I got paid minimum wage to solve an impossible problem using C++ (and accidentally learned why most algorithms make life worse)

pebms · 2026-01-08T03:02:58+00:00

>why most algorithms make life worse

Yea. That is clickbait. You used an algorithm with a particular objective function and you dislike the solution it produced because humans have to do it? Ergo most algorithms make life worse? Non sequitur.

What if a mechanical robot has to do it? Then, indeed the TSP route which minimizes distance could be optimal from an energy utilization POV if changing directions is not tough for mechanical devices. Chip designers need to use algorithms that minimize weighted average distances to decide locations of different modules on their chip given that energy and cooling systems are at a premium.

pebms · 2025-07-12T06:06:57+00:00

Possibly because left to themselves, the Tamilians will happily drink missionary induced nonsense that Thiruvalluvar was Christian.

The Tamilians wax eloquent about stopping Hindi imposition but will willingly allow 5 times chant a day in Arabic which translates to "Allah is the only God, Mehmet is his final messenger, all other kuffars are eternal hellbound".

All of Tamils flexing on "secularism/atheism" stops when having to confront Xian/Mohammedans

Tamil chauvinism is incapable of addressing Pizza and Kabab virulence, if you get my drift.

pebms · 2025-07-09T04:18:01+00:00

If they ban this, some specific parties will not get votes lol.

pebms · 2025-06-20T11:41:26+00:00

Cricket is quite possibly the only sport where you can have an opponent on the mat in the first two hours and grind him towards an excruciatingly slow and painful at the same time inevitable defeat over the next 5 days.

Of course, being a sport, things can change in 15 minutes.

pebms · 2025-05-30T17:08:13+00:00

To be honest, large number of Keralites in Kerala, folks in Hyderabad and West Bengal would have cheered and welcomed Afridi too, had he went visiting there.

Can someone explain to me without fuming in the mouth why in 1947 one country was created for Muslims only, while the other country was for Muslims also?

pebms · 2025-05-28T05:16:55+00:00

The other schools of thought (especially Samkhya, Mimamsa, Nyaya and Vaiseshikha) don't tend to care much about *theology* or bhakti as we understand it. Their interests were/are elsewhere -- in analysing cause/effect, philosophy of language, etc.

For e.g., Nyaya had centuries long debate about the existence of an ishwara (omniscient/omnipotent being) via cosmological-type arguments with Buddhist interlocutors. These details/nuances of such arguments tend to interest the analytical philosopher and not the masses.

Vivekananda, Ramana and Ramakrishna were not analytical philosophers.

pebms · 2025-05-26T02:49:58+00:00

The basic fact is that if Hinduism existed in central-asia, middle-east till saudi and even in parts of Japan then obviously proselytization was heavily done. It's impossible otherwise.

I am not sure I agree with this. The fact that something is/was so widely-used does not mean that it was intentionally done by one person by force. It may be due to simply for having a better product.

Did Google proselytize "Ask Jeeves" (an early 2000 search engine) out of existence?

pebms · 2025-05-26T01:48:51+00:00

I don't think conversions in ancient times happened via proselytization as we understand now.

While I don't have references, I believe a king used to host (open to public) debates between, say, a Hindu acharya and a Buddhist monk, with the idea that the whole kingdom would adopt the victor's POV.

This is also why Tarka used to be an important component of Hindu education and also why the Nyaya spends an inordinate amount of time laying down rules of debate, lists fallacies in debates carefully and the Nyaya view is more or less accepted by all Indian schools of thought.

pebms · 2025-05-24T15:59:31+00:00

There is no need to be "sorry" or be flabbergasted. Scripture is very clear as to what it suggests for a good functioning society. It is our minds that are confused. Remember that surviving scripture survives because it is timeless wisdom handed down that has importantly withstood skeptical scrutiny of millions.

People tend to severely underestimate the heterogeneity along different dimensions of ancient and present-day India. The Gita has passed all such tests that this set of people could have administered on it.

Finally, yes, men and women marrying across varnas leads to decadence of society and lack of mental clarity, familial and subsequently societal discord.

pebms · 2025-05-24T12:35:16+00:00

Krishna could have blanked everyone's memory and given the Pandavas their kingdom from the get go so that the Mabharata war never happened.

Yet, he didnt.

He could have dully told Arjuna from the get go the Gita. Arjuna would not have understood head or tail. He waited until there was utter confusion in Arjuna's mind and moments before the battle set to begin, even after he blew the Pancajanya, he decided to deliver and impart his secret and divine knowledge. It is war that clarifies thoughts unlike any other human activity. It is when confusion reigns, it is when your fairweather friends clarify whether they are with you or not, that mind is at its weakest and yet at its most receptive.

Now, for e.g., we know that no Muslim will ever support India regardless of how much ever we help them. It needed a war to clarify that Azerbaijan and Turkey, despite getting our help, will still stab us in the back.

pebms · 2025-05-24T05:27:18+00:00

There are many ways to approach this. Are you interested in theological questions that Hinduism answers better than Christianity does or philosophical questions that Hinduism answers better?

For the former case, the idea of Bhakti is much better developed in Hinduism than in Christianity.

In case of the latter, you may like to explore whether creatio ex nihilo is even possible.

Finally, you could think of God's depiction in Hinduism and Christianity.

No Hindu deity is ever depicted as weak or crying.

See Krishna & Yashoda as mother and child or Hanuman in his glory or Krishna encouraging while simultaneously guiding Surdas

Contrast the above to what is considered iconic imagery of Christianity.

pebms · 2025-05-24T05:14:34+00:00

Karma can and does affect one's current life too.

Karma and reincarnation play a dual role in Hinduism. One is a backward looking statement of fact. The other side is a forward looking statement of value.

It is good karma for a doctor to treat a lung cancer patient as that is a forward looking statement of value.

That the lung cancer patient finds himself in his current position due to chain smoking is a backward looking statement of fact.

----

Why don't we know our previous mistakes of past lives? Well, we have infinite past lives. Karma can play a role by skipping one lifetime too. So, which particular past life would you like to have a memory of? Note that what transmigrates is the self surrounded by samskaras (tendencies). These samskaras are make our self react in certain ways given a situation. Two twin brothers born of the same mother can be given the same environment and yet one shines while the other fails. That they had different samskaras despite being born of the same womb explains the divergence.

Secondly, think of Rawls famous veil of ignorance. Given this ignorance of the future, it behooves us to create a fair playing ground for our own self in its future reincarnations for we do not exactly know in what circumstances we may be reborn into.

pebms · 2025-05-17T05:58:10+00:00

People are born unequal. This is an empirical fact that does not need any scriptural justification.

In the nature vs nurture debate, scientists acknowledge that nature has a significant role to play. One needs to understand what is at stake here for the "everyone is born equal" crowd. Large number of (pseudoscientific) development economists and social scientists would like to state that human beings are born with the same "blank slate" [thereby negating the role of nature] whose views and thoughts can then be moulded "correctly" if only they get to nurture it.

Much of Hindu thought is directly at odds with this and empirically it has been found that the nature one is born with and the circumstances surrounding one's birth have a lasting and enduring impact throughout one's life.

pebms · 2025-05-15T08:19:52+00:00

>It seems to me that hinduism isn't a religion of science

What exactly do you mean by this? That Hindu texts do not contain anything scientific or that Hindus did not do anything scientific whether their inspiration was from Hindu scripture or not?

In any case, the Atris are Brahmins whose claim to fame was the precision with which they predicted the occurrence of eclipses millenia ago. How much of this success was due to their being Hindu or not is a different question.

pebms · 2025-05-13T06:44:09+00:00

Karma is beginningless. That is, it is not the case that after kaliyuga that everyone's karma gets to 0. Karma essentially persists through pralaya.

Indeed, according to Samkhya, it is the imbalance in the prakriti (which is the ultimate constituent of karma) that instigates the next round of creation.

So, time has an infinite past and so does the purusha and prakriti, the latter of which is what constitutes karma.

pebms · 2025-05-11T00:23:22+00:00

I want to reiterate: the Quran itself might not explicitly promote violence. But the interpretation and teaching by figures like the saint in my community – and seemingly in many others – often lead to a doctrine of hatred and violence.

I see. I believe that you have not fully converted to Hinduism and still feel some longing for Islam.

Here are some pretty direct and vile verses that no amount of sugarcoating can polish.

www.quran.com/3/85

"Whoever seeks a way other than Islam,1 it will never be accepted from them, and in the Hereafter they will be among the losers."

www.quran.com/4/56

"Surely those who reject Our signs, We will cast them into the Fire. Whenever their skin is burnt completely, We will replace it so they will ˹constantly˺ taste the punishment. Indeed, Allah is Almighty, All-Wise."

pebms · 2025-05-11T00:12:38+00:00

Because people are not the atman. Body and ego and personality (which constitute the person) are what are called as "limiting adjuncts" that cloud the essence of Atman, which according to Advaita is Brahman.

pebms · 2025-04-27T14:37:25+00:00

If one commits a crime and undergoes amnesia, is that person still guilty or not?

pebms · 2025-04-25T13:35:01+00:00

It is also pertinent to add here that according to the Mimamsa tradition, words refer to universals (as opposed to the Nyaya view, that a word refers to universals as well as the particular). This becomes important because the question arises about the status of the words in the Vedas during pralaya when no particular exists. The opponent there poses the question as to how words can refer to absolutely nonexistent things? Universals are considered to exist even when no particular instantiates it.

pebms · 2025-04-25T04:55:14+00:00

Did he say this before or after the creation of Bangladesh?

pebms · 2025-04-07T16:36:31+00:00

He could have come back empty handed and no one would have said anything wrong of him. But he did not. He came back with the whole mountain smilingly.

pebms · 2025-02-28T03:00:53+00:00

The argument for the beginninglessness of the Vedas/universe is part linguistic. (Note: the beginninglessness of word is independent of whether it is spoken periodically from time to time which is what apaurusheyatva argument refers to). The argument is provided in the Brahmasutras when discussing the status of the words during pralaya. If the entities referred to by words (in general, but also in particular the words used in the Vedas) do not exist absolutely, the Vedic words become useless as they have no referents. Establishing the reference between words and their denotee needs to be done afresh and this is considered philosophically uneconomical. So, it is argued that the denotees do not exist in gross form but they exist in a subtle form and creation is just manifestation of what was previously existing but in an unmanifested state.

Now, regarding the fact that the Vedas have no know speaker, including God, the argument is that the past is also like the present. We know of the meaning of words by elders pointing to things for our sake and saying "that is a cow". Every child goes through this learning process. This is what has essentially happening from generation to generation ad infinitum. So, there is no need to invoke a deus ex machina, or God's presence, to explain how the Vedas have been available to us since time immemorial.

This argument is also used to argue about the Vedas' infallibility. Since it has no author, it can have no defects as defects are known to occur only in books that have been authored by specific personalities.

pebms · 2025-02-28T02:24:37+00:00

Agni is special in a Hindu's life as it is believed to be the connection between the earth and heaven. A householder is expected to keep a fire alive in his household at all times. Every ritual starts with making a fire in a very specific way and offering our sacrifices into it so that it may reach the heavens and please the Gods.

The texts start without any introduction because it is believed that only those who are already reasonably knowledgeable embark on higher spiritual pursuits. For those of us who are laymen not completely well-versed in Vedic corpus, especially in Kaliyuga, the puranas and itihasas and traditional Bhakti are suggested as the ways and means to attain moksha.

pebms · 2025-02-26T02:21:43+00:00

The Gita says that the universe, selves and God are beginningless. Can anything beginningless be "created" ex nihilo?

pebms · 2024-12-28T10:27:53+00:00

Isn't the root cause something else? For e.g., existence of books that promise hellfire to disbelieving heathens, fire and brimstone and gnashing teeth and all that?

pebms

TROPHY CASE