Hello! It’s been yet another busy week. The week after this one I have my weeklong spring break, which is going to be great. It feels like I barely have enough time to get everything done right now.
For now, I’m adjourning the “Newsletters I love” section of each issue. I thought I would never run out of newsletters to mention, but that assumes me forever subscribing to new ones each week. That, it turns out, is physically impossible.
If you got this from a friend and want to subscribe, here’s the link. Also, if any of the links are paywalled and if you don’t want to pay for a subscription, try opening the link in incognito mode in your browser; it usually works. It does for me.
1. On the death of my family’s dairy farm
I’ve shared pieces like this earlier, and I mentioned that they were US-centric. However, I liked the writing in this one, and thought it was worth sharing.
Milk prices being low also lowers the value of milking cows themselves, so we got less money than we had hoped for. To a kid it felt like vultures were paying a pittance to carry away a piece of my identity. By the end of the day, looking down the alleyway at mostly-empty cow stalls bedded with fresh sawdust, that anger turned to sadness and a sense of loss.
2. The 50 Best Slaughterhouse-Five Covers from Around the World
Slaughterhouse Five is one of my favorite books, and I thoroughly enjoyed this series of 50 covers on Lithub. If you need reasons for why Vonnegut is awesome, hit me up and I will list them down for you.
3. Born to Swim
“In Southeast Asia, sea nomads known as the Bajau offer a glimpse into how humans may have adapted to an aquatic way of life.” Interesting feature from Hakai magazine about the Indonesian tribe of the Bajau who live on the sea, and whose citizens are expert divers. Diving sessions go on for about 5-6 hours per day, with 60% of that being spent underwater. It’s amazing.
4. India Goes Electric With Battery-Swapping Rickshaws
Wow, I had no idea. I did not know about this interesting and encouraging development that’s happening in India. Some autorickshaws run on batteries, and instead of stopping to recharge, they stop at predetermined spots to exchange their depleted batteries with fresh ones. This way, the cost of the battery is not borne upfront by the autorickshaw driver; the batteries are instead “rented” from a company that also runs the swap stations. Ha:
“Our solutions for India need to be a little different,” says cofounder Chetan Maini, a longtime advocate for ditching internal combustion.
5. Factory Air
I had guests for dinner today and one of the things we mentioned was climate fiction. Funnily, this fiction piece at Guernica is labeled as climate fiction too. It’s an interesting story of factory politics, unions, strikes and subversive deals. It almost seemed true.
6. To PhD or not to PhD
Symmetry magazine ran a survey about PhD programs, and this is a summary of their findings. One of the things I’m taking away from this article is this: do a PhD because you want to spend five years during the challenging pursuit of research, not because you want to obtain a tenure-track faculty position. That way, you’ll have a good time and won’t be disappointed.
7. Every Living Creature
This was amazing. “When a massive Caribbean volcano erupts, the island’s residents flee, leaving their beloved animals behind. As pets and livestock are engulfed in ash and penned in by lava, waiting to perish, three brave souls risk death and evade the law to save every last one. A modern-day Noah’s Ark.”
8. The Quest to Acquire the Oldest, Most Expensive Book on the Planet
Wow, first edition Gutenberg Bibles. I learnt that the book’s pages are printed by the press, but the binding itself is left up to the buyer. Therefore each book is unique! How cool. It’s somewhat like saying: here we made this phone, now you can apply whatever case and whatever scratch protector you like on it.
9. The 18th-Century Lady Mathematician Who Loved Calculus and God
The witch of Agnesi, you may be disappointed to know, is a curve that math students generally learn about in calculus class. It doesn’t look much like a witch, or a hat or even a broomstick. It’s nothing more than a gentle, sloping curve.
Can you find a better opening line than that?
Wheee. Bye. -Kat.