A reminder that as companies resume their donations to members of the Sedition Caucus, many were banking on the public forgetting about their pledges and nice words about our democracy. That's why we’re going to keep investigating and calling them out, for as long as it takes.

ADI SHANKAR AND SRI TOTAKACHARYA

Adi Shankaracharya chose his disciple Totakacharya to be the first head of the Math at Joshimath.
The Narsingh Mandir (Mandir of Sri Narasimha) in Joshimath is one of the 108 Divyadesams and also the home of Badrinath during the winter months.

Totakacharya was earlier a boy named ‘Giri’ and a devout disciple of Adi Shankaracharya. Unlike others, he was not known to be an expert in Shastras but his dedication to his Guru was complete and he used to listen to His discourses with utmost faith and devotion.
@SriRamya21

One morning as Adi Shankara and his disciples were getting ready for the discourse, Giri was delayed. The other disciples urged their Guru to commence the lesson on Bramhsutra Bhashya telling him that Giri would anyway not be able to comprehend its deep meaning.
@RajeAiyer

Adi Shankar responded “नायमात्मा प्रवचनेन लभ्यो न मेधया” – Atman cannot be attained through discourses or mere intellect.
He,then, awakened the supreme knowledge in Giri.
Giri spontaneously composed: श्री शङ्करदेशिकाष्टकम् extolling his Guru’s grace.

Adi Shankaracharya granted sanyasa to Giri and gave him the name Totakacharya.
The story of how Giri became Totakacharya is a great example of the importance of faith and devotion in your Guru and not the mere knowledge of the Shastras.
@DetheEsha

So, today, for the first time in 25 (!) years of Apple, I downgraded. From the 2016 MacBook Pro to my 2013, which I had kept in a drawer...

It was pretty simple to do—Apple Time Machine backups let me do it with one click.

That first tweet captures, in two pictures, how badly Apple has “lost the plot” (to quote @wylieprof). On the right is the Apple MagSafe adapter, from 2013. On the left, what I had “upgraded” to.

Thanks, Apple! I really was nostalgic for worrying about yanking my computer off the table.

Oh and I really appreciated not knowing if my computer was charging. What was great was the little whoop sound you used, so that the speaker before me could be informed I was charging my laptop.

Ok, I'll hop on this Elizabeth Warren/Native American testing bandwagon (gently and non-politically).

I've been a @23andMe customer for a while, and have followed their ancestry updates closely.

All is more or less as expected....except for this bit about Native American.

The family is almost completely composed of Spanish peasants (from various regions) who emigrated, along with a massive wave in the late 19th-cent./early 20th-cent., to Cuba back when it was a booming economy (richer than Spain's) and worth emigrating to (Communism killed that).

Also, the native population of Cuba was annihilated early on---was the first place the Spanish colonized after all. Having a native background in Cuba would be like having the same in, say, Massachusetts, particularly if you're (say) mostly Irish. Just really, really unlikely.

(Note: the North African/Arab background is less mysterious. The Iberian peninsula was part of the Muslim world for centuries. It would be odd *not* to have some Arab/Middle Eastern background coming from Spain. Given the family is mostly from Northern Spain, it's small though.)

I have a Spanish passport, have been back to the ancestral villages in Spain, seen the church where my grandmother was baptized, my grandfather told me stories about growing up as the child of Spanish colonists in rural Cuba. The native bit just clashes with all the family lore.

The 2020s will be known as the Remote Work decade

A few predictions of what is likely to emerge

[ a thread ] 💻🏠🌍

🏦Third Space: Office and Working from Home will be joined by somewhere close by that a number of people will use

Supermarkets or local bank branches should emerge as a convenient ubiquitous location option – if they are smart

⏰Asynchronous Work: Offices are instantaneous gratification distraction factories where synchronous work makes it impossible to get stuff done

Tools that enable asynchronous work are the most important thing globally remote teams need. A lot of startups will try to tackle this

⚽️Hobbie Renaissance: Remote working will lead to a rise in people participating in hobbies and activities which link them to people in their local community

This will lead to deeper, more meaningful relationships which overcome societal issues of loneliness and issolation

🚜Rural Living: World-class people will move to smaller cities, have a lower cost of living & higher quality of life

These regions must innovate quickly to attract that wealth. Better schools, faster internet connections are a must