Siddhesh Recommends - April 2023
The best stuff I've listened to, watched, and read last month.
Siddhesh Recommends is a series in which I share the most memorable stuff I come across each month.
These posts are transient - I keep only the three most recent ones on the website. You can email me for previous ones and subscribe for the latest.
Enjoy!
YouTube, the jewel of the internet (5 min. read)
“Verdi supposedly said that you can have the universe if he could keep Italy. You can have the internet if I can keep YouTube. It has a greater trove of content than Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime combined and squared. It enfolds high and low culture with the promiscuity of a Clive James essay. When the dilettante in me starts a project — language-learning, getting into opera — it is indispensable. For banal life — how to fix an LG sound bar — it is even harder to do without. Before I visit a city, a YouTube channel will give me a sense of the texture of street life there in high-def.”
A Child’s Plaything (1 min. read)
“Imagine if we could somehow show the people of the eighteenth century a simple child’s toy from today — say, a speaking doll.
The common folk would marvel at its ability to speak its few stock phrases. The scientists and engineers would marvel even more at its innards; at the minutely detailed silicon; at the bewildering complexity soon to be within their grasp.
But the economists would be amazed.”
There’s plenty of room at the top (3 min. read)
“This means that it is highly probable that you, like everyone else, are currently functioning way below your genetic constraint. Trying to maximize your potential and worrying about your constraint, then, is almost like trying to build a really fast aircraft and worrying about the speed of light.
Your highest genetic expression might not be humanity’s all-time high but it may be higher than anything any human has ever expressed.”
Glass Animals - Heat Waves (song of the month)
The Morning After I Killed Myself (5 min. video)
You Will Never Do Anything Remarkable (10 min. video)
Conversation with Anurag Kashyap (1.2 hour interview (subtitles present))
Arcane (Netflix animated TV series)
“The benefit from asking a stupid sounding question is small in most particular instances, but the compounding benefit over time is quite large and I've observed that people who are willing to ask dumb questions and think “stupid thoughts” end up understanding things much more deeply over time.”
- Dan Luu
Fin.
That was a good quote to end the post 👌🏽