Excursions

I was writing the setup page of this site when this thought triggered in my mind. iPad is just a consumption device till you try. Once you do, you will start loving producing content on it.

https://twitter.com/statuses/896654686891016192

I don’t know what the argument is against showing favicons in Safari’s tabs, but I can only presume that it’s because some contingent within Apple thinks it would spoil the monochromatic aesthetic of Safari’s toolbar area. I really can’t imagine what else it could be. I’m personally sympathetic to placing a high value on aesthetics even when it might come at a small cost to usability. But in this case, I think Safari’s tab design — even if you do think it’s aesthetically more appealing — comes at a large cost in usability and clarity. The balance between what looks best and what works best is way out of whack with Safari’s tabs.

If that is the reason why there are no favicons in Safari tabs, I believe Apple is taking there quest for design too far. Apple gets blamed for always leaning towards form-over-function. I could see every time why some groups might support the said decision. But this time, I just cannot fathom how someone can find this to be a releasable solution. This is senseless.

The Google Memo debate

I had a lot of thoughts on the whole Google is handling the diversity wrong” memo kerfuffle. Here are some of them.
- The memo had the leadership in tricky position. Unfortunately, what played out looks driven from external pressure than “corporate values”.
- “No matter how often this all happened, it still hurt” The debate, & the sick views it brings to the fore are damning to all involved.
- Why’s this always forgotten — “people may have a right to express their beliefs in public, that does not mean companies can’t take action.”

At times, satire is the best mean to address and comment on a muddled topic. And this one at McSweeney’s by Ben Kronengold takes the cake.

Positions in the tech industry often require long, arduous hours that may conflict with humans’ desire to run home and see if Ozark is any good. Robots don’t have this problem, for they are pushed into coveted jobs for the status that they entail.

This writeup from John Battelle has to be one of the most clear headed, to-the-point and no-bullshit take on the whole “Google is handling the diversity wrong” kerfuffle.

.. that narrative is bullshit, and all rational humans know it. Yes, we have to pay close attention — and keep our powder dry — when a company with the power and reach of Google (or Facebook, or Amazon, or Apple…) finds itself a leader in the dominant cultural conversation of our times.

But when a legitimate and fundamentally important debate breaks out, and the company’s employees try to come together to understand its nuances, to find a path forward …..To threaten those engaged in that conversation with physical violence? That’s fucking terrorism, period. And it’s damn well time we called it that.

Another iPhone Story

A must watch short documentary from WSJ, named so aptly “Behind the Glass”. The story behind iPhone’s journey to existence will keep fascinating us, coming out every now and then, bite-sized.

Such a refreshing edit this published as part of Sunday Review at The New York Times. The contrast between people’s real lives and ones as perceived by their “friends” on social media is so succinctly articulated by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Especially evident is the side of us exposed to Facebook as against Google (the search engine).

Alone with a screen and anonymous, people tend to tell Google things they don’t reveal to social media; they even tell Google things they don’t tell to anybody else. Google offers digital truth serum. The words we type there are more honest than the pictures we present on Facebook or Instagram.

Sometimes the contrasts in different data sources are amusing. Consider how wives speak about their husbands.

On social media, the top descriptors to complete the phrase “My husband is …” are “the best,” “my best friend,” “amazing,” “the greatest” and “so cute.” On Google, one of the top five ways to complete that phrase is also “amazing.” So that checks out. The other four: “a jerk,” “annoying,” “gay” and “mean.

I just could not have put this is in a better way. The fakeness of what streams at Facebook has always been at the crux of the platform being disliked by a vocal minority, especially the geeks. It won’t be too much of a stretch for the argument to say if it is not fake, it is not visible on the Facebook timeline.

How does one protect oneself from getting miserable at the hands of this streaming pile of curated noise?

Once you’ve looked at enough aggregate search data, it’s hard to take the curated selves we see on social media too seriously. Or, as I like to sum up what Google data has taught me: We’re all a mess.

Now, you may not be a data scientist. You may not know how to code in R or calculate a confidence interval. But you can still take advantage of big data and digital truth serum to put an end to envy — or at least take some of the bite out of it.

Any time you are feeling down about your life after lurking on Facebook, go to Google and start typing stuff into the search box. Google’s autocomplete will tell you the searches other people are making. Type in “I always …” and you may see the suggestion, based on other people’s searches, “I always feel tired” or “I always have diarrhea.” This can offer a stark contrast to social media, where everybody “always” seems to be on a Caribbean vacation.

Yep, the best lifehack I have read in a long long time. Amen.

There is a great edit on Ars Technica about “The secret lives of Google raters”. I found the section on how there always are some people, humans, behind all the AI Google, and Facebook, want to harp about. Following passage is a sheer eye-opener.

UCLA Information Studies professor Sarah Roberts has been studying the lives of raters for the past five years, traveling from California to the Philippines to interview workers. She told Ars that one constant in all their stories is that these workers feel isolated from the companies like Google and Facebook, even though most of their work benefits them. Some say that they know they work for Google, but Google doesn’t know they work there.

Roberts believes that big companies like Google want to keep raters hidden, largely because they like to boast about how many tasks they handle with AI. “Actually their AIs are people in the Philippines,” she told Ars by phone. “Are there algorithms in all these tasks? Sure. Is it 100 percent? Not even close. There’s some kind of profit motive behind these claims [about how] machines and algorithms run the show.”

The plight of these raters is real. For all the advancements in AI and automation, there is always some “dirty” work that’s deemed too unimportant, too trivial, to only be pushed “down” to humans. The trend is disquieting.

“Very few books make me root for the central character. Ove has me hooked.. am with him for a fun ride!” That was my update a third into the book. And boy, did this guy keep me hooked. I was with him as his past unfolded in front of me. I was with him as his present life was amended by some funny, some happy, some sad events. Above all, I was with him as this grumpy old sod grew into a grumpy, but caring, grandad.

Author, Fredrik Backman, allows the characters to grow and that is the biggest reason the book worked for me. There is no haste in revealing the past or bumping into Ove’s future. Every chapter, a short story in itself, unfolds more of Ove and the world around him. You see Ove as he is. You are slowly led to understand why he is the way he is, mostly via flashbacks. You are made to feel for the guy, made to root for him to not stay how he is. And when that happens, because you are already absorbed into Ove’s life, you are left contented.

Saying Ove is grumpy would be an understatement. He is on the edge always, ready to get worked up. He is disappointed in everyone around him. He feels no one is responsible enough to care for oneself - dependent on others for every little thing. He feels the world around has no respect for rules of the land, doesn’t matter they are chalked out by Ove himself. So he takes it upon himself to make sure people are constantly reminded of that. And that’s how he lives his life - a monotonous, misanthropic one . And as Ove is planning to end his troubles with his life, fate has just the opposite planned for him — to add just enough goodness in Ove’s life to thaw the bitterness.

The book maintains a wry sense of humor throughout. It made me laugh out loud at multiple instances. Especially, the way Ove’s frustrations in other people’s incompetence are worded is an absolute masterclass. The book also maintains a deep sad undertone. It does not ever let Ove’s sulkiness make you hate him.

So be it through his affection towards a young boy in love or forced, but welcome attachment from the lively new neighbor or the unspoken responsibility towards the old, and may be the only friend, Ove always shows just enough warmth to make him the most likable character in a long long time. Or in Sonja, Ove’s wife’s words, “the strangest superhero I have ever heard about”.

Go welcome this guy, and the gang, into your life. He will make you smile, guffaw, shed a tear and, above all, enlighten you towards life. A must read.

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

It was pitch dark across the town of Diu. The street winding down was deserted as usual. It had recently been washed off its weariness by the unseasonal rain. In a way, it was a perfect setting for one pleasant, romantic walk.

A couple silhouetted against the discontinuous bouts of illumination from the lighthouse nearby. But their walk was no way romantic, may be a tad tipsy rather.

Roy and Joel had been walking down the street for almost an hour. Yet their individual opinions were divided. Joel thought it must have been four hours. Roy, however, opined that he was off by at least 3 hours and 30 minutes.

“No way” bawled Joel, “We must be just debating this for last 2 hours.”

“Again, you are off by an hour and 30 minutes at the least” Roy countered.

“How are you so sure? It’s as if you want to stay here longer.”

“Of course, I do. Don’t you?”

“Well, not in the shape I am now” Joel hit back with his fiery eyes. “Anyway, shouldn’t we be searching for what we are supposed to search?”

“That is exactly what I am doing” replied Roy, peeking at the byroad they were passing by.

“I don’t think we are searching for the same thing, though. If that were the case, you would be peeping minutely down the manholes. Not glancing at the lanes as we pass by.”

Roy just smiled.

---

Ganu saw the two bodies tottering along. He wasn’t sure if it was their walk or his drunk vision that was unsteady.

One was looking minutely at the footpaths, and in the garbage bins, and over the plant pots. He thought he also saw him once peeping inside a manhole. He was for sure searching for something.

The other, the skinny one, was not searching for any thing, though. “He might well be searching for someone.” thought Ganu.

There was something about these two people that appeared odd to Ganu. They looked unconventionally fresh for the time of the day, the season of the year, and the condition of the city. All were in shambles.

Ganu did not like such clean people. He felt no one should be this clean when he was drowning in his sorrows.

Ganu started following them.

---

“I think that guy there is following us. Is it ok if he sees us?” asked Joel, in a worried tone.

“How would I know? I too am going through this for the first time. I, anyway, do not think anyone ever has faced this. I think even he would not know.”

“Of course, he would know. He is the one who sets the rules.”

Roy shushed Joel as he heard the muffled voices, the wailings. He walked towards the next alley — there was a gathering of saddened souls.

Roy just smiled, again.

---

Ganu walked behind them to the crowd and steered himself towards the middle. He saw the back of the skinny one now, looking down at a weeping woman. And just as he saw what lay unmoving on the ground in front of her, he collapsed with his eyes wide open.

---

“Oh, crap!” exclaimed Death. “Now this hasn’t happened ever.”

He looked at Roy, Joel, and the other souls. “Well people, the only way in now is down. Let’s go search for that key to the heavens.”

Maciej Cegłowski rants on how IFTTT pulled the plug and dropped the support for Pinboard.

Imagine if your sewer pipe started demanding that you make major changes in your diet.

Now imagine that it got a lawyer and started asking you to sign things.

You would feel surprised.

This is the position I find myself in today with IFTTT

This has to be one of the best break-up lines ever used. There is a bit of disdain for IFTTT in Maciej’s tone, but his anger is justified. When your whole business is driven by the content that exists at other freestanding services, you do not govern the terms the said services should operate in.

Maciej has already levied against IFTTT, or as he defines it, “the Internet plumbing that has been connecting” web services - recommending alternative services to his users. I, for one, am going to continue with IFTTT. I know they have put a misstep, but am hopeful they will learn from it.

Update: Armin Ronacher has perfectly captured why I feel it is a misstep from IFTTT in his tweet.

The entire point of @ifttt was that they bridge APIs. Outsourcing their entire point of existence to the API providers seems moronic.

— Armin »not the flu« Ronacher (@mitsuhiko) March 29, 2016

Ev Williams suggesting an idea for a new age messaging app to overcome the rush of frantic messaging.

A messaging service/app that only delivers once per day (say, noon). It’s like going to the mailbox and seeing what’s there for you.

It's an interesting idea in principle. But it would not work in reality. Here are my few quick thoughts.

Why Not!

I think it would be interesting to follow the positive effects of this "forced limitation" — things that might make this experiment succeed.

• Writing might be fun because people would have time to mature the thought, an idea and word them in exactly the format they want them in.
• Reading might be fun because there is no urgency to stay on top of the current happenings. Messages don’t become stale if not consumed and commented on as the event is happening.
• What a person writes about and how he words them would be anticipated. Patience is a virtue that is dying a slow death amongst the people socially active today. If forced, it might allow to pull the reins back a tad.

Why Not.

However the limitations would force the user to see the not-so-good side of the social interaction.

• Both for writers and readers, the urgency of publishing and consuming would shift from the time of event to the time of publication.
• The message delivery time cannot be decided to be a fixed time for all — a sort of broadcasting duration. Because not every person has the same consumption pattern. They vary a lot, making the delivery time further complex.
• The behavior is very similar to a daily/weekly news digest. Anticipation lasts in the initial phases, wades out slowly as the unread messages mount up. Rather, the dying patience makes this experiment further difficult to succeed.

Forced limitation is the stick, but where’s the carrot?