Excursions

What Will Happen to My Music Library When Spotify Dies? →

These methods of archiving are either imperfect, impractical, or both—and besides, even if I went through with them, chances are that decades from now, I’d just end up with a monster text file or a long-obsolete hard drive that would be a pain to sync up with some future listening platform.

I lost my music collection some 7 years back and I never attempted to build a personal music library since then. I have accepted the fact that the benefits of streaming services (mainly around discovery) are more valuable to me than my quest for a personal collection of my favorite songs. Unfortunate, but practical.

I am wary of using any Apple services as my default - they make it very difficult to use them outside of their ecosystem. I do not use only Apple devices. There was a time when I did. And then things slowly changed.

I use Windows at work. I use Android and iOS. I use iPad. Apple services rarely work well across all the platforms. Just access then on web is not an answer am comfortable with.

So as much as I dislike it, I am slowly using more and more services from Google and Microsoft. Surprisingly, Microsoft does well to fill the void between Android and iOS platforms with apps that work well on both platforms backed by Microsoft services.

I find it crazy that neither Google nor Apple are keen to address this key problem.

In the last three days, I have started reading three new books. It wasn't planned, people who know my likings recommended the books to me. And each read brilliantly in samples. So, I am reading five in parallel now - a humour, a mystery, a self-help, one on psychology and one fantasy. Now, that's a personal record. No harm doing that, right? Right?

The publication portals and channels around tech news are too noisy. They make exclusives out of trivial bites. Plus, the updates to the tech that they boast about are incremental, more often than not. It is crazy yet how many such portals and channels exists today. Just open YouTube or any feed and search for a mobile brand. It is an endless list of attention hungry wannabes.

It is so unfortunate that the genuine and worthy thoughts and updates are lost in this noise.

I am reading many people's writing process today and am absolutely stunned at how simple my writing needs are. I don't write drafts after drafts in any tool. All my drafts are one line ideas in my notebook or saved articles with tags "to-write". I find time for writing and complete a post about an idea or article.

For that matter, most of my posts are spontaneous -- I get a thought and I put it down into a post. I don't insert too many images, individual or as part of the posts. Sure, there are times when I need to spend time on researching or explaining some projects that I am working on. Or when I am writing a fiction. Such posts are very rare, though (and continue to become even rarer as the time goes on).

Plus, I like writing in Markdown. But I am not too attached to the language. I could very well go about writing posts after posts without using any of the Markdown syntax. The most I do is emphasize a word or a line. It won't matter to me how I do it. That said, I continue to enjoy writing my post in Markdown editors and would do that wherever I get a chance.

There was a time when all my posts originated in some text editor installed on my laptop. But that's not the case any more. Most of the posts that I write are in a portal of sorts hosted on web - mainly Quill. (I wish Micro.blog had a better writing interface, though. The current one is too basic and doesn't work well for longer posts). On a mobile device, I only write microposts and I would post them from some Micropub client -- I use Micro.blog apps (Gluon or Dialog) or Indigenous.

All in all, I have realized I have a simple publishing workflow. I open a web or mobile app, put down my thoughts and hit publish. So, what use do I have for the text editors any more?

I dislike the fact that I have published very few long form posts recently. It's as if I can only think in micro form. Should it matter? I don't think so. But I have slowly come to the realization that I am writing with one eye on the character count. It's really foolish of me to do that. But I do this subconsciously.

Somewhere deep down, a thread also continuously evaluates how the post is going to look in a timeline -- the only one where I believe it matters would be Micro.blog. Again, it's foolish. But I have realized it affects me. If it didn't, I would be publishing more posts with titles.

I need to bring my mind out of the habit to character check my posts.

Could Gen Z Free the World From Email? →

The main problem with email then is not necessarily that there is too much of it, but there is too much competition.

And yet, email continues to stay relevant.

Falling in love with Strangers →

I knew I missed little exchanges with strangers during sheltering in, but I’d forgotten just how beautiful and hilarious humanity really is. We are so silly.

No doubt, today’s the age of pampered kids. Is it good? Is it bad? Does it have to be one of these?

How Growing Up in the ’80s Felt Like Freedom

I’m struggling to find a convinient way to share videos with family members for a recent wedding event. I want one that provides convinience for receivers but allows control with me as sender. I’m not sure if YouTube performs copyright checks even on unlisted videos.