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Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#741

Post by davesque »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #393
davesque wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's your favorite Tabla player? I became oddly obsessed with this instrument for about two or three years of my life. It helped that I had an extremely competent teacher. My favorite player was Anindo Chatterjee. Of course, there are also a lot of extremely talented younger players.

I was training for a few years under Ustaad Khursheed Hussain, one of the finest Tabla players Pakistan produced. But he unfortunately died recently. While you are training under a master, it's hard to have a favorite player, because you are also learning the style of your Ustaad. And doing that requires making that your favorite style, because that is the best way to imbue the master's style in your being.

Yeah, I'm aware that this is often the arrangement between teacher and student in India or Pakistan. My teacher was Nepali and studied both with his childhood teacher in Kathmandu and also with Suresh Talwalkar in New Delhi. We were actually about exactly the same age when I studied with him (both in our late twenties). So it was a much less formal arrangement because he was not exactly my elder. Also, it was an American setting as he was living around Denver, Colorado in the US.

Regardless, I still felt I owed him a great deal of respect because he took his music very seriously. He was legitimately a virtuoso at Tabla. Truly an amazing player. And I was committed to practicing diligently. Since life in the US didn't permit me to study all day with him, I spent a lot of time finding recordings of performances on Youtube to learn from. As I mentioned, my favorite performer other than my teacher was Anindo Chatterjee. My teacher also knew of Chatterjee and enjoyed his playing as much as I did. Since he was from a younger generation, I don't think he was bothered by my trying to learn from watching other players while I wasn't practicing with him.

Anyhow, nice to see mention of Tabla on Hacker News :).

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#743

Post by pipes »

QkPrsMizkYvt wrote: post #726
pipes wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks :) I'm interested, do you find it a struggle as so many people do? Or did you have a similar experience to me were you aren't really that bothered about it anymore? I'm really hoping my desire to drink doesn't come back as easily as it went away.

Not OP, but I'll share my insight. The main way I keep myself on track is to remind myself as to why I am doing it. For me it is: sports and not being hungover (in particular on weekends). When I drink too much I tend to get anxious and emotional and that would last for a couple of days. Both of these reasons kept me from drinking again. It has been 3 months thus far and I haven't had an urge yet. People are also muc…

The anxious depression that lasts for days is my main reason too. Btw I think you'd really enjoy the alcohol explained book I mentioned. The thing I took away from it was drinking is pointless because the relaxing feeling after first drink disappears and leaves an anxious feeling unless you drink more. This because your body releases a stimulant to counteract the depressive effect of alcohol. This stimulant lingers for while and is part of the reason many of us wake up early after drinking feeling anxious and not able to sleep. I'm going to check out that app. Thanks

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#744

Post by nwiswell »

kccqzy wrote: post #739
gameoverhumans wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: there's plenty of coaches out there that teach/reinforce bad form. > And if you are a beginner, any attempt to do these exercises will invariably contain so many mistakes that they are not worth doing any more. I totally disagree. StrongLifts (and the Starting Strength book it derives from) starts you with the empty bar. Unless you have a serious medical condition, putting 20kg on your back / chest is u…

It's not that a beginner cannot put 20kg on their back or chest. It's that a beginner does not know how to safely put that 20kg on their back or chest. Especially the chest. Also some exercises like the deadlift can't be done with an empty bar. Stronglifts would ask you to start with 95lbs which is too much. To me your comment is toxic and reeks of a sense of superiority and elitism from your own experience. You labe…

> Please no. The beginner does not discover places where the form needs improvement. The beginner simply fails to lift after increasing the weight. The beginner injures themselves when they thought they could lift but they did not.

This assertion is contradicted by the hundreds of thousands of people (myself included) who have progressed beyond the beginner stage after starting out with the 20kg bar and without ever requiring the intervention of a human coach.

That said, I would have benefited from one. I had to completely deload and relearn my squat form because I was consistently leaning forward and de-emphasizing my posterior chain (now it's my best lift).

Speaking from experience, it's really pretty difficult to cause yourself an acute injury (i.e., worse than a nasty bruise) with 20kg if your form even resembles the squat, bench, or deadlift.

Granted, 20kg can be a big starting weight for overhead press, and if you're a petite woman you may initially need an alternative to the Olympic barbell even for the others.

Also, deadlifts are kind of tricky: a bare bar on the floor is a deficit deadlift. But a couple of blocks can solve this issue.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#745

Post by abdullahkhalids »

davesque wrote: post #741
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was training for a few years under Ustaad Khursheed Hussain, one of the finest Tabla players Pakistan produced. But he unfortunately died recently. While you are training under a master, it's hard to have a favorite player, because you are also learning the style of your Ustaad. And doing that requires making that your favorite style, because that is the best way to imbue the master's style in your being.

Yeah, I'm aware that this is often the arrangement between teacher and student in India or Pakistan. My teacher was Nepali and studied both with his childhood teacher in Kathmandu and also with Suresh Talwalkar in New Delhi. We were actually about exactly the same age when I studied with him (both in our late twenties). So it was a much less formal arrangement because he was not exactly my elder. Also, it was an Amer…

Yes, it is definitely an older generation thing where people cared very much about style. It was necessary, because of the socioeconomic conditions of their time. To be financially secure, you needed to have patrons, and to lock in your patrons, you had to make yourself distinct by creating a particular style. Moreover, the lack of recordings before the 1950s, meant that people couldn't easily copy you.

Today, there are many more ways of making money as a player, and everything is recorded and ready to be copies, so people care less about style.

But I do care about it a little bit. My Ustaad had a very clear style of playing, where he made every note clear and distinct. So now, I don't like listening to some of the super fast rough styles that some players have. It is a legitimate style, but I have been trained to not like it.

Anyway, very nice to meet a fellow player on HN.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#746

Post by elhudy »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #596
elhudy wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if there weren’t any studies on the harmful effects of plastic consumption (which I’m fairly certain there are at least theoretical mechanistic studies if you make the effort to look for them), it makes common sense to try to avoid that, no? I don’t think there are any studies on the effects of regularly drinking gasoline or eating toilet paper either, but plastic, gasoline, and toilet paper consumption aren't e…

What a silly reply. Yes, there are many studies about the consumption of hazardous chemicals, including gasoline. There are even many about just the fumes -- no need to regularly drink it. My point: The "hair on fire" comments about nano plastic still hasn't been borne out by peer-reviewed scientific research. I recall on HN someone mentioned that a recent discover was that tyre dust is a large potion of micro plasti…

If youre so certain about your ability to find long term studies on the consumption of micro-pieces of toilet paper or gasoline, then surely you can find one on plastic ;).

Not many have their hair on fire. People just want to make a conscious effort to avoid what common sense says to avoid.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#747

Post by davesque »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #745
davesque wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm aware that this is often the arrangement between teacher and student in India or Pakistan. My teacher was Nepali and studied both with his childhood teacher in Kathmandu and also with Suresh Talwalkar in New Delhi. We were actually about exactly the same age when I studied with him (both in our late twenties). So it was a much less formal arrangement because he was not exactly my elder. Also, it was an Amer…

Yes, it is definitely an older generation thing where people cared very much about style. It was necessary, because of the socioeconomic conditions of their time. To be financially secure, you needed to have patrons, and to lock in your patrons, you had to make yourself distinct by creating a particular style. Moreover, the lack of recordings before the 1950s, meant that people couldn't easily copy you. Today, there…

> So now, I don't like listening to some of the super fast rough styles that some players have.

Completely agree with you on this point. I find that there are very few players that I actually enjoy listening to. Many players rush their playing and don't follow a clear rhythm or sound clear notes. Tabla is such a difficult instrument to play properly. Seems like it really takes a life time to become a good player. Sort of heart breaking since American life makes it hard to bring that kind of devotion to art (not if you want to be financially secure anyway).

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#748

Post by plutoh28 »

uncharted9 wrote: post #66

Learning about my own mind and how to tame it. I've started realizing that I don't have much control over the external world, people or events, and only my perception of it can keep me sane or fix my mental issues. This has effectively forced me to see my relationship with my devices with more scrutiny. I've repeatedly found that digital consumption, whether it is infotainment, knowledge, or mindless Reels or Shorts,…

Heres a term you might appreciate: JOMO, the joy of missing out.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#749

Post by plutoh28 »

Im currently passionate in improving the life of my young nephew. His father left him devoid of a father figure while his mother is a mess who takes her frustrations out on him. Ive only just turned 19 but I’m trying my best to work on myself so I could be a good male role model for him. Myself and my mom (his grandma) are the only ones who care about him, his education, and his growth. I really just want to make sure this lil fella grows up to be a good man and not mimic the paths of his parents.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#750

Post by scottmcdot »

Helping my cleaner get more customers. I'm helping him put together a letterbox flyer which I'm interested to do some a/b testing on response rates. I'll also systematically track which houses I've covered and when.

In Melbourne I see a lot of cleaning websites that use stock photos of people that don't racially reflect the cleaners working for the agency. I want to flip that upside down and have encouraged my cleaner to put a photo of himself on the flyer (he's Sri Lankan). I think this will show any potential customers that he stands out from other cleaners and is proud of his work and who he is.

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