Excursions avatar

To be frank, I am left a bit disappointed with today’s event. May be it is about wrong expectations, but nothing that is launched excites me. Not that the device iPhone Xs and the max one are not marvellous — they indeed are. But not something I want — may be an October event?

So, iPhone SE is dead then for Apple? Why do these companies keep hating us people who want smaller phones? And they do not ship their low cost” iPhones till October, only shipping $999 ones in September? Wish there are some answers to these in few hours.

The fact that Chrome is the only one among the top browsers that does not have a native reader mode tells you about Google’s priorities (others being Safari, Firefox which do). Chrome will never do what’s best for its users because it will not be good for their business.

I’m seriously intrigued by Pinboard, the feature set looks promising. And it’s another of those well-supported services run by a single person. I am coming across too many of these recently. However, every time I am left unconvinced that I need a paid option just for bookmarking.

Aha. Twitter tells me I am part of the selected group of users” for a survey regarding their services. So, how are we supposed to celebrate” such an honour, again? 🙃

It’s Micro Monday time. I’d recommend you to follow @vishae for her distinct point of view, her book recommendations and succinct commentary on varied things. I’ve seen her be part of some fascinating conversations with the community recently that made me really pause and think.

Simplicity of Love

There is a fascinating conversation on episode 97 of the Criminal podcast with the now 99 year old Benjamin Ferencz. He primarily talks about his experiences as an investigator of Nazi war crimes after the World War II. There are some gut-wrenching stories about the atrocities he witnessed against Jews, and against humanity. He also shares his experiences of his trial against the high-ranking members of Nazi Germany’s death squad”, a trial that he called the plea of humanity to the law”.

But towards the end of the episode, there is this heart-warming tale from Mr. Ferencz. He talks about his wife who is 5 years older than him; whom he has been married to for last 72 years; whom he had never had a quarrel with. And he believes there is a very simple reason for that.

First of all, I am not suggesting we didn’t have differences of opinion. But we never raised our voice. We never shouted. We never pounded a table. Because it’s mutual respect, and caring for each other. They have a funny word for it that I don’t like - love. I don’t like the word. Because you could love a piece of cheese, you love that lovely day. I could love to go home. I would love to finish this interview. And I say if you say caring for somebody, that reflects better. And my wife now needs my care. This is the pay back time.”

Now and again, it helps to keep things simple - I guess experience must imbue you with such clarity of thoughts. From all the myriad of swanky adulations for the word and the feeling of love”, I would prefer the simplicity of caring for somebody”.

So, there is another leak of pixel 3 XL now that clearly shows the device? I think at this point Google shouldn’t even wait for an event to release this device. Just call the selected folks for exclusives and start selling them — exclusives will also be better marketing wise.

I have two posts in draft, incomplete, for last 5 days - they just need some final thoughts, some commentary. Ah, I hate to look at my drafts posts list. I think I will get off the internet and stare at them for a while, I believe they might go away.