the team in poor light and second dents the morale of the whole team.

Learn to not be a naysayer — wish people could be forced enrolled in such courses too.

1. Duplex on Chrome? Sorry, not for me. Google wants Chrome to be a platform — but it already runs on another platform, my OS. And in here, I want it to stay a browser. Chrome OS can go as wild as Google wants. Not the regular browser. Another reason I stay a Firefox user.
2. Apple today released iOS 13.1.2 and iPadOS 13.1.2. And users are still reporting on some unfixed bugs, even those that Apple claims they have fixed. Has there been any iOS release that has been buggier than this? I hope introduction of iPadOS hasn’t affected the dev team, that was already thin, further. That, at this point, looks to be a strong possibility.
3. When Apple Arcade and TV+ are priced aggressively as they are, the high subscription cost of Apple News+ sticks out. Is it driven by Apple or the publishers? If we don’t see a course correction soon, I doubt it is the later.
4. Music is priced exactly the same. So may be, it is driven by who owns the primary content that Apple provide subscription for?
5. A couple of Surface devices that Microsoft plans to release in their upcoming event have leaked. More than the Surface laptops (which unfortunately look may too similar to MacBook Pros - so much for differentiating), I am always excited about the 2-in-1 devices from Microsoft. I find the hinge designs in there to be really well done, with some crazy low angles!

Every now and then, I wonder about that time when I am at my creative best. It is, rather, everyone’s desire to find that time, that place, those tools that make them more productive at being creative.

However, I have realized over the years that being productive and being creative are antithetical more often than not. There are times when I am at my creative best, I do something that I have never done — say, I doodle the best I ever have — and my brain considers this to be a non-productive use of the time I had at my hands. Why? Because that wasn’t the “plan”.

Productivity can be measured, quantified. Creativity can’t be. As a result, productivity is always driven by one’s overly thinking brain while creativity is a response to a curious mind.

The essential spirit of creativity is captured brilliantly in this quote from Wayne Dyer.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

That’s so meaningful — no doubt that one often fails to think creatively these days. Our minds are ruffled all the time by the distractions of our digital life. So every so often, I am on the lookout for that stillness.

Apple Arcade needs instant play - similar to the instant apps on Android. It is extremely frustrating to wait for huge games to download before you can even try them. With a huge list of games, downloading every one of them is overkill. More so with Apple’s stingy storage plans.

A year ago I wrote “Woke up to find that Amazon brought a bag full of ‘things’, untied it on stage and started throwing it against the wall. No one has any idea if what try hurled is genuine or shit and if it will ever stick.”

Amazon did that again today — a yearly ritual now.

I recently started watching Undone. Actual storyline aside, I am not yet sure if I like this method of animation - rotoscoping. Especially the way it is used in this particular show. It is too close to reality to not be presented as such. Why go through all this trouble?

I recently changed the pair of glasses I was using. I do not like to go through the pains of this whole process.

First, one needs to select a frame that would suit his or her face — something that “looks good” on the face. It is bloody difficult to see if something looks good if it is the see aspect that you have problem with.

“I don’t know how it looks on me because you have taken away from me the very object that I can look through.”

Testing eyesight that follows is a similar hassle. I am surprised that there is still no better and foolproof way to do this than actually putting glasses of increasing powers on your face.

Or if there does exist a better way to do this, may be I need to visit those clinics.

Anyway, thankfully this time I was lucky with my glasses - I think the frame does look good on my face.

I find it fascinating that Twitter recommends me to follow someone that hasn’t been active for more than two years. Why, why should “follow” that person? I am yet to come across any recommendation engine that works.