Can someone suggest a good bookmarking app that can be used offline, as well as great typography and neat bookmarking of social media videos? Absolutely. At least embed and show it correctly.
I was born in the second southernmost district of Kerala, Quilon (now Kollam). I am now a U.S. citizen in the Bay Area. Growing up in Quilon, I attended an Anglo-Indian boy's school called Infant Jesus - in a small strip of land called Thangassery, people predominantly spoke English. I was taught British dialects emphasizing pronunciations that mimicked the world stage. I didn't really understand it until much later in life.
In my 20s, the contrast hit when I traveled across other parts of India.
Kerala has a mix of Western population that decided to stay back after the Indian Independence that brought with them Christianity, education, hospitals, and the Catholic culture. Kerala is also one of the few places in India where you can eat beef without inhibitions.
The writer hasn't emphasized this enough, but when oil struck the Middle East in the 1960s, the massive influx of blue and white-collar labor (who had the English language and engineering skills) that helped set up what's now Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman, and many other countries was built by Malayalees. My father-in-law was one of the earlier engineers at Aramco in Saudi. The Middle Eastern money has flown back to Kerala thanks to high bank interest rates (nearly 10%) and landlocked real estate that helped raise the state's GDP.
> Kerala has a mix of Western population that decided to stay back after the Indian Independence that brought with them Christianity, education, hospitals, and the Catholic culture. Kerala is also one of the few places in India where you can eat beef without inhibitions.
Christianity in Kerala is much older than European Christianity. Literally the land of the Apostles
Agree. The Christians that came with the Apostles mainly were Syrians who were traders and kept to themselves for 13-14 centuries.
The British Christians were engaged in evangelism and, consequently, set up colleges, schools, hospitals, and other such institutions. They were also involved in conversions that led to the penetration of Christianity from a minor fraction (during the time from the early AD till 18th century) to double digits. This was obviously instrumental for English language inculcation.
Meh. That's most stories attributed to the apostles. The story of st Thomas is ancient and even before colonization, the prevailing attitude in Europe was that st Thomas and st Bartholomew both proselytized India. You'll find references to this in many books and manuscripts.
In fact many European maps contained the belief that there was a Christian kingdom in Kerala. They even had saints from there whose stories made their way over and were recorded.
Thus Kerala is as holy to christians as Rome, Constantinople, Spain, Armenia, Ethiopia, etc.
This talking point is often used by Hindu nationalists who claim that India is not holy to christians and thus christians are foreigners. I'll point out that (1) Kerala is holy and (2) there is more evidence of st Thomas in Kerala than of Parasurama parting the seas to reveal Kerala.
> The story of st Thomas is ancient and even before colonization
So? All Christian communities made up a bunch of nonsense about themselves, often linking themselves to the early church.
> the prevailing attitude in Europe was that st Thomas and st Bartholomew both proselytized India.
Yes and if you actually look up why that is the 'prevailing attitude' you will find that it is at best based on some 3rd century stories that Thomas might have been in Partia. But even those claims are completely baseless of anything before it.
> You'll find references to this in many books and manuscripts.
No you can't. There is one reference in Origen about Thomas maybe having gone to Parthia but that is just as much a story likely based on all the fake gospels people were writting at that time. We know well that by Origen time there were tons and tons of made up stories about all the (supposed) apostles, including about Thomas.
And then Eusebius later claimed he went to India (and India doesn't even mean necessarily mean India as we understand it). And Eusebius is basically the 'myth maker extraordinaire' of the early Christianity, and his claims is basically what almost everything later is based on. Basically anything the Christian believe about their history comes from this 4th century 'source'. So basically anything Eusebius claims is basically accepted by later church tradition as 'the truth'.
Its quite typical of early christian source to grow the story and add increasingly more and more stuff to them. You can see this even in the bible, compare Paul letters to Paul in Acts. Basically just a random wandering preacher, getting transformed into a magical superhero. Pretty typical of all early Christian figures. You start out with few people doing not so amazing things (likely as there is little evidence they existed at all), and 300 years later, every one of those people is basically the hero of their own expanding story. Characters that are not mentioned anywhere, get inserted into a later versions of the text, and then all of a sudden more text show up mentioning them, and couple 100 years later three is a whole textual tradition about all the things that person supposedly did. Basically its the Marval Cinematic Universe. Thomas is basically Hawkeye.
A much more likely story is that Eusebius book (or other gospels about Thomas) arrived in India and then expand on by the locals.
> In fact many European maps contained the belief that there was a Christian kingdom in Kerala.
There are tons of claims about all kinds of Christian kingdoms in the East threw-out the middle ages.
By the time firm knowledge of Kerla existed it was, much much later and is completely irrelevant to the question of Thomas.
I am not denying Christianity came to India pretty early on. That said, I think the claim that it arrived in the first century are not based on much, neither textual nor archeological evidence has ever been found to my knowledge.
> (2) there is more evidence of st Thomas in Kerala than of Parasurama parting the seas to reveal Kerala.
Sure but that's not how history works.
I am not sticking my finger into whatever Indian ideological drama I seem have stepped into.
Clearly I don't agree with whatever nationalist faction you are talking about. I am just point out what we actually know historically.
There is really nothing written about Christianity until fairly late. At the time certain Christian writing originates in Europe, Christianity is well established in India. The various other stories attributed to the apostles are variously assumed to be partially true. For example, St Peters martyrdom at the Vatican hill, which was later found to be true.
There are two factions vying to de-link India from early Christianity, the white nationalists and the hindutvas. You've stepped into this mess because in a thread where I pointed out Christianity in India is native to India and as old or older than Europe you butted in to point out that may be the story of the apostles is not true
We can have a debate on the veracity of early Christian claims, but this is really not the place for it. The Syriac church has existed in Kerala for as long as Christianity and they do things their own way
> Christian kingdoms in the East threw-out the middle ages.
Indeed. The difference of course is that, the Syriacs have existed the entire time and are not a story
Catholic churches are quite conservative in their own ways, primarily set up by Christian missionaries with the mandate to convert.
The english language helped, sure, but it's the lack of opportunities in their own state and the higher education levels that created the conditions for the immigration to Middle East. Kerala also had a long history of trade with Arabs.
Yes, there is restriction on beef consumption in India but nobody protests for pork while in the middle east - it's all about which side the bread is buttered.
It was the 90s. I was probably in the ninth grade in a small, sleepy little town in the southernmost part of India called Quilon when Noam Chomsky and his wife showed up on a stage and talked about how life has to change culturally to be a developed nation and how linguistic skills should be at the forefront to succeed.
I was probably just 12 years old, but it profoundly impacted this little kid and was etched for the rest of my life.
Rest in peace, Mr. Chomsky. You've impacted more people than you can ever imagine.
Transmit has been and so far unless proven otherwise always will be one of the top 5 little apps for the Mac platform. Panic has always made some of the most intuitive/useful utilities, and there are few companies with the consistent hits that they've had.
Interesting story on that, Robert Nardelli (HD CEO 2000-2007) fired all the ex-tradespeople that Home Depot employed in their stores, because they cost more than younger and less experienced labor.
Straight from the GE "How to mortgage a company's future for a small boost in the present" book.
There were also some hilarious anecdotes told about him refusing to get out of his car in the corporate parking lot until security met him and escorted him in, presumably because he understood how much employees disliked him.
There's no better reminder that only a thimbleful of useful human knowledge is actually found on the internet.
I recently spent 4 hours online trying to solve a carpentry problem and not even knowing what words to use. I finally called my dad and in less than 2 minutes it was solved.
Now _that_ would be a good, hard challenge for ChatGPT and its ilk. Could you post question and correct answer here? Preferrably also something approximating the original version (when you still didn't know the correct technical terms).
The communication of solutions to untrained audiences through the employment of simplified semantics is definitely an interesting field of linguistics. Visual smacks of Ikea.
it's impossible to squeeze experience into text. that's one thing AI will never be able to replace: 20 years of carpentry projects.
I can show you how to do the thing with the chisel in this particular type of wood and humidity and grain and angle and pressure, but I can't write it down.
Fair point. In all seriousness though, it does often feel like Youtube is filling that niche quite nicely. It is almost as if the formerly wondrous power of written language to communicate across time and space is being debased and usurped by the power of video production and internet distribution...
Everything to do with headwinds. If you think only aircrafts can do this, watch this hang glider land: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uQimddEKrFw
Fort Funston, California.
As the saying goes, “There are no bold and old pilots.” If flying and hang gliding teaches you anything, it is to take the right decisions within the framework of safety you have experience with. It’s a bit like knowing how to ride a bicycle, but you want to do a wheelie when it rains – not the right decision.
Circa 2022, the safety and community policing is strong enough to weed out non-safe pilots. I know pilots are as old as 80 years old and have been flying for 40+ years without incidents.
My father used to fly when I was little, but he quit. When I asked him about it he said he used to think that it was only the crazy ones that got killed. But then a few people he knew as careful and level headed died in accidents. My father's conclusion was that the sport is inherently dangerous, and he wanted to make sure that he was around while me and my siblings grow up, so he quit.
This must have been in the early eighties. Maybe the gliders and/or training become better. But still quite a few people died. Since then more people do paragliding, which to me seems to be inherently safer.
I'm not convinced that paragliding is inherently safer. The speeds are lower, and it's not "head-first". But at least a hang-glider is a solid device that can't randomly collapse (a common cause of paragliding accidents). From what I've seen in terms of safety stats, they are similar, with sailplanes being a bit safer (though my sense is that that depends on whether you fly sailplanes in the mountains or flatter areas, with mountains being significantly more dangerous).
The video mentions the article. I wonder if the video host Tom's intro slide makes another interesting point - survivor bias. Statistically someone will make it through decades of bad decisions unscathed, and with generous self-appraisal will call it good decision making, when it actual fact they were just of the lucky. (survivor bias - shouldn't look at extremely successful companies for inspiration)
I'll watch the rest of the video, but wanted to thank you for sharing it, and sharing your perspective. I am by no means risk averse, and long to fly one day, but after a few years of one dangerous sport, and considering joining friends in paragliding, I looked into the safety aspect and it seemed too risky (coming from one deadly sport, I felt like I needed a break, not another)
I don't know anything about hang gliding but, has there been a culture shift since this article was published in 1998? e.g. the things he describes like breaking a downtube on landing (or crashing as he says), is that considered not-normal now? What has changed in the past 24 years?
Some sites have great safety culture. Others don’t. (In Seattle, there are good examples of this.) accident reports still have higher license ratings more frequent than p1/p2, but that’s unadjusted for flight hours.
Osmo is a favorite with Hacker News parents. Two years back, we started this labor of love to help them in this difficult journey of learning how to read.
