CN Tower in Toronto

Shockingly, Toronto Isn’t An Elegant City!

Shocking because I live in Toronto, also because ‘elegance’ has an undertone of a sense of quality and character which I believe Toronto possesses in heaps, nevertheless, it didn’t make it to that list. Instead, Montreal (ranked 31) and Vancouver (46th) were the only two cities chosen from our great nation.

The ranking was conducted by Zalando, a UK based fashion label based on 3 factors, namely, Fashion, Urban, and Accessibility, and the final list of the World’s Most Elegant Cities was published with a methodology on how the outcome was derived; Paris took the pole position and I certainly vouch for that. What surprised me was that despite having a definite character in the areas of fashion, urban planning, and accessibility factors our city failed to make it to the list. Perhaps the design thinkers and urban planners of our city could scope out the shortcomings and publish a sustainable argument about how Canada’s financial capital missed out on ‘elegance’ whereas Montreal and Vancouver scored above us; I’ve lived in both the cities and they are amazingly elegant in every respect. Though I believe Toronto with its parks, the trails, and the lush waterfront is full of style and culture as well. Speaking of accessibility and the urban architecture it’d be hard to ignore the design of some of the TTC stations and the iconic CN Tower.

Zalando thinks differently about Toronto vis-a-vis elegance than me, but I took to Twitter and marked our mayor John Tory on the outcome.

Source: The Most Elegant Cities In The World

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

I took to Facebook soon after its launch in 2006. Back then, the enthusiasm was palpable in experimenting with a new online medium which redefined the concept of connecting with friends and family online. Though as I ventured into my future this opinion about Facebook changed and I started viewing it as a ‘Snob’s Lair’ where each person despite the struggles seemed content, for reasons best known to them. This plausible fakeness was instrumental in my detachment from this platform, I turned myself into an infrequent visitor.

My perception regarding the social networking site notwithstanding, I decided to challenge my intellectual status quo and see for myself how Facebook would treat me after my longish absence. I’d gathered the courage to shun my apparent misgivings about Facebook and picked up my phone. I tapped the first few posts on my timeline with a ‘Like’, a happy smile, and even congratulated an old friend who’d been promoted at her work in a lengthy comment. Ecstatically a few minutes later I received all the goodwill through some likes, smileys, and comments! My experiment proved successful. I cannot assure if I’ll be embracing Facebook full-time like before, but it’s then that I realized something that Mark Zuckerberg had been saying all along about “connecting people”. It’s about participating in other people’s happiness and sorrow and acknowledging the upheaval in their personal lives. Even if the interaction seems virtual on social networking the emotions exchanged are genuine and worth its weight in gold!

Revisiting The Old ‘Blogspot’ Times

While perusing the Internet I stumbled upon my old blog write-ups from 2002-2005 which were created on Blogger. It felt good going back to those writings to get a personal sense of how much times have changed me. The posts were more or less written as diary notes quite mindless of the anxiety that it was meant for public viewing. In a way, I’m glad I wrote them because it evokes a sense of nostalgia in me. Take, for instance, this note from my amazing 2002 holiday in Hong Kong where I was still applying my latent photographic skills using my Dad’s old film Pentax camera. It also mentions some connections from that era which I have left behind (or rather they have moved forward) and had I not mentioned them in this post I assure you I’d have no realization left of them. Honestly, it feels great to come across a missing testimony of my time from the past decade which was lost in the surge of the Internet before social media completely swooped down upon my existence. It also brings the heartache as to why I stopped personal blogging.

This one’s pretty interesting. One of my last personal notes was in 2005 where I state that the Mumbai Metro would start in 2013 and it did start services on the Versova-Ghatkopar line almost a decade later in 2014. Now for those of you wondering why I stopped blogging on Blogspot, time constraints apart this account was probably the last one I operated on a public domain before moving on to blogging on my personal domain, in that, I was the first individuals to adapt to WordPress as a blogging tool for its wide array of plugins. Sadly those early posts have been lost due to a server crash in 2005! And before I started blogging on bhooshan.com it served as a canvas for my creative urges, but not as a full-fledged online portfolio, which has now moved to bhooshan.net.

Now the question remains, what should I do about my old Blogger account? Well, the verdict is still out. :-)

3 Things I Disliked About ‘Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’

As of my previous writing, I’m into my third play of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (UTLL) and I feel pretty exhausted already. On repeated play throughs I have concluded that there are several aspects about the game which I dislike, and which I believe could have been handled appropriately. Having said that I strongly believe that there’s future for Uncharted beyond Nathan Drake although I’m still perplexed about the unwarranted compulsions behind bidding the character of Nathan Drake (and perhaps Scully), a ceremonious adieu in Uncharted 4.

Eventually with UTLL I felt the gaming experience was below par with the rest of the Uncharted series but there were 3 things in particular which I disliked the most.

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This Could Solve The Magic Mouse Cable Riddle!

I came across this amazing Qi pad discount article (source below) that sparked a design inspiration, as my mind went back to the September Apple Keynote which introduced Qi wireless charging support for the newer iPhone 8 and X series. Among the other impressive concepts that I’ve seen is the IKEA wireless smartphone charging built into ubiquitous, everyday objects. Advancing this concept of wireless charging to even greater lengths with the Magic Mouse 2 might help reduce the cable cobweb from our daily life.

IKEA Wireless Charging System

IKEA Wireless Charging System

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