Archive for the ‘Meta’ Category
Unplugged
Posted by Nirav | Filed under Meta, iPhone
I’m going to just go crazy here and talk about my “feelings”, whatever the hell those might be. This post is technology-related, but takes a different tone than the archives.
When I was in high school, I dated a girl for eight months, and was good friends with her for several months before that. At the point that we became good enough friends for her to be calling me fairly often, I assigned her a specific ringtone on my cellphone. I think it was called “Chimes”. I can still remember this ringtone.
In the beginning, it was wonderful. When I heard the echoing tune, my mood would brighten and I would be in heaven. We’d talk for hours and think that we had something unique, something special, as high schoolers are prone to doing. No matter how asleep I was, that particular series of tones would dive through my dreams and float me gently to consciousness to answer my phone and hear her sweet, sweet voice.
The relationship began to sour, and heaven began to slowly, gruesomely, morph into hell. I would break out into a sweat. My heart would start pounding with sickening anxiety. By the end of it, I couldn’t even think about her ringtone without feeling slightly, uncomfortably dizzy.
Today I learned better; I found out how I could have not put myself through that at all.
This afternoon, I had a conversation on the phone that left me more anxious than normal, setting me on edge and slipping me into a kind of vaguely preoccupied state; in short, I was regressing to high school. I tweeted about it, thinking that it would make me feel better to get it out, but instead it just compounded my anxiety as I awaited any response from certain people.
And then I realized: I could just turn it off.
So I did.
My phone remained off for the next few hours, and thus, I remained unplugged this evening. I laughed, talked, ate, drove, and shared in good company.
Disconnecting myself from the constant stream of information didn’t just stop the firehose of bits, it also yanked from the roots the related anticipation of the torrent; something new and priceless to me.
Now, do people wiser than myself do this on a regular basis? It seems a terribly important skill, one that isn’t mentioned on the web design blogs, the coding forums, or the front page of digg. You don’t learn this in the pages of an O’Reilly book or Designing with Web Standards, 2nd Edition.
And yet it is vital for surviving and navigating this network of ours. As humans, we adapt easily. If a ringtone typically heralds an emotion-soaked conversation, the feelings pregame for the party as soon as they hear it. When a particularly personal missive is sent out into the world, the nerves and heart prepare for the equally personal messages expected in response.
But we’re also logical, so when you turn it all off… blissfully, deliciously, it all goes away.
Unfortunately, no one can hide forever. So I’m back on the grid, so to speak, writing this post in the hopes that it will help me remember when to simply step back and hold down the power button.
Link: In the Absence of Fiction
Posted by Nirav | Filed under Meta, Miscellaneous
I would spend years, save up money, and buy a printing press to capture every one of Diana Kimball’s posts in dark ink and heavy paper, and then read them and keep them and read them again by the fire, in the rain, and under my covers illuminated by a flashlight. This one would be my favorite.
Except the the unread items count in my newsreader just jumped, and I haven’t checked digg in, well, hours at least.
I suppose it’s telling that whenever I feel zen-like, the internet is far away.
It’s probably even more telling that I often subsequently tweet, “Zen.” just to make sure that my story hasn’t been cast aside and forgotten by the multitudes in the last forty minutes.
I’m Featured on the PowerPoint Team Blog!
Posted by Nirav | Filed under Meta, Microsoft, PowerPoint
Ric Bretschneider, a co-worker of mine at Microsoft, has started a series on the PowerPoint blog on the interns with the team for the summer. My post is first, and it’ll be followed shortly by four more from the others. Enjoy!
Errata
Posted by Nirav | Filed under Meta
Some errata:
- I complained on July 10, 2008 about Twitteriffic’s lack of push notifications; little did I know at the time that the service launches in September, so Twitteriffic couldn’t possibly use it.
- In my post about how to hack Boingo WiFi, I forgot to note that you can probably get unlimited access (instead of an hour per day) if you can change your computer’s MAC address. I also later was sent a link with a way to spoof your user agent using Firefox.
- I talked about how to cook potatoes in the microwave, but wasn’t aware of the possible health hazards of using plastic grocery bags for this. Shruti pointed this out to me, and that you can use large ziploc bags instead.
Thanks for reading. More soon.
Big Contrarian, a Much Better Blog Than This One
Posted by Nirav | Filed under Meta, Web Design
How does Big Contrarian look so good? The design is just exquisite; note that posts gorgeously allow for quotes and footnotes, giving the writer more avenues for expression than a simple text box (like this blog). The blurb at the top of the page gives you instant context, and I really like how links and posts are separated by color and the presence of a title in the latter. And of course, Jack Shedd is excellent with words.
It’s both incredibly cool and incredibly intimidating to have awesome role models.