13 Animals, Clock Lab, Flatpack Toaster & How to Write a Book

#64 of 10+1 Things | Abu Dhabi

View of Lakegala Mountain from Meemure.

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I have been traveling for the major part of April, first to Sri Lanka for 10 days, then a week in Chennai at my in-laws' to attend a wedding and spending the rest of the time with my mother. The first half of the Sri Lanka trip I did solo and it was a refreshing experience since I haven't traveled solo in a long time. From an old blog post from 2013, I came to know about a village called Meemure, a remote village with minimal facilities and decided to go there with no expectations. I stayed with a family at their home, eating what they eat and had a wonderful experience.

I have traveled to a few countries and places in the past, but this was the first time I was at a place where people could speak no English as they mainly speak Sinhala. In fact, even for numbers and stuff, my host Ajith used to type on his numpad and show me. Luckily, before I went there, as a backup I had downloaded the Google Translate Sinhala-to-English version. It worked fairly well and was our only form of communication. On my last evening with Ajith, we sat by a fire while it was drizzling in the valleys, overlooking the mountains, sipping locally made toddy with Google Translate between us. Gotta love technology for moments like these!

Without further ado, here are 10+1 things I thought were worth sharing this week:

💡 YOUTH - and when it's gone.

I'm at a loss for words after reading this beautiful, melancholic piece by Jared Young. It’s about a writer who obsessed over becoming an "exceptional young writer" in his twenties, creating a timeline of when his literary heroes published their debuts. The essay explores how youth acts as this magical shield where mistakes are forgiven and successes seem miraculous, but once you're older, expectations shift completely. What struck me most was how relatable his anxiety about time feels - that creeping realization that certain dreams might have expiration dates attached to them.

⛪ The Church FAQ

I randomly stumbled upon this FAQ by John Scalzi about a church he bought in his small Ohio town for just $75,000. What started as a search for office space for his new company turned into owning a former Methodist church from 1919 when he couldn't find suitable commercial real estate nearby. After two years of major renovations (new roof, electricity, floors), they now use it as office space, host family gatherings, and he's got his dream library setup in the old balcony area, complete with a six-necked guitar sitting on the altar that surprises everyone who visits.

💬 Genetic Lottery

I came across this interesting discussion on Reddit where people shared the small ways they've won the genetic lottery! My god some people are truly blessed and some are weird as well. There's someone with 3 fully functional kidneys, others who don't react to mosquito bites at all, a person with absolute pitch who isn't even a musician, someone who never gets brain freeze, an Irishman who never gets hangovers despite drinking like any Irishman, a person with tetrachromacy allowing them to see colors outside the normal spectrum, and so many more fascinating traits. A very interesting thread!

🐍 Snake on a Globe

I found this brilliant twist on the classic Snake game called "Snake on a Globe" where instead of moving on a flat screen, you're navigating around a 3D globe to reach major cities worldwide. The concept is simple but genius - you can only move along lines of longitude and latitude, but since you're on a sphere, you can go around the poles or wrap around east-west. What makes it educational is that each apple corresponds to a real city, so you're testing your geographical knowledge while trying not to crash into yourself. Let me know your high scores!

🕐 Clock Lab

I don't even own a mechanical watch, but I have enjoyed watching mechanical watch videos on Youtube and when I saw this interesting project on Kickstarter, I couldn't resist sharing. It's called ClockLab by Clockface and it's a complete kit that teaches you to build your own mechanical watch from scratch with professional tools, video lessons, and all the components including case and dial. You get to choose between Aviator or Commander edition styles and by the end you'll have assembled a fully working watch that you actually understand inside and out. This seems like a great birthday gift for someone who is into mechanical watches!

✍️ How To Write A Book

I found this almost a decade old post by Ryan Holiday on How to Write a Book (Ego is the Enemy in this case) where he breaks down his two-year journey from vague idea to finished book. What's fascinating is seeing his actual process - starting with scribbled title ideas on 4x6 notecards in summer 2014, then figuring out the structure using Aristotle's three-part framework. That weird drawing he mentions was his breakthrough moment realizing we're all in one of three places: aspiring, succeeding, or dealing with failure, and they all feed back into each other. It's a rare behind-the-scenes look at how a bestselling author actually organizes their thoughts before the real writing begins.

📚 Tiny Experiments

Over the last couple of weeks I've been slowly reading and digesting this beautiful book called "Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World" by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. I've been following Anne via her newsletter for a while now and was excited when she released this book. It challenges the traditional linear approach to goals and instead proposes treating life as a series of small experiments guided by curiosity rather than rigid outcomes. What I love most is how she reframes uncertainty as an opportunity rather than something to fear, and shows how to use tiny experiments to discover what truly matters to you.

I loved this quote from the book:

“Just like in the myths, life is made of cycles of being lost and finding ourselves again.”

~ As always, resurfaced by Readwise (FREE!).
If you’re interested, read my review of Readwise.

📖 13 Animals

I wasn't aware of this, but the old Twitter logo (now known as 'X') was created using circles. Inspired by this technique, Dorota Pankowska published a fascinating project back in 2016 where she created 13 different animals using only 13 circles each! Her collection includes an owl, rabbit, elephant, toucan, giraffe, rat, dog, cat, fox, whale, frog, and walrus. It looks simple but I bet took tons of patience and skill to get each animal just right.

🍞 Flatpack Toaster

Credits: Kasey Hour

This week I had so much fun exploring this art/design project by Kasey Hou who created a toaster that comes completely flat-packed and can be assembled from scratch by users. The brilliant idea behind it is tackling e-waste - if people can build their toaster themselves, they'll understand how it works and feel confident enough to repair it when it breaks, rather than just throwing it away. What's impressive is that Hou went through multiple prototypes, from cardboard to metal, and the final version actually works and passes safety tests. I know sometimes the idea of assembling stuff can be daunting, but with so much e-waste piling up day by day, companies should really start developing products with right to repair in mind.

💨 I Miss My Regulator

A short rant by me on the frustrations of modern “smart” tech. Long story short, the new BLDC fan at my home in India came with a remote instead of the good old wall mounted regulator. It’s annoying having one more gadget to keep track of, batteries, buttons, and all. Do you also get irritated when simple, reliable tech gets needlessly replaced by complicated “smart” versions?

🎬 Lo-fi beats and Microfiche

This week I spent some time watching this lofi feed by Internet Archive that shows them digitizing documents in real time with some relaxing background music. I didn't know what a microfiche was so it's basically how you used to store multiple miniaturized documents on a single sheet of film - think old newspapers, court records, and government documents all shrunk down onto these cards. The feed runs Monday through Friday from 10:30AM to 6:30PM ET showing operators feeding these microfiche cards under high-resolution cameras, but outside those hours it has so many interesting silent films and historical NASA pictures on loop as well.

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That’s 10+1 Things for the week!

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With Love,
Rishi

“When a rainbow appears vividly in the sky, you can see its beautiful colors, yet you could not wear it as clothing or put it on as an ornament… there is nothing about it that can be grasped.”
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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