NoRagrets

Indian restaurants

The Internet (online credit card processing) was built on porn.

OpenAI will now be profitable.

I created everything here.. music and composition and the video with AI on my phone:

https://youtu.be/BUydN1PRPgo

Suno extracts stems but I would love it if they have an ancillary app that would do the scoresheet and give me the notes…

While AI music is fine by me(it’s here to stay), I would like to tweak some of the chord progression of the orchestration .. would certainly like to see how it would play out live.

I am loving it. I am not a musician and I am learning from this.. by doing and music theory one song at a time.. It is making music learning fun for me.

It’s not a cultural thing. It happens here too. Someone created something like this to track strawberry pickers and their ‘productivity’.

Remember they are not even paid minimum wage by the hour. They are paid by how many punnets they pick. And this founder thought it was a great idea.

American Ag is more exploitative than any third world/developing country because the really desperate work here. It is sorely in need of automation.

Nobody wants to actually invest in Ag automation..not really…there is a lot of BS floating but everything grown locally and on our shelves relies on low paid manual labour.

I wish.. so very much..that Americans see how their food is grown.

As opposed to students who get the steps from other students/teachers/books/youtube/google.

Why is using AI something to be ‘declared’?

Suno is the new streaming kid on the block.

And it makes decent music. In multiple languages and musical styles. Helps if you know a bit of music theory.

Shameless plug: My musical - in - progress : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6CFiKHtsvsntUmyVe6VSm302...

These are the farm animal characters that I have been writing for kids about my farm except kids don’t want to read anymore. I think I can make this work.

Somewhat related: https://vgl.ucdavis.edu/species/cat

The Cat genetics lab at UC Davis has been cracking the feline code for many years now.

I am converting all the short farm stories I wrote into little audio stories using AI voiceovers. It’s not perfect and has kinks.. but I am enjoying it.. 5 done, 15 more to go!

https://youtube.com/@mushroomsonmars

My next project is one about lunar habitat and food production systems but as a podcast ..entirely with AI voices. Because I can’t find anyone from NASA or SpaceX to speak with me..hah!

This will make Norway one of the richest countries in addition to their already wealthy citizen pension fund.

This is very good news. Phosphate was deemed a finite source and we were running out of it. We are good for another 1000 years. At least.

Because ground meat texture and taste is nothing great. It’s collagen and fat marbling .. and the refined cooking techniques that make meat eating pleasurable.

Plant based meat texture can be easily replicated with.. plant based dishes!

Women have periods, pregnancy and menopause. Our entire lives have been shaped by this journey we were meant to make. It’s our design. That’s what defines women. That’s our identity.

The opposite binary and other uncategorised versions are not the default female.

The genders are not equal. I lost my farm after 12 years because I was in ‘violation of farm management policy’ because I didn’t follow their list of 6 different PTO implement.

As a female, I don’t have the upper body strength to operate and change all those PTO implements. I spent not a small amount to fabricate and fashion my own small implement that was originally imported from Italy.

And yet.. even though my design was better..I was constantly compared to male farmers .. “why are you not following their methods and same equipment as the dudes? Well..because I have breasts, shorter arms and lesser upper body strength, you idiots!”

And this was the State of California public agency that controlled my land access that I lost and subsequently lost my farm due to lack of land access.

I am particularly depressed now because there is no way I expect a fair hearing ..the world has gone mad. Daft as a drunk duck, I am telling you.. and it’s just depressing. They have stolen 12 years of my life and my work(I was working on automating my farm equipment) because I am not a man.

I don’t want to be equal to a man. I want to be myself. I empathize with those training for female sports. We can’t win anywhere. Soon we will only be relegated for one job..for the one thing only we can do..and what only we possess: wombs. I don’t even want to live in this world anymore.

This is the exact definition of Mansplaining.

The past few weeks have seen men in droves mansplaining to women.. ‘what is a woman?’

Everyone has the right to ‘boil down’ anything to whatever. But science says otherwise.

XX or female is the default setting. If there is any deviation from the default, then there is a change or transformation. And the result is no longer female. It could be male. Or not. But it’s not ‘female’.

Chills. Remembering Korova Milk Bar from A Clockwork Orange’s dystopian world where Alex and the droogs would get their fill of milk laced with enhancing drugs for a fun night of ‘ultraviolence’. Stanley Kubrick took it to another level from Anthony Burgess’ original book. Wendy Carlos musical score took it to another level. She used the Moog synthesizer exclusively. On a related note..I was telling someone how she is an icon and revolutionized digital music making.. and heard that she had removed her scores from ACO from public domain. You can still find the TRON score etc. But her Beethoven classics..I just can’t find it anymore.. at least it’s not on iTunes.

California has the space..and definitely the money..to build more shelters and housing. It’s just not going to be in Tier 1 cities and high income suburbs.

Really ..nothing is going to work out here unless we have a robust public transportation network.

The solution to housing crisis and housing affordability is public transport.

I saw brand new tents pop up right outside the public library and police station yesterday at a Bay Area city. And a group of people were taking photographs and instructing the tent inhabitants to pose.

Some of the homeless activists and non profits are going be jobless if there are no homeless people on the streets. They are not going to let this ‘ban’ stand.

California is just lost at this point. Entirely hijacked.

What is it called in Tamil?

It’s called Housing and Development Board (HDB) housing policy. First of all.. it’s not a freehold model but it’s sold to Singaporean citizens only.

They are highly subsidized and based on their income. Singapore also has CPF or central provident fund.. payments go from there but there has to be a 10-20% down payment.

These are highly subsidized. As are the maintaining costs and repairs etc. the state takes care of it. sometimes the owners do it. There is a central savings account too. They can choose how to pay for it.

But the key point is that it’s always a 99 year lease. They can only own it for 99 years. As everyone is going to be in some sort of workforce or is eligible for govt monies, no one needs to be without housing. It goes directly from their CPF or OA account.

The kind of housing is dependent on income level. And another condition is that it’s for families only.

Single people have a different scheme. And there are also ways to apply for Joint singles HBD flats.

They have to be at least 35 years old and anyone younger than 35 can buy under a public scheme but with their family. There are separate schemes for orphans and single unwed citizens, divorcées and the widowed.

Basically there is a scheme for everyone so no one is left behind. But they can’t own it after 99 years. Because it can be beyond a normal lifespan(they start at age 35.. so even after they are gone, the family will be housed until they themselves reach age 35 to qualify with CPF/OA for a HBD unit.

The flats can be resold but again only for the remaining period of the 99 years. Never for speculative purposes and only for residential.

Singapore is a high trust society and can be called as a benevolent dictatorship. They don’t look kindly at any kind of shenanigans.

There are very strict rules. It has to be a mixed ethnic development and it can’t be rented out etc..and if it is to be rented, there is a process for that too.

All HDB estates are meticulously planned. From schools to parks to shops and public transpirt, these are planned communities.

The idea is to give the people housing stability and housing security. The state takes care of its people but expects them to be responsible and accountable. The result is a highly ordered and high trust society that is stable.

Having said that, Singapore is not for everyone. It’s super ordered and appeals to many Asian mindsets and especially for those who would rather spend time raising their families instead of worrying about crime or housing or food security.

Singapore has a very sustainable housing plan. Affordable homes are owned by the govt and let out on 99 year lease. Problem solved.

If we penalize home buyers for investing in real estate, then we will have a housing problem.

Those who own real estate and rent it out should be motivated to create more housing. They should get tax breaks. Not penalized with more taxes.

Thats the only sustainable way.

What a coincidence! I was literally looking this up two days ago for a soil remediation project of a very arid place with red soil in South India.

I am in California and I came across this tidbit that it was used in Florida where citrus orchards used to be..

It is leguminous and does the same thing as fava and vetch do as short term cover crops.

It is time for the tech to get involved with politics. It’s not Avocado toasts and Patagonia jackets anymore.

All innovations and tech will be dead fish in the water if these companies are held hostage by govt regulatory acts.

Example: what happened in Florida with ban on cell based meat.

Why do you think "everyone is bothered about India"? India was the subtopic here, so we are discussing India. And specifically your thoughts about India.[…]

Perhaps you are mistaken. I was speaking about India and Hinduphobia. Everything else is the subtopic.

And my answer is pretty much the same. I am not in favor of any authorian nationalistic theocraties/monarchies. [..]

But if they are small and not aggressive, then it is not such a big deal, as "people can get away more easily".[..]

How many wars have been fought in the past hundred years and how many in India?

Still, India is waaay bigger. And "we" in "the west" are concerned, whether you will slip more into authorian religious nationalism, or if we share enough values to remain or become stronger partners against other authorian regimes (and yes, yes, "the west" is far from perfect and the freedom wars in iraq etc. [..]

Ahh.. so you contradict your first comment. Everyone IS bothered about India and you say it’s because of its size?

India has a democratically elected government. Asking that all the religions in a secular nation follow the same Uniform Civil Code is not ‘Religious nationalism’.

And you absolutely can. I have no problem with that. I am not anti Hindu. I was often singing Bhajans and will do so again.

Why do you sing Bhajans if you are not Hindu. They are in praise of Hindu Gods. Bhajans are an expression of Bhakti and devotion to Hindu Gods. Singing something because of its musicality has nothing to do with how you relate to or understand a religious identity or affiliation.

But I do have a problem if you would supress other religions and ethnicities who also just want to protect their culture.[..]

That is not possible in a democratic secular nation. India cannot claim to be secular if Muslims have their own personal law and Hindus have their own personal laws. And the courts are expected to treat them differently.

Regardless, none of this affects anyone on an international level as in wars or terrorism. It is India’s internal matter.

That is my point. And maybe this is not at all what you want. But it very much sounds like it. At least implicit.

I am a Hindu. I am interested in the survival of my faith in its spiritual homeland. Just like Jews, Christians, Muslims and others revere their spiritual spaces.

Hinduism is more inclusive and tolerant than any of the other predominant monotheistic faiths, but a secular democratic nation cannot treat citizens differently based on their faith.

If India is a Hindu country, minorities would still thrive as they did for thousands of years. Indian history is full of unequal treatment of Hindus and Muslims during Mughal rule and British colonization.

Hindus do not want to convert other religionists to Hinduism and only want a Uniform Civil Code to right the wrongs of the British meddling in our legal system through fair democratic elections.

To call this ‘extremism’ or ‘religious nationalism’ is somewhat disingenuous and untrue. Muslims enjoy far more religious freedoms and are considered equal citizens in India than Hindus in Islamic countries.

All of this can be fact checked through reputable sources and I leave it to you do your own research.

I think we have to come to the end of our conversation. I don’t believe I have anything more to share with you. Thanks for engaging in this discussion. Take care.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Somnath

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vijayanagar

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_conversion

Sincere query: Why are you ‘not happy for Hindu Nationalists pushing for India to implement Hinduism as a state dogma’?

It’s not your religion. It doesn’t affect you. India is a democracy. It would involve an election.

Should there be foreign interference in a democratic nation’s elections and how the citizenry want to run their country ?

It’s very strange. Why is everyone bothered about India? Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country. There are over 50 countries in the world that are Muslim and follow Muslim law. What are your thoughts on that?

India was invaded and then colonized by outsiders. First with guns and then trade and then by religious conversions. This is history. Many Indians don’t like that.

It has barely been 80 years since India was released from the clutches of 250 years of colonial rule. India has the right to define herself and find her own identity using the chosen democratic process.

I find it very strange that so many non Hindus of the world are so upset about a country of one billion Hindus wanting the remains of their splintered partitioned and battered country to remain Hindu in identity.

One billion Hindus. Thousands of years of civilizational history and people who embraced new abrahamic faith in the past thousand years after giving up their pagan roots want India to give up her roots.. for what? India has resisted the cultural and civilizational and religious assaults and that is only due to lthe tenacity of the unified Hindu identity and faith. It won’t be weakened.

Our ancestors did not fight and resist invasions and assault for us to give up on our civilisational inheritance and Hindus have a duty to honor those sacrifices and generational trauma by keeping Hinduism and Hindu homeland and Hindu identity intact for our future generations.

Many gave up and embraced new faiths. Our ancestors did not. Hindus exist today because our ancestors thought Hindu identity was worth protecting. And we will. For our descendants.

And Buddhism, and Jainism. Sikhism too. You could learn a little about how was the treatment of Jains in the past.[..]

I am very aware of the history. It has been disproved.

Personal law is not at odds with the secular nature of a state. Secular does not mean all behave the same, rather the state does not grant any unequal rights. The marriage and inheritance laws are still subject to Judicial scrutiny as and when needed. Also it is a poor understanding of India as a whole to throw these at Muslims, because there are different tribes with their own customs as well.[..]

Secular means no religion has a special status over any other. Currently that is not true due to Shariat Law operating in India.

UCC or Uniform Civil Code implementation will resolve the issue.

The places of worship law does not give any more rights to any specific religion.[..]

There are one billion Hindus and India is the spiritual center of Hindus. That it is even questioned and denied is interesting.

And yes, Hindus have a right over India. This is my opinion. Yours might be different.

Did you forget Nepal?[..]

Nepal is no longer a Hindu country after the 2008 Maoist insurgency. Hindus have no official nation of their own even though there are one billion of them.

Hinduism was practiced all over Asia from Cambodia to Thailand to Nepal to Indonesia and beyond.

Hindu texts talk about Gandhari from the land of Gandhara(Khandahar Afghanistan) and the most sacred place of worship for Hindus..Mt.Kailash is in China. Pakistan was carved out of India by the British. Lanka was also Hindu.

The Hindu homeland lost a lot of territory and has been split and other faiths have become their dominant religions. What remains is the country known as India where 94% of the World’s Hindus reside.

And it is a democracy. If the people of India vote for a Hindu nation, it will be so.

On Christian inheritance, please read up on Mary Roy. On Hindus laws, the Hindu marriage act are applicable to Hindu, but special marriage act also can be chosen for the marriage.[..]

Special marriage Act can only be chosen if a Hindu marries a person of a different faith. If a Hindu woman marries a Muslim man under the Special Marriage Act, then in the event of divorce, it has to be granted by the law. If she converts to Islam before getting married to a Muslim man, she can be divorced by triple talaq. This has recently been challenged and banned by the Supreme Court.

This is important because inheritance laws are also different for children of converted Muslims vs children of parents married under the Special Marriages Act.

If Hindu laws were to be applied, then the wife will have to kill herself when husband dies. See Sati practice.[..]

This is not true.Sati was practiced by certain Hindus.. Rajputs who were warrior tribe. The women jumped into the funeral pyre when their Hindu warrior husbands were defeated in battle by the Mughal invaders. They preferred death by suicide to capture and rape by Muslim soldiers.

This is not a Hindu practice. Hinduism is highly decentralized with each community defining their way of life.

Besides Hindu Unified Family is a tax entity which can not be used by other religions to effectively reduce the tax on a family.[..]

You are probably thinking about HUF or Hindu Undivided Family. This is a tax filing as a family. The karta is the head of the family. And members of four generations are co parceners. I am very familiar with this section and have filed many returns for clients under HUF.

Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists are also included even though it says HUF. Legally, the Unifed law applies to all. The corpus is formed by joint ownership of inheritances, family gifts etc.

If Muslim personal law and Christian personal law are scarped, everyone can come under the same Umbrella. This is why UCC is important.

According to Muslim law, the heirs are the successors of the deceased who are legally recognized by the Shariat to inherit his estate, given that they are not impeded from inheritance. The heirs succeed to the estate as tenants-in-common in specified shares. There is no joint tenancy in Muslim law and the heirs are only tenants-in-common.

Similarly, Christians have to follow Indian Succession Act of 1925. The UCC will make everything level for all. The Shariat was based on the Anglo-Muslim Law crafted by the British which was done without their understanding of the texts. All of this requires an overhaul. This will also include WAQF Act.

UCC will make Muslim Indians true and equal citizens of the democratic India but that would necessarily involve giving up Shariat Law.

India has many religions but Muslims should want to be part of a unified democratic nation. UCC is the path forward.

The country is plagued with such misinformation and misrepresentation of facts, now deemed as whatsapp university.[..]

I am not sure what to make of this statement or how I should respond to it??

The above line makes it quite clear that where you get the information from. Could you add Azerbaijan to the list? A majority Muslim country in the caucuses with secular constitution? https://web.archive.org/web/20070928103752/http://www.un-az....[..]

A secular state is a country that officially maintains a separation between religion and government. It ensures that no religion is given preferential treatment or support by the state, and religious beliefs do not influence governmental decisions or laws. Examples of secular states include France, the United States, and India, where the government operates independently of religious institutions.

Historically, the process of secularisation typically involves granting religious freedom, disestablishing state religions, stopping public funds being used for religion, freeing the legal system from religious control, freeing up the education system, tolerating citizens who change religion or abstain from religion, and allowing political leaders to come to power regardless of their religious beliefs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Azerbaijan

[..] Islam is the majority religion in Azerbaijan, but the country is considered to be the most secular in the Muslim world.[5] Estimates include 97.3% (The World Factbook, 2020)[6] and 99.2% (Pew Research Center, 2006)[7] of the population identifying as Muslim. Of these, a majority belong to the Shia branch (55-65%), while a significant minority (35-45%) are Sunni.[a][1][9] Traditionally, the differences between these two branches of Islam have not been sharply defined in Azerbaijan.[..]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Azerbaijan

[..] Islam arrived in Azerbaijan with Arabs in the seventh century, gradually supplanting Christianity and pagan cults.[8] In the sixteenth century, the first shah of the Safavid Dynasty, Ismail I (r. 1486-1524), established Shi'a Islam as the state religion,[8] although a portion of people remained Sunni. The population of what is nowadays Iran and what is nowadays Azerbaijan were converted to Shia Islam at the same moment in history.[9] As elsewhere in the Muslim world, the two branches of Islam came into conflict in Azerbaijan.[8] Enforcement of Shi'a Islam as the state religion brought contention between the Safavid rulers and the ruling Sunnis of the neighboring Ottoman Empire.[8]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Azerb...

[..] Freedom of religion in Azerbaijan is substantially curtailed.[1][2] The Azerbaijan government, which follows a strictly secular and anti-religious ideology, represses all religions.[1] The majority of the population in Azerbaijan is Muslim, mainly Shia. According to Michigan State University political scientist Ani Sarkissian, "the Azerbaijani government attempts to control religious practice to keep it from becoming an independent social force that might threaten the nondemocratic nature of the regime."[1] The government censors religious literature and closes down religious institutions that it considers objectionable.[1] Political speech by religious institutions is forbidden and clerics are not allowed to run for political office.[1] The display of religious paraphernalia, flags and slogans, is forbidden, except in places of worship, religious centers and offices.[3] Ashura festivities in public are forbidden.[4] The wearing of the hijab in public institutions and schools is forbidden.[5][6] The government uses mosque closures to repress independent Muslim groups that act independently of the state.[1] Clerics that act in ways objectionable to the state face dismissal and arrest.[1] The government does not restrict religious conversion, but it does forbid proselytizing.[1][..]

All of this begs the question: Is Azerbaijan a Secular state?

It can be put for a vote. Your assumptions are as good as mine. India is still a democracy.

To understand the mess the British left behind, you must know Anglo Hindu (and Anglo Muslim) Law and its development. More of it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Anglo-Hindu_law

India gained its independence only in 1947. It has not even been a hundred years and the country is still grappling with how to do damage control over the mess left behind by the colonial British.

1. I think it is wrong to compare Norway with India.

[..]Early Norwegians, like most Scandinavians, were once adherents of Norse paganism; the Sámi having a shamanistic religion.[13] Norway was gradually Christianized by Christian missionaries between 1000 and 1150. Before the Protestant Reformation in 1536/1537, Norwegians were part of the Catholic Church.[..]

Norwegian pagans lost their ancestors faith. Hindus did not.

As a democracy, Indians have the right to establish a Hindu nation through fair elections.

The colonial Brits left behind a system after The Partition when they departed. Pakistan and Bangladesh were cut off to create the Muslim nations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

Most Hindus wants a Uniform Civil Code in India. Not a separate legal system for Muslims(Shariat Law) and another system for the rest of the population.

2. Population of Norway is 5.5 million. Population of India is 1400 million.

3. [..] Religion in Norway is dominated by Lutheran Christianity, with 63.7% of the population belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway in 2022.[1][2] The Catholic Church is the next largest Christian church at 3.1%.[3] The unaffiliated make up 18.3% of the population. Islam is followed by 3.4% of the population.[4][..]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway

4. Religion in India Hinduism (79.8%) Islam (14.2%) Christianity (2.3%) Sikhism (1.7%) Buddhism (0.7%) Animism/Adivasi (0.5%) Jainism (0.4%) No Religion (0.25%)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_India

5. India does not have a Uniform Civil Code as in there are different laws for different religionists: there is Hindu Personal Law(Buddhists/Jains/Sikhs are included), Christian Personal Law and Muslim Personal Law(Shariat Law) even though the majority of the population are Hindu by faith.

Most Hindus would prefer a Uniform Civil Code.

They are not Hindus.

Having said that, they are all covered by the Hindu Personal Law. And there is a separate Muslim Personal Law aka Shariat Law in ‘secular’ India.

For the purposes of the law, they are all Hindus. But from a faith based perspective, they are all separate religions whose congregations are considered a minority.

The adherents of the Jewish faith did not come as invaders or colonizers but the other monotheists faiths came to evangelize and convert the native population as polytheism was an affront to their religious sensibilities.

Hindus might like a nation of their own when they are a billion in strength and India was where Hinduism was born and grew.

Hindus are a majority in India. 80% are Hindus and 94% of the world’s Hindus reside in India.

There is thousands of years of history of Hinduism in India. It was the colonial Brits who created a ‘secular’ India after they orchestrated the partitions of Pakistan and Bangladesh (as Muslim countries).

As a democracy, the nation has the right to choose a Hindu Nation/Rashtra over secularism. This is true for every nation in the world. As the only non abrahamic polytheist nation in the world, there seems to be some unfair expectations of India and what Indians want. Why?

The Abrahamic nations have split the whole rest of the world amongst them. Hindus have only one nation. Why can’t their have their spiritual land as a Hindu nation if it’s democratically desired and achieved?

It is the spiritual land for over a billion Hindus(whose rights and places of worship are being trampled upon in the name of secularism while other religions are not required to follow the law of the land)

Israel is a Jewish nation. There are many Christian and Muslim nations. Why wouldn’t Hindus want a country where they have civilizational roots to be a Hindu Nation?

Are all the countries of the world ‘secular’? Why do we expect India to be constitutionally secular? There are only 5 countries that have secular baked into their constitution, India, USA, France(Laïcité), Australia and Japan.

India is only secular by name. Currently, there is the nation’s law and then there is the Shariat Law for Muslims.

These laws especially impact women as it relates to marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession etc. the Christian and Hindu Personal Law are not at odds with the constitutional law.

To this end, BJP, the current ruling party wants a Uniform Civil Code where the law applies equally for every citizen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_personal_law

3.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Civil_Code

It would nullify Shariat Law. It is a mockery of the word ‘secular’ when different laws and rights are allotted to different religions. It is against democratic principles. And fundamentally wrong.

Triple Talaq: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_talaq_in_India

Nikah Halala: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikah_halala