Reading life in a nutshell

1. Go to a book club meet 2. Gain inspiration and insight 3. Add good reads to your list  4. Realize you can’t read most of them, ever 5. It then sinks in that it’s an amplifying loop 6. Feel unproductive despite growth

Levels of achieving world(ly) peace

1. Delete all social media apps 2. Disable all like notifications at source 3. Stop posting on every social network 4. Make all social media profiles private 5. Log out of all accounts I just turned 5.

Gaining context on China and its rise (Good reads)

Between China’s rise in lunar exploration and my visit to the country last year, I’ve grown more curious about how the Chinese collectively think and work. So I set out to gain some high-level context of Chinese policies and history, which have now helped me identify specific areas

For the love of RSS feeds, simplify your blog’s subscribe page

I love reading blogs, newsletters, and virtually anything else on the Web through RSS feeds. As a space writer, it’s the best way for me to keep track of, read, and search what hundreds of sources publish every week. And, I proactively offer my own readers an option to

Took the day off against my will, and thankful for it

I’ve been quite productive this month, chief of which has entailed publishing a spree of long articles. Notably, all of these pieces have been on different topics, each concerning an unusually important development in its own niche within the space industry. Because of their very newsy nature, it wasn’

Newsletter for friends #06: Time flies

Hi friends, It’s again been over three months since I sent out the previous newsletter for friends. And once again, a lot has happened in life. Here’s a small snapshot of some notable things you might like to browse. Click the links you’re curious about—that’s

Plunge, hope, and rise—poetic perspectives

I recently read lyrical poems by Aurobindo, an Indian freedom fighter, philosopher, and writer. Some of his verses capture deep views on life, and you can almost live through the emotional cycle of progress. The fall But suddenly there soared a dateless cry, Deep as Night, imperishable as Time; It

Utterly fascinated by dinosaurs—want to launch them to space

Lately I’ve been watching Prehistoric Planet. I’ve always been fascinated by dinosaurs but the show’s visuals and explanations are so good that they help you get a sense of how the dinosaurs might have spent their day-to-day lives. And now I’m even more curious about them.

In which AI kills the human Web, or at least its spirit

* Here’s a depressing roundup of how the bottomless greed of AI companies is utterly destroying the Web all of us grew up with. I’m furious. * There’s also irony in the fact that open access publishing is under threat from people responding to AI by closing the very

A list of good enough blogging platforms by price if you just want to write

Plus some blog recommendations as a nice side effect.

App subscriptions and Yoghurt

I recently researched and replaced many paid web app subscriptions I had with free alternatives that either perform the same function or come close enough. Here’s the list of which service I replaced with what. 1. Micro.one → flipboard.social (for the Fediverse) 2. Inoreader Pro → Inoreader Free (second

Newsletter for friends #05: Too many things happened lately

Hi friends, It’s been over three months since I sent out the previous newsletter for friends. Usually I share every month’s key things as a linked list, which includes what I liked reading, professional space writing I published, some non-space thoughts I blogged about, and notable life events.

Web & Tech

Realizations about actually avoiding social media

I’ve had or re-had a few realizations lately that have helped me greatly: 1. Crossposting to or across social media is counterproductive if doing so to avoid social media. Applies to POSSE too. 2. Having a domain for micro thoughts, day-to-day photos, comments, and random musings is a waste

Life

An unexpected Moon Monday story

Something unexpected happened recently. I had covered someone’s published research on my Moon Monday blog+newsletter. I don’t know the person but they saw that and so reached out to ask if I would write a recommendation letter for their visa application abroad. After some thought and basic

Reading & Writing

Places I’ve published Moon Monday editions from

* Airports * Trains * Cafés * Amid conferences * Hostels and Hotels * Recently from a beach * Weddings * When traveling in Europe and China * A hospital How? Since the day is etched in the name, Moon Monday, I plan every week around it. Someday I’d love to publish a Moon Monday from the Moon.

Essays & Musings

Responding is better than replying

The other day I posed a question on the Web that has (gladly) initiated a string of responses from people. And by that I do not mean comments on social media but entire blog posts. Before sharing a few thoughts on that and making it all meta (the good kind)

Life

I do (not) care

I don’t care if you like or react to my posts on social media. I’ve hunted down and turned off all such notifications everywhere possible so I barely know you liked them anyway. I don’t care if you don’t read my blogs even though my writing

Web & Tech

If I was born and brought up in the time of modern social media, would I even blog?

This was the question I asked on the Web yesterday, and people had interesting responses. Imagine you were born and brought up in a time where Twitter and Instagram always existed. Would you still blog? Many said no, which I find to be an interesting conclusion especially for people who

Essays & Musings

The story of my blogs

I’m the latest guest on the “People and Blogs” series by Manu. Hearing from people in this series has been a great way for me to meet some of their blogs over coffee. And now some of you web humans reading this might like the story of my blogs

Web & Tech

Reinventing the wheel

Instagram (I): Stories are not posts. They disappear after 24 hours. People (P): What if I want to retain them? I: Now you can archive stories P: I don’t like some people I: Okay, you can mute their stories too P: I want to organize stories I: Now you

Reading & Writing

The media and arbitrary ethics

Someone from a legacy Indian media outlet called me recently to ask me to write an article on Indian space within five days, and for free. They expected me to agree to commit to it then and there itself. I said I’d have considered contributing but the timeline is

Web & Tech

Social media, where a teaser post about your article gets a better response than your actual article

I’ve seen this recurring theme on Twitter, LinkedIn, and virtually every microblogging social platform I’ve used. Teasing something exciting you’re working on gets better visibility than when you share that work itself. Here’s an example from the Twitter of yore—which people forget wasn’t all

Newsletter for friends

Newsletter for friends #04: Things and thoughts from October

Hello friends, Continuing to embrace a calmer digital life instead of drowning in the slurp—and now slop—of social media, I’m sharing with you via this web letter some notable things I’ve been up to or enjoyed in October. Reading * How to comment on social media * Technology

Essays & Musings

On the gap between voter turnouts in the US and Indian elections

2024 is a national election year for both the US and India. Some web searching led me to check past voter turnouts in both countries, and I was quite surprised with the numbers: The US (Source) * 2004: 60.1% * 2008: 62.5% * 2012: 58% * 2016: 59.2% * 2020: 66.9%