Excursions

It is so difficult, even frustrating at times, to find just that right combination of a pen and paper that works for you. No point having just that one perfect one without the other.

When your mind is loaded with stuff, from work and from home and from others, it stops churning thoughts. Nothing interesting comes out.

It needs space to stretch and stroll and wander to be creative. To be productive. Unfortunately, this fact is lost on many.

A delicious multi-course meal is always the best way to get through a tedious work week.

Such a great first episode of Micro Monday — I love the format, & I love the concept. It was great knowing a bit more about @macgenie.

I really hope @Monday becomes the platform that introduces new voices to podcasting every week. Would be refreshing to hear varied interests.

Does preparing for an exam mean making one learn? I never believed that, but am always reminded that it’s a pretty well spread and well accepted chain of thought.

As we detoured in search of dinner, we had no idea we would halt at a place that hadn’t aged with time.

I recently switched off the “Trim Silence” mode. Even got the playback speeds to 1x. All it lasted for was an hour.

There are very few podcasts that are well edited and just a handful that need such focused listening. Am back to “normal” mode.

At times, we do surprise ourself with what we achieve with the creativity - and let the nature grow.

Short, crisp review of Galaxy S9 →

“If you want this phone, just buy an S8” - Vlad Savov

So, a new year, new Samsung device, same product story. Great hardware, screwed up software and one that will sell well.

It’s difficult to keep up with any goals once you are on an official travel. Thoughts have gone done, writing is affected and interactions badly so. Can’t wait to be back to the routine life.

There’s something unnaturally beautiful about this bench - in midst of a hive of activity, in search of that one companion.

At times, it’s the calm, the silence, an empty pathway that lends the solace. One such comforting walk today.

I am always surprised by the number of typos in e-books. One would think a digital format would be better suited for revisions. Doesn’t appear to be so. Is it really that difficult to roll out an update for the digital copy? Or is it to make sure it’s consistent with the print?

Even after so many travels, every imminent one makes me nervous even now. And am sure it is not about the actual travel, but all the packing and unpacking and “being ready” that unsettles me 😬

She narrated so many tales. Wish I had understood at least a couple.

Amazon Alexa Devices Are Laughing Spontaneously →

People are reporting that the bot [Alexa in Amazon Echo] sometimes spontaneously starts laughing — which is basically a bloodcurdling nightmare.

I am not keeping my Echo Dot on. Neither when am alone nor when I go to sleep.

This week was an interesting one. Not much productive, but then just productive enough. What I am focused on now is more from the last week and some from the week before. An update.

This lone lamppost always befuddles me — I can never decide whether to be saddened by its loneliness or be pleased to see it still stand strong.

Micro Monday: @eli. His stream is full of interesting posts and snaps. And some delightful conversations on varied topics. You will surely find something that interests you.

They say the world online is spoilt, spiteful. It’s all rage, and slander. All one utters of others online is vile. I did believe so too.

And then I read people’s Micro Monday recommendations at Micro.blog. This place’s like a calming oasis, surrounded by a dull, rough desert.

So I wasn’t too off on Oscars predictions. We can kind of guess which movies will win the big awards. I wish Dunkirk had won some, but I guess movies I like the most are never Oscar material.

Anyway, I will follow my every year’s Oscar ritual. Start watching all winners again.

So the Oscars are almost here. And I’ve got a feeling that it will be The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour and Get Out that will win big.

Dunkirk has some top nominations, but I doubt if it has a chance at Oscars, especially with its multiple-timeline split narrative.

A tray of fresh breakfast served by my daughter’s imagination.

I had recently expressed my hope for more people to own their identities online.

There is nothing wrong with attempting to control what you post online, to make sure it stays online till you want it to. I do also realise that it is naive to think no one getting online will find this process irksome. Even though well defined, the (open web) principles are not for all. The simplicity of using and posting on social media services will continue to attract regular users. However, here’s wishing that at least a part of these users are inspired to get their own personal domain.

An innate wish there is that more people would leave the silos behind and get online as themselves, express thoughts that are their own, not mindless reposts and shares, and at the site they control - their blogs¹. At the same time, the hope is the hosting platforms make it simpler to book such places online and get them up and running easily.

I think there has already been a huge improvement on this front. There are numerous platforms, like Wordpress, Ghost and others², that are making it simpler to get your own blogs up and running. They also allow you to link these blogs to your domain without fussing over hosting/maintenance. The promise is simple. Jump in with a free tier — if you are happy and if you want to, just switch to a paid account.

But then comes the million dollars question? What’s the point if what I write reaches no one? If no one reads it or talks about it? If everyone keeps shouting in the void without anyone listening, one better not spend the energy. After all, we are sociable. We like interactions, we want feedback.

RSS is a powerful protocol that could have solved this problem. Unfortunately, that’s what it remained, a protocol³. It needed a system to be built on top to gain any traction amongst masses. That’s where I believe lies an opportunity for Micro.blog. It brings in that social layer to the thoughts you pen on your blog.

You can either host your content there or get your posts from existing blog to the micro.blog timeline. You write on your blog, it’s visible for others on their timeline, just as a tweet or a Facebook post will on their respective siloed timelines.

But it doesn’t allow repost. It does not glorify numbers of likes and comments and followers.

Such behaviours and numbers are the signals for bots to game the machine curation systems. Tristan Harris put this very well during one of his podcasts appearances.

Outrage just spreads faster than something that’s not outrage.

When you open up the blue Facebook icon, you’re activating the AI, which tries to figure out the perfect thing it can show you that’ll engage you. It doesn’t have any intelligence, except figuring out what gets the most clicks. The outrage stuff gets the most clicks, so it puts that at the top.

So what do we do then? As Don MacDonald pondered in one of his posts, is sharing a problem? Shall we just stop sharing?

I doubt that will be effective. It will work when we make it work. We need to take control of what gets presented to us to consume. It cannot be done by a corporate inclined primarily first to maximise its margins. It cannot be done by an algorithm that’s designed to gallop every signal and spit a feed to maximise engagement.

Once we start consuming, reading, healthy, we will think healthy. And we should think. And share, and respond we should. Let’s just make sure it is a space that represents us. A space that one can point to and say that’s my thoughts in there. My social presence, a signature. Let open web be that space.

Watched Spider-Man: Homecoming again. I just love every film in MCU. Superhero films are supposed to be fun, not some dark societal commentary.

And Spider-Man finally gets a perfect film — one that lets him be a learning bumbling powerful goodhearted teen.