Newsletter for friends #02: Stuff from mostly July

Jatan Mehta

Aug 4, 2024 — 3 min read

Hello friends,

Thank you for your great response to my first newsletter for friends! Continuing to embrace a calmer digital life against the slurp of social media, I’m sharing with you another web letter of notable things I’ve been up to or enjoyed circa July.

Reading

Writing

How ISRO will go from Chandrayaan 3 to an Indian to the Moon
Published editions #181, #182, #183, #184 and #185 of my Moon Monday blog+newsletter, covering lunar exploration updates from China, India, Japan, the US, South Korea, and Canada!
I didn’t like writing this article but I had to: Diving deeper into NASA’s CLPS conundrum that led to VIPER’s cancelation
Published Indian Space Progress #18, covering ISRO’s space budget and efforts to amp up its rockets
Moon Monday but in video!

Space, personally

I’m an Open Lunar Affiliate!

Lovely gift from a new friend and reader. A view from the Atacama desert in Chile that looks like it’s from the Moon.

Snark..

How to have sustainable conferences
What will make me take LinkedIn seriously
It’s important to be on social media because it’s useful to know what mediocrity and human gullibility is like

Notable microthoughts

WhatsApp is a better social network than Meta’s supposed social networks. Unlike on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, your contacts actually see your WhatsApp posts instead of sponsored, suggested, or algorithmic content. There are minimal ads, and you get direct replies! Most importantly, muting works.
Writing headlines in the style of “Friends” is fun
My life’s mission: Write words that matter, and age well

Pictures

Mochas have been my preferred companion during Kindle reading sessions on weekends. I much prefer getting coffee from indie cafés or small brands instead of the Starbucks of the world, and Glen’s Bakehouse near me is one of the best.

Visited the moving monument that is the Topra Ashoka pillar.

A 42-wheeled cart was used to transport it to the river bank, where it was loaded onto a large boat. The cart required 8,400 men to move it, 200 to each wheel. [Source]

An eerily specific restaurant in Besant Nagar, Chennai for eerily specific humans.

Next to the rocket I’ve seen take to the skies twice. Model for representation purposes only. Actual rocket sizes may vary.

I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to.

Don’t know what to say? Reply with an interesting link!

Let’s not live an internet without intent.

Social media, where a teaser post about your article gets a better response than your actual article

I’ve seen this recurring theme on Twitter, LinkedIn, and virtually every microblogging social platform I’ve used. Teasing something exciting you’re working on gets better visibility than when you share that work itself. Here’s an example from the Twitter of yore—which people forget wasn’t all

Newsletter for friends #04: Things and thoughts from October

Hello friends, Continuing to embrace a calmer digital life instead of drowning in the slurp—and now slop—of social media, I’m sharing with you via this web letter some notable things I’ve been up to or enjoyed in October. Reading * How to comment on social media * Technology

Follow my blogs on social media that doesn’t suck!

Look, I hate social networks, especially all mainstream ones like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. And, microblogging is a terribly contextually deprived way to create, absorb, and converse anything. I can’t justify sacrificing my time and efforts on places which degrade my thinking, mental health, and sanity. And so I’

On the gap between voter turnouts in the US and Indian elections

2024 is a national election year for both the US and India. Some web searching led me to check past voter turnouts in both countries, and I was quite surprised with the numbers: The US (Source) * 2004: 60.1% * 2008: 62.5% * 2012: 58% * 2016: 59.2% * 2020: 66.9%