If you’re a developer or a tester, and you want to abbreviate the word “accessibility” in a bug report, then as my New York friends keep saying to me, “knock yourself out”. But when we’re talking about accessibility in a public environment like Mastodon, where we can connect with people who know little about it, using A11Y as a hashtag creates a clique that has the potential to lessen the reach of the subject matter.

Source: The #a11y hashtag is harmful to the #accessibility cause. As we start afresh on Mastodon, it’s time to let it die →

With Snoopy’s last vaccination done, today was his first walk around society. My wife and I had carried him around earlier though so that the surroundings weren’t so new for him that he would go crazy whenever we take him on his first walk. That effort in the past must have helped because Snoopy behaved as if he had been on walks for ages. He didn’t run around sniffing and biting and eating stuff. He walked and jogged and played with my daughter, never feeling overwhelmed by the large world around him.

I have noticed peculiar behaviour, though. People judge you when they see a pet with you. They visualize you as idle and workless, living a worthless. Their eyes speak, “you care for a pet; you must have so much time”.

I am tired of these looks. I am tired of the questions. I am tired of the suggestions. Don’t be an asshole, man. Don’t ask me a question to satisfy your puerile opinions. I may not answer as per your wish.

You live yours; let me live mine. #Life.

One of my routines for the past week is spending a good couple of hours on my laptop reading and writing stuff before I go to bed. This all started with my change in daily routine, where I begin the day late and stretch it late. Mornings never allowed me a good couple of hours for anything. At night, I feel in control.

Knowing that I will spend time writing during the night, a task right at the end of the day also frees me from feeling burdened in the morning. Otherwise, I felt I had to get words in before the grind began, or I would ruin my chance.

Sure, #writing to a writer shouldn’t feel like a burden. But with my recent slump, the only way I knew was to push myself to get at least 100 words in every day. On anything and everything. I have been doing that for the last few days, mainly looking inwards. In a way, these are all my journal posts.

My growing liking for the write.as platform was timely too. I haven’t announced this blog’s feed to other known places. I don’t share these posts at all. No crossposting either. These thoughts aren’t open to comments in any way.

Would you write more (+freely) if you know no one is reading?

I had quipped recently. If these past couple of weeks are anything to go by, it’s true for me, at least.

Will I never publicise this feed? Or share any of these posts? No idea. But if I do or someone stumbles across this place and follows the feed, I am happy to gain a reader organically. After all, who doesn’t like his words being read?

I wish every theme on Micro.blog got its own test blog under the account of the author of the theme. That way, a demo site is always available to try the theme out before applying. Thoughts @manton?

We celebrated the Valentine’s Day with a creamy fruit cake and banana walnut muffin. A welcome surprise! 😍

The software that I use is generally not a conventional option. I don’t subscribe to the established #platforms. I either find them miserably dull or overly shiny for my liking. It helps that I know deep down that I am supporting a new and upcoming player for whom my business is worth. It means something; I mean something as one more customer. Not “just another customer”.

This also means that often the software is not fully baked. Some essential features are missing, or there are bugs around corner cases. I am an early adopter who pays more and still works as a tester. Sometimes, I get frustrated and switch to the popular option only to get out and back soon.

It is ok for me if you don’t have all the features, but deliver whatever you do differently. Have an identity. Stand out.

I turned off iCloud Photos & recovered the space that photos/videos were unnecessarily consuming off iCloud storage. I do not use it anymore, inspite of how hard Apple wants me to. It’s crazy that how poorly Apple handles photos and how difficult it makes for us to use them.

We had a service person visit us today – the plan was he would take some measurements & quote the price for the service. I’ve never met a service person as techie as this guy. Laser-based measuring tools. An iPad Pro for drawings, taking notes & quotations. Of course, with a Pencil.

Impression was made. The objective was achieved.

Amidst the city life, the sky looked and it looked pretty! 🌅

I often forget that stealing hours from sleep is not worth it – I have to pay back soon, usually on the very next day. Today was one such day.

I stayed up till late, doing nothing unavoidable. I read, or rather skimmed, some purposeless writing. I found nothing that interested me, but I kept on browsing with the hope that I would. And before I knew it, I was well past my routine bedtime. Thus I woke up late, which cascadingly screwed up my whole morning routine.

Missing my morning tea, though, was the most catastrophic effect this had today. I usually need my cup before the #life’s chaos in gulps it down. I couldn’t have my tea till the sun had risen more than I liked. I knew my productivity had gone for a toss.

The evening was better, though. I went on an unplanned walk around the neighbourhood, taking care of an unplanned but long-pending task. I hoped to mend the tea saga in the morning, so I drank jaggery tea at a nice-looking eatery. The tea saga only worsened, and let’s leave it at that.

A few nice cafes have sprung up nearby that I had no clue existed. Neighbourhood passes you by as you pass by driving.

I wish I had taken a couple of pictures during the walk. Maybe next time. Without a tea saga of any sort.

A blog is this, that and a lot more. There is no one definition for a blog. To each his own.

Another thing that works in write.as’s favour is that I can hardly change anything with how things look. Theming that is possible is bare. Customization in the way things work is minimum. This will ensure I don’t get too distracted by anything that’s not words, the #meta stuff.

Of course, there is a risk of me getting frustrated with the loss of control. Well, there’s Micro.blog for that which I am not getting rid of any time soon. The platform is too valuable and near perfect not to keep as primary.

Haven’t I gone through a similar fascination with Svbtle? I wrote a lot there for a while but eventually got frustrated with how restricting it felt. So why’s write.as any different? Well, for one, it allows publishing a titleless post. Second, the interface to post is minimal, with very little to configure. Svbtle felt bloated in that regard.

So where does this leave me? Well, I have started a 14-days trial with write.as. I want to try it to the fullest and see if and how well I use it. Is this just a fad?

A blog, for me, is a space for unformed thoughts. This is that place. And, Hey 👋 I’m Amit Gawande.

why?

I recently realized I do not enjoy updating my primary abode on the internet, my website hosted elsewhere. I realized I don’t gravitate to the posting page, so I write less. Some might say I don’t write much because I don’t want to. Never blame the tools and like that. But then I open the editor here at write.as, and the place feels welcoming — with its blinking cursor waiting for my unformed thoughts. I start writing, and before I know it, I have a few thoughts jotted down.

So, I wanted to bring some unstructuredness to my blogging. No fixed pattern, no predefined topics, and no forced post lengths. Just write.

what?

I write quick posts journaling whatever is at the top of my mind. The posts have no throughline, nor can you expect any structure limitation. They are a brain dump to relieve me of the thoughts crowding my mind. I am currently posting pretty regularly, with at least one post daily. But I am also not putting any pressure on myself to stick to a schedule.

I enjoy writing here. So I do not expect me to write short notes or quips. I may do that at microblogging-focused platforms. I also do not expect to write long-form, thoughtful essays or detailed guides.

The words I enjoy writing the most are in-the-moment unpretentious thoughts. Usually, in around 200-250 words. That I foresee myself publishing with this space.

how?

To follow the blog, subscribe via RSS feed or email. Follow me on micro.blog or mastodon. Read some more about me. Or else get in touch.

I started working on a side project today that I know, deep down, I do not have time or energy for. Yet, I began because I wanted hard not to change too many things with my writing process. But I am not happy with how things are set up today. It’s the same old battle.

I get bored with the setup I have. I find faults. And Micro.blog, my primary hosting platform, doesn’t want to fix the editor. I don’t gravitate to the posting page, so I write less. This platform needs a good editor (at least I am), and I wanted to attempt to build one. A couple of hours down the rabbit hole, I know I don’t want to do that. There’s a reason why I stopped hosting my blogging engines. It requires attention that my life cannot afford.

Some might say I don’t write much because I don’t want to. Never blame the tools and like that. But then I open the editor here at write.as, and the place feels welcoming – with its blinking cursor waiting for my thoughts, unformed as they may be. I start writing, and before I know it, I have a few thoughts jotted down. Sure, often they are #meta thoughts, as of now.

But that’s blogging to me. No fixed pattern, no predefined topics, and no forced post lengths. So the editor need not be so bare that I lose interest. It also need not be so polished that I feel burdened. This place looks to have got the balance right.

My writing has changed a lot over the years. I read a post from 14 years ago, and it reads.. carefree. In a good way.

I love the writing interface for write.as platform. No-nonsense. It does what it is supposed to do. Plus, all the other options, though available, get out of the way while I write. Grammarly works as expected. The posts are auto-saved in an intelligent way. At the same time, I can also build a list of drafts while working on them. The word count is visible, not the character count, as with Micro.blog that hosts my main website.

That last point tells you about the priority of these two #platforms that are very similar, yet different in many ways. Micro.blog compares itself to Twitter; hence considers itself closer to microblogging (well, it’s in the name). So the writing interface looks similar to the one on Twitter. Or, for that matter, most social media platforms. A bare text box that accepts Markdown text.

Write.as, on the other hand, calls itself “a place for focused writing”. This shows with the editor. Every time I use it, I want to write long. I can’t say the same for the text box that Micro.blog provides. It’s suitable only for microblogging.

Sure. Given the platform’s well-supported APIs, a list of clients already supports publishing to Micro.blog. So this is not an issue that many may face. However, most are only written for the Apple ecosystem, something I am not part of.

I love almost everything about Micro.blog. But I hate its writing interface and love the one provided by write.as. No surprise, then, that I am publishing most of my thoughts here.

This leaves me very confused. Which is my primary platform?

[L]earning to write is about more than learning to write. For one thing, it’s about learning to turn a loose assemblage of thoughts into a clear line of reasoning—a skill that is useful for everyone, not just those who enjoy writing or need to do a lot of it for work.

Source: What ChatGPT Can’t Teach My Writing Students →

I love my Chromebook a lot more than my Mac. The whole experience feels straightforward, no-nonsense and light. Starting/restarting is a breeze. With smart-lock, logging in and out is polished. There are no long update cycles; instead, it is always up-to-date. I have hardly seen the loading bar while using it. It is commendable, given that the underlying hardware is not as highly configured as my i9 MacBook Pro at work.

Sure, I do a lot more with the office Mac. But then, why would I ever need such a powerful machine for the stuff I do on my laptop? It’s mostly the browser I use, so Chromebook is perfect.

Plus, this has a terminal, one thing I miss on a Windows laptop.

I wish I could convince more people to give ChromeOS a try. Especially, my parents could benefit a lot from this simple device. But, they are worried whenever I tell them to stop using their Windows laptop. They hated Linux (of course, what was I even thinking). They can’t make any sense of macOS. iPad is too bare for them, and the onscreen keyboard is a pain. Chromebook is the best fit for them. If only they would listen to me.

Instead of playing whac-a-mole with passwords, why not eliminate that avenue of attack outright? That’s our mission.

Source: Goodbye, passwords | 1Password →

When I write something these days, I replace every “you should..” with “I am..”. If what I wrote doesn’t hold true, I don’t publish.

After avoiding it for weeks, I began the 7-day trial for Ivory. Why did I do that? I know I will start liking this bloody app and pay for it 🤦🏽‍♂

Day One on the Web. Finally!

Over the years, critics and audiences alike have re-examined the film and found, like the ship itself, it is a bit of a wreck.

Source: Titanic at 25: like the ship itself, James Cameron’s film is a bit of a wreck →

I started reading (listening to) a novel by David Baldacci today and decided right away I didn’t need to continue doing that. It started with gruesome details of a crime scene. Not the way I want to start my day. Or end my day. For that matter, I am tired of crime and mystery novels for now. This is the genre that I have been reading for the past few months. I will take a pause now.

I usually listen to my #books while on a morning walk. Crime novels are not the best companion at that time of the hour.

I returned the audiobook and purchased P. G. Wodehouse – the Blandings Castle collection. I will let Stephen Fry narrate light stories from the master of humour throughout the day. And I have got about 45 hours of that narration. Nice!

I have decided to change my routine from being an early-morning person to becoming a late-night guy. I realized that the mornings did not leave me with much time. The routine got packed recently with the added responsibility of Snoopy gobbling up the mornings. It just didn’t leave me much time to read and write.

So when Snoopy recently started going to bed early, leaving me a silent hour at night, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity. I sit alone with my laptop and a blinking cursor at write.as. There is hardly any noise around as my wife and daughter are in bed with their thoughts. Doing their stuff.

Mornings in my #life had stopped being calm. I was always praying that others should not wake up early. Before that, I should. Even if I did wake up, I felt sleepy. Thoughts ceased to come through. There was always something waiting to clog my mind.

“Maybe I should read the news first?” “I shouldn’t make too much noise, or I will wake others”. “Let me just lie down for 15 minutes”. And on and on.

That’s not how I remember a productive morning routine. It was time to change things. I have. I have no idea if this works. I hope, for the sake of my writing, that it does.