Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

Blog

  • Weekly Notes 43/2024

    I have not been very disciplined about writing these Weekly Notes in 2024. I have not enjoyed writing on WordPress. But, the alternatives are either too technical or too expensive or the process to pay for them from India is too convoluted.

    But, I do not want the rest of the year to be the same. I want to be consistent. This is a small effort towards that.

    Writing

    I have had the honor of writing three articles for The Hindu. These are:

    1. ISRO has a problem: too many rockets, too few satellites to launch (paywalled)
    2. Since Chandrayaan-3, what has India’s space programme been up to? (paywalled)
    3. New rocket, plus moon and Venus missions, herald new beginnings (paywalled)

    All three were edited by the brilliant Vasudevan Mukunth. The third one specifically needed a lot of that editing brilliance.

    This allows me to get back to my weekly newsletter which will begin again next week.

    I am also planning to write daily for National Novel Writing Month 2024. This will be posted on thinkdeli.com.

    Reading

    I am presently reading Stephen King’s On Writing.

    I recently finished listening to Chetan Bhagat’s 11 Rules for Life. I picked it up on Audible, which is still advertising it to me despite it being in my library. I found the advice neither philosophical like the Stoic self-helps nor generalist self-help. It seems somewhere in the middle. Closer to the generalist self-help but slightly above.

    The second half of this year has been better but my tsundoku is growing everyday.

    ,

  • Onam Pookalams 2024

    Thiruvonam Pookalam
    ,

  • Pooradam

    We are in Kerala on account of Onam. Celebrated Pooradam which is Children’s Onam today.

    Flower carpet made for Pooradam Day. Photo: Pradeep Mohandas
    , ,

  • A Return to Regularly Scheduled Programming

    My last blog post on this blog was on 3 November 2023. Since then, I have been writing on another website. I did not post about it here because it was an experiment.

    I am back now.

    I had moved from WordPress to Blot. Blot is a service that allows you to write in an editor of your choice. You can then upload the document on Google Docs or Dropbox, and the Blot will publish it.

    I had an itch to try out a service other than WordPress. I was partly impressed by the IndieWeb movement. I was in love with open source software. I was in love with simple software.

    This is a post to help you catch up with what has happened since I last wrote here.

    I am still living in Pune with my family. I went on two drives this year – one to Tamhini Ghat and another to Panshet Dam. I celebrated my son’s first birthday in Pune.

    I had the honor of having two articles published in The Hindu – one on ISRO Chairman Dr. S Somanath’s comment on having more rockets than satellites, and a recap of space events on the occasion of National Space Day. Thanks to VM for the opportunity.

    My reading has been slowing down this year. So has my listening on Audible. This implies that my writing has also been affected. My space newsletter writing has also not been regular. My work-related writing has improved after a slump in the first half of 2024. I am very happy with Q3, 2024.

    I will move all the posts I wrote on the other blog to this one. I will link to them on my weekly updates so that you can read them.

    ,

  • Space InvITs?

    Financial influencer Sharan Hegde’s newsletter today introduced me to the concept of Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs). In his words, InvITs are:

    Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) offer you partial ownership in infrastructure projects.
     

    They are trusts that hold, manage, and make investments in both finished and ongoing infrastructure projects.
     

    These trusts provide income through dividends, interest, and capital gains.

    The infrastructure projects include telephone towers, electricity distribution networks, public roads, highways etc.

    Sharan Hegde, REITs vs InvITs (newsletter dated 3 November 2023)

    I wondered how this could be applied to the space sector in India.

    I think these could be easily used to build launch pads, wind tunnel testing infrastructure, generic (which can be used by a large group of space companies) clean rooms, etc. Maybe they can be used to build satellites as well?

    ,

  • Weekly Notes 43/2023

    I missed sending out the forty-second edition of the Weekly Notes. I think Weeks 42 and 43 are pivotal weeks of this year.

    Writing

    Blog

    Working Column – my Tumblr posts

    Reading

    I finished listening to:

    • Novelist as a Vocation – Haruki Murakami

    You can read this blog on your favorite RSS feed reader or via e-mail by subscribing below.

  • My Internet Reading Daily Diet

    Pranay Kotasthane asked in OpenTakshashila’s WaterCooler the following question:

    What does your internet reading daily diet look like? Do you use specific websites, workflows, or tools? Please share…

    Pranay Kotasthane

    This blog post is a more extensive answer to that question. In my Weekly Notes 27/2023 blog post, I shared how I had changed my information consumption. In my On following people’s work, I lamented about the difficulty of following people in a fractured social media landscape. But, this is my current internet reading daily diet.

    I follow quite a few newsletters that I have subscribed to using Yahoo! Mail. I follow many blogs using RSS feeds on Feedly. I now use Mozilla Thunderbird while reading these on my laptop. I use the respective apps when reading them on mobile.

    I have subscribed to the Times of India and the Indian Express for news. I read The News Minute for news related to Kerala. I read Scroll for their books and niche national news coverage. This has changed since Week 27/2023.

    For my varied interests, I follow people on Twitter/X and Mastodon. I try to spend time on these once in the morning and once in the evening.

    I listen to a few podcasts on Spotify and watch videos on YouTube. I do these on mobile only.

    For anything that interests me, I take notes by hand in my bullet journal. For anything that I want to add as a reference for the future, I add it to Roam Research.

    You can read this blog on your favorite RSS feed reader or via e-mail by subscribing below.

    , ,

  • Running Ubuntu

    I always wanted to run Ubuntu only on my machine. We had two laptops at home. One laptop is the blue-coloured HP Pavilion that we purchased in 2016. The other was a black Dell laptop that we bought in 2021.

    We named the blue HP, Neelathamara, and the black Dell, Karuthamuthu.

    I had a dual-boot, Ubuntu and Windows installation on Neelathamara after we purchased Karuthamuthu. Some issues and some shoddy computer repair during the pandemic meant that I had to switch it to Windows only for a while.

    I had purchased a MH-USB from the LibreTech store earlier this year. The issues in 2022 made me worry about going to dual boot again. So, today, I moved Neelathamara to a full Ubuntu install.

    The install experience was awesome as I did it during my lunch break at work!

    I do not know why it took me so long to pull the trigger. I have also moved my blog reading from Feedly to Thunderbird. I am still using Feedly to read blogs on my mobile.

    , ,

  • Pune Pen Festival 2023

    I went for the 7th International Pen Festival Pune 2023 held at Erandwane in Pune on 21 October 2023. Vishwesh had shared the presence of the festival in the Chalchitra community a day before.

    We had briefly discussed the revival of fountain pens in the Clear Writing Cohort meetup in Pune on 15 October 2023. Hence, shared this invite to this community as well.

    Invitation received for the 7th International Pune Festival

    There was a Comet EV four wheeler to test drive and buy. But, more interesting to me, were the group of Urban Sketchers who were present at the entrance, using various types of pens to sketch at the venue. You can see the work of the urban sketchers by following this tag on Instagram.


    The exhibition had ink pens from internationally renowned brands like Lamy, Pilot, Staedler, Pelikan, etc. There were a few Indian brands like Beena v’sign as well. There were a few niche brands as well.

    I purchased a few things:

    Two of the three Beena V’Sign Stride ink pens, one pocket notebook from Patto, two A5 size letter pads from Midori, and a A5 size notepad from Midori. Image credit: Pradeep Mohandas.
    An artisanal leather carry case for a A6 size notebook from Dvadaria Brands, a Kanwrite Relik ink pen and a Parker Vector roller ball pen in the pen slots. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas

    I purchased three Beena V’sign Stride ink pens. I bought a lot of Japanese Midori stationery from an online store called Faces and Places. I purchased an artisanal leather pouch for a pocket book and my pens from Dvadaria Brands.

    Venus Traders who co-hosted this event have a “super stationery store” on FC Road where many of these ink pens are available.

    You can read this blog on your favorite RSS feed reader or via e-mail by subscribing below.

    , , , , , ,

  • Reusable Satellites – Separate Payload from rest of the Satellite Structure

    Blue Origin launched a new platform called Blue Ring on 16 October 2023. Blue Ring’s design seems to me to be similar to ISRO’s PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM). But, this gave me another idea that I wanted to write about here.

    Idea

    Separate payload from rest of the satellite structure. Only launch the payload to orbit. Select from a multitude of satellite buses that fits the requirements of your mission.

    Once the mission is completed, payload can be removed and disposed off. The satellite structure can host another payload.

    If the satellite structure’s life is complete, the payload can be moved to another satellite structure of your choice.

    ,