Excursions

After Trump talked about medical usage of UV light exposure and injecting disinfectants in his press conference, Dave Pell says, “Stop live-broadcasting these batshit political rallies masquerading as press conferences. Stop the crazy coverage”. I agree.

I always wondered why the leader of the government, in turn a country, needs to drive these press conferences. Sure, it gives press a chance to question the government. But I think US is a live example of what a shitshow this can turn into.

I somewhat like how it is done in India. The relevant ministry officials and the assigned experts lead the press conference - experts doing majority of the talking.

Politicians better be kept away from mics in these trying times. They tend to get into their old habit of addressing their vote banks.

I read this brilliant tweet from Evan Greer highlighting how cynical the techies have been left as the result of the last few years.

Medical experts: we need testing, PPE, & social distancing

Tech bros: so surveillance, right?

Medical experts: testing, hand washing, masks & ppl staying home plz.

Tech bros: got it, fever seeking drones

Medical experts: TESTING! PPE!!!

Tech bros: facial recognition?

I understand, all the efforts that the governments all over the world are rolling out towards containing the spread of virus can potentially affect our privacy. Or the way we are used to control our privacy. But I believe it is not just this issue that we will have to live with and fight against after this pandemic has passed.

Summer is setting in — stays too hot throughout the day. And is equally bad in nights too. It is going to be a trying May ☀😰 — especially so without the regular niceties of the months of summer 🏖🍧🍹

I watched a few episodes of the new Netflix miniseries Hasmukh. Only because there was Vir Das associated with it. But it was such a bore. Das didn’t fit the character - he is too posh to pull off the role of a small-town guy. Plus as a comedian on-screen, he just isn’t funny.

I realize that I have so much time at hand by not doing the activities that I always wanted to avoid. Like those long commutes. Or needless trips to shopping malls. Or attending those guests that I didn’t want to.

So much time at hand. So much that I could do, that I could create potentially. Potentially.

However, I find that my mind wanders off. It can’t concentrate for long. It can’t be creative. I keep staring at the blank screen before I give up and reach out for something to read. I stare at those words that should mean something. But then I again give up. Finally and unwillingly, I land at those apps. The apps that I had carefully spent the last few months on getting into a habit of avoiding.

Wish this wasn’t difficult. But the fact is today everything is. Wish I could better control my mind. But the fact is today I can hardly control anything.

When this all passes over, it is not this helplessness that I want to remember these days for. So it is my photo gallery that is most happening.

It is full of snapshots of everything different that we have been doing together as a family. Cooking. Playing. Singing. Dancing. Not just the photos, it is full of videos now. I am creating movies out of these moments of togetherness. At least, am learning now. The pictures, the movies, they need not be perfect, as long as they bring out the underlying, momentary happiness, hopefulness, that I lived through.

So some years down, when I get a notification for new memories in my photos app — saying “5 years ago” — it is that feeling of togetherness, happiness, hopefulness that I want to personally associate this pandemic, this lockdown with.

Maybe that’s very selfish of me. But that’s the least harmful vice this pandemic could live behind within me.

“But dad, why is 14 spelt as fourteen while 40 is forty? Why can’t they keep things simple?” Asks my daughter. I guess when you don’t go outside, you can spot and question even the trivial things that you usually neglect. Or maybe lockdown hasn’t affected the curious minds?

I understand now why the post-apocalyptic fiction tends to focus on the aftermath of an apocalypse - especially of a pandemic. The period when the world lives through, fights and struggles gets tiring, I guess. Though this is the poignant period, there’s nothing dramatic.

I like what I see in the new iPhone SE. First the perfect name — the “smaller” SE brand did not die (4.7” is now the new small). It is exactly what the old SE was — the proven externals with the latest internals. But personally, I can’t go back to the small, bezeled screens.

Almost all the core features of Github are free now. It’s so refreshing to see the approach of this new Microsoft towards the open-source software. They have been wonderful custodians of all the services they have recently purchased. I respect this Microsoft under Satya Nadella.

Some day, the world will be free of the effects of the current pandemic we are living. All would then switch to live a normal life again. But, most experts agree that this switch is not going to be easy. A vaccine, when it is found, “is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to bring to market”. It is not that our brilliant scientist may not bring the treatment early. The challenge is to make it reach the millions of people affected by the virus. What that means, according to this brilliant essay in MIT Technology Review, “we have to prepare for a world in which there is no cure and no vaccine for a long time”.

There is a way to live in this world without staying permanently shut indoors. But it won’t be a return to normal; this will be, for Westerners at any rate, a new normal, with new rules of behavior and social organization, some of which will probably persist long after the crisis has ended.

In recent weeks a consensus has started to build among various groups of experts on what this new normal might look like.