If you publish a newsletter, please, please include a link to your archives very close to that “Subscribe” button your want readers to click. You intend to form a relationship with the readers. Give them a chance to see in advance what and how you write.

I have now learnt about how to cut hair at home. To make sanitizers at home. To make masks at home. The correct way to wear masks - and hand gloves. And the correct way to remove them. To efficiently and effectively wash hands. To wash food containers. To sanitize cash. To sanitize sanitizer bottles.

Sigh! I don’t think I was ready for all these unique knowledge bites. I don’t think even internet was.

This had to be the worst time for US to have Donald Trump as President. He comes out as indifferent from whatever I’ve read and seen. Maybe what gets reported is biased, but even his addresses to press have been mixed. Indifferent is worst you can be as a leader today.

Snow-capped mountains are visible from places that have never seen them in decades. Ganga water is significantly cleaner. Smog-free skies and clear canals. Nature is smiling back at the world. We, humans, screw up. We lock ourself out. Nature decides to clean itself.

I started, and stopped watching Manifest — another in the list of Lost-wannabes. It takes more than just a good sci-fi premise to be what Lost was. Sure, even Lost wasn’t perfect. But it’s well written and acted, which most aren’t.

With a significant majority of the world following a stay-home routine, many of the planned events have gone online-only. This has given me a wonderful chance to be part of events that I could never have been part of. A small relief amidst all the negativity and gloom around!

Kai Brach delivers a brilliant advise as part of this week’s newsletter of Dense Discovery. I have been trying my best to also live a trivial life in these trying times.

It never felt so comforting watching someone clean their car. On my screen, the world ends any minute. But from my balcony, life goes on, one sponge wipe at a time.

So let’s think and read and write and talk about trivial stuff, too. Trivial is OK. Trivial is life.

I am always fascinated with the idea of a book club - may be because I just haven’t got a chance to be part of one. How does it work? In today’s time of lockdown, this would be wonderful to experience. Are there any that are done on web, say via Zoom?

I have been working with David Merfield on a little side project. The idea started simple - what if there was a simple posting interface for Blot? In extension, something that one can use to write and publish a post to Dropbox. Blot is simple as-is for writing and posting (it’s all files). But there are times when I do want to quickly post from my web browser. And for such times, I still need a simple writing interface.

That thought was enough to interest both me and David. We got to work. The project got neglected in between. And then was picked up again. And I think, it is in a state now where it can really be useful to a few. I can attest to that because I, myself, have been using it for few days now.

Here’s Wall — a “web-accessible text-editor over Dropbox, works nicely with Blot”.

I believe this would be useful for many. It is clean. It is light, pure-client side application. It supports local drafts. It can export markdown. It can publish to Blot. Perfect for all those text posts.

I have my own fork of the project where I want to use the editor and support publishing to multiple places. To start with, I have extended it to post it anywhere in Dropbox.

I have hosted it here as Scribe. I plan to extend it next to be used as a micropub client. Still in works, though.

Of course, this is not perfect yet. For one, it does not work well on smaller screens. But it is a good enough. Do give it try.

I don’t think it must be surprising to anyone — the use of that dumb, forgotten app on your smartphone is on the rise again. The phone. People are calling others more. They are talking to them longer. If you can’t meet others physically, your mind reaches out for other ways.

I watched Parasite today — I didn’t like it. I believe if a movie with the same premise and same treatment was made in US, it would have no chance at Oscars. This did win because it was foreign. Very similar to Slumdog Millionaire.

I’ve been working with IndieWeb for quite some time now and I still get confused with implementing a simple IndieLogin workflow before a micropub request. There’s just too much back and forth between multiple endpoints. Time to put the head down and get this working!

I am still not sure about dates of the posts! Ignore this pls.

I’m getting tired of the Coronavirus coverage around. I don’t want to watch it, read it. Anyway there’s hardly any news that’s not regular anymore. Of course, avoiding it means avoiding Television and internet altogether. My Kindle’s been the only savior. Dependable as always.