Excursions

Recent partial failure of the Indian lunar exploration mission — communication loss with the lander Vikram — made me think how crowded the surface of moon must be.

There have been many such hard and soft landings and crashes on the surface of the moon since way before as part of numerous attempted Moon exploration missions, 137 to be precise. And there is a huge list of “artifical” objects that we have magaed to send on the way to the surface of the Moon. Boy, so much to grasp there. Especially dates. Just look at the first entry on there - Luna 2, “the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body”. We, as species, complete 60 years of that achievement today. Fascinating!

Humans have left over 187,400 kilograms (413,100 lb) of material on the Moon, and 380 kilograms (838 lb) of Moon rock was brought back to Earth by Apollo and Luna missions. The only artificial objects on the Moon that are still in use are the retroreflectors for the lunar laser ranging experiments left there by the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 astronauts, and by the Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2 missions.

Apple needs to stop being so stingy with the storages they provide. I do not recall they putting much emphasis on their storage plans, on-device or cloud. It’s worrying that they get mocked all around for this and they are fine with it.

We worry about face recognition just as we worried about databases - we worry what happens if they contain bad data and we worry what bad people might do with them.

A great post by Benedict Evans where he compares our fears around usage of facial recognition technology, and in extension the AI and data hoarding, to the fears we had when data gathering and analysis capabilities of databases was being introduced. Some comparisons are indeed apt. And some fears, of course misguided and misplaced.

Gathering data inherently isn’t bad — it is the fact that it enables bad people to use it in bad manner that everyone knowledgeable worries about. So, the call for regulating the usage of the data isn’t unjustified. However, the exaggerated and far-fetched fall-outs of data misuses, and the recent own goals by the big corps, like Facebook, Google and others, are just making regulators around the world shoot for the easiest target out there — their ability to collect data.

The challenge here, I think, is to work out the right level of abstraction. When Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme imploded, we didn’t say that Excel needed tighter regulation or that his landlord should have spotted what he was doing - the right layer to intervene was within financial services. Equally, we regulate financial services, but mortgages, credit cards, the stock market and retail banks’ capital requirements are all handled very separately. A law that tries to regulate using your face to unlock your phone, or turn yourself into a kitten, and also a system for spotting loyalty-card holders in a supermarket, and to determine where the police can use cameras and how they can store data, is unlikely to be very effective.

Not justifying either side. But the fact that there is a possible conflict of interest with Google’s Project Zero involvement, given it owns competing platforms from Apple and Microsoft, this kerfuffle was bound to happen. Am surprised it didn’t fall out earlier.

For my 5 year old daughter who just watched another magician perform, magic is a skill that is matched by nothing else. It is something that she continues to believe that her father can perform — and something that she is learning to perform.

For me, magic is the silliness that I willingly become part of just to watch my daughter, impressed, giggle. Magic is that feeling when I watch her jump around excitedly after I pull a coin from behind her ear or after I make things disappear and reappear out of thin air.

Magic is what happens when I spend more mindful time with my daughter and my family. When the distractions of the day to day digital life lay forgotten in some corner of the home. When my daughter lends a spontaneous burst of energy and everyone around just joins in on her imaginative games. When there is nothing playing in the background expect for the chatters and guffaws or even complete silence at times. When everyone I love is around me, with me.

That is when magic happens.

Recently, my reading habits have been pleasantly satisfying. If not something that I can be proud of, or anything that’s comparable to the voracious readers I know of, at least I am glad they are far improved. It is only the start of September and I have already met my Goodreads challenge- 4 books ahead of schedule. I understand it was a small target this time - book a month - but I was worried I would not meet even that. I am happy that I did it so comfortably.

It is the use of Audible that has led me to at least stay on track for the “book a month” target. Every credit I got in the month was excitedly utilized. I say “excitedly” because I used to be keen to get a new credit and identify a new book at the start of every month. Of course, it meant I had to change the habits of my “reading” - rather listening. No podcasts. No music in car. It had to be a book.

I thought I would always have one. This month proved that would not be the case always. I was through with the audiobook — the brilliant second in the Discworld series from Terry Pratchett — in the first week itself. Audible is wonderful!

This allowed me time to kindle my reading habit next. So, well, my old Kindle had to get recharged and be ready to serve. And serve it did. It was great to complete reading one book and get in the middle of another — right after finishing the audible book. There are times when I can’t listen — or may be I can avoid listening. Especially when I have a limited time at hand. For example while standing in a short queue. Kindle app on my phone has taken that mind space. It is better than letting the stream of some social network, mainly Twitter or YouTube, pollute my mind with some useless posts.

So August was brilliant from reading perspective for me - 2.5 books read. I want to continue doing so in the remaining year too.

There is one book that I just can’t get back to, the latest in the Cormoron Strike from J.K.Rowling. This one has stayed there in the list of my “currently reading” books for more than a year now. I am ~30% in. And I am no way inclined to pick it up again. It is not that I do not enjoy the Strike series. I do. I have throughly enjoyed the first three books. But there is something about the latest one, or the time when I am reading it and the state of my mind, that makes me uninterested in story it narrates. Or the way it narrates it.

I may have to drop it for now, move it to couldn’t complete. May I will attempt to read it again with a fresh perspective. And at a new phase.

I have met two types of customer service representatives. There is a section that is trained to listen to what the customer has to be say and serve her rightly. It may, at times, involve sailing through the tirade that the angry, unsatisfied customer unleashes on them. They wait for the right moment to pacify them with a solution that does actually solve the problem that she has.

Then there is another section that neither calms a customer down nor solve her problem. They just passively ignore the blabber and just move on to what they had to do right from the beginning — lead her to another queue.

Both these sections pacify the customer by making her tired.

But there is another section, though in minority, that I come across with a pleasant surprise. They do not listen to your tirade - they even engage, if necessary. They make you realize that your anger is unjustified at the moment, at the place and is against a person that does not deserve to be shouted at. They pacify you by not making you tired, but by tersely moving on to the actual problem that should be addressed. It demands a degree of confidence in one’s knowledge and experience and belief in understanding the customer need better to belong in this group.

Which section fits the standard schooling of customer care, is more effective in addressing the customer needs is undoubtedly debatable. I believe majority of the people may prefer the patience and calmness of the first group. But at times, it is the concise interaction of the final group that is beneficial for all parties involved.

It’s been around a month since I started maintaining a bullet journal (BuJo, as it is called with love). It has been an enlightening month - I have learned so much about my habits and the way my mind works.

Of course, this wasn’t my first attempt at maintaining a journal or of planning myself, my life through an organizer. There have been many failed new year resolutions that have led to me buying, keeping and planning my days and months in the traditional journals - ones with days, months written on every page. With every day that I had failed to make an entry in, I had lost my interest in writing or planning another today. I just wasn’t organized enough each day, everyday to keep myself, well, organized.

However, I love, love updating my personal bullet journal daily. I believe the analog method of doing so is one big reason behind the change. Thoughts flow freely through the pen on to the paper — a lot more so than they do digitally. There is something about the legibility (illegibility, to be fair) of the handwritten words that lowers some mental hurdles. I always wondered, and even subconsciously ridiculed, the fascination a section of my social circle had with the pen and paper - the pen addicts. But I do fathom the allure now.

The fact that I could be more organized with BuJo by being less organized at times was neat. The process of “maintaining” a journal feels a lot less formal and this casualness has done wonders for my journaling/organizing attempts. The whole concept of rapid logging - capturing thoughts as bulleted lists - worked brilliantly for me. It was ok to miss bullets for a day. It was ok to not have any tasks, but only notes for a day. It was ok to not complete tasks on the day, or even in the week that it was written — just migrate it to a new page. It’s perfect for my moody, erratic, unorganized mind.

A month of habit tracking has also been delightful. This is what I was tracking when I started this habit of tracking habits - morning walk/run, publish 100 words every day, measure weight, three meals a day and regular sleep routine.

And boy, have I learned stuff about what makes me carry through any habits. Some habits are easy, some are way too difficult.

• Habits that I thought would be a cakewalk to follow, turned out to be a walk in a desert. Those I thought would need more push from my side came just naturally.
• I had thought 100 words to be published daily would be the most difficult task for me to stick to. Three meals/morning walks would be difficult, but not so much. Nah ah. It is apparently easier for me to do things I enjoy doing (bruh, of course) - so I wrote daily more often than I jogged or controlled eating. However, I thoroughly enjoyed attempting to stick to all the three daily, so I plan to continue to track them.
• Measuring one’s weight daily does nothing but act as a deterrent when you are trying to lose your weight. It is easier to do, but useless. Anything that I shouldn’t be doing daily doesn’t need to be on the tracker.
• Maintaining regular sleep routine was something I did almost daily. But this tracking was also the most ineffective of the lot. I think I know the reason - I just wasn’t specific enough with my target. “Regular” and “routine” are subjective. So any sleep more than 7 hours was fine — didn’t matter if it was pleasant or how I felt when I woke up. I do want to sign myself up for a good sleep routine. So this particular item would need some changes.

With all the learnings, I decided to continue with my habit tracker, with some tweaking. This is what I would track as my daily habits for the next month.

• Rise by 6 AM
• Morning Walk/Run
• Morning Pages
• Publish 100 Words
• 3 Meals/day
• Sleep by 11 PM

Since I started maintaining a bullet journal, I have also started carrying along a small diary that I mainly use for the morning pages. It helps me declutter my mind to a limit. Do I see benefits? I believe it is too early to say. But it is something I do want to carry on.

It has been a wonderful month of reorganizing the way I lead my life with journals. Is it worth all the effort I have to go through? Only time will tell. But it for sure has made some aspects of my life more fun.

I believe I have finally managed to get the Micropub posts - mainly likes and notes - created via Shortcut. Have solved my need for now, mainly link posts with content and notes with syndication. This note is a test for later in a way.

When will the private companies selling consumer products stop assuming they continue to own the product (and especially the data it collects) after it’s sold? And use, monetize and share it as they deem fit?

Doorbell-camera firm Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

I remember there was a discussion sometime back about using Shortcuts to make Micropub requests - mainly to create different posts. Especially replies and likes. I’m unable to find any references to such discussion, nor finding any online. Would be nice if I can get this.

Nothing that Google does to hoard more data is surprising any more. Sigh!

What happens when you launch Google Chrome for the first time on a Windows 10 machine? When I launched Google Chrome for the first time, 32 requests were made, and 7.26 MB of data downloaded.

Too much has been happening for the last few weeks. I do not like this much happening.

For one, it completely ruins all the plans one has — one just doesn’t get a chance to think of anything. All he can do is to run amok trying to catch up. Plan? Bruhh! What plan? Run!

Second, the routine that you so diligently, so delicately have been following for some time now? Yeah, forget about that. Screw that. That’s going to go for a toss too. I haven’t been able to stick to a single routine. None. Nada.

And sure, I could have foreseen and planned for this spike in activity, right? Nope, not at all.

You can’t plan for events that haven’t been scheduled yet.

You can’t plan for the back to back birthdays you haven’t been invited to yet.

You can’t plan for friends and relatives remembering and visiting you after ages.

And you can’t plan for the sudden feeling of illness, of exhaustion this whole running around leaves you with.

Could I have avoided any of that? Did I not welcome any of what happened? No, of course not. But what I ended up doing is sit alone at my desk, physically and mentally sick and tired, trying to calm things down. To Breathe.

Because there’s no way to plan against the unplanned, against irregularity.

Long time back, I had added The 15:17 to Paris in my watchlist, for one simple reason. Clint Eastwood. I finally managed to catch up on the movie. And boy was I disappointed. It was a terrible terrible movie. No doubt, it is so poorly rated across. How could you, Clint?

SpaceX is teaming up with the maker of a space tugboat, which would nudge satellites around, clean up space junk, and do other orbital housekeeping.

Our recent innovations in Space visits always fascinate me. There are so many players trying to solve each unique problem with the space trips. I find the concept of “rideshare” in space really intriguing.

That question is still open, in part because space tugs still have to prove themselves and live up to their promise of reusability. “The current state of the space tug is, you pay for the entire Uber car, you drive it to one spot, and then you throw it away,” says Roberts.

It’s of great importance to make sure we are not junking up the space. And I find it satisfying (to a limit) that there are attempts to clean this junk too.

The various tugs on the drawing boards and in the engineering labs of Earth could—in addition to acting as puddle-jumpers—also cut down on space junk, by tugging satellites out of orbit, and keep useful satellites up longer, by boosting them to higher orbits.

I am stunned at how often someone calls somebody else “normal”, with a hope that it would belittle him or her. Why is being “normal” not ok? Normal of anything is absolutely fine.

Sure, your goals and aims from your life can be extremely high. But normalcy is not something to be mocked.

There are so many people around the world who would consider being normal a privilege. Earning normal wages. Owning a normal house. Looking, sounding or behaving like a normal person. Leading a normal life.

Yes, these are all privileges that the normal people enjoy. So next time someone says I am normal, am going to spread a nice, wide smile across my face and say “thank you”!

How can Google continue to deliver the GMail app on iOS with the attachment functionality that is so limited. And still get it through Apple. There’s just no way to attach any files from Dropbox or Files. And even files from Google Drive are only attached as link. Terrible!

Notes, Messages, Phone and Photos. These are the apps from Apple that I use on my iPhone. All others are developed by the third-party developers. I believe this pattern must be very similar for all the iOS users — underlines the privilege and the responsibility that Apple has.

I am fed up of reading the long posts from men that list down all the household tasks that, as per them, women do - as if they are the only tasks women can do. Funnily, they end it with “RespectWomen” hashtags.

Sorry, there’s no respect in your regressive thought. Sigh!

“BBQ is happiness!”

Nature paints in so many colours - but it pays special attention when it paints in white. It is gorgeous, it is healing.

What is silence? Is it the lack of any sound or is it the lack of any discernible sound? What do you need to attain calmness?

Today, I sat alone, reading for around an hour - time that I was the most focused in a very long time. I felt I was alone, I physically wasn’t. I realised this only once I was out of my trance.

I was surrounded by a persistent hustle-bustle of the regularities of a working day. People chattering over a cup of coffee. Muffled, at the same time distinctly recognisable, voices of the labourers working outside the window. Rambles of the passing trains every now and then.

There was a lot of sound, a lot of noise around me. But there was silence within - I have come to realise it works way better to calm one down than the silence outside.

Patience is a virtue that is rapidly getting extinct within us. Everything digital has trained us to expect everything instant. You want to read, watch, listen to, learn, earn? There’s an app for that.

We were ruined, further, by the advances in efficient service distribution at scale. You need things delivered - there’s a service for that. Groceries? Yeah, those are covered. Food? Cab? Stationery? Yep, we got those covered too.

Services would reach you earlier after a week or more, if at all they could reach you. It became days. One day was a stretch goal that was soon met for many. And next was hours. For many services, it is minutes now. 30 minutes or free.

We have all been ruined by this promise of “instant”. A detour of 15 minutes before the food is delivered is worthy of a lengthy rant at the service provider now. A delay of a day before one’s headphone is delivered is intolerable.

Days of patiently waiting for things we need, we want have long been lost. We are ruined by our lack of patience.

Martin Weigert has an interesting take on this - this is what he wrote while sharing this essay as part if his weekly newsletter at Meshed Soceity.

(…) there are at least 2 types of patience: Waiting for the pay offs of one’s work (whether on oneself or external projects), and waiting for things one needs. I consider the first type a virtue. The latter type however, seems to be mostly a mental hack to make a virtue out of necessity. Have to wait for 4 hours to get your 5 minutes at the doctor? Be patient! Have to wait one week to get the thing you bought online? Be patient! Have to wait one day until your bank transfer has been processed? Be patient! In these cases, there is nothing inherently virtuous or positive in waiting.

I do not disagree with any part of this. And I was indeed focused on the second type that he talked about because that’s primary what he face more often and so is what that tests us the most. It is important that we do not lose our sanity if things do go wrong while we wait for things and have to wait longer.

How ergonomical are the ergonomic mouse in reality - especially the vertical ones? I am seriously considering buying just to see if it helps. I am worried the frequent pains in the wrist are only to increase further. Not something I can live with given my profession.