Excursions

I recently watched “Bhai: Vyakti Ki Valli”, a movie I was very eagerly waiting for quite some time now. It is a biopic of a person that I adore, an iconic Marathi writer and a humorist, a brilliant theater artist and an adept musician, a person who inspired me to start writing. That person is Purushottam Laxman Deshpande, lovingly called “Pu. La.” or “Bhai” in the region I am from.

Narrating the life of this towering personality is not a small feat given the sheer number of stream of art he was passionate about. He is a well-known and a well-respected person amongst Maharashtrians of all age. It is through his writing, through the careful study of human nature around him that he taught many what the real happiness is. So it is only just that I was so curious to learn more about this master, through especially the first of this two-part biopic that focuses on his early life.

It was wonderful to know more about this simple person and was refreshing to see the Maharashtra of early 1900. In a way, I thought the people, the society that Bhai dwelt in was a lot more liberal, more open than what we see today. It was pleasing to watch the strong women with definite opinions, the simple marriage or even the relationship that Bhai’s wife and his mother share. The finale with a mind-blowing rendition of Hindustani classical music through a couple of well-known songs was sheer magic on screen - left me with goose bumps down my arms. It is Marathi culture on display. It instantly transported me back to my childhood days when these songs were our morning alarms. Boy, how much do I yearn for the simple life of yesteryears?

No doubt then that it was a brilliant watch for me, and my family. Even my friends share my experience. But all of us already know a lot about the person and the people around him. The list of characters, from the real-life like Bhimsen Joshi or Kumar Gandarva and from Bhai’s imagination like Anna or Namu Parit, that walk the screen are well itched in us Marathi people’s memories. But that may not be the case for people not from this state.

I wish this movie was an equally well-made biography, not just a celebration of the life of this beloved man. I wish the characters were allowed to grow, introduced at the very least. I wish we learned more about the relationship Bhai shared with these characters. I wish this could have been that one movie I would recommend every friend of mine to watch so that they knew what gem of a person Pu. La. was. But, alas.

First thing I did once I was back from the theater was to listen to couple of Pu. La.’s story-telling acts. It was heart-warming for me to see many aged couples who could barely walk taking all the effort to come down to the theater with their family and laughing their hearts out. May be they had spent their golden years together watching Bhai live and now they want to re-live those days. So yes, the movie did leave many, including me, nostalgic. May be that was the win the makers were going for.

Introducing Codeblog - “Why isn’t the internet more fun and weird” →

Codeblog makes coding as easy as blogging. It’s an open-source blogging platform where, instead of just words, you can also write code that runs in the blog post.

I feel updates to m.b discover feed have slowed down significantly. May be @macgenie too is getting ready with some nice little announcements to make after Manton? 🤔

In a year marred by media tirade for their sheer disregard for user’s privacy, Facebook continues to grow unhindered. Their income grew more than 60% this quarter, even MAU increased. No wonder Mark believes FB’s too important for the world — be ready for more apologies.

Just when I thought that I was done with theming my online presence, I’m being tempted to think otherwise. First, this wonderful discussion on a design from @vincent that I adore. Now the updates around custom themes for Micro.blog. Ah, time to stay focused.

Just a glance down the Twitter timeline and it fills one with rage. There’s just too much negativity on display. And a big source for that are likes and retweets and replies. But, deleting Facebook account was a lot easier. I had no use of that - can’t say that for Twitter.

Apple finally blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps. The ties between the two companies drop to an all time low. Facebook considers this as a critical issue. However they should have seen this coming. They can’t expect a pass just because they are a major player.

Bluetooth headphones suck big time if used for listening to any form of music. They are good only for podcasts/audiobooks or calls. Videos are more terrible. I carry an extra pair of wired headphones, just in case. I empathise with all those who cursed “courageous” Apple.

There’s a planned change in how DNS responds to queries from non-complaint systems and it can potentially affect your domain availability. You can do a quick check at DNS Flag Day if you own any domains.

Apparently, Hover DNS systems I use aren’t fully ready. Interesting.

Derek Sivers wrote a wonderful piece on the benefits he has realized via his diaries and journals. He talks about why he likes keeping his daily diary.

We so often make big decisions in life based on predictions of how we think we’ll feel in the future, or what we’ll want. Your past self is your best indicator of how you actually felt in similar situations. So it helps to have an accurate picture of your past.

It was especially fascinating looking at the list of topics he keeps a journal about. A great, great inspiration for any one looking out for what to journal about. He puts down a prime example.

I especially like my “Regrets” journal. Whenever I do something I regret, I write it down there, noting why I regret it, what I wish I would have done instead, and how I hope to prevent this in the future.

Derek has given me so much to ponder on. I have bookmarked this, I may reference this every time I question my resolve to journal more. Even outside of a journal, I think this is a great suggestion to write everything.

Ask yourself questions, then question your answers.

To be frank, it was when I read his account that I got to know that diary and journal are not the same. Apparently, diary is for an account of one’s daily activities while journal is for more comprehensive thoughts on specific topics. Some may say that’s minutiae, but it’s good to know.

I intend to stop publishing the weekly digest from this week onward, at least in its current form. It was turning out to be an effort against a post I wasn’t going for initially.

Surprisingly (or not may be), I was dearly missing the system-wide emojis from Mac as I switched to Windows — before I realized, of course, they are available. I need to spend some time finding everything about the platform I have decided to move to now.

I understand the argument of this GDPR article on Verge, but, as a developer, I also believe that the data these companies hold on you is very complicated to be presented in any form which isn’t a bit messy. You’ll need a reference to parse the data, which should be acceptable.

What do you do with your old electronic devices? I find this decision especially tricky with laptops and tablets. They may be unusable for me, but I know for a fact that there would be a section that will find these to be useful.

I never like to sell them — for some reason, the trade makes me uncomfortable. I am seriously considering donating them to someone less fortunate.

I am making conscious efforts to avoid the fillers in my writing, and whenever possible in my talking too. I have realised I use them a lot and the prose sounds significantly clearer without them.

None of unnecessary “I think”, “so”, “I guess” etc going ahead.

It’s been a year today since I became part of the micro.blog community. It was a fascinating year of finding the lost love for writing and of learning loads from the wonderful people here. I thought I would get a page which I can look at for flashback. Hence, on this day.

Around a year ago, I got enthralled by the IndieWeb principles and started experimenting with them on my website. Exactly a year ago today, I had started contributing on the Micro.blog platform. And it has been a very productive year writing-wise since then.

I have expressed myself a lot more in the past year. I have thought a lot clearer, a lot better as a result. It is all thanks to the wonderful interactions on the platform.

What it also means is that I have a year worth of posts to look back upon. And I thought what better way to do so than getting the On This Day page added to my blog. I have done that. It presents how the journey started - if nothing else I myself can follow the thoughts along as they evolved.

Will it stick in this same form? May be not. I may experiment a bit on how I see this feature. But I have got the base working now for my blot-based blog.

PS: This feature is based on the wonderful project Micro Memories by Jonathan LaCour for the micro.blog hosted blogs. I have just customized and simplified it as per my needs.

I see a lot of people exploring wiki, especially TiddlyWiki, as a way to capture thoughts these days. There must be some fun and efficiency in it for so many folks to enjoy it. I’m tempted to experiment a bit with it. But I am worried I may be sucked in for another project.

Apparently, phones with foldable displays are all the rage among OEMs and tech media. I however can’t think of any practical usecase for an interface of this kind. When, how and for whom will this be useful?

In case you watched the “super wolf blood moon”, you also witnessed “the first known sighting of a meteorite impact” during eclipse.

During the eclipse, some people noticed a tiny flash, a brief yellow-white speck, popping up on the lunar surface during the online broadcasts.

I agree with Michael Tsai - Apple needs to get their act together on hardware front.

This is just not a good generation of Mac notebooks.

To everyone who serves RSS feeds for their blogs, subscribe to them in a feed reader of your choice. Then make an unbiased decision on whether you would like to stay subscribed to what you see. If not, fix your feed. Stick to the goal of RSS - update readers of your content.

Martin Weigert talks pretty openly about his love for emails.

Over the years, one frequent type of blog post published by tech heavyweights laments their struggle with managing their emails, often ending in death wishes for this technology.

I however want email to live, to thrive, and to be eternal. Not only because I publish weekly email newsletters (ok, that makes me biased), but also because email offers a huge benefit to every person on this planet with a comparatively little downside for them individually and for society at large.

A couple of points we just can’t overlook while talking about emails.

• They have wasted (and continue to do so) countless productive hours cumulatively of the human race.
• It remains the only open form that is not walled by any one company’s interests; a form that allows communication that is cross-platform, irrespective of who the sender and receivers are and what service or tool they use.

Do I love email? Nope. However, do I hate email, wish death for the form of communication? Absolutely, positively not.

I haven’t read a better inspiration to write down the thoughts than this quote from Michael Wade. Perfect!

Don’t just think it, write it. Staring at scribbles of ink can work all sorts of magic.

To Save the Sound of a Stradivarius, a Whole City Must Keep Quiet →

The museum (Museo del Violino in Cremona, Italy) is assisting with an ambitious recording project to preserve the sound of Stradivarius instruments for future generations.

Such an uplifting story.