Excursions

I read this brilliant tweet from Evan Greer highlighting how cynical the techies have been left as the result of the last few years.

Medical experts: we need testing, PPE, & social distancing

Tech bros: so surveillance, right?

Medical experts: testing, hand washing, masks & ppl staying home plz.

Tech bros: got it, fever seeking drones

Medical experts: TESTING! PPE!!!

Tech bros: facial recognition?

I understand, all the efforts that the governments all over the world are rolling out towards containing the spread of virus can potentially affect our privacy. Or the way we are used to control our privacy. But I believe it is not just this issue that we will have to live with and fight against after this pandemic has passed.

Summer is setting in — stays too hot throughout the day. And is equally bad in nights too. It is going to be a trying May ☀😰 — especially so without the regular niceties of the months of summer 🏖🍧🍹

I watched a few episodes of the new Netflix miniseries Hasmukh. Only because there was Vir Das associated with it. But it was such a bore. Das didn’t fit the character - he is too posh to pull off the role of a small-town guy. Plus as a comedian on-screen, he just isn’t funny.

I realize that I have so much time at hand by not doing the activities that I always wanted to avoid. Like those long commutes. Or needless trips to shopping malls. Or attending those guests that I didn’t want to.

So much time at hand. So much that I could do, that I could create potentially. Potentially.

However, I find that my mind wanders off. It can’t concentrate for long. It can’t be creative. I keep staring at the blank screen before I give up and reach out for something to read. I stare at those words that should mean something. But then I again give up. Finally and unwillingly, I land at those apps. The apps that I had carefully spent the last few months on getting into a habit of avoiding.

Wish this wasn’t difficult. But the fact is today everything is. Wish I could better control my mind. But the fact is today I can hardly control anything.

When this all passes over, it is not this helplessness that I want to remember these days for. So it is my photo gallery that is most happening.

It is full of snapshots of everything different that we have been doing together as a family. Cooking. Playing. Singing. Dancing. Not just the photos, it is full of videos now. I am creating movies out of these moments of togetherness. At least, am learning now. The pictures, the movies, they need not be perfect, as long as they bring out the underlying, momentary happiness, hopefulness, that I lived through.

So some years down, when I get a notification for new memories in my photos app — saying “5 years ago” — it is that feeling of togetherness, happiness, hopefulness that I want to personally associate this pandemic, this lockdown with.

Maybe that’s very selfish of me. But that’s the least harmful vice this pandemic could live behind within me.

“But dad, why is 14 spelt as fourteen while 40 is forty? Why can’t they keep things simple?” Asks my daughter. I guess when you don’t go outside, you can spot and question even the trivial things that you usually neglect. Or maybe lockdown hasn’t affected the curious minds?

I understand now why the post-apocalyptic fiction tends to focus on the aftermath of an apocalypse - especially of a pandemic. The period when the world lives through, fights and struggles gets tiring, I guess. Though this is the poignant period, there’s nothing dramatic.

I like what I see in the new iPhone SE. First the perfect name — the “smaller” SE brand did not die (4.7” is now the new small). It is exactly what the old SE was — the proven externals with the latest internals. But personally, I can’t go back to the small, bezeled screens.

Almost all the core features of Github are free now. It’s so refreshing to see the approach of this new Microsoft towards the open-source software. They have been wonderful custodians of all the services they have recently purchased. I respect this Microsoft under Satya Nadella.

Some day, the world will be free of the effects of the current pandemic we are living. All would then switch to live a normal life again. But, most experts agree that this switch is not going to be easy. A vaccine, when it is found, “is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to bring to market”. It is not that our brilliant scientist may not bring the treatment early. The challenge is to make it reach the millions of people affected by the virus. What that means, according to this brilliant essay in MIT Technology Review, “we have to prepare for a world in which there is no cure and no vaccine for a long time”.

There is a way to live in this world without staying permanently shut indoors. But it won’t be a return to normal; this will be, for Westerners at any rate, a new normal, with new rules of behavior and social organization, some of which will probably persist long after the crisis has ended.

In recent weeks a consensus has started to build among various groups of experts on what this new normal might look like.

One thing that Corona pandemic hasn’t managed to change - media, social or otherwise, is still full of cynicism. The environment outside is already heavy, laden with negative thoughts. It tends to affect your mind more than it regularly did. You do not want more fed externally.

I heard about another “simpler” service aimed to replace Medium - Typehut. Of course, I gave a try. It took everything from Medium — good and bad. Simplified what was already good and simple - editor. Kept all that was bad as is. No RSS. No title-less posts. No custom styles.

Apparently, Google plans to charge for using reCAPTCHA. Looks like we have trained Google’s algorithm well enough now that they do not need to run the service anymore. Best way to kill it is by start charging for it.

I cut my hair at home today with “some” help from my wife. Then I helped my dad with his hair. He looked satisfied. He stressed and did so many-a-times, how close his hair looked to those cut professionally. Funny how some services deemed essential are not so in reality.

I find it ironic that “the everything store” has found it extremely difficult to serve customers in India. I haven’t managed to order anything from Amazon. The specific stores for groceries or vegetables, on the other hand, have managed to thrive. I do wonder why.

I have been winding every day down with this playlist on Spotify — Calming Acoustic. It relieves me of all the stress accumulated throughout the day. Allows me to focus on a few things that matter the most. And to spend some quiet time with me.

I am avoiding anything too serious in these times — searching for something to binge-watch that is light but at the same time intriguing. I had enjoyed the comedy police procedurals like Castle and Psych. I’m sure there would be something similar to be streamed somewhere.

I have realized that am not afraid to click the “Follow” link on a profile on Micro.blog. I believe it is the lack of an algorithmic timeline that prevents the whole reading experience from becoming overwhelming. The list of post is never too much - so keeps the timeline sane.

If you publish a newsletter, please, please include a link to your archives very close to that “Subscribe” button your want readers to click. You intend to form a relationship with the readers. Give them a chance to see in advance what and how you write.

I have now learnt about how to cut hair at home. To make sanitizers at home. To make masks at home. The correct way to wear masks - and hand gloves. And the correct way to remove them. To efficiently and effectively wash hands. To wash food containers. To sanitize cash. To sanitize sanitizer bottles.

Sigh! I don’t think I was ready for all these unique knowledge bites. I don’t think even internet was.

This had to be the worst time for US to have Donald Trump as President. He comes out as indifferent from whatever I’ve read and seen. Maybe what gets reported is biased, but even his addresses to press have been mixed. Indifferent is worst you can be as a leader today.

Snow-capped mountains are visible from places that have never seen them in decades. Ganga water is significantly cleaner. Smog-free skies and clear canals. Nature is smiling back at the world. We, humans, screw up. We lock ourself out. Nature decides to clean itself.

I started, and stopped watching Manifest — another in the list of Lost-wannabes. It takes more than just a good sci-fi premise to be what Lost was. Sure, even Lost wasn’t perfect. But it’s well written and acted, which most aren’t.

With a significant majority of the world following a stay-home routine, many of the planned events have gone online-only. This has given me a wonderful chance to be part of events that I could never have been part of. A small relief amidst all the negativity and gloom around!

Kai Brach delivers a brilliant advise as part of this week’s newsletter of Dense Discovery. I have been trying my best to also live a trivial life in these trying times.

It never felt so comforting watching someone clean their car. On my screen, the world ends any minute. But from my balcony, life goes on, one sponge wipe at a time.

So let’s think and read and write and talk about trivial stuff, too. Trivial is OK. Trivial is life.

I am always fascinated with the idea of a book club - may be because I just haven’t got a chance to be part of one. How does it work? In today’s time of lockdown, this would be wonderful to experience. Are there any that are done on web, say via Zoom?