In today’s written-word landscape, there is room for a couple of giant, sprawling news organizations, which most people are willing to pay for; room for practical, service-based journalism, like trades, which can be expensed or written off; and room for really excellent reporting … | Continue reading
San Francisco is changing. What was once a derelict, forgotten part of town has become a shining new neighborhood. Mission Bay has become a beautiful collection of office buildings, apartment blocks, a modern hospital complex, and new hotels. However, the building that has a spec … | Continue reading
Music streaming saw a 22.6% growth in 2022, making it clear for once and all that we live in a streaming world. A new stat only reinforces that reality. For the first time, on-demand audio streams crossed the one trillion mark on March 23rd, 2023. According to a report from resea … | Continue reading
I read a summary of a research report that was somewhat shocking in its conclusions. Millennials, aka 25-34-year-olds who grew up amid the transition from physical music to streaming, surprisingly, spend the least time streaming music of any segment under 45, this report by MIDIA … | Continue reading
Last week, when reading Ben Smith’s newsletter, I came across a graphic based on a poll conducted by MuckRack. It showed that media folks weren’t pulling back from Twitter despite much handwriting and mock outrage, just as they didn’t move away from Facebook. The switch to Mastad … | Continue reading
That was a term I couldn’t utter for 20 years after the article was published, but I finally got comfortable with it. My original message was to get the idea across that integrated circuits were going to be cheap someday. They were not cheap at the time. I never expected it to be … | Continue reading
Sitting in the sunny South Park, watching dogs and their humans walk by, I suddenly remembered — it is two decades since I packed my bags and moved to San Francisco. Again, I almost didn’t remember. It took a random text message from an old friend in New York that reminded me of … | Continue reading
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, … | Continue reading
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview will be closing in the near future. This difficult decision is part of the annual operating plan review that our parent company shared earlier this year. The site will remain active until April 10. DPReview.com DPRreview, a camera revi … | Continue reading
A general rule of thumb that has helped me maintain perspective is that, given enough time, you are either proven to be an idiot or a genius. A corollary to that law is that you will eventually reveal your true self on social media. This brutal reality applies to aging bloggers, … | Continue reading
I don’t know if the human body can change as fast as the changes being brought on by meta-sizing of everything. As someone who loves the possibilities of technology, it is inevitable we will need computers to augment our internal capabilities to deal with these changes. For now, … | Continue reading
It is hard to imagine that it has already been a week since the start of the tumultuous events that led to the FDIC taking over Silicon Valley Bank, and coming to the rescue of the depositors. The rancor that has followed the takeover has been sobering and should be a wake-up cal … | Continue reading
Flatiron Building in New York is coming up for auction soon. I learned about that when I posted a photo of the Flatiron Building being constructed on a social network. It triggered a chain of thoughts about permanence in what we build as a society. The building was started in 19 … | Continue reading
Kottke, the blog that curates the best of the whimsical and creative web and reflects the eclectic personality of its founder, Jason Kottke, is turning 25. I have been reading and enjoying his blog for an eternity. He has kept the site the same, though he has paid some attention … | Continue reading
Kottke, the blog that curates the best of the whimsical and creative web and reflects the eclectic personality of its founder, Jason Kottke, is turning 25. I have been reading and enjoying his blog for an eternity. He has kept the site the same, though he has paid some attention … | Continue reading
Just around Thanksgiving in 2019, I visited Utah to experience some early winter landscapes. I wasn’t looking for anything specific – my desire then was to enjoy being out there. I went galavanting around the state with a friend from Salt Lake City. We are both shoot-from-the-hip … | Continue reading
There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, even though it isn't clear as to when founders and wider Silicon Valley community can exhale, even for a minute. The US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke to the Face the Nation this morning.(om.co) | Continue reading
There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, even though it isn’t clear as to when founders and wider Silicon Valley community can exhale, even for a minute. The US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke to the Face the Nation this morning. Her comments reveal that the govern … | Continue reading
After three decades of being part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem - as a reporter, writer, entrepreneur, and investor - I thought I had seen it all. The boom-bust cycles, stock market manias, startup insanity, attack on America itself, and the most significant financial calamity … | Continue reading
After three decades of being part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem — as a reporter, writer, entrepreneur, and investor — I thought I had seen it all. The boom-bust cycles, stock market manias, startup insanity, attack on America itself, and the most significant financial calamity … | Continue reading
I view ChatGPT as one of those profound aha moments in the history of technology: I wasn’t around to see the birth of the first Apple machine, but I have read about it. I saw the world change when I started using the Netscape browser, even though I had used the Internet before. I … | Continue reading
On a cloudy morning, the San Francisco skyline contrasts sharply with the brooding skies. I caught this moment a few weeks ago when returning from East Bay on a rainy morning. I love light on such mornings. March 4, 2023. San Francisco | Continue reading
Grand places help me get proper context — when juxtaposed against the vastness and timeliness of the planet we call home, the human construct is merely just that – an edifice, a reflection of our selfish need to scream: I am! And nothing prays louder to this narcissism is the cu … | Continue reading
Hi! In case you are new around here, I am Om. If you are new around here, here is something About Me and why you should read my newsletter. In this letter, I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & sometimes my … | Continue reading
Brad Stone, editor of technology for Bloomberg Businessweek, in his column about AI-based writing tools that make it easy to write, ends his column with this paragraph. I should agree with him as a writer, but I don't. Personally, I take objection to the idea that writing should … | Continue reading
Brad Stone, editor of technology for Bloomberg Businessweek, in his column about AI-based writing tools that make it easy to write, ends his column with this paragraph. I should agree with him as a writer, but I don’t. Personally, I take objection to the idea that writing should … | Continue reading
Build it, and they will come! And no, I don’t mean the fabulous baseball movie but high-speed broadband networks. And not only will they come, but they will also know how to use the speeds. This is just the start for a generation of consumers who are growing up on gigabit connect … | Continue reading
You might have noticed that it has been very quiet around here! Well, I went for a short trip to Alaska to take in the brutally cold winter weather, and take some photos. I had originally planned on visiting Alaska at the end of 2022, but the universe conspired against my plans. … | Continue reading
iA Writer has no focus, or vision, for what they want to be. There’s a little bit of the hyper popular wiki-style linked notes apps (Craft, Notion, Mem, Obsidian, and all those who came before). There’s a little bit of the historical writing interface that iA Writer made obscenel … | Continue reading
I was skimming through my photo library and came across this image from my most recent trip to Iceland. Given it didn’t get dark till very late, these photos were made in the wee hours of the morning. I was sitting down and having coffee in the hotel’s dining room, when the light … | Continue reading
A few weeks back, I posed the question: Is “stream” as a design paradigm over? I asked because of some behavioral changes that have become prevalent on the internet. First, most of the internet is now algorithmically organized by large platforms, so we are increasingly predispose … | Continue reading
Alaska is one of my favorite destinations, especially during fall and winter. When visiting the state back in 2018, I came across a usual sight — surfers paddling into the middle of the the Turnagian Arm. I normally associate surfing with warmer destinations such as Hawaii, South … | Continue reading
“People are willing to do almost anything other than read at length. It requires patience: an atrophied muscle in the smartphone age. At the same time, no one relishes being ignorant or incurious. The desire for self-improvement out there is real. The podcast boom shows that we w … | Continue reading
If you live in San Francisco, you are often reminded of the gift that is Ocean Beach. It is one of my favorite places for a walk, where I contemplate and sometimes I take photographs. On one of my many visits to Ocean Beach, I came across an enormous swarm of Snowy Plovers who we … | Continue reading
Whether it is botched and haphazard layoffs, anti-trust regulators baying for its blood, or opportunistic saber-rattling by long-time rival Microsoft and its outsourced AI unit, OpenAI — 2023 has been a rough year for one of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. Google, the co … | Continue reading
Why I decided to do it: Given the transient nature of the trip - three days - I didn't want to lug around my kit: Leica SL body with two SL zoom lenses is roughly 6.5 kilograms. Add other accessories, and we see at the 10 kilograms mark - 22 pounds!(om.co) | Continue reading
Introduction: There was a time when new year’s eve was a reason to dress up and paint the town red. Those days are behind me – now I prefer to spend the time between Christmas and the new year doing nothing much, in quiet contemplation. A writer for The Atlantic described it as … | Continue reading
At the very end of 2022, I wrote about my photographic journey and how it has allowed me to look at both the world and life in new ways. It has allowed me to embrace imperfections, my own and in ot...(om.co) | Continue reading
…oftentimes you can see change on the horizon, assuming you’re looking for it, and there comes a day when the landscape flips. But the old entities attached to the old ways refuse to adjust, they believe in holding back the future, staying rooted in the past, to their detriment, … | Continue reading
At the very end of 2022, I wrote about my photographic journey and how it has allowed me to look at both the world and life in new ways. It has allowed me to embrace imperfections, my own and in others. Of course, it could just be that my inner monologue influenced my photography … | Continue reading
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that “tech layoffs” have been on my mind, and I wrote a column for The Spectator to explain “the why of these layoffs.” An unprecedented boom in Silicon Valley that started with the once-in-a-generation convergence of three mega trends: mobile, social … | Continue reading
Hi! In case you are new around here, I am Om & this is my letter where I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & some of my photography. What I have been up to: It is amazing how quickly the first month of … | Continue reading
Spotify is changing electronic music and dance music in particular. Spotify doesn’t just eliminate the DJ as the conduit between artist and audience. Streaming music has cultivated a new breed of creators who seem to be totally in the dark about what a DJ does in the first place. … | Continue reading
In 2021, I had a chance to visit the frozen continent of Antarctica. It was a chance to experience “totality,” a kind of solar eclipse where the Moon fully obscures the disk of the Sun. Originally the plan was to see this eclipse over a large Emperor Penguin colony, but the weath … | Continue reading
Apple recently released the 2023 MacBook Pros in 14 and 16-inch configurations. As expected, there have been many reviews about the new devices. They range from ho-hum to great reviews. As expected, most of these reviews and reviewers go over the specs. They talk about what’s new … | Continue reading
When visiting Alaska back in 2018, I took a helicopter flight over a glacier. I took a lot of photographs from the air, but never really got around to editing them. I am usually plodding and lazy about editing my photos. This past weekend, however, I got a burst of energy and ins … | Continue reading
It is not a secret — I am woefully addicted to snowscapes and winter wonderland photos. Give me snow, ice, fog, and gray skies, and I am happy as a clam. I can spend hours in freezing cold, or raging storms without as much as a peep of complaint. What I am terrible at — … | Continue reading
Earlier today, I read something that led to the question” do we even need to organize the blogs in the reverse chronological stream? Ben Werdmuller, frustrated by the design of his website’s homepage writes: As of right now, the homepage is a mix of long-form posts, short thought … | Continue reading