Jul 31 2022
Doesn't That Already Exist? Yes, But..
Late last year, I decided to try Matter. Matter is a fairly new reading app that lets you save a URL of interest to read later. I’ve been using ‘read it later’ services for longer than I can remember. IIRC, it was my good friend Aareet that introduced me to Instapaper back in 2009 after we had brainstormed our own idea for an ‘interesting links manager’.
I think I used Instapaper up until it was acquired by Pinterest, following which I switched to Pocket.Jul 30 2022
Recession? No, Confusion
I saw this chart in a The Wall Street Journal piece today called If This Is a Recession, We Might Not Know for Months:
Official acknowledgement of recessions in the United States is the responsibility of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). However, their timing is often too late as we can see from WSJ’s graph. During the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the official call was only made in Dec 2008 even though the recession had actually begun a full year prior.Jul 29 2022
Be Real-ly Bored
There’s a social app that’s having a big moment. You’ll find it trending at the top of the App Store. It’s called BeReal.
But how long will the hype last, for real? At what point do you get exhausted from seeing mundane photos of your friends’ computer screens and views from the couch/bed?
The app is reminiscent of a phase I had on Snapchat several years ago where I was receiving meaningless photos of literally nothing from connections on the app to maintain “streaks”.Dec 6 2020
If your only filter is profit..
Emerging in the tech world this week is a story about Google firing Timnit Gebru and providing a pretty bad excusefor doing so. This is the kind of stuff that makes me very angry.
During my teen years, I’d look up to a company like Google or Facebook as the kind of company I wanted to be part of or create someday. I often thought they were innovative and made great products, but my respect for these companies, especially for Google and Facebook, has exponentially diminished over the years.Jul 23 2020
App Limits
After several years of intermittent social media usage, a few months ago, I decided to enforce strict limits on some apps. When the pandemic of 2020 started, I found myself browsing social media excessively. What seemed like an innocent desire to connect to people in a period of isolation quickly turned into act of feeding the frenzy. I’m introspective enough to tell the difference between natural human tendencies and obsessive anxiety-fuelled behaviour.Jul 8 2020
Request for Startups
Today, I’m publishing a new page on my website: Request for Startups{:target=’_blank’}. It’s my personal list of opportunities that I’d like ambitious and talented individuals to pursue by building products. I’ve kept this list internally for a while now, but there’s no reason it should just collect dust in my file hierarchy. I have a gut feeling that some of the opportunities in this collection are of significant value to the world.Jun 27 2020
On Fairness Creams & Colourism in Indian Culture
There’s much ado about fairness creams all of a sudden. As of the writing of this post, consumer goods behemoth Unilever is rebranding its well-known fairness cream brand, Fair & Lovely{:target=’_blank’}.
The Oxford dictionary defines ‘virtue signaling’ as “the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.” The #BlackLivesMatter movement has truly unleashed virtue signaling left, right and centre, across social media and op-eds, in people’s personal and work email inboxes, podcasts and talk shows.Jun 25 2020
WWDC 2020
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference happened earlier this week. The conference was held virtually for the first time, due to obvious reasons. Most of it felt pre-recorded, but it was nonetheless packed with some major updates.
I’d like to briefly talk about some of them.
App Clips This aims to radically change how you discover apps. App Clips are small versions of existing apps that allow you to accomplish small transactions like pay for parking, view a product or borrow a scooter.Jun 17 2020
On Apple and Software Distribution
This week, the EU formally opened antitrust investigations{:target=’_blank’} into Apple’s questionable business practices around the App Store and Apple Pay’s unfair advantage in the world of mobile payments. The former deals with software distribution and the latter deals with preferential hardware+software coupling. I want to share some thoughts on software distribution.
I reminisce about the days of the open web. With some beginner knowledge, anyone could build a website and make it available to the whole world.Jun 12 2020
The Forgotten Northeast
India’s Northeast is a land of immense history, beauty and courage. Northeast India consists of 8 states: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. Together, these states are home to over 50 million people of India.
Despite being such a big and important part of India, it is oft-forgotten by India.
India attained freedom from the British over 70 years ago, but millions in the Northeast over multiple generations have never experienced freedom.