Tuesday, July 27, 2021

No phone spaces

In my never ending quest for de-addiction from phone  I thought of implementing a simple thing during the day. Three times during the workday, once before and once after, I will spend some time away from my phone, just thinking. Maybe I am thinking about work, maybe I am not, but I will get those pockets of spaces just to get a sense of the day passing by. Am not fixing a time to it, but yeah it mostly happens when I have a call in say 15 minutes, and I am unable to focus on my current task. Or I have just finished a long call and I am trying to process it. 

I feel like I have a lot of ideas, I just never let them come to the surface because of the algae/lotus leaves of Social media. Who knows what riches lie underneath? These spaces are a chance for me to glimpse through the thick layer on top - maybe I will see flashes of brilliance or maybe it will be dark and terrifying. 

I also wanted to have spaces as in physical spaces that are no phone, but thats proving a lot harder. 

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

post mid life

 I was thinking the other day that I may have lived half my life. I dont know where the days went, my life slowly changed and was suddenly nothing like what it was 5 years back. 

I have heard that this is how you feel when you are 65, so what is teh way to stop it? Do new things? Have new experiences? Be mindful of whatever experiences you are having anyway? Stopping to note the passage of time? Accumulating great memories? Reliving those memories to ensure they dont disappear? 



Monday, July 12, 2021

Ken Liu makes me think

 All his short stories have something that make me want to stop reading the short story and just think about it. 

The most recent one was where society reaches a level where we buy armors from trolls. So AI helps you not see trolls and their vicious judgements you buy software that prevents you from seeing them. Because you cannot stop trolls, platforms cannot manage this censorship business, the smartest way seems to be to shield yourself from it. 

Ofcourse trolls then figure out a way to break the armor and then its just a full fledged evolutionary arms race. But the idea that instead of trying to figure out a way to make the trolls stop, we need to figure out a way to not see them, made me think. Maybe its really basic, but tahts pretty muhc how humankind has dealt with everything? 

Bad weather? Build homes and protect yourself. Thorny paths? Wear a shoe. Going by that logic this does seem to be the future.

Copy-paste orr

 A lot of Indian innovations end up like this- take something thats uber succesful in the US. Find a cultural context tweak that makes it relevant for India, launch. 

I was listening to the first episode of something that aims to be the indian version of the tim ferriss show, we have seen enough and more products that bring an indianised us product and we call the founders, the creators innovative, succesful etc. 

If you are one of those who are scornful about it, about the fact that its  not real innovation, just some maintenance, the question then remains- why didnt you do it? or anyone else before this person? 

Maybe it needs a certain knowledge in a particular field or a network with enough well connected people to spread the idea forward or maybe it just seems far fetched for India until someone proves otherwise. 

So even if its copy and paste is all thats being done, its worth appreciating.