Ejaad-Nama 0x15: The Art of Reading
Ejaad-Nama (Urdu: Letters of Invention). We talk about lemons, acid batteries, and anything in between.
Ejaad-Nama is the word from the Urdu language which means Letters of Invention. Ejaad-nama is about improving scientific literacy and normalizing it. It’s a step towards removing the barriers to learn science and develop further interest and excitement. You can subscribe here to get the regular update in your inbox:
In the last couple of weeks and months, I have been reading. Not making. Not breaking. Not 3d printing. No pun and games. Just reading.
This might be evident from my recent Ejaadnama posts. It started with :
What knot to do: A research paper that explained why do any string or wire keeps tangling and makes a huge blob. I found the experiments and the mathematical theories so interesting that I just had to simplify them. If not for you, for my own sake.
Exploring Problems of High Altitude: A tribute to the lost mountaineers. I tried to understand the conditions and problems that happen at high altitudes.
Both of the issues I wrote were because of reading. Whenever I encounter something interesting or I feel deeply interested in, I usually end up reading and consuming a lot of content related to it. Many times it’s just the same point being repeated differently. Yet every articulation to me is looking at the same thing from a different perspective or tells me something about the writer himself.
However, often I find myself in discussions and debates about how Videos, TV, and Animations save so much time in learning something. This argument is usually followed up with reading with no text being very boring.
Both the arguments are actually understandable. In my experience, Reading is hard. Usually, when you watch a movie for instance: The expression of the actor tells you what the moods like and the music will dictate how you ought to feel about the situation. Good movies use this to impart complex emotions to the audience.
During the activity of reading though, this has to be done by you. You overdrive your brain to do everything for you when you read. There are no visual cues. There are no auditory cues. Your imagination has to fill in to make a visual that only you can see. That’s why reading can be more tiring than consuming visual content.
I personally prefer to read technical knowledge rather than following a video lecture for example. I can choose to focus on specific parts of the write-up to absorb each word and control the speed at which I am reading. I can instantly re-read specific parts until I am satisfied with my understand before moving on.
And with that pre-commentary about why I love reading, I am going to leave you today with the following lengthy reads broadly about Technology which I thoroughly enjoyed:
Story of Sega: How Mega Drive beat out Nintendo. This a well-written story about SEGA's aggressive marketing to beat Mario of Nintendo with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Why Is Apple’s M1 Chip So Fast? Everyone (Youtube, Social Media) is raving about how good Apple’s new M1 chip is so good. However, I have not read anything about the how and why except for Apple’s own Marketing speak. This long written piece is very objective and written for almost everyone who is into technology.
Making of Crash Bandicoot. This one is a series of blog posts highlighting how Crash Bandicoot was made to fit into just 2 MB of PlayStation 1 RAM. The write-up is casual and the best second-hand experience one can get.
Sophisticated Soviet spy radio discovered buried in former forest in Germany
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