Well, hello there, reader, and welcome back to another issue of Kat’s Kable. It’s been a veritable age since the last issue, and well, life. I said last time that I started the Vorkosigan saga by Louis Bujold, and I’ve really been dipping in to escape the deluge of work that’s been coming my way. I’m already on the eighth book of the series! Well.. it also means I’ve been reading fiction in lieu of the articles I usually read to get the Kable ready, but we won’t talk about that. The one thing I can guarantee, though, as always, is that the ten articles, essays, pieces, they’re always great - and that’s all that matters, right?

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1. Remembering an effervescently affable man (The Critic):

2022 article commemorating 100 years of Kurt Vonnegut. One of my favourite writers! So it goes.

Yes, many writers are admired but few are truly loved; and many writers are respected for their style but few are respected for their humanity. For Kurt Vonnegut, the human was everything. “If I am ever put to death on the hook,” wrote Bokonon in The Books of Bokonon , “expect a very human performance.” So it goes.

2. Garmin’s ~$40B Pivot (Trung Phan’s Substack):

This was a pretty fun article to read about Garmin (a GPS powerhouse) and how they’ve reinvented themselves with smartwatches (I have one) in a world of Apple Watches and the the like.

3. Oliver Heaviside and the theory of transmission lines (PA3FWM):

Oliver Heaviside was a British mathematician and physicist in the 1800s, and honestly I don’t even know why this belongs in Kat’s Kable since the article is more mathematics-y. But, Heaviside disproved Lord Kelvin’s theory of the transmission of electricity in a cable, and so I thought it would be fun to include a prelude to the next article:

4. Mother Earth Mother Board (Wired, via Internet Archive):

OK, wow. This is a long, long article from the 1990s. It took me about two hours to get through this; it starts with Lord Kelvin’s theory of intercontinental information transfer cables, and then spends most of its time on the laying of the FLAG, a fiber-optic cable from England to Japan.

“The hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth.”

5. Why There Is More to Banksy Than Meets the Eye (BBC):

Fun! A tour of some of Banksy’s work.

6. I’m Good, I Promise: The Loneliness of the Low-Ranking Tennis Player (The Guardian):

Pretty sobering read.

I was once Ireland’s No 1 player, and tried for years to climb the global ranks. But life at the bottom of the top can be brutal.

7. The Incredible Story of Bhut Jolokia: From Rural India to Dumb YouTube Stunts (Taste):

Fun exploration of the Bhut Jholokia chilli, an iconic symbol of the eight northeastern Indian states - it’s a cultural symbol and it supports a large number of livelihoods.

8. The bodybuilders defying feminine norms in South India (CNN India)

But in Kerala, where the London-based photographer is from, bodybuilding is still taboo for women, who are typically expected to adhere to traditional, feminine norms. After stumbling upon one competitor’s Instagram account, Kunnath became fascinated by the female bodybuilders who have dedicated their time to the sport and defied societal conventions — and often their family’s wishes, too.

9. Building a (T1D) smartwatch from scratch (Andrew Childs’ Blog):

OK this is awesome! Andrew Childs (a different one from a quantum physicist who I applied to do my PhD with) embarked on a quest to make a watch for his son with type 1 diabetes (T1D) that’s just smart enough to do what it needs to - I find this very endearing as a show of love and caring (and nerdery).

10. Dwindling Prides and Fading Roars: Indian Lion in the 19th Century (Krish Bohra on Medium):

Nice historical write-up of the Indian lion and its being hunted down significantly in the 19th century.