We the citizens of Nepal DESERVE so much better!
But we are groomed by politicians and bureaucrats to get comfortable with, and get adjusted to #mediocrity, #incompetency and lies.
[Taken from one of the statuses of @theliverdoc and modified for Nepali context.]
*Rent-Seeking*
Anne Krueger famously coined the term 'economic rent-seeking' to describe the pursuit of wealth through privilege rather than value creation.
By extension, Nepal also suffers from 'intellectual rent-seeking' тАФ the pursuit of prestige, influence and authority through titles, connections and marketing rather than knowledge, ideas and intellectual contribution.
The most brutal part is not that China is using AI to sort garbage.
It is that China has pushed waste management so far that the old problem has reversed.
China used to worry about having too much garbage to process.
Now some waste-to-energy plants are facing the opposite problem:
not enough garbage.
Previously sealed landfills may even have to be reopened, not because China failed, but because waste has become fuel, feedstock, data, and part of an industrial recycling loop.
This is what China does best.
It takes the ugliest, dirtiest, most ignored corner of urban life тАФ garbage тАФ and turns it into engineering, automation, energy recovery, environmental governance, and industrial optimization.
Even trash gets absorbed into the machine.
In many countries, garbage is where governance collapses.
In China, even garbage becomes a system.
The existence, history, locations and funding of these U.S. funded biolabs was intentionally covered up by powerful people falsely claiming that the labs do not exist and accusing anyone who says otherwise to be foreign assets and traitors to America.
Those lies are still being propagated today by the same powerful people and their allies who wish to see this dangerous research continue with little to no oversight.
@SuryaRAcharya Programs look great and modern. Congratulations.
But what worries me is what if this university also succumbs to politics/local politicians and become a тАЬpolitical cadres recruitment centerтАЭ.
What are the guardrails against it?
рдЧреИрд░ рдиреЗрдкрд╛рд▓реАрд▓рд╛рдИ рдирд╛рдЧрд░рд┐рдХрддрд╛рдХреЛ рд╕рд┐рдлрд╛рд░рд┐рд╕ рдЧрд░реНрдиреЗ рд╡рдбрд╛рдзреНрдпрдХреНрд╖рд╕рд╣рд┐рдд рек рдЬрдирд╛ рдкрдХреНрд░рд╛рдЙ ред
Jamuna Gurung, Nepali Australian entrepreneur indicates the lack of skilled and semi-skilled Nepali manpower impacting the construction of Marriott Hotel.
HavenтАЩt understood why canтАЩt our CTEVT produce the skilled manpower that market demands. Specially in construction sectors.
Putin's mother won a car in a lottery. His family had to choose: sell it for an apartment, or keep it so he could get to university.
They stayed in their one-room communal apartment. She chose her son's future. That's who Putin came from.
Putin's mother worked as a hospital janitor after retiring. One day at the cafeteria, they gave her a lottery ticket as change. She won a car, a Zaporozhets. The most basic car you could get in the Soviet Union.
The family lived in one room which was so called ommunal apartment with shared kitchen, shared bathroom with other families. Putin had just started university.
They sat down to decide what to do. Sell the ticket and buy a cooperative apartment, or keep the car.
Putin was sure they'd sell it. Getting out of that single room was the obvious choice for a family living on almost nothing. His mother said: We'll take the car. Let our son drive it.
They stayed in that one room so he could have transportation to university. That's who Putin came from.
Trump's father was a real estate mogul worth hundreds of millions. Trump grew up in a 23-room mansion, private schools, a reported $413 million inheritance. His first ventures funded with his father's money. He was born into an empire.
Americans love to talk about rejecting kings. No monarchy, no aristocracy. But the self-made man is the American Dream.
Then they elect someone born into dynastic wealth who lives in a gold-plated penthouse and puts his kids in government positions. And call the guy whose mom worked as a janitor a dictator.
But it turns out Putin is the ultimate American Dream story: a self-made man who rose from an ordinary family to become a representative of his people and the leader of his country.
If you like thinking about what math can do for biology and vice versa, you might like this public talk I gave a year ago. It contains a lot of stories from my own life. "From Math to Bio and Back: Reflections on a Two Way Street" https://t.co/TzKE3jnK29
In 2003, a 28-year-old translator working for British intelligence received an email she wasnтАЩt supposed to see. What she read convinced her that governments were trying to manipulate the world into war.
Her name was Katharine Gun.
She worked at GCHQ - BritainтАЩs top-secret intelligence agency. On January 31, 2003, she received an email from senior NSA official Frank Koza. The US wanted British intelligence to help spy on members of the UN Security Council.
Specifically, diplomats from Angola, Chile, Pakistan, Cameroon, Guinea and Bulgaria - nations whose votes could decide whether the UN backed the invasion of Iraq. The operation was simple: bug phones, read private emails, uncover secrets, weaknesses, fears and anything that could pressure diplomats into supporting the war.
Katharine read the email in disbelief.
This was not ordinary intelligence gathering: it looked like an attempt to manipulate the UN into approving a war. She knew what leaking the document could cost her. Prison.
The destruction of her career. Under BritainтАЩs Official Secrets Act, she could face years behind bars for exposing classified intelligence. But she leaked the email anyway. On March 2, 2003, The Observer newspaper published the secret NSA request on its front page.
Suddenly, the world could see evidence that intelligence agencies were allegedly targeting UN diplomats ahead of the Iraq War vote.
Inside GCHQ, panic exploded. Investigators began interrogating employees, searching for the source of the leak, monitoring staff and creating an atmosphere of fear throughout the building. Katharine watched innocent coworkers fall under suspicion. ThatтАЩs when she made another decision that stunned people around her. She confessed. Rather than allow others to suffer for something sheтАЩd done, Katharine walked into her managerтАЩs office and admitted she was responsible.
She was arrested.
Suspended from her job. Formally charged under the Official Secrets Act.
By late 2003, she faced trial at LondonтАЩs Old Bailey with the possibility of being sent to prison. But her legal defence created a dangerous problem for the British government when her lawyers argued she acted to prevent an illegal war. To challenge that claim, the government would need to release confidential legal advice discussing whether the Iraq invasion itself was lawful under international law.
Then came February 25, 2004. The courtroom filled.
Katharine Gun sat waiting as prosecutors prepared to move forward against one of the most famous intelligence leaks in modern British history. Then, without warning, the government collapsed the case.
тАЬThe Crown offers no evidence.тАЭ
After months of preparation, the trial ended almost instantly. Katharine walked free. Many observers believed the government feared the public release of its own private legal doubts surrounding the Iraq War more than it feared letting the whistleblower go.
Years later, former Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg called Katharine GunтАЩs leak one of the bravest acts he had ever seen.
Edward Snowden would later cite her as one of the people who proved intelligence systems could be challenged from the inside. And perhaps the most remarkable part of the story was this:
Katharine Gun was not a politician.
Not a famous activist.
Not a powerful insider.
She was simply a young translator who read one email and decided her conscience mattered more than her career.
Two governments.
Major intelligence agencies.
The full force of secrecy laws.
And one woman still chose to stand up and speak out.
After the case was dismissed, reporters asked whether she regretted leaking the document.
Katharine Gun answered calmly:
тАЬI have no regrets. I would do it again.тАЭ
WE ALL NEED TO BE THIS BRAVE. WE ALL NEED TO DO THE RIGHT THING. WE ALL NEED TO BE MORE LIKE KATHARINE GUN.
Good morning, everyone!
"A tribute to Euler" -- I loved this funny, fascinating lecture by the great William Dunham, one of the world's best math expositors for people who actually like math. https://t.co/ncKOrUZ8Dj via @YouTube
@rinalu_ It makes me wonder what happens after Putin.
What if there are other Yeltsin, Gorbachev 2.0 lurking around? ItтАЩs time to strengthen institutions and the balance of power so no Yeltsin/Gorbachev 2.0 can do what they did in 1991.
"not all waterfalls are meant to have turbines & dynamos installed, nor is every flowing stream and river intended to be dammed, diverted, or manipulated"
Worth mulling over by Nepal's politicians, but will they?
Nepal India &the Paradox of Hydro-hegemony https://t.co/VZcmS9BBbF