laxmin

We (a University, in India) are trying to get out of the Google ecosystem, and CryptPad is the greatest thing that has happened to us.

Google has been whittling the 'Google for Education' now and the free version called 'fundamentals' has been stripped of many things and we can see the future where the cost of using Google might be a significant impactful expenditure on our tight, already stretched to the limits budget.

Also, the word, 'Crypt' is cool. Our teachers feel like Hackers.

Seriously - that was some of the great feedback we received.

Actually we are still discovering and learning about the biology of birthing.

We can now support extremely premature babies outside the womb, but as of now, the risks of growing a baby in an artificial womb is not overcome with the benefits.

Why?

Because you are trivialising the emotions of pregnancy and motherhood. It is not stress all the time, it is also joy and satisfaction and like everything in life, a roller coaster.

TIL Hono.dev. Thanks! I learn so much everyday from so many people, it amazes me.

Filemaker is great. We created a monster at our University to keep track of Research Grants and it worked for almost 20 years flawlessly.

Untill, a consultant replaced it with an 'enterprise' solution that cost 10000x more to run and maintain.

Sometimes, well designed systems, however simple they might be, would be all that is required.

I am on the spectrum and Yoga helps me a lot to get grounded.

I thought it is just a personal thing and was afraid I would be ridiculed if I said it helps, even in support groups.

I am not alone, nice to know.

To nitpick, can't compare dog meat's acceptance in western society to Beef in Indian culture.

The Cow is revered at different levels in India. From a 'mother' to a 'diety'.

The comparator would be eating pork in a Islamic State.

In the multicultural society, we need tolerance. The ban on beef is not intolerance, but a form of tolerance. You are welcome to eat any meat, but beef. This is at best an inconvenience, but of great significance to Hindus.

This again brings up a similar topic of tolerance of intolerance.

Here is the bargain that exists in a multicultural, multilinguistic, multireligious society like India (There is no other country that comes even close) - We don't eat Beef or Pork. There, all accomodated, tolerated and agreed upon.

Simple social contracts work.

You really need to learn that the beef that India exports is largely Carabeef.

Buffalo meat.

If you had googled for it, you will find the following AI generated summary:

Carabeef is a meat that comes from the Asian water buffalo and is the primary agricultural export of India: Production India is the world's largest producer of carabeef. In 2023, India's carabeef production was estimated at 4.4 million metric tons (MMT). Exports In 2022, India exported 1.44 MMT of carabeef, which was 33% of its production. India is the fourth largest exporter of red meat in the world.

The Indian Voting Machines are the answer. No operating system, no passwords, no connections, no bruteforcing anything, system on a chip, so widely distributed devices that hacking even a few of them is challenging, etc.

The US voting machines are just waiting to be hacked, just a matter of when, not if.

Streisand effect is oversold.

It is temporary as heck. People will forget about anything, no matter the extent of Streisand effect and go onto the next tictok video or whatever.

Who gives a flying fk anyways about an article on wikipedia.

Yes. How dare they! Only EU must buy Russian oil.

The billions of India can go without energy security. Why? Because the white man says so!

Indian exports of restricted items such as microchips, circuits and machine tools surpassed $60 million

60 million? Not even 100 million? Wow, that is such a high number!

The Almanack of Naval Ravikanth. https://www.navalmanack.com/

I count Ravikanth as one of my gurus. From working as a professor in a medical school to starting up a small microSaaS, I attribute it all to Ravikanth who condensed everything one needs to know into a few tweets, followed by its expansion on his podcast.

Now, I preach seeking of Specific Knowledge to all my students and the principle of leveraging bots through programming as well as learning marketing no matter which field you belong to.

You need to partner with Universities, Colleges, small specialised schools and preferable a couple, in every major area.

E.g. 1. American system: the US, Canada 2. The Commonwealth system: the UK, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and don't forget the largest student population in India and Indonesia. 3. EU: France, Germany

Accreditation standards are important.

1. Canvas is not really open source. It was open source a long time ago, but now it is open-code really.

Instructure was taken over by a Hedge Fund and since then, all the new developments are not part of the Open Source. The open source is a bit crippled now.

None of the new features such as the New Quizzes (yes, its called that), New RCE Text Area, New Analytics, etc etc are not available on the Open Source Version.

So yes, the Billion dollar market is desperate for a new true AGPL LMS.

And it is time for one to disrupt the market.

2. Good Question.

3. Flexibility in grading and marks is really, really, really important. Because the systems, curriculum, standards are not flexible. Even with a University or College, different programs have different grading standards. It is not an option not to support the different types of grading unless the education system itself changes. If you can't support the diversity out there, you quickly risk becoming obsolete even before you start.

Yep, it is LTI time now. Not SCORM or even xAPI, TinCan, etc.

Agreed. We run a self-hosted Canvas LMS as well as Moodle LMS in our University. On Canvas Open Source, We don't have access to the new quizzes, new analytics, RCE text area, and a host of other 'new features'.

We are always on the lookout for new LMS.

Canvas is okay (speed is a concern) but some things are very counter-intuitive. Like matching quiz questions to competencies/outcomes/standards. Also assignments.

Moodle has a hundred different settings for anything - so people get confused and standardisation is hard.

I agree with @Abdullahkalids

India has set an example by banning Platform owners from owning companies that sell on the same platform, therefore ensuring a better level playing ground. It is not perfect, but can be a start.

Amazon's subsidiaries must not be able to sell on Amazon marketplace. The giant needs to be broken up. The Marketplace, the Warehousing and the Logistics must be three different businesses and other players in warehousing and logistics must be able to offer their services.

The free shipping must go unfortunately.

You are attributing some kind of consciousness and purpose to what was a popular movement.

The Hindus of that time were used to different sects within Hinduism, some denying Vishnu the supreme godhead, some denouncing the entire pantheon and vedas, etc.

The pansyncretisism came quite naturally and 'brahminism' is a myth created recently to claim victimhood (woke ideology of suppressors and suppressed, very similar to the worker class and bourgeoisie of the communist thought)

Buddha's "dhamma" is basically just a different pronunciation of "Dharma"

Dharma is Sanskrit, Dhamma is Pali. There is not difference otherwise.

Otherwise, agree completely. Nicely put.

The Bat, Pegasus and the Becky were three favourite clients at our University.

Till GMail and the browser based email thing took over. I wonder if we will be remembering gmail and the browser clients with such fondness a few years from now.

This is oversimplification. Not just on basis of allegation, but the material facts are open to see.

Excise duty on Liquor is a huge source of revenue for any government around the world. Mr. Sisodia was the powerful home minister and solely responsible for the Excise. The excise duty policies were manipulated to accrue benefits to some alcohol cartels, all led by politicians.

The changes in the policy is in public domain and the results of profiteering is clear to all. The result is not disputable, that dealers profited immensely and disproportionately at the cost of the state while the policy also promoted alcohol sales by extending hours of sales.

The profits were routed to multiple shell companies and distributed among a small cartel divided into the north group and south group of well connected politicians. Tracing of these funds is not so easy since the companies are usually headed by proxies.

The issue now is two fold - was there a conspiracy being probed by a federal agency. Second the money trail (money laundering) probed by a federal agency similar to the FBI and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

The crimes that Mr. Sisodia is accused of, have very stringent bail conditions, very similar to those in the US for multiple serious federal crimes.

Also, it does not help that Mr. Sisodia had used and disposed of >15 phones, setup a secret intelligence unit to snoop on political opponents and run a fiefdom that reported only to him within the government.

The most balanced position is not to politicise this too much. All politicians are corrupt and the corruption isn't that easy to uncover and prove.

Let us not forget the difference between the hakenkreuz and the swastika please.

Swastika is welcome, the nazi version of it isn't.

The better and most appropriate term is Hakenkreuz, that the Nazis themselves used.

Unfortunately, the world is such that losing a job is the least pain and torture.

In India, a Lady, Nupur Sharma merely quote the Hadith about Mohammad's marriage to Aisha and she had to go underground.

Many people lost their lives. The Islamists call for 'San Tan se Juda' - Separation of the Head from the Body.

The Islamic world needs a renaissance.

You are missing the point of lifetime deals. The early adopters pay a price more than the actual money - risk and time.

Venture capitalism is the same. The money does not matter, the risk undertaken is the true cost when investing in a very new product just launched in the market.

The early adopters and payers actually fund the most crucial development period of the software.

Also, downloadable software does not cause any real loss (except opportunity cost) to the developer unlike cloud based / SaaS where operational costs matter.

Once offered, any lifetime deal has to be honoured because credibility matters a lot.

Lifetime deals bring in the initial financing that companies need. Without lifetime deals, some products might not take off.

An ideal situation is where a developer offers lifetime deals for a developing software, pulls in revenue and traction and thereon, goes on to achieve comfortable monthly membership revenue that can sustain the lifetime deals. THere are many examples of successful software that got launched and found success by raking in LTD money.

Most importantly, the lifetime deals can be a viable option against venture funding at the cost of giving up stake in the company.

On the side, Remember the time airlines offered lifetime tickets?

India is trying to grow and bolster its smartphones manufacturing capabilities. India’s domestic market for smartphones is one of the world’s largest and is still growing. More and more local apps are gaining traction due to cheap data plans (Thanks to Jio and soon, Adani entering the fray) At this point, the OS is crucial to ensure competitive growth and a level playing field.

Hence this decision will have the full backing of the Government which will even bring in new legislature to see to it that the Giants don’t monopolise everything.

The problem is in defining Democracy.

Assuming both are completely rational and take decisions that are most beneficial to their citizens short and long term welfare.

Such an assumption has no rational basis itself.

The Land without accompanying appendages: machinery, know-how, processing, storage, transportation, fertilizers and other inputs including seeds AND RELIABLE WATER .... is actually useless.

Zimbabwe redistributed the land without the necessary infrastucture or know-how to till the land and produce output.

Therein was the whole failure.

Hindu numerals if we have to be precise, transmitted to the west by Arabs

We need diverse sources for critical technologies like chips. Right now, there are baskets of eggs in countries like Taiwan that are perpetually under the threat of invasion from China.

India, with its stable democracy is a safer bet for the world as a source of chips.

Unfortunately, the human rights and religious freedom are weaponised by the US while the US itself does not, in fact, tolerate 'fact finding' missions and questionings undertaken by others.

The US hosts the world's largest incarcerated population (disproportionately black), high crime rate, police brutality, systemic entrenched racism, corporate lobbying for favourable corporate taxations including the world's largest tax havens, etc etc while it disproportionately looks outwards towards countries.. especially India. THe US neither wants India to fail, but definitely does not want to succeed beyond a threshold - keeping India in a goldilocks range.

Jaishankar's was not 'revenge' - it would be childish to think so. It is just pushback and getting a firmer grip against the US's weaponised human rights' as an issue. Two can speak the language - that is all.

India had never interfered... nay, even commented in the internal affairs of the US. THis might soon change. We might be seeing 'Black lives matter' posters on the Indian Embassy, spokespersons talking about Gun control and gun violence in schools, right of women to safe abortion, rights of LGBTQI+ etc.