📚 How learning works, Language of headlines, Libraries of matter, Internet domains, Sindhi history
Japanese way of life & business, Unintended consequences, Travel guides, Comedy wildlife photography, Travel posters & more
Hello, this is post #181.
I visited Mumbai after almost four years, and this time, I was a tourist. The city didn’t disappoint. In just four days, we met a lot of friends, did some sightseeing (Gateway of India, Colaba, Marine Drive, Bandra cafes), and walked a lot. We took plenty of auto rides (something I don't get to do much in Bangalore), ate amazing food, and did some shopping. Most importantly, we revisited old memories and spent time with close friends. It was refreshing and has energized us for the rest of October.
By the way, we visited Trilogy Bookshop and it delivered on its promise. I’m so glad we made it, even though it meant skipping Bombay Canteen!
I’m still in a festive and fun mood, so today’s lineup will reflect just that. Here take a pique:
It’s exciting! Isn’t it? Let’s get going…
💡 How Learning Works
Let’s start with an academic publication: Learning 101: The Untaught Basics.
Junaid Qadir and Muhammad Ali Imran wrote this as an attempt to popularize the important insights learnt by the learning science researchers.
Here’s the abstract to set the context (emphasis mine)...
Despite the accessibility of a wealth of information in the current era—in the form of books, universities, or online ‘massive open online courses (MOOCs)—well-intentioned hardworking students often fail to learn effectively due to deficient learning technique or mindset. Two reasons in particular hinder students from achieving their potential: firstly, the intuition of students regarding how learning works is often flawed and counterproductive; and secondly, despite significant progress in the research discipline of “learning sciences”, these hard-earned scientific insights have not yet filtered their way through the research community onto the students who stand to benefit most from this knowledge.
The topic of how learning works fascinates me. We spend so much time doing things to learn, yet the results are often less than ideal. This paper offers valuable insights into the learning process and explores remedies for common learning barriers. It shares key findings from learning science research, helping us understand how to learn more effectively.
I found the concept of ‘desired difficulties’ quite intriguing.
While we intuitively dislike difficulties and thus try to avoid them, many difficulties (but not all) have a positive effect on learning. The well-known cognitive psychologist Bob Bjork coined the term “desirable difficulties” for such difficulties that have a positive effect on learning.
As an example, it talks about how effortful learning is better learning...
“Practice that’s spaced out, interleaved with other learning, and varied produces better mastery, longer retention, and more versatility. But these benefits come at a price: when practice is spaced, interleaved, and varied, it requires more effort.”
Short and accessible read!
(via Readwise)
📰 Language of Headlines
In an online age where attention spans are worn thin by information overload, these are remarkable feats for a bunch of words, yet headlines get little respect around here. From titillating tabloid titles to clickbait chicanery, headlines these days have often been derided as the empty calories of information, sensationalist trickery, “the art of exaggerating without actually lying” as Otto Friedrich put it.
Chi Luu’s “How does the language of headlines work?” attempts to help us think better. It's a piece on JSTOR Daily so you can expect a lot of academic rigor in its observation. Don’t be scared, however. It’s surprisingly breezy read and filled with gems like this:
However, while clickbait can take certain obvious linguistic forms that quickly grow ineffective once the trick is known, it’s still constantly evolving in the ways it makes use of language to attract attention, so much so that it’s often hard to define what kinds of headlines count as clickbait headlines. Clickbait, popularized by Buzzfeed (which denied ever using it) and Upworthy (which apologized for it), is problematic because it’s seen as manipulative, promising sensationalized content that it doesn’t deliver on. The backlash against the most obvious kinds of clickbait patterns has been almost universal, with Buzzfeed confidently claiming that “clickbait stopped working around 2009” and everyone else agreeing that clickbait, like any other kind of obvious cheap trick to claim your attention to sell something, is annoying.
It’s a short piece. I read it a couple of times and had a chuckle every time. Just go for it!
(via Dense Discovery)
🏤 Libraries of Matter
Virginia Postrel talks about “Libraries of matter” that contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, graphene aerogel and much more.
He is at Material Connexion, the world’s first material library. It was the brainchild of George Beylerian, a design enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. He envisioned it as a place where people could browse, handle, and borrow stimulating materials, a place where playing with material could spark new ideas and make unexpected connections. It would offer an organized and curated collection, independent from suppliers.
He has done a good job describing his experience of visiting this place. I am super intrigued now and would love to see such places.
Here’s one snippet to give you a flavor of what to expect:
Materials libraries also confront the big question all libraries face: how do you organize the collection? The quality that defines a material to one person may not be relevant to another. A material scientist thinks about molecular structure, a designer about texture, a structural engineer about strength. ‘Students come in and don’t just say, “I need wood”’, says RISD’s Pompelia. ‘They say, “I need something hard” or “something to attach zippers to.”’ Zipper-friendly is an unlikely category.
Interesting problem, isn’t it?
🇯🇵 Japanese Way of Life & Business
Upamanyu Bhattacharya’s “The Japanese way of life and business” is based on his week-long trip to Japan. It’s not a typical travelog but rather a collection of short case studies on Japanese business and culture. His observations are sharp, free from management jargon, and written in an easy-to-read style.
You will like it if you are a nerd for all things Japanese.
Again and again we would ask questions regarding marketing strategy or customer profiles, and would find the answers inadequate or uninformed. Then we realised that if you make insanely great products, then that acquires its own customers, again and again, and the products sort of sell themselves, at a premium. Different lens, different framework. This idea takes a bit of getting used to.
Here’s something that was new to me…
And there is an eerie near total absence of trash bins in public spaces. I was told by my Japanese contact that their withdrawal was triggered by the Sarin gas attack in a Tokyo metro station in 1995 by a religious cult; the gas was hidden in a trash can. She softened this by adding that this has now become a norm, and people are expected to properly dispose of their trash at home which is then incinerated. Still it did seem to me to be highly inconvenient to not have trash cans at all in a country like Japan. The Japanese are equipped to carry their trash home for disposal, but for tourists it is a major inconvenience.
🌐 On Internet Domains
A couple of interesting readings from the wild world of the world-wide-web.
The disappearance of an internet domain: The .io domain suffix has become quite popular in recent years, but it’s nearing the end of its life. This short piece explains why and what it means. I was surprised by how geopolitics can impact digital infrastructure. It’s an informative read, packed with interesting trivia.
Some of the web’s sketchiest sites share an address in Iceland: A Reykjavik building that houses a penis museum and an H&M is also the virtual home to an array of perpetrators of identity theft, ransomware and disinformation. This NYT piece explores how it came to be, its implication on the politics & internet culture.
👀 Unintended Consequences
We did not plan for these, but they happened. It takes a set of keen eyes to notice such things and chase them with a curious mind.
I will let the pieces pitch for themselves:
Meet the hustlers who make $6,000 a month riding citi bikes: The bike-sharing program rewards users who help redistribute bikes around New York City. A few riders have figured out how to turn that into profit.
(via Storythings)
🧳 On Travel Guides
Kate Lindsay claims that Google Docs are the ideal travel guides. Her reasoning behind this claim is rooted more in how these are created and distributed rather than the format itself. A good travel guide is made by someone, based on their personal experience and made to suit their taste & travel style. Their personality and curation gives it the edge. Such a document may not and should not have a universal appeal. And so the distribution is the key as well.
Kate covers this well…
“I want recs from someone who travels in a similar way that I do and wants to spend their time in a similar way that I do,” Petrarca says. “It's almost like matchmaking.” Natalie Held, 24, similarly likens the docs to dating, and how “it’s usually better to go on a date with a friend of a friend than a guy from Hinge.”
I resonate with her observations. Never ending feed of content from travel influencers, seo blogs have made the task of finding something ‘relevant’ very difficult. I try to rely on friends for recommendations, wherever I can.
I haven’t yet found the travel guides that resonate with me, so I’ve been exploring and reading more of them. It’s fascinating to see how differently people travel. Recently, I came across Sam Mendelsohn’s travel blog, where he primarily writes about his travels in India, focusing on off-the-beaten-path destinations. I recommend checking it out—you might discover a new way to travel, and if your tastes align with his, you could find some great places to visit.
(via Storythings, MR blog)
🌏 Sindhi Resilience and Business Acumen
I come from Khandwa in central India, where I grew up surrounded by Sindhi families. Many of my classmates were Sindhi, and I played cricket with some of them. We even had a Sindhi Colony. The Sindhis dominated a few businesses—especially electronics and plastic goods. We teased them for their stinginess, admired their jovial nature, and respected their sharp business acumen. But my understanding of them was always at a surface level.
Recently, I read Mark-Anthony Falzon’s “The Sindhis: Selling anything, anywhere”. It’s a light read but gave me a much better understanding of their journey and way of life. From Ulhasnagar (known for its “USA products”) to leading major multinational trading businesses, the Sindhis have made the most of what life handed them. Their story, deeply shaped by India’s Partition, is about how a close-knit community built a business empire. The Partition is a painful chapter in their history, often unspoken, but recent efforts are documenting it. A recent exhibit in Delhi's Partition Museum highlights this. If you’re in the area, it’s worth a visit.
The word ‘resilient’ came up several times at the opening of The Lost Homeland of Sindh gallery to describe the dominant emotion of the Sindhis toward Partition. It is this prideful self-image that often stood in the way of publicly reminiscing their pain. The dictum ‘sharanarthi nahin purushaarthi’ stuck, Kothari said. (human pursuit and resolve, not refugees).
By the way, This book is part of a series on Indian business history. Other topics include the Marwari community, Bombay businesswalas, and Tamil merchants. These are already on my shelf, and I’ll share more in the coming weeks.
(via Saiprasad in TLDR group)
✨ Everything else
Alexander Unger offers behind the scene view of his super cute short stop motion videos on his Instagram feed. Gosh! There is so much that goes on to make one tiny animation like this (via DenseDiscovery)
Finalists for the 2024 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. You know what to expect here. (via Kottke)
I’m in love with Henry River’s Travel posters and illustrations. That’s the kind of graphics I want to adore in my work area!
⏰ In case you missed last week’s post, you can find it here.
That's all for this week, folks!
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
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