HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

ommunist

739 karma · joined July 3, 2012

@ommunist
submissionscomments
ommunist··on Mylo: A leather-like material made from mycelium
Interesting. But I cannot see any table with reference to mechanical properties of the new materials. MycoWorks instead shed some light upon it on their website. They are using strains of Ganoderma lucidim, and it can be tanned while it grows, not after.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
It however asks an important question about our internal wiring. During the lat two years I started to think that our wetware runs different AIs, when we think in different languages.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
I shared room with two Lao students during my university years. I know that their script is very different from Bengali. How difficult was for you to learn to read Lao?
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
OK. 'Atkarība' is literally state of land that one can 'atkarot', i.e. take back by force. In old money being "atkarīgs" literally means being the one whose land was taken by force. Its a Normann to Saxon situation in a way.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
More like "непокоряемость", but modern Latvians like @tikums forgot it.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
No proper term in Latvian can be found in this example.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
Not much, since I came to Tibetan from English, and a course in Russian delivered by Mongolian and Tibetan native speaker. I can give a funny example on how difficult it is to keep conveyance of meaning in translation.

Tibetan རང་དབང is translated to English as "independence", when in fact it is itself translation of Sanskrit स्वतन्त्रः, which is in fact "self-empowering reliance", a bit different thing.

Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force". So it might be incorrect to use it in translating Tibetan term. What may be more suitable is to use 'patvaldība', but it is more about power, than reliance.

ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
And they have so many words to express degrees of gratitude and denote degrees of favours. So I was told by a fellow startup guy who speaks Japanese.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
Yup, silly it is. I made a survey of preferential by understanding term for "widget" in Russian among Russian businessmen this January, and got about 90% "pro" votes for using the borrowed English term. Practical people do not care for "purity".
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
You have a lot to discover in original Buddhism before making statements like that. I am fascinated and struggling with help of Roerich's Tibetan-English-Russian dictionary, and I must say, there is difference in meanings, whether its sutra in Chinese or Tibetan. Ancient translators had their own problems, and direction of tradition is more like India -> Tibet -> China. So Sanskrit originals prevail, and I am yet to learn the script.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
He delivers Sanskrit course in Vienna.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
We are a bit offtopic, but you may know that you cannot write down Latgalian identity in the Latvian national passport. Latgalians are prohibited to officially exist in Latvia 2.0.

And you very well can fix officially your Latgalian identity in Russia, surprise! Isn't it strange?

ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
This may well be the reason of the very fact that India has more kids with IQ>120 than the U.S. has all kids combined.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
ROTFL. This is translation not from Sanskrit, but from Traditional Chinese. Dude, you really need to learn some languages. Try Russian. Latvian has many words taken from Russian in 19th century.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
You see, thinking in foreign language :-)) You are very much right.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
This is bullshit. I spoke about it with Edgar Leitan, who is native Latvian speaker, born in Rezekne, and is Professor of linguistics specializing in oriental languages, in Vienna University. Ask him yourself. http://edgar-leitan.livejournal.com

Latvian as a language never lived better under the USSR, because Russian revolution performance was much ensured by Latvian soldiers hired by Lenin, and that was never forgotten. Among the highest Soviet officials there always been Latvians. Boris Pugo being the last.

Learn your own history from professionals, not from tabloids full of hate speech.

UPD: By the way, its Latgalian that is PTE. Latvian is simplified Latgalian. It may look as a bit of exagerration, but truth is worth discovery.

ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
Learn Latvian, than Tibetan. Than try to translate a piece of classic buddhist text to Latvian. You will simply have no words to express what you need.

UPD: On other side of the coin, translation of iPad user instruction from English to Latvian is a breeze. All terms meet their pairs in translation.

@tikums. Of course they are. Read Aurobindo Ghosh, for English equivalents. I know, its a popular Latvian meme, that Latvian is close to Sanskrit.

ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
You are very right. After learning the third, you start to feel a glimpse of some more universal structure in your brain, that pinpoints meaning to expression in languages you know. So you can tell "this cant be said in English, it is too Spanish", or something like that. And it is very useful to learn at least one Eastern Asian language with non-latin script, to get full experience of this kind. Your own depths are unfathomable, and every language pulls the cover, unraveling the abyss of your own mind.
ommunist··on Are We Different People in Different Languages?
As a Latvian speaker, I must say, that particular language is very poor in expressing abstract concepts and expressing suspense. The language was quite literally designed by Germans as 'slave language'. It had major redesign in 20-ies, but surprisingly most of books in Latvian were published during Soviet times. I agree with hero, Latvian is 'sweet'. It is very good in expressing practical concepts, and as daily conversational speak is much more 'positive' than Russian or English with their multitude of meanings behind simple expressions.

UPD: Example of sweet positive character of Latvian. Latvian for "How do you do?" is "Ka labi iet?", means literally the same, but asking person is also telling that he is sure that everything is OK and somehow cheers up spirits of the respondent in this short expression.

UPD2: For those native Latvian speakers who care to read Russian and they are many, here is study summing up the first 400 years of Latvian books https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/2152/Konferen... And you know, in 1956 there were 7.9 million books printed in Latvian language (!). Quite a figure for a nation of 2.5 mln people.

ommunist··on State.of.dev – Explore the current state of development
Looks like no build tools on maturity plateau, also no design patterns there.
ommunist··on Court rules search warrant applies to US emails stored on foreign servers
and at Switch Datacenters in the Netherlands. I am EU customer. And its aussie company.
ommunist··on Court rules search warrant applies to US emails stored on foreign servers
Hmm, time to move to Fastmail completely.
ommunist··on US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
Answering your question. You know, I worked as CITES expert on customs back 15 or 16 years. No sane customs officer can distinguish between crocodile skins. This is why there was (and still is) institution of advisors.
ommunist··on US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
This actually happened to me when I brought my wife's paintings from London to Russia 3 years ago.
ommunist··on France’s military is training eagles to attack drones
Well there are already deployed drones with tranquilizer dart guns that target humans. Used as "drone fencing" of sensitive areas. Example shooting from hexacopter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOL9Kz2WNE
ommunist··on US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
Well, the obvious solution is to hire more people from gay community to CBP.
ommunist··on France’s military is training eagles to attack drones
A simple automatic pneumatic injection gun delivering 2 laser-targeted shots of 30m distance, like this baby http://www.haevic.co.za/index.php/products-services/the-dart... can put eagle to a safe sleep, and ensure mission is not interrupted.
ommunist··on Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (2013)
Because "to lead" is their only scope. and since the number of seats is limited, its not about gender. Some men are just more equal.
ommunist··on I started a one-man biz that's beating VC-backed startups
This is fantastic success story! Thank you for sharing. A schoolbook example of disruption howto.
ommunist··on Show HN: Rumuki, a prenup for sex tapes
Delete the key and you face indefinite jail in the US.
Page 1 of 34Next →