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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 176 // Week 12 // 2020

March 21, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Writing this on the first Home-Quarantine Weekend. I’ve been working from home since this past Monday and have been seeing a lot of new things (firsts things) happening in my lifetime, some things are happening for the first time even in my parent’s lifetime. It’s a crazy world right now. But we gotta maintain sanity.

PM Modi has announced a Janta Curfew (One-day stay-home for people of India) for this Sunday in India and on Sunday (22nd March 2020) at 5 pm (Indian time) all citizens are suggested to take 5 mins from their lives and clap and ring bells or Thalis (dish plate ringing is a sign of good, used in some cultures when a new baby is born) to encourage the people on the front-lines, i.e. health workers, govt workers who are working on essential services and all the police and related departments. It’s going to be interesting to see the entire country clapping and ringing bells at the same time (sounds crazy right?).

As I mentioned a lot of first time things above, I meant, seeing streets empty entirely without a single person, the air so fresh that it feels like Nineteenth century. The insanity of daily life (the monotony) has been broken. People are staying home, starting to play board games again, staying in touch with families more. Even though the hatred of communalism still remains but for this cause (fight against Corona Virus) at least the World seems united.

My first week Working From Home went fine, as I got all the setups done and connected and was able to function 100% from home for work. So that made things calmer.

I’m feeling grateful to have been given the chance to work from home because a lot of my friends and close ones are still being forced to come to office and work even in these turbulent time. I’m hoping govt will do something about it shortly. But in these trying times, we gotta stay strong and maintain our cool.

Coming on to the book listening progress, I’m almost done with “The Sign of the Four” book (90% done) from Sherlock Holmes series and with “Nonviolent Communication” (80% done). Closing in, to the goal.

This past week I also released an informative video on Corona Virus (COVID-19) that too in Hindi language (English video is also coming soon). Check it out at the end section of this newsletter.

Stay safe, Be home and help flatten the curve.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 176 // Week 12 // 2020

A resource I found really useful for Working from Home situation —

Remote Life Resources — This amazing repository (Google Doc) was shared by a friend. It contains resources on remote learning, remote exercising, mental health, activities for adults/kids, and how to help out with the #COVID19 situation. Check it out, it might be really useful to you as well.

A course I’m loving (making some better use of the home quarantine time) —

Voice-over Course – As I’m a Podcaster and do Interviews and also do YouTube videos as well, so screen presence and voice delivery become very crucial. I’m still working on my screen presence and yet to find a good course. But for voice-over, I found this particular course by a South-African professional voice over artist really good. I’m learning from this course truly.

If you are also a podcaster or YouTuber or anyone who wants to improve their public speech. This is a good online course to start with.

A new product which got me excited —

The new Apple iPad Pro (2020) – The iPad when it was launched (3 April 2010) almost 10 years back, disrupted a lot of myths about tablets.

Before the iPad, the tablets were being used just as good to have devices to watch Netflix of movies on. But after the iPad, it all changed. The Medical profession started depending on the iPad for a lot of stuff in day to day life. So did engineering jobs.

But it still didn’t become the personal computer fully, which could be used in place of a laptop. Finally, after the recent transformation of OS for iPad to iPadOS, iPad comes drastically close to a real PC or Mac. The latest iPad Pro (2020) takes it a notch further with a lot of great features like a floating keyboard cover design, trackpad support and cursor control. It’s still not a computer but it’s a supercomputer.

Check out Apple’s official intro –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09_QxCcBEyU

An article I found captivating –

One Thing which Separates Great Leaders From All the Rest – This article shares Steve Jobs’ thought process about leadership and how he cultivated leadership at a higher level in his organizations. How he distils this mindset in his management team that – great leaders don’t offer excuses or reasons for why they failed. It makes them own the problems and their solutions as well.

If you are interested in people skills and leadership. This article is a great read.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

We have stopped seeing emotions, we judge each other by the emojis these days and most of the time real and physically present emotion win against an emoji.
From one of my conversations with my close circle friend

Before saying “see you next week”
Check out this informative video I made on Coron Virus (COVID-19) in Hindi (first Hindi Video ever). If you are interested in more Hindi content, please subscribe and click the bell icon for notification of new videos. –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 176 // Week 12 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 175 // Week 11 // 2020

March 14, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Hope you are safe and taking precautions to prevent COVID-19 exposure! In the past week, the situation has escalated to another level. Nearly 4000 plus people are dead worldwide and most of the countries are taking extreme caution steps like locking down entire cities.

Even my own office management has asked us to work from home, keeping in mind the situation and the risk associated with travel to the office.

This whole situation made me pause for a while and think about this year. Since the start of 2020, there have been many tragedies until now. Like Kobe Bryant death, Delhi Riots, Australian Bush Fires and now this COVID-19 worldwide spread. All of it sounds like straight out of the book of the apocalypse.

But humankind is always hopeful. I hope we get through this scare as well.

From another perspective, it also seems like a way of earth balancing life. Humans have done too much harm and seem like nature is taking it’s toll now by all these events.

I really wish and want that we humans do better with the environment, the earth and the treat other sentient beings with dignity as well. That seems like the only way to return back to the equilibrium with nature because this is the only pale blue dot we got to live.

I’m personally taking steps to reduce my carbon footprint by reducing plastic in my life, avoiding burning fossil fuel and being mindful of everything I consume and do.

This Corona Virus situation may be a turning point in history when we look back from the future, it may seem like it taught us how nature can give us back what we give to her. It also taught corporates to get better at making people work from home, travelling less, burning less or no fuel for travelling and social distancing.

I’m also making a video on the whole Corona Virus situation which may help people to understand the situation and not panic. Being Alert is the need of the hour and not being anxious.

Last week we had couple of holidays in India. Holi is one of them. The festival of colors. But this time it was not as colourful due to the COVID-19. I also celebrated it along with my family at home only with a small tikka of colour.

Coming on to the book listening progress, I’m at 75% with “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series and with “Nonviolent Communication” (50% done). Inching closer to the goal. Yay!

This week I also released a different kind of video (with a lot of B-Rolls) – The 90 Mins Morning routine. (Check it out at the end section of this newsletter).

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 175 // Week 11 // 2020

A video I found really useful to learn more about COVID-19 —

CoronaVirus (COVID-19) – The Basics – Ali Abdaal does a great job explaining about the situation of COVID-19 and what actions to take. Check this out. I’m aiming to create a similar video with keeping in mind Indian situations.

A person I’m curious to know more about (Maybe a podcast episode brewing…Psss) —

Pallavi Jha – She’s the Chairperson and Managing Director of Dale Carnegie Training India. Pallavi has worked with more than 8,000 organizations to date and has equipped countless companies with the skills needed to scale in India’s competitive, dynamic economy.

A powerful personality. Check out this video –

A song I loved —

Kaheen Main Khirki to nahin – Discovered this new song on SoundCloud.

Mehdi Maloof has done an interesting job with this song.

Check it out it’s a little different –

A TedTalk I found interesting –

How technology frames reality – I found this TedTalk accidentally but loved the very different perspective it shared.

How technology is framing reality and how our perception has become a real estate to sell ads. It also shares a web browser plugin prototype which helps shape the digital content and show us how things really are instead of the photoshopped versions.

Check it out –

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.
Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Before saying “see you next week”
Here is the video I released in last week – The 90 Mins Morning Routine. This is what I follow currently for a powerful and productive day. Check it out –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 175 // Week 11 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 174 // Week 10 // 2020

March 7, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Happy Women’s Day to all the amazing and lovely women in our lives. More power to you!

Here is a video from the humans of Bombay where 4 different generations of women writer letter to their younger selves.

Coming to the past week, I had a productive week at the office but wasn’t very much productive creatively. Hopefully, this coming week will be more creative. I was able to put in exercise for a couple of days and I tried to sleep on time and replenish my neurons as well as recover. Giving your body and mind, time and space is more important than anything we do.

Coming on to the book listening progress, I’ve finished Homo Deus finally and moved with “The Sign of the Four” more (almost 50% done), I started a new book as well – “Nonviolent Communication” (5% done). So this month I’ve to finish another book from the Sherlock Holmes series to reach 6 books in March end.

Enjoy today’s Saturday-Pentacle. (Delayed a bit due to the podcast episode release this weekend, check it out at the end of the page.)

Issue 174 // Week 10 // 2020

A Podcast I loved —

Agla Station Podcast – This is a brand new show hosted by one of our podcast group member – Priyanka Ganwani (of Fork Media). She’s done a brilliant job on this one. The production value of the first episode even speaks for itself.

In Agla Station podcast, she explores different Mumbai Local stations and talks to people who make these station working.

The whole idea of this podcast is very creative but sounds like so much work put into the production. Glad to see someone doing courageous production.

Highly recommend listening to this podcast. Here is the first episode for you to start with –

A piece of information I found really useful — Amid the panics of COVID-19 (Corona Virus) spreading throughout the world. Kevin Rose (One of my favourite people) discussed the matter on this show (The Kevin Rose Show) with Dr Andrew Weil to share more insights about the situations and few immunity-boosting herbs and others things.

One of these may sound like a superstition but it’s not. It’s a scientific fact that consuming Garlic in raw form (10 mins after it’s cut into the piece), releases Allicin, which is a great source of immunity-boosting. This might help you in contracting the COVID-19 (Corona Virus) by the means of boosting your immunity.

Check out the quick 20 mins episode if you wanna learn more –

A short film I loved —

DICKS: Do you need to be one to be a successful leader? – This short film by one of my favourite filmmakers – Max Joseph, is just so well thought of and made.

In this short film, he explores if to be a successful leader you need to be a dick?

Check out this video –

A documentary I loved –

Facing Putin – Last week I stumbled upon this NatGeo Series called Facing Icons, especially the episode of Putin.

This episode explores the controversies around Putin, how he became the face of Power in Russia. The facts mentioned are just so intimidating but fascinating at the same time. Check it out (link above).

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

They say age brings wisdom, but it isn’t true.
All you ever get is a better sense of your own limitations.
Curtis Edmonds

Before saying “see you next week”
Here is a podcast episode I published in the past week. Episode 19 with Rajat Ubhaykar. We talk about his 10000kms hitchhiking journey, his book Truck De India, his writing process and more.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3adAgWZ7udpexep98bnLKZ?si=zT1aBWovR7aEWreDY1604g

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 174 // Week 10 // 2020