NL32

Hello from my home in Noida! This is NordLetter #32, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

Previous editions can be found here. You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Threads.

My holiday continues.

We celebrated Diwali at home this year. Last year we had celebrated Diwali in Finland. Prerna and I had invited some of our Finnish friends and hosted a Diwali party at our home.

Before that we were in Bengaluru. There are still things from the trip that I am yet to unpack. We visited Bimba. We visited Dr. Jha. It was a fun trip.

We are a bunch of South Indian food at Rameshwaram cafe and Udupi Grand.

Our return flight was from the new T2 terminal at the Bengaluru airport. It is beautiful. It gave me techno-utopian solarpunk vibes.

Today I am on the Lucknow Expressway, on my way to my hometown.

five things to share

1. Suggestions to improve your life

I came across this Reddit thread about life hacks. Some of the highlights for me:

1. I have a keyboard shortcut on all my devices where @@ automatically enters my email address. On iOS go to: Settings>General>Keyboard>Text Replacement
2. I am shocked at the number of people that don’t put their sheet sets in the matching pillow case for storage until use. It keeps it all together!
3. Do I need or do I want. If I need it, I get it. If I want it, I wait for a few weeks, do some research, see if I can fit it in and if I still want it a month or two later then I might go get it. Turns out my wants are not always there after a while waiting. It’s new for me but has changed my mindset drastically.

2. Democracy dies in darkness

Bezos stops Washington Post’s Kamala Harris endorsement. I have a few thoughts on this. Back in India there is no independent mainstream media left. No one can report on or investigate anything against the Prime Minister. So, welcome to democracy America!

3. AI running your computer

Google may announce an agent that uses the computer for you. Similar to the agent Rabbit has or described, which I talked about here.

4. OpenAI adds search in ChatGPT

OpenAI added search to ChatGPT Search is how most of the web gets paid. We need something new. A new way for people to get paid on the web for the things they make. I don’t know how that would work here.

5. New Macs with M4 announced

Apple announced new Macs:

1. On Monday, new iMacs and updated accessories.
2. On Tuesday, new Mac minis.
3. On Wednesday, new MacBook Pros.
   They are all faster. The mini got the redesign. The welcome announcement was that everything starts at 16GB memory. Even the Air starts at 16GB now. Thanks Apple Intelligence I guess.

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Until next week.