I have slowed down the rate at which I am consuming content this week. I have also reduced the sources from which I am consuming my content to feeds I have subscribed to.
I fell into a spirituality rabbit hole with questions about Narasimha, kula devatas, and various practices performed in Kerala in the past. I fell into another rabbit hole about blogrolls and libraries.
All this writing means I have not got any reading done other than my RSS feeds and a few Substack posts. I have not been able to follow space news since almost the beginning of February now.
The recoverey after surgery seems to be going alright.
I returned to work this week, working from home, after the surgery. I am slowly catching up at work. My consumption of OTT content has gone up, in terms of hours but I have started reading The Times of India, RSS feed, and newsletters on the mobile in addition to the books.
I agree when he says in a later post that it feels like tweeting. I have been off social media for the past one week. I think writing with Wordland makes up for the writing I lose because I am not on social media.
Watching
I was happy to watch Toll Free Traveller again.
This was a different podcast with Shephali Bhatt compared to the one she did with Amit Varma.
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There are 2167 Sundays left. I missed the last few weeks of Weekly Notes as I was not well and then I had to undergo surgery. I am recovering well.
Tim Ferriss seems to be back to blogging and has an interesting line in the second or third paragraph on his posts on The NO Book:
I deleted all social media apps from my phone, but I will read all of the blog comments here.
I did the same today.
While I was considering the decision, I asked Grok, X’s in-built AI if being on X has been worthwhile for me. It said:
You’ve sunk a ton of time—let’s call it 6,000 hours—into X over 18 years. For that, you’ve got a tight-knit niche, some blog traction, and a handful of proud moments (Chandrayaan 3 was your peak). But the numbers don’t lie: 368 followers and mostly single-digit engagement mean X hasn’t catapulted you anywhere big. If you enjoy the ride and it feeds your space passion, it’s not a waste—call it a hobby with perks. If you’re chasing clout, cash, or a wider stage, it’s a slog with diminishing returns. X gave you a megaphone, but it’s a quiet one in a loud room.
Most users (80%+) never crack 1,000 followers, and you’re beating that curve—but not by much. Compare to your blog: pradx.in feels more like you, with deeper impact potential. X is a sidekick, not the hero. Worth it? Barely, if joy’s your metric. Otherwise, those 6,000 hours might’ve built something bigger off-platform.
This helped me make my decision.
Reading
Collected Fictions – Jorge Luis Borges – I am listening to this on Audible.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and its all Small Stuff – Richard Carlson – I am reading this on the Kindle.
I also read a few interesting articles that I enjoyed reading.
Review of Divided Highways, Tom Johnson: Tom Johnson wrote a review of the book Divided Highways by Tom Lewis. The book is from 1997 about the construction of the national highways in the United States and the anthropological effects of the construction. It also talks about the engineers who worked in the project who were only worried about the engineering and not about the human toll of their work. Since India is also at the brink of a similar expressway construction spree, this piece resonated with me.
Modernity Viewed from the Other End, Venkatesh Rao : Venkatesh Rao wrote a review of the book Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires by David Chaffetz. I had earlier watched Anirudh Kanisetti on Instagram on the role of horses in the Deccan but this book expands the scope of trade. I like the comparison he drew between steppe horses and ship horses in the Mediterranean and the various government systems they spawned.
I missed writing the weekly notes last week because I was not well. Sorry. 2171 weeks left.
I gave a talk last night on OpenTakshashila on the trends in space technology and policy. The talk was brief and I did get lost while talking in the middle. I wrote a brief X thread on what my main talking points were. I will also write a more detailed blog post based on these talking points soon.
I reduced the time that I spent on X, BlueSky, and Mastodon this week. It was more than the time I spent on these websites in the week before this.
I am also following along with Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Course on YouTube. I am planning to use it to improve the story I started writing on thinkdeli for NaNoWriMo 2024.
Reading
I finished reading S Hareesh’s Moustache. I am yet to write a review of the book. I am presently reading two books:
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Rolland Allen (56%)
Boulder by Eva Baltasar transl. by Julia Sanches (19%)
Watching
I watched these over the last two weeks on Netflix:
Sakomoto Days (ongoing S1 E3)
The Night Agent (S2)
Back in Action (movie)
Asura (S1)
The Playlist
I watched these over the last two weeks on Prime Video:
Paatal Lok (S2)
On Call (S1)
I watched this video on YouTube that I really liked, besides the Sanderson lecture.
I had once read a book on this that I wrote about here. This one by Vikas Divyakirti is in Hindi and much more crisper and clearer. I also saw the video on Charwak by him and I was left wondering why we can’t bring this philosophy to the twenty first century.
The illness last week means that several blog posts are pending on here. I will get to work on those shortly.
2173 weekly left. 5 Weekly Notes shipped including this. Yay, etc.
AI generated image to try and represent this week. I wasn’t this relaxed, though!
Space Heavy
This was a very space-heavy week. Most of the week was spent on X and LinkedIn, where these updates are mostly available. I wish it were not so.
India docked two satellites in orbit, 3 Indian space startups flew to orbit onboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin reached orbit, SpaceX’s Starship had a wonderful booster catch and the blow-up of the Ship on the way to orbit.
I summarize most of the Indian activities in the 65th edition of Pradeep’s Space Newsletter.
Personal
This was also a week of doctor visits – for my son and for my wife.
I missed going to either the Indian Science Festival and the Pune Public Policy Festival. I am planning to go for the Pen Festival.
I got my driving license renewed after holding it for 20 years. Renewed for 10 more years now.
Reading
I am continuing to read these books:
Moustache, S Hareesh, Trans. from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil (77% completed)
The Notebook, A History of Thinking on Paper, Rolland Allen (37% completed)
I only watched Asura this week on Netflix. I need to write about it here on the blog. This line from the trailer made me choose to watch this, “Girls are like Asura … Asuras are Indian gods. Outwardly, they have virtues like justice, wisdom, and courtesy. Though, they love to slander.” It made me think again about what Asuras really are.
This week has been a blur. But, I loved the content that I consumed.
Watching
I am currently watching The Playlist about the Spotify story. I have reached the episode on The Coder. An important thing I learnt from watching this is the inevitability of compromise.
The Breakthrough – I liked the whole story but did not understand the ending and a few plot points in the middle.
The Grey Man – Surprised to see Dhanush in this one. Otherwise, quite an ordinary spy story.
Missing You – This was a layered story. I did not what this story was really about. The title applied to the core story as well as all of the side stories. Great storytelling.
Reading
I am still reading Moustache and The Notebook I mentioned in the last Weekly Notes.
I had met up with Jatan in Pune during the science journalist’s conference. We had discussed about social media there. He’s written himself about some of the weirdness of social media here. People build an audience on a social media platform, the social media platform attracts more people who want to build an audience, and the social media platform wins while the people don’t. Yet people continue to flock to the different social media platforms.
Writing or building your blog or website slows down the discovery process (like this, for example or on people’s blogrolls) but the people who discover things this way have a way of remembering you that is much better. I remember the people I found on blogs much more than the people I engage with on social media platforms. At the conference, I realized it is true the other way as well.
I picked up writing on the blog from the next week onwards.
Reading
The City and It’s Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami – I wrote a review here.
The Notebook – A History of Thinking on Paper – Roland Allen – I made slow progress reading this week.
Moustache – S Hareesh, Translated by Jayasree Kalathil – I started listening to this today.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s close to the last week of the year. This year has been a mess, for the most part. There have been a few saves. Things have been a lot better closer to the last quarter. I think writing, both online and offline has played a major part in that.
I have read, listened, written, and watched a lot less this year than any previous year. This year has been worse than even my previous year where I had an excuse of a one year old.
Every time I open a tab on Chrome, I see this graphic.
I have been writing a lot of notes to myself, as practice. The fifth edition of the Towards Eternity healthtech newsletter went out earlier this week. After that the week was spent trying to recover from a bad case of stomach aches and diarrhea.
I think of these last few weeks as standing on the cusp of 2024, waiting for the calendar to turn, so that you can then jump over to 2025. To stretch that metaphor, I am anxious about that jump.
In a previous post, in a section I titled “Internet is Broken” had spoken about how I was participating in various parts of the Internet because the information that I sought was found in these multiple broken parts of the Internet.
I went to reading for a couple of days uninstalling most of these social apps. I reinstalled them yesterday.
Work
As the year winds down, many things are coming to an end and I am seeing new shoots appear.
Reading
I am listening to Haruki Murakami’s latest book, The City and its Uncertain Walls on Audible. I love the slow descriptive narrative style. I am yet to finish the book or to understand where the story is headed. But, I love his keen sense of observation.
I am reading Rolland Allen’s book The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. It begins with the story of the Moleskine.
I also picked up a book from the PMC Library at Vidya Nagar. This was a book called The Ikigai Journey.
Parallel Spirals 