I recently listened to a podcast episode of The Tim Ferriss Show with Morgan Housel. This made me read his book. Housel believes that personal finance is unique to each individual and that not everyone prioritizes maximizing investment returns. He prefers to have money in the bank and a house without a mortgage, even though these choices may not seem financially optimal. According to Housel, personal finance is more like psychology and history than precise engineering.
I think this B C Marx video on YouTube does a much better job at summarizing the book than I can:
I missed writing the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth edition of these Weekly Notes. These defined my steady decline into procrastination mode. Everything suffered – writing (at work and at home), reading, time spent with family, and many house chores.
I am trying to get a handle on things again but they are slipping. The flow is very viscous.
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Kleo (German)
Those Who Wish Me Dead (English)
Collateral (web series, English)
Who is Erin Carter? (English)
God’s Crooked Lines (English)
Late Night (English)
Nalla Nilavulla Rathri (Malayalam)
Satyaprem ki Katha (Hindi)
Kohrra (Hindi)
Neeyat (Hindi)
In from the Cold (English)
Jailer (Tamil)
Nobody (English)
Rough Diamonds (Flemish)
AKA (French)
I managed to Netflix and chill, though a few hours everyday. The above is from the past three weeks and not just the effort of the last week.
I watched the landing of Chandrayaan 3 at home with my wife and children. I also celebrated with them.
Once completed, we had a Zoom call with members of Chalchitra Talks where we spoke for half an hour about the landing and I answered questions regarding the mission to the best of my ability.
The lack of images since the landing has been frustrating. There were many conspiracy theories to try and explain the lack of images. There was speculation that the images were kept on hold for the Prime Minister to release them. This turned out to be unfounded. The images have still not been released!
During an interaction with the Malayalam media (translated by me from Malayalam on Twitter and Mastodon), it became clear that this is simply because of poor camera angles and direction of sunlight at the landing site!
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Exciting news awaits as Chandrayaan 3 initiates its descent to the lunar surface today at 4:45 PM (IST)!
I have the privilege of joining a lively group at Chalchitra Talks to watch the highly anticipated webcast. Sharing this experience with others always amplifies the thrill!
For the most up-to-date and reliable information about the landing, make sure to visit the vibrant community at r/ISRO: r/ISRO Chandrayaan 3 Updates. Get ready to witness history in the making!
I got a lot of writing done this week. I was happy with the progress made in the space and philosophy spirals. A lot of work writing also got done. This is a good foundation for the upcoming week.
Reading took a back seat again. But, I bought a bunch of books from the Pune independent book store, Pagdandi. This mostly adds to my TBR book stack. Need to dynamite this stack to get going.
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I watched the Malayalam movie Padmini, and a horror-thriller-young adult series Lockwood & Co. I would recommend both.
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I recently discovered the beautiful poetry of Tukaram, one of the Poet Saints of Maharashtra. This poetry resonates deeply with me, especially living in the Lohegaon area of Pune.
I found a book titled, Life and Teachings of Tukaram on the Internet Archive. The book is written by J Nelson Fraser and Rev. J F Edwards. The book contains a brilliant Foreward by Dr. Sir Narayan G. Chandavarkar (I want to learn more about him). While I suggest that you read the Foreword in full, I have pasted some of my favourite excerpts from the Foreword so that it may entice you to read the Foreword in full.
This Foreword presented a much better introduction to the School of Devotion than that I read in the book on Indian Philosophy. It provides a much better perspective and understanding about the School when set in it’s historical context.
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Today we take a look at the third layer of the Roadmap – Gaganyaan, India’s Human Spaceflight programme.
ISRO has posted several updates related to various hardware testing of the Gaganyaan components.
The Gaganyaan missions will initially be unmanned, followed by missions to Low Earth Orbit with the eventual goal of establishing an Indian Space Station.
The Artemis Accords will pave the way for human missions to the Moon after gaining experience in Low Earth Orbit.
Technologies for planetary habitation is somewhere in the realm between science fiction and early technology demonstration of these technologies on analog stations on Earth.
It will require the development of a heavy launcher to send larger structures to Low Earth orbit to build the Indian Space Station and to reduce the time needed (from more than a month to a few days) to send a spacecraft to the Moon. ISRO has a heavy launcher plan on the drawing boards at this stage.
It will also need to develop a module (similar to the Russian Progress or SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon) that could carry payload to the Indian Space Station or even the Artemis Gateway.
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The term “flexible COMSAT” refers to a type of satellite that can change its coverage, bandwidth, and frequency. This technology is being developed by ISRO, as mentioned in a PTI story published on the NDTV website.
The term “full EPS satellite” is a reference to a type of satellite that uses only electric propulsion systems (EPS). The EPS system was first flown on the South Asia Satellite or GSAT-9, launched in 2017. The note says that this would reduce the mass of satellite from approximately 6 ton to 4 ton for the same capability.
Quantum and Optical COMSATs are in various stages of development. Urbasi Sinha and her team in QuIC lab, Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru and an ISRO team at the Space Applications Center (SAC) are working on the building blocks of quantum satellites. The first optical communication payload was carried on the GSAT-29 mission.
Inter-planetary networks hold immense potential for the future of humanity! Imagine a world where communication seamlessly spans across celestial bodies, connecting Earth with other planets. The vision of becoming a multi-planet species becomes more tangible as these networks evolve. It all starts with the Earth-Moon system, but the possibilities for expansion are limitless. With initiatives like Artemis and the International Lunar Research Station, we are paving the way for a future where inter-planetary communication becomes a reality!
ISRO may not focus as much on Earth observation satellites because there are many Indian space companies (Pixxel, SatSure, Dhruva etc.) working on remote sensing capabilities. They may continue with Earth observation missions until the startups can offer similar levels of data. On the other hand, there are fewer startups in the field of communications satellites technologies. The only one that comes to mind is Astrome among the NewSpace companies.
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Reddit user u/Blazing_Phoenix_100 shared this screenshot of India’s space road map shared at the G20 summit. I plan on using this chart not to point out times where ISRO has fell behind this timeline. They have done that plenty of times but to understand the general direction they are headed in.
In the absence of an official roadmap on the ISRO website, this becomes an important indicator of priorities until an official roadmap appears.
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Parallel Spirals 