Tangential, but on the topic of learning/practicing language, I was thinking that in India, with such high population density, if I want to practice speaking any language, I can find quite a few people within a short walking distance. Personally, I can speak three languages (default for most Indians), but it is very common to find people who speak 5+ languages. I can also understand many other languages that share similar sounds and commonalities to Hindi, so I can be around Gujarati, Haryanavi, Bengali, Marathi, etc., without getting totally lost. Unfortunately, despite living in the South and making many attempts, I could never pick up any Southern language beyond a few words to get by.
Yesterday, while on a walk with a friend discussing SAP, he stopped to greet someone and spoke in Oriya. When I asked, he said he can speak 5 languages fluently and can get by in another 5 or so.
My daughter needs help with her French; we have a neighbor for that (not an App). I’m at three words—Oui, Bonjour, and Bonsoir.
In the early 2010s, especially as smartphones began to appear everywhere, I noticed that, along with the desktop, we now had another perpetual Disturber of Peace. One of the worst things turned out to be Notifications, something not under your control, that derails your chain of thoughts/works/routine. Ever since, I had kept every notification disabled by default.
The world is becoming increasingly low-trust; hence, the default is no longer to “allow,” but to filter through a “whitelist.”
Disable all Notifications by Default.[1] This is best done at the time of app installation. When asked to “Allow Notifications,” disable it right then and there. Of course, depending on your occupation and needs, a few critical notifications should be kept ON. This will be less than 10% of your app. More than 90% of the apps on your device have no reason to notify you of anything.
And here is a weird but interesting thing - disable battery percentages everywhere. Personally, not on the phone and neither on the Laptop; if it dies, it dies.
A simple passive notification that can keep you on your toes and stress you out the most - phone battery percentage indicator. We have become so obsessed with ‘juicing up’ our phones that our levels of happiness and relaxation decrease exponentially as the battery percentage drops.
Even in 2026, I hear people’s phones make a sound when a message/email arrives. If I follow that, my phone will sing all day long.
“Never be so dependent on technology that a notification is the only thing that brings you hope.”
Personally, I have a different take on birthdays and have conflicting views. So, I’m sorry about that.
As much as I agree with everything you said I can’t just let it die. If I’m on public transport without juice I may get fined for not having a ticket. There is no non-smartphone-on option available in my country anymore.
We, humans, will read this and laugh, chuckle, but the AI Overloads will not understand that. This will be added to the training data and become a truth. But what if that is?
I come from one of the most disturbed and violent states in India. During high school and college, I worked with a few local Newspaper Publishers, finishing up layouts in Aldus PageMaker. Along with the reporters, I was involved in many parts of the final decisions that made the news mellowed/changed when printed in the Paper in the morning, making it more consumable for readers. I have seen photos of bloodshed and mutilations that trained my brain to normalize rotten.com in later years of my life. The ones printed in the morning paper were always curated; the ones that got away unprinted were things we would keep under key and lock.
More than a decade ago, I stopped following general news and learn about things asynchronously. However, I had picked up a few topics that I like to follow and do follow them. Since the Pandemic, I had settled on just a few niche areas of Tech and Science to follow — which, of course, quite a few of them land on Hacker News when I submit them.
Around the end of 2025, I picked up the actual printed Physical Newspaper again. A lot of the news seems like yesterday’s Jam to me. I’m going to continue reading the newspaper, Slow and Smooth, picking the ones I want to read and ignoring everything else.
I had had my fair share of data loss lessons. For us, it is easy to say, “Why didn’t you back up?” But most people have an innate trust in tools, especially from big companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook/Meta. I have heard so many people happily claim, “I won’t worry. I have it on Google.”
Even for my daughters’ much simpler school homework, projects, and the usual drawings/sketches, I’ve set up Backups so they don’t cry when their work gets lost. I set up the Macs I handed down to them to be backed up to iCloud, and added a cheap HDD for Time Machine. They think I’m a Magician with Computers when I teach them to use the Time Machine and see the flying timeline of their work. The other thing is the Google Workspace for Schools. I have found that having a local copy always available via a tool (such as InSync) does wonders.
The only sob story now is Games. They sometimes lose points, the game coin thingies, and developer-kids with bugs that reset gameplay earnings. I have no idea how to help them there besides emotional support and how the world works — one step at a time.
How about if ChatGPT/Claude writes a local Markdown copy of each conversation? Won’t that be Nice?
I don't think such an idea is consistent with the existence of trashbin features, or the non-insignificant use of data recovery tools on normally operating devices.
I can definitely see the perspective in clarifying that ChatGPT didn't lose anything, the person did, but that's about it.
I use quite a few varieties, including Apple's, and I have found Belkin’s to be an ideal one — small, secure, with a minimal footprint, and available with a keyring or a lanyard.
Hmmm! Nope, it was not. Checking the website again, it says $12.99 for one and $39.99 for the 4-pack. I remember picking up two of the 4-pack for less than the 4-pack of AirTags (including the sales tax in California).
For some reason, though, it is cheaper in the Indian Amazon. Right now, they are selling for roughly $9.70 (₹889) a piece (all taxes inclusive).
Apple AirTag is one of those interesting products that you don’t think you need until you use it. An Apple thing that just works as advertised and is cheap enough that you can keep picking them up at Airports, without the guilty feeling that usually comes with buying high-priced Apple products, such as the Polishing Cloth. And when you order it online, the nice engravings are fun for my daughters. They like it when it is pinged, finding their toys and bags, and it is worth the price tag.
I had to put in a few of my daughter’s pencil pouches and some toys; they are cheaper than the AirTags and, financially, make no sense to lose an AirTag that costs more than the items being tracked. But hey, daughter is happy, and that covers up for the cost.
Yesterday, while on a walk with a friend discussing SAP, he stopped to greet someone and spoke in Oriya. When I asked, he said he can speak 5 languages fluently and can get by in another 5 or so.
My daughter needs help with her French; we have a neighbor for that (not an App). I’m at three words—Oui, Bonjour, and Bonsoir.
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