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laum

18 karma · joined April 15, 2018

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laum··on Goodbye to Sora
tbh I quite like the style, I get the train of thought and am sure it wasn't written by an LLM.
laum··on Library Music
One of my favourite mixes is DJ Mitsu the Beats' 'Library Mix' which is all library music. Seems not available digitally, but very much recommended: https://www.rushhour.nl/record/cd/library-mix-dj-mitsu-beats

Promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLFyIdNvEb0

laum··on Half of England Is Owned by Less Than 1% of Its Population, Researcher Says
Because it’s far easier for someone with a great vision about how to use the state’s wealth for everybody’s benefit to get themselves elected to the governing body than it is for them to get themselves reincarnated as an aristocrat.
laum··on Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)
The BBC made a show about it as far back as 2011.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ykxg9

laum··on Some Techies Are Shunning Silicon Valley for the Japanese Dream
It’s still there at an institutional and cultural level - I think the most glaring example of this is the amount of landlords who either openly or discreetly (with a phone call to your realtor) will not rent property to foreigners.
laum··on What technical recruiters want from engineering candidates
I would guess it's the condescension towards humanities/gender studies.
laum··on Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]
At first the supposed religiousness of it annoyed me too - but over time it sat ok with me. If you think about it, the audio course they use for the sessions was recorded back in the 90s, and back then this was refreshingly religion free. Lots of the work on meditation (things like Search Inside Yourself) which have completely reduced the amount of religion in it, are very recent compared to Goenka's course, so I think you have to take it as a product of its time. With a partial Indian background, a few times I've tried Indian writing on meditation, etc, and it is so seemingly intricately bound up with religion (almost to the point of superstition), that to extricate it as much as Goenka did for the vipassana course I think is still great work.

Unfortunately I have to agree that it does attract a lot of participants who want to believe in magic and superstition. I was very disappointed when the course was over and I found this out. Perhaps that is why Goenka is very clear in the recordings to be skeptical and only take what one finds useful from the practice.