Hugh Everett's birthday! Pioneer of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Let us celebrate by thinking about ontological extravagance. I will do so by way of analogy, because I have found that everyone loves analogies and nobody ever willfully misconstrues them.

KANIPAKAM VINAYAKA, CHITOOR (AP)
#bharatmandir

Kani means wetland and Pakam means flow of water into wetland.
Kanipakam Vinayaka is swayambhu (self-manifested). The murti is in a well which is always full of water.

Once, there were three brothers. Each one had a handicap- Dumb, Deaf and Blind. They had a small piece of land for livelihood. For their field, they drew water from a well. One day, they found that the well had dried up so one of them started digging in the well.

His tool hit something and blood oozed out. They found a swayambhu murti of Ganesha here.
Villagers started offering coconut water which overflew into a channel. Hence the name Kanipakam.

The murti is still growing in size. At present, we see the knees and the abdomen only. The Kavacham (Armour) offered to Vinayaka 50 years ago doesn’t fit today.
Vinayaka is believed to be the upholder of truth. So people come here and swear before him to prove their innocence.

X : Our executive team is concerned that we need to up our game in order to out innovate Amazon.
Me : Do you map?
X : Yes
Me : Like this?
X : No. What's that?
Me : A map of a tea shop.

X : Why is that a map?
Me : Long story, all to do with how space has meaning. To keep it short, maps help people to focus on user needs, the components involved, to communicate missing components and scenario play ideas like staff becoming robots.

Me : They’re also good for measuring and managing capital flow, making investment decisions, removing bias and getting rid of duplication.
X : I don’t see how that helps with innovation?

Me : Well, innovation is a tricky word because we use it to describe many things. If you’re talking about differentiation with the adjacent unexplored then you’re experimenting in the “uncharted” space e.g. immortality with magic provided by the special custom built kettle.

X : That sounds like nonsense.
Me : A lot of what people think will be the next great innovation is nonsense. Actually, most of it is. That’s the nature of the uncharted space, it’s experimental, high risk and generally results in failure.
X : We need more reliable innovation.

I'm gonna do my other star wars thread tomorrow, which will primarily be me yelling at a @RowanKaiser-shaped strawman for calling the First Order and The Resistance "cosplayers who the rest of the galaxy has to deal with"

the deal w/the New Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance is very weird and complex and I actually take issue with how Story Group frames the actual conflict.

pre-TFA stuff is presented as a "cold war" between the New Republic and the remnants of the Empire that form the First Order, which 100% makes sense.

But they frame the First Order's attack on the Hosnian system and the subsequent battle that takes place across TFA and TLJ as a full on war when it's very clearly a coup. A war implies at least equal standing, but the First Order completely wrecks shop and takes over the galaxy.

ok never mind I'm fucking doing this now.

The First Order fleet we see in TLJ is *not* the entire fleet of the First Order (I don't even think Starkiller Base was their main base of operations honestly, it couldn't have been considering they were operating out of Wild Space)

This day was inevitable. Indian Muslims always lived in La La Land. They bad mouthed real well wishers & slept with the enemy who never considered them as part of them. In Gulf, Indian Muslims were busy with Javed Akhtar & Sonu Nigam. Never interacted with South Asian diaspora

Now when Indian Muslims are thrown to wolves it’s Pakistani & Bangladeshi Muslims with whom they kept distance are the only ones feeling their pain. None of the people who they invited for Eid Milan. Qawali & Mushaira are there for them. Such people invoke wrath upon themselves

Indian Muslims never spoke for Kashmiri Muslims. Distancing from separatist was understandable but we never even bothered to highlight their human rights violation & rapes carried out by forces. We could have sent them humanitarian help we didn’t. Our silence made us complicit.

When Sania Mirza married Shoaib Malik it was something legal. A Muslim married another Muslim. Entire Hindutva media went after her. They launched a witch-hunt for months. No Indian Muslim stood by her. All were silent. Now days come when Muslims are arrested for marrying a Hindu

Indian Muslims particularly the elite downplayed communalism in India by saying it will pass or Hindu majority is good. Fringe are bad. They misguiding others. Muslims were always others. Indians were happy to see Muslims sing & dance & eat their food but never considered as own

Trump on climate: I don't believe it. Trump on Khashoggi: I don't believe it. Trump on Russia: I don't believe it. Idiocy? A canny game? Doesn't really matter as much as the underlying intellectual autocracy. In this administration only one opinion matters.

It's an assault on facts and reason. It's an assault on good governance. It's an assault on the bureaucracies that are being discounted. It's an assault on science and history. But it is also an assault on one of the underpinnings of democracy.

We live in a system that is grounded on the idea of collaborative government. Leaders may have a final word but even then, there are typically checks and balances. Hopefully, in this case, such checks and balances may work. But they also are being tested.

The president's position that he is smarter than all the world's scientists, than the entire intelligence community, than experts who have studied any issue all their lives, is, of course, asinine. But his belief that government turns solely on his opinion, is monarchic.

Louis XIV reportedly said, "L'etat est moi." That he was the state. Trump asserting that he knows better than all, discounts all advice, that his brain is enough to chart the course for America alone, is essentially saying the same thing.