THREAD📌 Since Jan. 20, 2017, I have been terrorized by the Trump presidency as a lesbian, as a #disabled person, as a journalist. I have reported hundreds of stories of how marginalized groups in particluar have been harmed by Trump's policies, even in his final days.
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I am reading through reams of late-1920s communist poetry and easily my favourite title so far is: "To a Lady who Rejected a Poem about Spring as a Petit-Bourgeois Deviation"

The last lines:
"So here's my hat into the air,
Three cheers for your amazing hair,
For coal mines, and for turbines, too,
For steel, the Comintern and you!"

A not exactly graceful (though possibly satirical) title: "Lines Disassociating Myself from Yessenin and Supporting the Otherwise Unfounded Legend that I am a Foremost Proletarian Writer"

An excerpt:
"Goodbye verses of Yessenin
Goodbye literary slop-
You are not the line of Lenin
You are not the line of WAPP

Never shall I moan a
simple lyric from the heart
I'll devote my new corona
to the proletarian art"

The poet was Joseph Freeman, who published much of his revolutionary verse in the New Masses, a stylish journal of the interwar American literary Left.

Today is Jayanti of Ahilyabai Holkar

She was a widow who became Malwa's greatest queen. Defended our country & personally led armies into battle.Never plundered anyone. Developed Malwa into a prosperous kingdom. Rebuilt temples destroyed by Mughals. Built Dharmashalas at Tirthas

Unfortunately, her memory has been blemished by inaccurate representations in modern popular media.

The serial "Punyashlok Ahilyabai" depicts her as ultra secularist feminazi icon who questions Hindu rituals & Pandits while patronising Sufis.

This is far from historical truth!

Ahilyabai was born on May 31 1725 to Patil Mankoji Shinde.

She was from Dhangar clan(classified as OBC today). While Dhangars were traditionally into herding, they took up arms & held several military /civil roles in various eras of history(especially during Maratha resurgence)

In 1737, when she was 12, Ahilyabai Holkar was married to Khanderao , son of Subedar Malhar Rao Holkar.

By the time she was married, fortunes of Holkar family had already waxed.

Malhar Rao was a Subedar of territory comprising 30 Parganas yielding a revenue of at least 7 Lakh

In 1741, when Ahilyabai was newly married, her father -in-law Malhar Rao Built Indore palace & ordered the kanungo to populate the settlement with a promise of protection to traders.

This began rise of Indore from its background as modest trading town Indrapuri to a great city

Stambheshwar Mahadev Temple, Kavi Kamboi, Bharuch, Gujarat

Stambheshwar Mahadev is a Hindu Temple dedicated to Bhagwan Shiva, located in Kavi Kamboi in Bharuch District District of Gujarat, India. The Temple is about 150 years old. 1/n

The Temple is also known as the Submerging temple. The Temple is flanked by the Arabian Sea on one side and the Bay of Cambay on the other side.

As per legend, Tarakasura troubled the common people, sages and devas a lot. 2/n

Hence, Bhagwan Kartikeya k!lled him, but later he felt guilty for killing a demon who was a great devotee of Shiva. He went to Prabhu Vishnu and told about his guilty. Bhagwan Vishnu advised him to install a Shiva Linga to get relief from the sin. 3/n

As advised, he installed the Shiva Linga in this place and prayed to Bhagwan Shiva to forgive his sin.
The temple is located in Kavi Kamboi between the shores of Bay of Cambay and the Arabian Sea. This Temple is very simple temple in terms of architecture. 4/n

Every day, during the high tide hours, the temple submerges, and when the tide level becomes normal, the temple reappears again. The Temple houses a 4 feet high Shiva lingam. The Lingam can be seen during low tide. The visit to the temple should be planned in such a way that..5/n

💬 I often get Q’s like these:

How did you get your first customers for WIP? How did you grow BetaList’s traffic? Etc.

Makers are looking to reverse-engineer success. I see it everywhere.

I don’t think it works that way and the answers to those questions are mostly useless. 💥

I have built dozens of different products over the last couple of years. The vast majority failed. 😭

Surely if I know the answers to these questions, but still fail over and over again, these answers aren’t that useful. 🤷‍♀️

So what’s a better question to ask? 🤔

99.9% of the questions I receive are about the products that did well. In a way that makes sense, because we quickly forget about those that didn’t succeed.

🧠 This is known as survivorship bias.

Focusing on what survived, while ignoring what made it survive in the first place.

The real question, what you really want to know, is this:

What makes @WIP, @BetaList, and to some extent @AllStartupJobs succeed where my countless other attempts failed?

What separates a failed product 👎 from a successful product 👍?

Honestly, I don’t know. I wish I did.

It’s like Steve Jobs said “I’ll know it when I see it.” 👀

Same is true when we make products. We don’t know upfront what will work. But once we see an inkling of a product that does have potential, it’s not that hard to spot.