Hello hello, welcome back to this week's edition of Sunday Chillin'! Fall time is just around the corner (the best time of the year!), but I hope everyone had a great summer in the meantime!
I recently subscribed to the print edition of The Financial Times and it's been a great experience, far more enjoyable than I could have ever guessed. I get it delivered to my apartment building every morning Monday - Saturday for a little less than 1 dollar per day, but I think it's worth a lot more than that. [1]
One of the really nice things about printed newspaper is that it ends. I often find that when I'm reading news (or any content really) on my phone, the allure of the infinite scroll is too hard to fight. On top of that, there's always something more interesting or exciting just one click away. So I find myself jumping from topic to topic and never really fully finishing any article at all. [2]
With a newspaper, you can only read what's included that day, and this constraint makes it an infinitely more relaxing and memorable experience. Every morning I sit on my couch and take 15-20 minutes to lightly skim the previous day's happenings. FT has a wide swath of topics, not just financial, so I get a slice into various domains and industries, from sociopolitical developments to scientific and technological advancements. [3]
On any given day, I just read the bits that seem interesting and make a note of anything that stood out to me for storage in my Vast Mind Palace™. [4]
Here are some things I wrote down in the last few weeks (copied and pasted directly from my notes):
I recently subscribed to the print edition of The Financial Times and it's been a great experience, far more enjoyable than I could have ever guessed. I get it delivered to my apartment building every morning Monday - Saturday for a little less than 1 dollar per day, but I think it's worth a lot more than that. [1]
One of the really nice things about printed newspaper is that it ends. I often find that when I'm reading news (or any content really) on my phone, the allure of the infinite scroll is too hard to fight. On top of that, there's always something more interesting or exciting just one click away. So I find myself jumping from topic to topic and never really fully finishing any article at all. [2]
With a newspaper, you can only read what's included that day, and this constraint makes it an infinitely more relaxing and memorable experience. Every morning I sit on my couch and take 15-20 minutes to lightly skim the previous day's happenings. FT has a wide swath of topics, not just financial, so I get a slice into various domains and industries, from sociopolitical developments to scientific and technological advancements. [3]
On any given day, I just read the bits that seem interesting and make a note of anything that stood out to me for storage in my Vast Mind Palace™. [4]
Here are some things I wrote down in the last few weeks (copied and pasted directly from my notes):
- popularity of non-alcoholic beverages on the rise, but not taking market share away from alcoholic beverages but from water lol
- MSFT might start to prefer internal tools for security after crowdstrike incident. considering revoking kernel access to 3rd parties
- insect populations have declined by gigantic amounts in the last 20-40 years (~75% in many locations)
- botswana's diamond industry is actually seen as a success story for how sectors like mining can coexist in harmony with public well-being (diamond mining proceeds fund scholarships apparently?)
- diamond mining makes up 25% of botswana's GDP lmao
- lawyers getting $50k bonuses for referring friends for work (time for a career switch aha)
- people are increasingly booking travel closer and closer to the day of travel due to concerns about weather/issues
- tech companies purchasing old power plants due to existing high-power-volume infrastructure, pretty fascinating
Mostly all random stuff, but cool to know! Anyway, I highly recommend signing up for a newspaper subscription, whether local or international. It has been an enriching experience for me and I think we could all stand to slow down a bit. It's nice that I don't get any BREAKING NEWS anymore, it can all wait until the next day (or Monday morning if it happens over the weekend).
It's become a nice part of my routine and I'm looking forward to continuing it until print truly dies. And then who knows, maybe I'll start printing articles out to read instead of reading on my phone.
For those of you who are only here for the music, here are some songs I like to listen to while perusing the day's publication.
Come Alive - Cannons
Spotify | YouTube
Feel It - Cupidon, Milaa
Spotify | YouTube
Chanel No. 5 - Alexander Mack
Spotify | YouTube
Already Gone - Wild Rivers
Spotify | YouTube
As always, pls write to me and let me know of your thoughts on any of the above. I await your correspondence with bated breath.
See you all next Sunday!
suhaas
————————————————————————————
If you'd like to share this newsletter with your friends, please direct them to this link.
Here are Spotify and YouTube playlists with all the songs so far.
[1] I got the introductory deal of $50 (total) for the first 3 months, and then apparently it'll go up to like $75 soon. But that still comes out to ~$1/day so pretty worth to me. Normally I'd consider calling them up and threatening to cancel my subscription to keep getting the discount, but print is already struggling enough man. Btw, if the person who steals my paper occasionally is reading this, pls stop. You're really cramping my style, dawg.
[2] My reading list on my computer is like hundreds of articles long. I'll start reading something and then stop after like 4 paragraphs because something else catches my attention. It's really bad for the Little Grey Cells, but I haven't figured out a way to fix that behavior yet. Perhaps I have now taken the First Step...
[3] There's a lot of random stuff in these papers, but it has been interesting to see the headlines of the things plaguing Britain (FT is a British publication). I don't usually read the articles about The Origin but lmao they suck so much more than the US. Thank goodness Christopher Columbus left that godforsaken continent. Imagine waking up and eating a toast sandwich with a plate of beans every morning. Truly dismal.
[4] It is one room, 250 sq ft. $4500/month, broker's fee is 15% of annual rent. Easy access to public transportation and nice natural light though.