Excursions

A brutal takedown of Facebook from John Oliver, and he still didn’t touch so many of the nasty problems from across the world that Facebook has caused. The platform is indeed shit. Or as John puts it, even worse.

Calling Facebook a toilet is a little unfair to toilets. Because they make shit go away whereas Facebook retains shit, disseminate it amongst your acquaintances and remind you of shit from 7 years ago, allowing corporations to put more shit in front of you. There is a purity and integrity to toilets that Facebook seriously lacks.

Smartphones have enabled capturing the fascinating games the light plays.

I’m done with Chrome — doesn’t matter if the default signed-in mode is actually that bad or just an indication of a valid session. Intent’s clear from Google, their thirst for data won’t be quenched. They can convince themselves its for greater good, but I won’t be part a part.

I hate spiders. Smaller they are, creepier they get. I think that man with a suit has just made them scarier.

I’ve now switched to Castro — this is a wonderful app with some thoughtful design choices. PocketCast is too “formal”, bland but perfectly functional. Overcast has some design elements which just don’t make sense - its indecision on how to display show notes always bugs me.

As I enter the 35th year of existence, I am made to realise that my health is my most priceless possession, one I need to focus on closely. And this time I am serious. So here’s to a year of health, and hopefully this’ just a beginning.

Woke up to find that Amazon just brought a bag full of “things”, untied it on stage and started throwing it against the wall. No one has any idea if what try hurled is genuine or shit and if it will ever stick. Bezos feels he has found a way to be successful with devices.

I find it fascinating that Hello Internet is placed under Education category in Overcast. In the company of Ted Talks, Simplify etc. It would be interesting to know what @BradyHaran thinks about it, of course there’s so much to learn :-)

This is a month of change - I was forced to change the desk I work from. And I thought this is a good opportunity to take it a step further. Change is something I always like. It gives your brain that extra incentive to work more, to kick yourself out of your comfort zone.

Tranquility of a lake amidst the idling mountains never fails to mesmerise.

To be frank, I am left a bit disappointed with today’s event. May be it is about wrong expectations, but nothing that is launched excites me. Not that the device iPhone Xs and the max one are not marvellous — they indeed are. But not something I want — may be an October event?

So, iPhone SE is dead then for Apple? Why do these companies keep hating us people who want smaller phones? And they do not ship their “low cost” iPhones till October, only shipping $999 ones in September? Wish there are some answers to these in few hours.

The fact that Chrome is the only one among the top browsers that does not have a native reader mode tells you about Google’s priorities (others being Safari, Firefox which do). Chrome will never do what’s best for its users because it will not be good for their business.

I’m seriously intrigued by Pinboard, the feature set looks promising. And it’s another of those well-supported services run by a single person. I am coming across too many of these recently. However, every time I am left unconvinced that I need a paid option just for bookmarking.

Aha. Twitter tells me I am part of the “selected group of users” for a survey regarding their services. So, how are we supposed to “celebrate” such an honour, again? 🙃

I do not think I like this - the deviation’s may be too high for my liking. Time to rethink things.

It’s Micro Monday time. I’d recommend you to follow @vishae for her distinct point of view, her book recommendations and succinct commentary on varied things. I’ve seen her be part of some fascinating conversations with the community recently that made me really pause and think.

There is a fascinating conversation on episode 97 of the Criminal podcast with the now 99 year old Benjamin Ferencz. He primarily talks about his experiences as an investigator of Nazi war crimes after the World War II. There are some gut-wrenching stories about the atrocities he witnessed against Jews, and against humanity. He also shares his experiences of his trial against the “high-ranking members of Nazi Germany’s death squad”, a trial that he called “the plea of humanity to the law”.

But towards the end of the episode, there is this heart-warming tale from Mr. Ferencz. He talks about his wife who is 5 years older than him; whom he has been married to for last 72 years; whom he had never had a quarrel with. And he believes there is a very simple reason for that.

“First of all, I am not suggesting we didn’t have differences of opinion. But we never raised our voice. We never shouted. We never pounded a table. Because it’s mutual respect, and caring for each other. They have a funny word for it that I don’t like - love. I don’t like the word. Because you could love a piece of cheese, you love that lovely day. I could love to go home. I would love to finish this interview. And I say if you say caring for somebody, that reflects better. And my wife now needs my care. This is the pay back time.”

Now and again, it helps to keep things simple - I guess experience must imbue you with such clarity of thoughts. From all the myriad of swanky adulations for the word and the feeling of “love”, I would prefer the simplicity of “caring for somebody”.

So, there is another leak of pixel 3 XL now that clearly shows the device? I think at this point Google shouldn’t even wait for an event to release this device. Just call the selected folks for exclusives and start selling them — exclusives will also be better marketing wise.

I have two posts in draft, incomplete, for last 5 days - they just need some final thoughts, some commentary. Ah, I hate to look at my drafts posts list. I think I will get off the internet and stare at them for a while, I believe they might go away.

Is it just me who tries to fit replies on micro.blog within the 280 characters, especially from iOS apps? If it goes beyond, it feels like cheating to me. May be I think too much, but the limit should either be there for all posts, even replies or no limits at all 😬

I believe there are some books which just happen to kill your reading spree — and then you just can’t get back to the same book. I am giving up on one such book. I may come back to it again. But currently, I need to move on to something else.

“My precious..”

So the next Windows major update is going to be called “Windows 10 October 2018 Update”? May be declaring Windows 10 to be last version of Windows to be released wasn’t a great decision after all. Why not just start naming them after some thing - other than deserts and places?

I logged out of mastodon today on my browser - a re-login was a deterrent enough to save all the compulsive visits throughout the day. I wish I had more control over when I access these social media accounts. May do the same for micro.blog as @vega had recommended.