Excursions

★ Liked “Selling Your Power Back to Twitter”

Why would anyone sell their power back to Twitter, knowing Twitter uses some of it to run the microphones it hands to terrible people?

★ Liked “MIT mathematicians solve age-old spaghetti mystery”

The twist wave travels faster than the bending wave, dissipating energy so that additional critical stress accumulations, which might cause subsequent fractures, do not occur.

★ Liked “The Quietest Place in America Is Becoming a Warzone”

If we don’t defend silence, we sever one of the last ties to life on Earth before humans started raising a ruckus—before the combustion engine, before cities(..) we lose the space to reflect on what makes us who we are.

I have been a lot restless these last few days. My mind wanders a lot, it’s cluttered, full of thoughts. Full of things I need to do. Things that I can, I should do. I start working on one, and then my mind forces me to move on to another. Without completing any.

I do not think that’s really healthy. I think I may have to put my mind at rest.

Meditation is, of course, one of the way. So I started looking out for all the help possible, to figure out how to get started. And guess what? It’s a market full of catchy, link-baity articles from opportunistic freaks. Anyway, I think I may not get much help on the internet; may be there is just no need to go out there, seeking help on getting started. I may as well just get started - so I have started with an app called Oak. I have had a couple of sessions and have been pretty satisfied.

I will continue to have these sessions as beginner and see what happens. I am really hopeful that meditation helps, that it allows me to regain focus. I know few people who have benefitted, I know of a strong proponent in @ablaze. Actually, it is his experiences that have inspired me towards meditation.

If these couple of sessions are any indication, am sure it will be a good experience to go through.

★ Liked “Dear Journalists: The war on what you do is escalating.”

You — and probably free speech — can’t constantly play defense. You can’t win if you rise to Trump’s bait and start calling him an enemy.

So nice and brave of @manton to congratulate third-party dev for an app that sits right against his own. It also shows how much trust and confidence he has in his underline platform. Kudos Manton!

It’s been so long that I wrote a fiction, let the teeny writer in me express himself freely. I think it is time for an early morning rise and socialising with my characters. They must have many tales to tell now 👨🏽‍💻📝

I have recently observed a lot of anger from people across the world towards social networks of all forms. Especially Twitter. I had also expressed why I can’t quit Twitter completely for now - there are still a few people left there whom I follow, and a few friends.

I recently had a discussion with one such friend whom I was trying to convince to give up on Twitter and move all his posting to his custom domain. I demoed Micro.blog and Blot, hoping that the simplicity of getting started would be enough to abate any friction the change might throw at him.

He listened patiently, he is an active poster on Twitter. He has a distinct voice and perspective towards all varied things. And so my attempt had a selfish tinge too; it would help me if I could follow his posts in feed readers, even better if on Micro.blog.

He looked genuinely curios. “But what’s the big deal with owning the content and the domain?” I thought I had his attention.

I gave him the standard pitch, primarily how it would lend him control of his online identify, allow him not to lose his words when some private silo decides to change the rules of its services and how, if that happens, he can decide to take his content and move to some place better.

All he said in response was “what’s so special with what I write on the web that I would want to maintain it over time? If Twitter dies tomorrow, I will just move to some place else.”

I was left astonished. Here’s a guy who has been posting his opinions on all things, at times even as Tweetstorms, sharing some fascinating stuff for all; here’s a guy who has produced at least a short novel worth of content on Twitter and Facebook, but has the least attachment to his words.

May be it’s a regional trend, may be people in some places are more forward, more open to spending money and effort for the control.

But one thing is for sure. We can never convince people to give up silos and start owning their identities, their content on their own domain or start moving to services like Micro.blog till we make them realise how worthy the words they write are. Even tweet length ones.

Here’s a list of articles I liked throughout the day.

1. I do not think there is any debate on whether Artificial Intelligence will have some unplanned consequences. There would be. It is as good as a new species. And when two new species start communicating with one another, there would be hiccups and miscommunication. I guess the only fear is this time the other species might actually be smarter. Wired has some interesting real life examples covered.

Given a clear goal, an algorithm can master complex tasks, such as beating a world champion at Go. But even with logical parameters, it turns out that mathematical optimization empowers bots to develop shortcuts humans didn’t think to deem off-­limits. Teach a learning algorithm to fish, and it might just drain the lake.

2. I had no idea there were multiple theories for the reason behind Dinosaurs’ extinction. I always believed the “a fairy tale: ‘Big rock from sky hits the dinosaurs, and boom they go.’” Well, that may not be the case. Bianca Bosker has a fascinating coverage.

Before the asteroid hypothesis took hold, researchers had proposed other, similarly bizarre explanations for the dinosaurs’ demise: gluttony, protracted food poisoning, terminal chastity, acute stupidity, even Paleo-weltschmerz—death by boredom. These theories fell by the wayside when, in 1980, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Luis Alvarez and three colleagues from UC Berkeley announced a discovery in the journal Science

3. Being ethical is not black and white. It is almost impossible to lead a life which you claim has been ethical and to make everyone agree. However, “figuring out how to live the good life is fun” - a great essay by Ephrat Livni.

By virtue of accidents of birth, we find ourselves unfairly profiting from all kinds of inequalities, depending on where we are born, who our parents are, our racial or ethnic backgrounds, and more. Your passport determines more than just access—it means you are the beneficiary, albeit abstractly, of actions you may not approve. Most of us, wherever we live, are funding wars or policies we disagree with. We can’t help but do wrong.

4. A much-needed account from a non-profit group “that reunites refugees around the world with families”. Another reminder that we humans have heart beating incessantly within. Some may have painted it black, but as a species, we will keep fighting back.

“While hundreds of families separated at the US–Mexico border under the Trump administration’s”zero tolerance” policy remain apart, a Michigan woman has inspired people to help reunite loved ones by donating their frequent flyer miles.”

I read some fanwars and associated diatribes after a long time today.

I read some cringeworthy posts, and some spiteful responses.

I read some inhuman sentiments flung around as words.

I logged onto Twitter after a long time today.

I think all of these might be related.