Where I whine about Google being... well, Google

WTF Google?

I've always liked you. Your search was cool, your products were cool, your company seemed fun. You kept coming out with new sites that seemed more exciting than they probably were because you made them so exclusive. Wave, Buzz, even Google Plus. I actually have long Gtalk chats archived somewhere with friends about how we could get invites to these sites. I ignored, and continue to ignore, all the rumblings about privacy issues and data concerns and whatnot, and just liked the stuff you had.

Case in point: despite knowing Wordpress is probably way better than Blogger, I've stuck to you all these years, haven't I?

But then you became this know-it-all that started taking away the sites and features I actually liked and kept pushing other, annoying features and sites at me.

You took away the likes and the sharing features on Google Reader, you shut down Wave (which, to be fair, I can't blame you for; not enough people saw what fun it could be), you even took away Buzz, which let me share articles with people without having to go anywhere. You started pushing Google Plus everywhere you could, linking it to Youtube (although thankfully, at least there you let me choose and switch between my blogging name and real name. DON'T CHANGE THAT.), trying to get people to share articles there rather than on GReader (fat chance, I say), and even trying to trick me into linking it to my Blogger account. You wanted me to log into Chrome - I still have no idea what that really means - but were okay with me ignoring you over this.

The biggest blow to my heart was when you shut down GReader. I've moved on, I've found another home to keep my gazillion feeds in, even though its not as perfect as GReader was. But there's a part of me that will never forgive you for breaking my heart the way you did over this.

And now, you've messed up Gtalk. Gtalk has been my window to the world for so long. I love how it archived everything within Gmail; for someone who loves to search for and read specific old email conversations, it made finding chats to reminisce over so convenient. If I occasionally had wistful thoughts about the more fun emoticons that MSN Messenger had, I ignored them to focus on how easily accessible Gtalk was and how I could stay invisible and still talk to everyone I wanted to talk to.

But then you brought in Hangouts. For a long time, I managed to ignore the existence of said hangouts. I still used Gtalk from within Gmail, and if the way archived chats looked changed a bit, I wasn't overly bothered. I bought an Android phone, and it let me download Gtalk, so I was happy. It kept asking me to update Gtalk to Hangouts, and for more than a year, I managed to ignore it. Then last week, ignoring the voice in my head advising me against it, I went ahead and did a software update on my phone. Which led to various issues on my phone, chief of which was the appearance of auto correct and the disappearance of my dictionary (both of which I managed to fix eventually, thankfully), and the switch from Gtalk to Hangout.

And today I discover that if I have Hangout on my phone, I can't go into invisible mode - not just on the phone, but even in Gmail on a browser, because I get a nonsensical message saying I'm logged in on a device that doesn't allow invisibility.

So I ask, Google, WTF?

Here's what makes me really curious about you, Google. How exactly do you come up with such bullshitty decisions? Do you do focus groups, or tests, or whatever, and pilot these ideas? Or is it just random dudes sitting in what I hear are really cool cafeterias thinking, how can we totally change things that are working just fine, and make everyone who uses this miserable.

Because most of the people I talk to or follow on social media do have similar opinions - good or bad - to the ones I've expressed here. But then most of the people I talk to or follow on social media also weren't very keen on the BJP winning the elections in India, so what do I know. I clearly don't follow very representative people.

Here's the thing. I know you won't give me back the things you've taken away from me; I once spent an entire networking event with your company complaining to a recruiter about you guys had ruined GReader, and he kept nodding and admitting he thought you guys had messed up there, but that didn't help me, did it?

But seriously, can you just stop? Stop screwing with the products I love so much, and just let me use them.

Just. Stop. Change for the sake of change is just stupid, okay?

Annual ramblings

I don't know how to write this post. I'm struggling to remember events from last year that meant something to me, but I can't. It's like, and I mentioned this at the end of my last post, that the first 7.5 months of 2011 simply didn't happen. Or belong to another life.

But so much did happen. And I want to get this post out there simply because I don't want those memories to disappear.

I knew, at the beginning of 2011, that one way or another, this year would bring changes to my life like never before. And so it was.

January was a flurry of travel, interview invites, application "dings", and what not. The cousin got married. Things in the workplace deteriorated to the point that I, for the first time in my life, started having panic attacks.

The grandmother fell and broke her leg and had to have surgery. I was sent to Kolkata on work so was able to go visit her. Said visit to Kolkata also showed me how the work culture of Bengal and how Bengalis are perceived by non-Bengalis, and while I could see what they meant, it saddened me. I may never choose to live in Bengal, but it's still where I belong. And it isn't nice to see how we ourselves are responsible for a lot of what had happened to the state.

February was rather dramatic. Some more dings came in, some interviews happened, some admissions also happened. The mother went to spend a month in Kolkata to take care of Mam. I went to spend a weekend with her, and had some craziness as soon as I got back, after which the father went to stay with her. Gave me a taste of living on my own; I wasn't too sure I liked it.

Work got even worse. A massive show down happened at work, after which I tried to resign, but got talked out of it by everyone around me. But given the calm feeling that came over me once I had decided, after all the panic attacks of the last couple of months, I knew I wasn't to last very long.

I turned 26 in March. Far less stressful than turning 25, for whatever reason. Sure, I'm old now, but it didn't bother me. As much. Maybe a little. Oh well. The mother decided to throw a birthday party for me, since this would probably be my last birthday at home. And when I say birthday party, I mean crazy shoes theme (which everyone but me took extremely seriously), back presents, balloons, all my closest friends with me, a "slumber party", CDs with random birthday songs playing all evening, etc. What can I say? My family takes birthdays very seriously.

March also brought the brother home during his Spring break, a visit I had known about since November, but which was a complete surprise to the parents. The best part about his visit? He was home, sitting next to me, the day the dream came true. I had refused to go on the annual office holiday, using his visit as an excuse. SO glad I did, because the admission news that really mattered came out the day my colleagues were leaving, and anyway, I would have missed the freaking World Cup if I had gone.

Geez. The World Cup. So much excitement. My biggest regret remains not being able to go see India play. I only went for the West Indies-South Africa match in Delhi, and that was just lame. But oh, the World Cup. What can I say about it that I haven't already? And how can I express my frustration at how we've played ever since? How sad is it that less than a year after that fabulous, fabulous win, I am *this* close to giving up on Indian cricket for the foreseeable future?

If the beginning of April was about the euphoria of the World Cup, end-April saw me really leaving the job. I put in my papers as soon as I knew I'd be leaving for the US in July, and I asked to be relieved by end-April so I could have time to get things done. In all fairness, they gave me a really sweet farewell, where I may have a said a bit too much, but managed to leave on fairly good terms with the people who mattered at any rate. What surprised me? Given what an obsessed workaholic I'd been for the last three years, I'd've thought I'd have missed the place a bit more once I left. But honestly? Zilch of that.

May was a rush to get things sorted, visa applications, travel bookings et al., and fit in a quick trip to Mumbai for a family function, where I sat surrounded by Calcuttans as they watched news channels breathlessly to see what the election results in West Bengal would be like. And then we left for the US to watch the brother graduate. Visited and fell in love with Boston, and followed that up with a visit to the godfather's home in London, and a loverly family holiday in Edinburgh, before we came back home.

June and July rushed by much faster than they should have. Preparing to leave home encompassed a thousand and one things, amidst all of which I had to make sure I could fit in a visit to Calcutta, get-togethers with friends, and time with the brother who was to leave for his job at the beginning of July. The gal pals, for the second time in my life, managed to put together a surprise party for me without me cottoning on. I'd make a terrible investigator type person. The father and I booked my tickets in a way that I would get to see Deathly Hallows 2, and so on 15th July, I saw movies in one day - DH-2, and ZNMD.

And then, despite all my attempts to stretch time as much as possible, the 19th of July arrived. And I let everything I had know for 26.5 years, and came here.

What do I say about the last 5.5 months of 2011? They've been stressful, crazy, exhilarating, exciting, and maddening all together. I've learnt so much - maybe not much academically, but about the person I am. I've started driving and cooking, discovered I'm more like the mother than I had ever realized, found out that I can be quite a pushover, and realized that I'm a complete hermit. I suck at networking, am absolutely incapable of enjoying myself at a party filled with loud music and flowing alcohol, love big cities and have no idea how to get a job.

I'm far more Indian than I had realized, I'm a lot more Bengali than I had ever imagined, and I am so utterly dependent on the father for any major decisions I take. The BFF is my lifeline no matter where I go in life, time zones suck because no one is ever awake when you have news to share, I hate marketing and love strategy, numbers and HR what really excite me in life, and grades do matter.

They killed GReader somewhere along the way in 2011, and I was more devastated than I had thought possible. Twitter is less of an addiction than I had assumed, and I have struggled to put together any worthwhile blog posts. The urge to write is there, but I simply can't anymore. Which is why this blog post has taken a month to be written, started in one way, and has ended so very differently.

Having the mother visit me for a month over winter break saved me in some ways, I think. Because it made me remember who I am, truth be told. I had lost myself while trying to adapt to this new country, this new life. Having someone from my old life here for a while was like having a totem with you when you enter a dream, in some ways. And I can already see the difference in me in the past two weeks since she left. I'm me again. In the way I talk, the way I interact with others, in the way I behave. And it's helping me cope.

So, 2012. What does it hold for me? I have no freaking idea. The last month has been utterly stressful with the job search taking precedence, and I have no idea if or when this will change. I really need to start saying no to people. I need to apply myself to studies a lot more. I need to hang out with the people I like, instead of shutting myself up at home and lurking on twitter. And I need to find a freaking job.

Here's hoping all, or most, of this happens.

Stayin' sane

I haven't been happy with the last I-don't-know-how-many blog posts I've churned out. They said what I wanted to say, but not how I wanted to say it, if that makes sense.

Part of it, I think, comes from my desire not to let a almost-two-month-long break from blogging happen again, like it did last year. (Of course, part of it could also be that people have simply stopped commenting or even rating my posts, but I'd like to believe I'm not so dependent on external feedback.) One of my hopes for this year was that I would write more. But somehow, that's not happening - not the way I wanted it to. Even my presence on twitter has reduced dramatically ever since I quit the job - apparently I need a regular structure to my days and something to distract me from for that to happen. So whenever I have something to say, I go ahead and say it without really paying much attention to how it's coming together. Which sucks.

In Orientation earlier this month, the Second Years repeatedly emphasized how crazy the next two years are going to be, with no time to breathe, or anything. As one SY put it, "you'll suddenly realise it's been three months since you spoke to your brother, or emailed your best friend." Eeks. Their point, however, was that all of us need to identify what's important to us, and make sure we block time to do that, be it daily, or weekly, or whatever.

At the time, I wasn't sure what those things would be for me, except for probably keeping in touch with people back home, which honestly, isn't really an option ever since I bought this BlackBerry. But over the last few weeks, I've realised it's this. Blogging. Tweeting. Reading blogs.

This month, while hectic, has been much easier than what things will be like come September. So far, I've managed to make time to go through Google Reader every day and check into Twitter once in a while. Because that's what keeps me sane, I've realised. It's often my only way of even keeping up with what's happening outside this campus. So I need to make sure I keep this up somehow.

And as far as my writing is concerned, well, I'm not going to say I intend to stop blogging altogether till I feel the perfect post come out - that could take pretty much forever, wot? But I do hope those feelings of satisfaction and output that blogging used to give me come back soon.

The world of G+

I'm feeling left out of the entire Google Plus conversation, so here's my two paisa worth on the new social networking must-have.

• The way I see it, G+ seems to be the opposite of Twitter. You follow people who want to hear from on twitter; on G+, you add people you want to share with to your circles. Isn't that sorta in-your-face?
• Facebook is where I keep in touch with people I know IRL, and those online folks who I've connected with beyond twitter and blogs. G+ hasn't caught on with a wider audience yet, so at the moment, most of the people suggested to me are online folks. Doesn't help, because I haven't connected with those many! So my circles are fairly empty at the moment.
• A lot of it so far seems to be sharing of articles and posts that people are finding interesting. Why do I need another site to do that? I have twitter, GReader, and occasionally, even Facebook. Anything I want to share with the world is adequately shared through these three sites. I don't need another.
• And my biggest pet peeve: the big USP of G+ was supposed to be the idea of sharing specific things to specific circles. I just shared my first article on G+, and it asked me which circles I wanted to share it with. Here's why that doesn't make sense to me. I may have a circle called College friends, but from the 30-odd people I went to college with, today I'm close to less than people. So I may not want to share with all the 30, no? On Facebook, I have lists similar to circles anyway - School, College, Work, and now B-school. I also have three lists called Severely Restricted, Limited Profile, and Kinda Limited. One gets to see my wall, but nothing of what I post. One gets to see some links that I post, but rarely my status updates, and none of my photos. And the third gets to see most of my status updates and links, but very few of my photos. (I'm a little paranoid, yes.) It doesn't matter where I know you from, it's how well I know that defines what I share with you. So yes, while I could make a Circle saying "People I like and want to share my whole life with" on G+, it's easier to keep people out than bring them in.

Does that make sense?

I do realise that for people who are very active in the whole Social Media, Social Collaboration, and that kind of stuff, will get excited by G+. Google Wave was also made for such people, and was actually a very cool thing - just way ahead of its time, which failed, in my opinion, because the wider audience had no use for it.

I'm part of the wider audience, I think, because any talk of optimizing social media just bores me to death. I'm on the sites I am for interesting stuff to read, and some nice conversations. And I'm very happy with my twitter conversations, thank you. The anonymity I pretend to cling to there comforts me. I don't need a second site for these conversations, especially one where I have to tell the whole world who I am.

Friends?

This popped up in my Google Reader's Shared items this morning.

I've always cribbed about Facebook's and Twitter's terminology - there's got to be a more applicable nomenclature given the nature of these sites, and the people I interact with on them.

The irony here, however? The two people who shared this post? I have no idea who they are. They somehow follow my Shared items, and so I follow theirs. And Reader tells me the post was shared by "two friends".

Sweet indeed.
NB: I'd forgotten how prolific (by my standards) my blogging becomes just before an exam. And yes, I know I really should be banned from blogging on a Sunday morning.

Meme #1: The GHM

Google Reader's blog search function helped me come across two posts with Georgette Heyer mentioned in them, and with a nice little meme.

Anyone who has ever fallen in love with her version of the GHM, I tag you. Write a post, it doesn't have to be very big, about that person – literary character, comic book hero, some guy in a movie, a random person you'll never meet – we’ll start a list that will probably never end.

The meme's interesting, but I honestly can't think of any one GHM who made me go weak at the knees. Books just never did that for me. I love Heyer's romances, yes, and I've been reading Mills & Boons for year now, but my issue with all the men in all these books has always been that they are just too... overbearing. And omniscient. Especially the Heyer-oes. Beaumaris, Alverstoke, Sylvester, Avon - you pick any of them, you'll see it. They just know everything. And I don't quite like that. By that logic though, my favourite Heyero would probably be Freddy Standen, who just stumbles through the whole book, finding unexpected depths to himself by sheer luck, and is just about the most endearing guy from any book. But know, he's not the GHM for me either.

But anyway, whoever you are, if you have or have had a GHM in your life, you are hereby tagged.

PS: After some more thought, I have realised that Jonathan Trager from Serendipity, followed very closely by Aditya Kashyap of Jab We Met, come extremely close to being my GHM. And Oliver Barrett IV from the only book which has ever made me cry (while every other movie makes me howl invariably) comes a very close third.

PS2: Dissertation due in just about a week; stress levels running high; no time whatsoever. You can therefore safely assume there will be frequent updates in the days to come.

Announcement of the day

I usually don't announce the additions of any widgets, but leave it to y'all to discover them. However, this time round I suppose I feel the need to do so.

I've added an Article list to the left, right below the Blogs I Read section (which needs a major overhaul!). I'm going to put links to any interesting articles I come across there instead of dedicating one-line entries to them. If I feel the need to add a commentary to any article, I may do so, but I don't see that happening too often, do you?

Of course, this probably means my frequency of posting is going to drop sharply, but you'll just have to swallow the lump forming in your throat and live with it.

Also, I don't think Bloglines or Google Reader will catch updates happening to the list (yes, I do get to know when you use these; yay Statcounter!), so you'll probably just have to check every time you visit.

To start off the list, I've put up two articles. One is fairly outdated, but talks about Ganguly, so you should read it. The second is about a cause very close to my heart, and a person very dear to me - Anuja Gupta of RAHI Foundation and her work against child sexual abuse and incest. Read it, please.

Also, to know more about RAHI Foundation, you could visit their site, or even the Wikipedia entry I created for them. (Yers, I know, I'm very kewl.)