Excursions

☕ Coffee and words!

I watched Heart of Stone today – such of waste of Alia Bhatt’s talent. It’s not a bad action film, I have seen worse from Netflix. But it isn’t a good one either. Too lose in the second half, for sure. Alia needn’t sign for this.

One highlight of Scribe editor is that it’s web-based. So I get consistent experience across all platforms and screens. Also though I write as rich-text, the underlying Markdown gets posted. You can also export the same – so you can also use it for non-Micro.blogs.

I have been working on an editor for Micro.blog that has a simple interface and works well even for long-form writing. I have written this post from what I call Scribe, a clean web-based editor that can post to Micro.blog. https://am1t.github.io/scribe/

I have been working on an editor for Micro.blog that has a simple interface and works well even for long-form writing. I have written this post from what I call Scribe, a clean web-based editor that can post to Micro.blog.

This is a focused writing space with an editor that completely works on the client side. What I write is auto-saved locally. I can save the same to Micro.blog as a draft to be edited later there. Or I can post it to go live on my blog. There is a word/character counter and dark mode. And it also works on mobile.

Of course, this is not the first post I have published with Scribe – I have been using this for the past couple of days, fixing all the issues, big and small. Now, you can also try it out.

There’s nothing else to explain. Just get writing and sign in to Micro.blog, if you like it.

Every friendship day, me and my family spend time with our friends. Meet them to relive old memories. Individually. This year, I decided to spend the whole day with two of my closest friends – my wife and daughter. We visited a children’s museum and had a blast playing and having fun together.

I always wanted a better web client for writing my posts. I may finally have one, I believe. This is just a test 🤞🏽

“Use what you have” - a reminder to self. The tools that I own are the best tools I can use. Don’t break what ain’t broke.

Success at an extreme level is usually the overlap of many competing factors, only some of which are in your control. If your personal definition of success or happiness depends on being in a rarefied elite, this analysis should chasten you to the reality of that goal.

Why I’m Not More Popular →

I am really enjoying my experience using Bard- I have long stopped using search engines as the first stop. Only after I have asked Bard, my query do I return to a regular search engine. And even such instances are getting rarer.

For example, I was today wondering what movie a particular scene was from. Bard got the answer bang on. A search engine never got this right for me.

Unfortunately, ChatGPT has long fallen behind in the race. This is what it came back with. As much as I would have liked otherwise, Google is quickly gaining back the lost ground.

My daughter loves her music and is always crooning songs. Humming tunes. On a fine day recently, she surprised me and her mom with a tune of hers. One she had composed. She sang it so brilliantly, with a few lyrics and all 🥹 So, that’s what we recorded today - a new video is out.

A moment when I paused my usual hectic morning routine today. A moment that reminded me of why I still love the early morning vibe. And a few memories came rushing back.

I haven’t read a more frustrating book than The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi. It has a smart premise. Pavesi was aiming to attempt something pretty unique. But then I feel he got distracted by the lure of surprising readers. The twists and turns were too many to keep the book coherent. There are no characters to connect with. No story that captures your attention. The seven stories narrated by the lead character are silly. The twists are sillier. And are one too many. It was frustrating to see a clever premise wasted through controlled writing.

At the same time, I haven’t heard many better narration performances than by Emilia Fox. She is extremely natural while voice acting in both stories and dialogues. I could visualize every character distinctly just through her voice.

The last time I was this impressed by someone’s narration was when I listened to Ray Porter narrate Project Hail Mary. Absolutely fantastic!

Early mornings always play a significant role in my routine. I love the vibe all around during the dawn. The calmness. The silence. The hustle and bustle of morning service boys with their newspapers and milk packets.

The surroundings wake up around me, and I love to be the spectator.

Nature looks to be shrugging off the dormancy from the night before. Birds get busy early. Chirping. Waking each other up. Or already playing? Who can say? Trees sway lethargically with a smile, like a sane grandmother in a busy home. The breeze caresses me like a loving mother – I can almost fall asleep again.

Never a night owl, I couldn’t stay awake beyond a reasonable time, even during my hostel days. Those were the days when staying up all night was normal. A sign of a happy student even. While my friends used to blast off into the night with their choice of rock music, I lay on my bed in deep slumber. Frequently, my friends and I had breakfast together – the only difference was that they were depleted on their way to bed, and I was chirpy post my deep sleep.

In the recent past, my morning routine has been hectic, not allowing me to live the calmness I so adore. Today I paused for a moment and stood looking out at the wakening surrounding.

A moment of life around. Of nothingness within. Of memories galore.

My phone works way better in Power Saving mode. Battery is brilliant. Services aren’t unnecessarily hogging me memory. I may always stay in this mode.

For quite some time now, I have disabled the replies from my Micro.blog timeline. I liked the quietness initially, but the silence is tiring now. I want to discover new conversations and people again – so I’m enabling replies in the timeline again. I love this control!

Yesterday, I intentionally wrote a post on simple writing in a lot straight forward manner than I usually do. A dull manner, I would say. It didn’t matter as it served its purpose for me.

I keep my writing simple while conveying my thoughts. It is the most effective way that I know. I learnt this from all the people I enjoy reading online. But Derek Sivers has been the most significant influence.

There was a time when I liked to ornament my writing with unnecessary words. A lot of context. Too many adjectives. Metaphors.

I don’t do that anymore as it is unwarranted for my kind of #writing. I don’t want to pen the most beautiful piece of prose. Or be creative with the use and selection of words. I write to convey my ideas and that needs just clarity. Manu says this while sharing why he feels he is not a writer.

What matters here is not the writing, is the communication. Is the exchange of ideas, and the sharing of experiences.

I relate to this thought. As long as what I want to say is unambiguous, and is understood without trouble by the reader, my goal behind why I write is met. The length of the post or my vernacular does not matter.

I want my writing to sound as I do while I speak. And I don’t articulate. I talk.

Threads reminded me of why I eventually fell off the Twitter timeline. It’s the same people talking about the same stuff they always do. The early adopters, the famous bloggers, and podcasters. The social media celebrities. They have a bubble of their own. They talk amongst themselves as you listen. You are not part of any community – you are watching a show.

Then there are the posts that are written mainly to go viral. The memes. The questions. The jokes. And the jokers. The social media diarrhoea.

These threads (pun unintended) garner the most engagement, which makes the algorithmic timeline bubble them to the top. Now, these are all I see. And I don’t enjoy either of them.

The diversity of both the posts and the people is also why I love the timeline on Micro.blog. It’s never the same people or the same type of posts that crowd the place. And if they do, I know how to correct that.

I am on Threads. Talking about Threads. Might manually cross post as I usually do on Mastadon.

Threads is closest to Twitter and that’s exactly why it may work. Twitter left a big hole and this (without any shame of copying) fits that perfectly.

Also, Meta understands you can’t launch a social network available for iOS only and expect it to grow. Welcome to see Android app on launch.

Recently, I have seen many people get nostalgic about Google Reader. The argument is that if Google Reader hadn’t died, the internet wouldn’t have been in the dire state it is today. As if the demise of Google Reader caused the rise of proprietary timelines of Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately, it was the other way around.

Plus, Google Reader was a flawed, terribly designed, niche product only used by a handful of tech-savvy people. I say this even though I was a big fan of the product. It could never have survived in the form it was in.

Sure, web browsing does feel horrible today, as Tim Sweeney of Epic tweeted.

The internet feels increasingly broken. News sites are paywalled or account walled, Reddit is nag walled, Google search spams ads and SEO to the point of uselessness, and now Twitter is account walled.

I agree with all of it. But I don’t think Google Reader could have addressed any of it. RSS, for sure, cannot. It’s just a standard to simplify consumption. The problem lies at the source.

What if I pressed reset on all that I have published till date? Get rid of all of it. Archive it, maybe. And start afresh. What if I do it every year? Or every month?

I have forgotten how to write.

I am frustrated with my recent tendency to choose the easy option whenever an opportunity arrives. Watch rather than read. Read rather than write. Get tired doing both. And then sleep. I am doing this way too often these days. I have made this my routine. I am aware this behaviour isn’t good. But I still do this.

Passively scroll through the news. Or YouTube shorts. And when I feel bad about my choice, I skim through my RSS feeds. Or newsletters. I attempt to fool my mind that I am reading the good stuff, following a good routine. I very well know that I am fooling no one. Especially not my mind. It continues to feel shit.

There was a time when I would take steps to correct the habits of bad choices. Move away from my smartphone. Uninstall apps. Or disable notifications. Track. Measure. Force me towards, or give me more opportunities to make better choices.

What pains me is I have stopped doing any of that, either. Every wasted day ends with a promise that I will start following a good routine from tomorrow. For that matter, routine of some sort, as I lack any at this point.

Weeks have gone by, but that tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I am afraid it never will if I don’t take measures promptly. Being aware is useless if I don’t act.