Excursions

I have been a PC guy since I was 10 years old. The first version that I used was Windows 95. I stayed the longest with Windows 98. I fell in love with Windows XP even on my PC hardware that didn’t support the OS well then.

However, what I had for this platform wasn’t love. For the small town I am from, Windows was the default platform. At home, in school and at work. Mac OS wasn’t a name anyone had heard. Linux was limited to textbooks.

I dabbled with the latter during my bachelor’s and the developer in me was instantly captivated. It wasn’t ready to replace the default OS on my desktop though. There was still some time to go before it could go mainstream. So like most folks around me, I dual-booted Windows and Linux.

However, I believe things have improved since then. There are many “flavours” of Linux today that target users beyond developers. Why not then should I give them a try again?

So I have been running Linux as my primary OS for more than a few months now. I haven’t missed my default platform yet. It may not still be ready for all the people that Microsoft targets with Windows. But it is ready to be the default platform for many tech-minded folks out there.

I am not going back to Windows anymore. I don’t have any incentive,

PS: I am trying Chrome OS Flex currently. I am pretty impressed with this flavour of an operating system. It’s light and fast. Plus it also runs Linux now. Except for the fear of Google, this platform has a lot going for it.

An unpopular opinion, but I need not post everything on my blog. Some fleeting thoughts are better if not considered as part of the words “published”.

You have to leverage the mind’s habitual and reflexive nature. Instead of consciously “trying to be more present,” you gently train your own attention, like you’re training a dog, to locate and be with present moment experience as a normal and natural reflex.

Source: Trying to Be More Present Isn’t Enough →

A social network or a community dies when the interactions dry down. When everyone speaks but there is no dialogue. Soon everyone is shouting at the top of their voices.

I find and read a lot of brilliant articles/essays throughout the day. Most are shareworthy which I freely do. But I have realised too much reading is unfavourable for my writing. The mind gets inundated with others’ thoughts. I tend to first be affected by them, then overanalyze them and soon get paralysed by them. It’s not a healthy chain of events.

I am reading a lot more than I am writing. I haven’t made up my mind yet that it is bad. But I need to balance them both.

Garbage in, garbage out. Sure. But only in, nothing out is equally bad – doesn’t matter that it’s only the best that goes in.

There are times when I know I want to write about something, but I can’t think of anything. This is one such moment. Plus I am too sleepy to dig into my mind. So I am making this note to slightly pacify my mind.

This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you couldn’t, or didn’t even know you could.

Source: Things you’re allowed to do - Milan Cvitkovic →

A fascinating list this. A few that resonated with me were saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion” when you don’t" or “don’t drink (alcohol), even when you’re expected to”. A handy reference.

My daughter regularly uses the assistants at home – for timers, for reminders. To play songs that she loves. She even asks questions about things she gets curious about. She loves Alexa and talks to her as if talking to a friend. She can work with Google Assistant – it always gets the job done.

However, she doesn’t like Siri. I set a timer for her with Siri today – it didn’t take her long to move it to Echo. Well, I can’t blame her. She asked Siri how much time was remaining on her timer. Siri replied, “I am sorry, I can’t do that here.” How can you not do something so basic?

Once my daughter was done, I asked Siri to cancel the timer. Well, she repeated that she can’t do that. Sigh!

I suck at emojis – I don’t understand this language. Why are there so many representations of the quality of laughter? Grinning, Smiling, Beaming and whatnot. I understand each word means something different, but conveying that through the right emoji is a task in itself. I mean seriously, what’s the difference between emoji representing “Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes” and “Beaming Face with Smiling Eyes”? I will never know that.

We have around 3600 emojis (3633 to be exact), which include gender or skin tones. Isn’t that number too large? Plus it keeps growing every year. Sure, add new emojis that people want and anticipate. But remove a few tens that get hardly used. Who uses Dotted Line Face 🫥? What does it even mean?

Emoji is a powerful language – fastest growing at that. But it need not grow meaninglessly.

Side note, did you know 😭 is the most used emoji? It represents the pain that is using the right emoji.

These stunning images are a major achievement for us Earthlings. And given everything absurd we’ve witnessed on Earth of late, they are more than that. If nothing else, the humongousness of the universe ought to put our problems into perspective. A little insignificance isn’t such a bad thing.

Source: What’s in the James Webb space telescope photos? We can explain. →