Sara’s Weekly Update #3

Welcome to my newsletter! I write down my thoughts & opinions on the topics I read/watch in the last week. My topics of interests are wide, please feel free to skip to the topic you like.

This’ the last newsletter for this year. I am going to take a break for next two weeks & enjoy the holidays with the family and back next year. Wish you all a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas & Happy new year!

Nuclear Fusion (#science #energy)

It is a big breakthrough in fusion. Fusion is how the stars produce energy, and we want to try to mimic the stars and see if we can keep producing endless clean energy cheaply. So far the amount of energy spent to create fusion reactions is more than the energy produced. The breakthrough here is that the net energy produced is greater than the energy spent to create the fusion. Still a lot of work is ahead to commercialize it, but It’s definitely a confidence booster to invest more & be hopeful for a better future. Can’t wait for the world with endless clean energy, we are going to more productivity, have clean air to breath & reduce global warming!

LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE).

https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-achieves-fusion-ignition 

Moving (#general)

Came across another study from the recent Census data this week. This one shows top cities where millennials move to & move from. Cities in the Sunbelt states are gaining, and coastal cities & northern cities are losing. 

https://smartasset.com/data-studies/where-millennials-are-moving-2022 

Inflation (#economy)

Inflation is going down, it’s better than expected, that's good! Still a long way to go. But at least it assures what the FED is doing is working. Along with China reopening, should ease the supply chain issues and hopefully by next year end inflation should look better, 🤞.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/13/heres-the-inflation-breakdown-for-november-2022-in-one-chart.html

It's painful now with higher interest rates, but I see Powell's point: we need to go through this short term pain to avoid the long term suffering like in the 70's. The Fed increased 0.5 basis points this week and they are going to increase some more in coming months before they take a pause. 

The US economy is a huge system, and it got disrupted big time during Covid. I feel it's very much like a pendulum. External force pushed it too far on one side, and it's going to swing back to the other side, and keep swing back & forth like this & eventually it slows down and settles, unless there are any other major external forces. Same here is what might happen is my thinking. Fed’s rate decrease pushed the economy to over heat, and now with rate increase it might push it to recession. Then the Fed will start decreasing the interest rate again to get the desired growth. It's going to take a few cycles to get the economy back to a steady state.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/14/fed-rate-decision-december-2022.html

SBF Arrested (#finance)

SBF was arrested in the Bahamas, which was expected, but it was quick. FTX’s new CEO Ray said to Congress that the company was run like a rookie, didn’t have any book keeping & it used quickbooks. A multibillion dollar company using quickbooks for book keeping!! 

Was reading about Mr Ray, he is an interesting guy. He created a niche for himself as a restructuring CEO, and came to know he is the one who cleaned up the Enron mess too. And he charges $1300 per hour and of course it will be paid by the FTX users fund.

Longevity (#health)

Watched so many videos of Dr. Fauci in the last couple years. He was taking so much heat from the right wing media & got death threats. I felt sorry for him. I think he tried his best, nobody can get these things correct in the first shot, the last pandemic we had was in 1918.

He is leaving NIAID. He is 81 & worked 18 hours a day! I thought he might be in his 60’s. I wish I could be active like him in the 80's. Here are some tips from him for a long healthy life: Have a Purpose, moderate activity (he walks everyday in the morning), and don't eat anything in excess. Similar things is what mentioned in the Ikigai book too, which I read last year.

 

Here’s another good video on healthy life by Dr. Chokalingam. He is a well known cardiologist from TN. My Uncle from India sent me this video in Whatsapp.

Some of the tips from him are

1. Reduce stress, be at ease & have a positive attitude toward life. Negativity & stress kills you. Too much Adrenaline due to stress & negative thoughts are the culprits here.

2. Eat right - try to eat in moderation (same as Fauci). Better to avoid or use the oils rarely, that thickens at room temperature like Ghee & Coconut oil. 

3. Be active, people can choose whatever activity they like be it a sports, gym or brisk walking.

Also keep Aspirin handy, take it as soon as possible when you feel a chest pain along with shoulder pain & shortness of breaths. It can save lives. It gives more time to get to a hospital. Aspirin is a blood thinner, it helps to make blood flow easily even in narrow space when you have blocks in the heart vessels. 

Aspirin saved the actor Antonio Benders too. I remember this interview from a few years ago. 

Respect for Marriage Act

The Respect for Marriage act was signed by President Biden. These are definitely personal choices and should be left to the individuals, government has no business in this. Good that it’s codified, else one day the Supreme Court can deny these rights like happened with the abortion rights for the women. Congress should work towards codifying the abortion rights too.

 

Myths of Indian Cooking (#health)

This chat resonated with us a lot. Happy to see that what we do is not that crazy 😊. We both have a demanding full time job & have three kids, life gets busy sometimes. At the same time we want to eat healthy food, so we consciously made a decision & switched to the frozen cut veggies & fruits a year back & it dramatically reduced our cooking overhead & increased our intake of veggies & fruits. Also we have been doing meal prep for the last 6+ years. We get comments from Indian friends & family that it's not healthy to eat frozen or reheating the food from the fridge. As far as I researched online from reputable studies & in some health books I did not find any evidence that it's not healthy. Glad to see doctors from our culture breaking some of these myths. Now I am intrigued to read the Masala Lab book.

How To Raise Successful People (#book)

I read the chapter 5 this week. It’s about Grit. below some of the highlights from the book.

Give Your Child Grit

Grit is a popular buzzword in parenting and education. It means sticking with something no matter how hard it is or how much adversity you must face to achieve it. That’s my definition.

The idea behind “immigrant grit” is that those who fought to leave their countries and remake their lives are by definition determined and focused.

Overprotective helicopter parenting has resulted in children who don’t know how to do anything for themselves, let alone overcome fears and challenges and failures. They cry when they don’t get the snack or toy they want. This is not a tragedy, but they can make you feel like it is. They’re used to their parents giving in, and in some cases, catering to their every whim. They’re not asked to do anything uncomfortable, so as adolescents they’re way more conservative, and way more afraid. They’re absolutely terrified to take risks.

Learning comes when students are willing to take risks. Otherwise, it is called memorizing.

Picture your average tiger or helicopter parents who set countless, sky-high goals for their children. Sometimes it works. They do instill a brand of grit in a child who’s expected to be number one in all activities. She will be the perfect student and get into the perfect college. She will be the next Mozart. There are many kids who rise to the challenge despite all the pressure. They meet these insane goals and even surpass them. They’re incredibly tough and resilient and high-achieving. But for almost all kids in these circumstances, the source of their grit is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of not being loved by their parents if they bring home a B+. Fear of not actually being the next Mozart (which is virtually certain to be the case).

Encourage your child to stand up for what is right—from an early age. It’s okay for kids to talk back, as long as they’re being respectful. Parents who silence their kids are teaching the wrong skills. They are teaching them not to speak up about things that matter to them. Respect is important, but so is having a voice.

We all want to give our kids a better or abundant life, but overindulgence can rob them of the desire to work hard for something. If kids get whatever they want, they never struggle, they never understand the real value of pursuing something, and they don’t develop their creativity and grit.

Family Updates (#family)

We decorated out Christmas tree. It was late this year, as we were in the midst of showing our house. My effort is to put the tree & lights, decoration is done by Swapna & kids 😊

Lot of snow in MN this week, and kids want to have some fun in the snow.

We watched Spin in Disney+, not sure how we missed it so far. Good that they had a section “Stories matter” & had all the movies where the lead characters are from the minority (Women, black, asian & East Indian)

We all liked it, Nila enjoyed it the most as she was able to relate to the character a lot. I hope we can get more content like this where it covers the second generation Indians born into the western culture. On this line we watched Ms Marvel this summer & that was also very relatable to us & our kids.