The time capsule tells you so much about how thoughtful the little girl is. Look at all the items she has selected to speak for her. And then the mushy little gems in envelop! Brought a smile on my face.

This is absolutely gold — Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder

“It also made me realize that even amongst the structures and pavements and powerlines, how interesting nature can be in a single suburban backyard if you really stopped to look.”

The #GeorgeFloydMurder protestors in US are just people, asking for justice. I see no arms with them. Why are police afraid of and hostile to them?

From outside, the protests for “Open America” looked a lot more harmful to me. They were freaking roaming around with guns.

What if we decide that Thrusday is the start of a week and we get two days off in middle of the work week? Will we feel better? I feel by calling it “weekend” we put unnecessary pressure on Friday of reaching a logical closure.

I received a call today from an unknown number. The lady at the other end wanted to know if I was interested in a new credit card. I patiently listened as she explained all the benefits I stand a chance to receive. When she was done, I calmly declined. Normalcy felt good.

I have decided to actively be back on Twitter again. In a way, I never was off Twitter; I have been a passive contributor on Twitter for more than a year now. During that time, Micro.blog became the place that I was most active at. However, recently I have found that the platform just doesn’t attract me. It has got nothing to do with the product or the community there. Both remain brilliant. It is the diversity (or the lack thereof) that just doesn’t fit my lifestyle, my routine.

My timeline is never active when I am. Even those who are active in my timezone do not share my interests and my culture. It is frustratingly difficult to become part of this wonderful community.

I had casually pointed out this challenge during my interaction with Jean on Micro Monday. I am afraid the things haven’t improved much in the 18 months since. I have made many attempts to overcome this. I tried to inspire people that I know, that I am friends with to join the service. I built Micro.Threads to check on the conversations that I missed while I was absent. I even tried to change my routine to better fit in. It was this last attempt that made me cognizant of the limits I was going to to just be an active participant at the service.

I know there are people from my timezone, of my interest that are very much active on the service. I am sure there would be a thread somewhere listing all such folks. But that thread cannot be discovered or be searched for. Those folks cannot be easily found. I have come to realize that neither of these is a challenge with Twitter. No doubt, Twitter has its own set of challenges. But, at least, I can participate as per my routine.

Lack of diversity and discovery remains Micro.blog’s Achilles heel. It’s a wonderful community on there; it just isn’t inclusive enough for me to fit in.

Book Review: The Mystery of the Blue Train

The Mystery of the Blue Train is a typical Poirot mystery, just not presented in her signature intriguing style. There are just too many shifts to the points of view of the supporting characters. The clues are perceivable, but they aren’t backed by any information that is revealed earlier. There were many moments when I knew what was being narrated was important, was a clue to something. But I could just not put my finger on why that was so. The resolution towards the end too did not feel very natural; it felt rushed, forced.

With the way the novel is structured, it felt as if Christie began writing this somewhere in the middle when Poirot is introduced, reached towards the end, and began to wonder how to tie the woven mystery up. All the side characters and their backstories were penned at that point and spread across the novel.

As a whole, the story just didn’t feel coherent. It wasn’t boring; I don’t think Christie can write a boring mystery. But it just wasn’t one of her finest works. I have heard even she has acknowledged this fact.

My 6-year old casually asked me today, “When I will grow up and go to space, way beyond the sky, will I see God?” I don’t think I have an answer for any that? Go with spirituality or science? And I am completely blown by her cursory reference to the travel to space. She believes it is going to be as easy as buying a ticket and getting onboard a rocket.

She continued, “And when the satellite is this small, why do they have such a huge rocket surrounding it? Why can’t they make just the satellite to fly away?” Any answers of mine did nothing to quench her curiosity.

I firmly believe the curious minds of kids should contribute to defining the next problem statements for science. There would be many that the jaded minds would not have thunk.

If you can write more than 2K words reviewing a small music app, it is the writing part you enjoy more. Start writing fiction.

For every action, there are tens of justifications. For every justification, there are hundreds of questions. Questioning every action of someone else’s is easy. Providing tangible feedback about their action is the hard part.

Whipping cream without an electric beater is not easy. For that matter, any part of cooking is not easy. The finesse, the delicacy needed for the job is beyond my clumsy engineering brain. I have even more respect for my wife and mom; they are masters of this art.

After months in lockdown, the first thing I did today, even before I brushed, was placed a few orders on Amazon! Doesn’t matter if I need all those items — I will cancel later. But I will do anything these days to feel just a tad bit normal.

We are living in a simulation. Some developer has messed up a property on prod and has peacefully gone to sleep. Musk was right.

“Most discrimination and hatred is based on a lack of empathetic awareness of people that have the same aspirations and fears”

Many will recognize where they read this first. But I could never find the source. Who said this?

Time to get back to some focused reading. There’s nothing better than a quick, nice Poirot mystery. So I am reading The Mystery of the Blue Train.

Something deep within made me say this today - “Chickpeas in cuisine are like potholes on the road. More there are, more people learn to ignore and avoid them. Eventually, you don’t like them, but you don’t mind them either”. I think I now will always back this 🙃

With Stadia, Google underestimated the lack of interest amongst the pro gamers in streaming game service. And at the same, it overestimated the number of casual gamers that would be interested in playing A-list games. It had to result in a lack of enthusiasm for the service.