An amazing new project from @bearpelican was just released: https://t.co/DBov6sZTVS . A beautiful design; you can auto-generate a melody from chords, chords from a melody, and more.

It's technically brilliant, combining BERT, seq2seq, and Transformer XL
https://t.co/jF3mO5aXiu

PETER PADUKAM - THE LEGEND OF MADURAI MEENAKSHI TEMPLE AND A BRITISH COLLECTOR.

A British Collector named Rous Peter was appointed as Collector of Madurai from 1812 to 1828.

Though a Christian by faith, he respected all faiths including Hinduism and also honored local practice

Collector Peter was the temple administrator of the Meenakshi Amman Temple and conducted all his duties with sincerity and honesty and respected the religious sentiments of all people.

Collector Rous Peter respected and treated people of all faiths equally and this noble trait

earned him the popular nickname ‘Peter Pandian'

Goddess Meenakshi Amman Temple was situated between Collector Peter's residence and office.

Everyday he used to go to the office by his horse and while crossing the temple, he got down from his horse, removed the hat and his shoes

and crossed the whole path on his foot.

Through this small gesture he expressed his reverence to the Goddess!

One day there was a heavy downpour in Madurai city and River Vaigai was in spate.

Collector was sleeping in his residence and was suddenly disturbed and woken up by

the sound of anklets and he left his bed to find out from where the sound had came.

He saw a small girl wearing pattuvastrams (silk garments) and precious ornaments and addressing him as 'Peter come this way'.

THREAD

I get asked for writing tips a lot. Of all the ones I’ve given, here are a few of the ones that seem to hold true and remain somewhat universal or at least mostly unobjectionable:

#amwriting #writingtips

1. If you are a fast writer (i.e., if you compose first drafts very quickly) then you absolutely must become a slow editor. Much of what I call “writing” is really, for me, editing.

2. If you don’t read you cannot write a lot or well. Sure, maybe you can read like a maniac for a decade and then read less after that, but without some large volume of intake, there will never be a meaningful output.

2.1 I sometimes say that I feel like writing without reading is like trying to run a marathan on a cracker. And sadly I see many students struggling to write when they have simply never read enough to fuel that demand of the task at hand.

3. All writing is writing if one decides to treat it that way. If one takes some degree of intentional will when sending emails, posting on social media and writing notes and marginalia, then all of that can count as meaningful daily writing.

Here is Editor-in-Chief of the @EpochTimes, @JasperFakkert's response to the slanted hit piece that @Buzzfeed's @HayesBrown put up 2 days ago:

Brown's article at Buzzfeed starts off pretending it's some kind of really off-the-wall notion that Hillary Clinton paid for the creation of the Steele Dossier that was then used to justify the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign & transition team.

After that awful start, he swerves to making accusations that the Epoch Times is connected to the 'cult' Falon Gong.

You can read the article here:

Brown insinuates with no real evidence whatsoever that the Epoch Times is 'Falon Gong-linked'.

The 'evidence' he supplies in his article to 'prove' @EpochTimes is 'Falon Gong-linked is this:

1) the Epoch Times' extensive *news coverage* of China's attempts to wipe out Falon Gong with intense persecution directed at the group since 1999.

2) a reporter *shouting a question in 2006* at then-President George W. Bush about China's persecution of Falon Gong members.

You want to buy a house.

You take a loan from the bank.

The bank asks you, “what if you don’t pay back?”

You say, “take my home and sell it”.

(Thread)

That makes sense. The bank gives you a loan and in case you don’t pay, the bank will take over your house and sell it and recover its money.

That’s collateral.

Banks also lend money to big corporations. With them, banks don’t always have collateral.

So a loan where the bank has collateral is considered safer for the bank.

In the early 2000s, the banks in the USA were giving out loans to people for buying houses.

The economy had just recovered from the tech bubble in 2000 where many banks had given out loans to businesses that had shut down.

In that backdrop, the banks found giving home loans safer.