Like the top-rated comment suggests, ignore all the comments and focus just on that one. This Learn How to Shave Like Your Grandpa is worth a read for shaving newbies and veterans alike. To make it simple, I’ll break it down for you and list the things (affiliate links) I bought that changed my shaving experience:

• Merkur Model 180 Long Handled Safety Razor
• Proraso Shaving Soap 5.2 oz (147 g)
• Proraso Pre and Post Shave Cream – 3.6 oz

Optional

• Colonel Conk Evernice Model 775 Chrome Safety Razor Stand
• Styptic Pencil (to stem the inevitable bleeding from nicks and cuts. This is basically alum or what we call in India, phitkari. It costs less than a buck if you manage to get it in your local pharmacy)

All of them cost me about $70. It might seem steep but if you add in the replacement blades for another $7, this will last you for a year and even after that, all you would need is new shaving soap and the pre/post shave cream. I would also recommend the stand to hold the brush and the razor since the brush has to be dried upside down. The stainless steel razor is the most expensive item in that list for about $32 and contrary to companies like Gillette, the replacement blades are only about $0.50 each and each is expected to last about a month if not used dry.

The razor is a solid all-metal heavy piece that can be disassembled and washed. The weight of the razor does the job for you so you don’t have to apply too much pressure when you shave. In fact, you have to be careful to not cut yourself so have to go slow. Don’t expect this method to be speedy and don’t even imagine shaving while driving (I’ve seen people do this). Before you even buy it, read this exhaustive review on the razor’s Amazon page that includes how you should shave. The badger-hair (not boar) shaving brush along with the Proraso soap helps in whipping up a smooth lather which is assisted by the pre-post shaving cream also by Proraso. The chemicals in shaving gels and aftershaves are responsible for most of the bumps and pimples which get worse the more you use them. I can attest to the superior quality of the pre/post shaving cream which is vastly superior to any after-shave I have used not only in terms of stemming bloody cuts but also in terms of cooling.

I bought these items nearly a month ago and have used them several times now so can be confident in recommending them. I get a better closer shave with far less skin irritation and the bumps and pimples have all but vanished. Even if you have no skin irritation problems, I would recommend using this old-school shaving equipment for a better experience and save yourself from the ad gimmicks. Apart from lubricating with few drops of baby oil, your razor doesn’t need much maintenance; simply hold it under a running tap to clean it and don’t touch the blades to avoid misaligning them. It may take a few tries to get used to it and you may even cut yourself a couple of times you use it but you quickly get the hang of it and can shave faster than when you first used it.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments
Post tags: personal care, shaving

It was on a NeXt machine that the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee wrote the protocols, procedures and languages that added up to the World Wide Web, http, HTML, browsers, hyperlinks … in other words the way forward for the internet, the most significant computer program ever written was done on a NeXt computer. That is a feather in Steve Jobs’s cap that is not often celebrated and indeed one that he himself signally failed to know about for some time.

After having written www, Berners-Lee noticed that there was a NeXt developers conference in Paris at which Steve Jobs would be present. Tim packed up his black cube, complete with the optical disk which contained arguably the most influential and important code ever written and took a train to Paris.

It was a large and popular conference and Tim was pretty much at the end of the line of black NeXt boxes. Each developer showed Steve Jobs their new word-processor, graphic programme and utility and he slowly walked along the line, like the judge at a flower show nodding his approval or frowning his distaste. Just before he reached Tim and the world wide web at the end of the row, an aide nudged Jobs and told him that they should go or he’d be in danger of missing his flight back to America. So Steve turned away and never saw the programme that Tim Berners-Lee had written which would change the world as completely as Gutenberg had in 1450. It was a meeting of the two most influential men of their time that never took place. Chatting to the newly knighted Sir Tim a few years ago he told me that he had still never actually met Steve Jobs.

(Via Shared by Roshni Mohapatra)

So very awesome anecdote and the far-reaching influence of his innovations that sometimes even he (Steve Jobs) wasn’t aware of.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Apple, innovation, Steve Jobs, Technology

My first Apple product was, like most PC owners, an iPod but the real Apple experience was when I got my first Mac. In 2009. Yup, I was very late to the party. The iPhone followed soon after and then the iPads, the Apple TV, and even the AirPort Extreme. People often mistake my love for simplicity in design, be it architecture (my major in a previous life) or technology, as fanboyism. I wear that badge with honor. But I never bought Apple products because I was in love with Steve Jobs. Actually, before buying a Mac, I had never heard a single Jobs famed keynotes. You could say I was living in the anti-reality distortion field.

I bought and loved Apple products because they just work and Steve Jobs philosophy, as I later discovered, emphasized just that. Breaking the shackles of complexity from computers and making users feel at ease was his underlying design principle, be in in hardware with a single scroll wheel or in software with the simple yet robust Mac OS X. Although the cult of Mac is derided and mocked relentless on any web forum, the sense of community is strong even if its growing by the millions every year (23% market share compared to less than 5% ten years ago). I remember my sense of puzzlement when I first got my Mac. As an avid Windows tinkerer, I had to unlearn all that. I still remember Supremus’ advice which he in turn had received from his Mac-using colleague:

When I got my first mac, my colleague had told me that I would go through 3 phases. 1st would be when I would get find myself comparing everything to windows and find things annoying with mac (ex: 2 button mouse, no way to expand apps to occupy full screen real estate etc). 2nd phase would be when I’d gloat over the fancy gui and tastefully done aesthetics and how everything fits together in OS X. The 3rd stage he told me was when I’d start looking *beyond* the beautiful UI and start knowing how the operating system has been designed, and that is when I’d appreciate OS X fully.

I went through the stages exactly as he described and if you are a recent convert or are planning on becoming one, I ask you to keep this in mind (although some things like “expand apps to occupy full screen” are now better than in Windows). As Supremus describes, it is hard to explain and has to be experienced firsthand with an open mind. If you think that the Mac is a toy then you haven’t yet delved into the wonder of AppleScript and Terminal which I’m no expert by any means. I have been proven wrong enough times by a work colleague who whips up a tweak that does things I have not thought possible on a Mac or any other platform.

As John Gruber put it succinctly, that Steve Jobs greatest legacy is not any particular Apple product but it was Apple itself. The company that he founded is instilled with this philosophy of providing the best user experience there is. Things may not be as ‘open’ or convenient or even have the latest top-of-the-line specs but the whole is always going to be greater than the sum of its parts. I hope this philosophy remains strong at Apple for as long as it can and although the domineering presence of Steve Jobs isn’t around anymore, we can only hope that his lessons have seeped in deep enough. Like all things, Apple may eventually fade away and be replaced by yet another innovative company but all I can hope is, that company would be guided by the same principles that Steve Jobs proved were so pivotal in creating a lasting and wondrous consumer experience.

Twitter shared this image:

Click here and then click on the link that says, Original (7000 x 6386). Wow!

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments
Post tags: Apple, Business, Philosophy, Steve Jobs, Technology

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: Apple, Steve Jobs

I was never a fan of tech rumors but at times, it can be fun. However, this time around, it was crazy as wannabe sites tried jumping on the bandwagon trying to outdo each other by proposing an even atrocious rumor.The rumor game is getting so out of hand that even mainstream publications like Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, etc. started referring to the new phone as the iPhone 5 whereas during the previous iteration, the iPhone had progressed from an iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS. So there was even the lack of precedent to the naming convention. Further, people were disappointed that it was the 4S and not the 5 although when told about the enhanced hardware and the upcoming OS, they agreed it was definitely a worthwhile upgrade.

And yes, I’m getting the iPhone 4S simply for the reason that my 3GS is now two generations old and my AT&T contract suggests, I’m eligible for an upgrade. I’m not into the specs game and simply want a phone (I use the word loosely since I hardly use it for talk) that works and syncs well with other devices that I have.

Update: Jason Kottke explains why the lack of a newness cognitive jolt that usually accompanies Apple announcements is necessarily a bad thing. Also, his conclusion is exactly what I mention as a reason to buy the iPhone 4S. Stephen Hackett at 512 pixels adds, “most US customers are stuck on two-year contracts, so why release a brand-new iPhone every year?” Valid point that contradicts most people who believe that Apple wants fanboys to buy a new phone every year.

Footnotes:

1. Notice how the sedan in car design hasn’t been improved upon much given certain affordability and efficiency standards. There is a reason why the Toyota Camry 2011 doesn’t look a lot different than the Camry 2008

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Apple, Design, iPhone, Technology

We may argue ad nauseum on how precious life is and how you should not end it for flimsy reasons. First, reasons that may seem flimsy to us may mean the world to the person taking his own life. Second, life is not all that precious considering there are nearly seven billion humans and several other billion life forms on this planet alone. It is not as rare as we like it to think it. Hundreds of people die each day either by accident or deliberately but we like to reserve the precious tag for the lives that end by suicide. I’m not suicidal but I can say that I understand if a person chooses to take his own life and I will not judge that person harshly. I may disagree with the reasons he may or may not have had to take his own life but I will not take the only choice he had in his life. We do not chose to be born but at least we can chose to die. But this may be a maximalist position and I don’t expect many people to understand.

This post, however, is not about just suicide. It is about comparing it to how we feel about it compared to another hard decision taken by thousand of women i.e. of abortion. Relatively, it is not in the same league although some Christians would like us to believe otherwise. Often the right to abortion is portrayed as pro-choice so why isn’t suicide, probably the supreme and maybe the only choice we have, considered through the same lens? The people who uphold individual rights as a holy sacrament hardly ever mention suicide unless it is cloaked under the tag of euthanasia. Euthanasia is considered acceptable because the person chooses to end his physical suffering so why isn’t mental or psychological suffering accorded the same treatment, no pun intended? Most pro-choice proponents wouldn’t dare suggest that the woman who chose abortion is a murderer and is doing so for the sake of her convenience so why are we so quick to revile people who kill themselves? If abortion is emphasizing complete control of your body (and I agree) then why isn’t suicide that is complete control of your life considered equally understandable. You may chose to hate or revile the person who has killed himself but remember that person couldn’t care less about what you think because he isn’t around to be judged. So is that why we chose to judge that person?

No one ever understands what goes on in another person’s head; sometimes even the people closest to that person have no clue. Every pain is relative and you cannot compare your suffering or lack thereof to another person. Pointing out extreme hardships endured by people elsewhere in the world is nothing short of condescending. If you wish to help the suicidal person, do so with tangible actions and do not simply lecture him. Guilting him into not killing himself will only make him do it quicker. And if everything fails, the least you can do is not judge him because you judging him is not bringing him back. He simply chose to leave the world a little early. People die early all the time. People close to him mourn briefly and then move on. The pain may remain but it would be similar to if the person had died in an accident. I wouldn’t blame anyone else other than the person taking his own life.

PS. I was going to blog about this earlier but Ash posed the question on Twitter and an interesting conversation ensued. I would storify the tweets here but all of the people involved – @cgawker, @sampada, and @supremus have private accounts. Request follow and go read.

PPS. I am not suicidal, I repeat, I am not suicidal. Because after reading this if you assume I am then it would be akin to assuming the woman who is pro-choice is going to abort her first pregnancy.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments
Post tags: abortion, choice, individual, suicide

Across the board distinctive elements of each filter have been compromised. Filters that were washed out are now more contrasty. Filters that were contrasty are now more washed out. They’ve all drifted towards the same look.

Instagram said that all the filters have been completely re-written to work with the new live preview system and to output far higher resolution images, and it seems to me the re-writes just haven’t nailed the original look. I have a feeling this may be for technical reasons, that the new engine for live preview just can’t support certain features like textures.

(Via www.myglasseye.net)

Instagram is one of the apps that I use most of the time on my iPhone, apart from the regular Mail, Twitter, and Facebook. I love the ease by which you can take neat photos and share it instantly with your network. The filters available are just right and although there are plenty available, I used only a handful, frequently depending upon the mood and context. Heck, I even share all my Instagram pics on my Facebook account; most often get ‘liked’ by multiple people.

If the above linked review is accurate, then it is indeed unfortunate. The vast difference between the filters is what makes choosing between them so much fun (have never used Poprocket so am not sad it got cut but have seen others use it). If all your photos look the same, as the new updates does, why wouldn’t you rather use the built-in camera app or other generic apps? I hope the folks at Instagram aren’t compromising on its unique arty factor in lieu of unnecessary convenience. The app might get more popular but it will lose the crazy (hipster?)fan following it currently enjoys (guess you can see the need for getting more funding take precedence). On the upside, the quality of photos is definitely much better now so you don’t lose detail in which otherwise are just crappy cellphone pictures.

If you are interested and aren’t one of my Facebook friends, you can check out the last 18 photos

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: apps, instagram, iPhone, photography

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags:

Twitter’s first ad has caught flak for its un-serious nature but personally, I like it. It focuses on the speed of communication that Twitter is known for and takes itself less seriously. At least Twitter is not trying to sell itself as the service that causes revolutions in the Middle East although plenty in the media like to tell us otherwise. The objective of any advertisement is to create buzz about the product and although Twitter hardly needs that (it is in fact, the medium used to spread buzz), this ad will at least make people chuckle and let those people holding out try the service.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Advertising, Twitter

I’m no expert on the stock market but any casual observer will also conclude that today was a one heck of a crazy roller coaster day on the market. After dropping nearly 5% yesterday, the market opened high on the news of 117,000 jobs added last month but a 0.1 percentage point drop in unemployment rate but fears of another economic recession persisted as the markets tanked to its lowest point before rising up and falling back down before finally settling merely a tad in the green.

Can anyone even make sense of this erratic behavior anymore and as I was discussing with someone on Twitter, are we just being taken for a ride here? Like most, I have some of my savings invested in the stock market (mostly bonds and ETFs) and it is by no means a fortune but even then it gives me palpitations to see such up and down behavior with no logical rhyme or reason. Whatever gains I had made in the past year have been wiped clean. Perhaps it is time again to stuff the mattress.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags:

[image via Apple.com]

As any Mac enthusiast is aware, Apple released the latest version of its operating system yesterday, OS X Lion. There are several reviews on various tech blogs, including the seminal 19-page review in Ars Technica by John Siracusa. In some ways, it is a much bigger upgrade than its predecessors, Snow Leopard which made no bones about having no new features. Mission Control and Launchpad, two new features are mostly for people buying Macs for the first time. The Mail app has a new look and usability changes. Apart from being touchpad friendly, there are several little tweaks that make it a worthwhile upgrade for a measly $29.

However, for me, the following is one killer tweak that I have struggled with on several ocassions:

With the laptop lid closed and the computer asleep: Plug an external display in, wake the computer, and the external display will be the only working display. If you were to then open your laptop lid, the laptop’s screen would turn on and you have two working monitors.

With the laptop lid open and the computer awake: Plug an external display in and you have two working screens. If you were to then close your laptop lid, the laptop’s screen turns off and the external monitor becomes the only working monitor.

In short, opening and closing your laptop’s lid is like adding or removing a second display, and does not affect putting the computer to sleep.

[Source: OS X Lion — Shawn Blanc; via Digitizd]

I almost always hook my laptop to a 22″ external monitor when I’m at home and I’m lucky enough to be able to get my Mac to office and hook it to a an external monitor for my personal stuff. With Snow Leopard, the behavior was always unpredictable when you closed the lid and turned on the monitor. Sometimes it worked but at other times, you had to open the lid and wake the computer up again. Or plug in a USB device to wake it up once the lid was closed. It didn’t help that I was using a bluetooth wireless keyboard and a trackpad because tapping wouldn’t always wake it up. With this tweak, the behavior is intuitive. If the laptop is open, it can be used as an external monitor and doesn’t just stay open with a dark screen and if you close it, it doesn’t put the computer to sleep.

Apart from this change, Scrolling, strangely called Natural, is reversed so that can mess with your head a little. You can change it back or try it for a while. It can be extremely frustrating and I can see why it is making people mad. I’m trying to stick with it for a while though.

Have you upgraded to Lion yet? What is the biggest change you have seen and what feature do you hate the most?

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments
Post tags: Apple, computers, MacBookPro

No matter how many sacrifices you make to Lady Death, no matter how rich the offerings you lay before her altar, she will know where to find you. When she comes, she will hold you tight, and she will never let you go. Don’t be frightened. She takes us all.

[Source: Los Angeles magazine] Nominated for 2011 National Magazine Awards, this (long) article is an excellent narrative on what actually happens after you die…on Earth. Nope, it doesn’t mention the bright light at the end of the tunnel and you are unlikely to know about the process once you are dead. Grim at times, the author doesn’t shy away from making you acquainted with some brutal and often morbid realities. Not everyone is lucky enough to die in their sleep and not everyone dies with people that love them around them. At the core, our biggest fear is that no one will miss us when we are gone. Unfortunately, for many people it comes true.

And yes, in spite of the fact that the article was based in Los Angeles and deals with mortuaries and undertakers, the author must be commended for not once mentioning ‘Six Feet Under’. Until I read this article, my only understanding of what might happen to my mortal remains came from that TV show.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: death, life

I’m only writing about the non-obvious apps. Rest you can search in the App Store and find them easily.

[click on image for a larger view]

Homescreen

Most are default apps like Messages, Weather, Stocks, Clock, etc.

Instapaper: This is a must-have app if you like to catch up on your reading while you are waiting or in bed. You’ve to sign up for an Instapaper account online and then mark long-form articles that you want to read later in the browser. The app syncs them automatically as soon as you open the app within a WiFi or 3G range.
Alarm Clock Pro: This app extends the alarm clock functionality of the iPhone and lets you also use it as a desktop clock while it is charging in the dock. You can set songs in your iTunes library on the phone as your wakeup alarm.

Photography

Camera+: A great app from Tap Tap offers plenty of shooting modes, basic editing, special effects, and sharing options. An additional set of effects are available for in-app purchase for an additional buck. Worth it if you like to shoot random pictures and share them with your network.
Pro HDR: Until you have the HDR capabilities of the iPhone 4, this app works just as well as the built-in feature or maybe even better.
PS Express: This is the original Photoshop on the go. Quick fixes and effects and you can share or save the edited photos instantly. It retains the originals.
Cinq: Until Steve Jobs relents and allows for wireless syncing, I use this app to remotely sync photos I take with my iPhone to my Mac thus eliminating the need to hook the iPhone to transfer photos.
Instagram: The latest in social networking is focused exclusively on photos. Currently an iPhone-only app, the ease with which you can take photos, apply great effects, and share them simultaneously across various networks, blogs, and photo sites is amazing.
TiltShiftGen: This relatively low-power app just does one thing and one thing only – apply the tilt shift lens effect to the photos you take. Unfortunately, the lite version is limited and doesn’t let you load an existing photo. But this app is much better and cheaper than its desktop equivalent which I made the mistake of buying on the Mac App Store.

Utilities

Toodledo: A to-do app that syncs with its web version. I’m not much of a to-do list guy so there might be better apps for this purpose.
WhatsApp: This app is useful if you like to exchange plenty of text messages within a small group of friends who also have this app. It offers free texting even internationally. Plus, push notifications make it easy to not miss any text message.

Music

Shazam: Hear a song playing in a coffee shop or on the street and want to know which one it is? Just open Shazam and tap to make it listen for around ten seconds and it will instantly recognize the song and even let you buy it instantly off iTunes or Amazon.
Pandora: Needs no introduction and iPhone’s ability to let it play it in the background makes it a must-have. I listen to it more than I listen to the songs in my iTunes library.
Attic: Plays songs from your iTunes library that you have not listened to in a while. Allows you to rediscover your old favorites that you had forgotten you had.
Dhingana: For your Indian music taste buds. Not that great of an app but the best of its kind.

Movies

Movies Now or Flixter: These apps offer a quick view of the movies playing in your local theaters and shows you the show times. Very useful when you are out and are deciding on whether to go for a movie. Movies Now is aesthetically pleasing and Flixster is more useful complete with Rotten Tomatoes Ratings.
Peel: The app version of a TV guide. Enter in your zipcode and you’ll be shown the current shows on TV.

Shopping

Cardstar: Throw out all the barcoded keytags from your membership stores and enter all your codes in this app. Fire up this app and let the cashier scan your code off your phone. One of my best clutter-free apps.
Red Laser: Lets you recognize any product (in its database) by scanning its barcode. Useful for price checks and compiling shopping lists.
Amazon: The Amazon apps are a must for any shopper. Download them and try them out. The features are far too many to list. One of my fave features – Like a product in the store? Take a picture and upload it to Amazon and they get back to you with the same or similar product on Amazon along with its price.

Voice/Video

OrbLive: Lets you stream live sports events from ESPN3 among other live events (you’ve to keep your computer on and install a desktop version of the app). If you can see it on your computer, this app will stream it to your phone. Works over WiFi and 3G. Slightly expensive for an app at $10 but it proved to be useful for me at one particular time.
8mm: The video camera on your tiny phone may be of HD quality but sometimes we yearn for the vintage effect. This app provides instantaneous vintage effects on video.
AirView: Move video streaming from one iOS device to another seamlessly. Useful if you want to share a video with another person in your house with an iPod touch or an iPhone.
Dragon Dictation: Voice recognition app for longer text. You’ve to train it but works well once you have.

Other System Apps

iOS is a robust operating system for my needs. The only place it sucks is the notification system. Hopefully it gets fixed soon and Steve Jobs is working on it to get it just right. Until then, BoxCar should be more than sufficient.

Other Apps

Utilities:
1Password, ATTScanner (for QR Codes), Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Find iPhone, Flickr, Foursquare, Google Voice, Google Latitude, Twitter, Yelp, VLC Remote.
Blogging:
Mint Stats, Tumblr, WordPress
News:
NY Times, Broadsheet, Digg, HT Media (Hindustan Times), NetNewsWire (feed reader), NDTV, Pulse News (Aggregator), Alien Blue (Reddit)
Finance:
ING Direct, Mint, Bank of American, MyWireless (AT&T Billing), ShareBuilder, Venmo (PayPal clone), Vanguard.
Movies:
IMDb, PhoneFlicks, NetFlix.
Reference:
Google, Wikipanion, Weather Channel, MapQuest.
Shopping:
Grocery IQ, Craigsphone, Price Check (Amazon).
Sleep:
WhiteNoise, Ambiance.
Voice/Video:
Skype.
Games:
Hangman, Paper Toss (I know, no Angry Birds yet)

I hope this list helped. Please mention your favorite apps in the comments.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments
Post tags: App Store, Apple, apps, gadget, iPhone

The more you know, the less you need – Yvon Chouinard

Sometimes, I’m tired from the myriad options available on the Internet to read. This video [via] perfectly exemplifies the dilemma most of us suffer from i.e. the need to have read everything interesting available to us instead of contemplating or even discussing what we have read. I admit that there are times I just put stuff in Instapaper to read later and forget all about it. Admittedly, there is tons of interesting stuff out there to read and every day more is added, and we haven’t even gotten to the books yet. Or the videos. Or the music. Or those inane personal anecdotes on /AskReddit.

Couple of weeks back, I realized that I have to step back and take a look at my reading habits. I realized that I didn’t have to read everything that I may find interesting. Yes, you too. Instead just follow people that you find interesting who will recommend stuff to read. I recommend staying away from those one-page articles or listicles (Best of…) that may elicit a chuckle or two but you will not remember any of it the next morning and it will not be useful even if you do. I recommend long-form writing that you can usually find in magazines like The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, etc. These are well researched, sourced, and in-depth narratives of the issue at hand and you’ll come off having learned something in exchange for your time. I can understand that Twitter has greatly diminished our attention span but we have read content more than 140 characters long before so it shouldn’t be hard getting back in the habit.

There are plenty of websites now that cater to such long-form needs like Give Me Something To Read, Long Form, Long Reads, and The Essayist. I don’t claim to be an expert curator but based on my brief experience on curating and aggregating posts from the Indian blogosphere for five years at DesiPundit, I’m also sharing my list of long-form essays, videos, and photo essays over at a dedicated blog simply called, Patrix’s Favorites. I don’t promise on updating it regularly but when I read or see something interesting that takes just a while longer to appreciate, I’ll share it on there. I don’t share these on Twitter for obvious reasons.

Let me know if you have any system or habits dedicated to long-form reading or tips on how you make time to read interesting content that takes more than a minute of your time.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments
Post tags: Internet, long form, reading, writing

In a leaked internal presentation slide, Yahoo put Delicious, the popular bookmarking service in the Sunset column. This started an online fire yesterday leading everyone to believe that the much-loved service will soon be terminated. Delicious was one of the first original and actual Web2.0 services on the Internet. After Hotmail, the fact that you can store your bookmarks online and access it from anywhere was revolutionary in the early naughties ^[1]. My first bookmark on Delicious, or as it was previously known as del.icio.us ^[2], was way back in July 2004 and rightly, it was for a link for BugMeNot, an online service that shared logins and passwords for pesky sites that demand you register with them.

Delicious soon evolved to much more than a simple bookmarking site as it virtually introduced the concept of tagging to Internet users allowing us to search for curated information easily. At one point, someone even suggested that we could shutter the DesiPundit website and run it purely as a Delicious sub-domain and yes, it would have worked just fine. I used Delicious not only to save links but also share them on various blogs long before Twitter made it easier. The erstwhile Indibloggies relied on it entirely for nominating and voting on the best blogs in the Indian blogosphere. But then, something happened that signaled the beginning of the end for Delicious – Yahoo! bought it – and like everything else that it has made stagnant or killed, it proceeded to diminish Delicious’s value.

Nope, Delicious didn’t get worse but it simply stopped evolving. New features would take ages to arrive and it simply couldn’t keep up with new and upcoming collaborative tools. E.g. It took Delicious forever to integrate Twitter and when it did, it made it extremely clunky. Fortunately, I predicted this long time ago and I had already moved to a similar yet superlative bookmarking service Pinboard in January. It allowed me to export all my links and even duplicated several of the features from Delicious while adding many more.

I’m saddened by the loss of this awesome service that Yahoo failed to utilize and I hope we manage to harness all that knowledge hidden behind all those links bookmarked painstakingly ^[3] by millions of users. Among all the hullaballoo of Delicious, the demise of Altavista, once a premier search engine and MyBlogLog, another service I used and paid for ^[4], was lost in the din. Now I simply hope that Flickr, also owned by Yahoo, doesn’t meet the same fate.

PS. And now, after nearly 24 hours of the slide leaking out, Yahoo! is trying to explain that it is not shutting down Delicious but instead trying to unload it. Yeah, right. The damage is done.

Footnotes:

1. 2000 – 2009
2. one of the first to take advantage of the unique non-dot-com domains
3. I had nearly 2809 links bookmarked on Delicious
4. Remember ‘Best of the Week Links’ on DesiPundit?

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: bookmarks, delicious, Internet, Web 2.0, Yahoo

If you are inclined, here is the full list of the 270 movies used in this montage (via Kottke)

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: mashup, movie

This tweet literally had me in splits because that is exactly what we were doing this past weekend. Like I had written earlier, in spite of my lack of religious beliefs I do enjoy the festive seasons and the bells & whistles that go with it; sometimes literally. I would’ve put up the lights at Diwali but our neighbors might’ve been pressured into entering the Christmas lights race early so I sufficed with tealight diyas at our front door. We plan to get a kandil next year. Christmas, after Thanksgiving, is as close it comes to a festival without having to pay obeisance to a higher power. Sure, people do attend the Midnight Mass and may their god bless them but most people particularly children love Christmas for its lights, gifts, and the general merry atmosphere that fills the air.

Since it would be our first Christmas in our new home, we decided to join in the fun by at least putting up lights. After figuring out that we might have to clamber on to the roof to put up the lights, our 6′ ladder seemed insufficient. Thanks to a timely sale of a telescopic ladder at Lowes this Thanksgiving (our only purchase on Black Friday and finding a ready buyer for our existing ladder on Craigslist, the issue of accessing the roof was solved. We supplemented our meagre stocks of two strings of lights (we particularly love the icicle lights) with additional four strings and host of extension cords and shingle clips. Obviously, we had to return to the store because like for any home improvement project, you always underestimate what you need.

I realized that age might be finally catching up to me when clambering on the roof didn’t come as naturally as it used to growing up. All those memories of climbing trees and our neighbor’s chajjas and finally roofs seemed to occur in the distant past. The slope seemed steeper than what I imagined it to be but I managed to hold on long enough to string up the lights on our two gable roof ends. After a long afternoon of hard work and holding on for dear life, the lights were all up and dare I say, looked particularly impressive compared to our neighbor’s multicolored lights. Although Christmas was still 3 weeks away, our home wasn’t even in the first ten to put up lights and the crowds at Walmart, Target, and Lowes seem to indicate that by next week we would’ve been the last.

Not satisfied with lights on the outside, Ash went all out and got a (fake) Christmas tree from Walmart, strung it up with lights, and placed it in the front room for any passerby to see. Since her family would be spending Christmas with us, we’ve gone the whole hog by putting up poinsettias, a wreath on our door and garage lights, and even stockings on the mantle for gifts. The house looks positively festive and regardless of what religion celebrates it, there is never a reason not to join in for the festivities. We Indian atheists are like that only.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: christmas, festival, home, lights, Personal

Beautiful parents tend to have more daughters than their homelier counterparts, according to a report by evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics

Now don't assume that if you have a daughter that you are a good-looking couple :) But the real kicker in the article is, "guys tend go for beautiful women when looking for something long-term, while women seek out good-looking guys for the short-term, but not necessarily for the long haul." So if your wife is beautiful, you are the ugly one. Obviously, I'm not geneticist so this story might be BS to the real scientists out there.

According to Wikipedia,

In 2006 he published an article in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, claiming that attractive people are 26% less likely to have male offspring. In a letter to the editors, Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman points out that a correct interpretation of the regression coefficients in Kanazawa's analysis is that attractive people are 8% more likely to have girls, an error that Kanazawa acknowledges. Gelman further argues that Kanazawa's analysis does not convincingly show causality, because of possible endogeneity as well as problematic interpretations of statistical significance in multiple comparisons. While Kanazawa claims that the former error is "merely linguistic" and that he addressed the latter two in his initial article, Gelman maintains that his original criticism remains valid.[8]"

The age-old correlation-causation debate. So why did MSNBC report this as real news? Because that’s what mainstream media does.

[Link to Good-looking couples have more daughters?]

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags:

A wonderful time-lapse chloropeth map of changing political affiliations in the United States. Note the dominance of blue during the 30-40s and sudden reddening in the late 60s post-Civil Rights Act. More on the maps and methodology.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: elections, maps, politics, United States, visualization

[blackbirdpie id="4981067933028352"]

As you see, it looks very messy and you aren’t even sure how many links he has embedded much less what each one points to. If you click on them, you realize, they point to individual tweets by other people – different people. Wouldn’t it be convenient if all those tweets could be bundled under one heading and better still, under one URL. Bit.ly now lets you do exactly that. Bit.ly Bundles lets you ‘bundle’ various links and let you give it a title and share it to your followers. I bundled @daddy_san‘s links and created a ‘Cheer up, dude’ bundle that you can access with a single bookmark. Obviously, it too is in form of a shortened URL.

Best of all, not only does it bundle all the links but it also extracts all the tweets on a single page so all you have to do is scroll through them to get your dose of cheer. Although I’m not sure, I bet other forms of rich media like images and videos will be similarly embedded. Of course, you would’ve to click through to read long-form stories

The possibilities are endless and you can create bundles of aggregated links on topics either on current affairs or certain issues and share it on Twitter. For e.g. a video compilation of individual YouTube links of Sachin Tendulkar’s best sixes, or all news opinions of how Sarah Palin couldn’t get her endorsed-candidate to win in her home state of Alaska, etc.

Go forth and bundle. Or be the second one.

 Follow me on Twitter: @patrix. For content without Link Posts, use this feed. For Link Posts only, use this feed.

© patrix for Nerve Endings Firing Away, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: aggregator, links, online content, related content, Twitter