5SR - April 24, 2024
Hitha on Voyager-1, congestion, and the far reaching impact of a TikTok ban
A quick refresher - I’m Hitha Palepu, the founder of
. If you’d like to connect with me elsewhere, I’m most active on Instagram and write a weekly newsletter about smart, random things (check out the most recent issue).Well, hello, Voyager 1! The venerable spacecraft is once again making sense (NPR)
Do you ever think about old space probes, just floating out in space without us knowing what they’re seeing or doing? Or are you normal?
Either way, NASA finally restoring communication with Voyager 1 this week is a pretty significant step in our exploration of the universe, especially as the probe is currently in interstellar space (and beyond our solar system). After months of incoherent messages, Voyager-1 is transmitting usable data again and is expected to until its power runs out.
Go forth, Voyager. And bravo to the Voyager team at NASA for identifying the issue and coding a fix.
Allison Janney and Leslie Bibb on ‘Palm Royale,’ Suffering Through Their 1960s Looks and Playing Wordle With Carol Burnett (The Hollywood Reporter)
“There’s a lot of people…who want to hold on to the past and they don’t want to move to the future. And that is a theme that is very much in our world right now with countries that don’t want to move forward and others that do. What’s causing a lot of friction is those people who don’t want to, who want to hold on to the past.”
That this phrase is fairly timeless (and especially prescient right now) is slightly terrifying. Allison Janney said it about her character in Palm Royale (set in 1960s Palm Beach), and it holds true for a powerful minority of people in this country, today.
I loved this interview with Janney and Leslie Bibb, both for the behind-the-scenes peeks of the show and their reflections on their characters compared with women today.
Come for the impeccable costumes and sets, stay for the very real parallels between the Nixon era and our present day.
I’ve been easing back into a journaling practice in the evenings, and I wanted to share a gratitude prompt that I’ve been really enjoying:
I am grateful for ___, because it/she/him/they taught me ___.
While I only jot down 3-4 things I’m grateful for in this format, I feel a deeper sense of gratitude and connection with them when I follow this practice, and I find myself listing new things/people/memories that I wouldn’t necessarily have listed before.
What Was Revealed When British Officials Calculated How Much a Colonial Subject’s Life Was Worth (TIME)
“1921 was likely the first and only large-scale compensation for Indian families under British imperial control. British officials were adamant that the payments did not set a precedent and were eager to make them discreetly, burying the procedure, at times, in misclassified files in the archive. These files across London, Delhi, and Chandigarh show a deep racialized and gendered disparity in the value attributed to Indian and European lives, as well as the care distributed to their surviving family members or maimed subjects making such claims. Today, practices of compensation and reparations are still sorted through similar legal structures that echo those very racial disparities.”
This was barely over 100 years ago. And the fact that the same calculus for reparations still exists today - with all the knowledge we have - is truly horrific.
This isn’t an easy read, but it’s an incredibly important one. Colonialism and imperialism is far from eliminated, and lives on in both obvious and secretive ways.
How to Clear a Stuffy Nose Fast—And Get Back to Breathing Normally (SELF)
Where are my fellow allergy sufferers at?
If you’re perpetually congested right now, these reminders are necessary (and the rationale behind each are really helpful in understanding why they’re recommended).
I especially needed the reminders on the various kinds of nasal spray and what and what not to use. I started using blackseed and olive oil drops a few months back (when I was dealing with winter congestion) and it’s been a lifesaver - barely any congestion or runny noses *knocks on wood*
ByteDance’s web of apps could get tangled up in TikTok ban (Axios)
If CapCut and Hypic are part of your content workflow, or you’re using Gauth to help your kids with their homework…you may want to consider other options in case TikTok is banned.
Why? Because these apps are owned by ByteDance (which also owns TikTok), and the current legislation being considered by the Senate may force ByteDance to divest from any of the apps that are available in the United States, or else face a similar ban.
While I’m still fairly skeptical that a ban would actually be enforced, I am concerned that over a quarter of the 100 most downloaded apps are owned by foreign companies. A more serious issue is that we are way too lax in our personal digital security habits, and ill-intended players likely have hacked our phones and possess our sensitive information - and this can and will only get worse the more we download and use the apps everyone else is using.
If I may offer a single piece of advice, it’s to begin using a password manager (I love Dashlane), change your passwords, and enable 2-factor authentication wherever you can. I’d also avoid logging into sensitive apps on public WiFi networks as well.