Tag: Books

  • Weekly Notes 31/2026

    I came across a post about Blaugust 2026 (via Zachary Kai)just before I started writing this post. Belghast, who wrote the Tales of the Aggronaut, started Blaugust in 2014. He passed away this year in July.

    A Discord community that runs Blaugust has decided to still go ahead with Blaugust this year despite his passing. Since I wrote a post yesterday, I thought I could keep going through August.

    26 July 2026

    This was a day after a week of Jantar Mantar protests, India’s Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan had resigned. Gen Z which had been vilified had led protests in their own way and had got the kudos of many people. It had also made Instagram the platform for protests and for the place to consume news.

    I always feel queasy about hosting content on these social media apps and building your business around this. But, it seems to be working for a few of these folks.

    I ended the day watching two wonderful episodes of Shut Up Ya Kunal where he interviews Ramchandra Guha and Jerry Pinto.

    I also got a call from the Hospital saying that my follow-up appointment had been postponed to Wednesday. This would continue for two more days.

    27 July 2026

    Former ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair spoke to Chethan Kumar of Times of India about scientists working in important scientific projects at ISRO leaving to work in the private sector.

    This old interview reminded me of my old web surfing days. D V Sridharan used to write on a website called Good News India before working on this project called pointReturn which he talks about in the video. I remembered this after reading a Weekly Note by Abhinav Sarkar. He had a photo of a windmill atop the note that reminded me of the windmill Sridharan had put up at pointReturn.

    I was so surprised that I could connect a blog post I saw on this day to a post that I read in 2007 or 2008. I used to type in the url manually and visit the website.

    I went through the websites of Cory Doctrow, Derek Sivers, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, and many others over the next few days. Google Reader broke that habit and ever since I have depended on some form of a RSS reader to read blogs.

    28 July 2026

    I got another call from the Hospital postponing my surgeon’s appointment to Thursday.

    I loved watching all the psychological tricks in customer service and advertising discussed in this episode with Rory Sutherland.

    One of the videos that resonated a lot and that the YouTube algorithm surfaced this video was made after the CAA-NRC protests six years ago.

    I watched this video of William Darlymple at Kerala Literature Festival 2026 where he released the Malayalam version of his book, The Golden Road and also presented many of his points that are expanded on in the book.

    29 July 2026

    I discovered the work of Dominic Hart, an Australian YouTuber from his videos on using a pocket notebook. But, two videos I loved watching are on his building a shed in his parents’ backyard and his moving into an office space in the city.

    We watched the Malayalam movie Chinna Chinna Aasai.

    I watched a nice interview with Kunal Kamra, which talked about how his family members reacted to his various controversies and run-ins with the police.

    This video is a nice introduction to the concept of social arbitrage investing. They use only social media signals (mostly TikTok and Instagram) to make investment decisions. I think it works in American markets because they depend on the efficiency of stock markets to weed out fundamental and technical issues. He says he is bullish about future investment in Amazon.

    30 July 2026

    The discourse around the 20 July 2026 protests at Jantar Mantar began to turn with people blaming Gen Z for using unparliamentary language against the Prime Minister and various organs of the ruling dispensation finding protestors who had used such language and getting them to apologise on camera. Nothing much has changed for the apologisers despite the apology.

    Two of my favourite YouTubers, Ali Abdaal and Matt D’Avella did a mutual interview podcast. They spoke about their respective YouTube journeys, parenthood, and the differing paths they both took after launching YouTube courses.

    31 July 2026

    I went to the Hospital despite the Doctor not planning to turn up and got my stitches removed. I have to follow-up with the Surgeon on Tuesday (4 August) for care instructions.

    In the evening I had almost reached Part Two of the Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. The long waiting time at the Hospital was great to catch up on a lot of this reading. I signed up for Brandon Sanderson’s newsletter. I was impressed about how he transparently talks about the books he is writing and the progress he has made in each book.

    Cory Doctrow also does this. I had picked up his book to read as well.

    I have listened to Arz Kiya Hai as a background music for different Instagram and YouTube short videos but watched the original video for the first time on this day.

    Bridges in Pune were going underwater as water was released from Khadakwasla Dam. As I said on X and on Mastodon, Pune must build bridges that raise themselves up when the flood waters in the Mutha rise.

    I spent the rest of the day asleep and did not work.

    01 August 2026

    I was considering how I write my posts here.

    I would usually write posts like this on my link blog that I keep on Tumblr. I usually just post links on Tumblr and then give context for myself using the tags. In the post that I wrote on this blog, I ended up giving context. Tumblr is great for this. It is also a great place to expand on text, if you think that is necessary.

    Tumblr is owned by Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. I wanted to reduce the points of failure and try another blogging service, like micro.blog.

    I have not decided yet but it is something on my mind this week.

  • Weekly Notes 30/2026

    Sunday 19 July

    A day after the historic launch of Vikram 1. Questions remained related to the mission that have not all been fully answered yet.

    Tuesday 21 July

    I went to the hospital for a post-surgery check-up. Recovery looks good. Follow-up on 27th.

    Thursday 23 July

    I decided to get back to reading. I picked up My Journey to Devi by Priyanka Dalal. It was a short less-than-100-pages read that I completed on the same day.

    I then picked up The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson which is a book club read-along later in the day. I am way behind on where I should be in reading progress but I will catch up. I am reading this now.

    Saturday 25 July

    I wanted to read the blog of Derek Sivers. I went to his blog and read his posts from the first half of 2026. I then went on to read the blog of Dave Winer.

    I then moved ahead to the blog of Cory Doctrow. This reminded me that I had read his book, Red Team Blues. I then went to his website, Craphound to see the books he had written since. I found that he has written a book called The Lost Cause. I purchased that book to read next.

    It felt great to browse websites again.

  • Weekly Notes 1/2026

    Wishing you a Happy New Year! I got a lot of recommendations and book gifts (mentioned below in the Reading section).

    Reading

    • The Great Indian Retreat – Reading this is a more tangible form of saying what the Indus Valley Report reports in terms of India and Bharat and the disintermediation happening between them. There are also people like me who seem to be on the faultline moving between them not fully of one or the other.
    • Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks – I’m listening to this on Audible. I’m 79% through this book.
    • The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – I’m doing the exercise given in The Artist’s Way along with a group of people who are in the Clear Writing Community. I’m 12% through this book.
    • On the Banks of Mayyazhi by M Mukundan, Translated by Gita Krishnakutty – I’m reading this as a part of The Purple Pencil Project Book Club.
    • The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF – This book was gifted to me by Diljeet Singh Narwal of Pineapple Elaichi Book Club as a Secret Santa gift for me even though I couldn’t participate in their Secret Santa. Thank you, Diljeet and PEBC!
    • When Privilege Pretends to be Economics by Vivek Kaul on newslaundry – Zomato and Blinkit gig workers went on strike on 31 December 2025. Deepinder Goyal of Eternal wrote a post on X. There were many counter-arguments of what Goyal wrote but this is what I thought was one of the best counter-arguments I read, as on date.
    • Homo opportunisticus: The contingent, contested evolution of caste by Tony Joseph, The Hindu

    Writing

    Watching

    • Eko, on Netflix.

    I met with Saurabh and his co-conspirators here in Pune.

    Cdr. Abhilash Tomy has this to say about the INSV Kaundinya journey.

  • Week 43/2025

    I used to write my Weekly Notes in a structured way, tracking my reading and writing progress. This time, I want to write it in a more free-form style, similar to how I did for Week 42.

    My parents visited and took the kids to Mumbai during the Diwali holidays. It was our first time home alone. You might expect us to get a lot done without the kids, but we mostly just relaxed and did nothing special.

    We watched three movies – Coolie (Tamil), Ronth (Malayalam), and Greater Kalesh (Hindi) on OTT. I started reading Kurashi at Home by Marie Kondo (which I could not find in her publications list on Wikipedia) and Make Epic Money by Ankur Warikoo. I listened to The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel and I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I did not finish any of the books I started and left them all unfinished. I am spending my time recovering from surgery watching Countdown and Lazarus.

    I am disappointed with my recent book choices. I didn’t read Between Worlds, which I wanted to. I read more on my mobile than anywhere else. Between Worlds is just sitting on my shelf after I read the first two chapters.

    I have been following several accounts on X that focus on manufacturing in India. While there are traditional manufacturing companies, these new-age creators showcase impressive manufacturing processes through engaging videos. We imagined these processes in our heads. I will share a few videos in another blog post.

    It was interesting to see how India’s manufacturing limits its space program and how ISRO built up its capabilities, helping the program grow. This serves as a useful model for other sectors in India. For instance, the Semi Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Chandigarh could apply this approach to build the capability of the Indian semiconductor industry, leveraging SCL’s experience being an ISRO Center.

  • Weekly Notes 52/2024

    This is the last Weekly Notes for 2024. So, this may be a bit lengthy.

    I spent most of this year trying to do a lot of experiments. I think there was more experiments done than I had expected. I have not much in terms of results to show for it, save for very few. But, important lessons have been learnt which I hope to share below:

    1. I need more measurement in my life. I tried measurement at a bigger scale than I needed. For eg. I measured in weeks, what I should have measured in days, and so on.
    2. I need to capture the measurement in a plain notebook or tracker – and on Excel or Sheets at the very worst. Capturing data in apps locks it up in apps.
    3. I have heard multiple people talk about squeezing timelines. I tried it and liked it. For eg. Do in a year what you may think takes 5 years. But, take adequate care before you squeeze the timelines.
    4. I moved to a pocket notebook on Hiran’s suggestion. I moved to a declutteredcat planner for 2025 on Jyotsna’s suggestion. I am not using my Bullet Journal for a year. I need to learn to learn using a planner again.
    5. I moved back to setting goals this year. We set the goals for the family today.

    Reading

    With the multiple resets I mentioned above, I also moved back to tracking my reading with Goodreads. I had briefly tried tracking it with a page on this blog in 2023 as well as not tracking it at all this year.

    • The City and its Uncertain Walls – Haruki Murakami – I am listening to this on Audible on my transit to work as well at other times I feel like I need a slow narration where I don’t need to think to much or I need to stop thinking.
    • The Notebook – A History of Thinking on Paper – Roland Allen – I am reading this on the Kindle app on my phone. I do this when I want to try and spend the early mornings and late nights on the phone but want to stay away from the social media apps.

    Writing

    I moved back my writing on a blog to this one from other things I tried this year – blot.im and Ghost. I am still considering thinkdeli for my fiction writing instead of Medium.

    • I wrote the sixth edition of the Towards Eternity newsletter. A lot of my writing for space and reading on X has helped me to get to trends in a new field faster than I otherwise would.

    For claiming to be a writer, I am not getting a lot of online writing done these days. I am doing a lot more personal writing related to the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. I should be back with more public posts in the New Year.

    Here’s wishing all the readers a Happy New Year!

  • Weekly Notes 45/2024

    I felt like this was a rich week for me. I got a lot done at work and it has reached a steady cadence. Below, you will find what I did when I was off work. Summarizing it here leaves me with a good feeling about going into the weekend.

    Health

    In the beginning of the week, I was interested in learning about health supplements. I asked the question whether I needed it or not. The answer came out to be – only a few simple ones – Vitamin D3, Seacod, and Calcimax-P. I buy these for the kids anyway, so not too much of an additional cost.

    Newsletter Nerd

    I have been interested in building a newsletter on the side. I am working with Saurabh at C4E to build a health and health-tech newsletter. While my space newsletter will remain free, I am spending the next six months or so writing for a business. I want to be able to help you to build your own newsletter at the end of this.

    Community

    In the late 2000s, you could get on X and find a person who was interested in something that you were and work together. I was wondering how this happened now. The answer seems to be on the cozy web on WhatsApp and Telegram.

    I am part of a few such communities but discovering these communities is hard.

    Shephali Bhatt wrote about how the community is the conduit for creators in The Economic Times. A week ago Kommune had also put out their report, Consumed, that spoke of these trends, among others.

    Pranay Kotasthane of The Takshashila Institution wrote an X thread on what makes a great digital community that is worth reading.

    One of the communities that I looked at again was the IndieWeb community. I like reading Manuel Moreale’s People & Blogs series. I hear Jeff Triplett’s appeal to publish and write more on blogs:

    PS: Write and publish before you write your own static site generator or perfect blogging platform. We have lost billions of good writers to this side quest because they spend all their time working on the platform instead of writing.

    I have been fortunate to join the community at thinkdeli where I have been writing the first draft of my novel publicly. More on this below.

    I tried to read two of David Deutsch’s book and did not get it. If you have a book circle that is interested in reading his work, I would love to join in. Please leave a comment on this blog or reach out to me on X or Mastodon.

    Reading

    There is some issue with the Audible billing that I have not been able to fix. I re-listened to Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman again.

    I have been reading two books on writing, as I write:

    • On Writing by Stephen King
    • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

    I have been reading Finding the Oasis by Sandeep Mall as a way to look at health, wealth, and relationships in an integrated way.

    I read Spacecraft Navigation – A Mini Guidebook by Sumana Mukherjee. This helped me revise some of the concepts regarding satellite and spacecraft navigation. I discovered this via her LinkedIn post. I enjoyed reading about how interstellar spacecrafts navigate.

    Writing

    I went back to Zettelkasten again. I still have the stacks of notecards at home which my daughter borrows from me sometimes for her own creative endeavor.

    I had gone through several rabbit holes in the past – starting from the book by Sonke Ahrens. I then went on to watching YouTube videos of Scott P Scheper. He held my attention for a while.

    The latest writer who has captured my attention is Bob Doto. I am still reading through his writings on the Zettelkasten. Doto’s book A System for Writing is very expensive.

    These are the links to the novel that is titled, Green Earth, Grey Moon, and Red Mars.

    Tumblr tells me that I have posted 1000 notes there.

    I want to return to writing the space newsletter with a refreshed format.

  • A visit to my grandma’s friend and 60 year old mechanical texts

    I went to meet my grandparents after a long week this Sunday (16/03). My grandma told me about her friend, whose husband died recently after being afflicted with Alzheimers. He was a draftsman and a mechanical engineer from the late 1940s- early 1950s. He had some books that the wife wanted to pass on to other students if it was useful to them or give it away as scrap. Was I interested in taking a look at the books? Sure!

    When we got there she was still in the process of handling the legal formalities of her husband’s death. The legal death of a person takes longer, perhaps than the physical death of a person.

    She brought out the books from a shelf and laid it on the table for me to look. I fished out these books that I mention below and also a set of study materials from the International Home Studies and various society booklets.

    1. Machinery’s Hand Book (for Machine Shop and Drafting Room), The Industrial Press, New York(sole distributors for the British Empire) – 1944 (cost mentioned – Rs. 33)
    2. Theoretical Mechanics – S. Targ – Foriegn Languages Publishing House, Moscow – Rs. 4.25
    3. Applied Mechanics for Engineers – J. Duncan – MacMillan & Co., London – 1949
    4. Applied Mechanics – David Allan Low – Longmans Green & Co., London – 1913 (there was no other date – I’m not sure if it was the co establishment date or the publication date)
    5. Machine Design Construction and Drawing (Book Production War Economy Standards) – Henry J Spooner – Longmans Green & Co, London – 1944
    6. Workshop Technology I (Book Production War Economy Standards) – W A J Chapman – Edward Arnold & Co. – 1945

    It is at times like these that I kick myself mentally for not having a digital camera or a phone camera. The books mentioned above despite the years were well maintained. It’s more probably because of better publication practises than because of better maintainence methods. She also showed me a tyre her husband had designed for Firestone Tyres, the company her husband had worked for. She also showed me the table top calendar that she had made for her husband with day, date, month and year.

    Also, for 60 year old textbooks, most of the content there could be as well used for my own course today with very little change.

  • Ideas Welcome

    I have been trying over last week to get out of books of philosophy and religion.I tried reading books by Stephen King et. all but no use, at least till now. Any ideas and suggestions are welcome.

    I went to the IIT Techfest 2007. With their money, I could’ve done better. But, that’s just selfish me getting all envious and jealous.Will try to blog more over this week, if possible.