Excursions

Heritage in your palms #stories

Idling around Delhi Airport en route Jaipur. Vacation time! 🎄✈️

Idling around Delhi Airport enroute Jaipur. Vacation time! 🎄✈️

I read this in the Firefox’s latest release notes…

The :has() selector is now supported. This allows authors to match an element that has, or “anchors”, at least one element matching its relative selector.

… and first thought I had was isn’t it curious Mozilla calls people who will use this feature “authors” and not “developers”?

One app for feeds and newsletters is a promise that’s hardly fulfilled, especially when newsletters these days are HTML-heavy – almost webpages. No feedreader renders the majority of them. It can work only when a separate view is built just for newsletters and I don’t know of any that does this well. I have tried Feedbin, Reader and a few others. They all suck.

One app for feeds and newsletters is a promise that’s hardly fulfilled, especially when newsletters these days are HTML-heavy – almost webpages. No feedreader renders the majority of them. It can work only when a separate view is built just … www.amitgawande.com/2023/12/1…

After a week of informing, I have shut down Scribe today. Bittersweet.

After a week of informing, I have shut down Scribe today. Bittersweet.

Every time I see a blogging platform make title a mandatory field, I cringe. I know why the new blogging platforms generally do that — it simplifies the UI and backend design. But that tells me they will support the titleless posts only as an afterthought, which I don’t like. 

Start with titleless posts as the base, making them first-class citizens. Stitch the design around that. And then add support for titles. People latched on to the microblogging phenomenon of Twitter and Facebook because they made posting interfaces frictionless. A simple textbox floated at the top of the timeline for quick thoughts to be posted.

That’s what every blogging platform needs if we are to attract more people to blogging. Everything other than the content of the post is meaningless.

Every time I see a blogging platform make title a mandatory field, I cringe. I know why the new blogging platforms generally do that — it simplifies the UI and backend design. But that tells me they will support the titleless posts only as … www.amitgawande.com/2023/12/1…

I take my blogging too seriously, to the detriment of my writing.

After deliberating over whether to offer membership for my online creations, I decided to set up a single One a Month tier. The decision to set up a membership of any form was triggered by the recent realisation that led me to pull down Scribe- the realisation that my side projects cost me dear. Every month, the prices add up, and I eventually run out of motivation to keep going.

However, the step to keep it simple and affordable for people considering support is inspired by a recent post by Manu where he proposed changing the defaults on pricing the support.

The 1$ part means you can set it up and forget about it because it’s a low enough amount that won’t make too much of a difference for the majority of people who are considering supporting online creators.

For a period now, I have had a Buy Me a Coffee page so that others can support my hobby projects. Many have, and I could not be more grateful. I have now rolled out a simple membership to cover the projects that need hosting and, hence, carry a monthly bill. The likes of Scribe. And Micro.threads.

With one membership, there are no complicated tiers. And no special rewards, either. Frankly, I could limit the number of members to ten as that’s all I need to support my ongoing side projects. But I am keeping things simple for now.

However, in today’s tumultuous world, one full of uncertainty, to expect anything in return for my hobby projects would be unfair on my part. No obligation, hence, on anyone whatsoever.

After deliberating over whether to offer membership for my online creations, I decided to set up a single One a Month tier. The decision to set up a membership of any form was triggered by the recent realisation that led me to pu… www.amitgawande.com/2023/12/1…

I really really wish I could use Phanpy for scrolling through my Micro.blog timeline. It is a well-designed interface for a timeline of any sort. The fact that the source code is open is very tempting. But I stop myself every time from signing up for a new project.

I really really wish I could use Phanpy for scrolling through my Micro.blog timeline. It is a well-designed interface for a timeline of any sort. The fact that the source code is open is very tempting. But I stop myself every time from signing up for a new project.

The recent discussions around social media platforms tire me. BlueSky. Threads. Mastodon. And whatnot. They are all the same. Trying to cash in on the lost interest in Twitter. To be similar to Twitter, yet distinct at the same time. I see people try these different services and get impressed. Their interest fades away after pounding the timelines with posts. This has happened to me with all the above services.

The network effect that Twitter managed 15 years back won’t be recreated. Twitter was a lone service. Fifteen years ago was a different time.

When I joined Twitter, I cared zilch about how I should use it. Or how I shouldn’t. That was a different me then. Now, I think a lot about how and how much I should use social networks.

I hold myself back out of fear. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of complexity. Fear of promises.

The fear won’t let me get hooked to any social networks anymore. Syndicating posts from my blog is not going to do that either.

I had forgotten that I had purchased iA Writer and had the app installed on my Mac. So odd that I missed this. Anyway, with my plan to shut down Scribe, I am back to writing with iA Writer.

I believe Ulysses' overall better experience, both writing and publishing, attracted me to the app. I subconsciously moved away from iA Writer, never to return. Time to change that. iA Writer was the first writing app that I fell in love with. It’s no surprise, then, that it continues to impress.

I had forgotten that I had purchased iA Writer and had the app installed on my Mac. So odd that I missed this. Anyway, with my plan to shut down Scribe, I am back to writing with iA Writer.

I believe it was Ulysses' overall better experience, b… www.amitgawande.com/2023/12/1…

We had so much fun watching Wonka today. Loved the music and the colourful narration. The story, though predictable, was delightful, too. Plus, it made us eat scoopful of chocolate later. In times of gory, violent movies, this one was a welcome change.

We had so much fun watching Wonka today. Loved the music and the colourful narration. The story, though predictable, was delightful, too. Plus, it made us eat scoopful of chocolate later. In times of gory, violent movies, this one was a welcome change.

I am planning to shut down Scribe. I don’t think anyone uses it (I have no way of knowing, but I have the feeling), and it is a cost that I can very well save. Fun while it lasted.

I have recently been getting rid of all the distractions - side projects, hobbies etc. - that I have no time for.

I am planning to shut down Scribe. I don’t think anyone uses it (I have no way of knowing, but I have the feeling), and it is a cost that I can very well save. Fun while it lasted.

I have recently been getting rid of all the distractions - side projects, hobbies etc. - that I have no time for.

Every morning for the past few days, I plan to sit and jot down my thoughts sometime during the day. As the evening dawns and I sign off from my work without #writing anything, the weight of unpublished thoughts pulls me down. I console myself that there’s still night to come. I would be surrounded by silence and calmness. No distractions with everyone deep asleep. The perfect conditions for me to write.

Even though, I know very well that waiting for such perfect conditions is futile. The fact that I haven’t written anything these past few days proves the point again. I can never expect to get into the flow of writing if I wait for the conditions to be exactly right.

Seth Godin has succinctly captured this thought in his book The Practice.

We do the work, whether we feel like it or not, and then, without warning, flow can arise. Flow is a symptom of the work we’re doing, not the cause of it.

I write when I sit down and write. Not when I am thinking about writing. I have identified a process that works for me. I need to stick to it.

But should I write even if I don’t feel like writing? Hadn’t I read someone recommend never to write when I am tired? What if I am tired right now? You know what? The lazy in me loves to listen to others when it suits him. I need to shut him down. I need not overcomplicate things.

I love writing. I need to write. If it means, at times, I need to force myself to stare at a blank editor with a blinking cursor, so be it. Word will flow.

Plus it stops me from feeling like shit.

As much as I love my routines, I have recently struggled to keep one. Although there are some that I regularly follow, I lack a daily routine of any sort, whether in the mornings, evenings or through the day.

I know the routines are essential, mainly to free up some mental space for the creative work. It makes sense that “regular work processes allows workers to spend less cognitive energy on recurring tasks, which can support focus and creativity for more complex tasks.” I then find it surprising that I have a complicated relationship with my routines.

I wake up, sleep at fixed times, and have a chain of habits associated with the time after and before. But nothing else sticks.

I don’t have a time blocked for focused work. Or for my hobby projects like writing. I then wind down every day feeling frustrated not having achieved what I thought I would at the start of the day.

While ruminating over these struggles in my journal, I stumbled upon a realization. I cannot follow a daily routine because I lack a work-life balance. But unlike the pre-pandemic period, it is tilted much towards #life. Because I am always working from home, I surround myself with distractions while working.

My family, my pet and their stories. The apps on my iPad and my books. My home. All pry for my attention. And I am not strong enough to fight any of that for long.

When I visited the office, I had a clear separation of what I did and worked on while at the office. At home, that separation is difficult to attain. It’s funny that this separation of space was considered important during the pandemic’s early days. The only difference is that for others, it was not to get drained by work and leave some time for life. It is not to let my home life muddle in my work life.

This has had a predominant effect on my writing. I tell myself I can do it anytime, so I don’t do it at any time. Why do I need a creative block marked in my calendar when I can read, write and think any time I want?

Unfortunately, given how lazy and prone to procrastinate I am, I do.

I have a printer, and it has moods. It decides if it wants to print what I want it to print. It doesn't when it doesn't want to. Today it was in the mood to print one page well and then had a swing to screw up all others.

And I am not strong enough to fight the mood swings of my printer.