Light Years Ideas Of The Week — #005
My top 10 ideas of the week (October 1st week 2024)
It’s a lovely Sunday evening here in Mumbai. The October heat has just begun its onset making it rather packed in buckets of heat in the humid air in the ol’ island city but it’s also randomly raining again. This year’s monsoon in Mumbai has been rather strange — when the forecasts predicted heavy rains it didn’t pour as much, and when they predicted low rainfall it poured heavily.
It’s finally great to have this retreating monsoon cool the air, as I just finish a cup of coffee after watching Chelsea’s 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest and sit down to write this piece.
Navratri is almost upon us & the festivities have begun. Ganpati in September & Dussehra in October, Mumbai knows how to celebrate.
This week’s ideas are pretty interesting & YouTube-heavy. So I hope you check the links out because this is a pretty intriguing & cool curation for the month (I urge you to click on the links, instead of just skimming past them). Let’s get to it!
To kick off this week is pretty futuristic. I’ve touched upon quantum computing in terms of music & how music could sound in the future using quantum computers. In this video, Hannah Fry visits the IBM headquarters where they’re developing quantum computers & takes you through everything you need to know about quantum computers from qubits to the quantum arms race between the US and China. I don’t know where India stands when it comes to quantum computing research, but it’s the future for sure.
This brief video essay is on a longstanding channel that I follow called ‘Nerdwriter’ provides food for thought. In this video, the author (let’s call him Nerdwriter) explains how French cinema’s CNC works. He highlights how the government-owned CNC is basically a state-funded film studio that helps fund the French film industry. From hand-holding films to supporting everything from production to distribution and the actual watching of films in theatres, the CNC does a remarkable job of promoting & maintaining the health of French cinema & the French film industry. It’s a model that might not align with Hollywood and American capitalist sensibilities but it could work in India in Bollywood. If India had its own CNC we’d see a wide array of intelligent & evocative films from the wealth of talented filmmakers available in the country as opposed to the dour, mindless crap movies they’re forced to churn out to ensure box office sales to the masses.
Coming to actual films that I’m waiting for. The trailer for the new Gladiator film released recently. If you’ve watched the first Oscar-winning film, Ridley Scott is definitely aiming at delivering another epic in this sequel. The story follows Maximus'(Russel Crowe) son’s journey & the trailer looks really good.
This article on AEON is a bit heavy. But it outlines a great debate between Einstein and Henri Bergson of what ‘time’ is, from a physics & philosophical standpoint. It’s rather heavy, and a slightly longish read but puts forth what time means to us as human beings experiencing it from a human lens and measuring it in terms of physics & the cosmos.
You can read the article here: https://aeon.co/essays/who-really-won-when-bergson-and-einstein-debated-timeThis video suggests how & where India is struggling in its job economy, especially high-skill jobs & per capita income along with the problems graduate students & the female workforce face. In a nutshell, India is struggling to create jobs for its expanding population. It’s a key challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, & the BJP’s targets to achieve developed economy status for the country by 2047.
Coming to some literary posts, I came across this short poem called ‘Old Song’ from an African tradition which I had to share. It’s a lovely title and a provocative poem.
I also came across this post from a movie, with a very thoughtful monologue. It completely explains the existential dilemma we face often. We’re always looking for the next thing, but oftentimes, we’re waiting on them not knowing what they are. It’s from the film 1972 film Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Coming to the music section (as always given my alternate career). This song & performance by one of my favourite guitarists Mark Knopfler felt relevant to share amidst the ongoing war in the Middle East. It’s a poignant song but the guitar playing is immaculate.
On another musical note, I stumbled upon this song with an important message as well. The cool thing is that this song called A Rock Somewhere is performed by the artists Jacob Collier & Aurora on an iceberg or patch of ice whatever you’d like to call it. The song aimed at increasing awareness about protecting our oceans, which is a cause that needs more awareness worldwide.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not one for over self-promotion & would rather focus on spreading knowledge & ideas. But this book called The Brand Called You I’m reading argues otherwise. So this section includes some of my work from last month & this one. You can check my Medium for my regular articles, but most of them are paywalled, so you’ll need to be a Medium subscriber to view them (It’s just $3 a month to subscribe to Medium. But it’s really worth it with so much great writing on various topics on Medium. You can also earn with your own writing after becoming a Medium member).
This month, I released a single on the music front sampling a vocal chop from a song I like a lot titled Eternal Love Yet So Evasive by the beatmaker Gramatik. You can listen to my song linked below.
Finally, my friends & I run a podcast on football. So if you’re a football fan or know football fans who’d be interested, do subscribe to our podcast on YouTube & Spotify & share it with football fans you know. We’d greatly appreciate it! We want to grow & be regular so your support will mean a lot!
YoutubeSpotify
Thank you for reading & checking out the links! As always, stay tuned for this series called ‘Ideas Of The Week’ on my publication Light Years!
You can find Ideas #004 here:Light Years Ideas Of The Week — #004
·It’s yet another week (or a couple) that’s gone by. Today is Ganesh Chaturthi & as usual, Mumbai is lit up in festivity. There’s something comforting & heartening about Ganpati & the festival celebration, typically celebrated fervently & with great pomp in the city — it’s only a phenomenon that happens in this city. It’s strange but lovely.
If you liked this post & found it informative, feel free to share this publication with your network by clicking the button below…
I hope you found this post informative & it helped you in some way. As always, feel free to subscribe to my publication Light Years & support it & also share it if you’d like. Get it in your inbox by filling up the space below!
If you’d like to thank me for this post, if you found value in it, you can buy me a coffee instead of, or alongside subscribing to my publication on Substack, by clicking the link below so that I can sip my next brew of coffee, all thanks to you! :)
