Alok Singh alok

I have grown up in the Bay area.

What I love about this place is that people who are important are hard-working, talented, open-minded, and kind. In most places, any subset of these traits is not enough. But here you need all four just to survive and thrive and to matter, to be somebody.

Since everyone's so driven, we're like highway truckers. All our crossings are transverse, barren gone.

In work or love. We cross in and out of each other's lives, pretending we are not bound to one another, that our lives are our own.

But all of us who come here have a ribbon around our hearts. Even if that ribbon will not let us own to it.

Opera night.

I put on the suit I got in Vietnam. And then I went to Dream of the Red Chamber.

So many steps at the hall. So sheer. I thought of how the Aztecs would roll corpses down the pyramids. And if I would be beside them.

I was up in the top right in the nosebleed section, and I could see the nosebleed. I was so conscious of my nose, the feeling that it was dripping. The hook of it.

The actors were too forced, and I could see why opera is a dying art. That it has greatness in it. But it's too late.

"Jump or die, dumbass"

The boy was so afraid. So nervy. That twitchy spurg.

My friend A and I, we're hanging out in Lindavista Park and the sun had gone. No daylight, but me no want to go home. So we started climbing. There's something about the pace of walking or advancing to a goal that even with the wind and the cold, my focus, my fixation shrinks to a point. And before we knew it, we were at the crest. I hear a shuffling. Knife comes out. One of those little toy Swiss army knives. God, I was so young. I'm sure I felt so cool. I see this Asian boy shivering, staring really intensely at this cliff. He's shaking so much. Something in me wouldn't let me be gentle then.

The Nations that want arithmetic are altogether barbarous, as some Americans, who can hardly reckon above 20.

Writing it because i feel debts to the dead. this dead.

https://todayinsci.com/A/Arbuthnot_John/ArbuthnotJohn-UseOfMath.htm

Don't worry about reading the old-timey english. There's a lot of it. Just vibe through it. And it is a vibe.

In all Ages and Countries, where Learning hath prevailed, the Mathematical Sciences have been looked upon as the most considerable Branch of it. The very Name Μάθησις implies no less...

From Priests to Software Engineers

The grand course of history — one of the first grand jobs are basically warriors and priests. Warriors, starting with the ancient Greeks and the creation of jobs like the Arcon, displaced priests as the rulers of society. But then warriors themselves got displaced. And they viewed merchants before that, but kind of like rats.

Even in ancient Rome — Caesar's era, all these great people competing. How often do you think of Rome? I think about it maybe a normalish amount for a guy, like twice a week. That's probably an underestimate.

As the Empire was rising and the Republic was falling, an era much like this one in a lot of ways, you had truly exceptional people, and there were a lot more than — Caesar was not the only one. Gaius Marius alone was his opponent, but there was also the other two of the triumvirate, Mark Antony, and Crassus. Crassus is the one I'm thinking of. He was the merchant and they viewed him almost like a rat riding a unicycle. They weren't even mad t

The PIE root *skel- means to cut. From it you get shell, scale, skull, skill. Skill is just cutting well. Which makes "skillful discernment" a redundancy. You're saying cutter who cuts. Five thousand years of drift and nobody noticed.

Concept. From PIE *kap-, to grasp. Through Latin concipere — to seize together. Same root as capture, capable, forceps. A concept is something grabbed out of the stream. You reach into undifferentiated flow and close your hand around a piece of it and pull it out and hold it up and say this. Before the grab there's no boundary. After the grab there is. The concept is the cut and the thing cut, simultaneously. Perceive is the same root. *Kap- again, but with per- (thoroughly). To grasp entirely. So perceiving and conceiving are the same act at different intensities. One grabs a handful, the other grabs the whole thing.

There's this piece framing the Buddha as a startup founder. Six years of competitive research — all vaporware. 49-day R&D sprint under a tree. Ships a four-slide

I once went to a 2 Chainz concert with my friends back in undergrad. It's weird to see how unhype something can be. Like watching a drunk guy sing alone in front of an uncaring audience.

Some dude suddenly started flipping out, and at the time we thought he was on meth. Or PCP, sorry, for all I know he still is. And at some point I got bored,

why homeless people hide drugs from kids

one of the strangest things about people

is how much can be destroyed without everything being destroyed

⸻

a man can lose

	The PIE root *skel- means to cut. From it you get shell, scale, skull, skill. Skill is just cutting well.
	Which makes "skillful discernment" a redundancy. You're saying cutter who cuts. Five thousand years of drift and nobody noticed.

	Concept. From PIE *kap-, to grasp. Through Latin concipere — to seize together. Same root as capture, capable, forceps. A concept is something grabbed out of the stream. You reach into undifferentiated flow and close your hand around a piece of it and pull it out and hold it up and say this. Before the grab there's no boundary. After the grab there is. The concept is the cut and the thing cut, simultaneously.
	Perceive is the same root. *Kap- again, but with per- (thoroughly). To grasp entirely. So perceiving and conceiving are the same act at different intensities. One grabs a handful, the other grabs the whole thing.

	There's this piece framing the Buddha as a startup founder. Six years of competitive research — all vaporware. 49-day R&D sprint under a tree. Ships a four-slide



	one of the strangest things about people

	is how much can be destroyed
	without everything being destroyed

	⸻

	a man can lose