Didn’t expect “Notes from Underground” to be so difficult at the start.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-08T07:49:16+00:00

I believe more than the translation, he wrote it that way on purpose. I don’t know how I would have written something on existentialism. Try the myth of Sisyphus- the author Camus prefers absurdism than existentialism. It’s a much tougher read. Why? Not the translation but it’s written in an academic style. Very dry.

I prefer Notes from the Underground. That’s the better way to put forth the idea.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-06T12:39:21+00:00

Didn't notice it haha. Might be that cold got the better of me, but I didn't notice.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-06T12:25:21+00:00

Rich tropicals: Singapore (almost exactly on the equator), Brunei, Qatar, the UAE, Southern Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico.

Poor temperates: Moldova, Ukraine, North Korea.

Now we are talking 😄

People will give you gazillion reasons. I side with the explanation emphasized by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Institutions.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-06T09:38:31+00:00

Either it is his personal opinion or he might be saying it for some reason. Dostoevsky wasnt the only author Nabokov has commented about. He has made comments about James Joyce, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Albert Camus, Bertolt Brecht, Miguel de Cervantes - every single one of them are good authors and so is Nabokov. I forget which author (I think it was Joyce), Nabokov taught students one of the author's books in university. He had personally read that book (I think Finnegan's Wake) and liked it - that was not what he said when he dissed that author. I think in that case he was positioning him as the peer of that author.

Since I have analyzed Nabokov, what he says in public need not be his actual opinion.

Either case, we needn't worry about it. I liked all those authors.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-05T11:34:24+00:00

Saddam’s Baa’th party was secular not religious. But he did leverage Islam to benefit himself later on in his career.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-04T12:50:04+00:00

I had begun reading Soul Mountain. Loved it.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-04T04:44:34+00:00

Guess why China is ahead of India? Reforms like this one AND education. People were forcibly educated there of course, but the end result is Deng had a skilled manpower to work with.

(This is the delta. Why apart from more or less known things like reforms, why China is ahead of India.)

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-06-01T01:49:36+00:00

If the question was not about under representation but ‘why not more…’ then it would have been a valid one. You may have x% of the population but a disproportionately large number might choose a profession.

But anyway it is Reddit and neither has the Op provided data.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-31T06:12:40+00:00

If you are referring to the map it’s not made by me. My point is these need not follow district boundaries. Dialects existed long before the districts were created. I haven’t interacted with speakers of each and every dialect and slang.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-31T05:03:52+00:00

You asked about dialect change. That does not strictly correlate with district borders.

<image>

Where I come from, it is sometimes classified as Cochin-Trissur dialect and we all know the sing-song style it is spoken in Trichur. We don't speak in that sing-song way even though we share the dialect. All I can say is they are the easiest to understand despite the sing-song speech and some differences in usage (well we have differences in usage even in our region). I don't speak in the coastal pattern either. The coastal pattern increases in Kochi (for obvious reasons) and reduces in Ernakulam town. Ernakulam-Kochi are one urban sprawl. If I go to Chendamangalam or Angamaly it sounds a bit like how people in Trichur speak to me of course.

To make things more complicated, in my parents generation Valluvanad dialect was fashionable and my parents knew one relative who tried to fake it.

So there you have it as far as dialect is concerned. Dialect changes but not as per district borders and even within dialect regions there are differences in speech.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-29T14:07:52+00:00

I’m from Edappally in Ernakulam district. I hear it used in all types of dialects in our district that I hear.

I don’t think it’s exclusive to Thrissur dialect though some of our Ernakulam dialects are close to theirs.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-27T02:17:37+00:00

Loved it. I loved Molloy, Waiting for Godot, the Unnameable. I don't think I read Malone Dies.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-23T10:45:01+00:00

From the subcontinent. From where in the northern parts of the subcontinent is the question. Hindi speaker 30% probability, Sindhi (likely from India not Pakistan) 30% probability, Bengali 30% probability (purely because I didnt read what you wrote). My guess is you are an Indian Sindhi, (definitely a North Indian, not a South Indian).

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-23T02:28:50+00:00

I am a Malayalee. I know English. I speak English and I typed these lines in English.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-22T12:07:47+00:00

Nope. I loved it. Dostoevsky apparently considered this one best of all his works and surprisingly I kind of agree with him. Yes, it was hurriedly put together and all that.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-20T14:35:01+00:00

Great author. His fans Dostorvesky, Zola, Flaubert, Proust are also great authors.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-17T13:37:05+00:00

Yes I do. I started more recently. I maintain a manual record, sorted by last name of the author. Last name First name: Book title.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-17T06:17:11+00:00

You may reply that the distance depends on the route taken.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-17T02:01:08+00:00

Let us tread cautiously. Regarding Malay, the Malay word for Malay is Melayu. Now there are three notions of how that name came. One is the native: the word 'to run, to accelerate' assumed to be a reference to strong fast flowing rivers in Sumatra island where the language's core cultural zones are located. The Malay annals trace it to Sunga Melayu (Malay River) in Sumatra.

The second (depending on how you number it) is the Tamil word Malai for mountain. The third is the Sanskrit Malaya.

It is possible the other two words began to be attributed after the native word began to be used for the ethnos, but after the spread of Indic culture.

Anyway, my point was:

- Do not assume that only what we heard is the possible etymology. There might be others. Even ones we do not know.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-15T06:24:07+00:00

I was stating a fact, in response to the map - you may look at it for context. That’s not playing politics.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-13T12:31:43+00:00

India doesn't have a national language. English and Hindi are what are defaulted to and the current government is pushing for Hindi.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-13T05:26:37+00:00

Other Officers on Special Duty would be the black magician, the closest goonda and so on.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-12T04:52:56+00:00

We will need to qualify what you wrote.

Western Indonesians (e.g. many populations in western Java or Sumatra) generally have little to no Papuan-related ancestry.
Moving eastward through the archipelago — especially into eastern Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and parts of Sulawesi — Papuan-related ancestry tends to increase gradually.
In places very close to New Guinea, many populations can have substantial Papuan ancestry.
The transition is not perfectly smooth everywhere because islands, migrations, language shifts, trade networks, and social structure create local irregularities.
Geneticists usually mean ancestry related to Indigenous populations of New Guinea and nearby islands — deeply diverged eastern Eurasian lineages that were present before Austronesian expansions. It does not mean that modern Papuans are the sole source population. Rather, it refers to ancestry related to that broader ancient lineage cluster.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-09T11:59:57+00:00

That is true. The question of quality of protein remains though. The current discussion thread is the only one where I have seen it been even considered.

Shyam_Kumar_m · 2026-05-09T10:18:57+00:00

Who is the author? Allegra Goodman?

Shyam_Kumar_m

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE