Excursions

One particular person and his undying coverage on the news media has ruined so many things for me. Every time I use “believe me” now, I feel am tricking someone. Sigh! 😑

It was fascinating to watch this video where Jonathan Morrison attempts to edit an entire video on an iPad Pro. His impressions (and of many others) look pretty genuine - for those who look at iPad as a laptop alternative, not replacement, it works. Limitations are by design.

If true, this is scary. Apparently, “the content of every webpage visited using Google Chrome is sent back to Google”. Even emails. From external email solution providers too. Given that, the recommendation not to use Chrome is not too harsh.

All I‘ve been focused on for last few days has been a small homely function - the preparations, the celebrations are simply endless. However a gathering of family and friends over a night of fun and food is worth all the effort. But boy I’ve missed so much. It’s time to catch up.

‪MacBook Air (2018) has made the purchase decision for existing Air owners who are waiting for an upgrade a lot more difficult. There is hardly any MacBook that meets their requirement. I know as I’m one of those people. And am left with no option but to consider Windows PCs.‬

Celebrating the festival of lights by illuminating every dark corner of our surroundings and, primarily, of our minds.

Techies keep dreaming of a day when iOS and Android can be used for serious console-style gaming. I, on the hand, am always in search for the casual games that I can play one handed, in small bursts for mindless fun. I enjoyed Desert Golfing a lot. Tiny Wings was another.

There are some nights that you just can’t go to sleep - you try everything, nothing works. Today’s that kind of night. And it surprising given that I’d been working throughout the day - so I should be bone-tired. I don’t think watching Sherlock is going to help me either.

An OCR Cliche

Romance writers, be forewarned, the child who leaps into her arms or the heroine who leaps into his has almost a five percent chance of ending up elsewhere.

Be wary of Google Books OCR - an amusing, but equally funny account of how the technology fails us.

What Is The Morning Writing Effect? →

Yet another version might be that sleep itself is the key: sleep, aside from any resetting, is also responsible for memory formation and appears involved in unconscious processes of creativity.

A fascinating read - full of relevant data.

I’m from a generation that is spoilt by the usability of a mouse. Is it better? Simpler? I won’t comment on that. May be the intuitive interactions with touchscreen interfaces are faster, more sensible for a larger demographic. But I always find them a bit cumbersome, limiting.

I’m always on the look out for some popular, light TV series - comedy, mystery, drama - that I can wind my day down with. I do like intense or intelligent watches, but they are not for those times when you want no exercise for your mind. Watch now and forget. Any recommendations?

I have been using iPad for so long now, and still had no idea that the mode of the keyboard can be changed to “Undock” - basically make it float at the center of the screen. Who uses that?

I had completely forgotten that Flickr was acquired by SmugMug and had been their property - makes so much sense. Of course, I don’t think Yahoo can run anything any longer.

That brand has faced such a horrible downfall - it was a shining example of the power of Web.

The more I think about the account from Andrey Sitnik on how a month without computers helped him, affected him, the more I feel I need to attempt this abstinence from technology, at least at some smaller scale. I’m curious to find for myself my ability to stay digital-free.

Flickr free accounts are changing →

There was a time when I was in love with this service. It was before Yahoo ruined it. I think it is a positive sign that the people running the service now have decided to go back to its roots and focus on Pro consumers.

This is such a fascinating read — so detailed on how Andrey Sitnik planned for and went through this arduous experiment.

Then I asked myself if ‘technological fasting’ could do one good in modern society. Technology has changed the world in the blink of an eye, leaving us no time to reflect on it. What if a month without modern technology could ‘travel’ you to the past? What if there is a way you could compare your technology-relying self to what you once were?

It is really curious to read how the analogue tools — for his camera, his watch, a map, a compass and of course a notepad and a pen - were key in taking him through. Of course, it needs planning to keep your brain busy without a stream of digital updates and reads to chomp on. To keep feeding it with activities.

Boredom was the thing that scared me the most, so I did a lot of preparation: took a few thick books, drew up a schedule (when I leave one place for another) and made up several evening rituals to follow every day. The internet-less reality turned out to be a boredom-less one, too. Recreation does not require anything special—in the end, you can always go out and hunt for good photos.

I wish I could undertake such an abstinence from the technology around me. Not because I hate my current state (doesn’t mean I do not even). But because I wish I too could arrive at a conclusion very similar to Andrey’s.

I came to the conclusion that IT hadn’t changed the world around, but created another, a parallel one. The reason we are always nervous and never have enough time is that we are living two lives now. It’s without a doubt difficult, yet how interesting it is to be living two times as much!

Do read this — even though we know most deep down the ills of our constant connectedness, it is eye-opening to read someone record his experiences. If possible, we should take Andrey’s advice. I, for sure, am seriously considering it.

I would not recommend digital fasting to everyone, but a temporary abstinence of some sort seems a very right thing to do

I finished reading Becoming Steve Jobs today. It told few wonderful stories of Steve - chose to focus on sides which the Issacson book didn’t. It presented Steve - the creator, the leader.

I believe you to need to read both the books to understand this complex man better. (★★★★)

Growing up in India, I got introduced to Halloween as a festival pretty late - wasn’t until I was in my late teens. Sounds so erroneous now as my 5 year old daughter celebrated this curious festival today in her school, dressed as a wicked witch. The world is indeed shrinking 🎃

Every now and then, I come across stories that makes me realize how little I know about things around me — apparently the iPhone we use everyday? Yeah, they are allergic to Helium. A tiny molecule “can turn your phone temporarily into a paperweight”. Fascinating.

I let the product announcements from Apple distill into a list of stuff I want, not I wish I had. Apple delivered what I wanted - a new MacBook Air. My 10 years old MBP is crying for an update. iPad Pro is nice, but not for me. Yet. Mac mini is good, will need eventually.

I think may be Apple now need to announce a USB-C to lightning dongle too - for using iPad with iPhone headphones? Or did they already announce that? This dongle mayhem is crazy! 🤔

I do not like these new fonts that Apple is using on slides to announce specs. They aren’t legible at least on the stream. Not sure what @gruber thinks about these - don’t think they have ever used them before. Reminds me of Comic Sans. Shudder #AppleEvent

Mac mini lives. Or is it that it is reborn? Whatever the case, it makes Apple put a lot of push behind it. And thankfully they didn’t go for something cute. Keep it focused at what it is good at. #AppleEvent 👍🏽

Retweets prey on users’ worst instincts. They delude Twitter users into thinking that they’re contributing to thoughtful discourse by endlessly amplifying other people’s points—the digital equivalent of shouting “yeah, what they said” in the midst of an argument. And because Twitter doesn’t allow for editing tweets, information that goes viral via retweets is also more likely to be false or exaggerated. According to MIT research published in the journal Science, Twitter users retweet fake news almost twice as much as real news. Other Twitter users, desperate for validation, endlessly retweet their own tweets, spamming followers with duplicate information.

This is exactly the reason Twitter needs to eliminate retweet feature first — a lot before their proposed killing of the like button. It doesn’t matter how valuable the retweet option is as a signal to Twitter’s algorithm. It has for long been exploited to make it a hostile platform for every voice that should matter. And it needs to disappear first.