Kat’s Kable #278

Hello again, reader. This is Vishal and I’m in your inbox with the latest issue of Kat’s Kable. As has become the norm now, the weekend got away from me and I’m writing this introduction on a Wednesday night. I just watched the new Minions movie, and I was very entertained. That aside, I have started to shed off my break/hiatus/sabbatical and am looking seriously for jobs! It is an interesting and exciting and nervous time. I have never held conventional employment yet in my life and this will be the first time.

That’s all I have for this week. Hope you enjoy the list, per usual.

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. This works if the website has a “soft” paywall. If that doesn’t work, you can access the website using a different browser on the same device, or use a different device altogether. Another, slightly involved, method is to try to disable JavaScript and reload the page. This works on some websites for me.

1. Mechanical Watch - Bartosz Ciechanowski’s website

This is absolutely wonderful. Ciechanowski has detailed here how a mechanical watch works, starting from the very basics. What’s more, he’s created interactive animations for each stage of construction of the watch, and it’s such a wonderful way of learning how things work. One of the best things I’ve seen on the internet this year. It took me time to go through the whole thing, but it was very much worth it. I recommend it highly, and I think it’s better experienced on a larger screen.

2. Photo Editing: Respecting Context - Simon Sarris’ Substack

Another visually pleasing thing to share. I like the way Sarris sees the world, and here he talks about his approach towards editing pictures. It’s something I’m personally interested in too–I’m finding recently that one of the biggest joys of life is finding out how differently different people observe and participate in the world. Here, he gives a short series of examples of the edits he makes to pictures, and why each approach is chosen for each picture.

3. To Find the Fish, Find the People: How Scientists Came Upon the Pathala Eel Loach - The Wire Science

Scientists in Kerala, India, have discovered a new species of subterranean fish. What’s really novel about this is the community participation that led to this discovery. There has been a concerted campaign by the researchers involved to be in contact with people who may spot any new species, particularly in and around their wells and other regions around underground aquifers. It’s a refreshing thing to read, and I think it’s really cool.

Some people believe that social media is responsible for increased polarization, a low quality of discussions, and more people being in echo chambers. Some academics made a participatory document which was a literature review on the effects of social media, and the outcome, as far as I can tell, is that there is a lot more nuance to it than social media being “good” or “bad”. This is an interesting read, and I think it’s also important to consider separately the effect that social media has on the average person, and the extreme effects it can have at the “tails”, where the overall effect is low but the stakes are higher.

5. The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages - Washington Post (soft paywalled)

Lovely, so lovely and affirming. Vaughn Smith is a carpet cleaner in Washington DC who can speak 24 languages! 24! And he lives in DC where he could easily be a translator or interpretor at a fancy place but he cleans carpets. And he learns and speaks all these languages so that he can talk to more people. I think the coolest part of it all is when Smith and his niece liked the Salish (a group of Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest) word for “chicken” and then decided to learn it together, twice making trips to Montana to meet tribal elders. It’s so good.

He’s bouncing as he talks about all the connections he made in a single day with the researchers and the strangers he’d introduced himself to in a coffee shop. All the people who were, as he would say, “hit with a splash of happiness.” This is what I’d discovered getting to know Vaughn: By putting in the effort to learn someone’s language, you’re showing them that you value who they truly are.

I’m wondering if Vaughn will ever see that same value in himself.

6. It’s 10 PM. Do You Know Where Your Cat Is? - Hakai Magazine

“In Iceland, traditionally a land of cat lovers, bans and curfews are redefining the human relationship with domestic cats.”
Cats are generally an invasive species wherever they go, particularly wreaking havoc on local bird populations. There’s more and more online clamour for keeping your cats indoors, but most of this is focused on urban spaces, where this matters less, I think. It’s in rural areas where there are more birds, especially nesting sites, and where feral cat colonies can do the most damage. As one might imagine, this is a contentious issue because cats are great! And cute! I love cats and it is hard to accept that cats are bad for most other species because I don’t want to believe that.

7. The Magic of Alleyways - Hazlitt Magazine

I enjoyed this ode to alleys, specifically the alleys of Toronto, where the author of this piece lives. Alleys have become a sort of in-between space for gathering, and a place to connect with yourself and other people as cities have become more and more fragmented.

8. The Halloumi Conundrum - Whetstone Magazine

Halloumi is a cheese that has its roots in Cyprus, and of late, the Republic of Cyprus and the creatively named “Foundation for the Protection of the Traditional Cheese of Cyprus Named Halloumi” have been petitioning the European Commission to give Halloumi a PDO tag. This would mean that only halloumi made in Cyprus (and with at least 50% goat and sheep milk) is allowed to be sold and marketed as “halloumi”. It’s an interesting fight. On one side, the PDO tag would result in better prices and recognition for Cypriot dairy farmers. On the other side, though, it would mean that demand would go up (due to foreign production shutting down) to the extent that Cyprus wouldn’t be able to keep up. This might lead to Cypriot farmers importing goat and sheep milk from abroad to make halloumi.. which will really defeat the point. So fascinating!

9. What does a batsman see? - Cricket Monthly

I can’t believe I didn’t read this piece when it came out in 2018. Better late than never. Batting in cricket is a task that requires extreme focus. However, there’s only so much mental attention we can give in a day, and so it’s important to conserve it. Further, coaches always say, “watch the ball”. But it turns out you need to be much more specific than that. It seems like all elite batters in cricket only start watching the ball as the bowler approaches the bowling crease, and not from the beginning of the bowler’s run-up. And as soon as they start watching the ball, they “lock in” and enter a zone of extreme focus that lasts about a second or two. Once they play the ball, their mind quickly slips back down into a lower gear of focus. This repeats for every delivery they face. It’s fascinating to read about various cricketers talk about their different ways of doing the same thing.

As soon as he finished playing a delivery - whether he had driven it for four, left it, or played and missed it - Chappell cycled his concentration back down to its minimum level of awareness. He understood the importance of keeping his focus on the present. That meant that he had to completely let go of the last ball, even if it had missed his off stump by a millimetre. So he gave his mind something relaxing to do while it was powered down in awareness mode - he looked into the crowd and, whenever he was playing at home, he delighted in finding family and friends and seeing what they were up to. When they met up for dinner in the evenings, his friends were flabbergasted that he was able to recite their movements for the entire day.

10. The secret strength that fuels Stephen Curry and the Warriors - ESPN India

Stephen Curry recently led his basketball team to an NBA championship. This article examines changes he’s made to his training regime in order to become a better player year after year. Primarily, he’s gained weight and gotten stronger, and he now can play more of a role on his team’s defense. What I found coolest, though, is how gaining strength is a way of increasing consistency. Kyle Korver, another three-point specialist, was told early on to not “lift too much” so that he wouldn’t throw off his shot. That seemingly universal advice now seems to be debunked and a thing of the past, as it’s become clear that strength means less fatigue over time, and less fatigue means more consistent shooting. It also reminded me of my personal worry of working out or becoming stronger–that it might spoil my handwriting.

See you next week!-Kat.

Kat's Kable #278