Excursions

I customized the last bit of my blog theme that I hadn’t yet. RSS and JSON feeds. Could I have broken something somewhere? I am sure I could have. Do I know what that is? No clue. So I have my fingers crossed – if there’s anything that’s broken, I will find out soon or hopefully hear about it.

Friday evening began promising and then just fizzled out. I had planned many tasks but couldn’t get through to the majority. One big reason is that I am shit tired. My time at work is hectic. Worse, it is chaotic. So, each day leaves me mentally exhausted. Today was no different.

Not that I work long hours. Just the daily grind of finding clarity amidst the chaos, finding the right answers and the way forward sips the energy and drive from the non-office hours. Friday’s are worse because there’s the unspoken promise of recuperating through the imminent weekend. So, I simply give up on all the plans and sway along with my wandering mind.

Today was no different, as I signed the day off. With the hope that tomorrow, I regain the drive and cover for the time I lost.

Apple’s response to the ruling to allow devs to steer users to external payment methods is such a farce. They knew these new rules were stupid and wouldn’t be accepted by the developers. They also knew that these rules will be challenged by Epic. Yet they went ahead publishing them. Tells me they just wanted to delay doing what is an obvious solution.

Apple should stop blowing their own trumpet on how it always has its developers’ and customers’ best interests in mind. Get down from your high horse and admit you are a business first.

I watched the Rabbit R1 keynote for the first time, and I have to say it’s an exciting device. What surprised me the most was the price! How can any AI-based device be launched at this price range? And that’s when I looked at the specs. Behind all the funky-looking exterior, it’s underpowered inside. Also, tells me most of the functionality happens in the cloud.

The makers have smartly called out that this does not replace your smartphone. It’s a companion device. And that’s where I have my doubts about R1. It might sell brilliantly at the beginning, which it already is, according to the reports. But I am afraid it will lie forgotten in the drawers for many.

An exciting, cute tech nonetheless. The question is, are we ready for an AI-only device?

I have uninstalled all the filler apps from my smartphone. There’s no social network or news or video app. Yet I reach out for the device if it is around me. I won’t do anything there. Open emails to find nothing new. Open some random website. Or worse just check if there are any notifications. This is pitiful. I need a filler activity that’s better than swiping randomly on my smartphone.

A filler activity is the one I would do when I am not fully focused on something. While I sit in meetings where I am just a listener. While I wait for my food. While I start while my tea is brewing. Unfortunately, my smartphone continues to occupy such periods currently.

For the past few years, Micro.blog has hosted this blog. Every year, I revisit that decision to verify if it still is the best choice for me. I did that last year. And I did the year before. Every time, I have decided to stick to this wonderful platform. Unlike earlier, when I made such decisions by listing pros and cons, the last two times I made it based on my experience of using the other services over a year.

I have recently read a lot of people revisiting their choices of platforms and thought I should share about my experiments. I had shared my views once in 2022. This post is for the experiments since then.

Before that, here’s a quick note on how I give myself time to arrive at this decision. I have never changed my primary platform. I sign up for an annual plan with a service, set it on a custom sub-domain and use it for a full year. Sure, it’s a costly option. But as the subscription ends, I have no doubts about my decision. Neither do I have any urge to switch platforms every time I see it discussed. Anyway, onto my experiments.

In 2022, I was fascinated by what Ghost promised as a platform. It was well-reviewed, polished and highly recommended. It suited the long-form style of writing I wanted to do more of. It had a built-in newsletter. I wanted all of that. The question was, can it become my primary blogging platform. A year of continuous usage convinced me it wasn’t. Though I liked what it offered, it didn’t fit my style of writing. I am very informal in what I write. Sometimes, it is heartfelt life stories. Other times, it’s meaningless updates. More often, it’s the latter. Ghost isn’t a right fit for such posts.

For starters, it continues to need a title. And images. It wants me to play around with the metadata of the post. Before I can publish a post, all the bells and whistles distract me and I start to question if my words are worth all this polish. That’s not the feeling I want when I am about to click publish. It limits what I can do with the styling. Even the paid plan has a very limited selection of themes. Plus even with all these limitations, it is pricey. I do not earn from my blog – so $9 per month paid annually isn’t cheap.

Last year I picked up Write.as to experiment with. Unlike Ghost, its plans are simple – so I again signed up for an annual plan which unlocks all the paid features. Most importantly custom domain. I set it up as a place for my quick, unformed thoughts. It supports both short and long posts well. Plus it has got hands-down the best editor to write posts in. I could never write quick, short posts – it was that good.

But there are significant downsides that I cannot brush aside. Adding images to posts isn’t easy – need to go to a separate place to do that. The published posts look clean, but soulless. The options for styling are extremely limited. An ability to extend the capabilities is almost non-existent. The selection of good themes is negligible. The biggest problem of all is the publishing workflow, especially writing drafts, which is very frustrating. Drafts are posts published anonymously. But publishing them back to the main blog isn’t intuitive. The published dates get all messed up.

Also, I am not sure if the platform is in active development. Over the past year, I hardly saw anything change. I don’t want to spend time on a platform that’s ignored.

On both occasions, I cancelled my plan at the end of the subscription period and moved all the posts to Micro.blog. With redirects set automatically, it was as if the posts were always published here. I respect Manton for being always supportive and for actively discouraging lock-in by simplifying moving in to or out of Micro.blog.

Here’s what I had written last time while talking about why Micro.blog works for me.

[I]t suits well for both the micro and long-form posts. It has apps for all platforms that I primarily use Mac and Android. Quick notes are best made with the apps, especially so from smartphone. For posts that are long, titled, Ulysses iA Writer works perfectly well for me. No other CMS can ever work as well as a native application.

The platform is built on Hugo. And I love Hugo. (…) Building extensions in your templates is so easy, and I have gotten comfortable with it. Manton has added just enough around Hugo to make it even more useful — the APIs, the apps, the social aspects, the open plug-in and theming systems and, the most valuable, its community.

Do I use all of them [smart features]? Of course, not. But the fact that one plan provides me so much over and above the basic blogging functionality is priceless for me.

None of this has changed even now. I also haven’t observed the stability issues that I see people complain about recently. May be I have just been lucky.

No surprise then, that Micro.blog continues to be my blogging platform of choice.

I will no longer syndicate my posts to any social network timelines, that includes Micro.blog. This is the last post that gets syndicated. I will follow all my friends only via RSS and interact through emails or native comments. If you are keen to know what I am up to, you can follow the RSS feed.

For some time now, I haven’t been active on any social timelines. I simply can’t keep up. It doesn’t serve the purpose if I don’t contribute to the network and interact. At times, days go by before I respond to the mentions I receive and worse, I hardly ever reply to others’ posts. Being passively around the timeline only adds to the subconscious burden.

I also want to minimise distractions with my presence on the internet to lend myself more chances to build the right routines. Anything and everything that causes even a hint of friction has to be out. Given my general lack of patience for the hustle of social networks, they had to be out the door first.

I want to simplify everything. The tools I use. What I read. The way I write. Simple, that’s my word for the year.

I will no longer syndicate my posts to any social network timelines, that includes Micro.blog. This is the last post that gets syndicated. I will follow all my friends only via RSS and interact through emails or native comments. If you are kee… www.amitgawande.com/2024/01/1…

I am losing patience and desire for “social” in social network. It’s too fast paced for me and is only becoming more difficult with each passing year. I am better at handling engagements at a slower pace. May be I should retire to my conversations IRL.

I am losing patience and desire for “social” in social network. It’s too fast paced for me and is only becoming more difficult with each passing year. I am better at handling engagements at a slower pace. May be I should retire to my conversations IRL.