I’ve seen this recurring theme on Twitter, LinkedIn, and virtually every microblogging social platform I’ve used. Teasing something exciting you’re working on gets better visibility than when you share that work itself. Here’s an example from the Twitter of yore—which people forget wasn’t all
Hello friends, Continuing to embrace a calmer digital life instead of drowning in the slurp—and now slop—of social media, I’m sharing with you via this web letter some notable things I’ve been up to or enjoyed in October. Reading * How to comment on social media * Technology
Look, I hate social networks, especially all mainstream ones like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the ilk. And, microblogging is a terribly contextually deprived way to create, absorb, and converse anything. I can’t justify sacrificing my time and efforts on places which degrade my thinking, mental health, and sanity. And
2024 is a national election year for both the US and India. Some web searching led me to check past voter turnouts in both countries, and I was quite surprised with the numbers: The US (Source) * 2004: 60.1% * 2008: 62.5% * 2012: 58% * 2016: 59.2% * 2020: 66.9%
I love trains. Why you ask? * I get to spend hours reading without much interruption from humans. * Eating and relaxing is more comfortable in AC coaches and above than being cramped in planes. * With trains you essentially just get in and get out. There’s no fuss of guards, check-ins,
Just start a newsletter that announces in its name to the whole world that it will go out every Monday: https://jatan.space/tag/moon-monday 🌝
Hello friends, Here’s another web letter of notable things I’ve been up to or enjoyed recently. A lot has happened over the last two months, and below are slices from both the spacey and non-spacey parts of my life. Reading * Why research paper DOIs don’t work sometimes
* Be outraged about everything * Be woke across all of time * Never bring nuance * Signal disapproval, or you might just cause an existential crisis for many * Get called out for not flicking your fingers in ways prescribed by stranger collectives * Torch your long-built reputation in no time * Do it all in
I’m now auto-sharing articles and blog posts from my space blog and Journal J on some non-questionable open social networks that also federate (interoperate): MastodonFlipboardBluesky Follow wherever you like. For a better reading experience, directly subscribe to my blogs via email or RSS. PS: Since both my blogs are
Many people have been suggesting me to start a “LinkedIn Newsletter” for my space articles specifically because it will tap into my existing connections and their networks on the platform. After much reluctance against joining yet another siloed service, I thought perhaps it doesn’t hurt to give it a
I’m sharing with you the simple process I used to customize my phone such that in terms of incentives, it’s now easier to do the things that are good for me versus the things that are better off accessed with some friction. For any kind of serious work,
Hello friends, Thank you for your great response to my first newsletter for friends! Continuing to embrace a calmer digital life against the slurp of social media, I’m sharing with you another web letter of notable things I’ve been up to or enjoyed circa July. Reading * The moving
Life
I visited the Museum of Possibilities in Chennai. Among other things, it displays working tech that bridges accessibility gaps for people. There was this really cool e-pen that reads out loud text you slide through. It can even save the text as a file. There were accessible games too, including
Musings
* Complain about disposable cutlery and water bottles * Fly Business class in domestic flights * Spend the whole day at the conference venue but sleep only at 5-star hotels * Do not have virtual participation, and then give out grants to 1% of attendees * Give talks so public-safe they could’ve been a
Social Networks
You know how LinkedIn shows where we work and what our position there is below our names on every post we make? What it should show instead is whose stock we own, who has contracted our company’s work, and which activities we fund in order of their magnitude and
Fun
Today’s achievement includes self delivering a non-takeaway café mocha on bike on Indian roads without a single spill. The backstory for this is interesting. The café served my dine-in order late but which I decided to have there anyway. Halfway through the mocha, I realized it’s not a
Newsletter for friends
To human readers of my personal blog, Today I’m starting this little monthly newsletter for my friends on the Web, further embracing my foray into living a simple digital life. In part inspired by Philip Thomas, it’s a calmer way to stay in touch against the slurp of
Life
This week I moved from Mumbai, the city where I was born and grew up, to Bengaluru. I like many things about Mumbai but I’ve longed to live in Bengaluru for a while now, and below are the major reasons why. * Bengaluru is the space hub of India. Majority
Social Networks
It actually happened. Meta’s social networking app Threads joined the Fediverse! And I have a few thoughts. 1. This is a big deal. For the first time in history, you can not have an account on a Meta-owned app but still be able to follow and soon interact with
Social Networks
Mastodon and most Fediverse platforms may be better than traditional social networks at interoperability but they don’t do much about other issues. In fact, they largely copy these issues straight from the social media giants. Most Fediverse platforms, including Mastodon, publicly display follower counts, like (favorite) counts, and share
Social Networks
Many of us are familiar with the feeling of investing time and effort on a particular social network, only to either see it become irrelevant over time or do something stupid or malicious that scatters people over to half a dozen platforms. And so you start over, with all your
The Web
In today’s Web, being online seldom means being present. Browsing doesn’t mean reading. Following hardly means connecting. Posting certainly doesn’t mean articulating. Commenting rarely means conversing. Listening doesn’t mean comprehending. Watching never meant absorbing. And likes don’t mean anything anyway. We largely live an internet
Reading
RSS, or Rich Site Summary, is a website reading technology nearly as old as the consumer Web itself. And yet it can keep you on top of news and perspectives in ways social networks can’t. How it works is really simple yet smart: 1. Blogs and websites publish an
Apps
I’m impressed by the Bear app’s ability to import and export an exceptionally wide range of file formats compared to the 20+ note-taking apps I looked into. Last year I was on a quest to find an app that can reliably import entire blog archives as well as
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