guruparan18's comments

guruparan18 | 3 years ago | on: The dangers behind image resizing (2021)

Another thing I had experienced before was a document picture I used after downsizing to mandatory upload size had a character/number randomly changed (6 to b or d). Don't remember which exactly and had to convert the doc to PDF that managed it better.

guruparan18 | 4 years ago | on: Some tiny personal programs I've written

Interesting to read the "dice rolling" part.

> investigating dice rolling patterns A friend showed me a dice rolling game where you roll a bunch of dice and add up the values. I mentioned that if you roll enough dice and add up all the values, at some point it gets a lot less “random”.

And result turned out "true"? Rolled a die for 2500 times and the sum is all around 8500! I wonder what would be the results for 25/250 times? So, this is sum(expectations).. and for rolling a die, it is 3.5 [(1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 => 21/6], so the answer was 3.5 x 2500 = 8750. Should hold good for all numbers relatively large.

guruparan18 | 4 years ago | on: Bash patterns I use weekly

I am confused how this works. I would assume `SECONDS` would just be a shell variable and it was first assigned `0` and then it should stay same, why did it keep counting the seconds?

    > SECONDS
    bash: SECONDS: command not found
    > SECONDS=0; sleep 5; echo $SECONDS;
    5
    > echo "Your command completed after $SECONDS seconds";
    Your command completed after 41 seconds
    > echo "Your command completed after $SECONDS seconds";
    Your command completed after 51 seconds
    > echo "Your command completed after $SECONDS seconds";
    Your command completed after 53 seconds

guruparan18 | 4 years ago | on: The History of Karate

> Trias shared one story that karate had been born in a monastery in China, where a wandering Indian master named Bodhidharma noticed that sedentary monks were growing sickly and devised the martial art to cultivate their strength.

Interesting to see there is no mention of "kalaripayattu". Kalari as its famously shorten [1] have about 2000 years of history and is used with both weapons and no-weapons. Bodhidharma was said to have left from then Tamil states to China.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaripayattu#Etymology

guruparan18 | 5 years ago | on: How to count every language in India (2018)

And Tamil have long tradition of resisting Sanskirt influence. With elaborate grammar rules dictating if you must use loan words when, where and how to use them. It is more true for literary setting and never true for day-today speaking. Also, Tamil words also made into Sanskrit, don't know what it means. Languages are basically for interchanging ideas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

guruparan18 | 5 years ago | on: How to count every language in India (2018)

I have many friends who speak Sourashtra. It is always exciting and interesting to see how much they love their language and want to keep it in day-today interaction in house hold. I think any language that is spoken in kitchen and in dining table will survive long. Sourashtra will to!

guruparan18 | 5 years ago | on: How to count every language in India (2018)

Fortunately, there are Tamil poems written around 200 CE that are still readable and understandable by native speaker. Tamil poems follow strict grammar and structural rules for poems, so they don't change over time (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venpa).

Here is poem that speaks about children being joyous, and how they playfully eat food. A simple ordeal in everyday life. Its about 7 lines and everyday speaker still understands all of it.

https://365paa.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/063/ (poorely translated: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...)

guruparan18 | 5 years ago | on: How to count every language in India (2018)

Malayalam split from Tamil around 1000 CE. When I said you might need some expertise and training to read old Tamil scripts, I mean this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIs17rSCg0&list=PLAU5iw78o0.... The video has closed captions if it is difficult to follow. Hope it helps.

Written Tamil have continuously evolved all along, the recent being around 1950 when printing became prevalent. The language itself changed very little, however only written letters survive and to know what was written 1000 years before you need some training.

Expert opinions might be different. Hope I am getting some information.

guruparan18 | 5 years ago | on: How to count every language in India (2018)

Written scripts have used to change all over time. It is not possible to read at the get go, but after some practice, yes, any one can read old Tamil. Given that about ~55% [1] of written inscription are from Tamil, it is one of the proficient.

How do you measure the language change [2]? There are several approaches, the one I remember reading about is, you fetch the most basic kernel of a language, like very simple key words (like relations, food, feelings and so on) for about 100 words and then see how many of those words have changed since say last 10 years, last 50 years and 100 years and so on. You try going back as long as you can and you loose few words from 100 words you started, that's you delta.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Indian_epigraphy 2. https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/languag...

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