cydonian

cydonian, 6 months ago to random

“Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.”

This and other hits by @pluralistic on the moral injury of your work getting enshittified. https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/

cydonian, 10 months ago to random

A talented, high accomplished educator was chased out of jobs in two Georgia counties even before she started her job because CRT. This is how 21st century Jim Crow looks like.

What a depressing read. (From @ProPublica )

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-dei-crt-schools-parents

cydonian, 11 months ago to random

Per @pluralistic ‘s new piece: there are centers in the US where they give fictitious tests prolonging your pregnancy instead of giving a clinically safe abortion. They advertise heavily on Google, so when you search for “Planned Parenthood” (eg), you see links for these frauds first.

Google relatively earns very little from these guys, but is probably afraid of going against them because politics.

Shocking.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/

cydonian, 14 days ago to random

Didn’t realise the Indian crew of the Singapore ship that crashed into the bridge in Baltimore are still isolated on the ship, and will be for the foreseeable future. https://mothership.sg/2024/05/21-crew-singapore-flagged-ship-baltimore-bridge/

cydonian, 6 months ago to magASEAN

Deepāvali dinner. #MakanApaToday

cydonian, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

Wow. In @timkmak ‘s latest, he mentions that 1000+ subscribers unsubscribed from his newsletter because his team wrote this post about a trans-activist last week. https://open.substack.com/pub/counteroffensive/p/amid-missile-strikes-being-queer

cydonian, 10 months ago to random

Japan may be cyberpunk but Singapore aims for a solarpunk aesthetic these days.

cydonian, 6 months ago to random

“Even though I love China, the nation is one thing and the government is another—it’s a group of individuals with power over the country for a brief period in the grand sweep of history,” he said. “I have no intention of overthrowing the government, nor do I have the ability. But there are truths that I believe Chinese citizens have the right to know. We’ve all been educated to say, ‘Better to keep our mouths shut.’ But this is wrong. When information doesn’t flow, the whole country will go backward.”

Evan Osnos’ sobering new piece on China under Xi. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/chinas-age-of-malaise

cydonian, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to random

Was alluding to this earlier. Now the floodgates are open. Expect a lot more black-listings for OCI's. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-to-cancel-some-oci-cards-know-about-eligibility-benefits-restrictions-and-more-canada-khalistan-101695627211120.html

cydonian, 3 months ago to random

Between 2010 and 2022, a bored housewife wrote more than 300 articles on Russian history on Chinese Wikipedia. All of them were highly detailed. None of them were based on real facts.

She was finally found out because a novelist realised the Chinese language articles on silver mine in Russia had a lot lot more detail than on Wikipedia pages in Russian or other languages.
🤯

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhemao_hoaxes

cydonian, 8 days ago to random

“When you put all of these stories together, a clear picture emerges. The Indian government has developed a repertoire of tactics for repressing criticism abroad, and is currently deploying all of them as part of a campaign of intimidation in the United States. Human rights activists, experts, and Indian American community organizers are aware of India’s efforts and speak of its campaign as an everyday concern for themselves and people they know.

Which means it’s probably working.” https://www.vox.com/world-politics/24160779/inside-indias-secret-campaign-to-threaten-and-harass-americans

cydonian, 10 months ago to random

After spending a morning commute’s worth of time on Threads, I’ve realised a few things:

1. There is indeed a large crowd that wants to go away from Twitter
2. Most of them won’t come to Mastodon.
3. That’s a good thing. Let influencers influence the shit out of each other out there.

If you want the slow lane - polite, thoughtful interactions - come here. If you want a dopamine hit - fast-paced shitposting with celebs dropping one-liners etc - go to Threads.

cydonian, 10 months ago to random

There’s always Space for biryani: mural involving diya’s next to the restaurant that serves Singapore’s second best biryani.

cydonian, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to random

Tickles me no end that the Malay phrase for “teacher’s record book” is “buku rekod guru”.

Thats how we do it Telugu too; mix words derived from Sanskrit and English to form new words for contemporary times. guruvu gāri rikārd pustakam is how many would translate it.

(Not me. Would translate it as upādhāyuni yādastu pustakam. Need them words derived from Persian too, as the incomparable CP Brown would probably say)

cydonian, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

The American influence on the royal palace at Hue: Bullet holes at the entrance, the king’s quarters entirely bombed in the 1960’s war.

cydonian, 7 months ago to random

New ear-worm just dropped: Telugu dappu and hip-hop seamlessly merged with Egyptian hip-hop via Urdu for a really compelling sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-epIxWx_mT4

I wonder if there's anyone in this world who can understand all the lyrics there. The song actually switches between Telugu, (Egyptian) Arabic, Urdu and English mid-verse, especially in the main refrain and later. They also try to do a Hyderabadi teen-maar beat with Arabian percussion, which surprisingly is familiar to anyone who's used to marfa or jalna bands in the Deccan.

It kind of takes the bilingual mindset that you see in Singapore, Hyderabad, KL, Montreal, Mumbai, Manila etc to a whole new extreme.

cydonian, 6 months ago to random

Government of India threatened Twitter officials with jail terms for not complying with their diktats, and essentially made sure the deputy IT minister's political analyst serve as Twitter India's grievance and compliance officer.

In effect, GoI has a ring-side view of which accounts are against them, and proactively send their online hordes or the police to take them down.

And oh: Bangladesh, Nigeria and other nations are now copying these provisions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitter-online-censorship/

cydonian, 7 months ago to random

India’s Supreme Court did not rule (read) same-sex marriage as being constitutional (into Special Marriage Act), saying it’s the job of the Legislature to do so. But it has struck down provisions disallowing same-sex couples from adopting children and has mandated a review of rules that could be discriminatory to them.

Disappointing, but unfortunately, the legal reasoning seems to be sound. (IANAL, definitely not in India)

https://scroll.in/latest/1057704/supreme-court-declines-to-allow-same-sex-marriages-says-parliament-should-decide

cydonian, 6 months ago to magASEAN

New stall dropped at a nearby kopitiam: Vegetarian mala hotpot. #MakanApaToday

cydonian, 6 months ago to random

International Cricket Council has will not allow “any player who has transitioned from male to female and has been through any form of male puberty […] to participate in women's international cricket”, ostensibly because exactly one person, Danielle McGahey, wanted to play for an associate nation, Canada. https://www.espn.com/cricket/story/_/id/38957234/first-transgender-play-women-internationals-danielle-mcgahey-says-career-over

cydonian, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

Deep in #Vietnam’s jungles.

cydonian, 5 months ago to random

My Son: Natarāja with South East Asian characteristics lies next to bombshells from 1969. Huge craters lie next to where the ancient Champa kingdom - that ruled these parts from 8-14th centuries - built vast temple complexes comprising of Sivālayas and much more.

But the forest, the temples and bombed craters are all protected by UNESCO, and are being restored with an international team consisting of archeologists from India & Vietnam and funding from Germany and Netherlands.

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cydonian, 3 months ago to random

French journo who lived in India for 23 years, married an Indian, raised a son in India, is being stripped of her permanent residency and is being asked to leave India for good. Reason: her French articles in Le Point aren’t palatable to the powers that be.

(As someone married to an Indophile who has reported from/ on India before, this is scary af. ) https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/02/16/french-journalist-says-leaving-india-after-expulsion-threat_6532610_7.html

cydonian, 1 month ago to random

Selamat Hari Raya/ Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating!

Images of the Sultan Mosque and Kampong Glam.

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cydonian, 1 month ago to random

The looming job crisis for 40-something techies in India. https://the-ken.com/story/why-more-40-somethings-are-becoming-unwilling-retirees/