My good deed for the weekend was introducing @curiousgawker to #Norsemen, arguably the most LOL-funny show in Netflix history. Vikings talking like overly polite modern day Norwegians. This hilariously addresses the fact that real Vikings didn't actually have horned helmets.
This scene always gives me tummy ache 😂😂😂 #Norsemen.
When we first watched the show, they kept talking about going to "the thing" and they eventually went to "the thing" in the season finale. Which is like a tribal congress. We haven't seen the Vikings show so we thought calling it "the thing" was a joke.
(Narrator: it's not)
So when we visited Iceland and found out that their most important historical monument is "Thingvellir", literally "Thing Field", we were most gobsmacked. "The Thing" is the actual Viking/Nordic word for Parliament!
Also "thing" - Cosa Nostra in Italy. "Our thing".
Vikings debating ironic nicknames 😂😂😂
Polite, passive aggressive, and open minded Vikings here. 😂😂😂
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Doing lecture prep for Fall & adding this new story in the product development strategy session. Thought it would make a nice 🧵
Did you know that a lot of calculators & music equipment we have is the result of cigarettes not having filters during world war 2?
Fun story!
Cigarettes back then came like this. A fully white paper tube filled with tobacco that you lit at one end and smoked from the other.
This inevitably meant that you "wasted" some tobacco at the mouth end while throwing it away.
Tadao Kashiyo in WW2 Japan saw an opportunity!
During WW2, cigarettes that mostly came from Allied countries became very expensive in Japan. Especially American & British brands which were sold at a premium on the black market.
Tadao Kashiyo was an engineer who was into fabrication. He created a new product that sold itself.
There is NOTHING in US military remotely resembling Agnipath!
At the 18-22 age, the US military actually wants you to enlist for life if possible. And will happily keep you on for life if you serve honorably.
The short term stints are like Indian Short Service Commission.
So yeah, there exist options in the US military where you sign on for a short stint. And can be deployed. But they'll also send you to college for free.
My brother in law got an engineering degree from UC Riverside by enlisting in the Air Force for a few years. Then left.
Very interesting conversation with a gujarati bodega owner nearby.
"I support Modi but something is wrong in gujarat. There are more gujaratis taking the risky border routes in the last 2 years than the 20 years before, from my observation. And they all say, no jobs in gujarat"
"Until recent years, gujaratis wanting to move either came through family visa or arranged marriage or student visa or at the most, overstay tourist visa. But risking life and limb like this in such big numbers? Modi needs to pay attention to gujarat. It's in trouble."
"the family that froze to death on the Canadian border. They didn't have a bad life in gujarat by any means. So why risk your entire existence? Something is wrong, brother, something is very wrong."
"Wherever you go in this world, you will find a t̶e̶a̶ s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶ great school founded by a Malayalee."
K.T. Behanan was a brilliant Yale educated social scientist & Indian bureaucrat who landed in NYC with his doctor wife & 5 year old son.
Ran straight into systemic racism./1
The year was 1947 & Behanan, a Syrian Christian from Kerala's influential Kovoor clan was a 45 year old superstar in the Babu circles of the brand new India.
He accepted a position for India at the brand new UN, working on education policy with the Trustee Council.
Ironic.
He landed in a New York that was very different from now. "Separate but equal" was still the law.
Schools were openly & emphatically segregated. Brown v BoE was some years away.
By putting idealistic UN in Manhattan, America's mouth had written a check its ass couldn't cash.
I'm at that age where a lot of my friends are starting to send their kids to college. So getting a lot of queries on US college as an option.
So I'm going to do this reference 🧵 with the basics to avoid repetition. And send it to them before further more specific questions.
I'll start off by saying that if you have ₹3 crore that you can spare, it is a nice lifelong gift for your child.
An undergrad education in the US is an amazing enriching experience beyond just the academics & the jobs after. I envy my students a little they get to live it.
I start off mentioning the cost cos I want to be absolutely clear that as awesome as such a college education will be for your kid, it is not going to be cheap.
Unless you have a Sheldon Cooper type kid, there is no free ride for international students in undergrad. That's Grad.
India & China are almost half of humanity, 2 of the oldest cultures, sharing one of the longest and most iconic borders on the planet.
But how little we really know each other!
Recently, a Chinese grad student shared her love story with me. I repeat it here with her permission.
She grew up the only child of two people who were only children of parents who were also only children, in the South of China.
He grew up in a similar configuration, in the northeast of China.
They both followed the well set academic excellence route to US grad school.
They met in grad school in the NYC area. In a larger Chinese grad student universe, they found each other. And fell in love. And started planning a life together.
And both realized how they had to think about parents and grandparents in China just by themselves!