Shorts
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Antennagate
Yes, I’m late to the party, but there is no “antennagate”. I’ve been playing around with the “spot” the past couple of days and have managed to make my phone lose signal completely, and also have been unable to drop it below 4 bars.
As is apparent from that picture, my room this year is pretty horrible for radio signals. I’m surrounded by buildings on four sides, and being at the edge of the campus means coverage is already pretty low. My mobile broadband dongle has stopped working completely, it’s a miracle my phone still functions as well as it does. Taking that as a disclaimer, I get 2 bars when I hold my phone up against the window. When I touch the spot, I lose coverage. Gripping the phone with my left hand but avoiding touching the spot keeps it at 2 bars.
That’s not something wrong with the phone, it’s the coverage1.
When I tried the same thing outside, I had full bars no matter how I held it. It dropped to 4 when gripped it tightly with my right hand and pinky firmly on the spot, but that was all. I was at it for a good 5 minutes too, but 4 was all it would go down to.
Now go ahead and buy the phone. It’s beyond awesome.
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1The coverage is bad enough that I’ve had to turn off 3G so that it doesn’t catch the pathetic 1 bar of 3G rather than 5 bars of EDGE. ↩
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Why 26?
I’ve been asked this question way too many times for me to keep count. “Why do you follow just 26 people?” That number goes up or down by 1-2 every few months, but always in the same range. So why do I follow such few people? Because the brain is not an infinite-data holding device.
My presence on the Internet is almost purely content consumption oriented. Yes I’ve created a few things, released a few scripts, written a few blogs, but at the end of the day my main activity is to consume news (as a lot of us do). Unlike others, I don’t believe that the more information a person has, the better it is. I believe that a person should carefully choose what information he receives and then remembers. I strongly believe in what Sherlock Holmes (and by association, Sir Conan Doyle) said in “A Study in Scarlet” explaining how the brain works:
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
It doesn’t make sense for me to even pretend that I’m reading what 300 people are saying. Everybody knows it isn’t humanly possible to do so — unless you’re completely jobless and stare at your Twitter timeline like a zombie all day long. On the other hand, by following a really small number of people, I’ve got to know them and the kind of people they are, what they like, how they behave and so on1.
Secondly, I also believe that any piece of information that is important enough, will reach me regardless of how many people it needs to go through. I am subscribed to a little under 100 feeds, and even in those I see the same news thrown at me from 10-11 difference sources. ReadWriteWeb, Engadget, CNet and almost all the Apple blogs are the most notorious for this. Marking them off as read usually leaves me with just 1/3 of the initial count of unread items. But that’s just feeds. The same piece of news also comes at me from Twitter.
Now imagine if I was subscribed to more feeds and following more people. That would be a truly unbearable echo chamber, and I don’t have the tolerance to sit through them. No person, who has something else to do other than read the nonsensical drivel that is tabloid-journalism, has.
I follow people on Twitter simply on merit of what they have to say. I don’t follow anyone for breaking news, or for their wit, or because they follow me. All that doesn’t matter. If you consistently talk about things that interests me, or I know you in real life and you usually talk about things that interest me, I’ll follow you. I think that should be the only criteria. For most people it’s not, I know, but it should be.
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Yes, there’s only so much you can tell from reading a person’s tweets, but I’m sure I know more about the people in the 26 I follow than you know in the hundreds you follow. ↩
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A reason to do something is as important as the thing itself. If you don’t know the reason why you’re doing something, don’t do it. Such things are usually impulsive or emotional, neither of which can lead to anything good in the long run.
Looking for a reason will make you pause while you try to find it. That pause, that little hesitation is enough to validate what you’re doing. Our brains are hardwired to see all the flaws in something before we see the good. If you’re doing something you shouldn’t, it’s because you intentionally blocked out the bad things. A momentary pause will just show them to you again, and maybe you won’t do it.
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Phone
Text and email are polite invitations to a conversation. They happen at the speed and leisure of both the sender and the receiver. In stark contrast, when you get a phone call, it’s almost always a convenient time for the caller and a bad time for the recipient, who I refer to as the “victim” because I insist on accuracy. My philosophy is that every phone conversation has a loser.
I don’t like to talk on the phone with everyone, but the few people I do, I always send a text first asking them if they have 10 minutes.
~ via marco
(via marco)
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Let’s Be Honest
Anyone who knows me for more than a day knows I am a very frank person. I believe life is too short to pretend that you’re someone you’re not, so I don’t. While you might not like what I have to say — professionally or personally — you’ll know where we stand. Unfortunately, we as a society have lost out on this kind of honesty over time. Let’s face it, we all know that truth hurts, and even though we’re taught to be honest right from primary school, the adult society is the biggest hypocrite when it actually comes down to practising it.
I got linked to an article which talks about “Radical Honesty” (a book and concept by Brad Blanton). I haven’t read the book or attended any of Blanton’s workshops but my understanding of the concept after reading the article is to be honest about what you think and feel, but in a way that teaches you something about yourself and the person you’re talking to. The difference in plain old-fashioned honesty and Blanton’s concept is that you’re not being honest just for the heck of it — you’re doing it to make your relationships with people much more transparent and clear, and hence leading a simpler and more enriching life yourself.
I’ll admit that I’m not honest all the time. That doesn’t mean I lie, in the sense that I deliberately cook up stories that aren’t true, but that I withhold things that I know will hurt the other person unless I’m specifically asked for my opinion. There’s a big difference in being honest and being cruel, and one shouldn’t be cruel. The age old philosophy of “Treat others as you would have them treat you” holds here. If you consider their honesty in a particular situation would be a good thing, you should be honest yourself. I’ve observed (as the article too points out) that when faced with honesty, people tend to become honest themselves, and the result is a much clearer understanding of where the two people stand with each other.
Part of me being honest and frank is the reason that I don’t understand people. People are the only enigma in this world that I can’t come to grips with — everytime I think I’ve figured something out, it gets proven wrong the next day. I’ve stopped trying to understand things that aren’t said loud and clear. Sure, I can tell (sometimes) that you’re sulking — but I won’t know why. I’ll ask you if you’re doing alright, and I’ll take your answer at face-value. The idea is, if you want something, you should make the effort of asking for it so that it’s clear to you and others what you want. That is a kind of frankness as well.
It’s not easy, being honest. You could say I am “convenient”-honest/frank, and that’s a compromise most of us have to make if we don’t want to be shot in the middle of the street. People tend to be more honest with a person the more comfortable they are with them, simply because they know that things will not get too sour. People like to avoid conflict as much as they can (I’m no different). But the idea is to be frank with people in general. In my experience, journalists and lawyers do this pretty well. It’s because of their line of work, their lack of time for bullshit makes them cut through the pretences and get straight to the point 1. But then I also believe that it takes some characteristic of personality for people to be alright with going down this path — a high-degree of independence. You have to be alright with making people angry or upset, but you also have to be a quick judge of situations and the “bigger picture”. It might sound complicated, but believe me, it’s easier and much more satisfying than living your life pretending to be someone you’re not.
References
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1 I have quite a few friends who are journalists. I think you can see why. ↩
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Love something for the things you like in it, and hate the things in it you don’t. What you finally feel about something is decided by whichever overpowers the other. You can’t love something when you hate more things about it than you like. No, love is not blind. Love voluntarily closes its eyes to things it doesn’t want to see. Faults are only endearing when you like more things than you hate; realised how you can’t stand the annoying little things you used to love when you no longer love the thing itself?
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The Emperor’s New Antenna~
Every recent consumer electronics product from Apple—definitely the iPad, but all iterations of the iPhone including the initial one—has been greeted with rounds of articles crowing about what an arrogant, foolhardy mistake it is and how this will finally, finally, be the moment the emperor is revealed to have no clothes.
The difference between Apple and others is that Apple succeeds by wanting to make better products than competitors, and others succeed by wanting their competitors to fail.
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I watched “Inception” yesterday with a few friends. Good movie, and the kind that forces people to try and make sense of it even hours after it is over. And that’s why I don’t like to watch interesting movies with other people.
“Oh wait! That top didn’t stop spinning!”
Yes, I noticed that. And a thousand other things that I know you missed. Like the fact that Saito wasn’t connected to Cobb and Ariadne when they were trying to save him from his limbo, but Cobb still managed to find him somehow. Or the fact that Fischer didn’t recognise Cobb in the second level of his dream (yet they masked themselves up for the first level to not blow their cover). I could go on, but it’s just a fucking movie. Watch, enjoy, and leave it in the theatre. Don’t think you’re the only one who saw it, and definitely do not keep bringing things up like high school students after an exam.
It’s okay to be excited, but don’t get annoying.
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Bad Habits
You know those little things people do that annoys everyone around them? Like chewing loudly, or eating without closing their mouth. Or shaking a leg when they’re sitting — it’s just small things that you do unconsciously. I do none of those things. I was trying to think of one bad habit that I might have, and that’s probably that I chew my nails. But, again, I don’t do that when I’m not alone.
Part of the reason is that I know it annoys people, and if someone else did it, it would annoy me — so I don’t. Of course, you don’t need a real reason to not have a bad habit, do you?
I don’t have any bad habits.
ADDENDUM: A “bad habit” doesn’t have to be something that just harms you — like smoking. A bad habit is any habit that is considered undesirable1.
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Ways To Be Seen at a Party
Be taller, bigger than the ones around you.
Be louder than the ones around you, and make sure people really hear you.
Jump up and down, using other people’s shoulders as leverage if you have to.
Break something or make a scene.
Climb up on stage and grab the microphone.
Get naked.
Tell a riveting story that lasts long enough for other people to finish their conversations and turn to listen to you.
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So, Facebook
This was initially posted as a note on Facebook, but I can’t be arsed to figure out the privacy controls to make it visible to everyone (whether within Facebook or not) so I’m just cross-posting here so that I can link it to people who ask me why I hate Facebook.
Today, I disabled automatic Tumblr-to-Facebook posting, and hence severed the last bit of the real me that Facebook1 sees. It’s funny how Facebook is the network which is supposed to be made up of people you know in real-life, but it is the completely contrasting Twitter that has connected me to more people who (for lack of a better word) know me better and I share a lot more in common with.
It isn’t my nature to just “talk” to people. And of course, with Facebook being full of complete retards from one corner to the other who have severe boundary issues, it makes me even more hesitant to say anything here. I am an opinionated person, and moderately loud about them. However, the things I am interested in doesn’t fly too well around here. This probably says more about me than Facebook, but I honestly believe Facebook has failed as a “network”. Facebook has failed to understand that the people a person knows in real life may not be their friends.
This is not about Facebook vs. Twitter, or Facebook vs. any other random social network you can think of. It’s about how the concept of social network has been diluted to just a site where you and your friends are registered. That’s it. What are the “social” aspects here? Farmville and photographs. And I’m not too sure about the photographs either. If all you do when you go somewhere new is take pictures of yourself against various backdrops, then power to you—but we can only look at so many vanity pictures before we tell you that you really aren’t as awesome as you think you are.
If you think about having an active discussion on anything important, the above-mentioned retardedness just washes over you like a flood. I mean, how can someone take a person “hu typez lk dis!!!!” seriously? The concept of status messages has been reduced to cryptic, emo and angst laden lyrics of songs that bring in a torrent of “Oh my god are you alright?!”s and “Call me!!!”s. Facebook has just gave the art of attention seeking a much bigger stage.
Anyway, as ranting is not in my nature, I’m going to cut this short. This mainly becomes a link for me to point people to when they ask me why I am not active on Facebook or dislike it. I’m only on Facebook because of a few message threads, my relatives and some friends (who really are friends), otherwise I would’ve deleted my account months ago2.
I’m sure there will be tons of people who have discovered their meaning of existence by being on Facebook and making 1000+ friends who will disagree with everything I’ve said here, but hey, the worst you can do is leave a comment here, right? Go ahead. Make my day.
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By Facebook, I mean the 127 “friends” that I have on here. I doubt any more than 10-15 actually see the stuff that gets posted, having more than 300-400 “friends” themselves. Really, how much value do you honestly get out of adding that one person you met 5 years ago at a bar for 10 seconds? ↩
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Plus, since I found someone who is actually not on Facebook, I feel better about myself (if that’s possible). ↩
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Never Settle
I’ve always wanted to write on this topic, but never really got started because I didn’t think I could do it justice. But then I heard an excellent podcast by Mann and Gruber, and on the same day got linked to a piece about how writers need to motivate themselves. I took them as a sign and decided to write this for me.
“Never Settle” is a personal philosophy that results in me becoming obsessed with some things while completely ignoring the others. It’s a philosophy that eventually leads people to call me a ‘perfectionist’ in a not-so-positive way. It’s a philosophy I adopted in high school when it came to life — may that be relationships, work, play or anything else that I cared a lot about. “Never Settle” is the philosophy that says that no matter what and how much time it takes, never settle for anything less than what you want something to be 1.
Life has enough compromises without you compromising on what you truly believe in. This is most obvious when you deal with people. Even if you were born under aligned stars, at some point of time in your life you will be forced to compromise on your decisions against those of someone else. And this isn’t just related to work. If you’ve ever been in a relationship, you know what I’m talking about. “Never Settle” doesn’t mean you be stubborn about what you think and completely block out anything that doesn’t agree with you. It means being receptive of everything around you, and augmenting what you believe with those, letting the best decision prevail (may that be yours or someone elses).
It also takes a lot of patience, because many times it becomes quickly obvious that the time isn’t right for something to be what you want it to be. So you must wait, and look for opportunities. “Good things come to those who wait.” The conviction required to adopt this policy doesn’t come easy, I’ll tell you that. But when you do get it, you’ll realise that you regret things a lot less.
I want to stress that this is only for everything you care about because no-one will/should give a 110% to something they don’t feel inclined to. That could be an assignment, or a work-project, or even a relationship. Whatever it is, there’s no need to put undue effort into something you consider insignificant. I rather you save that energy for things that matter.
I could bring up the clichéd example of Steve Jobs, but that’s been repeated to death, so I won’t.
Of course, one can’t follow this policy if he isn’t confident about his abilities, and that’s okay. Things won’t always go your way to let you practise this policy, but the idea is not to compromise when you’re given a free reign.
References
149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility!
Alone With Words-
1 Admittedly, I don’t follow this policy as rigidly as I used to — mostly because my tolerance and patience levels have reduced over the years. But if you can remain rigid in your conviction, power to you. ↩
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How I Accidentally Got 700,000 Fans on Facebook~
“They were the sort of people, I soon discovered, who were also fans of such inane but popular Facebook fan pages as “Punching Things” and “I hate it when I get fingerprints all over my phone.” But each time one of them would become a fan of Shut Up, I’m Talking, their circle of Facebook friends would blindly do the same – causing its frighteningly viral spread.”
I wonder who was the first person to make a page about an idea rather than a thing. He/She should be hung upside down and launched into orbit.
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“I’ve learned that people will forget what you say to them, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you make them feel.”
—Maya Angelou
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Nobody talks to themselves. Whenever we talk, to seemingly nobody on the surface, we’re imagining having that conversation with somebody. When you realise who that person is, you find out who is important to you.
