Excursions

On a recent busy Friday morning, I hopped into my cab on my way to the office. I was about to isolate myself by plugging my ears with an audiobook. Right about that time, I heard a voice in Hindi, a local Indian language, giving directions to my Uber driver. It made me pause and ponder on how ubiquitous the technical solutions have become. A large section of society has learnt to start carrying these powerful devices along. And this change alone has made some complex businesses more accessible.

Many, especially Apple, mock Android for being “a cesspool of cheap, sluggish devices”. But it is Android that has put this change on the fast track. I spent my hour-long ride by being a lot more attentive than isolated. I decided to look around to the individuals, running small and medium businesses, using digital solutions. Almost everyone was flaunting some form of an Android device.

Uber drivers for managing their rides and the routes. Small shop owners for accepting digital payments. Delivery-only restaurants for accepting orders. Food delivery agents running around on bikes to find the next order to be delivered. Part-time “service experts” on the look-out for their next housekeeping jobs. And many more individual or small group ventures.

There is no doubt that the always-connected¹ and accessible Android devices have enabled all these use cases. The two combined have also managed to pull millions of more people into the digital age. Sure, iOS might be the more secure, more private platform that’s better for everyone. But it is not for everyone because it is not affordable to everyone.

We need to credit Google for fostering a platform that attracts more and more OEMs. This makes the platform a lot more usable for the majority section of the world. And they continue to lessen the needs of the platform, recently with the introduction of the Go edition. No doubt, it suits and assists their business model. However, it doesn’t matter. They do that so, in their own words, “even the most affordable Android smartphones are as sweet as can be”. I’ve come to believe that. Kudos!

Yes, let’s make the technology affordable for more people so that they too can benefit from the new-age advances. And while we do that, let’s also make the same affordable technology powerful. Because when we do that, we open more ways the people can earn, can learn, can connect, can be part of the world.

I recently went through an experience that put my rational mind under a scanner. After a tiring session of shopping for clothes, I stood in the queue to pay for the stuff that my family had finally decided to buy. I always hate the process of selecting clothes in the shopping malls - more so when my family’s doing it than me. I just can’t fathom the sheer number of parameters my wife, my daughter and my sister together can cobble up while deciding a piece of cloth to be selected (to be frank, rejected seems to be more apt). Anyway, it is a battle that I have lost many occasions over years - so moving on.

The billing process that follows isn’t painless either. I am always bombarded with so many questions.

“Do you have membership? Why not? There are no many benefits like blah.. blah.. Why won’t you become a member?” “Which card do you have? Why don’t you pay this way rather than that?” “Would you need a shopping bag? 1 Large? Or 2 medium?”

It’s an unending sequence of dreadful moments till I leave the shopping mall. But this time it ended in slightly different manner. I was offered an offer which am convinced now must have been part of some psychological study. The lady behind the billing counter explained it to me somewhat like this (emphasis her and mine).

“Sir, you made a purchase worth a specific, nontrivial amount, so you stand a chance to win an assured gift. This is not a lucky draw, you will win some gift¹ for sure. All you have to do is pay a significant amount. That will make you eligible (wasn’t I already?) for this assured gift. And the cost of the cheapest assured gift is twice as higher than the price you pay (how can I verify). So, of course, I should include that, right?”

So, in short, it is pay (over and above what you have already paid for the shopping) to win assuredly? Like what you would do in a casino - but with some surety angle? Why not just have an aisle full of assured gift cards? Why link it to billing? I couldn’t help but think it had to do with the fact that my abilities to think rationally are depleted due to the exhaustion from the decisions made earlier during shopping. And my mind is at my most vulnerable state.

With the pressure from the people queued behind me growing, I nervously said yes. But within seconds, pushed by the pressure from my rational mind, I said no. I wasn’t ready to undergo the scrutiny of my thoughts.

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 am not a gamer. I cannot play a single-person shooter. I was ok with this particular style of gaming when it was on desktop, with a keyboard and a mouse. On mobile, I am terrible. I just can’t make sense of the direction or speed. And completely pathetic in multiplayer situations.

Same applies to the racing games. It was ok till it was simple lane following games, like Road Fighter. But then they become a lot more real.

Actually, the quest to be more real with the gameplay and the graphics killed this form of media for me. It made the controls a lot more convoluted to be fun any more. Arcade-type games had some breezy liveliness to them. But gradually, gaming became a lot more serious, a lot more pro for my casual taste. These pros ruined the arcade in a way.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there do not exist casual games. There do. However, most of them are ruined by the freemium model. And I am not the first one complaining about this.

But what that meant was even the casual gamer in me had recently died — pushed way back for the fear of the effort it would take to find that one good, clean casual game. Like Monument Valley or Alto’s Adventure.

So I was pretty excited with the announcement of Apple Arcade. I am especially pleased with Apple’s aggressive pricing and push in the non-US markets and the initial reviews of the games. These sound like the games that match my taste.

I hope these stay the way they are currently. I hope the pros do not ruin the Arcade again.

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.