The Third Slip: Issue 129 - Space and spin
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that’s like the river Danube. We’ve been around for a while, but people still call us “Da, n00b!”, flooded with puns at times, dry and depressing at other times, meandering and long-winded for no apparent reason, but always inevitably feeding the universal constant that is the Black Sea.
This is issue 129. 129 of course, is 5 less than Steve Smith’s average in the ongoing Ashes series. But more importantly, it’s a sobering reminder of how long The Third Slip has been around - we were here when Steve Smith was the #1 test batsman in the world, and we’re still here when... um... he’s the #1 test batsman in the world. Death, Taxes, TTS, Steve Smith, and depressing news...
India
Tryst with density: At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world slept, India kept its eyes peeled to witness history. But despite coming very very close, ISRO finally lost communication with the lunar lander Vikram at the very last minute as it was about to perform an unprecedented soft landing on the South Pole of the moon. It has since been located by the orbiter, and likely had a hard landing. Nonetheless, Chandrayaan-2 is a tremendous achievement for Indian science as ISRO continues to be a constant source of inspiration for all of humanity.
The mountains cannot be calling, and you can’t go: Speaking of losing communication with integral parts, it’s been over a month since telephone lines and internet connection in Kashmir have been preventively shut down. Restrictions have been lifted and reimposed, there are reports of the first death of a teenager, crackdown on mosques, general chaos, and while US urges to ease restrictions, the government continues to assure us that everything is okay in Kashmir.
Detention headache: After the rush in putting out a list of supposed ‘illegal occupants’ in the NRC, the centre doesn’t look like it’s in any hurry to do a follow-up (even as an army official and MLA are excluded, as are many ordinary citizens). Maybe that nice new detention camp in Nerul might help?
Penalty Aplenty: Wow those fines for traffic violations are massive, and in some cases, more than the cost of the vehicle itself. Even the Shiv Sena is thinking they might need to do a bit of a rethink. It’s not easy to drive a consensus on such things.
Last pic for plastic: India looks to ban single-use plastic across the country (!) by Oct 2. Online shoppers will be willing to swap plastic for cash. No da, not credit cards - you know what we mean. Raddi, steady, go.
Humse panga lena… : … Dame más gasolina! There’s a thriving illegal pangolin trade out of India. That’s an animal, not a musical instrument.
While on animals, and facing the music - tweet of the week
International
Futility function: That’s the scientific term for news coverage related to Brexit because by the time you read this, something would have changed. Really. All that happened this week can be summed up with:
Political disaster? Global comic relief? Incoming global crisis? You pick! Not even Two & A Half Men was this painfully long-drawn-out.
The Picture of Dorian’s grey: Hurricane Dorian has devastated the Bahamas, is devastating Eastern US and will devastate Canada (meanwhile, Trump made it all about himself).
Hurrahre!: The hero-turned-turd Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s ex-president, died. One genocidal dictator down, some 7549 to go. While John Oliver might have given him a proper fuckeulogy, we must settle for a profile.
Cape of Little Hope: South Africans are killing immigrant workers - and several music/sports stars are boycotting the country over government apathy. Hmm, that last line sounds strangely familiapartheidr.
Instanbully: There are millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey and its president, Erdogan, has threatened to send them all Europe-wards unless the US & EU can quit squabbling and decide what to do with them.
All’s Jair in love and war: Remember all those Amazon fires? Thankfully, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro is doing something about it - encouraging his countrymen to go out and celebrate and show the world all is well. (Reminds us of the time when Malaysian Airlines ran a social media contest at the most inappropriate time…)
Tronald Dump: Trump is diverting funds from the military & Puerto Rico aid to build his wall. Meanwhile, Dems are having mature debates on climate change instead of xenophobia, meaning 4 more years of Trump. Obviously. He’s making it more difficult for asylum seekers to get work permits, wants to make bulbs less efficient (?!) and wants to try and keep cars less energy efficient, even as the auto industry thinks otherwise. Finally, it looks like he’s decided a key component of his re-election campaign is going to be talking trash about liberal media (we at TTS are scared!). And yes, another mass shooting happened and yes, it was followed by loosening gun control laws. America really has a gun problem, enough that employees want CEOs of private companies to do something about it. For example, Walmart will end, er, reduce selling guns (Apparently this is news to be celebrated).
Carrie Lam, My Wayward Daughter: Hong Kong’s leader withdrew the controversial bill that ignited all those protests. (TL;DR: HKers really don’t like/trust China).
No trust with destiny: China suspects the US as there were American flags at the Hong Kong protests. US suspects China as the latter is giving aid to the hurricane-hit Bahamas. Iran’s nuclear program crisis is about the complex US-Israel relationship. And you thought your extended family dinners were tense.
Je suis by your side
World Suicide Prevention Day is Sept 10. And while we joke a lot about misery and sadness, we rarely emphasise on how depression is a real condition that needs care and treatment by professionals. The Samaritans Mumbai is a helpline which provides emotional support for those who are stressed, distressed, depressed, or suicidal. Get help when you need it, and spread the word.
Yes, there’s still good news!
There’s no rush ya: Ukraine and Russia swapped prisoners which is seen as a first step to stop the war! That’s right - good news that involves Russia!
Fight fire with facts: Several credible news organizations (meaning, anti-national ones like The Hindu, Reuters & BBC) are coming together to form a group to fight fake news.
Tariffs & buts: The US and China have finally agreed to sit down and discuss things like adults instead of throwing barbs (and tariffs) at each other.
Reykjawits: Iceland - notriously liberal - greeted Mike Pence - notoriously anti-gay - with rainbow flags. Lots of ‘em.
Tech cetera
Privacy as a Service: It’s ironic that Google wants to build and sell tech that helps companies to know less about you. How 2019! We won’t PaaS on that. It’s interesting that tech is being questioned more and more, for eg: American parents are wondering whether screens in the classroom are a good thing.
Diss likes: Facebook might remove like counts - this should benefit everyone except social media marketers and influencerz (the latter are ‘suffering’ as a result of the same move on Instagram. About time). But, if you’re looking for an anxiety/need for validation fix - they’re launching a dating platform. Balance is very important.
Miaow, miaow: Sinogene (guess what the company does!) successfully cloned a pet cat in China. We would use that obvious pun, but we’re not copy cats.
Yeah, fine: Google paid a fine of $170m over YouTube violations of kids’ privacy. An amount so laughably mall it probably wasn’t worth Google’s time to fight it. It might have a tougher time with the antitrust probe scheduled soon.
ReWork: It’s actually quite mature of WeWork to cut its own valuation in half, quoting ‘irrational exuberance’.
We are prawn to go meatless: Tyson, one of the largest meat makers in the world, is investing in plant-based ‘seafood’. That’s an unshellfish act.
LinkedOut
Ah, that innocent time when Huffington Post decided to cover Trump’s presidential run in their entertainment section…
How trolling became an entire industry.
A scathing read about how capitalism made America the dumbest country in the world.
For all you MBAs out there wondering what happened to ‘Six Sigma’ - it died in an age where innovation > efficiency.
The human cost of Amazon’s express shipping.
Brexit is chaos, but at least parliamentarians can speak their mind instead of toeing the party line - something that’s not possible in India thanks to some kakkoos called the anti-defection law (actually, not doing kakkoos will be anti-defaca… Ok never mind).
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to get in touch with us, we’re on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). Or you can reach us on good ol’ email. And don’t forget, you can support us on Patreon - your love keeps us going. Until next week, may you always bounce back up like Steve Smith. On a Trampoline.