Anshul Srivastava

Product Guy. Movie lover. MDI Gurgaon. SVNIT

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

Some movies/series I watched recently on Netflix and what I liked about them -
1. Troll - classic adaptation of mythology into modern setting, think king king or Godzilla, but a different experience as the setting is Norwegian

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

@madredsss I had the whole album on repeat for months and even now when a song from this movie randomly pops up anywhere, I stop whatever I’m doing and listen to it

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

Wake me up when AI can write like John Steinbeck to Marilyn Monroe 😂

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

Seeing a minister give a science and technology explainer is very impressive. It builds trust that they know what they are doing, and aligns the public to their vision. This focus on manufacturing, that too in a tech heavy industry like semiconductor will give rich dividends

[Ashwini Vaishnaw @AshwiniVaishnaw]

The chip journey, simplified.

[Jack @VKx76]

As per Adi Parva, Duryodhana is born from a portion of Kali, the personification of strife and discord. texts present him as a formidable warrior and ambitious ruler whose jealousy, arrogance, and refusal to share power with the Pandavas.

Driven by jealousy and greed for the Hastinapura throne, he staged the infamous dice game and rejected every offer of peace, making the Kurukshetra War inevitable. Even when Shakuni urged him to return Indraprastha, but Karna’s opposition swayed him back.

He was Trained by Guru Dronacharya and later by Lord Balarama and Balarama is said to have regarded Duryodhana’s body as “lightning made flesh” and to have judged him the greatest mace-fighter of his generation.

Krishna later confirms the same ranking: Bhima is stronger, but Duryodhana’s technique, speed, and thirteen years of focused practice make him the superior stylist. In the final duel the texts show Duryodhana wearing Bhima down until Krishna reminds Bhima of his old vow and the blow below the waist ends the fight.

As he lay dying, Duryodhana asked Ashwatthama for one last favour: the heads of the Pandavas. That night Ashwatthama slaughtered Dhrishtadyumna and, mistaking Draupadi’s sons for the five brothers, brought their heads.

Duryodhana demanded Bhima’s first. The skull crumbled in his failing grip like a coconut. Realising the truth, he told Ashwatthama: “The world will say Bhima killed me. Only you and I know I die of your sin - you murdered the innocent heirs, the future of Hastinapura.

[Jash Dholani @oldbooksguy]

turns out the attention span crisis is atleast

*checks notes*

two thousand years old

[Shane Helm @ShaneHelm]

Tommy used to work on the docks
Union's been on strike, he's down on his luck
It's tough
So tough

Gina works the diner all day
Workin' for her man, she brings home her pay
For love
for love

She says, "We've gotta hold on to what we've got
It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not
We've got each other and that's a lot for love
We'll give it a shot"

livin' on a prayer

[Josh Barzon @JoshuaBarzon]

6,000 years of world history on a single timeline. Zoom in. You could spend 30 minutes exploring this.

[​𝐥𝐲𝐫𝐚 @sunnkssdseraph]

One day, your home will be empty, and someone will have to decide what to do with your things. They'll open your drawers. They'll find the watch you treasured so much, the car you spent three years paying off, and the clothes you saved for special occasions because you didn't want to wear them out. And they'll make three piles: what to sell, what to give away, and what to throw away. None of it goes with you. Not a single thing. The only thing that goes with you is that afternoon you stayed talking for hours and didn't even realize where the time went. The look on your mom's face when you showed up to visit her without telling her you were coming. Don't collect things... Collect moments with the people you love

[itweet @HbPoornima]

I second this !!!!!

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

As I read, I’m impressed more and more. Well lived, Dolly!

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.

She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.

The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.

She handed out the checks herself.

In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.

When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.

You've probably heard that part.

Here's the part you haven't:

The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.

Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.

She built her county an entire hospital.

She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.

In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.

Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.

In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.

And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.

She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.

She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.

Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸

[Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj]

"I'm not offended by all of the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb … and I also know that I'm not blonde."
Dolly Parton was a 5"0" country music singer most in India remember for one massive hit, Jolene. She also wrote and performed "I will always love you" which became a No 1 with Whitney Houston.
But I'm not a fan because of 'Jolene,' or 'I will always Love you.'
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, a part of her Dollywood Foundation mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. Currently reaches almost 850,000 children each month. In 2018, the charity sent out its 100 millionth book.
She provided critical early funding for Covid-19 research in Vanderbilt, took one of the first vaccine doses available, and sang a version of Jolene with lyrics that went '"Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine/I'm begging of you please don't hesitate.'
Dolly was giving, contributing, and fighting bigots and racism till the very end.
RIP Dolly, you were something!

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

Amazingly well written letter. Each line is meaningful, naturally progresses to the next, and not a single superfluous word while sharing complex thoughts. It also reflects the beautiful soul and personality of the author in such a short timeframe.
Must have been an amazing lady

[Marshall Mathers @Eminem]

I'm sorry we never got a chance to meet, but getting this note from Dolly really had a an impact on me. She definitely didn't have to take the time to do it. Even for a kid who mostly listened to rap music, she was an icon. A superstar in every sense. Rest easy Dolly. And thank you for the kind words.

[Parimal @Fintech03]

Next in who after the Ramanujan Series? He is the reason we can find a needle in the digital haystack of the world. Meet Dr. Rajeev Motwani (1962-2009), the Ghost who built the logic of the modern world. A boy from Jammu who went to IIT Kanpur & ended up teaching 2 kids at Stanford how to organize the internet. W/o him, there is no Google. W/o him, the web would be a chaotic library with no index.

He was the master of Randomized Algorithms, the man who proved that sometimes, a bit of chance is the fastest way to the truth. He won the Nobel of his field & mentored the titans of Silicon Valley, yet he remains an invisible legend in his homeland. He is the architect of the digital oracle, the man who taught the world how to search.

Born in 1962 in Jammu, Rajeev grew up in a household defined by the discipline of the Indian Army. As a child, he famously wanted to be a librarian because he loved books so much. He eventually realized that mathematics was the ultimate indexing system for the universe. He belonged to the legendary Class of 1983 at IIT Kanpur. This was a Silo of intense competition that refined his ability to solve problems with extreme speed & elegance.

He moved to the US & earned his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1988, diving into the deep waters of theoretical computer science. Before Motwani, most computer scientists tried to find perfect answers. Motwani realized that for massive amounts of data, perfection is too slow. He proved that by introducing a small, controlled amount of randomness into an algorithm, we could solve complex problems millions of times faster than traditional methods.

In 1995, he co-authored Randomized Algorithms. It is not just a textbook; it is the fundamental blueprint for modern computing. Every time a large system (like a global bank/a social network) processes data, it likely uses a Motwani-style randomized check.

In the mid-90s, at Stanford University, Motwani encountered 2 students: Larry Page & Sergey Brin. They had a rough idea for a search engine. Motwani provided the mathematical rigor. He helped them formulate PageRank, the algorithm that ranks web pages by their importance based on link structure.

He was not just a mentor; he was an early advisor & investor. He was the Ghost in the room when Google was born in a garage. Beyond Google, he was a foundational advisor to PayPal, Airbnb, & Twitter. He saw the Pattern of Success in startups before they even had a name.

In 2001, he won the highest honor in theoretical computer science (The Gödel Prize) for his work on the PCP Theorem (a massive breakthrough in how we verify proofs).

In 2009, at the age of 47, he passed away in a tragic accident at his home in California. Silicon Valley went into a state of deep mourning. Sergey Brin wrote a heartbreaking tribute titled "Rajeev Motwani, my friend & teacher." Yet, in India, his name did not make the front pages. He remains a Ghost in the country that produced him.

He is the Ghost of the Algorithm. Like Ramanujan, he saw the beauty in the approximated truth. He realized that the world is too big to be solved by simple, rigid lines, so he taught machines how to use probability to find the truth.

Key Work: https://t.co/INQyMOp9Bj

[Mayukh @mayukh_panja]

I used to have a hard time believing this, but I think there is some truth to it: there are people in the world, across geographies, for whom everything is political, and who simply cannot see anything without a political lens.

My preferred party is not in power, ergo I should attack everything in my country, including monumental achievements.

I do not understand this. Politics is meant to serve the country. Ideology exists to advance the country.

I think the BJP really understands the importance of technology and manufacturing, and actively pushes people to build cool stuff. I think this is pretty great.

I also personally benefited from the Congress building world-class institutions: I studied at an IISER (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research), which gave me a great launching pad in life.

If your politics requires you to resent your own country’s successes, then at some point politics has stopped being a means and become the end.

[Mark Lambert @sitsio]

Does anyone remember this amazing story? On July 2, 1982, a truck driver from California flew 16,000 feet into the sky in a lawn chair. Larry Walters, 33, from San Pedro, had dreamed of flying his whole life. He bought 42 eight-foot helium weather balloons, tied them to a regular Sears lawn chair, strapped on a parachute, packed a BB gun to pop balloons to descend, a CB radio, sandwiches, and a six-pack of beer.
He expected to float a few hundred feet above his backyard. He cut the rope and shot up like a rocket — to 16,000 feet. He drifted directly into the main approach path for LAX. Two airline pilots radioed the tower: they had just passed a man in a lawn chair holding a gun at 16,000 feet. For 45 minutes, he floated over Los Angeles, freezing cold, too scared to shoot balloons because he might fall. Finally, he started popping balloons one by one and slowly descended.
He landed tangled in power lines in Long Beach, California, causing a blackout. When police arrested him, they asked why he did it. He said, "A man can't just sit around." The FAA fined him $4,000. He became a national folk hero — Lawnchair Larry — and inspired the movie Up.

[Devina Mehra @devinamehra]

Imagine being in prison when your first grandchild - the first child of your only child is born.

Jawaharlal Nehru was in jail when Rajiv Gandhi was born 82 years ago. He spent 9 years in jail in the freedom struggle - more than even Gandhiji who spent about 6 years

And for those who think that conditions were great in British jails, Nehruji's friend and the husband of his sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Ranjit Pandit died just after being released from jail. His wife said that he was emanciated and virtually unrecognizable. And as far as I remember, even at that time Nehruji was imprisoned.

From Bhagat Singh to Subhash Chandra Bose, from Nehruji to Sardar Patel... May we be worthy of those who made so many sacrifices for our freedom 🙏

[Sann @san_x_m]

On 27th November 1981, a scientist at IBM brought his leftover Thanksgiving turkey to the laboratory and shot it with a laser.

More than 40 million people can see without glasses because of what happened next.

His name is Rangaswamy Srinivasan.

He was born on 28th February 1929 in Madras. He took his bachelor's and master's degrees in science from the University of Madras in 1949 and 1950.

In 1953 he went to America for graduate school, and finished a doctorate in physical chemistry at the University of Southern California in 1956. In 1961 he joined the IBM research centre at Yorktown Heights in New York, where he stayed for 30 years.

His work was on what ultraviolet light does to organic matter.

In 1981, using a new kind of laser called an excimer laser, he found he could etch fine designs into plastics.

Then he and 2 colleagues, James Wynne and Samuel Blum, asked a question. Human tissue has some properties in common with plastic. Could the same laser cut flesh.

At the time, lasers were already used in surgery. The problem was that they worked by burning. They left heat damage and scarring on everything around the cut.

They needed something to test on. The day after Thanksgiving, Srinivasan brought in cartilage from his family's turkey leg.

They fired the laser at it.

The cut was clean. Microscopically fine. No burning, no charring, no damage to the tissue underneath.

He named the effect ablative photodecomposition. The laser was not burning the tissue. It was breaking the molecular bonds and lifting off one thin layer at a time.

In 1983 an eye surgeon named Stephen Trokel came to the IBM laboratory to work with him on whether this could be used on the cornea.

It could.

That is the foundation of PRK and LASIK, the surgery that reshapes the front of the eye and removes the need for glasses.

More than 40 million people around the world have now had it.

He published over 130 scientific papers and holds at least 22 American patents. He was inducted into the United States National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2013 President Barack Obama gave him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

He is 97 years old.

A man from Madras worked out how to cut a human eye without burning it, using a piece of turkey left over from a holiday he did not grow up with.

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

@musttravelmore @sahilsfinalcut lol.. I had a failed message today (probably due to network connectivity issues). X directed me to retry sending it. Thanks to your reply I realised that X re-sent all my past failed messages at the same time today 😂😂

[Anshul Srivastava @Being_Anshul]

@musttravelmore @sahilsfinalcut Yup, it has gotten worse last few years. Took me a long time to figure out why the rejection reason said “name mismatch”. But when I read more such instances, I realised it’s for everyone and I wasn’t just an edge case

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

Ronaldinho was more than just a footballer; he was one of those rare players who made people fall in love with the game. He played with a freedom, creativity, and joy that seemed almost impossible to replicate.

Away from football, Ronaldinho was known for his love of music, dancing, parties, and simply enjoying life. He never seemed interested in being overly serious or distant, and that personality became a defining part of who he was. On the pitch, that same energy transformed into something extraordinary.

At Barcelona, Ronaldinho could make an entire stadium rise with a single touch. His 2005 performance against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu was so spectacular that even Madrid supporters applauded him. His time at the very top may have been shorter than some legends, but his peak was unforgettable. Ronaldinho didn’t just play football; he entertained. Years later, his highlights still captivate fans because his game looked completely free.