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. →
Did anyone think the drama around Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter will play out any differently? Normally, that is? Is anything that this guy does conventional?
Yesterday, I ranted about how Youtube is aggressively pushing Shorts in their feeds and recommendations. Of course, the quality had taken a huge nosedive. Well, just look at the explore tab of YouTube. I very rarely do, that section always had poor-quality videos. But at least they were full-length ones. Now it is full of shorts with each having millions of views.
That’s so much collective time wasted. We need to move on from shaming social media and its addictive nature. These short videos are ruining our habits and I see very few are complaining.
A few years back, I stopped watching Elementary after the last episode of the first season. I didn’t like that it stopped being what it was good at - a riveting procedural drama. I recently started watching the second season and even this season had the same arc. I am stopping watching the series this time too.
It has been raining incessantly here for the past week. So when the Sun shone through clouds momentarily, the whole neighbourhood decided to turn up on the roads. It didn’t matter that the skies were still crowded with clouds and it would rain soon. Too much of anything is bad.
As far as time wastage goes, short video services are the new social media. YouTube Shorts, Reels whatever. I have realized this mindless format of the content is eating up too much of my productive time. YouTube, in itself, was bad. But at least there was a chance that I would learn something. With Shorts, it’s a total waste of hours, a minute at a time.
I don’t watch Reels because, well, I don’t use Instagram. Or Tiktok. Or whatever app that’s trending now. But I keep going back to YouTube often when I have short time to pass. I hate that the app is aggressively pushing the Shorts nowadays.
What’s worse is that the videos are trash. They are neither fun nor informative. They register only as much as a dented luxury car would – I go “huh, that’s odd” and move on.
I finished reading The Comfort Book by Matt Haig today. Though I really enjoyed this book, I don’t think I am done reading it. I will keep this book close and revisit a chapter randomly whenever I feel down. Or feel that I need a nudge in the right direction. I don’t think this one is a book. Each chapter is a nugget of inspiration, of motivation, of reminders for what matters, presented in the most no-nonsense way by Matt Haig. 📚