Tuesday, February 11, 2025

social (and not commercial) media

It's been over 10 years in the making, but I have gone from guessing to being absolutely sure that the time has come for a new social media that is truly social and not commercial. It's an idea that's been brewing in my mind for a while. It needs to mimic human relationships: humans only speak one-one or in small groups, and sharing something involves repeating it, typically not verbatim. Human communication is typically verbal, and pictorial sharing is pretty limited.  Our time and social batery is not allocated by "engagement" or other clickbaity metrics, but by the meaning we derive out of the interaction.

It should be easier to create and maintain than the vast behemoths that pretend to be social media these days. I will get around to creating it soon.

Tuesday, February 04, 2025

parabola

January 12, 9:30pm. I heard a thud. Rushed to find you lying on the floor. The call to 999, 20 minutes of CPR, a shot of adrenaline, a couple of jolts from the AED were all to no avail. 21 days in the ICU, begging you to open your eyes, and when your eyes finally opened, to elicit some sort of acknowledgement, were to no avail.

14 of those 21 days in, the doctor told us, behind closed doors, that the person we knew and dearly loved was no longer there.

Two days later, the doctor told us it would be unethical for them to try to keep you alive. 

We found this hard to accept. How could someone say this? It sounded like reading out a death sentence to the innocent. 

They took off the ventilator. They took off the feeding tube. They took off the intravenous fluid. You are now in your natural state, they said. 

They replaced the array of instruments that beeped every few minutes or seconds with a clock that ticked away silently. 

The clock felt ironic. The clock drove home in no uncertain terms that they were waiting for you to die. We were waiting for you to die because we were told there was nothing left for you.

Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days. 

We couldn't accept this any more. Surely you were not meant to die! You were alive with no medicines, no intervention, no ventilator, no food, no water! There had to be some sort of mistake! 

You were moved from the cold dark ICU to a sunny private room. You seemed better. Would they let us take you home? We didn't know if we could even ask the question and if they would find it ridiculous. 

23 days after you entered the hospital, you went home. Not your home on earth though.

"This body, this body holding me
Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me
Feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion"

Sunday, January 12, 2025

wiggle your big toe

nothing is easy. nothing ever was. I just need to remind myself why I struggle. it's hard to remember why, when even the few sources of support seem to be working against "me".

after all, what is "me"? right now it feels like everything is a struggle against my own body, my own mind, even my own emotions. my own predisposition and limitations as a human being. the structure and fabric of human society and relationships. perhaps even my own cognitive and emotional biases. 

when I take away the struggles, it almost seems like there's nothing left, other than the residue of greatness I have absorbed from the people around me. the dead, more than the living... or maybe that's another emotional bias I'm struggling with. 

has it always been like this? or have I been gradually shrinking, atrophied, under the cover of my disguise? 

when I look back, the only things I see that are truly me seem to be the fight. is that it? is that all? 

it's hard to say. some times, it's hard to think about.

but if I don't fight, however hollow a life of fighting may seem, I'll probably lose the only bits of myself I can currently see.

it reminds me of that scene in Kill Bill, when Uma Thurman, having woken up from months or years of coma, spends what seems like an eternity trying to wiggle her big toe. 

once she did that, she knew everything else was possible.

"wiggle your big toe" 

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Murphy's law

When inserting a microSD card into the dashcam, the spring overpowered my fingernail and launched the microSD card straight into the AC vent, where it bounced right down the vent and into the innards of the AC itself. and no, setting the fan to MAX didn't blow it back out 🤦‍♂️ 😂

The physics of the situation was so improbable that I was more amused at what happened than sad that I've lost a perfect microSD card of the exact maximum capacity that my dashcam supports (32gb)!

Saturday, December 21, 2024

my year in sport

when strava's "year in sport" came up, I was expecting it to be a disappointment. turns out having an ebike really helps me get out more! however, there are over 800 unaccounted for km (when I compare my strava distance to my ebike odo). wonder what those were from! probably the folding bike and sailing, cos I am quite sure I didn't do much walking/hiking, but given how far my expectations were from reality, I'm prepared to be surprised on that count too 🤔

oh and there will be another 80ish km of sailing before the year draws to a close, setting the bar even higher for next year 😁

it's crazy what I managed to achieve despite having to deal with chronic fatigue since March, that worsened to the point where I took out my ebike for the first time in 2 months last night! I think the cancer research fundraiser (400km in June) made a massive difference, but even if I deduct that from the total, it's still a gain over 2023!

anyway, this reminder from strava has come at the perfect time. I really needed this boost! off we go 🚴 ⛵ 🏃 

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

everybody's free (to wear sunscreen)

2am. a restless night that doesn't want me to sleep. I'm sore and tired, my eyes burning, but sleep eludes me.

one glance at my phone screen that silently glowed in the darkness of the bedside table told me I have a new message. it was mom, telling me she didn't call me as she didn't check her phone before going to bed. it told me she was awake. 

I took my phone from the bedroom to the couch downstairs and called her. she answered right away. we spoke for an hour. we spoke about how I can't sleep as my feet are aching and my eyes are burning. she told me what new exercises she's added to her morning regime to keep her chronic backache from getting worse. we spoke about arbitrary things. after half an hour I told her I should go back to bed even though I'm sleepy. it took half an hour to say goodbye. at some point it stopped being a goodbye and just was an extension of the conversation.

I told her I want to spend time with her while she's healthy and able to enjoy it. I told her I'm sad that I didn't get as much time with dad as I'd have liked and I don't want the same to happen with her. 

I told her I love her and miss her. 

I don't remember when's the last time I told her I love her and miss her. I don't think she remembered either. 

at that moment, I wanted and needed to hug her more than I have wanted and needed to hug her since the last time I did. 

she hung up.

I want to sleep. my thoughts won't let me. 

I've spent the last 42 minutes, half in tears, listening to Baz Luhrmann. one song on repeat: wear sunscreen.

one line struck me every time the song looped:

"The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday"

it's 3:47am on Wednesday but it's still a blindside. 

I want a hug from my mom. Nothing else will do today. 

But I don't think I'm going to start wearing sunscreen. 

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Battery low

It's 11:14pm. I'm siting on my couch, watching a video uploaded in November 2024 about a product from 1987 that allowed people to edit videos by controlling 2 VCRs. At the same time, I am trying to test a pair of AAA batteries in Shruti's wireless keyboard. Ironically, I am unable to test those batteries as the original pair of batteries, that Shruti claimed had stopped working earlier today, are working now! Also, I am separated from my trusty multimeter by my sleping mom-in-law, which makes solving the problem considerably more difficult. My only obvious option is to type away on the keyboard with the old batteries until they die so I can actually verify the new batteries are an better than the old one. However, the video is practically over but the old batteries are still going strong.

I have decided to call it quits and inform Shruti that the old batteries are still working but if they give up a new pair of batteries have been left beside the keyboard. Hopefully, that's it. Off to bed! In the meantime, it has started snowing and I woke Shruti up to see it, but it only caught her attention for 30 seconds.

ps: the old batteries gave up at literally the last word. new(er) batteries have been installed and the keyboard is confirmed to work with them. The keyboard randomly misses keys I type, and this seems to persist with the new batteries as well, so not battery related. However Shruti doesn't seem to have observed this, or if she has, she doesn't care, so I'm going to leave it at that! Good night!

popular posts