There is a subtle brilliance in this sentence. With this recognition comes the permission to not try adding a mountain of features and complicating matters. Build something you will use. Solve a problem you have. Enjoy the process and accept the vulnerability that comes with shipping something to the world. Chances are good things will come of it.
So, I created a Chrome extension that surfaces YouTube comments that have timestamps right below the video, around the time that the comment contains. And, then disappears it after a few seconds.
It was fun to make and in the end, it solved a very specific problem that I was facing.
Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-timed-comm...
You’re definitely not the only person who has this issue.
It’s definitely something YouTube could implement if they weren’t content with the minor tyre fix they’ve built.
The only issue I have now is that I've moved on to using Firefox. So, I can't really use this extension anymore.
I guess that sounds like another 'niche problem' that needs solving.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
Thanks for sharing.
http://shots.moss.io/a67bd6/Screenshot%202019-09-19%20at%201...
In this case, it is needed to get the url and id of the tab. I'll have to go back and check if I can make do without depending on that because I agree it does not make sense for this extension to need 'access to my browsing history'. Also, I do intend to put the code up and link it in the extension description page soon, so you don't have to take my word for it!
Thanks for pointing this out.
This is extremely specific (and i had to switch to Firefox Developer Edition to do that since the mainline one doesn't allow unsigned extensions) but it was helpful and i got to learn how to make extensions for personal use (though the whole process to call an external program was a convoluted PITA involving adding registry entries, writing Python scripts to parse JSON, etc... meh).
PARAM=`xclip -o -selection clipboard`
notify-send downloading $PARAM
youtube-dl $PARAM
CTRL+L (select URL)
CTRL+C (copy selection)
CTRL+ALT+D (trigger download script)कर्म करो फल की अपेक्षा मत करो जब तुम फल की अपेक्षा रखोगे तुम्हारा कर्म दूषित होगा
Translation:
Do your work, don't expect anything in return. Because when you do, your work gets corrupt.
This translation doesn't seem to cover the familiar, deeper meaning of the passage. The term कर्म (karma) can refer both to work/action as well as to the principle of cause and effect (that the word 'karma' more commonly represents). My understanding is that it really talks about the purifying effect on the mind of doing your duty without expectations of being rewarded. A bit like Bushido.
This is not duty in the sense of solving your own problems and taking risks as an entrepreneur. It is more about doing the job that society (the very rigid caste-based society that is the context here) has laid out for you. The subject of the speech was Arjuna. Krishna, the speaker, was reminding Arjuna that being born a warrior it was his duty to fight in the war that he didn't want to fight in, even if it meant slaughtering his cousins who were on the opposing side.
Seen in its original context, it doesn't quite mean the same thing as what GP said.
But maybe I didn't get the implication of "job that rigid-caste-based society set out for you". Which of course probably seems less sensible/ethical to many of us modern people.
One of the things that has made the religious texts that have been treasured for thousands of years succesful is how they have such expanding/multitudinous possibilities of interpretation and directions of symbolism. And they usually have been understood differently by different people at different times (as a historical fact, even if the fundamentalists want to argue otherwise).
I find that a very interesting and thought-provoking passage, that has resonances with things in other religious/spiritual traditions (unsurprisingly especially some kinds of Buddhism), but I have no interest in the "your duty is exactly what 'society' tells you it is" part. I think we have a duty to ourselves/our neighbors/humanity/god/the divine, and expecting something in return will corrupt it (and possibly ruin the outcome), but it might not be quite what 'society' is telling you it is.
In modern contexts, the text is jarring in many ways. Arjuna's initial argument for not wanting to kill his cousins, uncles and grandfather on the other side are that if he kills them, their women would be led astray, i.e. procreate outside the clan (not clear if willfully or made to do so without male protection) which would lead to out-of-caste progeny being born and thus the destruction of the pure family blood line. The emphasis is on the illegitimate children being the problem, not that the women would be harmed.
Whereas for “Hindus” (for want of a better word.), actions are of supreme importance. They are divinely ordained. What Krishna Bhagavan is saying is don’t let preoccupation with results paralyze you into inaction.
Some historians see the Gita as a rejoinder by the Vedic traditionalist to the quietism of the Shramanic movements.
As for Arjunas argument; the need for a pure family line is not that illegitimate children wouldn’t be e.g. heirs but that they would be uneligible to make the offerings (shraddha) to the deified ancestors (Pitrs. The term literally means “fathers” but it includes male and female ancestors.) Deprived of those offerings, the Pitrs would lose their place in Heaven and fall into Hell.
Incidentally this lunar fortnight is the season when Hindus perform shraddha. It is my great-grandmothers shraddha today.
That is not the Buddhist view at all. The Buddha himself spoke about skillful action vs non-skillful action. The whole eightfold path / middle way [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path] starts from 'Right View': that our actions have consequences, even after death.
For the Gita, action (as prescribed by dharma) is intrinsically good regardless of its content even if it ends up destroying an entire family in war. That’s the key difference.
Quoting from The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha translated by Bhikku Bodhi: These are the Buddha's words:
> "There is, brahmin, a way in which one could rightly say of me: ‘The ascetic Gotama is a proponent of non-doing.’ For I assert the non-doing of bodily, verbal, and mental misconduct; I assert the non-doing of the numerous kinds of bad unwhole- some deeds. It is in this way that one could rightly say of me: ‘The ascetic Gotama is a proponent of non-doing.’"
> "And in what way could one rightly say of me: ‘The ascetic Gotama is a proponent of deeds who teaches his Dhamma for the sake of deeds and thereby guides his disciples’? For I assert good bodily, verbal, and mental conduct; I assert the doing of the numerous kinds of wholesome deeds. It is in this way that one could rightly say of me: ‘The ascetic Gotama is a proponent of deeds who teaches his Dhamma for the sake of deeds and thereby guides his disciples.’"
I'm not sure this is right. The Buddha himself laid out his rules for householders (the gahatthavatta in the Anguttara Nikaya), which doesn't make sense if there was nothing but the Sangha in his time.
> If one cannot renounce for some reason then yes it is better to do good than evil in the world but that is clearly the inferior alternative. “Right conduct” is that which brings one closer to non-doing.
Do you have a source for this? Nothing I have read agrees. I have already given my source to the contrary from the Anguttara Nikaya itself.
Elsewhere Krishna Bhagavan offers everyone explicitly including women direct access to the embodied divinity — namely, Himself.
> Elsewhere Krishna Bhagavan offers everyone explicitly including women direct access to the embodied divinity — namely, Himself.
Oh you mean the passage (chapter 9, verse 32) in which he lists that even those of lower birth: women, vaisyas and sudras have access to him? To be clear, this leaves only brahmin and kshatriya men in the those-not-of-lower-birth or dvija or twice-born ranks.
As for 9:32 no the Gita is not egalitarian (that’s W.E.I.R.D again) but Krishna Bhagavans’ formulation while upholding the old hierarchy, creates a new hierarchy on a different axis with a different set of winners and losers.
Incidentally, you are aware I hope that according to the Ashokavadana, a Buddha can only be born in a Brahmans or Kshatriya family.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Sounds exactly like the kind of thing Ashoka's minions would add to Ashoka's hagiography.
For the record, I don't take any of this stuff seriously.
"Besides, considering your duty as a warrior, you should not waver. Indeed, for a warrior, there is nothing but a battle fought according to dharma." - 2.31
Further, the reason for action is held up later. This is also the quote that Oppenheimer used to describe setting off the Atomic Bomb.
"Time I am, the mighty destroyer of worlds, and I come to vanquish all living beings. Even without your participation, all the warriors on the opposite side of the battlefield will be killed.
Therefore, arise and achieve glory! Conquer your foes and enjoy a prosperous empire! O best amongst archers, all your enemies have already been killed by Me – you are but an instrument.
Drona. Bhisma, Jayadratha, Karna and other heroic soldiers have already been killed by Me. Fear not – fight! You will certainly conquer your enemy in this battle." - 11.32-11.35
Not to simplify the complexity of the Gita but what I take from it is: We can only take action and in the long run everyone is dead so why not take righteous action along the lines of what you are good at and thus fulfill your duty to society and God.
Furthermore, the rigidity of the caste system is a modern invention. It occurred during British Rule (https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7191.html).
Social mobility in traditional India did occur but very slowly and at the group level for the most part. How it worked is an upcoming group would adopt elite behaviors e.g. vegetarianism, Sanskrit, their Gods would be equated with those of the high tradition and so on. Over time no one in the group or its neighbors would remember that they had ever behaved otherwise. Voila, upward mobility.
The printing press changed that. Now when you say I am Y, someone can point out “but it says here that a century ago you were X.” Same effect with archaeology, genetics etc.
Historically, the British brought in these technologies but in an alternative timeline where Clive lost at Plessy, the same process would eventually have occurred. It benefits both the far left and far right to find a scapegoat instead.
The technologies that the British brought through colonialism, including their own class structure, lead to what you described. It likely would have happened without the British but because of the power structures in place that came with colonial rule. This process accelerated so a lot of the rigidity that we can attribute now was the upper castes trying to hold onto their power which was magnified by the British giving them more power in colonial India.
It is also why it was the upper caste Hindus that eventually rebelled against British rule. They received the best economic and political benefit from British rule.
The initial organized independence movements which were largely confined to Bengal during the 1900-1918 timeframe were very much an upper-caste movement.
If we're all dead in the long run, why bother with righteous action now?
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_is_the_mother_of_inv...
But early airports didn't have miles of corridors and a hundred gates, so maybe the need wasn't as great.
The cold war re-prioritized life for many Americans (and Russians, too I'm sure)
Well, yeah. The only thing that’s surprising about this is that the opposite has gotten so engrained. We are so accustomed to an attitude that (without the niceties of professionalism) is basically “who the fuck are you, nerd, to have the audacity to think you understand user needs? You’re weird and nobody wants what you want from software.”
Here's my world-famous Python tool for Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis of Excel sheets depending on expert estimates: https://github.com/asemic-horizon/stanton
And my extremely unrequested extension for expert estimates that may be correlated: https://github.com/asemic-horizon/multibeta
The Tesla model 3 has no dashboard in your line of sight, and Elon Musk says he builds something he likes and hope others will too.
But the car has sold well in spite of the fact that many owners I've talked to said this was a big compromise for them.
I do that a lot. Pretty much every one of them is used practically only by me. That's fine, because that was my expectation anyway.