Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #98, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.
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I am working on my next book. It will come out before the novel I thought would be the second book. Because I still don’t have the story for that one.
It will be a collection of poetry, similar to A Year of Mornings but on a different subject - my mother.
I have written some poems by now for this book. I am writing this book mostly to remember her. I keep finding that there are fewer things I remember about her now. I want to have this thing then. That’s the motivation, the why of the book.
And this came out of nowhere. I was not planning on doing this. But that’s how these things happen.
Something seeped through as I wrote the last poem. A fear perhaps, that I’ve had in me since long. I cried. Almost.
There are so many things we don’t know about the people we love.
Some of it may have sincere origins - the not wanting to put unnecessary burden on the people we love. I am a father now, I know I would not be putting unnecessary stress on my child.
But you grow out of that over time. The relation a child and a parent share. It blossoms. Once you move out of the house, start working, marry, have kids. There are things that you would not have talked about once, that you may talk about now.
Time. It takes time. And sometimes, you don’t have that time.
I read this excellent post on Seth’s blog :
If you show up for the audition, your first TEDx talk, your early blog posts, the job interview or your start up hoping to see what happens (“I’ll commit if I get picked”) we can tell.
On the other hand, when it’s clear that you’re going to keep on showing up, it’s an invitation to get aboard now.
Follow-through doesn’t always work. But it always works better than the alternative.
If you keep showing up. If you promise that you will do the work. They will notice that in you, and they will have to give you the chance.
The effort is key though. Committing, before you know.
I finished read Dune this week. It took longer than I would have wanted. But I bought this book on Audible, so I could put in hold, while I read the books from the library.
The why of I picked up this book:
Dune is of course one of the best books written in the sci-fi genre. I had come across this title many times in the past. This, and Hyperion. Which is another series I need to read at some point. So why did I pick this book?
I think it was the movies. I had started to watch it on HBO at some point, without finishing the movie. And I was interested in what I had seen then. Enough to know what the story was. I belong to the camp of books are always better.
And finally, on Friday, a dear friend of ours had a housewarming party. They are from Bihar, and so they had kept the celebration in a similar fashion.
The pooja had started at 17:00. We reached a bit later than that though. Then, after dropping Prerna and Savya at their home, I went out to go pick up the food from a different place.
I have seen these friends work hard for this home. They got it built themselves. There was a lot of work involved in this one.
And I felt so happy for them.
We sat on the ground and had food served to us - bhoj style. The food was onion/garlic free. It was yummy.
/five things to share
1. Live-service games are such a mess even Fortnite is struggling by Andrew Webster
The best-case scenario is that the layoffs at Epic serve as something of a wake-up call for the industry. Previous studio closures and game shutdowns didn’t do much to slow down the release of new live-service games; Sony and Bungie just had a splashy launch for the extraction shooter Marathon, for example. But it’s clear now that live-service games, at least at the size and scale of something like Fortnite, are not a sustainable venture. If even the biggest game is struggling, there’s no longer much of a goal to chase after.
I never got into them. Maybe PUBG mobile at one point. I like my games to be story driven large open adventures.
2. Apple is testing a standalone app for its overhauled Siri by Andrew Liszewski
Apple’s efforts to rebuild its Apple Intelligence AI platform will make its debut at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8th. A new version of Siri that transforms the voice assistant into a “systemwide AI agent with deep integration across applications” will be announced at WWDC 2026, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
But why? The only way this would make sense is if Apple as the platform owner does not give the same access to other apps.
I’m not sure if they can build a better app.
3. More qualifying for free daycare
No daycare fee is charged if a family’s combined income falls below a minimum income threshold. As of 1 August, that threshold will be 6,399 euros for a family of four, up from the current 5,956 euros.
This is for Vantaa.
4. Apple Maps Might Start Showing Ads
Ads in the Apple Maps app would not be the traditional banner ads that you see on websites, but rather paid search results. For example, a fast food chain could pay Apple to appear near the top of the results when a user searches for “burgers” or “fries.” Many similar apps already offer search ads, including Google Maps, Waze, and Yelp.
A bad sign of things to go.
5. OpenAI Discontinuing Sora AI Video App
We’re saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing
I never used Sora. And now its gone from this world. But is it really gone? I keep seeing these shitty AI slop videos on Instagram. I guess someone is making money on those.
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.