Excursions

So the next Windows major update is going to be called “Windows 10 October 2018 Update”? May be declaring Windows 10 to be last version of Windows to be released wasn’t a great decision after all. Why not just start naming them after some thing - other than deserts and places?

I logged out of mastodon today on my browser - a re-login was a deterrent enough to save all the compulsive visits throughout the day. I wish I had more control over when I access these social media accounts. May do the same for micro.blog as @vega had recommended.

Don’t want to brag, but I really find the discover section on Micro.threads helpful. There was otherwise no way I could catch up on posts missed and being discussed on overnight. I wish though I could fetch more posts using API than I can now, a bit limited currently.

I believe “all data is anonymised” has to be the biggest lie all these data hoarding and advertising companies tell its customers. With the amount of data they have, they can build an extremely accurate profile of any user, doesn’t matter if individual data point is anonymised.

Due 3.0 looks nice. Rich custom snooze in notifications is a good addition in itself. Options earlier were too limited. Black theme, well not much interested.

This is one app I use a lot, but mostly in the background. Doesn’t matter what theme it drapes itself in.

So now we have this “Olivery - world’s first smart olive oil bottle”, wtf?

Can we be smart ourselves first and stop making everything out there smart? This trend is crazy - have we not learnt anything from the Juicero episode?

This is such a fascinating read — I don’t think it is a stretch to think there would be teens who would be overwhelmed by the burden of being social digitally. The below excerpt made be really ponder how a generation older behaves might me affecting the generation next.

The fact that Gen Z have had their every move documented online since before they could walk, talk, or even control their bowels helps explain their antipathy to social media: it makes sense for them to strive for privacy, as soon as they reach the age when they have a choice over their online image.

“I’ve seen parents post pictures of their child’s first potty online,” says Amy Binns of the University of Central Lancashire. “You think: ’Why are you doing this to your child? They wouldn’t want this to be public.”

This article has left me with so questions to mull over.

I read this. And then I read this again. I checked the source to make sure it isn’t from The Onion. It wasn’t.

We know that people want a relevant Twitter timeline. One way to do this is by unfollowing people they don’t engage with regularly. We ran an incredibly limited test to surface accounts that people were not engaging with to check if they’d like to unfollow them

If a platform has to tell its users to not follow some of its other users, you have to think something is inherent wrong with how they running it. I find it fascinating that Twitter will suggest “good” citizens of its platform to unfollow some who aren’t. But they would not grow a spine and just bar those problematic users from engaging on their platform. Crazy.

There was a reason I stopped reading news throughout the day, I just didn’t want a constant stream of negativity clouding my mind. I would just visit the tech portals occasionally. Now stream of political sewage is spreading there too - if nothing else, I’d hate Trump for that.

We need a directory of people who are active microbloggers. It needs to group them by interests, geographies and few other aspects. I had started working on one, and then I had stopped - but gained few opinions.

Here are some thoughts on how such a directory should work.