Siddhesh Recommends - July 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.
Click any of the titles for the link.
You can view all previous recommendations here.
Underrated reasons to be thankful (10 min. read)
“2. That the Earth hasn’t recently been hit by a solar flare as powerful as the 1859 Carrington event, which is good because that would set electrical lines around the world on fire, meaning months of power outages and simultaneous failures of food, transport, and medical systems.
[…]
12. That private life exists and that markets, while we all (some?) appreciate their power to allocate resources, don’t permeate every single part of life, that there are moments of beauty and grace that aren’t best understood as competition and harnessed selfishness.”
Most recommended.
How the piano helped me fall back in love with tech (5 min. read)
“The piano itself, or rather its keyboard, made me very angry. Who designed this foolishness? Seven white keys, five black ones, all arranged around one scale, forcing you to twist up your fingers to play anything else. It’s a legacy interface, the Unix of music. Of course, as I learned more, I began to understand why things are the way they are.”
The Best Performance in Oppenheimer Belongs to Alden Ehrenreich (7 min. read)
“The Senate aide in "Oppenheimer" is clearly used to being the quiet man in the room, the punching bag against whom others launch their egos. His smile is halfway between charm and smarm, with Ehrenreich excelling with those side glances at Strauss as he enters another rant about his battle of attrition with J. Robert Oppenheimer. Everything the aide says feels loaded with subtext, the ruthless efficiency of a worn-down Washington professional.”
Good Oppenheimer Tweets
Lucky Ali - Mausam (song of the month)
AbeBooks (website)
If you’re in the US, abebooks.com is the best place online that you could be buying any kind of books from. The site is smooth, they have any title you could want, the books are cheap, and the shipping cost is minimal. Good stuff.
Oppenheimer x Breaking Bad funny edit (2 min. video)
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - funny skit (2 min. video)
Lionel Messi’s first start for Inter Miami - highlights (4 min. video)
Carlos Alcaraz vs Novak Djokovic: Wimbledon Final Highlights (6 min. video)
Simulation of a Nuclear Blast in a Major City (7 min. video)
Why the US didn't Nuke Tokyo in WW-2 (19 min. video)
A Complete History of Robert Oppenheimer (30 min. video)
Flowers for Algernon (1966 sci-fi novel)
(AbeBooks | Amazon US | Amazon India)
“Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence…”
Apart from being one of the most famous novels of the 20th century, Flowers for Algernon is one of the more powerful stories I’ve read in recent memory.
Without spoiling anything, its one of those works of art that leaves you utterly, completely shattered at the end. Mesmerizing and devastating.
That is an amazing song. Thanks for the links!