Ejaad-Nama: A Pundamic Year!
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. Big thanks to a couple of new subscribers since the last newsletter. Welcome and feel free to comment, criticize, contribute, call out, and so on. If you still have not done so, you can do so here:
Year 2020. It’s been a pundamic year. It really got viral. It caught up to almost everyone. We just had to cough it up for a lot of things. Any jokes about the pandemic have been ill-advised. Yet they remain very catchy. I will stop spreading the puns, otherwise everyone’s gonna get it. Those were the last ones. Yep, pretty positive.
I started writing this newsletter this year. It was born out of lockdown with a heavy inspiration coming from my good friend Asad Memons Memon Monday newsletter, where he curates unique things he discovers over the internet which are truly more educational than informational.
My inspiration was similar but not identical. I started out writing a newsletter that simply would aim to promote science, electronics, and general maker culture in my country. I realized this need when I met the owner of a maker space who had just closed it down permanently.
But quickly, the newsletter became a self-discovery and self-learning medium for me. Writing helps me to actually know what I am thinking. Or in other words, reading your written thoughts again is a great way to criticize yourself. If I am stuck on something, I am my own rubber duck debugger with my writing.
The benefits of how writing makes you a better engineer is done best by Surjan Singh in his newsletter:
For your sake and mine, I read On Writing Well. This sentence stood out to me: “Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.”
Big thanks to my readers!
Other than self-learning, what keeps me going is also the contribution that I have seen from you as a reader. Thank you for reading, giving your time, and giving me feedback sometimes.
There have been some who sent in their paintings and some helped in creating the logo for the newsletter. On November 2nd, It was the first time I sent out a readers edition of the newsletter that was a compilation of all the projects done by my readers and regular contributors. To all of them, I say Thank you!
I was delighted to know that the newsletter could inspire many to complete their projects and document them for others to inspire. To some extent, I consider the purpose of the newsletter as served (And keep on serving).
Going Forward… By Aqeel Arshad
We have bad-mouthed Year 2020 a lot. So much so that it may have sometimes felt that when we wake up on 1 Jan 2021, the world will already be returned to normal. Unfortunately, to me, that feels like a wish. However, the world has grown to live with it or will. The offices have shrunk, but interestingly, Co-working spaces have seen a huge boom in the last few years esp. in both developed countries and developing countries. To my surprise, I mere google search led to my multiple places marked over the google maps. According to one of the co-working space providers, the market size in Pakistan is between $900 million to $1 billion. While Covid-19 restrictions temporarily are halting the growth but big companies are downsizing and shifting their employees to shared spaces temporarily.
This Christmas, I am staying with my parents in Lahore, Pakistan. I have to work a few days and I have planned to work at one of the co-working spaces as they provide day passes starting 2.5 € for a desk, Coffee is complimentary.
The world will adjust and so will we. Thanks for reading us!
Let us repair the world in 2021 together. Happy New Year!
If you would like to send in your projects and hacks to be part of the newsletter, please do comment below, or email me: a.nadeem89@gmail.com. Leave your feedback in the comments about the content. and subscribe here, and share the newsletter with your friend.