At the end of 2009, I launched a personal blog. It was hosted on ommalik.com, then omis.me, and eventually finding home at this final domain, Om.co. It has been my homestead on the web for almost a decade and has survived the vagaries of the modern Internet. Social networks may have taken some of the … Continue reading Best of the 2010s: Some of my favorite pieces from the last ten years
I am a long time Spotify customer, and over the years, I have appreciated their data-driven approach to surfacing the music I might like. However, what I absolutely love is their year-end wrap-ups about my listening habits. And this year, they have gone above and beyond and come up the decade long wrap up of … Continue reading Spotify Wrapped: Data Story Done Right
Updated: Media rightfully has been focused on Facebook and its outsized role in what are calling the surveillance economy. But focusing just on Facebook is a mistake, for data accumulation and its subsequent abuse can happen anywhere, anytime. Various data streams are being reassembled for hyper-targeting. And one of these could be Twitter, which sells its data to others.
Continue reading “It is time to ask Twitter the same privacy questions”
I have been using Uber since the day it went into service. It has been a godsend for me — I don’t drive and almost always have to go to the far corners of the city to see the medical practitioners who have to keep me ticking over past ten years. I would be remiss in saying that Uber is not a net addition to my creature comforts. And that is saying a lot because I have twisted and turned over its ethics, corporate ethos and constant crossing the line.
But lately, I have been thinking — if I (like other riders) am really the customer for the company? Its actions display a certain level of “taking riders for granted” attitude, that reminds me of cable companies, phone companies, and certain web giants. Uber is yet another example of a company, where we are merely the product. Continue reading “Why we (the riders) are not Uber’s customers”
We had a beautiful and sunny weekend in San Francisco — a much-needed break between endless days of drizzle. And that meant a chance to walk around and clock in my 10,000 steps. It also meant less reading and even less writing. Nevertheless, I am kicking off the week by sending you some good stuff to read, perhaps on your lunch break or when you’re commuting back from work. Continue reading “Worth Reading: Stan Smith, Algorithms, and John Oliver”
The ongoing erosion of privacy & data-driven tracking of citizens is an existential threat to democracy, write Mark Cuban. [Mark Cuban] Continue reading What do you have to hide?
Nick Felton, formerly of Facebook, is quite a data visualization artist. I have always enjoyed his annual self-quantified reports, where he uses data to tell the story of his year. He recently sat down with folks from Ghostly and talked about his love affair with data, data visualization and what’s next. It is a great read. … Continue reading In conversation with Nick Felton (@feltron)
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, two publications with different ideas of moral dimensions, are asking the same question, one that has been on my mind for a long time: How does Silicon Valley reconcile the reality of its success with the fear its success instills in real people whose lives it sets to redefine? Continue reading “Technology and the Moral Dimension”
I am known to go to great lengths and even greater distances to meet great bootmakers and shoe stores of some repute. Most people make vacation itineraries around the idea of seeing ruins or really old buildings. I prefer shoes and fantastic food (in that order) to be my guiding light. Continue reading “40 Kilometers”
Google’s road map to global domination. A great piece about Google building out its maps and going places where no camera has gone before. We are re-living a traditional Victorian Christmas — of excess for the few and struggle for many. Things never really change, the New Statesman argues. 2014 IT tech predictions from Mike … Continue reading What I am reading today
