Hello, and welcome to all the new subscribers! Another hectic week, and to be honest, the fact that I want to bring out Kat’s Kable every weekend has been what’s kept me reading. That’s always a good thing. Enjoy, and as always, if you have anything to say, reply to this email. I would love to talk.
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### 1. Even what Doesn’t Happen is Epic
Nick Richardson’s review of The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu is more than just that - it is a survey of the new and upcoming Chinese science fiction that is impressing people all over the world. If you like science fiction and haven’t read this book yet, I recommend that you should. It’s a marvel.
New technology and the science behind it are always well explained (though never boringly) by Cixin. The best bits in his books are set pieces that would be hallucinatory, or surreal, were it not that everything is described with such scientific authority.
2. The Fields Medal Should Return to its Roots
A nice piece about the “Nobel Prize” of mathematics. It’s famous for having an upper limit of 40, which I learnt is quite arbitrary. I’ve written earlier about how I feel about the Nobel Prizes, and this is related.
But, however flawed the processes were before 1966, they forced a committee of elite mathematicians to think hard about their discipline’s future. The committees used the medal as a redistributive tool, to give a boost to those who they felt did not already have every advantage but were doing important work nonetheless.
3. Can we Actually Stop Using Fossil Fuels?
A deep dive into a topic I’m passionate about - the US state of Hawaii has to import fuel for electricity purposes, and hence has high costs. It has been trying to switch over to renewables, and while progress is slow, it is happening. However, a genuine question is: can we switch to 100% renewable power, which will require sophisticated storage systems, or will we always need some on-demand fossil fuels?
4. Is Your Streak About to End? The False Belief That Can Drive Both Gambling and Anxiety
You got four tails in a row - does this mean you’re on your way to getting a spate of heads? It seems logical, but isn’t. Somehow we don’t understand probability too well. The basic premise here is: if you have had good things happening to you, it does not mean that just by sheer conservation-of-goodness, bad things are waiting around the corner.
5. The Secret Life of Competitive Grippers
“The strange allure of the loneliest sport imaginable.” - I was piqued, to say the least. What draws people to competitively clasp heavy duty handles? Some say that gripping is the ultimate sign of masculinity, a bastion that no women can breach no matter how many drugs or supplements they take.
For Pankoff, mashing together the two handles of a heavy-duty gripper — which is how you train the crush grip — is the ideal exercise, one that taxes both heart and soul. To drive those handles together until the device clicked was to achieve a greater understanding of your limits, as you sought to transcend them. In Pankoff’s opinion, achieving a “certified close” of a Captains of Crush gripper, as verified by Iron Mind personnel following Iron Man certification standards, is a way of writing your name into the pages of eternity.
6. Eton and the Making of a Modern Elite
Eton, that elite British school - how has it changed with time? Spots at Eton are usually hereditary, where Eton “takes care of its own”. Things are changing now, with the most common surname in Eton being …Patel.
The contest isn’t simply between candidates. It’s a battle of wits between a school whose proclaimed intention is to identify deserving talent and ambition, and parents who will do everything to stack things in their child’s favour. Well-off, well-organised parents prepare their sons ruthlessly, hiring tutors, making the boys do ceaseless verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests and sending them to interview classes to learn how to be sparky and empathetic.
7. How a 20-Year-Old From the Land of Fake News Convinced Serena Williams He Was a Rising Tennis Star
Grab your popcorn. Macedonia is a country that actually has a thriving fake news industry, and this is the story of “Darko Grncarov”, a top and promising junior tennis player from Macedonia who was saying the right things on Twitter. The problem was, he never really won any tennis matches, and still got Serena Williams to follow him back. Skills.
8. A Scientist Explores the TRAPPIST-1 Star System
The TRAPPIST system was discovered recently, and it’s similar to our solar system. We don’t know too much about it yet, but this is a visual journey of one possible interpretation.
9. In Solitude what Happiness?
“Loneliness is silent, invisible and as deadly as a smoking habit. Maggie Fergusson seeks out those beside themselves at being by themselves.”
I was drawn to this piece and its ..realness. One great book I’ve read about loneliness and living in cities is called The Lonely City by Olivia Laing.
It may be that affluence is making things worse. We prize space, privacy and independence, and the richer we get the more of these we can afford, yet their corollary is being alone. Our economy works better if people move around to find work, yet mobility stretches and breaks the bonds of family and community. Phillips told me that “capitalism and a mobile labour market make connections between people very precarious and difficult. In so far as people feel that what they’ve got to do is get on, they are, as it were, encouraged to sacrifice relationship and intimacy.”
10. In Sudan, Rediscovering Ancient Nubia Before It’s Too Late
Scientists are rushing to find out as much as they possibly can about the Nubian civilization before most of the archaeological sites are drowned out by a proposed dam to be constructed on the Nile by Sudan.
“Archaeology is always a race against the clock,” Francigny, director of the French Archeological Unit in Sudan, says. But Nubia’s losses will be most dramatic because they don’t simply supplement a known history. Instead, the findings form chapters in a new, as yet untold story. […] “Every single finding is valuable because we knew nothing before.”
That’s it for this week! I’ll see you soon.