Sundar @digital_carver@qoto.org

I keep trying to write about Netflix's 'The School Nurse Files', but what's good about it is too elusive a thing to capture with a concise review.
I'll just say this: it's hypnotic, gentle, and engaging in quite an unexpected way. If some fantasy stories are like a workout for your forebrain (eg. Death Note), others like a shot of redbull straight to your lizard brain (eg. The Dresden Files), The School Nurse Files is like a warm bath for the whole of your brain to luxuriate in.

TierZoo is one of the best YouTube binges I've been on. Top tier content.
Animal footage should honestly make for more of our media consumption time, and not just cats and dogs at that.

When back pain, disturbed sleep, worsened depression, and dense mental fog, all attack at the same time, and you're not sure which one's the cause and which are the effects... 🥴

https://karkanirka.org/2020/10/04/roman-soldiers-in-tamilnadu/

Many different interesting little details. My favourite is his theory on the difference between Yavanas and Milecchas (both old Tamil terms for foreigners): "Possibly, anyone whose language was known and could be understood were called Yavanas. People who could not understand or talk either in Greek or Tamil could have been called [Mileccha]." So Mileccha was like "barbarian" in the original Greek sense - people who spoke "bar bar bar" as in you couldn't understand them.

#tamil #history #India #Roman

Why are recommendation engines always about consuming more and more?
With attention becoming a precious scarce resource, apps should stop limiting themselves to "you'll like this, add this, and this, and this" suggestions, and instead also give smart suggestions for things like "you don't seem to be enjoying this podcast, remove it" or "this RSS feed content seems crap, stop wasting time on it".

I've reconsidered, I want three actually - one in matte silver for when I'm just hanging out, one in my own skin colour for formal occasions when I want to look somber, and one in a cool glossy black for those cool sexy parties that I totally go to all the time. three tails, in return for a unicorn startup idea, pretty good deal I think!

still not giving up on the tail though, what nature taketh away technology shall deliver. detachable prehensile tail, get to work on it tech people! I don't even want patent money for this billion-dollar idea, just a nice long tail in matte silver.

Got thinking about this when I read some English news outlet call Hanuman "the Monkey God" - that reminded me of my theory that maybe the Vaanaraa-s of Ramayana were early Hominids, that looked more ape-like but were sapient enough to communicate and cooperate.
#Hindu #mythology #anthropology #totallymadeuptheories

sometimes I wish we humans had tails so we could do even more acrobatics and other cool stuff.
but then I remember how pleasurable it is to rest with your back on the ground, and a tail seems like it'll be such a pain in the ass (literally) for that.

Oh God Vimium feels so good to use.
I thought all I wanted from a Vim addon for Firefox was link hints (to open links from keyboard) and j/k navigation. But I was wrong, this is what I've wanted all my life.

Everyone knows William H Taft by now, precisely because everyone keeps calling him out as the least famous US president

I did the "exit from social media site to home page, then absent-mindedly go back to the same site immediately to waste more time on it" thing, but with Hacker News today instead of with Reddit like I used to.

Looks like I've successfully weaned myself off of #reddit, feeling good about that.

I'm more and more convinced that the #IPL #Cricket tournament is more of a performance than sports, it's like WWE Wrestling or those Big Brother-type "reality" shows, scripted for maximising viewership with a thin illusion of reality.