Weekly Post #13

Readwise + Reader subscription

I have been debating on whether to subscribe to readwise+reader for quite sometime. And I finally subscribed to it for the next 12 months. Since I had created an account long time back, I was able to get the legacy plan pricing. Which is $7.99 per month billed annually. Right now the same plan costs $9.99/month. Readwise is something I am finding really useful for one main reason, I am able to re-visit all the hightlights from the books that I have read.

These are particularly useful when you are reading a lot of non-fiction books. When you want to take action on your highlights or need to incorporate something.

Readwise’s reader is in beta, so there are rough edges to it. The app isn’t as polished as I hoped it to be. It does seem to be a tad bit sluggish but I am hoping it would get better with time. I hope that they bring in podcast integration, which would be huge for me. I know there are other services that are out there but I am human I want to pay $8 and get everything for it :P.

Pinning and Anybox

Pinning is a simple app(almost makes you wonder if you opened reminders app for a second). Put is simply it is a countdown app. It shows how many days to an event. The thing I love about the app is that it allows you to select the event from the calendar. I must admit it was more of an impulse kid in a candy shop kind of situation. After few days of using it I am already getting the buyers remorse. Not because there is anything lacking with the app, but rather I don’t have as huge a usecase for it as I exaggerated it to be in my mind when I was subscribing.

Anybox, is a read later app which I had subscribed to prior to enrolling in readwise. I opted for readwise because of its integration with Kindle. But if my use case was for only read later app I think Anybox would be a keeper. The app is snappy and great, much better than some of the more experensive subscription based read later apps that I had tried and decided pass on.

Tax season over for this year :)

I have successfully completed tax filing for this year. Keeping tax till the end in the past has bittee me. But since the bitter encounter I try not to delay the process.

To stick with colemak?

For reasons unknown I keep revisiting the topic of keyboard layout. And it isn’t life after mastering colemak/find the next best layout. Rather the question I seem to be asking myself is: should I go back to using qwerty. Google gives me the same results and I hangout in the same websites, reading the same content I did the last time this question popped in my mind. In fact I have outlined precisely what I expect others to post crazy isn’t it in my post 6 years of colemak¹

To conform or not to conform?

I like planck, rather I have invested in 2 plancks and they are a joy to work with when paired with Colemak². For that reason I think I will continue the colemak route.

Things that keeps wanting me to complete my Apple eco-system switch

• Mail.app one app to tame all my email accounts. Thunderbird is an option if I really am pushed to that extreme.
• Calendar.app - Simple, efficient.
• Notes.app - Hands down best and most underrated app.
• Reminders.app - Part of my productivity triangle.
• Sync, ability to have everything synced across all devices with just an apple icloud account has its charm. Passwords in one place as opposed to spread across multiple different places, not having to setup mail app each time you add a new device.

Tesla Full Self driving (Beta)

Tesla just gave me(I am guessing all the Tesla owners) a complimentary 30 day full self driving. And I put it to test on a visit to Oakland. And it blew my mind. It was amazing. The self driving did almost amazing job. I say almost because I was feeling a little uncomfortable with the lane changes in the highway and while it was taking unprotected turns.

If I had $$$ I would certainly get the FSD.

Google podcasts - Good bye!

Yet another product kicks the bucket entering Google’s product graveyard. Luckily, I have learned my lesson after Google reader not to trust Google with their products. So while I was in the Android eco-system I used pocketcasts to listen to podcasts and in the Apple world I am happily using Apple Podcasts.app.

I was a tad bit disappointed because when I learned about Apple podcasts bringing transcription to the podcast episodes I thought this could have been something Google could have executed long back and goes down as yet another missed opportunity.

And news like is what makes me skeptic about subscribing and depending on free external services. This is why sometimes I like to pay for services that I truly like or believe adds value for the subscription.

Observations of being paid medium subscriber for a month

Spoiler alert: I am not going to renew my subscription it seems to be a waste of money.

1. Too many phoney/click baity articles with very little value or copy pasted content without atribution.
2. I am probably not subscribed to the right kind of content writers in medium because none of the starred or paywall articles I am reading seem worth the subscription.
3. The medium suggestions aren’t great.
4. Good content exists and are available without the need for medium subscription.

Through the lens

Quote for the week

what gets measured gets managed!

Internet heat map

• watcher Go package to watch for files/directory changes

There are a lot more links that I just can’t seem to find out. I promise I will get this sorted from next week onwards.