Pratik

The Cal Newport New Yorker article is now on Techmeme so @manton better expect a lot of sign-ups in the next few days. Hopefully some stick around.

I wish more subscription services did this. I appreciate the direct link to the ‘cancel’ page. Emails like these I would appreciate.

Changed my username on Pinboard that I had since 2010. It’s part of my effort cleansing the Internet of a certain pseduonym that I used in the early aughts.

I dunno, apart from ‘Roma’, I’ve found that Netflix movies lack that je ne sais quoi from being really good movies.

Sometimes I think the economy is too good for its own sake 🙄

In all the craziness that’s my life right now, ‘Kim’s Convenience’ on Netflix and ‘Superstore’ on Hulu are my comfort zones.

The audiobook for Small Fry: The Lisa Brennan Jobs memoir is 12 hours long? That’s Sapiens level length.

It’s Finals week at the university but there’re already a lot fewer students to be seen around. Campus is going to be a peaceful (and desolate) place to work over the summer.

The acronym for Free Universal Construction Kit is…

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure - Goodheart’s Law.

Perfect example - Chinese phone cradle for boosting your phone’s daily step count coz higher daily step count gets discounted health insurance premiums.

I’ve been meeting up with my former work colleagues. Almost all of them are feeling that the work no longer feels meaningful but they love the flexibility of working mostly remotely. This may be the opposite problem that most experience. But is that sustainable?

Veep had the most fitting ending to the series. One of the best political shows; truly a zeitgeist for our times.

King’s Landing residents relieved that Daenerys didn’t have a private email server.

Filed under the category of “Did you really need that?”, I recently bought a vacuum sealer food saver thingie. Perfect to store & then cook steak sous vide style.

Whatay finish to the IPL as Mumbai beats Chennai by 1 run. 🏏

So far a riveting IPL Final between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Nearly 11 million are watching just on the streaming app 🏏

As the primary season revs up, I’m reminded of an astute observation by a very wise person: > Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.

These days it just doesn’t simply rain in Austin. When it does, it pours and floods.

This explains the weird calls I keep getting from Sierra Leone.

As Facebook and Twitter has shown us, a million “Shakespeares” banging away at the keyboard has produced a monkey.

Cognitive dissonance is often considered a failure of the human psyche. In fact, it is a vital asset. Had people been unable to hold contradictory beliefs and values, it would probably have been impossible to establish and maintain any human culture.

– Sapiens.

And that’s a wrap on the regular season for IPL 2019. The Kolkata Knight Riders messed up big time by not qualifying for the playoffs that begin next week. 🏏

Soooo…the winner of the Kentucky Derby was disqualified coz of interfering with other horses in the race and possible obstruction. This ‘horse race’ has a higher standard for accountability and fair play.

Reflection or not?

We’re finally going to watch Avengers tonight. We’ve been lucky to have not read or heard any spoilers so far. The kid apparently knows one but I’ve had to threaten to delete his favorite app if he dared. I bet it has taken him more willpower than anything else.