Re: [silk] Digitization of The Illustrated Weekly of India?
On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:24 PM Thaths wrote: > Does anyone know if the archives of The Illustrated Weekly of India > are being digitized? > > I am interested in G. V. Desani's columns from the Weekly in the 60's. > I asked, and the universe, after several years, has provided <https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hVpyppZkOUJ3zVfha2HgHKJp7IB9AZd/view>. What an age we live in! Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Grief during a pandemic
Thanks for starting this, Udhay. I'll start by sharing my own (minor) grief. Considering what some folks have gone through, my experience has been largely OK. I haven't lost anyone dear to me. While friends and relatives tested positive for covid, and some of them were hospitalized and even went on ventilators, all of them have recovered. So I consider myself very lucky. I am lucky to have a job where I can work from home. I am lucky that my close family have been healthy and safe. And yet there are moments when I become overwhelmed with emotion and bawling my eyes out. The most unpredictable, strangest and slightest of things could set this off. It is during those moments that I truly recognize the trauma that I (and the world) are going through. The trauma of not being able to visit your dear ones on the other side of the world, not being able to hug your friends, not being able to go to events.... Thaths On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 4:31 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > So. > > Given the events of the past year and a half, many people are dealing with > loss and grief. Coupled with the fact that people have been stuck in one > place for most of this time, they are turning to social media for help in > dealing with it - either seeking emotional support, or just catharsis. > Given my filter bubble, I have mostly seen this on Facebook. > > Have you folks also seen this? What are your thoughts? > > Some of the people who have done this are on this list. If you want to > speak up, great. If not, that's perfectly fine too. You could mute this > thread if it is painful for you - but if you want to use this space to seek > support, I'd be honoured. > > Udhay > > -- > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((via phone)) > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] The Race to Put Silk in Nearly Everything
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > I think putting silk in everything is a great goal to have. :;) > > https://www.wired.com/story/the-race-to-put-silk-in-nearly-everything/ > This is an Item I can support. I, for one, am fully behind weaving more Silukku into thin films. Ms. Smitha's oeuvre <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0810426/> has been sadly static since 1996. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Hot food paper towel
Hi Radhika, On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 2:22 PM Radhika, Y. wrote: > > It would help first to understand if your concern is in the domain of > > biology, chemistry or physics. > > A:To clarify, I'm mostly concerned about some chemical reaction leading to > a problem after my son consumes the food. My concern arises from the fact > that my son has a blood condition of unknown origin (they've never been > able to figure out why his marrow doesn't produce enough cells of all kinds > in the blood). They've previously said they suspect it is a reaction to > something in the environment or an autoimmune reaction to infection by a > virus at some point before he turned 2. But yes, I want to avoid > interactions that may affect him. However, your line of questioning does > show me what an impossible quest it will be to control his entire > environment. It may even be detrimental. > > Thanks for sharing, Radhika. I am sorry about your son's condition. I hope they can identify a cause, and a cure for it. My wishes for a healthy life to the little guy. > > Why do you care if the electrons came from a bat atom or a ball atom? > > Electrons are supposed to be interchangeable between elements (or rather, > > by adding or removing electrons (and protons and neutrons) you transform > an > > element from one to another). > > > A: Haha, yes, I did take into account the fact that electrons are supposed > to be interchangeable. But again, back to my previous answer, my concerns > were and are about my son. What I get from this response and from the > doctors really is that the answers are difficult to isolate in his case. > >From what you shared, it would appear that your concern (rightly) is mostly in the domain of chemistry and biology. > > Here is my take There is a difference between chemicals used as > > reagents in the process of paper production versus paper products being > > saturated and emanating these compounds. If it was the latter, hasn't > food > > been packaged in paper products for a long, long time? If that was > causing > > all kinds of problems wouldn't we have heard of it already? > A: I don't know how to answer that question. Whether we would hear of it or > not depends on accountability on so many levels. But yes, lots of time has > passed using those products. I've read somewhere that nanoparticles of > plastic have been found in human organs. Of course, I don't know what that > actually means i.e. can plastic coexist with organic matter without us > having to worry, etc. > Plastics (micro plastics, and the non-bio-degradable nature of plastics) is definitely an area of concern for humanity. They have been around for 50-70 years and their effect - especially with vastly widespread use in all kinds of applications over the last 20-30 years - is not fully understood. Paper products, IMO, are a much more known quantity. > > Where do you draw the line with this contamination fear? Are you OK with > > flour arriving to you in paper bags? How about a loaf of bread packaged > in > > paper bags?` > A: Yes, this is a problem. I seem to have more fear of certain things than > others. I'm strangely reassured when I see flour in cloth bags although > those bags could have been in hellish conditions prior to being filled. > In my experience, we come in contact with industrially produced, chemically altered things everywhere in our lives today. Despite what some of the fringe corners of the internet say, I know that I cannot fully eliminate these things from my life. Definitely not at a price that is affordable (in terms of $$$ or comfort or ease). So what are mere mortals to do? I take some solace in the fact that when science finds clear evidence of these harm causing agents (lead in paint and petroleum, CFCs in airconditioners, etc.) science/governments step in and take steps to get rid of the harm causing agent. Thaths > Thank you for forcing me to describe the problem. > > > > > Thaths > > -- > > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > > Carl: Nuthin'. > > Homer: D'oh! > > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > > Homer: Woo-hoo! > > > > > -- > *Translator/Owner* > *AzulIndica Translations* > *North Vancouver BC, Canada* > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Hot food paper towel
On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 11:07 AM Tim Bray wrote: > I've been doing this for years with fresh-cooked bacon, never noticed any > ill effect. > That is easy to explain, Tim. The carcinogens in bacon kill the carcinogens in paper. :-) Thaths > > On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 10:20 AM Radhika, Y. wrote: > > > Hi all! > > > > I have a question about placing hot food on a paper towel to suck up the > > grease. Firstly, a quick heads up: my knowledge of physics is poor. I > still > > retain an interest in science especially as it relates to daily living. > In > > the case of hot food being placed on a paper towel, I'm a little spooked > > (unnecessarily, my husband thinks) by the thought of electron transfer > > between paper (has chlorine that bleaches it and formaldehyde, a known > > carcinogen) and food. I'm aware of the classic example of the bat and > ball > > in quantum physics where through contact they exchange electrons - well, > > that's my understanding of it. Would any of you be able to advise me on > > whether I have it all wrong? I was wondering too if the heat plays a role > > although I have learned that fresh food is actually quite susceptible to > > picking up chemical residue. Happy to learn. > > > > Thank you. > > Radhika > > > > > > > > > > -- > > *Translator/Owner* > > *AzulIndica Translations* > > *North Vancouver BC, Canada* > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Hot food paper towel
On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 10:20 AM Radhika, Y. wrote: > I have a question about placing hot food on a paper towel to suck up the > grease. Firstly, a quick heads up: my knowledge of physics is poor. I still > retain an interest in science especially as it relates to daily living. In > the case of hot food being placed on a paper towel, I'm a little spooked > (unnecessarily, my husband thinks) by the thought of electron transfer > between paper (has chlorine that bleaches it and formaldehyde, a known > carcinogen) and food. I'm aware of the classic example of the bat and ball > in quantum physics where through contact they exchange electrons - well, > that's my understanding of it. Would any of you be able to advise me on > whether I have it all wrong? I was wondering too if the heat plays a role > although I have learned that fresh food is actually quite susceptible to > picking up chemical residue. Happy to learn. > It would help first to understand if your concern is in the domain of biology, chemistry or physics. For example, your concern would be in the biological spectrum if you are worried about things like some microorganism in the paper contaminating your food (and starting to proliferate on the food after the cross contamination). If your concern were chemical, it would be about the chemical reaction between some compounds in the paper reacting with some compound in the food (say, oil) and producing some byproduct you do not want. At the physics level (exchanging electrons, etc.) Why do you care if the electrons came from a bat atom or a ball atom? Electrons are supposed to be interchangeable between elements (or rather, by adding or removing electrons (and protons and neutrons) you transform an element from one to another). Here is my take There is a difference between chemicals used as reagents in the process of paper production versus paper products being saturated and emanating these compounds. If it was the latter, hasn't food been packaged in paper products for a long, long time? If that was causing all kinds of problems wouldn't we have heard of it already? Where do you draw the line with this contamination fear? Are you OK with flour arriving to you in paper bags? How about a loaf of bread packaged in paper bags?` Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Not a particle physicist but this came my way from a
"APRIL 1, 2021" S. On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 12:13 PM Radhika, Y. wrote: > scientific translators group! I got a few but clearly am handicapped. > > Enjoy. > > https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.17198.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2waF59OkJQvfJbO4RONxnrnaLgFeqH4X42yk82RBpXnK_oRyqRD8AuAvM > > -- > *Translator/Owner* > *AzulIndica Translations* > *North Vancouver BC, Canada* > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Bruce Sterling's State of the World chat
And this year's: https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/510/State-of-the-World-2021-page01.html Thaths On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 7:45 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > This year's version: > > > https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/507/State-of-the-World-2020-Bruce-St-page01.html > > It's grim. > > Udhay > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Your most memorable concerts?
On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 1:17 PM Thejaswi Udupa wrote: > Ozzy was off key most of the time, but the Shoreline > Amphitheatre venue and the lovely, friendly crowd of mostly metal thathas > made for a lovely experience. > It was not I, I swear. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Your most memorable concerts?
Excellent thread. For me 1994: Pink Floyd Division Bell tour (San Antonio) 1999: L Shankar, Zakir Husain and Vikku Vinayakaram in concert (i.e., Shakthi minus John McLaughlin) in San Francisco, I suspect Shankar was in deep financial trouble at this point in time and did this tour to make some quick money. I suspect they will not perform together again. 2000: Santana 2003/4: Remember Shakthi in Palace Grounds, Bangalore 2015/17: Buena Vista Social Club, Toumani Diabaté (Womadelaide, Adelaide, Australia) 2019/20: Tinariwen, Mulatu Astatke (Berkeley) There are also several carnatic music concerts, but I cannot quite place them in time. Thaths On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 8:17 AM Radhika, Y. wrote: > 1994 Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young > 2005 Arturo Sandoval > 2006 Unknown blues singer at Terra Blues, NYC > 1986 Zakir Hussain and Birju Maharaj > > El jue., 10 dic. 2020 10:10 p. m., Venkatesh H R > escribió: > > > Thinking on and off about Udhay's 'what do you splurge on' thread, I > > realised I've spent good money to get to concerts. What have been your > > memorable ones? > > > > 2009 - Paul McCartney "Good Evening London" - by far the best concert > ever. > > Me and the missus borrowed money from her parents to pay for the tix, we > > were living in Oxford). > > 2019 - U2, Mumbai (travelled from Delhi) > > 2018 - Judas Priest, Mountain View > > 2008 - Ian Anderson, Anoushka Sharma, New Delhi > > 2002 - Deep Purple, Mumbai > > 2002 - Pandit Shiv Shankar Sharma & Ustad Zakir Hussain > > > > Regrets - haven't been to any good Carnatic concerts, missed Mark > Knopfler > > and Iron Maiden when they came to Bangalore, gave away tickets I'd won to > > No Doubt in Bangalore 1998 in exchange for a t-shirt. Also came just > short > > of going to a Paul Simon at Queen's concert in 2018 (apparently his last > > one). > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > *Get your 'vaccine' from 'fake news', lies, half-truths, manipulated > > truths, propaganda and general B.S. at my media buddhi newsletter > > <https://mediabuddhi.substack.com/>.* > > > > H R Venkatesh > > Director, Training and Research, BOOM <https://www.boomlive.in/> > > John S. Knight Journalism Fellow 2019 > > <https://jsk.stanford.edu/fellows/class-of-2019/h-r-venkatesh/>, > Stanford > > University > > Twitter: @hrvenkatesh > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] What are the things you splurge on that are worth the money?
On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 1:05 PM Kiran K Karthikeyan < kiran.karthike...@gmail.com> wrote: > My experiments in this area have usually led to bitter disappointment. > However, I have over time bought most of what D&G make and have loved all > of them. I particularly liked the Light Blue Sun that I bought on a whim at > a duty free for a great price. > > If that is a sufficient indication of what I like - would be interested > in recommendations. > My go-to source for researching colognes and finding other perfumes that smell similar is Basenotes. In the case of D&G I would start here: https://www.basenotes.net/brand/dolce-and-gabbana Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] What are the things you splurge on that are worth the money?
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:14 PM Radhika, Y. wrote: > Another time, we found an old hotel recently renovated in the San Diego > area. What hooked me was the history. Ava Gardner had stayed there and > Johnny Weismuller had designed the pool. Again, great price and charming > place. > If you are looking for such a place in Bangkok, you cannot beat The Atlanta <https://www.theatlantahotelbangkok.com/>. It is a relic. But one that oozes history throughout. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] What are the things you splurge on that are worth the money?
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 8:44 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > My list: > - Fragrance. I look at these as art and collect them for regular use. > What are some of your favorites? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] What are the things you splurge on that are worth the money?
(Thankfully) I am not one of those people for whom money is no a consideration for certain things. But I do have some areas of my life where I do not think twice about exchanging reasonably large amounts of money for a few things/experiences: 1. Buckwheat hull (soba gara) pillows. I discovered these in Kyoto several years ago and spent $50 buying several kilos of buckwheat hull. I used these to stuff 4 pillow cases and these pillows have proved enormously comfortable. My guests often remark on how well they slept and ask about where I got the pillows. Though I have caution folks that these heavy crunchy pillows are not for everyone. So try it out before you buy. 2. DSLR lenses. Don't waste your money on cheap kit lenses. Got for the f/2 or f/4 high end lenses your camera maker makes (off-brand ones like Sigma, Tokina are cheaper, but not as good as the Nikons and Canons). 3. Perfumes and Colognes. Using them gives me great pleasure throughout the day. And when you consider the cost in terms of cost per spritz and cost per lifetime of the bottle, it works out OK for me. 4. Vacation/Holiday buying. For me getting time off is more valuable than earning another paycheck. So whenever I have had the opportunities to "buy" vacation/holidays from my employer (i.e., buying extra days off with money resulting in a smaller paycheck) I have thoroughly seen the value in it. 5. Long periods of travel / disconnections. An extension of '4'. I have been lucky in the last 20 years to be able to be able to use downtime between jobs (or sabbaticals or unpaid time off when I am working) to travel for months at a time. Essentially, this is another case of trading (not earning) money for time off. Worth every penny (if you can afford it). To have a decent understanding about the history, geography, literature, culture and nature of a country, you have to spend at least a month slowly traveling and steeping in it. Preferably several months. 6. Coffee paraphernalia. I don't drink much coffee (two small cappuccinos a day). But the ritual of making these coffees with recently roasted beans, freshly ground and pulled through a Rancilio Silvia is worth it for me. The burr grinder was expensive, but it has worked beautifully for years on end, and the Rancilio Silvia is over a decade old and continues to work like a champ. Thaths On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 7:36 AM Ashim D'Silva wrote: > Everyday essentials: > You only buy one or two and they last forever, so bang for buck doesn’t > escalate that much with increases in price > - Mattress and pillows (you sleep a third of your life) > - Jeans, boots and thermal base layers (nothing like being comfortable in > the snow) > - TV and soundbar (suddenly really relevant since theatres are gone) > - Pans, knives & chopping board (lockdown cooking has been a blast) > - Robot vacuum (90% of our couple fights are about cleaning, so this > changed the game) > > Travel and food: > (lockdown makes this feel especially strange to look back on) > Quantity over quality here, we splurge by travelling a lot and spending as > little as possible except for one blow-out fancy night at the end! > Every trip we’d try to spend an exorbitant amount on one michelin-star > quality meal—the most memorable moments of our lives inevitably surround > food (Alinea, Blue Hill and Pakta have been absolute standouts) > > > Cheerio, > > Ashim > Product designer > ashimdsilva.com > > > On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 at 02:40, Shyam Sunder > wrote: > > > > From: silklist > peakalpha@lists.hserus.net> > > > Date: Monday, 7 December 2020 at 10:14 AM > > > To: Silk List > > > Subject: [silk] What are the things you splurge on that are worth the > > money? > > > Like it says. I know there are similar threads out there on reddit etc > - > > > this question is for silklisters. :) > > > > > > My list: > > > - Computers. Every 5 years or so I replace my computer with the best > > specs > > > I can afford. > > > - Fragrance. I look at these as art and collect them for regular use. > > > - Good gin/vodka. Nuff said. > > > > > > Udhay > > > > > > -- > > > > > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)< > > http://www.digeratus.com)>) > > > > For the last couple of years, my paradigm has been to invest as much as > is > > sensible on those things that I tend to use a lot. This has worked well > for > > me and so reinforces the paradigm. In particular, > > > > > > * I spend roughly a fourth of my life in bed, so the best mattress I > > can buy > > * I spend a lot of time on a working chair, so the best chair I can > buy >
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
Here are books that made an impact on me in 2020: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families (Phillip Gourevitch) - A book that came out some years ago, but I finally got to read it recently. I had previously read books about the war in Eastern Congo and the scramble for resources. This book tees up the things that happened in Rwanda that dominoed into the conflict in Eastern Congo. The Tiger and the Ruby: A Journey to the Other Side of British India (Kief Hillsbery) - Till about 3/4th of the way into the book, I thought it was a simple book that mixed history and travelogue. I found some bits of it interesting, and had bits where I disagreed with the focus of the author. But the final 1/4th of the book was superbly put together. Its ending read almost like a mystery novel that tried up the loose ends in the final few chapters. The final parts of the book wrap the stories beautifully and illustrate the author's craft. UNIX: A History and a Memoir (Brian W. Kernighan) - No explanation needed A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Bill Bryson) - A comforting re-read when the world went into COVID lockdown The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (Ursula Le Guin) - A slim volume (you can find PDFs online). Perfection. Le Guin challenges the male-focused "heroes journey" narratives and ponders what a different narrative could bring to literature. Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (Camilla Townsend) - I think this book was recommended by someone in the annual Silklist book recommendation thread last year. How did the encounter between conquistadors and the Aztecs look from the Aztec side? Mining some of the earliest written Aztec primary narratives Townsend does a great job of the tragedy of what happened. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (Alexandra Fuller) - Evocative vignettes of a Gothic family horror of growing up White in Africa. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Jenny Odell) - Perfect meditation for our times. Reflecting on an alternate way of living more fully and engaging with this world. Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies (Hilary Mantel) - You don't need me to tell you how lovely these books are. Thaths On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 7:59 AM Venkatesh H R wrote: > Ah yes Samanth! Very much so. (Didn't realise 'twas you behind > 'WordPsmith'!) > Interestingly, a few weeks ago my 8-year-old picked it up where JBS Sr was > doing experiments on himself and was very much intrigued that people do > that sort of thing and we went down a little rabbit hole. > > On Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 8:04 PM WordPsmith wrote: > > > Thanks Udhay! > > > > Kunda, I hope you’re enjoying the book! 🤞 > > > > > On Nov 25, 2020, at 14:25, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 3:45 PM Venkatesh H R > > wrote: > > > > > > - Re-read Frank Herbert's Dune. First read it as a 16-year-old and was > > >> apprehensive about the second read. So many of our heroes turn out to > > have > > >> written sexist, racist stuff or were otherwise total ass* in their > > real > > >> lives. But Dune continued to amaze with its vision, its mixing of > > various > > >> cultures in the world, the strong secondary and tertiary characters > and > > >> pro-environmental message. Now wondering if I should run through the > > entire > > >> series ahead of the movie. > > >> > > > > > > Speaking for myself, I loved Dune (although I last read it at least 2 > > > decades ago) but found the other books in the series underwhelming. > > > > > > > > > > > >> That's about it. Reading A Dominant Character by Samanth Subramanian > > > > > > > > > Samanth is on silk, so I will take this opportunity to congratulate him > > for > > > making it to the NYT notable books of 2020 list [1]. > > > > > > Udhay > > > > > > [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/books/notable-books.html > > > > > > -- > *Get your 'vaccine' from 'fake news', lies, half-truths, manipulated > truths, propaganda and general B.S. at my media buddhi newsletter > <https://mediabuddhi.substack.com/>.* > > H R Venkatesh > Director, Training and Research, BOOM <https://www.boomlive.in/> > John S. Knight Journalism Fellow 2019 > <https://jsk.stanford.edu/fellows/class-of-2019/h-r-venkatesh/>, Stanford > University > Twitter: @hrvenkatesh > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 8:04 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 9:00 PM Thaths wrote: > Apart from caste being an interesting lens to bring to US (and Nazi > > Germany) society, does the book offer insights about caste in India? > This book (incidentally, by a cousin of mine) is about caste in modern > India: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987883 Thanks, Udhay. I read some sample pages on Amazon and the book reads well (unlike some academic ones I have tried reading). The IITs are an area of interest to me (an aunt was one of the first batch of people hired on the administrative side to build IIT Madras). Added the book to my To Read list. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 5:02 AM Venkatesh H R wrote: > Looking forward to reading. > Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson > > Currently reading 'Caste'. I'm having to go slow because every chapter is > stuffed with insights. > Apart from caste being an interesting lens to bring to US (and Nazi Germany) society, does the book offer insights about caste in India? Not that it has to. The excerpts I have read were good and just looking at US society through the caste lens itself is quite interesting. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 7:56 AM sankarshan < sankarshan.mukhopadh...@gmail.com> wrote: > In no particular order > > + The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra > That looks interesting! Reminds me of Ganges: The Many Pasts of an Indian River <https://www.amazon.com/dp/030011916X/> which might have been recommended in Silk. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 7:43 AM Huda Masood wrote: > Oh man, > > The Discworld Series, specifically Small Gods by Terry Pratchett > Improving the Flavour of Cheese - Edited by B C Weimar > Wow! Is this <https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845690079/> the masterpiece? My own White Whale is Kingdon's Mammals of Africa <https://www.amazon.com/dp/140812257X/>. There is simply no justification for me to buy it (or read it from cover to cover). But what is life if one doesn't live in hope? > The Mushroom at the End of the World - Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing > Oooh! This seems in the same genre as a book that I LOVED. I will talk about it when I post my list. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 12:22 PM Jitendra Vaidya wrote: > Thaths, you asked about Covid - one of my coping mechanisms has been > walking 10K steps every day while listening to Kate Baker read SF stories > over at ClarkesWorld magazine. Thanks, Jitendra. When the pandemic began I went through all the Jeeves and Wodehouse audiobooks I had collected over time (my favorite narrator is Johnathan Cecil) . Since then I have been averaging one audio book a month (that I borrow through my local public library). > I became familiar with a lot of excellent SF > being written in China and Korea through this podcast. Oh that reminds me, > "Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation" > compiled by Ken Liu is absolutely worth a read. I particularly enjoyed > Ken's introduction. > I listened to the Three Body Problem series as an audiobook several years ago and liked them. Speaking of non-Western Sci Fi, what is the state of Indian speculative fiction these days. I read a short story set in the Bengal Presidency some days ago, but cannot find the name of the author or the story. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
[silk] Recommended Reading for 2020
Silk listers, I used to turn to you for book recommendations around this time of the year. But stopped this practice when I stopped seeing engagement. But last year a handful of you said that you missed this annual tradition. So here we go again! What have you read over the last year that has left a mark on you? What are you eagerly looking forward to reading over the coming holidays? How has COVID19 affected your reading? I will share my recommendations later in this thread. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] How to smell
On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 9:06 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Perhaps part of Cairo is. Just like the smell of part of Bangalore is > filter coffee with the acrid overtone of chicory at 6am. And other parts > might be grilling kebabs. Or the stink of the tannery. > Speaking of smells https://www.powells.com/book/-111347670 "Like the crimson rhododendrons in Rebecca, the heady fragrance of old paper creates an atmosphere ripe with mood and possibility. Invoking a labyrinth of books; secret libraries; ancient scrolls; and cognac swilled by philosopher-kings, Powell’s by Powell’s delivers the wearer to a place of wonder, discovery, and magic heretofore only known in literature." Perhaps it smells of Biblichor? Thaths PS: Powells is a renowned bookstore in Portland, Oregan -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Founder's Day!
Happy birthday, Udhay and Deepak! Suresh, glad that you are out of the hospital and doing better. Thaths On Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:50 AM Venkat Mangudi - Silk wrote: > Happy Birthday, Deepa and Udhay. Have a great day and year ahead. > > Cheers, > Venkat > > On Fri, 23 Oct 2020 at 11:32 AM, Anish Mohammed > wrote: > > > On Fri, 23 Oct 2020 at 06:16, Deepa Mohan wrote: > > > > > Whether Udhay founded it or foundered on it, this list and his > > Interesting > > > Friends have given me quite a lot of great conversation too! > > > > > > Happy birthday, Vod ka Raja, and may your friends increase. > > > > > > Cheers, Deepa. > > > > > > > Happy birthday Udhay, its been an honour to have you as a friend for > > almost two decades ... > > -- > > Anish Mohammed > > https://calendly.com/zeroknowledge > > >
Re: [silk] On research and higher education in Indian universities.
Hi Jahnavi, Thank you very much for sharing this. I just finished watching it and loved it. As someone who read about particle accelerators in a high school physica textbook I never got a chance to use one in my studies. But I am the type of nerd who gets a kick out of driving over the tunnel of the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) every time I drive on Highway 280 near the Stanford Campus. There were a few things I really appreciated in your film: 1. The women Ph.D. students you included in the film talking about their work and research. 2. You including the Cleaner (a second-generation involvement with the Cyclotron) in the documentary Thaths On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 4:16 AM Jahnavi Phalkey wrote: > Dear friends and colleagues, > > I am delighted to invite you to the *online launch > <https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/cyclotron/>* of my first > film, Cyclotron! The film grew out of my research on the beginnings of > experimental nuclear physics in India, part of which was published as a > book (*Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth Century India*). One story > that did not make it into the book, became this film. > > The film can be watched starting today until 4 October 2020 > <https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/cyclotron/> on the > Bangalore International Centre screening platform - *BIC Streams*. > > On Sunday 27 September*,* I will be in a conversation with Shiraz Minwalla > about the film for which you may register here > < > https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/9016006872394/WN_4BAsaGTYRXmJienFbanPjg > > > . > > *About the film*: > Cyclotron is a film about the world’s oldest functional particle > accelerator and the people who keep it running today. > > Operational in 1936 at the University of Rochester, United States, it was > built merely three years after the very first cyclotron was built by Ernest > Lawrence at Berkeley. The entire set-up in Rochester was dismantled and > sent to India in 1967, and is now housed at the Panjab University, > Chandigarh. With the cyclotron, the regional university became one of the > very few places in India for research and education in nuclear physics. > This was otherwise possible only in the facilities of the Department of > Atomic Energy. The cyclotron has been running for nearly fifty years in > Chandigarh. The film explores the life and legacy of the machine as well as > the struggles and triumphs of its technicians, researchers and students; it > is also a comment on the state of experimental research and higher > education in Indian universities. > > I much hope that you will be able to watch the film and perhaps join in the > discussion! > > Warmly, Jahnavi > > -- > J A H N A V IP H A L K E Y > > Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru > Sir Asutosh Mukherjee Visiting Professor, National Institute of Advanced > Studies > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] (no subject)
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 8:38 AM Nisha Susan wrote: > I am a writer based in Bangalore. I recently wrote a book of short stories > called The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook. Looking forward to > conversations here. > Welcome to Silklist, Nisha. I have added the book to my Amazon.in wishlist to order the next time I visit India in a post-pandemic world. Unfortunately Amazon US refuses to sell it to me <https://www.amazon.com/Women-Forgot-Invent-Facebook-Stories-ebook/dp/B08BZQDRKF> . Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Spammer attack
On Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 8:57 PM Radhika, Y. wrote: > Time to go to Silk on FB, for me. > Why? Are there no Russian disinformation bots there? Thaths > On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 8:04 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > > > Some spammer seems to have discovered the mailman instance that runs > > silklist. I am getting ~50 new member requests per day which I am > manually > > deleting. FML. > > > > Udhay > > > > -- > > > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > > > > > -- > *Translator/Owner* > *AzulIndica Translations* > *North Vancouver BC, Canada* >
Re: [silk] Empathy
On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 6:44 PM Alok Singh wrote: > What you have said is unobjectionable, though I am not entirely sure if you > are making an argument or stating a tautology. I was trying to say that however much one might believe (rightly or wrongly) that one has empathy, the act of perspective taking shifts things from a domain of belief to practice. I do not have anything productive to add to this thread and I am afraid I might end up repeating myself. Thaths > I understood it as > - empathy is a skill that can be developed > - local maxima are not Truth > > The mental processes that underpin empathy are the ones I use to manipulate > or otherwise "convince" someone of something. I see it as a mechanism that > can used to various ends my myself or by others on me. Something like > hunger or lust. So in this sense, I do not see it as a skill that can be > improved by practice. > > Lastly, local maxima are all we have. I see this as a consquence of Arrow's > impossibility theorem. One can move from one to the other and I can't tell > if this is in anyway different than if I never change. > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Empathy
On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 10:01 PM Alok Singh wrote: > My problem with empathy, I have found, is believing I have it. > This is specifically the reason why I proposed the question "What are things my bête noire is correct about". The act of finding positive things to say about The Other involves perspective taking, and in that perspective taking one shifts from the local maxima that one has been marooned on. In other words, believe what you may about how much empathy you may have, putting yourself in someone else's shoes is empathy in practice that works irrespective of whether you think you have a lot (or a little) of empathy. Thaths > > Example 934 of the problems arising from believing my own propaganda. > > On Sun, 17 May, 2020, 21:30 Dave Long, wrote: > > > OK, if I have to come up with a bête noire to see all of yours, I shall: > > > > Advertising: can produce slick content for lifestyle spots > > > > -Dave > > > > (unfortunately while true for print and video, it doesn't seem to extend > > to web advertising. Gresham's law at work?) > > > > > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Empathy
On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 5:39 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Empathy isn't easy. > When my (almost invariably economically and socially left-leaning) friends who are venting about how awful everything (Trump, Biden, Facebook, Fox News, Amazon, the Democratic party establishment, Republican party, Sangh Parivar, Modi, Boris Johnson, Brexit, ...) is, I have gotten into the habit of saying that I agree with them that the world is polarized. I then say that one way to counter polarization is to build bridges and change minds. I then ask them to list just one thing that their bete noir, The Other Side, is right about. I am surprised by how much people struggle to list just one thing. I find it impossible to list the positives of some (Trump, Brexit, Sangh Parivar), and relatively easy to list one or two positives of others (Republican party, Modi, Boris Johnson). What is your bete noir? And what is one thing that they are right about? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Weekly or monthly recommendations
The New Yorker, Caravan, and National Geographic come immediately to mind. Thaths On Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 10:15 AM Ashwin Nanjappa wrote: > Hi, > > I have been thinking of switching to reading magazines with a weekly or > monthly cadence for news, analysis, opinions, books, movies, travel, tech > etc. > Not only is following the "breaking news" mentally tiring, I have realized > they don't matter in the long term. > Right now I am reading The Economist and Linux Weekly News (LWN). Would > love to discover more such sources. > > *What non-trash sources of weekly/monthly cadence do you recommend?* > I would prefer they have paper versions, cause I am getting tired of > complicated payments, ads, tracking, DRM etc. > > Regards, > Ashwin >
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2015
On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 9:47 PM Alok Prasanna Kumar wrote: > To add to the already fantastic books on this list (in no particular order) > ... > 2. India Moving: A History of Migration by Chinmay Tumbe > ... If any of you are interested in the music of the Indian diaspora, this episode of Afropop Worldwide might be of interest to you: https://afropop.org/audio-programs/diaspora-encounters-the-indo-caribbean-world Competition between communities of Indian and African descent has been a mainstay of politics and culture in the former British colonies of Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. This rivalry plays out in institutions from the University of the West Indies to the West Indies cricket team, and of course, popular music. At the time of Trinidad's Independence, the Afro-Caribbean political elite of the day sought to enshrine calypso as the country's national music, but new genres have emerged, from the steel-pan jazz and calypso of the 1960s to soca and its successor, chutney-soca, which for the first time in the 1980s fully integrated Indian and African influences in a local popular music. This Hip Deep edition explores all of these styles, and also the music of diaspora communities in the U.S. and the U.K.. Ethnomusicologist Peter Manuel of the City University of New York shares his ground-breaking research on Indo-Caribbean music in all of its geographic and social contexts. His music and insights reveal a fascinating, overlooked story of hybrid Caribbean culture. S. -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] When life gives you lemons....
I got a paper copy of the book last week. It is.. definitely a home-made product made driven by someone's obsession (in a good way). It has the feel of samizdat literature to it. :-) Thaths On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 8:57 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > You can borrow mine if you want. > > -- > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((via phone)) > > On Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 09:40 Biju Chacko wrote: > > > On Thu, 9 Jan 2020 at 20:57, Thaths wrote: > > > > > > It was 1998 and Ms. Prabakaran, a former lawyer living in Chennai, a > > major > > > city on India’s southeastern coast, had just slogged through a decade > of > > > research and recipe testing for her comprehensive, single-subject > > cookbook, > > > “Usha’s Pickle Digest.” A party was scheduled for the following week. > > > > Amazon.in seems to have only an ebook. Any clue where I could get a hard > > copy? > > > > -- b > > > > > -- > > > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > > > Carl: Nuthin'. > > > Homer: D'oh! > > > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > > > Homer: Woo-hoo! > > > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
[silk] When life gives you lemons....
I have got into pickling over the last 3 years. Mostly citrus. I've had excellent results with picking Citron, Limes, Yuzu, Key Limes,... and OK results with pickling Onions, Pomelo and Grapefruit. I read about this book a couple of days ago and ordered it from Amazon as soon I finished reading the article. I plan to up my game with pickling more fruits and veggies this coming summer. I can picture peach chutneys and jalapeno pickles in my future. Thaths https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/dining/indian-pickle-queen-usha-prabakaran.html *India’s ‘Pickle Queen’ Preserves Everything, Including the Past* Usha Prabakaran’s 20-year-old cookbook, crammed with recipes from home cooks, is simple and self-published. But it has become a cult classic in India. By Tejal Rao Jan. 6, 2020 CHENNAI, India — Usha Prabakaran was at home, talking on the phone with a college friend, when she stopped making sense. Her speech scrambled. Her vision blurred. She dropped the receiver and fell to the floor. It was 1998 and Ms. Prabakaran, a former lawyer living in Chennai, a major city on India’s southeastern coast, had just slogged through a decade of research and recipe testing for her comprehensive, single-subject cookbook, “Usha’s Pickle Digest.” A party was scheduled for the following week. At the hospital, Ms. Prabarakan learned that a rare fungus had lodged itself in the front of her brain. She needed surgery to remove the tumor, and long periods of rest to recover. The book, and the party, were quickly forgotten. But over the next two decades, “Usha’s Pickle Digest,” self-published by an unknown author, with a first print run of just 1,000, became a cult classic in India and its diaspora — praised for its precision and scope, celebrated on blogs and podcasts and hunted down in shops, where it sold out. Hard copies were scarce. For years, the only way to get one was to email Ms. Prabakaran herself, who might promise to print another run soon, when she was feeling better. Some cooks couldn’t wait — they photocopied pages and passed them around, which was fine by Ms. Prabakaran. She didn’t feel a sense of ownership over her recipes. The author became known for answering friendly inquiries with a free PDF, which is how her pickle book hopped around the world as an email attachment. Ms. Prabakaran, now 64, became known as India’s “pickle queen,” but she wasn’t interested in monetizing that title. “I know nothing about publishing, and I was never interested in selling books,” she said at her home in Chennai. “My job is to keep the past alive.” India’s pickle culture goes back thousands of years to when cucumbers and other vegetables were simply preserved in salt. Modern Indian pickles are more complex and probably more delicious, too — hot and tangy, deeply perfumed with aromatics and ground spices. Chitra Agrawal, a New York cookbook author and founder of the pickle company Brooklyn Delhi, remembers the ceramic jugs at her grandmother’s home in Bengaluru in southern India, which held lemons in a slushy saltwater brine. This Karnataka-style pickle was seasoned with fresh green chiles and mango ginger, a fruity-tasting rhizome related to turmeric. But the pickles Ms. Agrawal enjoyed with her family up north were completely different. For Punjabi-style burvan lal mirch, long red chiles were individually stuffed with fennel seeds, onion seeds and fenugreek seeds, then stored in oil, not brine. Mango and lime pickles are commonly sold in the United States, but nothing escapes pickling in India: plums and hog plums, cherries and chokecherries, sprouted fenugreek seeds, bamboo shoots, fat gooseberries, hibiscus flowers and green walnuts. Cooks work with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, flowers, roots and seeds, using every edible part of every possible food. These pickles trot out at breakfast, lunch and dinner, expanding the pleasures of every meal, from a plain bowl of rice and yogurt to a grilled cheese sandwich. Many foods are preserved through anaerobic fermentation: The fresh food is first sun-dried to get rid of excess moisture, then salted. In the warmth of the sun, bacteria digest the sucrose, producing acids that both preserve the food and prevent the growth of other, less friendly bacteria. Other pickles are brined in salt water, vinegar, citrus juice, tamarind juice and even yogurt. The only real defining characteristic of India’s pickle culture may be its range. Or, as Ms. Prabakaran put it, “an inordinate variety of mind-boggling permutations.” In her book, Ms. Prabakaran limited herself to 1,000 recipes. When I finally got my own print-on-demand copy of “Usha’s Pickle Digest,” through Amazon, I was dazzled. The book isn’t pretty. It’s text-heavy and minimally designed, resembling the most utilitarian, guide-like cookbooks of the 1970s. (“My book is meant to be used by people who cook,” Ms. Prabakaran said.) It’s also joyous and authoritative, crammed with information. There are tips in bold for
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2015
On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:32 AM Ingrid wrote: > My top 10 (no ranks) this year: > Not Quite Not White : Losing and Finding Race in America - Sharmila Sen > I read a sample chapter of this book as part of longreads and really enjoyed it. I bought the book, but have not gotten to it yet. > Winners Take All : The Elite Charade of Changing The World - Anand > Giridharadas > While there is valid stuff in what Giridharadas says, I feel that he (intentionally) ignores the nuances. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2015
On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 11:17 AM Alok Prasanna Kumar wrote: > To add to the already fantastic books on this list (in no particular order) > > 2. India Moving: A History of Migration by Chinmay Tumbe > This reminded me of another excellent book I read in 2019 that was a good introduction to the ANI/ASI hypothesis: Early Indians : The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From (Tony Joseph) S. -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2015
On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM Anil Kumar wrote: > Any takers for a book recommendation thread this year? > > Two books I enjoyed reading are: > > 1. This Divided Island - Samanth Subramaniam. 2. A Beginner's Guide to Japan - Pico Iyer. > I also enjoyed 'Autumn Light' by Pico Iyer. Other books that I read and enjoyed in 2019: * We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families (Gourevitch, Philip) : Excellent book about the Rwandan genocide, and the aftermath * The Fat Years (Koonchung, Chan): Sometime after the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, China becomes the dominant world superpower following the collapse of the Western economies. But there seems to be a collective amnesia in China. People don't seem to remember what happened during some crucial months. Only a handful seem to be immune from this amnesia. * A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth (Weinberg, Samantha) : The story of the discovery of the Coelacanth. Thaths > > - Anil Kumar > > > > > > Thaths > > -- > > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > > Carl: Nuthin'. > > Homer: D'oh! > > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > > Homer: Woo-hoo! > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2015
On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 4:35 AM Anil Kumar wrote: > On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 8:35 AM Thaths wrote: > > > For the seventh year in a row, I am turning to silk listers for book > > recommendation this holiday season. > > > > What have you read over the last year that has left a mark on you? What > > are you eagerly looking forward to reading over the Christmas/NewYear's > > holidays? > > > > I miss Thath's requests for the yearly book recommendations and the mails > in response to the requests. > I stopped sending them because the last couple of times I did, there were no responses. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] The anti-bucket list
On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 3:15 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Inspired by something I saw on reddit, what are the things you "can't be > paid enough to try", and why not? > > For me, an incomplete list: > > - Summiting any meaningful peak. Frostbite and oxygen deprivation? No > thanks. > Anything that pumps up my adrenal glads Maybe it is a genetic condition of some sort that makes me allergic to adrenaline, but I just don't derive pleasure from these pursuits. The same goes for horror movies. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
[silk] Now the Machines Are Learning How to Smell
Reposting with a Subject line. Thaths On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 9:05 AM Thaths wrote: > Paper at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.10685.pdf > > https://www.wired.com/story/now-machines-learning-smell/ > > Google has its own perfume—or at least one team of the company’s > researchers does. Crafted under the guidance of expert French perfumers, > the mixture has notes of vanilla, jasmine, melon, and strawberries. “It > wasn’t half bad,” says Alex Wiltschko, who keeps a vial of the perfume in > his kitchen. > > Google’s not marketing that scent anytime soon, but it is sticking its nose > into yet another aspect of our lives: smell. On Thursday, researchers at > Google Brain released a paper on the preprint site Arxiv showing how they > trained a set of machine-learning algorithms to predict molecules’ smell > based on their structures. Is this as useful as providing maps for most of > the world? Maybe not. But for the field of olfaction, it could help puzzle > out some big and long-standing questions. > > The science of smell lags behind many other fields. Light, for example, has > been understood for centuries. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton used > prisms to divide the white light of the sun into our now familiar red, > orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet rainbow. Subsequent > research revealed that what we perceive as different colors are actually > different wavelengths. Glance at a color wheel and you get a simple > representation of how those wavelengths compare, the longer reds and > yellows transitioning into the shorter blues and purples. But smell has no > such guide. > > If wavelengths are the basic components of light, molecules are the > building blocks of scents. When they get into our noses, those molecules > interact with receptors that send signals to a small part of our brains > called the olfactory bulb. Suddenly we think “mmm, popcorn!” Scientists can > look at a wavelength and know what color it will look like, but they can’t > do the same for molecules and smell. > > In fact, it’s proven extremely difficult to figure out a molecule’s odor > from its chemical structure. Change or remove one atom or bond, “and you > can go from roses to rotten eggs,” says Wiltschko, who led the Google > research team for the project. > > There have been previous attempts to use machine learning to detect > patterns that make one molecule smell like garlic and another like jasmine. > Researchers created a DREAM Olfaction Prediction Challenge in 2015. The > project crowdsourced scent descriptions from hundreds of people, and > researchers tested different machine-learning algorithms to see if they > could train them to predict how the molecules smell. > > Several other teams applied AI to that data and made successful > predictions. But Wiltschko’s team took a different approach. They used > something called a graph neural network, or GNN. Most machine-learning > algorithms require information to come in a rectangular grid. But not all > information fits into that format. GNNs can look at graphs, like networks > of friends on social media sites or networks of academic citations from > journals. They could be used to predict who your next friends on social > media might be. In this case, the GNN could process the structure of each > molecule and understand that in one molecule, a carbon atom was five atoms > away from a nitrogen atom, for example. > > The Google team used a set of nearly 5,000 molecules from perfumers who > have expert noses and carefully matched each molecule with descriptions > like “woody,” “jasmine,” or “sweet.” The researchers used about two-thirds > of the data set to train the network, then tested whether it could predict > the scents of the remaining molecules. It worked. > > In fact, on its first iteration, the GNN worked as well as the models other > groups had created. Wiltschko says that as the team refines the model, it > could get even better: “We’ve pushed the field forward, I think.” > > Keep Reading > illustration of a head > The latest on artificial intelligence, from machine learning to computer > vision and more > Like any machine-learning tool, Google’s GNN is limited by the quality of > the data. Nevertheless, Alexei Koulakov, a researcher at Cold Spring Harbor > Laboratory, says that the project is valuable for introducing thousands of > new molecules into the smell data sets, which are often relatively small, > and that this data “could form the basis for improvements of this and other > algorithms in the future.” Koulakov points out that it’s not clear if we > can learn anything about human olfaction from a machine-learning model, > since the design of the neural network isn’t the same as a human olfactory >
[silk] (no subject)
Paper at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.10685.pdf https://www.wired.com/story/now-machines-learning-smell/ Google has its own perfume—or at least one team of the company’s researchers does. Crafted under the guidance of expert French perfumers, the mixture has notes of vanilla, jasmine, melon, and strawberries. “It wasn’t half bad,” says Alex Wiltschko, who keeps a vial of the perfume in his kitchen. Google’s not marketing that scent anytime soon, but it is sticking its nose into yet another aspect of our lives: smell. On Thursday, researchers at Google Brain released a paper on the preprint site Arxiv showing how they trained a set of machine-learning algorithms to predict molecules’ smell based on their structures. Is this as useful as providing maps for most of the world? Maybe not. But for the field of olfaction, it could help puzzle out some big and long-standing questions. The science of smell lags behind many other fields. Light, for example, has been understood for centuries. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton used prisms to divide the white light of the sun into our now familiar red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet rainbow. Subsequent research revealed that what we perceive as different colors are actually different wavelengths. Glance at a color wheel and you get a simple representation of how those wavelengths compare, the longer reds and yellows transitioning into the shorter blues and purples. But smell has no such guide. If wavelengths are the basic components of light, molecules are the building blocks of scents. When they get into our noses, those molecules interact with receptors that send signals to a small part of our brains called the olfactory bulb. Suddenly we think “mmm, popcorn!” Scientists can look at a wavelength and know what color it will look like, but they can’t do the same for molecules and smell. In fact, it’s proven extremely difficult to figure out a molecule’s odor from its chemical structure. Change or remove one atom or bond, “and you can go from roses to rotten eggs,” says Wiltschko, who led the Google research team for the project. There have been previous attempts to use machine learning to detect patterns that make one molecule smell like garlic and another like jasmine. Researchers created a DREAM Olfaction Prediction Challenge in 2015. The project crowdsourced scent descriptions from hundreds of people, and researchers tested different machine-learning algorithms to see if they could train them to predict how the molecules smell. Several other teams applied AI to that data and made successful predictions. But Wiltschko’s team took a different approach. They used something called a graph neural network, or GNN. Most machine-learning algorithms require information to come in a rectangular grid. But not all information fits into that format. GNNs can look at graphs, like networks of friends on social media sites or networks of academic citations from journals. They could be used to predict who your next friends on social media might be. In this case, the GNN could process the structure of each molecule and understand that in one molecule, a carbon atom was five atoms away from a nitrogen atom, for example. The Google team used a set of nearly 5,000 molecules from perfumers who have expert noses and carefully matched each molecule with descriptions like “woody,” “jasmine,” or “sweet.” The researchers used about two-thirds of the data set to train the network, then tested whether it could predict the scents of the remaining molecules. It worked. In fact, on its first iteration, the GNN worked as well as the models other groups had created. Wiltschko says that as the team refines the model, it could get even better: “We’ve pushed the field forward, I think.” Keep Reading illustration of a head The latest on artificial intelligence, from machine learning to computer vision and more Like any machine-learning tool, Google’s GNN is limited by the quality of the data. Nevertheless, Alexei Koulakov, a researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, says that the project is valuable for introducing thousands of new molecules into the smell data sets, which are often relatively small, and that this data “could form the basis for improvements of this and other algorithms in the future.” Koulakov points out that it’s not clear if we can learn anything about human olfaction from a machine-learning model, since the design of the neural network isn’t the same as a human olfactory system. Subscribe to WIRED Most Popular CULTURE A New Study Casts Doubt on ‘Gaming Disorder’ Diagnoses KYLE ORLAND, ARS TECHNICA CULTURE Congress Is Pretty Peeved That Blizzard Suspended a Player JULIE MUNCY BUSINESS Facebook’s Encryption Makes it Harder to Detect Child Abuse HANY FARID How the AI understands smell and how we perceive it could be two very different things. Two molecules may smell differently, yet even trained noses will label them both as “woody” or “earthy.” “It’s a
Re: [silk] [Request] Suggestions do writing workshops for 12 and above (Bangalore)
I have come across some good books aimed at cultivating the writing habit <https://shop.826valencia.org/writing/books/> in young ones at 826 Valencia's The Pirate Store. Thaths On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 9:42 PM Radhika, Y. wrote: > I second Veena's advice. The same is true for beginners, young or not. > Criticism can be entertained after observing oneself and one's own writing > on a sustained basis for a while. > > El mié., 16 oct. 2019 9:03 p. m., Veena Venugopal < > veena.venugo...@gmail.com> > escribió: > > > Hi > > > > Author Anita Nair runs a writing workshop. It's called Anita's Attic and > it > > has frequent sessions throughout the year. Zac O'YEah and Anjum Hassan > have > > also started theirs, its called The World Famous Semi Deluxe Writing > > Programme, but theirs is less frequent. They have only had one programme > so > > far (maybe two). Both are in Bangalore. > > My unsolicited advice though is to not put her in one since she is only > 12. > > Critique is the main technique used in these workshops and I feel at 12 > you > > are not old enough to differentiate critique from criticism. There is > also > > a lot of forced criticism in workshops and she wouldn't know which pieces > > of advice to take and which to ignore. Also, the workshops tend to force > > writers into accepted structures. This is wrong. If writing is a creative > > process, then structure lends itself to creativity and forcing writers to > > stay within some pre-conceived notions is asking them to abort that > > creativity. Your daughter should just write whatever she wants to, in > > whichever form she chooses, and should not be subject to an adult's > version > > of what is good writing. Not yet. > > > > V > > > > > > > > On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 8:54 AM Sree Sivanandan > > wrote: > > > > > Hi > > > > > > My 12 year old daughter is very keen to attend workshops (Bangalore) > that > > > can fine tune her book writing skills. > > > > > > She turns 13, coming Jan and I would place her at 15 in terms of her > > > reading interests. She is a voracious reader who can comfortably read > 20 > > > plus books a month. > > > > > > Please suggest options. > > > > > > Thanks > > > Sree Sivanandan > > > > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Yahoo Groups shutting down, and Silklist archives
On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:52 AM Peter Griffin wrote: > From what I gather, users will only be able to download their own data > https://help.yahoo.com/kb/download-data-privacy-dashboard-sln28671.html I would assume that list admins would have the ability to download the archive of their entire list (hopefully in mbox or some other standard format instead of some weird shit like HTML or XML). Thaths > > > On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:59 PM Thaths wrote: > > > > > > https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwe9p/yahoo-groups-is-winding-down-and-all-content-will-be-permanently-removed > > > > "Users won't be able to upload new content to the site after October 21 > and > > have until December 14 to archive their content, Yahoo said in an > > announcement." > > > > As some of you might know, most of Silklist is archived in Yahoo Groups > > <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/silk-list/info>. If Yahoo Groups > > disappears, (most of) the 20+ history of Silklist will disappear too. > > > > Any thoughts on how to preserve the archives? > > > > Thaths > > -- > > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > > Carl: Nuthin'. > > Homer: D'oh! > > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > > Homer: Woo-hoo! > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
[silk] Yahoo Groups shutting down, and Silklist archives
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwe9p/yahoo-groups-is-winding-down-and-all-content-will-be-permanently-removed "Users won't be able to upload new content to the site after October 21 and have until December 14 to archive their content, Yahoo said in an announcement." As some of you might know, most of Silklist is archived in Yahoo Groups <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/silk-list/info>. If Yahoo Groups disappears, (most of) the 20+ history of Silklist will disappear too. Any thoughts on how to preserve the archives? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
silklist@lists.hserus.net
On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 8:08 AM Thaths wrote: > On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 1:37 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > >> Congrats, >> Kalyan, and let me take the opportunity to also plug the documentary "Wild >> Karnataka" [4] which Kalyan and fellow silklister Amoghavarsha [5] have >> made. >> >> [4] http://www.wildkarnataka.com/ > > > Kalyan and Amoghvarsha, > > Is Wild Karnataka streaming online somewhere? I want to show it to a > friend here in the US. > I have been invited to a private screening in the SF-Bay Area Wednesday next week (Oct 2). If any Bay Area Silk listers want to join me as a guest, please email me off-list. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Bangalore and Chennai food/restaurant recommendations
On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 7:38 PM Venkat Mangudi - Silk < s...@venkatmangudi.com> wrote: > MTR is over-rated. :-) > > CTR (there are two of them near Malleswaram) is better for dosas. Shree > Sagar (Central tiffin room - CTR1) is near the Malleswaram ground. > Chikkanna Tiffin Room (CTR2) is near the temple in Kumara Park. Both have > lip-smacking dosas. > I want to remind people that OP's question was about recommended places for visiting European tourists who have had little exposure to Indian cuisine to go to. The question was not what is the best place for some dish. Implied in the OP's question was, IMO, a requirement that the place be easily accessible to foreign tourists without freaking them out with language barrier or perceived hygiene issues. There are a dozen places I would go to in Bangalore for authentic, tasty food over MTR. From street corner benne dosa places, to North Karnataka food to TamBram food to mudde idli places, But I would hesitate to take a foreigner with no previous exposure to Indian restaurants to many of these. I.e., don't throw them in the deep end of the pool. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] Bangalore and Chennai food/restaurant recommendations
On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 11:32 PM Devdas Bhagat wrote: > Friend of mine are probably (pending visa issues) visiting Bangalore and > Chennai. > > They are both European, so exposure to Indian food is limited. > > Recommendations for places to get local(ish) cuisine? In Chennai Grand Sweets and Snacks is a good place to visit. Many of their locations have a restaurant attached to them that serves decent, hygienic South Indian food. They are also renowned for their, well, sweets and snacks. In Bangalore, surely MTR? S. > -- > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
silklist@lists.hserus.net
On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 1:37 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Congrats, > Kalyan, and let me take the opportunity to also plug the documentary "Wild > Karnataka" [4] which Kalyan and fellow silklister Amoghavarsha [5] have > made. > > [4] http://www.wildkarnataka.com/ Kalyan and Amoghvarsha, Is Wild Karnataka streaming online somewhere? I want to show it to a friend here in the US. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
silklist@lists.hserus.net
Congratulations, Kalyan! I was just telling someone yesterday about Kalyan's work. Thaths On Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 10:19 AM Radhika, Y. wrote: > Congratulations Kalyan ! > > El sáb., 17 ago. 2019 5:15 a. m., Venkat Mangudi - Silk < > s...@venkatmangudi.com> escribió: > > > Congrats, Kalyan! > > > > On Sat, 17 Aug 2019 at 4:37 AM, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > > > > > PSA: Longtime list.lurker Kalyan Varma [1] has been nominated for an > Emmy > > > award [2] for his work on the "Super Cats" documentary [3]. Congrats, > > > Kalyan, and let me take the opportunity to also plug the documentary > > "Wild > > > Karnataka" [4] which Kalyan and fellow silklister Amoghavarsha [5] have > > > made. > > > > > > I recommend trawling through both of their personal sites for some > > stunning > > > examples of their work. > > > > > > Udhay > > > > > > [1] http://kalyanvarma.net/ > > > [2] https://emmyonline.tv/news-and-documentary-40th-nominees/ > > > [3] https://vimeo.com/264734971 > > > [4] http://www.wildkarnataka.com/ > > > [5] http://amoghavarsha.com/ > > > > > > -- > > > > > > ( Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > > > > > >
Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)
On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 7:28 PM Bharat Shetty wrote: > Now wondering if I should get a proper google pixel phone. The only thing > that is making me think is "Is it worth to spend 60,000 INR for a phone > that lasts around 3-4 years max?" > The recently released Pixel 3a is excellent value for money. It has many of the features of the higher end Pixel 3, in a cheaper plastic body. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)
On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 4:57 PM Bharat Shetty wrote: > One of the things that came in discussions with the group involved in > building the tool was that, the mics on our smart phones are usually good > and as such the audio input delivered to the CloudASR (Where speech to text > happens) is good. Perhaps similar good mic quality may be needed for other > devices. I'm hoping the applications of this proliferate to all public > places. And also transliteration rolls in slowly for language to language. > that will be a huge game changer. > > Also, the team deliberately decided not to support saving of the > transcripts in accordance with the privacy laws concerns globally. > There is more announced on Live Transcribe: https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/16/android-live-transcribe-sound-alerts/ including transcription saving. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] What do you do when you get to know that you have been pwned?
On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 7:24 AM Ra Jesh wrote: > Hahaha. Neat!!! > Actually, (a) If you are doing this "Forgot password" thing too often on a reasonably well-built site, you are setting off all kinds of red flags about being a potentially malicious actor. If they have a bot-or-not reputation score for you, you are burning through that score with each attempt at 'Forgot password', (b) Your scheme to have random passwords on these sites is only as secure as the password on the email account you use for recovery. Thaths > > On Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 20:51 Ashim D'Silva > wrote: > > > For sites I don’t use too often, I was always tempted to reuse passwords > > which is a pretty bad practice, so I started just using the forgot > password > > feature more often. So I have a ridiculous entirely random password that > I > > don’t know, and then just say forgot password when I want to log in. > > > > It’s could also be a good way to go about changing all your passwords—and > > side effect is it confirms your backup email. > > > > Cheerio, > > > > Ashim > > Design & Build > > > > The Random Lines > > www.therandomlines.com > > > > > > On Fri, 22 Feb 2019 at 16:55, Thaths wrote: > > > > > On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:42 AM Udhay Shankar N > wrote: > > > > > > > On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:04 PM Udhay Shankar N > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > 1. Log out all gmail/facebook/other social sessions (Most providers > > > give > > > > > you the option to "log out all current sessions") > > > > > 2. Change all the passwords of pwned email addresses > > > > > 3. Enable 2FA EVERYWHERE that supports it. Ideally, with a hardware > > > token > > > > > such as a yubikey. > > > > > > > > > > > > > Additionally, I'd also suggest you log in to your various > (potentially) > > > > compromised accounts, check under security setting to see if the > backup > > > > email address (where password reset notifications are sent) and > backup > > > > phone number have been tampered with. > > > > > > > > > > > > > In addition to all of those steps, I also recommend using unique > > passwords > > > in all the sites. It is not going to be possible for you to remember > that > > > many unique passwords (especially if you choose strong passwords). I > > > recommend you choose strong passwords that you memorize for one or two > of > > > your key accounts (Google, Facebook). And use a password management (I > > > personally use keepass) to generate and store strong unique passwords > for > > > your other sites. > > > > > > Thaths > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? > > > Carl: Nuthin'. > > > Homer: D'oh! > > > Carl: Unless you're crooked. > > > Homer: Woo-hoo! > > > > > > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] What do you do when you get to know that you have been pwned?
On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:42 AM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:04 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > > > > 1. Log out all gmail/facebook/other social sessions (Most providers give > > you the option to "log out all current sessions") > > 2. Change all the passwords of pwned email addresses > > 3. Enable 2FA EVERYWHERE that supports it. Ideally, with a hardware token > > such as a yubikey. > > > > Additionally, I'd also suggest you log in to your various (potentially) > compromised accounts, check under security setting to see if the backup > email address (where password reset notifications are sent) and backup > phone number have been tampered with. > In addition to all of those steps, I also recommend using unique passwords in all the sites. It is not going to be possible for you to remember that many unique passwords (especially if you choose strong passwords). I recommend you choose strong passwords that you memorize for one or two of your key accounts (Google, Facebook). And use a password management (I personally use keepass) to generate and store strong unique passwords for your other sites. Thaths > > -- > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)
On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 1:07 PM Bharat Shetty wrote: > > Rather than using Google doc's speech-to-text dictation as a way of > getting > > a transcript of what was said by people in a meeting, a better approach > > might be some sort of accessibility setting in Android that does > real-time > > voice to text transcripts (and is also capable of identifying once voice > > from another - so it shows dialog, instead of a wall of text). > So, what Thaths was suggesting has been released finally by Google, and I'm > able to use it effectively in internal office meetings. > > > https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/02/real-time-continuous-transcription-with.html > > It does well on most Engish transcribing and Kannada as well. A game > changer application! > I saw a demo of it some months ago and I was very impressed. But I could not previously talk about it publicly. Which is why I described the behavior in general terms and did not mention that it was being worked on and coming out sometime. I am very happy to hear it is working for you, Bharat. I know the PM for this feature. I will drop him a note about this. He will be happy to hear it. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)
On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 3:49 AM Bruce A. Metcalf wrote: > > 1. Malthusian forces will bring famine to much of the third world, > unless some new disease gets there first. Growing resistance to > acceptance of vaccination will aid the latter. > I am in the middle of reading Hans Rosling's _Factfulness_. He says that current estimates are that global population is expected to plateau at 10-11 Billion by 2100. I.e, not an exponential Malthusian growth. Are you saying that population is going to go much higher than that, or that Earth doesn't have the carrying capacity for 10-11 Billion? > 4. Tribalization will continue to worsen cooperation, from the > international level down to communities. Such conflicts will in some > cases result in political separations, which will serve to ossify such > attitudes. > I agree. I think significant parts of the world are heading to a Civil War of some sort. Perhaps a Civil World War. But I feel this is likely to happen in the near future, and not 20+ years from now. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)
On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 2:53 AM Bharat Shetty wrote: > On Thu, Jan 3, 2019 at 11:15 AM Thaths wrote: > > 5. Though a bigger percentage of the world will be literate than today, > it > > will be possible to use the internet without being literate (voice > > recognition, tts) > > > > A question about current state of the voice recognition (voice typing by > google). Has it improved to pick up accents in India ? Can I use it to get > context reliably using google docs which shows the audio to text > translation in real-time during office meetings / conferences etc ? > Indian accent recognition has got a lot better, give it a try. Voice recognition works well when there is one person dictating at a reasonable pace. But in natural conversations, when people are speaking over each other and interrupting each other, it doesn't work that well. Rather than using Google doc's speech-to-text dictation as a way of getting a transcript of what was said by people in a meeting, a better approach might be some sort of accessibility setting in Android that does real-time voice to text transcripts (and is also capable of identifying once voice from another - so it shows dialog, instead of a wall of text). Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] it may not be well-done; is it becoming rare?
On Sat, Jan 5, 2019 at 7:15 AM Heather Madrone wrote: > I asked my daughter to send me a recipe out of a cookbook I'd > passed on to her. She texted a photo of the recipe to me instead of > typing it into an email. > This resonated with me as an illustration of the up and coming generations using technology smartly. I remember writing long letters to my friends and family back in my college days (early 90's). While I had access to email, a huge proportion of my family and friends did not at that time. I remember, for example, taking paragraphs to describe my first Pink Floyd concert to a friend in India I was writing to. If I had had access to the technologies of today, I would have taken short videos and photos and shared them with my friend, instead of recalling the concert in my mind's eye, finding the words to describe it, forming them and editing them in-memory to form coherent sentences and writing them down. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] it may not be well-done; is it becoming rare?
On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 9:47 AM Dave Long wrote: > > These days I think [email] is mostly used by us old fogies. > Fair enough, but what, pray tell, do all those non-old-fogies use to > convey thoughts that are too long for social media comments and too short > for blog posts? > Not being on most popular social media (Twitter, FB, etc.) I am not qualified to answer this. But when have I let such trivialities get in the way of offering my opinions? :-) I posit that one way the youth of today are conveying their thoughts in through non-textual means: Through Snapchat (i.e., marked up photos/images), and through the sharing of meme images/animations. One mixed (textual and non-textual) medium popular in many parts of the world (and with many parallels to emails/mailing lists) seems to be WhatsApp and similar messaging apps. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)
On Wed, Jan 2, 2019 at 8:22 AM Peter Griffin
wrote:
> Experiment for this list.
> Take a bash at this yourself. Let's give you a shorter horizon than The
> Star gave Asimov: 28 years, which will be 99 years after Orwell wrote 1984,
> and when India will have turned 101, and more importantly, this list will
> have turned 50.
>
> What are your predictions for 2048?
>
1. A significant majority automotive vehicles (cars, SUVs, buses) will be
Electrical Vehicles (EVs). DC fast chargers will be more widespread (but
probably not as many as petrol stations today). Fast charging stations will
be more in number than petrol stations (i.e., fewer petrol stations in the
future than today).
2. We will continue to depend on hydrocarbons for many applications -
aviation, plastics, for example.
3. A large percentage of the electricity that will power locomotion (see 1
above) will come from nuclear fission.
4. The Singularity will continue to be 20 years ago. We will not have
achieved the Singularity (or {Communist|Libertarian} Utopia).
5. Though a bigger percentage of the world will be literate than today, it
will be possible to use the internet without being literate (voice
recognition, tts)
(Prediction 0 is, I guess, that email will still be around in 2048, and so
> will this list, though I will almost certainly not be.)
>
I am actually sceptical that email will be around. It is already in, I'm
afraid terminal, decline. These days I think it is mostly used by us old
fogies.
Thaths
>
> All the very best for the new year and the next 28 years, y'all.
>
> ~peter
>
--
Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
Carl: Nuthin'.
Homer: D'oh!
Carl: Unless you're crooked.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
[silk] In Defense of Puns
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/11/15/in-defense-of-puns/ Once upon a time—in 382 C.E., to be exact—Eve bit into an apple. Seeing it was good, she offered the apple to Adam, and he also took a bite. Whereupon Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked. Ashamed at having broken God’s sole commandment not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve hid themselves when He came walking in the garden. And the rest, of course, is history. God in His wrath decreed that henceforth man must earn his daily bread by working the earth and woman must suffer agony in childbirth. As a final punishment, He cast Eve and Adam forever out of Eden. Prior to the fourth century, however, no one knew exactly which forbidden fruit Eve and Adam ate. Genesis records only that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was off limits; it does not specify what edible flower that tree produced. Apples appeared in 382 because that’s when Pope Damasus I asked Saint Jerome to translate the Old Latin Bible into the simpler Latin Vulgate, which became the definitive edition of the text for the next thousand years. In the Vulgate, the adjectival form of *evil*, *malus*, is *malum*, which also happens to be the word for “apple.” The similarity between *malum* (“evil”) and *malum* (“apple”) prompted Saint Jerome to pick that word to describe what Eve and Adam ate, thereby ushering sin into the world. The truth is, though, the apple is innocent, and this unjustly maligned fruit’s association with original sin comes down to nothing more than a pun. Puns straddle that happy fault where sound and sense collide, where surface similarities of spelling or pronunciation meet above conflicting seams of meaning. By grafting the idea of evil onto the word for apple, Saint Jerome ensured that every time we recall Adam and Eve’s fateful disobedience in the garden we are reminded of the fruit of a deciduous tree of the rose family. >From the beginning, punning has been considered the lowest form of wit, a painful fall from conversational grace. What other form of speech is so widely reviled that we must immediately apologize for using it? “Sorry, no pun intended.” But puns do not deserve such a bitter appellation. Despite its bad reputation, punning is, in fact, among the highest displays of wit. Indeed, puns point to the essence of all true wit—the ability to hold in the mind two different ideas about the same thing at the same time. And the pun’s primacy is demonstrated by its strategic use in the oldest sacred stories, texts, and myths. The Bible is replete with puns, even without Saint Jerome’s help. God fashioned Adam from *adamah*, Biblical Hebrew for “earth.” Eve’s ancient Hebrew name is Havvah, derived from *ahavvah*, which means “longing” or “love” but is also related to the words for “craving,” “mischief,” and “calamity.” Punning was even present at the foundation of the Christian faith itself, when Jesus famously said he intended to build his church upon Peter, whose name in Aramaic and in Greek means “rock.” In Egyptian mythology, the human race sprang from the sun god Ra’s tears; though written differently, the words for “people” and “tears” had the same pronunciation (“remtj”) in ancient Egyptian. The opening verses of the Indian epic the *Ramayana*condemn a hunter who fells a beautiful crane with an arrow, but the same words can also be construed as praising the Hindu god Vishnu for felling the demon Ravana. And the classic Chinese philosophical text *Tao Te Ching* begins with a triple pun: “The way [*tao*] that can be talked about [*tao*] is not the constant Way [*Tao*].” Punning folds a double knowledge into words. To make and understand a pun, you must grasp two things at once: the primary, apparently intended import of a word or phrase, and the secondary, usually subversive one. The frisson in the ship captain’s reply to the first-class passenger who asks if he can decide for himself whether to help row the lifeboat—“Of course, sir, either oar”—lies in the friction between explicit instruction and implicit threat. The brilliance of the tagline of the Upstate New York town known for its ravines and waterfalls—“Ithaca is gorges”—lies in the simultaneous statement of geologic fact and natural beauty. The best puns have more to do with philosophy than with being funny. Playing with words is playing with ideas, and a likeness between two different terms suggests a likeness between their referents, too. Puns are therefore not mere linguistic coincidences but evidence and expression of a hidden connection—between mind and material, ideas and things, knowing and nomenclature. Puns are pins on the map tracing the path from word to world. * Not all puns need to reveal a concealed metaphysical truth. Some are simple homophonic homages, which must be said aloud to be fully appreciated, such as, “When you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen ’em all.” Some puns offhandedly
Re: [silk] Organizing files/ folders on one's laptop
On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 1:59 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > (two caveats: if you are truly paranoid, consider > encrypting it first; and you may not want to bother with music/movies). What an interesting future we live in. Because almost 2 decades ago I carefully collected, curated and organized my music collection. Getting access to some of the more uncommon music I liked was not easy. But with Spotify, YouTube and other services, this has become essentially unnecessary. I still keep forward syncing my music collection from computer to computer as I upgrade, but by this time it is mostly just a habit. I use a software called Arq Backups on my Mac to encrypt and backup my most important files. One to a media server at home over sftp, one to Google cloud storage (other Destinations also supported by Arq Backup). Arq Backup encrypts and backs up in a well documented, open format. My cloud storage costs me approx. $2/month. Thaths
Re: [silk] Podcast recommendations?
On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 1:31 AM Namitha Jagadeesh wrote: > - The Bugle podcast by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman for politics and > satire (though sadly discontinued, worth digging into old episodes) > Since this post, The Bugle has been revived (with a rotating cast of co-hosts). I came here to post that Andy Zaltzman is doing a tour in India soon. Some of you might want to watch him live. See *https://twitter.com/ZaltzCricket/status/1043895759031144450 <https://twitter.com/ZaltzCricket/status/1043895759031144450>* Thaths
Re: [silk] How much time do you spend cooking?
On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 8:05 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Something I am curious about. > > How much time here do people spend actually cooking the food they eat? To > make the data more useful, calculate the time you spent over the past week > in total. > > Also, please mention whether you work outside home or primarily within home > (as a homemaker or a long distance worker) > I love food (and cooking). I eat breakfast and lunch at work. I tend to spend 4-6 hours on weekends shopping for fresh ingredients and cooking for the week. Every night assembling dinner takes anywhere from 10-60 minutes. On average, I'd say 60 mins/day. Thaths
Re: [silk] Chickpea Recipes, was: How much time do you spend cooking?
My favorite things to do with Chickpeas: 1. Chole Masala (lots of recipes online) 2. Sundal (a type of salad that could be eaten by itself as a snack or with chapati/rice). My family recipe: 1 cup of chickpeas soaked overnight and cooked till just tender (or one can, drained and washed) 1 inch of ginger (grated) 2 tbsp of grated coconut 2 tbsp vegetable or coconut oil 1 tsp urad dhal (black gram dhal) 1 tsp black or brown mustard seeds 1 green chili (stem and seeds removed if you want something less fiery) 1 tsp salt 4-5 sprigs of cilantro (chopped) 6-7 curry leaves (optional) 2 tbsp young mango (chopped into tiny pieces with skin) (optional) 0.25 tsp asafetida (optional) Juice of 0.5 lime or lemon Grind together coarsely the grated coconut, ginger and green chili. Heat the oil in a wok/pan and add mustard seeds and urad dhal. When mustard seeds start crackling add the curry leaves and asafetida. Add the chickpeas and salt and toss to coat evenly. Add the coarsely ground things and toss some more. Sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with dressing of lemon/lime juice 3. Hummus S. On Tue, Sep 4, 2018 at 1:57 PM Bruce A. Metcalf wrote: > Heather Madrone wrote: > > > I figure that, if I cook chickpeas one day a week, the supply will > > last close to 15 years. > > > > I have quite a few chickpea recipes and can alter other recipes to > > include chickpeas, but I'd welcome a few more to round out my > > repertoire. > > Rehydrate, toss in a hot wok with a bit of flavored oil and cook until > nearly dry. Makes a nice quick hot snack. Not sure if it makes a good > cold snack -- never made a batch that lasted that long. > > I normally use the oil left over from cooking Firecracker Shrimp: Clean > large shrimp, remove shell and tail, and skewer from the tail end to > hold straight. Dip in Sriracha, dust with corn starch, and dip into a > hot oil bath for 30 to 40 seconds. Works even better with tempura > batter, but I've not been able to figure that out yet. Big hit with my > hot-palated wife, but it leaves behind a lot of Sriracha-flavored oil. > > Cheers, > / Bruce / > >
Re: [silk] How many phone numbers do you remember?
On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 9:36 AM Tomasz Rola wrote: > > > Other skills missing in action: > > - programming anything in assembly (or any level below C, or even at level of C - i.e. direct manipulations of memory and stuff in it) [*] > Do you think there is a need for it these days? People have long forgotten computing done by flipping bits by turning switches on or off. > - collecting edible mushrooms from the woods > Magic shrooms on the other hand. > - even going to the woods and laying there for longer while > Don't people go camping these days? > - repairing one's tv set, radio or anything electronic > I currently live in Australia and I am happy to report that this art is still alive and well here. I have gotten a couple of home electronics repaired at the repair shop. And every decent-sized train station has a cobbler store! > > - understanding one's computer from transistor up (I have read there > were such people, really) > This is definitely possible to achieve today. See https://www.nand2tetris.org/ for example. At one time I knew how things worked from transistors up to the Assembly level abstraction. Thaths
Re: [silk] How many phone numbers do you remember?
On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 3:43 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 11:09 AM Thaths wrote: > > Speaking of skills obsoleted by technology... what other skills do we no > > longer use? > > > > Gently twirling a tuning knob to capture a vestigial shortwave radio > signal. > Paging through a paper dictionary and reading definitions of words at random Recording songs from the radio Thaths
Re: [silk] How many phone numbers do you remember?
On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 3:01 PM Alok Prasanna Kumar wrote: > About 6 numbers for me: parents' and a few close friends. > Me too. Basically, any number that I had to dial regularly back in the days before mobile/smartphones existed. So I remember my parent's landline, but not my brothers mobile number (which he got in the smartphone-era). And weirdly, the number I had ten years ago in college. > And these ancient numbers have turned into PIN numbers for my various cards and unlock screens these days. Speaking of skills obsoleted by technology... what other skills do we no longer use? One thing that comes to mind for me is using card catalogues in libraries. Thaths > > On Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 10:26 AM Lakshmi Pratury > wrote: > > > Four numbers for me - my husband, my son, my driver and my sister > > > > On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 8:22 AM, Udhay Shankar N > wrote: > > > > > I was thinking about (potentially) obsolete skills. One of them is > > > remembering phone numbers. Is that even a thing anymore? > > > > > > I did insist that my daughter memorised mine and my wife's number, > which > > > has come in useful on occasion. > > > > > > What about people here? How many numbers can you remember? > > > > > > Udhay > > > > > > -- > > > > > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > *Lakshmi Pratury* > > Host and Curator > > +91 99456 56864 <+91%2099456%2056864> > > *inktalks.com <http://www.theinkconference.com/> | twitter > > <https://twitter.com/#!/inktalks> | facebook > > <http://www.facebook.com/INKtalks> | INK blog <http://inktalks.com/blog > >* > > > > > > *INKtalks for you > > < > > > http://www.inktalks.com/discover/289/anu-vaidyanathan-india-s-first-triathlete > > >* > > >
Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2016
On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 2:47 PM Thaths wrote: > 4. Kenya: A Natural History <https://www.amazon.com/dp/1408134713/>, Steve > Spawls and Glenn Mathews; > ... > I wish somebody would write an equivalent book about the natural history > of India. > Apparently somebody did. Just came across (and ordered) 'Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent <https://www.amazon.in/dp/8184007574/>'. It seems to have been published a few months after I posted about the dearth of Indian books on National History. Thaths
Re: [silk] The Gap Instinct ~ Hans Rosling
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 2:09 PM Vani Murarka wrote: > Excerpt from Hans Rosling's book "Factfulness" > This book is in my To Read list. Do you recommend it? BTW, Hans Rosling was an amazing human being (and communicator). I am glad I was able to watch him live doing one of his famous talks. Thaths
Re: [silk] in the eye of the beholder
On Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 10:14 PM Charles Haynes wrote: > Having recently seen a number of Rothko's works up close at personal > at the Tate. I now "get" him, and have to agree. You cannot (I could > not) appreciate Rothko from reading about him, seeing his work > reproduced in art books, or viewing reproductions of his work. However > once I was actually *there* with them I was stunned. I sat down and > didn't move for a good fifteen minutes. I was shocked at my reaction > frankly. > I was reminded[1] of this thread when watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aGRHOpMRUg Thaths [1] Can't believe I remembered a thread more than a decade old.
Re: [silk] Filter bubbles as weapons
On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 10:44 PM Vani Murarka wrote: > Yes, that dreadful question that puts hapless students in a spot: "So? What > is the poet saying?" :-) exacerbated by the teacher's frustration and > "shoulds" :-) > *shudder* I was a dunce who barely scraped by Hindi. English, on the other hand, was a subject I loved. In high school it annoyed me terribly that my teachers - mostly good, kind, intelligent ones - insisted that a poem could have only one meaning. As if the Solitary Reaper could only mean what the state sanctioned curriculum said it meant. Thaths
Re: [silk] Filter bubbles as weapons
On Tue, Jan 9, 2018 at 1:44 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > This piece [1], on one of THE hotbutton topics of the last year, caught my > attention. The background of the writer (one of Facebook's earliest > investors and a longtime mentor of Mark Zuckerberg) makes it more > disquieting. It's a long but worthwhile read, which I recommend. > Adding it to my To Read list > Speaking for myself, > > * Online (primarily facebook) - I deliberately follow people whose > viewpoints I find toxic, or even completely alien. I also use forums like > silk to practice "having my mind changed". > * Offline - I have a goal of meeting at least one new interesting person a > week, a goal I have successfully met for over a decade. And, of course, > there's The Goa Project, which I do explicitly in order to meet new > interesting people. > Online: I will split this into two parts: Work Online and Personal Online. I follow a handful of people who are elsewhere on the political landscape than me in the Work Online realm. Mostly, these are people whose views diverge me from on the Fiscal policy axis. On the Personal Online realm, I follow a handful of people who fall under the Rockefeller Republican, Economist and Financial Times subscriber umbrellas. Offline: I find it much easier (than online) to talk to, and even exchange views with people from other parts of the political landscape. Thaths
Re: [silk] Reintroducing myself
> > Some of you have known me after transition. > > For the others, > I am Nadika. > Nice to meet you again, Nadika! Welcome back to Silklist. Thaths
Re: [silk] When was the last time you changed your opinion on something?
On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 9:01 AM Radhika, Y. wrote: > The most important thing I changed my mind about won't change the world but > it may change my relationship with it. I used to think that I was good with > children. Hell, no, I just want to be a child. > If you are up for it, could you share more? > ON other things I changed my mind about: > - being Indian I had to be interested in all things Indian (exhausting) > I apologize, but I can't parse that. Are you saying that being an India you used to think that you had to be interested in all things India, and you have changed your mind about this (i.e., no longer being interested in EVERYTHING Indian, but picking and choosing)? Thaths > - motivation = recognition; the lack of recognition is only sad if you > think about it and such an outcome is not necessary > > I still believe in Snowden's authenticity, humanity's shittiness and > paradoxical 'goodness' and that while looking out to space is fascinating, > the Earth is still the best. > > On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 5:19 PM, Thaths wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 11:40 AM John Sundman > wrote: > > > > > I have changed my opinion on Assange and Wikileaks. I used to think > > > Assange was a noble guy performing a useful function; I suspected that > > the > > > charges brought against him were part of an entrapment operation run by > > > U.S. backed intelligence services. > > > > > > > I too have changed my mind about Assange. And this change of mind > preceded > > the 2016 elections by quite some time. Wikileaks itself: I am ambivalent. > > As a platform for propagating some of this information, I am fine with. > But > > as an entity sometimes actively seeking leaks (See the recent news on > Trump > > Junior's direct tweet exchange with Wikileaks) I am less behind. > > > > > > > Which raises the questions of Snowden and Manning, and of the > journalist > > > Glenn Greenwald. > > > > > > I continue to believe that both Snowden and Manning acted with > patriotic > > > motives. They both reported horrendous, illegal actions and activities > of > > > United States agencies that would still be unknown had they not brought > > > them to light. I think the Republic was well served by their > disclosures > > — > > > even though they are, of course, associated with WikiLeaks ( I won’t go > > > into the complicated history of Snowden/Wikileaks or > Manning/WikiLeaks). > > > > > > > Snowden, I am still fully behind. Manning, I am more ambivalent about. > > > > > > > I don’t know what to make of Glenn Greenwald. > > > > > > > I don't always agree with Greenwald's positions, but I do like having him > > as a voice in the conversation. He is asking important questions about > the > > Democrats that are often swept under the carpet when faces with the > > catastrophe that is Trump. > > > > Thaths > > > > > > -- > If you swap that time for money, you don't get that time back to develop > yourself." > > 'The way you speak to your child becomes their inner voice' >
Re: [silk] When was the last time you changed your opinion on something?
On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 11:40 AM John Sundman wrote: > I have changed my opinion on Assange and Wikileaks. I used to think > Assange was a noble guy performing a useful function; I suspected that the > charges brought against him were part of an entrapment operation run by > U.S. backed intelligence services. > I too have changed my mind about Assange. And this change of mind preceded the 2016 elections by quite some time. Wikileaks itself: I am ambivalent. As a platform for propagating some of this information, I am fine with. But as an entity sometimes actively seeking leaks (See the recent news on Trump Junior's direct tweet exchange with Wikileaks) I am less behind. > Which raises the questions of Snowden and Manning, and of the journalist > Glenn Greenwald. > > I continue to believe that both Snowden and Manning acted with patriotic > motives. They both reported horrendous, illegal actions and activities of > United States agencies that would still be unknown had they not brought > them to light. I think the Republic was well served by their disclosures — > even though they are, of course, associated with WikiLeaks ( I won’t go > into the complicated history of Snowden/Wikileaks or Manning/WikiLeaks). > Snowden, I am still fully behind. Manning, I am more ambivalent about. > I don’t know what to make of Glenn Greenwald. > I don't always agree with Greenwald's positions, but I do like having him as a voice in the conversation. He is asking important questions about the Democrats that are often swept under the carpet when faces with the catastrophe that is Trump. Thaths
Re: [silk] PickleJar - Indian Free Stock Photos (Re: Ashim - An Introduction)
On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 5:23 AM Gaurav Vaz wrote: > Firstly, branched this off to a new thread, so we can focus the discussion > around this. > > We stopped Pickle Jar after a year of putting up a photo a day. So really, > if we can rally together and collect 1000 photos, which we can schedule and > release one a day, we will have stuff to put out for 3 years. > I can possibly get a short list of of a hundred or two from my portfolio. But it will require some winnowing. > > So if you guys have photos of India or shot in India you don’t mind putting > out online for free with due credit given of course, we will be happy to > restart it. The site and the domain are ours and we will happily do some > more work and fix up the site! > Can you fill me in on the thinking behind PickleJar? Why CC-Zero? And what was in it for the Photographer? And anything you can share about who used it and how (apart from seeing a good photo every day)? Thaths > > What say? > > On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 4:15 AM, Ashim D'Silva > wrote: > > > Thanks, glad you liked it, and we’re definitely happy to kick it back off > > if someone has better ideas on how to actually run it. I think Gaurav > and I > > learned we’re better at building other people websites than trying to run > > our own. > > > > On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 11:08 AM Rajesh Mehar > > wrote: > > > > > Oh n... It was a super idea. > > > > > > On Tue, Nov 7, 2017, 14:32 Ashim D'Silva > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Rajesh, it got hard to source diverse enough photographs that were > > useful > > > > stock I think. So we ran out of material. > > > > -- > If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice! > > Gaurav Vaz | m...@gauravvaz.com | +91 99005 16145 <+91%2099005%2016145> | > http://gauravvaz.com >
Re: [silk] Ashim - An Introduction
On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 4:04 PM gabin kattukaran wrote: >Which are the ones you have tried? As a consumer, I have found > 500px nice. Haven't tried posting there though. I find Instagram a tad > too restricting ( https://instagram.com/cyntalist ) Also, their move > away from chronological feed has been an irritant. > So far, I have looked at Smugmug and self-hosted galleries. I asked fellow photographers at work and they recommended against 500px. Apparently there have been quite a few cases of photo theft. S.
Re: [silk] Ashim - An Introduction
Welcome, Ashim! On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 5:24 PM Ashim D'Silva wrote: > we > also tried running a photo site for a while that we’d love to get going > again: http://picklejar.in Nice! I see (former?) Silklister Kalyan Varma's photos are included in there. I recently started the move from Flickr to Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/footloosethaths/) for social sharing of my photos. I am still looking for a portfolio hosting solution, but haven't found one that works for me. Smugmug comes highly recommended. Thaths > > > > > On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 12:32 AM Peter Griffin > wrote: > > > On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 5:29 PM, Ashim D'Silva > > wrote: > > > > > Hello Silklist, > > > > > > Glad to be a part of something that the more I read about, the more I > am > > > ashamed to not have known about. Better late than never then. > > > > > > I’m a web designer and front-end dev, sometimes a photographer and > > writer; > > > I work with Gaurav Vaz; I like movies and great food and coffee. I work > > > remotely making pretty internet things and follow my wife around while > > she > > > helps governments develop health systems for their citizens—currently > in > > > Rwanda, but will be moving to Johannesburg next year. Also then, happy > to > > > hear recommendations about the city if anyone’s lived there before. > > > > > > I trawled through the archives a bit, and it looks like it’s going to > be > > a > > > tonne of new faces—excited to hear more views and perspectives and > > > hopefully break my social opinion bubble. > > > -- > > > Cheerio, > > > > > > Ashim D’Silva > > > Design & build > > > www.therandomlines.com > > > instagram.com/randomlies > > > > > > > Hi Ashim > > > > Extra welcomes from me, because now I'm not the rawest rookie in the > group. > > (I've only been here a few weeks.) > > > > Care to share links to some of your pretty internet things? > > > > best > > > > ~peter > > > -- > Cheerio, > > Ashim D’Silva > Design & build > www.therandomlines.com > instagram.com/randomlies >
Re: [silk] On Lit fests
On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 2:12 PM Meera wrote: > Why are literary festivals in India less about literature and more about > journalism? That gets them the popularity of course, but where do writers > congregate? What do you all think? > Gets whom popularity? The journalists? The organizers? Having never been to a literary festival in India (or anywhere for that matter) I have no useful answers. Thaths
Re: [silk] Two history podcasts to top them all
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 8:17 PM Sidin Vadukut wrote: > > Y > up production restarts this week. Have a few academic commitments till > the end of the year. So episode releases maybe a little slow. But otherwise > a new episode should be out in a week or so. > Woohoo! Let me re-listed to the old episodes to catch up in the meantime. Thaths > > > On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 4:18 AM, Thaths wrote: > >> On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 8:21 AM Thaths wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 9:30 AM Sidin Vadukut >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Happy to inform that podcast will resume production in 2017. I will >>>> hopefully finish a bookproject by then and focus on the podcast and some >>>> other side projects. >>>> >>>> You can listen to the full archive of 14 episodes here: >>>> https://audioboom.com/channel/the-new-republic >>>> >>> >>> >> Sidin, >> >> Now that your bookproject is compelte >> <https://www.amazon.in/dp/8193355288/>, any news of resuming the >> podcast? :-) >> >> Thaths >> >> >> >>> >>> That is great news that you plan to bring back the podcast. >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> Thaths >>> >> >
Re: [silk] Two history podcasts to top them all
On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 8:21 AM Thaths wrote: > On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 9:30 AM Sidin Vadukut > wrote: > >> Happy to inform that podcast will resume production in 2017. I will >> hopefully finish a bookproject by then and focus on the podcast and some >> other side projects. >> >> You can listen to the full archive of 14 episodes here: >> https://audioboom.com/channel/the-new-republic >> > > Sidin, Now that your bookproject is compelte <https://www.amazon.in/dp/8193355288/>, any news of resuming the podcast? :-) Thaths > > That is great news that you plan to bring back the podcast. > > Thanks! > > Thaths >
Re: [silk] What's your primary computing device?
On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 10:37 AM Deepak Misra wrote: > I observe that there is a statistically significant proportion of > silklisters using Mac machines. Anything to read into ? > As in do smarter people use Macs ? Is it a style statement? Or do > Macs provide additional features which justify the premium. > I cannot speak for the others, but in my case, I used to use Linux on servers, desktops and laptops almost exclusively for 10 years. I continue to use Linux on servers and desktops to this day. About 10 years ago i moved to Mac on my laptop. I became sick and tired to patching kernels to get them to support suspending the laptop, bluetooth crappiness, wifi issues, etc on Linux on the laptop. A Macbook, while apparently more expensive, is pretty solid in terms of specs, construction and aesthetics. A PC of similar specs, construction and aesthetics costs about the same as a Macbook. IME, macbooks last a solid 4 years or so. OSX is quite good. Best of all, I have access to all my favorite command line tools through Homebrew and the ports collection. My main use case for the laptop is to edit and process photos. The tools available to do this are the best in the world. By comparison, my options for photo processing is very limited on Linux. If I were a gamer, I'd probably go with Windows. If I did more coding day to day, I'd go with Linux. Thaths
Re: [silk] Tokyo October
On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 4:18 PM Vinay Rao wrote: > I'm going to be in Tokyo Oct 10-14, with some time to look around and meet > people on 13th and 14th (Friday and Saturday). I would love to catch up > with any Silklisters in the city (Once I decode the railway + subway > puzzle) > I'm going to be in Tokyo in late November in case there are Silklisters who would like to meet up. > I'll be staying in the old Tsukishima area. Any tips on offbeat > experiences, or even touristy ones, are welcome. Above all, If you know a > friend or a local who can lend or rent me a road bicycle in the area, for a > couple of days, I'd have much to thank you for. > Not a direct answer to your question, but I've found japan-guide.com to be an excellent resource for finding things to do. One of my interests is food. I am planning on going to a couple of Michelin starred vegetarian friendly restaurants (Daigo, Joel Robuchon, Tudor Tranquility(this one not starred yet)) while I'm there. Thaths
Re: [silk] What's your primary computing device?
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 6:33 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > As in, what do you spend the most time doing serious work/play on? For any > definition of 'work' or 'play' that appeals to you? > Work: A Linux desktop. And my MacBook Pro. I like the UI beauty of the Mac and the access to my favorite command line tools (cal is still my preferred way of looking at the calendar) Play: (the same) MacBook Pro for email, news, photos editing. A Kindle touch for consuming eBooks. I am amazed at the longevity of these devices. Amazon's best product, IMO. 5+ and still going strong. And my Pixel phone (for podcasts, audio books, quickly looking things up on the move). There is also a Mac Mini at home hooked up to my TV on which I watch the occasional Netflix or time shifted TV shows. Thaths
Re: [silk] Novels about Jews in India?
On Wed., 13 Sep. 2017, 6:01 pm Aadisht Khanna wrote: > On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 3:27 PM, Thaths wrote: > > > On Wed., 13 Sep. 2017, 12:56 pm Suresh Ramasubramanian < > sur...@hserus.net> > > wrote: > > > > > Hm. What’s that stuff they smoke in those parts? Qat? Kif? > > > > > > What is chewed. And is not hallucinogenic. More of a mild upper. > Stupid autocorrect. I meant 'Qat is chewed'. This is why I almost never reply to emails on my phone (weaving together two silk list threads) > > > There seems to be some confusion - the cat is the chewer, not the chewee. > Well played, sir. Well played. Thaths >
Re: [silk] Novels about Jews in India?
On Wed., 13 Sep. 2017, 12:56 pm Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: > Hm. What’s that stuff they smoke in those parts? Qat? Kif? What is chewed. And is not hallucinogenic. More of a mild upper. Thaths > Whatever > it is the rabbi was on, I’d like some please. It’d be fun to hold > conversations with a cat or dog. > > On 13/09/17, 10:23 AM, "silklist on behalf of Aadisht Khanna" > li...@aadisht.net> wrote: > > The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar is a graphic novel about a Tunisian (I > think, > but definitely North African) rabbi whose cat gains the power of > speech and > then engages the rabbi in theological debate. > > > >
Re: [silk] Novels about Jews in India?
On Wed., 13 Sep. 2017, 12:53 pm Aadisht Khanna wrote: > On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 4:37 PM, John Sundman wrote: > > > This is a query from Nicole Galland, a friend of mine: > > > > "Can anyone name a novel about Jews in the > Arab-World-not-including-Israel? > > Also interested in hearing about novels concerning Jews in India. “ > > > > > The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar is a graphic novel about a Tunisian (I think, > but definitely North African) rabbi whose cat gains the power of speech and > then engages the rabbi in theological debate. > +1 to The Rabbi's Cat (graphic novel). Has bits about the Sephardim (or is it Maghrebi) experience. Thaths >
Re: [silk] Novels about Jews in India?
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 9:08 PM John Sundman wrote: > This is a query from Nicole Galland, a friend of mine: > > "Can anyone name a novel about Jews in the > Arab-World-not-including-Israel? Also interested in hearing about novels > concerning Jews in India. “ > Not a novel, but Amitav Ghosh's 'In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale' is good. It includes bits about Judaism in India (and Egypt) and globalization in the ancient world. Thaths
[silk] What We Get Wrong About Technology
http://timharford.com/2017/08/what-we-get-wrong-about-technology/ Blade Runner (1982) is a magnificent film, but there’s something odd about it. The heroine, Rachael, seems to be a beautiful young woman. In reality, she’s a piece of technology — an organic robot designed by the Tyrell Corporation. She has a lifelike mind, imbued with memories extracted from a human being. So sophisticated is Rachael that she is impossible to distinguish from a human without specialised equipment; she even believes herself to be human. Los Angeles police detective Rick Deckard knows otherwise; in Rachael, Deckard is faced with an artificial intelligence so beguiling, he finds himself falling in love. Yet when he wants to invite Rachael out for a drink, what does he do? He calls her up from a payphone. There is something revealing about the contrast between the two technologies — the biotech miracle that is Rachael, and the graffiti-scrawled videophone that Deckard uses to talk to her. It’s not simply that Blade Runner fumbled its futurism by failing to anticipate the smartphone. That’s a forgivable slip, and Blade Runner is hardly the only film to make it. It’s that, when asked to think about how new inventions might shape the future, our imaginations tend to leap to technologies that are sophisticated beyond comprehension. We readily imagine cracking the secrets of artificial life, and downloading and uploading a human mind. Yet when asked to picture how everyday life might look in a society sophisticated enough to build such biological androids, our imaginations falter. Blade Runner audiences found it perfectly plausible that LA would look much the same, beyond the acquisition of some hovercars and a touch of noir. Now is a perplexing time to be thinking about how technology shapes us. Some economists, disappointed by slow growth in productivity, fear the glory days are behind us. “The economic revolution of 1870 to 1970 was unique in human history,” writes Robert Gordon in The Rise and Fall of American Growth (UK) (US). “The pace of innovation since 1970 has not been as broad or as deep.” Others believe that exponential growth in computing power is about to unlock something special. Economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee write of “the second machine age” (UK) (US), while the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab favours the term “fourth industrial revolution”, following the upheavals of steam, electricity and computers. This coming revolution will be built on advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, nanotech, biotech, neurotech and a variety of other fields currently exciting venture capitalists. Forecasting the future of technology has always been an entertaining but fruitless game. Nothing looks more dated than yesterday’s edition of Tomorrow’s World. But history can teach us something useful: not to fixate on the idea of the next big thing, the isolated technological miracle that utterly transforms some part of economic life with barely a ripple elsewhere. Instead, when we try to imagine the future, the past offers two lessons. First, the most influential new technologies are often humble and cheap. Mere affordability often counts for more than the beguiling complexity of an organic robot such as Rachael. Second, new inventions do not appear in isolation, as Rachael and her fellow androids did. Instead, as we struggle to use them to their best advantage, they profoundly reshape the societies around us. To understand how humble, cheap inventions have shaped today’s world, picture a Bible — specifically, a Gutenberg Bible from the 1450s. The dense black Latin script, packed into twin blocks, makes every page a thing of beauty to rival the calligraphy of the monks. Except, of course, these pages were printed using the revolutionary movable type printing press. Gutenberg developed durable metal type that could be fixed firmly to print hundreds of copies of a page, then reused to print something entirely different. The Gutenberg press is almost universally considered to be one of humanity’s defining inventions. It gave us the Reformation, the spread of science, and mass culture from the novel to the newspaper. But it would have been a Rachael — an isolated technological miracle, admirable for its ingenuity but leaving barely a ripple on the wider world — had it not been for a cheap and humble invention that is far more easily and often overlooked: paper. The printing press didn’t require paper for technical reasons, but for economic ones. Gutenberg also printed a few copies of his Bible on parchment, the animal-skin product that had long served the needs of European scribes. But parchment was expensive — 250 sheep were required for a single book. When hardly anyone could read or write, that had not much mattered. Paper had been invented 1,500 years earlier in China and long used in the Arabic world, where literacy was common. Yet it had taken centuries to spread to Christian Europe
[silk] Malware encoded in a strand of DNA
https://www.wired.com/story/malware-dna-hack/ "...a group of researchers from the University of Washington has shown for the first time that it’s possible to encode malicious software into physical strands of DNA, so that when a gene sequencer analyzes it the resulting data becomes a program that corrupts gene-sequencing software and takes control of the underlying computer" Malware for one platform encoded into code on another platform. Thaths
Re: [silk] Memory QotD
On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 12:01 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > "I miss what I had in terms of the speed of memory access. If I needed > a word or a fact it was already at my fingertips and now it’s like an > arthritic and elderly gentleman has to sit up and go down many, many > flights of stairs very slowly and go and rummage in dusty drawers. > Eventually he will return four days later, normally at about 1.30 in > the morning, and I will sit up and go, “Oh yes! ‘Crepuscular.’ That > was the word I was looking for.”" > Doesn't Search solve this problem in many cases? Or is Gaiman bemoaning the loss of the time delayed "Ah ha!" moment? I find that I get older my memory is not as agile as it used to be. So sometimes I find myself not saying something because I cannot recall the exact term for it. I used to worry about the degradation in the retrieval speed. But these days, I look at these opportunities as good exercise in not replying with one's gut. Thaths
Re: [silk] Disposing off film SLRs in Bangalore / Bay Area
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 11:06 PM Sriram Karra wrote: > Gaurav, They are a Nikon N80, and a Canon Rebel 2K, both purchased in the > US ~15-17 years old. They were in working condition ~5 years ago, when > their batteries ran out and they have been untouched since. My guess is > they should be OK, but it's only a guess. > The Canon Rebel 2k was my first SLR. I then moved to a Nikon N90 (and have stayed on the Nikon train since). Keh and Amazon tell me that they go for ~$50 each. I am sure there is someone who could use them. Definitely ask around in the mailing lists. Someone will take them off your hands if you are giving them away. Thaths
Re: [silk] Disposing off film SLRs in Bangalore / Bay Area
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 4:27 PM Sriram Karra wrote:
> I have two Film SLRs that I'd like to give away or dispose off in some
> other way. I am looking for ideas on how to responsibly get rid of them in
> Bangalore. I *could* carry them with me on a work trip to the Bay Area if
> there are significantly better ("greener") options available there...
>
> Any recommendations from first or second hand experiences?
>
1. You can try selling them on Amazon.com marketplace.
2. Our employer has a thriving mailing list photography@ where people sell
their gear all the time.
3. You can sell it to keh.com the next time you are Stateside.
Thaths
Re: [silk] Books about the Bhakti movement?
My quest is definitely for a book written in an idiom and language I understand. I am looking for a book that makes its arguments using contemporary academic tools. In this idiom, words like 'logic', 'history' and 'academic's are not slights. Which is why John Stratton Hawley's book sounded promising. Since I sent my previous email in this thread, I looked more into Hawley's book (reading snippets in Google Books) and, while it has an interesting theory to propose, it doesn't quite address the I question I originally asked. A friend of mine who is an Indian historian and an academic has pointed me at some promising academics. I will update this thread when I read a little on what they have to say. Thaths On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 5:58 PM Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: > Historians and academicians of religion can occasionally be guilty of > approaching an intuitive and lived experience largely beyond the grasp of > the intellect with the cold stare of logic and ambition. They are like a > computer generated Mondrian, or a film set of Auschwitz, they don't carry > the life spirit no matter how accurate they get. > > This reminds me of a joke, there is an ambitious novice monk somewhere who > is so fast he finishes an hour's meditation in fifteen minutes. > > > On Jun 22, 2017 10:18 AM, "Sriram Karra" wrote: > > I would love to hear your views on the book once you have read it. I am > basically alarmed / amused by the blurbs on amazon.com (partly reproduced > below) which go against everything we as practicing Hindus have learned. > > *"Challenging this canonical narrative, John Stratton Hawley clarifies the > historical and political contingencies that gave birth to the concept of > the bhakti movement. Starting with the Mughals and their Kachvaha allies, > North Indian groups looked to the Hindu South as a resource that would give > religious and linguistic depth to their own collective history. Only in the > early twentieth century did the idea of a bhakti “movement” crystallize―in > the intellectual circle surrounding Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal." * > > (Emphasis added) > > Perhaps the author is defining the "Bhakti Movement" (or at a minimum the > word "crystallize" in that context) in a very specific way ... > > On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 12:13 PM, Thaths wrote: > > > This book seems to be the one I am looking for: > > > > A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement > > <https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674187466/> by John Stratton Hawley. > > > > Thaths > > > > On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 3:52 PM Thaths wrote: > > > > > I am looking for a book that explores the origins of, and gradual > spread > > > of the Bhakti movement in India. Not interested in one specific strand > > of > > > Bhakti. More interested in understanding the economic, social and > > cultural > > > conditions that led to the rise of these movements across India. > > > > > > Have you come across such a book? > > > > > > > > > Thaths > > > > > > > > > > > >
Re: [silk] Books about the Bhakti movement?
This book seems to be the one I am looking for: A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement <https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674187466/> by John Stratton Hawley. Thaths On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 3:52 PM Thaths wrote: > I am looking for a book that explores the origins of, and gradual spread > of the Bhakti movement in India. Not interested in one specific strand of > Bhakti. More interested in understanding the economic, social and cultural > conditions that led to the rise of these movements across India. > > Have you come across such a book? > > > Thaths > > >
[silk] Books about the Bhakti movement?
I am looking for a book that explores the origins of, and gradual spread of the Bhakti movement in India. Not interested in one specific strand of Bhakti. More interested in understanding the economic, social and cultural conditions that led to the rise of these movements across India. Have you come across such a book? Thaths
Re: [silk] Introducing myself
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 2:22 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 9:50 AM, Thaths wrote: > > By which, of course, I mean 'menstruation'. That'll teach me to not trust > > my browser's spell corrections. > Yes, I was wondering what your angle was. > I am acutely embarrassed now. I know I can count on Silk listers to want everything to add up. Thaths
Re: [silk] Introducing myself
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 2:22 PM Udhay Shankar N wrote: > On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 9:44 AM, Thaths wrote: > > Welcome to Silklist, Cindy. I first heard you (and of your work) a few > > years ago, IIRC, in Dan Savage's podcast Savage Lovecast. > > > Thaths, your name came up in the conversation that Cindy and I had - due > to your past work as part of the back end team at the world's most valuable > domain name. :) > Ah, yes! My gig at, what I describe in my resume simply as, "a popular search engine". Porn, interestingly, has a long history of being early adopters of technology. The success of media/technology like Polaroid, super 8 film, the web, (and I am told Snapchat, etc.) is driven by human quest for (Kabuki) sex. Thaths
Re: [silk] Introducing myself
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 2:14 PM Thaths wrote: > On the other the patriarchy tries to keep women suppressed through a > veneration of (women's) virginity, an emphasis of abstinence, rules of > impurity around mensuration, etc. > By which, of course, I mean 'menstruation'. That'll teach me to not trust my browser's spell corrections. Thaths
Re: [silk] Introducing myself
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 1:11 AM Cindy Gallop wrote: > If I may introduce myself - I'm Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of social sex > videosharing sextech startup MakeLoveNotPorn, which began as a little > public service site I launched at TED 2009 with this talk: > > http://blog.ted.com/cindy_gallop_ma/ > Welcome to Silklist, Cindy. I first heard you (and of your work) a few years ago, IIRC, in Dan Savage's podcast Savage Lovecast. Indian attitudes to sexuality and sex is mixed and contradictory. On the one hand there is a long tradition (going back to Kama Sutra, certain Bhakti poetry, etc.) considering sex to be fun and pleasurable. On the other the patriarchy tries to keep women suppressed through a veneration of (women's) virginity, an emphasis of abstinence, rules of impurity around mensuration, etc. Sex education in India, at least in my days, was a matter of hurriedly teaching the biology. I remember my biology teacher spending a mere 30-40 minutes on human reproduction (almost entirely speaking in clinical terms of gametes, fallopian tubes, glans, etc.). I suspect many Indians, wrongly in my opinion, worry that teaching teenagers about safe and pleasurable sex would lead to copious copulation and unwanted pregnancies. The less said about Bollywood's (and its South Indian cousins') depiction of courtship, finding a partner, consent, sex, maintaining a healthy relationship between two adults, etc., the better. Thaths
Re: [silk] Silklisters in Boston/Cambridge?
On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 10:10 PM Chew Lin Kay wrote: /delurks And excepting that, anyone has tips to help a tropical baby survive her first winter? (how is it snowing in March?!) The cold is just one part of the misery. The other is the dearth of daylight. I strongly recommend you get a couple of these Happy Lights: https://www.amazon.com/Verilux-HappyLight-Energy-Lamp-5000/dp/B002Q2H2JC Thaths
