Hi hi, Vishal here and I’m back with another issue of Kat’s Kable. I’ve been quite tired, but it’s also been a while since the last issue, so I thought to just put together an abbreviated issue today. Should be back with a normal issue next week. Hope you enjoy! As always, write back if you have anything to say–feedback, criticism, or just say hi :)
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1. During Lockdown, Google Maps Gives My Son a Way Out (WIRED, soft paywalled):

“From our kitchen in Queens, he had created a paracosm—a fantasyland. And his journey has led him not to Mordor but to minor-league baseball stadiums.”

2. Education and Excellence:

a nice speech by John Gardner.

_I once lived in a house where I could look out a window as I worked at my desk and observe a small herd of cattle browsing in a neighboring field. And I was struck with a thought that must have occurred to the earliest herdsmen tens of thousands of years ago. You never get the impression that a cow is about to have a nervous breakdown. Or is puzzling about the meaning of life.

Humans have never mastered that kind of complacency. We are worriers and puzzlers, and we want meaning in our lives._

3. Praveen Kumar on struggle of sportspersons with mental ailments (The Indian Express):

Former Indian cricketer Praveen Kumar opens up in this interview/feature about his depression, which is honestly quite welcome considering how little we talk about mental health in India.

4. Eyes in the sky (Rest of World):

Really, really fascinating photoessay about the massive surveillance system administrators use to keep tabs on the Magh Mela, an annual Hindu pilgrimage. This piece is fantastically done.

5. How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans (Yale Environment 360)

6. How Whitewashed Recipe Names Dumb Down the Online Food World (Vice):

“What do we lose when paratha is called “flaky bread,” or bibimbap a “rice bowl”? Recipe developers explain why names matter.” I will share pieces like this forever, I think.

7. Loneliness and me (Financial Times):

quite lovely. For some of us, the lockdown and pandemic-induced isolation is not all that new.

Lonely as a cloud? I am as lonely as an iceberg, an egg, a half carafe of wine. I am lonely as the body is hungry three times a day, hollowed again and again by an ache that does not ease except with the sustenance of connection. The feeling differs from the peace of solitude, which many enjoy, including me at times. Instead, it is a gnawing sadness. Even before the pandemic, a combination of circumstance and choice left me with fewer close ties than I wanted. Every day I forage for connection, and some days I go hungry.

8. How local libraries shaped Octavia Butler’s life in books (LA Times):

poignant and insightful view into the life of one of my favorite authors.

9. How SEO Is Gentrifying the Internet (Current Affairs):

Wow.. never thought of SEO (search engine optimization) as gentrification , but in some sense, it is precisely that.