Published inCounter Arts·PinnedThe Crane Amidst the TreetopsDo we ever stop building cities? — The view from the balcony canvases a line of trees — some near, and some afar. But as the camera pans, the construction crane comes to view … inevitably. That crane has become a prominent, inescapable feature of my landscape. I cannot imagine a sunrise or sunset without it. It…Urbanism3 min readUrbanism3 min read
Jan 6News sources are poor at building trustPosted originally at: https://rant.vpalepu.com/2023/01/02/news-sources-are-poor-at-building-trust/e I just got roped into a user survey by the NYTimes. And one of their questions was pretty revealing: “Of the following sources, which do you think is the most trustworthy for news? Select one.” I picked “other” and wrote in Wikipedia. And I skipped every…Journalism4 min readJournalism4 min read
Nov 18, 2022Never seen trends like this…In the days to come, I will be unwinding properly and write down thoughts and lessons from the last few weeks. But suffice to say that this trend list on Twitter, on the night of Twitter’s mass exodus, was something I have never seen. Aside from some silly NHL/NFL game(s)…Social Media1 min readSocial Media1 min read
Nov 8, 2022Is federation the future of every (social) tech platform?I am not sure if humanity should adopt federation of every service on the internet. I am wondering, if humanity will. Consider what would have happened if there was federation from the get-go: we would not need to make different social media accounts on different platforms, because a Facebook account…Social Media2 min readSocial Media2 min read
Nov 7, 2022Social Media Tech firms are about to sh… soil the bed 🍿Twitter already did it — more is yet to come. Facebook — and by extension Instagram and Whatsapp — are about to do it (I am not calling it/them Meta). Snap already did it (you may have not know about it). Call the orderlies with clean sheets for this is…Culture2 min readCulture2 min read
Nov 6, 2022I canceled my Medium.com Subscription …… and it’s sad. I originally signed up in the hopes of high quality content from a diversity of writers. At $5/month, I felt like I had the best magazine subscription in the world, when this was first introduced in 2017. And I wanted to support the writers. So I…Social Media1 min readSocial Media1 min read
Nov 5, 2022Isn’t Mastodon just public email?And wasn’t e-mail always a federated system? And why didn’t Gmail and Outlook think of piggybacking email with a social network? Or did they? I have been trying to grok Mastodon for the last week now. And this one thought has been gnawing at me for a while. Seen those…Communication2 min readCommunication2 min read
Nov 2, 2022#CricketTwitter has become a stone throwing contest…… and everyone has glass houses. Scene: Bangladesh lost to India. It was their game to lose. They responded with a flying start in the second innings, all wickets intact. Rain happened. Game resumed and Bangladesh lost its rhythm. There was an unfortunate runout. But really, Bangladesh could have still…Culture3 min readCulture3 min read
Nov 1, 2022Instagram and Reddit should feel awkward…So Twitter went to shit. But something really strange happened as folks started talking about Twitter alternatives: Mastodon emerged as the kool kid to replace Twitter. And I follow the who’s who of Tech and Journalism on my Twitter feed. Instagram got a few mentions. Reddit got laughed out of…Communication2 min readCommunication2 min read
Nov 1, 2022My Failed Fascination with Ink Pens…🖋️✒️🖋️✒️🖋️✒️🖋️✒️🖋️✒️ One thing I like to do every once in a while is to refill my fountain ink pens with different colors and write some crap. The problem of course is that this remains a fleeting fascination and after I am done with my burst of writing (on paper), the…Writing2 min readWriting2 min read