The Thinker's Digest #8

Your fortnightly dose of brain food

Author

Nishant Bhide
October 30, 2023

Turning the ocean water into drinking water

Dear Thinker,

After the air we breathe, water is the most importance resource we need for our survival. In our quest for interplanetary existence, this is the first thing we look for as a sign of life. Despite having an abundance, we’re running out of water that we can consume. Don’t worry, it’s not all despair. In this week’s headlining article, we look at a potential solution to this water crisis.

This week, I’ve also added something new. At the end of the edition you’ll see a new section called “App of the Week”. To give you a background and why you should trust my recommendation, let me put it plainly - I am a sucker when it comes to trying and testing the new applications. This compulsive interest has led me into wasting a lot of money and time. So I thought, let at least someone benefit from it! So, every edition, I’ll be sharing a tried and tested application that I found useful and interesting. I have no affiliations to them, just stuff I genuinely liked. Hope you benefit from them too!

Since I’ve already said a lot in this week’s intro, I’ll save you some time and let you dig straight in. Stay curious!

Brain Food

Only 2.5% of the Earth’s water is fresh and fit for human consumption. The rest is filled with salt. As our population increases, the stress on the existing water supply and our dependence on rainfall is scary. Scientists have already predicted that the next wars will be over water. In India, we’ve already experienced a sample of this as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu fight over the Kaveri River (despite both having a long coastline).

It’s obvious we need to turn to the ocean. The problem is that the seemingly simple process of removing salt from water consumes excessive energy. Most countries cannot afford this cost. The Middle East, a region having almost no lakes or rivers didn’t have a choice but to invest in this process. Oil money and cheap fossil fuels helped them immensely. With the advent of renewable energy and improvements in desalination technology, the rest of the world is also waking up to this potential. This article explores the various options and probabilities.

Photographer and artist Sohei Nishino has a unique way of capturing the ethos of a city through his lens. I’d let his words explain the concept as mine won’t do justice to his genius.

“Cities are always “amplifying” themselves repeatedly. They emerge and disappear as they continue to integrate themselves. With a camera in hand, I walk through specific cities to take photographs—those of birds’s eye views, of views captured by looking up above me or views from various locations along the road.” This explanation is too modest, to entice you, here’s a picture of New Delhi!

New Delhi as imagined by Sohei Nishino

In the year 1989, premier music award show - the Grammy’s, refused to add Hip-Hop as an award category. Fast forward to 2023 and now the Grammy’s are dominated by this genre. The edgy style, unmatched swagger, rambunctiousness and in-your-face sexuality captured the imagination of an entire generation. This article charts the origins and the rise of a genre that originated in South Bronx.

Gurus, mystics, philosophers and many others have tried to deduce and explain the meaning of consciousness. This discussion usually leads to abstract paths that you alone can follow and decipher. Rather than explain it spiritually, this article tries to address this concept scientifically. I believe, understanding and drawing conclusions of what consciousness is, is personal. I will reserve my comments since you might arrive at something completely different after reading this. But be prepared, this article doesn’t give you answers, it forces you to think.

There is a certain old-world charm to the luxurious experiences people enjoyed in the 19th and 20th century. Access to them was reserved to a certain few and the middle class only dreamed of ever having the chance to be treated like royalty. The 21st century has seen a significant reduction in this gap and experiences like flying, travelling to exotic countries and living in fancy hotels are now accessible to many.

The Orient Express was one such experience that back in the day, people killed to have. However, lack of demand saw a gradual decline in the service and the puzzling disappearance of many Orient Express carriages. Now, with the revival of experiential travel, Accor Group is looking to restart this iconic train, but first it has to find the missing carriages!

App of the Week

Wondering what to do with all the leftovers in your fridge ? Taste Bud whips up a recipe once you let it know. It you don’t like the first one, it will keep giving you more till you end up liking one. A really handy tool now that our fridges will get loaded during Diwali!

If you enjoyed this edition, subscribe to Beyond the Horizon and get access to information that will increase your knowledge and quench your curiosity.

Here are some earlier posts to give you a sense of the topics covered in this newsletter -