Hello there, reader, and welcome to another issue of Kat’s Kable! As always, I come to you for ten great things to read from across the internet. Fun set of essays and articles this week - ranging from electronics manufacturing to design, new fonts and a new wave of wonderful interactive science explainer blogs.
I’ll leave you to it - do enjoy, and as always, feel free to write back. I’m on the other side of this email.
1 When Semiconductor Manufacturing Went East and Chip Design Followed Viks Newsletter
Vikram Sekar (whose Substack I very much enjoy) talks about the manner in which the semiconductor industry has been slowly but surely outsourcing parts of its business to other countries, and how India is well poised now to capture the largest big piece yet: the process of chip design. His other essays are usually a lot more technical, but this one with its more general topic is non-paywalled and a good read.
2 Why is the sky blue? Explainers Blog
I’ve been talking to some friends of late about how the rise of coding agents and AI copilots has resulted in the rise of beautiful interactive explainers. This is one example. The sky is blue - this much is obvious. Why is red during sunset? How do we explain the colour of the skies of other planets? The underlying principles are simple - light consists of different wavelengths (colours), these interact differently with different gases in the atmosphere, and this results in different colours that we perceive. But this interactive explainer does a wonderful job explaining it!
3 The friendship problem Rojo Spinks’ Substack
“Why friendships have started to feel strikingly similar to admin” - don’t many of us feel like this these days? I’ve enjoyed Rojo’s writing for many years now, and this 2023 piece of hers is even more relevant today. I’m cognizant that this problem, stated this way, applies to a sliver of us, but I think you being a reader here means you are likely in this sliver.
And there, I think, lies the crux of the friendship problem: We are so burned out by the process of staying afloat in a globalized, connected world that we simply don’t have the energy for the kinds of in-person, easy interactions that might actually give us some energy and lifeforce back.
4 Classifieds expose the key AI fault line early Reasoned by Nikhil Pahwa
Very interesting Indian perspective on how AI is changing the landscape of online business. Classifieds platforms (think Shiksha for education, Naukri for jobs, IndiaMart for wholesale procurement) are heavily reliant on Google Search to “invoke” them to get eyeballs, and thus business. As search engines shift to LLM engines, and as us end users also change our behaviour, these platforms are subject to the invocation decision made by a new set of players.
5 India’s Energy Leapfrog Moment Picus Capital
This is an in-depth note written by an investment firm, and I really enjoyed reading it because it’s pertinent to my work. Additionally, it’s really well written. If you’re interested in the way that Indian energy grids and systems can and will change with the increasing deployment of renewables, this post does a great job fleshing it out.
This is not just India’s, but the world’s trillion-dollar energy paradox: as we deploy renewables faster than ever, our legacy grids struggle to keep pace. In 2050, India will consume 4x its current electricity demand, and conventional solutions can’t scale: more poles, wires, substations will cost hundreds of billions, take decades, and only exacerbate obsolescence. But what if the solution isn’t just building more, but also building smarter? What if our greatest energy assets aren’t only power-generating solar farms, but also the power-consuming ACs, EVs, and batteries connected to the grid?
6 Personal Encyclopedias whoami.wiki
This is so cool! One of the coolest things I’ve seen someone create for themselves using AI. It’s a privacy hazard, for sure, but just think about it - put old notes, messages, photos all into one system and it comes up with a personal wiki + encyclopedia for your life.
7 Why Stoicism is one of the best mind-hacks ever devised Aeon Essays
I remember a few years ago that stoicism had become super popular. This essay is from one of those days (2014) and it’s a nice walkthrough of the usual reasons of why to use some (or all) aspects of Stoic philosophy in our daily lives.
8 The Dark Matter of Hardware Engineering Dark Matter
This piece has been doing the rounds of late, and it’s a good one. Why (and how) American manufacturing simply can’t stack up anymore.
“Everything I learned about manufacturing by staring at a camera module — and why America can’t build the things that matter anymore.”
What’s awesome is it doesn’t take much exposure to understand the loop — programs as simple as a fixed-focus camera module reveal the nature of how hardware has become a reinforcement learning progress. Meanwhile, I understand in retrospect that I was not mis-placed in that role — it’s how I learned the thesis: the dark matter of hardware engineering is in the factory, and right now, we’re not in the factory.
9 Fran Sans Emily Sneddon’s blog
This is a delight! Emily Sneddon has taken the typography of the lettering on San Fransisco’s public transit services and converted all of it into a family of fonts called Fran Sans. Superb name too. I also learned that SF and the larger Bay Area have ~25 independent public transit agencies!
10 Details That Make Interfaces Feel Better Jakub Krehel’s website
Very fun exploration of small aspects of digital and web design that just feel good. I don’t know how to explain this piece (or essay) well, but all I’ll say is that if you scroll past the exhibits and examples, you’ll feel calm.