NL22 - Ready or Not
Pixel Peeping + What is a photo
Hello from my home in Matinkyla! This is NordLetter #22, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. 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.
I had scheduled an exam on 27th, but caught cold on Friday so had to postpone the exam.
I had gone out for a walk on Wednesday, and it was windy. You could feel it in the way the water sounded. Angry. I stopped and clicked a few pictures.
On Thursday we had clear skies. Oh how I love the sky here. You don't get this often in Delhi. Maybe one day out of the blue you would get clear skies. But not often. Often it's a grey mess.
/techStuff
The first reviews for the Pixel 9 phones are out. They all say the same thing: these are great phones, with polished hardware, but the AI sprinkling is hit and miss.
This leads me into talking about the whole what is a photo apocalypse. The Pixel phones have photo-altering tools in the camera app. Photoshop has existed for a while now. You could do things like putting things in a picture, changing the colour of the sky, removing people from the background, etc. earlier as well. The difference is that it is way more accessible now. Anyone can do it, quickly too. And that causes a problem.
You can't trust a photo.
You can't be sure that the thing you're looking at, did it happen.
Some of it happens now as well. You can't trust stuff you see on social for example. But the question is about a threshold. I feel like a threshold would get breached soon. First with this release of the Pixel phones. But they don't sell in such large numbers. Soon after, in September, Apple will release the latest iPhones. They will be coming with similar Apple Intelligence features.
I guess the thing that I am saying is, just because we can do something, does not mean we should.
Apple Podcasts now has a web app
You can now use this to listen to Podcasts on the Boox Palma. Which I was tempted to get earlier in the summer. But did not.
A slightly longer read this. But a good read nonetheless around Google's need for integration.
Your new AI Friend is almost ready to meet you
This device is an orb like thing with a speaker you put around your neck or tie it to your hand. It processes things it hears, and then sends texts to you. This is one of those things which feel like they are tailor-made for an LLM.
The only thing it has to do is be nice to you. Right?
It feels comparatively low stakes. It is not telling you to replace your friends. It is not a life partner. It will not make you productive. Just an extra thing.
It might be good. If the platforms some day decide to add it, maybe as part of the existing health capabilities. Something affirming sent to you once a day. It might be good.
/reading
Confessions of a Theoretical Physicist
This physicist happens to be an Indian. And so the interplay between the philosophies is something I found interesting.
This is one of my beliefs. To create something great, you do have to get thoughts from different areas of life. Mix and mash them. And voila.
On Writing Well | nikhil.bafna
Some good points there. The importance of writing things in a simpler way. The importance of adding structure to things.
Bug squash: An underrated interview question – Jake Zimmerman
I don't like how interviews are conducted usually. This seems like a good way to do things in a particular niche at least.
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Until next week.
