Ashoka Wonders

Restart

2012-01-13T14:58:00.002+05:30

http://imgur.com/r/Music/qd8g3

Launch of Online Gaming Site!

2011-11-02T08:45:00.002+05:30

Long wait is finally over...

It is now live and free for all!

Enter here (Choose 'Play Now') for a quick visit and perhaps a game or two.

We hope you will like it and look forward to hear your criticisms, views, suggestions and ideas...

Let the games begin and may the best player win!

ළඟදීම එනවා!

2011-09-25T19:26:00.001+05:30

මෙතෙක් කල් ලිපියක් ලිවීමට නොහැකි වීම ගැන මුලින්ම මගේ කනගාටුව. අවසන් වරට පල වුණු ලිපිය දුටු සමහරුන්ට නම් තේරෙන්න ඇති මොකක්ද වෙන්න් ඇත්තේ කියලා.

මේ වැඩය නිමා වූ වහාම නැවතත් හමුවෙමු.

ගූගල් මෘදුකාoග තරඟාවලිය - අදම ඇතුල් වන්න!

2011-07-05T13:42:00.004+05:30

ලෝකයේ හොඳම සහ වඩාත්ම උද්වේගකර පරිඝනක මෘදුකා0ග තරඟාවලිය 2011 වාරය දැන් ඇරඹී ඇත! ඔබටත් අදම ඇතුල් විය හැකිය.

මෙවර තරඟය කූඹ්යන් ගුලක් වර්ධනය කර ගැනීමට සහ ආරක්ෂා කර ගැනීමට ඇති ක්‍රීඩාවකි. අනෙකුත් ක්‍රම ලේඛණ පරදවා ක්‍රීඩාව ජය ගත හැකි ක්‍රම ලෙඛයක් සැකසීම අභියෝගයයි. ක්‍රම ලේඛ අතර තරඟ නැරඹීමට හැකි වීමත්, සජීවීව ක්‍රම ලේඛ ලකුනු සටහනේ ඉහල පහල යාමත් තරඟයේ උද්වේගය වැඩි කිරීමට මෙන්ම ඉක්මනින් ක්‍රමලේඛ දියුනු කර ගැනීමටත් හේතු වේ. උදාහරණයක්.

මේ වර්ගයේ අනෙකුත් තරඟාවලි වලට වඩා ගූගල් තරඟාවලිය (Google AI Challenge 2011) ඉදිරියෙන් සිටීමට හේතු කීපයකි. එසේම මේ සඳහා දැන්ම එක් වීමෙන් ලැබෙන වාසිද රැසකි.

1) විනෝදය. මෘදුකාoග නිර්මාණ/සැලසුම් කරුවෙකුට (software developer/engineer) මෙයින් ලැබිය හැකි ආශ්වාදය ඉමහත්ය! කීමට බැරිය. කරලාම බැලිය යුතුය.

2) අත් දැකීම් අනවශ්‍යය. නැති තරමට වඩා හොඳය!

3) විශාල මෘදුකාග දැනුමක් අවශ්‍ය නොවේ. සාමන්‍ය දැනුමක් හොඳටම ප්‍රමාණවත්ය.

4) විනාඩි 5ක් ඇතුලත මුල්ම ක්‍රමවේදය එක් කර තරඟ වැදීමට පටන් ගත හැකි වීම.

5) විශාල දැනුමක් සහ ක්‍රමවේද සැකසීමේ හුරුවක් කෙටි කලකින් ලබා ගත හැකි වීම. විශේෂයෙන් සoකීර්ණ ක්‍රමලේඛණ (programs) සහ ගැටළු වලට මුහුන දීමේ අනගි හුරුවක් ලැබේ. කරලාම බලන්න!

6) ලොව වටා විසිරී සිටින අනෙකුත් දක්ෂ ක්‍රමලේඛණ කරුවන් හඳුනාගත හැකිය.

7) මෘදුකාoග ගැන දනුම හෝ පලපුරුද්දට වඩා නිර්මාණශීලිත්වයත් (creativity) ගැටලු විසඳීමේ (problem solving) හා තර්කණයේ/ගණනයේ (analytical skills and logical reasoning) හැකියාවට වැඩි තැනක් ලැබීම.

8) සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම නොමිලේ! නැති වීමට දෙයක් ඇත්තෙන්ම නැත.

9) ශ්‍රි ලාකීය නාමය ලෝකයේ මෘදුකoග ක්ෂේත්‍රය තුල ඉදිරියට ගෙන යාමට යොදාගත හැකි මහඟු අවස්ථාවකි. වැඩි තරඟකරුවන් පිරිසක් සහභාගී වීම තුලින්ම අප රට ගැන මෘදුකoග ලෝකය තුල වැඩි අවධානයක් දිනා ගත හැකිය.

10) තමන්ට කැමති ඕනෑම භාෂාවකින් තරඟ වැදිය හැකිය.

මෙයට සහභාගි වීම සහ දක්ෂකම් පෙන්වීම ඇත්තෙන්ම ඔබ හිතවාටත් වඩා පහසු සහ සරලයි. දැන්ම එක්වී බලන්න!

වැඩි විස්තර සඳහා.

පසුගිය වසරේ තරඟාවලියේ මගේ අත් දැකීම් මෙහි සඳහන් කර ඇත.

තරඟාවලිය සඳහා පිවිසුම මෙතනින්.

උදවු සහ මඟ පෙන්වීම් අවශ්‍ය නම්, ඔබේ ප්‍රශ්ණ කොමෙන්ට් කරන්න. දන්නා අනෙක් අයටත් කියන්න!

ජය!

What's wrong with Prius ?

2011-06-24T08:55:00.002+05:30

So, here we are again! As promised, in this post we will discuss whatever we know as cons in Prius. For those who are already feeling like left out : In part1 of this post we discussed few basics in Prius, in part2 we covered bit more detailed stuff.

Most of those stuff discussed in those previous posts, I could personally vouch from own experiences. Sadly, (for the readers that is :-) ) I can't vouch for most of things we are going to discuss today since I still haven't had the misfortune of experiencing many of them myself. (yet!)

Issue 1, Prius need a baby sitter!
Rechargeable battery is NiMH, so it is not good for this battery to be idle for a long time or fully charged or low charged for a long duration. While driving, Prius is making sure that the battery charge is around 50%-60% most of the time so that it's life will be prolonged. However, when the car is parked and idle, it is the owners responsibility to make sure the car doesn't stay like that for weeks continuously, that will make the battery fully dead!

In 2001 model, Toyota issued a open warning that if the car remained idle for 3 continuous weeks, the battery will be irreversibly and permanently damaged. (that could be a loss of about $ 2000-3000). So if you are out of home for such a duration with the car leaving in the garage, you will have to ask someone to start it and go for a little ride (or at least start and let the engine run for few minutes) once in every few days!

Believe it or not, This actually benefited me! When I bought my car from a local dealer in 2005, they have put it in the show room for few months without knowing what that would do to the battery. So, they had to import and fix a brand new battery before selling the car to yours truly. That battery is still working in acceptable quality. Also, I'm not a person who get to leave the car alone for weeks on end, So the baby sitter problem was never an issue for me.

Issue 2, crash impact on the rear could ignite the battery ?!
A Toyota engineer told me this. This has to be a severe crash, which is very rare so the available information is scarce. A quick search in the net will find you few cases but most of them have following characteristics. Either someone has put the car on fire deliberately, or this has happened to a plug-in hybrid (we will discuss this in little later) or the car got in fire for some other reason and what they are really claiming is it's difficult to put the fire off when it got close to battery compartment. So it's not really clear whether there is a proven fire issue in Prius. If there is one it is unlikely the car comes to the global market after passing safety tests. So I guess at most, this is a very rare case of a normal fire spreading into the battery pack. Even in a normal car, a fire could be lethal if it spread near petrol tank for instance. Nothing to fear about but something better to keep in mind I guess.

Issue 3, overall performance can degrade in extreme cold
This has been witnessed in some countries in winter. Little drop in battery performance and also due to engine heating required, I guess. Not an issue if you not going well into minus degrees often.

Issue 4, performance can go down temporarily after sitting under hot sun for hours.
This too I heard from a Toyota technician. Curiously enough, I haven't seen a noticeable effect myself! May be it has to do with the high power needed for AC for a while after being under the sun, or may be the electrical parts performing sub optimally under excess heat.. We would like to hear from new model owners whether they see a difference. Meanwhile, it's better to park your car in a shade when ever possible. :-)

Issue 5, Don't get it dropped in water or get caught in severe floods!
There is lot of electrical parts, computers and batteries inside.. So, water is understandably allergic to the internals of this particular animal. When cleaning or servicing, don't let people to use the water gun at the engine area! (after opening the bonnet) that part needs to be cleaned by air, not water.

If the the extremely funny case of car getting dropped in a river or a lake and the driver surviving, if it is a normal car and if you somehow manage to get it out of water, you would expect it to run after some basic repairs and servicing isn't it ? but not the Prius! In this case you would be most probably in for some series repairs and troubles with the electrical parts... Same goes for getting caught in severe flooding. I guess this is an extreme but an obvious case, so no need for further explanations. If you feel like taking a dive or two together with your car once in every year like, then the Prius is definitely not for you. :-)

Issue 6, reversing could be a problem when the battery is really weak.
New car owners will not see this for at least 10 years I hope. My old car sometimes gives up this complaint. This happen when the hybrid battery is weak and not charged to the expected level. Prius relies on the battery for the reversing. (at least my old model is, check with your one!) So, if I have to reverse a long distance, or worse reverse uphill then the car would simply not move! Will have to shut off the engine and start again in this case, sometime I had to do this few times. It can be embarrassing in a crowded park for instance. Fortunately this is a rare case even in my old car and can be averted by making sure the battery is charged before you leave the car (keeping the engine on for a little while), or avoiding parking in such ways as you have to perform a reverse uphill to re start your journey. As mentioned in part1 of the post, this problem went away after servicing the battery.

Oh.. we almost forgot to mention about the plug-in hybrid! This is a new model of Prius which is now being tested in few continents and expected to hit the markets next year. This can we can optionally charge in the night from the main line and can go up to 30 kms in a single charge without using a drop of petrol! This is in addition to behaving like a normal Prius.

Few observation :
1) One might think this is totally green but not necessarily so. If the electricity is being produced in a power station using fuel, then car is still indirectly runs on fuel. However, power generators uses fuel much more efficiently in converting them to electrical energy than a vehicle engine converting fuel into kinetic energy, so you are still making a contribution to the environment. Another aspect is sometimes electricity you use at your home is being produced by nuclear, hydro or solar power. In those cases, it will be a 100% fossil fuel free ride for you!!

2) One might think this is very cheap than running on petrol but not necessarily so. It depends on how expensive the electricity is in the country you live. I don't think this will be that cheap in Sri Lanka. However, in certain countries wherre they have abandon nuclear energy, this could turn up to be a big save and total independence from fossil fuel as well!

3) Even your current Prius can be turned into a plug-in model! There are 3rd party battery charges available in the market. (got to eBay for instance) using one you could charge the batter at night. However, these technologies are not recommended or endorsed by Toyota. In fact, they will make your warranty null and void if you get caught using such a device. There are people who still do this, but it is advisable you do it knowing what you are doing and taking a risk as well. Personally I wouldn't even think about this until one day the electricity become cheap in here. Until (if/when) minster Champika Ranawaka get his nuclear power plant operational that is.

Ok... we are closing the shop now. I have no intention of writing any Prius articles any more. (at least not in near future) I didn't really intend to write 3 posts as I have ended up doing! Very happy to see the interest it generated and if these information were helpful to anybody somewhere. We can discuss more via comments.

See you next time then...

ශ්‍රී ලoකාවේ හොඳම මිතුරා කවුද ?

2011-06-21T10:37:00.004+05:30

ශ්‍රී ලoකාවේ විදේශ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය කෙසේ විය යුතුදැයි නොයෙකුත් මතවාද මේ දිනවල අසන්නට ලැබේ. සාර්ථක විදේශ ප්‍රතිපත්තියක මූලිකම කරුණක් වන්නේ සැබෑ මිතුරන් සහ සතුරන් හඳුනා ගැනීම ය. අනෙක් සියලු ක්‍රමෝපායන් හා උපායමාර්ග සකස්වන්නේ ඉන් අනතුරුවය.

අපගේ නියම මිතුරන් සහ සතුරන් කවුදැයි දැනගැනීම වැදගත්කමින් දෙවැනි වන්නේ අප කවුදැයි දැනගැනීමටම පමණක් යැයි සිතමි. රටකට එය වඩාත් එසේය. නිදහසෙන් පසු අපට වඩාත්ම හොඳින් (සාපේක්ෂව) මිතුරෙකු සේ සලකා ඇත්තේ කුමන රට ද ?

වැදගත්ම අවස්ථාවකදී අපට යම් තෝරාගැනීමක් කිරීමට සිදුවුවහොත් අප විසින් තෝරාගත යුත්තේ කුමන රටද? අසීරු අවස්ථාවක අපගේ පිහිටට එතැයි තරමක් හෝ විශ්වාස කල හැකි රටවල් අතර එය ක්‍රියාවෙන්ම පෙන්වා ඇති රටවල් වේද ?

ඇත්තෙන්ම මෙය එක එල්ලේ පිළිතුරු දීමට තරමක් අපහසු පැණයකි. ප්‍රශ්ණය පැති කිහිපයකින් බැලිය හැකි වීමත් අප අතරම පවතින විවිධ මතවාදීය වෙනස්කමුත් ඊට හේතුන්ය. කෙසේ නමුත් මෙය හැකිනම් පිළිතුර දැනගැනීමට වටිනා පැණයකි. එසේම, අවශ්‍යනම් එසේ දැනගැනීමට හැකි ක්‍රමයකුත් ඇත! ඉතින් ශ්‍රී ලoකාවේ හොඳම මිතුරා සොයා ගැනීමට උදවු වීමට ඔබත් කැමතිද ?

මෙන්න ක්‍රමයක් ....

දකුණු පස ඇති මත විමසුමෙහි ඔබේ තෝරාගැනීම සටහන් කරන්න.

ජූලි 3 වනදා වනවිට "ශ්‍රි ලාoකිකයන්ගේ මතය අනුව" ශ්‍රී ලoකාවේ හොඳම විදේශ මිතුරා සොයා ගැනෙනු ඇත!

මත විමසුම සඳහා ඇති සබැඳිය (in google polls) මෙය වේ. ඔබට බ්ලොග් අඩවියක් ඇත්නම් මෙය ශ්‍රී ලාoකිකයන් වැඩි පිරිසක් අතරට ගෙන යාමට උදව් වීමටත් හැකිය.

ඉදිරිපත් කර ඇති රටවල් අතර ඉන්දියාව, චීනය, ඇමෙරිකාව, පාකිස්තානය, එoගලන්තය, ජපානය වේ. රුසියාව ඇතුලත් කිරීමට අතපසු වීම සමීක්ෂණයේ සිදු වු අඩු පාඩුවකි. 'වෙනත්' රුසියාව සඳහා යොදා ගත හැකිය.

http://www.fundraw.com

Toyota Prius Hybrid - Experiance from a user, Part 2

2011-06-19T19:37:00.002+05:30

Part 1 of this was something I just casually wrote in the hope of it will be of some use for few. Turns out there were lot of readers than I anticipated! May be it will not be a bad idea to share some of more detailed stuff too... Things I didn't put in the first post since I wasn't sure about the level of interest on technical details of a Prius.

Tires : My model came with the most uncommon type of 165/65/15 low resistance. This was the type recommended for 1997 model Prius. Since fuel consumption statistics, mileage meter all must be depending on the tire radius size, all the statistics the car indicates to us could go wrong if we change the tire radius. However, using a different tire radius is not possible without changing Rims so I guess this is not a common scenario. However, tire inflation level is! Fuel consumption difference between using properly inflated tires and poorly inflated ones can be noticeable! When the tire is deflated, the length it covers per a single rotation is less, hence more rotations will be needed to cover a unit distance, resulting in high fuel consumption.

Surprisingly, 1997 model recommended tire pressures to be at a staggering 42 psi. Normally in Sri Lankan roads we use a pressure level of 28-32, most people preferring 30. in 1997 Prius, front wheels needed to be pressurized at 44 while the lower once were expected to be at 42. Difference was to offset the additional weight of the front area. Now, I infact tried those! want to know what happened ? Well, I got amazing fuel economy for a while and then I had to replace shock absorbers! Understandably, I haven't tried it since then. This setting is certainly not for non carpeted roads of Sri Lanka. Then again, we have much better roads now compared to 5 years earlier and if you are one of those lucky ones who can use a carpeted road all the time, then you should definitely give this a try. Inflating tires is a well known strategy to conserve fuel, something which was even suggested to all Americans by Obama himself!

Breaking : Because of the electric breaking in Prius, it is expected that one do not need to replace break pads that often. Can some one give us some statistics on this for a normal car? in my usage of the car for 6 years (close to 100,000 km) I had to replace break pads just once. Like mentioned in the previous post, most of Prius parts are compatible with other Toyota models, and Toyota parts are not so expensive either so this was not something to boast about really. On the other hand, regenerative breaking is saving much more in fuel than saving on break pads. Statistics say that if you use it properly regenerative breaking can save up to 17% of the kinetic energy which will otherwise go totally wasted. Here, 'properly' means that to get the full benefit of regenerative breaking, we need to apply breaking smoothly. A gradual slow down of the car over a distance where we can clearly hear the humming noise of breaking. A sudden break will not be turning much of kinetic energy into electrical energy. (but it will save lives in an emergency! so do apply breaks with full force when you have to...)

Fuel economy hints :
This fact has been mentioned before but let me go through it again as this is the single most, biggest reason behind fuel wastage, even on a hybrid!

Trying to speed up (accelerate) when that is not really needed or meaningful.

How many times we see someone overtaking us, but then we catching up to them after driving normally while they are waiting at a color light! That is insane driving, we get no benefit at all by accelerating and be the first to reach a particular color light! If we know there is a stop in front, best and most sensible thing to do would be to stop accelerating and allow the vehicle to slow down, we could time this to perfection so that the vehicle stops at the exact spot is should be stopping. Doing that is much fun too! On highway, the strategy should be to drive in a comfortable constant speed (around 30-70) by tapping the accelerator lightly. Display should tell us when we are doing well in fuel economy. (instance bar hovering around 30 km/l) It is those occasions that we should try to lengthen. All these help us concentrate more on our driving and speed, which make us good safe drivers. Some of US states have actually reduced insurance amounts for Prius noting that Prius drivers get involved in far less amounts of accidents than the others. I guess this applies to other hybrid drivers as well. Being sensitive to fuel economy and be attentive to driving both go hand in hand.

As mentioned in the last post, a one cool feature of Prius is that the engine can automatically stop when the vehicle is idle (like waiting in traffic). This saves lot of fuel in city driving. However, this also means that the engine get auto started when we eventually start to move. (initially the vehicle goes solely on battery and then switch into petrol) When the engine get stops and started again frequently like this, it will put up a higher burden on the normal 12V car battery. If the Prius has to perform well, this 12V battery also need to be in good shape. Needless to say, power steering also is on electric so the stress on this battery is really high. This is one lesson I learnt after going through some hassle. It is natural to pay more attention to the bigger costly battery and forget about the little one. So make sure you keep a good eye on the little 12V fella as well!

One caveat in auto stop and start of the engine is that it works as expected mostly only when the AC is not running! reason ? In older models of the Prius (such as my one), AC gets the power from petrol engine like in any other normal car, so if the AC has to work, you need the engine running. In this case, sometimes even if your vehicle is idle, petrol engine will keep running. Turning AC off when the car is at a stop is not always possible in hot days. However, in recent models (after 2003 I guess) Toyota has improves on this by making AC also to run on battery! So the owners of newer models... let us know whether petrol engine totally stops at traffic (while AC is fully on)

Looking at the fuel efficiency more on the LCD display is a great way of adjusting our driving. In a display like the image above, rightmost bar is our instance performance that is how many km/l or miles/gallon are we doing RIGHT NOW. Other 6 bars are average fuel consumption in last 30 minutes divided into 5 minute periods. One thing you will see most of the time is that the average efficiency in the first 5 minutes of the journey is usually low. Reason for this is that the petrol engine (of any vehicle) needs to get heated up to a optimal temperature to perform well. Until it reaches that point it can't maximum efficiency. This means if the usual drive is about 20-25 minutes or shorter, then the overall fuel efficiency suffers noticeably due to the first 5 minute issue. In later models Toyota engineers have come up with an ingenious solution to improve on this. They have introduced a vacuum flask which will keep all the heated air when the engine stops and use that when the engine get started next time. This reduces the need to heat the engine all the time. Just a one example how far designers have gone to provide the maximum mileage for each drop of fuel..

What about things which can go wrong... (As Murphy's laws predict, "If something can go wrong, it will - at the most inappropriate moment") I have some experiences to share on these issues as well. Will try to share them with you in another post. Meanwhile, feel free to send in any questions and your own experiences, those will be most welcome!

Happy, Safe, Clean and Economical Driving!

අකාලිකෝ (for all times)

2011-06-18T23:30:00.003+05:30

කටුකුරුන්දේ ඥානානන්ද හිමියන් ගේ ධර්ම දේශනාවකදී පහත විස්තරය අසන්නට ලැබුණි.

"බුදුන් වහන්සේ විසින්ම වදාල ධර්ම පාඨයක් නම් පහසුවෙන් හඳුනාගත හැකියි. අර්ථය ඉතාම පැහැදිලියි, කෙටියි, කිව යුත්ත කිව හැකි සරලම සහ නිවැරදිම ආකාරයෙන් දේශනා කර ඇත. පරස්පර නොපවතී."

ගැඹුරු කරුනු විස්තර කිරීමේදී බුදු හිමියන් දක්වන මේ කියන විශිෂ්ඨත්වය හරිහැටි දැකීමට නම් ඥානානන්ද හිමියන් මෙන් ධර්ම මගෙහී ගමන් කොට තිබීම අවශ්‍ය වනු ඇත. එසේ වුවද පෘථුග්ජන අපටත් මේ සදහම් රසය විඳිය හැකි අවස්ථා තිබිය හැක.

පහත උදාහරණය බලන්න.

ආරෝග්‍යා පරමා ලාභා, සන්තුෂ්ඨී පරම0 ධන0
විශ්වාසා පරමා ඥාතී, නිබ්බන0 පරම0 සුඛ0

පරම ලාභය නම් නීරෝගීකම වෙයි.
පරම ධනය නම් සිතේ සතුටයි,
පරම ඥාතියානම් විශ්වාසවන්ත තැනත්තායි.
පරම සැපත නම් නිවනයි.

කොතරම් අගනේද ? සරලද ? සර්වකාලීනද ?

1) නීරෝගීකමෙහී අගය දැනෙන්නේ එය නැති වූ විටය. අප ලබන මොනම ලාභයක්වත් නීරෝගිකම නැතිකරගෙන ලබනු වටීද ?

2) සිතේ සතුට නැතිව වෙන කුමක් ලැබුවත් ඇති ඵලය කිම ? අනෙක් අතට සිතේ සතුට ඇත්නම්, අපට අවශ්‍ය ලෙස දකින බොහෝ දෙය නැතුව සිටීමට හැකිය. සිතේ සතුට අහිමි කරගෙන ලබන ධනය කුමක් සඳහාද? සතුට යනු අවසානයේදී මානසික තත්වයකි. (mental condition) අවශ්‍යනම් දැනට අප සතු දෙයින්ම මේ සතුට ඇති කරගත හැකිය. ධනය සහ වස්තුව අත් කරගැනීමත් සිතේ සතුටත් අතර ඍජු සම්භන්ධයක් ඇත්තෙන්ම දැකිය හැකිද ? ඇත්ත සැනසීම ලැබෙනුයේ අරමුණු හඹා යෑමෙන් සහ ගොඩ ගසාගැනීමෙන්ද ? සැනසුම පසුපස එළවන තරමට එය අපෙන් ඈත් වනු දැක ඇතිද ? සැනසීම ලැබෙනුයේ අත් හරින තරමටය! අත් හරින විට ජීවිතය සරල වේ, බැඳීම් අඩු වෙයි, වගකීම් සහ සිතේ බර අඩු වේ, නිදහස වැඩි වෙයි.

3) ෆේස්බූක් මිතුරන් සිය ගණනකට සහ අප ලඟ නැති, විශ්වාසය තැබීමට නොහැකි නෑදෑ පරපුරකට වඩා විශ්වාසවන්ත එක සැබෑ මිතුරෙක් නොවටීද ? විශ්වාසවන්තයාට වඩා නෑයෙක් තවත් කොහින්ද ?

නීරෝගීකම, සිතේ සතුට, විශ්වාසවන්තයින්... ජීවිතයේ අරමුණු කර ගත යුත්තේ මේවා නොවේද ?

4) අපගේ අවබෝධයෙන් ඈතය. කෙසේ වුවත් මේ සඳහා වුවද, ඉහත කරුණු 3 කෙරෙහි යොමුවීම හොඳ ආරම්භයක් ලබා දෙනු ඇත.

පොඩ්ඩෝත් දැන් බ්ලොග් ලියති!

2011-06-13T17:13:00.002+05:30

මගේ දුවටත් මෙන්න ඕන වෙලා බ්ලොග් ලියන්න!

දුවගේ වයස තවම යන්තම් 11 යි. තවම ශිෂ්‍යත්වය පාස් වුනා විතරයි.

මෙයාට ලියන්න කෙසේ වෙතත් පොත් කියවන්න ඇබ්බැහි කලෙත් මම බොහොම අමාරුවෙන් මේ ළඟදී. දැන් නම් ඉතින් ඒක ආයෙ අමුතුවෙන් කරන්න ඕන නැහැ. මහන්සි වෙන්න ඕන කියවීම ටිකක් අඩු කරන්න ඕන වුනොත් තමයි.

දැන් ඉතින් මට නිදහසේ කොම්පියුටරය ලඟ ඉන්නත් බැහැ හැම විටම. ලියන දෙයත් ඉතින් පරිස්සමින් ලියන්න වෙයි ඉස්සරහට.

මේ ප්‍රශ්ණය ඇති කරගත්තෙත් මම ම තමයි. දවසක් දුව මගෙන් ඇහුවා මෙහෙම.

"අප්පච්චි, මට පොතක් ලියන්න ආසයි"

"ෂා! හරි ෂෝක්නෙ.., ඉතින් ඔයා ලියන්න." මමත් කීවා වැඩි කල්පනාවක් නැතුව.

"හොඳයි මම ලිවුවොත් ඔයා ඒක ප්‍රින්ට් කරල දෙනවද?"

මදැයි! පොත් ප්‍රකාශකයෙක් වෙන එක තමයි මටත් අඩු වෙලා තිබුනේ...

ඉතින් මම බොහෝම අමාරුවෙන් දුවට තේරුම් කරල දුන්නා පොත් ලියන එක ලොකු වැඩක්, ඉස්සෙල්ලා අපි හොඳින් ලියන්න ඉගෙන ගෙන පුරුදු වෙලා ඉන්න ඕනෑ ආදී වශයෙන්. මගේම තාවකාලික බේරීම සඳහා බ්ලොග් ගිනුමක් මම හදල දුන්න එදාම. මම හිතුවෙ මේකත් ටික දවසකින් ඇරිල යාවි කියලා. ("මෙයත් යාවි කෙලවර වී" කිව්වලු ලින්කන් ගොයියා. "This too will pass away" - Abraham Lincoln)

"ඉස්සරවෙලා ලියන්න පුරුදු වෙලා ඉන්නකෝ, පොත් පල කරන්න පුළුවන් ඊට පස්සෙ"

ඉතින් මේක කාලයක් තිස්සෙ කෙරීගෙන ගියා. පොඩි එකීගෙ ලිවීම් වල අඩු පාඩු බොහෝමයි, ඒත් මම ඒ හැම එකක්ම නිවැරදි කරන්න ගියේ නෑ. ඇවිත් ඇහුවොත් දෙයක් කියල දෙනව ඇරෙන්න. ආසවට ඔය කරන හරියම මදෑ?

ඊයේ දුවට පොඩි අනතුරක් උනා. අද ඉස්කෝලෙ යන්නත් බැහැ. මම වැඩට යන කොට බොහොම ආසවෙන් කොම්පියුටරය ළඟට වෙලා හිටියා. (ඇයි එයට දැන් දවසම ඒක අයිති කර ගන්න පුළුවන් නේ)

මෙන්න බලනකොට දැන් කවියකුත් ලියලා !

බලනකොට පොඩ්ඩෝ මෙහෙම බ්ලොග් ලියන එක හොඳයි. ඒකෙන් ළමයින්ගේ ලිවීමේ හැකියාවන් ටිකක් හරි දියුනු වෙයි. ඒවාගෙම අන්තර්ජාලය හොඳ විදිහකට පාවිච්චි කරන හැටි ගැන හුරුවකුත් ලැබෙයි. ළමයි ලියන විහිළු දැකලා වැඩිහිටියන්ට හොඳ විනෝදයකුත් ගන්න පුළුවන්!

මෙන්න කවිය

Toyota Prius Hybrid car - Experiance from a long term user

2011-05-28T18:45:00.003+05:30

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/TOYOTA_Prius.jpg)

When the government reduced import tax for hybrids and people started to buy Prius cars, I started to get so many calls from friends and from friends of friends. For few weeks, it was as if I was a Prius dealer, expert or a mechanic! Well, I'm non of above yet I helped those callers to the best of my ability. It is then it occurred to me that if I put a blog post, it would be useful for some people and easier for me as well! The recent post by සඳරු at හිස් අහස prompted me to put that thought into quick action...

Now, the reason why people asking me about Prius issues are because I'm one of those rare guys in Colombo who was (put your favorite adjective in here. crazy/stupid/brave/lucky whatever) enough to buy an earlier model of a Prius (when at the time they were rather unheard of a model and a technology in here) and so have actual experience of 5-6 years in using them in Sri Lankan conditions. My car is a old 1997 model Prius (as one in the photo above), which is the very first Prius model to come out of factories. Japan started to export Prius only in 2001. The recent models 2008-2010 are far more advanced and superb in features than my old poor car, yet the main principles of the hybrid concept is more or less same so answers can be the same for most of generic hybrid car questions.

Let me list most frequent questions I got and their answers :

1) How easy is it to find parts in here ?
No big deal. At least for my model, almost all the parts I have replaced so far were compatible with other Toyota models. Namely Corolla 121 or Allion. Parts I have to replace/renew in last 6 years since I bought my car were Shock Absorbers, CV joint, spark plugs, lower arm bush, mounts, break pads etc. They were all compatible, as you know Toyota parts are the easiest to find in Sri Lanka.

2) How expensive were repairs/maintenance ?
It's exactly same as any other Toyota model. I mean servicing the vehicle, renewing parts etc. I didn't encounter needs for repairing the hybrid unit yet, but will come to that later.. So, as for all the other repairs which you encounter 99% of the time of normal vehicle repairing, It was relatively cheap. Reason was mechanics in Sri Lanka are more familiar with Toyota. As mentione d above parts ere not expensive either (when compared to let's say Honda, Mazda etc)

3) How many kilometers does it do for a liter of petrol
For some reason most people are under the impression that Prius does about 40 kilo meters for a liter of patrol! completely not true!! May be the reason for this myth is in the manuals it says fuel consumption is 40mpg. Note, that means 40 miles per gallon! and gallon means a US gallon. this need to be converted to kilometer and liters. 40 mpg is 24 km/l and that is ideal lab condition expectation. In reality, the car was expected to do somewhere above just 20. While this is still very good and almost double the fuel efficiency of a normal car, it is no where near what some people assume a Prius to be. In the newer models expectation is to near the efficiency level of 50mpg. This would mean about 30 kilometers per liter. Hope an owner of a new Prius car would confirm for us whether this can be observable under normal Sri Lankan conditions.

As for my car, it did about 20 - 22 outstations and about 15 in the city traffic. Averaging about 17-18 per liter at every month. I was very happy with that. Since people were so afraid to buy this car then (I bought that in 2005), it had a lesser market value, so I did not spend any additional amount to gain that fuel befit. It was a total save! Besides the amount I spend to buy the car was actually even less than then market value of then recent model of Corolla!! So I had reasons to be happy.

Over the years, fuel efficiency dropped a little. After 6 years now it is doing only about 18 outstations and 12 in city traffic. Still not so bad considering the car is now 14 years old and have now done about 120 000 Kilometers.

4) How far can you go in battery without using petrol
This question is entirely wrong. Prius can't go any distance without petrol, petrol needs to be in the tank at all times. This is not an electric vehicle. You can view it as an efficiently built petrol car with some fuel saving features. Some of those features are :

High fuel efficient engine
Body shape to reduce air resistance.
Re generative braking.
Extra power get saved in a battery and will be used later
Engine stops when the vehicle is idle in traffic
Newer models can provide air conditioning from the batter power.
LCD display with fuel consumption statistics.

So it's more correct to view a hybrid car as basically a normal petrol vehicle with few fuel saving features with the aid of a rechargeable battery among other things. I personally give lot of credit to the LCD display for high fuel efficiency as it helps us to find faults in our driving and help improve our driving habits to improve fuel efficiency. For instance, in the first week after buying the Prius I recorded just 10 Kilometers per liter. Once I get used to how to drive a Prius properly (in fact these techniques are true for any car), my fuel consumption reduced almost by 50% ! Basically you need to aggressively accelerate at the start, get into a comfortable speed quickly and then try to maintain that as a constant without pressing hard on the accelerator. This technique is called 'feathering' you give gas just enough to keep the current speed and not more.

Opposite of this is what most drivers do. Accelerate like crazy when ever possible and then brake like crazy. Lot of energy get wasted when we accelerate just to break few seconds later.

Another false understanding on Prius is that people trying to go solely from battery as long as they could thinking that they are saving fuel. This is actual wrong! Once the battery discharges, then the car will have to waste petrol to get the battery charge again! This technique therefore provides no gain and even decrease the overall performance. A mentioned above, when we try to drive in a constant speed without burning additional fuel, system will automatically decide to provide additional power via battery, this is the energy which normally get wasted in ordinary vehicles.

5) What if the battery goes dead. how expensive is it to get imported ?
In the days I bought it, if the battery goes dead that would have been a big issue for me since there were not many importers and the battery in 1997 model was a big heavy monster. I think it would have cost at least 2-3 hundred thousand to (2K-3K US$) get a new one from Japan, if not more. However battery never died, well not yet at least! Toyota is known to be very smug about this and say 'our battery never dies', (but we Buddhists should know better on that!). In my model, Toyota used to give a warranty of 160000 kilometers or 8 years for the battery! even though we don't get this in reconditioned Sri Lankan cars, this shows how confident they were on their batteries. The newer models should be even better! We all know how much dry fuel cell battery technology has improved since 1997!

Another thing is when I felt like battery performance is going down a bit, I used to go to a good friend of mine who had just the right equipments and know how to address the issue. (too bad I can't name him here due to professional reasons from his side) Basically he could open up the battery, take down 40 odd individual small cells inside it and measure them for voltage. He says if one cell is defective, all the other cells after it will not charge properly and that's the reason of overall battery performance to go down. So he would just find the defective cell, charge it from the main (like I said he has equipments!) and reassemble the battery, problem gone! For the last 6 years I had to do this only once and he hasn't even charge any money for that! (Like I said he was a friend of mine!)

I have just mentioned above information to show the readers that there really is not a big problem to worry over. This is a technologically very advanced age and information can be found readily in internet. So there is nothing like a impossible technical problem when it comes to issues like these. Only reason I have about these batteries are that how are we going to recycle them in about 15-10 years of time from now. Batteries are very toxic and I hope there will be plans and places which does proper recycling, otherwise these batteries could cause lot harm to the environment to offset the good Prius is now doing with lowered emissions and lowered fuel consumption. This is a point most people pay little attention to.

Re-generative breaking mentioned above is the process where the hybrid car saves the additional kinetic energy at the time we are breaking in to a rechargeable battery. In normal vehicles, this energy get wasted as heat when we apply breaks. In Prius, a separate motor will work when we apply breaks. (that's why we hear that nice humming noise while breaking) this motor will convert kinetic energy into electricity and save it in the battery for later use. Again, breaking need to be applied in a controlled manner for this system to work efficiently.

6) How good a car is this

This is a great car! On this you don't have to listen to anybody. Here is a simple test : Go to toyota site, check the prices of top range Toyota cars. You would see something like this : (prices in US$)
Corolla : 16K-18K
Camry :   20K
Prius :      22.5K
Yaris :      13K
Avalon :    33K
RAV4 :    22K

Prius is priced much higher than common models such as Corollo and Yaris. Even more expensive than Rav4 which is a SUV! Only Avalon is more expensive than Prius, but then Avalon is a super luxury vehicle which drink petrol (relative terms) if you are of that type.

So Prius is a expensive vehicle than Yaris or Corolla, yet due to tax breaks in Sri Lanka, a Prius cost less even than those economy Toyota models! Not to mention the amounts of money you can save on fuel afterwards! Therefore it's a definite attractive model to buy. In addition, Prius is possibly the most greenest of petrol / hybrid vehicles out there. It has been initially designed as a low emission vehicle to be environment friendly. It's a good part from the government to reduce tax and encourage people to go for the greener options like these.

Honda Hybrid models like Insight (World's first hybrid car If I'm not mistaken.) are also had to be good but I do not have hands on experience on those. Earlier Insight models used to be even better than earlier Prius models in terms of fuel efficiency but Insight lost market due to it being a 2 seater while Prius was categorized as a mid size sedan.

Got more questions on Prius... ? Feel free to ask!

PS :
Driving the Prius was always a very comfortable experience. Good handling, control, super sensitive breaking and power steering, short turning radius etc. Surprisingly pickup seems to be very good as well. Having battery is useful at hill climbing when you can get power from 2 sources. All this while saving the environment too ! In short I would recommend this car. However, according to what i know there is not much practical difference between 2009 model and 2010 model except in pricing. So going for 3rd generation 2009 model (which is lot advanced compared with 2nd generation 2008 model) seems to be the right choice.

Services to the Rescue!

2011-05-24T23:49:00.002+05:30

When we hear about most successful companies today, what are the first names which come to our minds ? Google, Facebook, Oracle, Microsoft ...

What do they all have in common ? Well, they all produce software products, places where coding geeks work. Close answer, but still not it! They all produce services to people and none of them producing (manufacturing) anything material !!

Service industry is having a good time at the expense of the manufacturing industries!

Let's take a seemingly counter example. Apple. Apple do provide many services like iTunes, App Store, Mac OS, iPhone OS and SDK etc However, they are more widely known for their gadget devices. iPhone, iPod, iPad, MacBook Air, iMac etc all cool gadgets! What do they all have in common ? They all have replaced the need of few additional devices we have to carry on with ourselves! They all have made us free from additional stuff by bundling many of them together and into a much smaller size as well. In effect, these gadgets have indeed reduced the total manufacturing which would have otherwise happen if they were not there! Just think about it.. MP3 players, laptops, phones, digital cameras, video game players, FM radios, Video CAM coders, GPS devices, alarm clocks, voice recorders.... we don't have to use all these devices anymore. It's not just that the digital divergence making progress, it is also a sign how much people like (naturally ) to be free from stuff!

When we use Facebook, Gmail, Skype or yahoo to communicate with our friends and build online communities, or use wordpress or blogspot to express ourselves and be accessible to others, or use wikipedia to learn something, Not only we are use way less paper, ink and so many other things! We actually psychologically moving away from consumerism since we adopt new goals and interests in life which does not involve buying, owning and keeping things. Naturally human beings are geared towards having a simple free life without having to hold on to so many properties (stuff).

I think stuff has started to get into us in a big after the industrial revolution. first we marveled at the ability of technology to make our lives easy by providing us with handy tools for everything. Of course after a certain limit, holding on to stuff just becomes a plain burden. It put strain into world's resources, adds onto produced waste, emit more CO2 and take up more energy. Once we trap in a consumption and purchasing lifestyle, things we buy no longer are the ones we absolutely need. We become prisoners beside a mountain of stuff we need to clean, arrange, move and maintain. When Paul Graham says "I'll take services over goods any day." he echos sentiments of most of future men.

Bypassing the safe and sane limits, buying and owning things have now become a goal and a drive in itself. Owning things become so important that it tends to even define us, and people (not to mention countries) compete with each other to own more! once it get to that level as it has now, of course it becomes nothing but a shallow activity, a bad habit (and a dangerous one for the ECO system) we need to drop!

People are indeed doing that unconscionably. Until now they didn't have an alternative avenue to put there passions in. To compete with others, to find a meaning to life. No let out to concentrate their efforts into. Hence purchasing, owning and collecting stuff became a life goal. Not anymore! With the advancement of information technology, people have finally found and finding alternative let outs for enjoyment, achievement, entertainment, expression, communication and lot more other things. Services we mentioned above are empowering people to lead satisfied lives without making them slaves of manufacturing industries and advertisements.

Now then, like manufacturing produced guns and weapons, Services too will produce negative things like ... (insert your list in here). Or people could chose to get lost in endless procrastination and loose sense of reality. In everything, there will be a choice for us to use it in a good way or in a disastrous way. However, in services there are few most noticeable benefits for all. Services do not take up natural resources to build them. Services do not produce waste. Services do not ruin environment. Services do not load us with stuff which we have to maintain and carry with us like a burden. Good services make us save our time, reduce stress. More importantly Services help us develop our real important skills such as communication, learning, gather knowledge, appreciating art, self expression...

Improvements in service industry may help usher in the next phase of human evolution. Industrial revolution helped us giving more tools and equipment and brought about materialist, consumerism age. Similarly the revolution of information technology and services in general (Let's call it the Revolution of Services) will bring about the age of knowledge and skill improvements. Human beings will value knowledge and the processes of acquiring it more and more instead of owning and collecting material stuff. Gaining soft skills like communication, analytical thinking, IQ, general knowledge will replace the crave for gaining more goods, owning property and even earning money, who knows! Service don;t cost much so the need for money will get reduced and that will replace by the need for intelligence, knowledge and other mental faculties... are we day dreaming? But look at it logically, once we are not so keen in buying and collecting stuff and more interested in internet, games, communication, education, self expression etc and when most of those come either free or very cheaply via new services, our need for money has to go bit down.

There are other implications as well. What will happen to Adam Smiths theories on Supply and Demand ? Take a popular service like Gmail, Facebook, Wikepedia, Ubuntu or just even an online free game server. What happens to the supply ? that parameter doesn't seem to exist in that world! Well, unlike physical goods which get produced by limited resources (raw materials like minerals, fossil fuels, wood etc) a software product (for instance) does not take additional resources to reproduce. Once you build it first time, you can just distribute many copies for no additional cost! This is even more so for services like Gmail or Facebook. Those services can be made available for millions more without much of additional cost so the supply is no constraint. This is one reason why those services can be made available for free as they are now!

Now let's think about the implication of this. Supply and Demand which defined so many things in manufacturing based economies will get increasingly meaningless in a service based economy. With the supply and Demand goes out, one will need to have new theories to define free market etc. May be the equivalent of that in services is Open Source. Now for old fashioned economists that might introduce more questions than answers! Without a price how can we measure wealth, progress, development etc... Well, not only soft skills a person has can not be measured by GDP, it is far more important and a valuable asset/indication than GDP. In other words our definitions of development, progress, economy all will need changes.

We can have an easy answer for all these. Google earning big money from advertisement aren't they ? so they can still be included in current economical practices, definitions and paradigms. Well may be. However, this is how old guards always tried to save their existing system, somehow trying to sneak in anomalies into the old system ignoring the fact that they don't really match nicely in it. For someone who takes the existing system as the bible, there is no other solution than to understand everything through the eyes and ears of the existing system, simply because for him, it is the only system there can ever be! However, to a open minded person, slight anomalies which highlights gaps in an established system just work as an opportunity to invent something new!

Future economists will invent new paradigms and theories to properly include service oriented economies with concepts like Open Source and 'free' which at the same does not adhere into Supply, Demand in a world where money and the importance of earning it is diminished. This will be a vastly different environment than the current but we can already see a glimpse of it and judge how things might span out in future. Old concepts such as Capitalism, Socialism, Supply and Demand etc will either become outdated or will have redefined meanings in such a world. Which is good, for our priority is properly understanding, evaluating and modeling new events and phenomena rather than safe guarding old systems and outdated concepts!

Services will rescue human race from over consumption of environment. Services will help humans to find more challenging goals to achieve and self improvement. Above all, services will help us break free from consumerism and help save the world! At least this seems to be the best bet we have for the moment!!

Images : http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1824/30573932.jpg, http://www.wikipedia.org

Quality of Life in The 21st Century

2011-05-23T22:03:00.004+05:30

http://www.allaboutlivingwithlife.com

Are humans just hard wired to consume as much as possible or is moving out of consumerist lifestyle the coming next big thing in human society ? This was the question we wondered on in the last post

Those who are new to this, also refer to this one and this and this, You will be fully armed with the context and ready to do damage!

We buy stuff mostly after falling victim to advertisement and marketing (whether we admit it or not). Advertisements are not just stuff we see in TV. Advertisements are in everywhere, some stays inside our minds from childhood as concept level, some get transmitted as fashion, advertisements even shape our thinking patterns and value systems.

We live in an era which preach consumption, consuming more means being more successful. Purchasing and owning more means more success. Ownership and consumption, those are the things which define us. What we own, in a way defines us, so we try to own better things more and more. Why do we try to earn more? Either to continue buying or to pay debts for the things we have already bought!

If everybody owns more things than really necessary and if every household is having more things which are not actually needed or not being meaningfully used, then it's obviously a big waste. More than that, it means we consume just for the sake of consuming as if we don't have any other meaningful goal in our lives. Do we live to buy that fancy car, own that big house and to use those handy gadget? Is there no other real purpose which drives us ?

Next problem is, can all of us (even if we have money) really own all those things we like? everything takes energy to get produced, every thing takes resources to get produced, only a part of those resources (if at all) get recycled back. While our craziness for owning things has no limits, resources the world has got to produce them, certainly has limits. Amount of waste the environment can absorb (generated by consumption) too certainly has limits.

The so called economical growth which drives from consumption is simply an impractical model to continue further. It is not that we have a dislike or a disagreement with the way current economies run, just that we will need something deeper and something more practical and sustainable in coming decades. Current systems may be ones evolved in last centuries and survived those times because they were suitable for those times where our ability to use up resources were too low to worry about. It is no longer the case now, will be no longer the case in future!

We need some new philosophy which help us not to run after accumulating things to be happy. Some new economical or social concepts/theories which produce more outlets to humans than just consumption.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that our own minds have accepted this as the reality and as the only (or main) worthwhile goal to pursue. So to make our minds happy and achieve that always illusive contentment, we are driven towards consuming more and more. If not by consuming, what else will motivate us ? What else can provide us with a drive to grow ? That raises an even more interesting question! What is growth really ? Is that the GDP ? Monthly salary we earn ? value of property we own ?

Going down the path of economic growth as defined in theories (produce more, consume more) is proving a dead end. All citizens of the world can not simply live as Americans do! Yes, even if everybody somehow manage to get 'rich', the world Eco system can not take additional vehicles on road, additional factories which require additional resources and emit additional CO2 and other waste, additional cutting down of forests to make way for additional houses, roads etc We have come to a place where we are using too much of world resources and emitting too much waste the world can take. A new practical philosophy is needed to take the world forward!

Can there be such a economy/society or a system which doesn't rely on people consuming more for it's own survival ?

I believe yes, there can be. Think about this.....

There are other goals, things we can achieve without owning physical goods. Things like having knowledge, enjoyment from sports, arts. literature etc, improving our minds whether it be mediation or positive thinking or any other psychological activity which help us feel good, feel important and makes us happy. Who says we have to earn more, spend more, buy more and own more to happy? That's the thinking advertisement has put in us for decades (for generations!)! and it's a myth! We don't necessarily need money, ownership and more things to be happy.

Is gaining more knowledge less important than owning a car ? Is improving our selves with better attitudes and mental qualities is not important than making our houses bigger ? Is improving our brain capacities (to learn, to memorize, to analyze etc) not as important as buying things for our living rooms ? Improving our emotions and the way we react to things and compassion we can show to others, is that not as important as buying more expensive clothes to improve our outside appearances ? Is spending quality time with your family and friends inferior to spending time on increasing our spending capacity ?

There are so many better ways to enjoy the life and live happier and in a more meaningful manner without buying/owning/holding things. If that's the case whats the point of putting up a staggering amount of time on making money ? After all, the sole purpose of money is to increase our capacity to buy things. When we have more time we will be more able to appreciate the little things in life which we have missed all this time. We can make more friends, express ourselves more, love more, live more... Quality of life for the 21st century!

This could be a new philosophy which will guide this century. We simply do not need to consume more to be happier!! Sometimes letting go of things, be free from things is the best form of peace and happiness. That will be good for the environment too! Probably we will hear more and more about concepts such as Gross National Happiness

Does this mean going back to the stone age ? certainly not! Moving away from materialistic view open ways and new adventures for the mind and body. There are so much to achieve, so much to gain and so much to grow in the area of improving our own minds. We could foresee an intense competitive future where humans are driven passionately toward ever more challenging tasks for the mind and body, whether it be sports, self expression, arts, science, enhancing the IQ, improving attitudes, improving memory capacity and analytical thinking...

There is an endless world of possibilities, probably even more so and certainly much more satisfying and beneficial goals for us to achieve than just pursuing after material goods, stuff. Human mind is currently just trapped in a very limited materialistic world where it strive only about pursuing consumerist dreams. Imagine a world where the human mind body and soul is unleashed and free to achieve it's true potential!

In the industrial age, we have transformed into a efficient societies which produces more and consume more, we proved ourselves as very good at it. Now that it's limitations are becoming obvious, isn't it any wonder that the next great age to come would be moving away from consumerism and pursuing goals of self growth, real happiness and advancements in mind and mental faculties? Pursuing happiness and greatness! In this sense arguments such as ones on socialism vs capitalism becomes outdated. All current economical systems and theories are for increasing production and increasing consumption. What we are discussing is a fundamental mental shift from that world.

Also, letting go of things is much more complicated than it sounds.... Sometimes you need the technology to make that feasible! How to get rid of bulkier things which need more resources and energy ? How to invent things which absorb human minds (which are no longer going after physical goods) and provide it with challenges and objectives to engage in with passion ? In fact, we will have a higher set of challenges for the technology which will have to play an even bigger role!

In a future post we will discuss the shape of those technological advances together with emerging trends, and wonder whether things are already moving in the direction they should be moving.....

PS : Services to Rescue the sequel of this post.

Farewell Ilandhariyo. ඔබට නිවන් සුව....

2011-05-20T00:48:00.003+05:30

http://www.hisahasa.blogspot.com/

ඔබට නිවන් සුව....

http://ilandhariya.blogspot.com

http://hisahasa.blogspot.com/2011/05/blog-post_20.html

Past links

A continent of mistakes

2011-05-14T09:53:00.008+05:30

(http://www.dailygalaxy.com)
There is a new continent forming in the pacific ocean! A vast new continent twice the size of Texas and it's growing each year!!

Unfortunately, this is not good news, as the new continent is formed by waste we throw away, things which are not bio degradable. When we made them, we knew these stuff (polythene, plastics) would last long and causing problems but we have simply thrown them away from our immediate neighborhoods and looked the other way pretending the problem is non existent.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a testament for human selfishness, ignorance and mad consumerism. Something we all should be ashamed of. A child born out of : ignoring a problem, laughing out early indications of a problem, pretending the world has unlimited natural resources and pretending the world has unlimited capacity to take on the waste we produce.

A continent of a monument to show, remind and alert us the on our greedy lifestyles and the direct results of consumerism! For more about this continent and to know why we are already powerless to reverse the damage, visit here and here.

An interesting thing to note is the list of surrounding countries of the proud new continent. America, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan... So called developed world and few countries who have achieved fast economic growths recently.

However, the biggest tragedy of all is may be the fact that even a continent of mistakes is not enough to waken us up! Instead of consuming less, producing less, re-use and recycle, we are still thinking of how to continue and even accelerate our proven faulty life style....

If this issue is so real, why don't we discuss about it more often ? Why is media silent about this ? There lies the other tragedy of current generations. Mass media is not acting as a solution, it's a part of the problem. Media needs consumerism to survive! If the real answer is to Restrict our usage and consumption, how many people will really like to hear that ? If the consumption and production to go down, what will happen to our lifestyle and 'economic growth' we are so taught to believe in ?

OK, let's look at this from a different angle, What we just discussed was one result which we are powerless to reverse anymore. Let's start from the point of generation and see what produced this, how and why ...

Let's Imagine a house with just the basic little amount of furniture, less electrical equipments and gadgets.. think about a place with only most needed equipments and nothing else. Such a place would have empty spaces to move about, less clutter, less amount of cleaning and maintenance. It will have simplicity and would serve to add a sense of serenity and peace of mind.

Now compare it with a house full of gadgets, equipments, furniture and what not. When we imagine, we have to be realistic (the things TV adds won't tell us), some of things in such a house may not be working. Some of things may be missing among number of other things. Some things may not be as clean as we would like them to be, for keeping all those things in an orderly manner, in working condition and keeping them clean at all times need time and attention. Not just once or twice, but daily! Things demand time and attention from us don't they?

Things we have, sometimes tend to define who we are, if we have way too many things, we are bounded, restricted and limited in freedom because we have to maintain those things while a person without them is free of that burden! If we have a car, we have to wash it regularly, make it clean, keep it serviced, get it repaired when it breaks etc. Now, what happens if we have 2 vehicles? it's even more of work. Those tasks of maintaining our cars eat up our time, energy and focus. In a sense, car will start to own us that way since it get us to do things for it. More things we have, more slaves we become of those things we own.

It's very important to decide exactly what things we really need and not committing to too many physical things in our lives. Even when we see a moderate convenience of having something, we should question ourselves, is it really worth the trouble of having it? How will it be few months after purchasing, will it still going to be that useful and look that pretty ? will we really use it that many times as we expect to ? or will it be like that exercising machine under a bed which we haven't taken out in a month?

Just buying something is not the end, paying the monetary value is not the end, things have hidden price tags attached to them. Every thing needs some time and attention from us. This untold price is mostly go unnoticed when we buy something. We are trained to see a purchase as a win if it's 'cheaper' than the market value. Well, come to think of it any price would be too expensive for something we really don;t have a need for. We are not entirely at fault for getting blinded for that simple fact, for we are being continuously attacked day after day by media and social peer pressure to buy this and buy that. Advertisements! If we have some extra money at hand, resisting the urge to buy something is simply not as easy as it sounds. Not only us who get those urges, our kids, spouse, brothers/sisters they also get the urge to 'take something home'!

So eventually any quite peaceful house becomes a junk yard over the years. Full of things which are either not used regularly or can not be used effectively for some reason or simply we don't anymore have time to sacrifice for them.

What if we clean our houses of stuff which are not absolutely needed ? that is good but it's not the proper answer. When we buy a thing which is not absolutely needed, we have already done the damage! Getting rid of them from our houses means we are simply putting the burden on somewhere else and going to selfishly look at the other way. This was exactly what produced the continent of waste we just saw!

Proper answer is to limit the consumption and produce less, then reuse and recycle the rest! So called 3 R's of Green Peace. Restrict, Re-Use and Recycle.

After all, 80% of stuff we think are useful and must haves are really not! we could easily and more conveniently and more freely live without them! Still doubtful about the real 'value' of stuff we have and what it is doing to us? read here on the subject of stuff. To identify the shallowness of buying and owning stuff and to move away from it, one does not need to be an environmentalist or a socialist! Just stopping being a mindless slave (following the fashion) to consumerism is enough so it seems.

In a future post, we will look closely for the ways out of consumerism and how to live happy and healthy lives without destroying the world. Is it possible at all? Are humans just hard wired to senseless consumption or is moving out of consumerist lifestyle the coming next big thing in human society ?

Meanwhile, here are few past related posts.

Middleground on Capitalism and Socialism, Where have you gone ?

End the burning, Cool down and Clean up!

Lighting Up The Dark!

PS : Added two sequels to this :

How to reduce consumption and still enjoying the life and

Current trends which are already taking us in that direction.

Lighting Up The Dark!

2011-05-08T19:49:00.003+05:30

(wikipedia)

In the last post we came up with a short term solution to how we can immediately stop (well within 3-4 years that is) the additional carbon emissions by cutting down fossil fuel usage by 50% and save the world while keeping economies going as well. Of course we assumed that rich countries would agree to such a solution and invest money in building few efficient nuclear reactors pretty soon. While even the moderate kyoto protocol which is no where near cutting carbon emissions by half in near future, is not agreed up by the world biggest carbon emitter USA, we may be just dreaming in here.

Still, what we have is a practical solution. A short term one, something like this can happen one day when the world leaders finally realize it's about time to take some real action on carbon emissions. Meanwhile, let's see what could be a good long term solution.

As discussed in the earlier post, dramatically and aggressively increase the production of nuclear energy to about 50% of worlds total energy consumption (currently nuclear energy is at 8.5%) is our short term solution to meet increasing energy requirements while cutting down on fossil fuel. Still, that too will last only for 15-20 years, however, in this time we should learn to power up the ultimate energy source the world has got. Clean, abundant, plentiful, natural, and harm free, all powerful Solar Energy! 15 years of concentrated effort is all what this industry need to deliver goods...

The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses in one hour is more than the annual global energy consumption!

In the main post image, if only the solar power is harnessed in areas covered by black dots, total world energy requirement can be met! Those black dots are all situated in the deserts, the land currently can not be used for any other purpose. This is assuming the efficiency of solar panels will stay at the current levels of 8%-9% but this is something which is expected to rise up to 15% based on recent research.

Using the clean, free and abundant solar energy to fulfill all our energy requirement is a dream which can be realized and achieved in our life times!

Consider following statistics :

In 1950s at it's start, solar cell based power production cost was $286 per watt and efficiency of the technology was just 4%-5%
In 2010 the cost for a watt was $1.80 while efficiency was 8%-9%
At the end of 2011 the cost is is expected to be $1.50 per watt. Efficiency too is expected to reach 15% in very near future. (wikipedia)

There are 2 main methods of harnessing solar energy.
1) Photovoltaic (PV) using solar panels, direct conversion of solar energy to electricity (8-9% of efficiency) This field is recording a 20% of annual growth.

2) Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Using solar power to heat water/oil and then use that to operate a traditional electricity generator. Cost of generating electricity using this type of solar power is now approaching that of fossil fuel based generation. In addition, this method requires less area (space) about 10 times less area than PV methods above. However, CSP is large scale production while PV can be done even in households. Annual growth is 40%.

In addition to these there are other methods like thermoelectric where the thermal different of two sheets will be used to generate electricity or generation of hydrogen out of water molecules using solar energy.

One thing very noticeable with solar energy research and advancements are that they have grown very rapidly during oil crisis such as 1970-1985 and again from 1997 - 2009 During these periods, governments have put lot of money into research and provided grants and subsidies as well to encourage the use and generation of solar power that has noticeably improve the innovation. During the times when oil was cheap, such as 1985-1997 growth in solar power sector got slowed down.

Recent innovations driven by the necessity in the last oil shortage was staggering and very promising as well as exciting. For instance, new technology of using viruses to convert sun light into electricity cheaply, 3D solar cells which can dramatically increase the efficiencies, thin wearable sheets of solar panels and photovoltaic inks from nanotechnology etc are only few of several advances.

It is said that once nanotechnology advances and production cost of solar panels become cheap, our roads and highways will be built from solar panels which would power up whole world freely and forever without taking any additional lands! Now, that's just an indication of the potential and how exciting the prospects can be in the advancement of solar technologies...

This is the time world should invest more on solar energy, it will definitely be able to pay back when we start to run out of fossil fuels and Uranium.

May be equatorial countries can export solar energy to industrial countries in northern hemisphere in the winter! equatorial countries can make some additional revenue from carbon credits as well in future when the world is concentrating on bring the carbon levels down! All this would be good news for the world as a whole and developing countries in particular.

After all, Sun is distributing it's blessings in much more democratic and fair manner than fossil fuels ever have!

End the burning, Cool down and Clean up!

2011-05-08T17:07:00.007+05:30

(treehugger.com)

In our last post which was triggered by some discussions at few other blogs, we discussed the problems of consumerism. There, we found the need for some vital statistics on the effects of consumerism. Anyway, some of most interesting and widely discussed subjects these days are on global warming, oil prices, when the oil going to run out what next etc...

Come to think of it, exactly :

How much Fossil Fuel do we actually have in world reserves currently ?
What are the rate we are burning them and how long will they last ?

On the other hand, can we really afford to burn the remaining carbon fuels in the light of increasing CO2 levels and the threat of global warming?

What are the alternatives we have?

Well, answers to those are easy to find these days! At least the part of finding the statistics, analyzing them with common sense and existing knowledge and coming up with a set of logical conclusions is not too difficult. Difficulty will be in getting people (or societies, economies) to change their current beliefs and behaviors! not to mention the policy makers.

Anyway let's have a look at the statistics first (from wikipedia) :

Currently we have around 1200 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves. Of which we use about 84 million barrels daily at current production rate. Therefore oil is believed to last 43 more years.

Similarly, about 905 billion metric tonnes of Coal is available with the production rate of about 18 million metric tonnes daily. Therefore Coal will last for 148 years.

Availability of natural Gas is about 180 trillion cubic meters, at current production rates will last till about 60 more years.

These figures haven't taken into account the fact that the demand for these resources increase steadily each year by about 2.3%. However, world production for oil have already peaked, meaning we can not produce any more daily than we are producing right now! Coal and gas too is nearing peak production.

Now to the fun job of analysis :

The reason not to take the increased demand into account (in above calculations) is that it doesn't matter! What ever the demand is, world production is now peaked. Imagine a well with water to last 43 days. Your pump or the tap has a fixed limited rate of which you are taking water out. Now you get visitors and need more water and your well have got it as well. Still, you can not get more out since your output (tap size) is limited, so the well will still last for 43 days, you will just have to manage with whatever amount of water it gives daily until 43 days, after which you will not get even that limited amount. zero! nothing!

hmm that doesn't sound good does it ? wait.. it's about to get worse! :

Demand increases but the supply stays stable, what does that tell us ? It means more and more fuel shortages and increased price in future. It will get worse in each year until about 30 years after which oil might get too expensive for many practical usages. This will have an impact on coal and gas too as non availability of oil will increase the demand for gas and coal, their prices too will go dramatically up. So we can have following conclusions form our analysis so far :
1) In short term, higher fuel prices and shortages will slow down world economies and growth.
2) In about 30 years, oil, gas and coal all will be too expensive to make their usage impractical for most of tasks.

Only two things can stop this scenario. Let's list them down..
A) Technical advances which enable us to get the same work done by consuming less fuel. (like hybrid cars)
B) Economical slow downs and low growth rates, driving the consumption down. This second outcome is the same as conclusion 1 we stated above, one thing leads to another. Same sad story!

So our only hope seems to lie in technological advances to get more out of same amount of fuel. Remember, this is not about burning less, this is about getting more out of the amount we are already burning per year to meet the growing demand for energy. How practical is that to expect in three decades? Well, history have taught us never to underestimate the advance of science and technology. Hybrid cars and Bloom Boxes are two examples.

Problem is not much about the technical innovations, it's more about peoples capacity and readiness to change and adapt to new technologies. This means relaying of new infra structure (this is one reason why Hydrogen fuel cells vehicles didn't take off), changing attitudes and mindset of people (even after more than a decade of history, hybrid vehicles are still a small fraction of all vehicles running on roads for example), mass production of new technology and survive early periods of trial and error. It generally take time to master a new technology and evangelize it, mass produce with new manufacturing plants etc So even if a technological revolution of increasing the fuel efficiency is possible, we may be running up on time for that. Remember we have only 3 decades left, we may need to start right now!

Now what about other available main energy sources, namely hydroelectricity and nuclear energy? Obviously, Hydro electricity has a limitation imposed by available good enough natural locations. Most available such locations are already being used. Other problems are the impact man made reservoirs have on wild life, environment, soil and eventual filling up of reservoirs by mud deposits resulting from erosion of soil over time. Still, production can be increased but no where near to a level of filling the huge gap fossil fuels going to leave us with. Currently, hydroelectricity gives us only about 6% of total energy production. That leaves us with the possibility of Nuclear energy.

(wikipedia)

Even if we discard the potential dangers of nuclear plants like the recent tragedy in Japan after the tsunami, nuclear energy too has one big shortcoming. It is non-renewable! Like fossil fuels the fuel needed for nuclear reactors, Uranium is in short supply. According to statistics current known Uranium reserves (type which good enough in quality to be used in Nuclear reactors) which are economically and technically viable to use are enough to generate power for about 100 more years AT THE CURRENT PRODUCTION LEVEL. Currently we use nuclear energy to cover about 8.5% of global energy need. Clearly, with fossil fuels diminishing and unable to supply the increased demand, Nuclear energy has to contribute lot more if we are to meet the energy demand and to keep economical growth.

This brings us to the next dimension of the problem. Even if we have fossil fuels, we can not afford to burn them anywhere near current rates due to environmental impacts! Now, Here are the statistics for that.

Currently, fossil fuels(oil, coal, gas) amount to 85% of total energy production.
Burning of fossil fuel is producing 21.3 billion tonnes of CO2 annually.
The world eco system can absorb only half of that amount for a year.
(from wikipedia)

We are producing 10.5 billion tonnes of more CO2 yearly and it is increasing as well! effects of these emissions (global warming, climate change, rising sea levels, floods, cyclones) are well known and we are already experiencing them.

If we are to give priority to save the world and environment (which is nearing a tipping point in terms of global warming) and avert a disaster, reducing the use of fossil fuels by around 50% is a must. With only 50% of consumption from current we can double their life to about 85-90 years! that is enough time for new technologies to come in and make use of fossil fuels much more efficiently, enabling us to keep them for even longer periods! this sounds like win-win! However, That means only 43% of current energy requirement can be allowed to fulfill by burning of fossil fuels. Remaining 57% has to come by other sources.

Currently, other renewable energy sources (hydro, solar, wind, geo thermal) are all producing only about 7% of energy need in total. Technological advances have to be made in these sectors to grow this amount significantly over the coming decades. Specially Solar energy (more on that later) obviously, this will take time.....

Until those technical advances are made, how are we to immediately fill the gap of remaing 50% of our annual energy need (further 2.3% get added to it annually!) ? The only short term hope is to go nuclear! It's current usage of 8.5% will have to be increased by about 6 folds! If we remember the Uranium resources statistics, at current rates it was enough for 100 years but once we increase the production by 6 folds, Uranium too will be gone in 16 years!

Hmm looks like all we have a got here is a short term solution after all. What could be a long term strategy for this problem ?

Stay tuned.. in the the next post we will pick up a possible long term solution. We have 16 years for that! (kidding, I'm just splitting my post in two at this point as this is already getting too long)

PS : Just published. To the long term solution ->

Middleground on Capitalism and Socialism, Where have you gone ?

2011-05-04T19:52:00.000+05:30

(chrismadden.co.uk)

In an earlier post, we discussed few fashions in our society and why certain fashions are harmful. Looks like there are more and more subtle not so obvious types of fashions for those we all fall into at one point or the other. Nothing terribly wrong with that either, as that's the usual way human beings learn, by trial and error. However it will be useful to be aware of our thinking process and be alert to occasions when we want to say or do something just because that is the fashion of the day to do so!

This thought occurred to me when following a particualr topic in the renown blogs of Chanuka Wattegama and Aruni Shapiro, where both were claiming to be capitalists but seems like there is a disagreement on the level of capitalism. Now, I don't mean any disrespect to those authors, infact I read them regularly and even learning new things from them, Chanuka of course we all know from Vidusara days, among other things. The thought occurred to me was something entirely different and nothing directly related to above bloggers.

It is not too long ago that we saw similar arguments and races to show and prove who among us are the real and most genuine socialists. The resulting irony of comparison of times (present against that of about just 2 decades ago) is too hard to go unnoticed. Do we remember those speeches we heard from stages, discussions, arguments on stage, arguments on TV and even on arguments in news papers ? Now, those days were the times where claiming to be a socialist was the order of the day. Socialism meant more progressive, more philanthropic, more advanced less greedy and purer. Different marxist parties actually fought over the rights of being true left. Intellectuals were no different! Openly and publicly claiming to be a capitalist was an unheard of thing those days.

When CBK wanted to introduce her new economy policy she had to choose the words carefully and offer something like a 'humane look for the open economy'. Just acknowledging to be a raw fan of open economic policies was a taboo. Do you support open economy.. no way! it's the cause of all evil that's why there is a war in north, the degration of social values, erosion of humanism and so on.. Fashion was to be against capitalism and open economy but to sound like a socialist. There was even a jargon, set of terms which sounded more socialist than others. Now, all this was not just among ordinary folks like you and me, it was the fashion also (or should we say 'specially') among intelectuals!

So forgive me having a fun time watching how the world has changed. Today, the fashion is to be a capitalist! race is to be the biggest and most daring capitalist of 'em all! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make fun of any one. Just enjoying observing the social movements and changes in society which unravel rapidly in front of our own eyes. I myself was mildly following the socialism fashion for a time being. (Well, who wouldn't like to be little stylish when they are young? Unfortunately it wasn't fun for those who didn't survive in 87/89, some just didn't make it after following that particular fashion of socialism back then.) However, this time I will be extra cautious! Just following a fashion is not so smart when one is no longer young and expected to posses a balanced mind. Fashion these days is to sound like a firm capitalist, to talk about the benefits of freemarket and how the demand and supply going to solve everything, be against all form of subsidies and welfare etc. When so many of our people and politicians getting together and saying the same thing with lot of assuarance, that usually mean something is wrong!

Sometimes fashions can be correct too. Can this be one such occasion ? Whole world, after so many experiments have evolved economically and found the one true and real system which actually works. Capitalism. Can that be the case ? This, is an argument beyond the scope of a single (or a series of) post, I'm not even trying. For fashion lovers, we will just show that even capitalism has it's limits and will become outdated much sooner than they might think.

Capitalism grows when the consumption grows. When consumption goes down, capitalist creatures go into that hibernate mode of theirs call recessions. In fact, consumption is the metric used to measure how developed a economy is. How much do you consume per a month? a lot more than you neighbor? ah, then you are richer than him! that's how it works. So when we grow yearly, we get used to consume more and more and more. Why is milk food expensive now ? because Indians and Chinese have got rich and has started to consume more milk. Why is fuel prices going up ? because we are consuming more and more fuel, actually to sustain economic growth, it will be needed to consume more and more fuel. (at least until solar energy become cheap, but till that happens, there will be a deep recession if not enough fuel is available to consume). There is a saying that price of fuel will sky rocket to new dimension if all Indians take a fancy to driving own cars. With what Ratan Tata is upto, that just might really happen!

So what's the problem? we will continue consuming more, standard of living will go up, advance of science will find ways of consuming more and more things cheaply. There lies the problem.... There simply is not enough resources to go on doing this forever at this pace and acceleration! At one point, the world and it's limited resources will go on strike, that will be a one strike which will need little more than a pay hike to those socialist workers to subdue. The world, it appears has it's own few trade unions to talk through. Climate change is one, increased carbon emissions as a direct result of consumption is another. Rising sea levels, polluted air and water resources, dwindling forests.. wait! some minimum land mass will be needed to keep as forests to preserve the balance of nature. As of fossil fuels, all types of metals etc they would be non-reneawable sources, that is they have a cap. Once you use them, they are not going to come back again (not in our life time that is)

So, the capitalist consumerism dream is not going to be a one which can be sustained with a steady growth forever. If we have an endless source of resources, then one might argue even a greed (consume) based system might last long, but we haven't got one. Science will advance and help us to increase the efficiency of how we are using the limited resources but even that pace can't cope with the unlimited potential of greed. Greed has no bound, even if we increase our consumption levels by each day, we will then complain about the rate of our increase in consumption. The one who grows in the higher rate would be the man to beat then!

This is not a new argument or another doomsday forecast. The world eco system simply have a limit which it can endure, the world can support only upto a certain number of humans at a time, for instance. Similarly it can support only upto a certain levle of consumption by those humans, we will eventually need to limit our consumption and limit the amount of waste we produce and amount of carbon dioxide we produce. (Every production produces CO2, so consumption is linked to carbon emissions which is linked to global warming which causes rising sea levels which warm things even further etc.) Therefore the world will eventually need a new way of thinking which transform our mindset to check our desires, consume less and be contended. That will not be a choice but a necessity.

Now, all that was just to show that there is a limit to capitalism beyond which it too will have to be discarded. That particular thinking can be a fashion in future! When capitalism go out of fashion, who knows, we all might be trying to be the most 'greener' person instead! Well, if that were to happen, at least that will be a fashion which is actually a relief for the worn out world and the environment! Meanwhile, let's not scare off anybody yet and let us generously give the capitalist dream (so called American dream!) another decade or two. Like I said, this post is not about economy, it's about fashion!

Just one last caution for fashion lovers. It's the second mouse which gets the cheese! so let's not rush, let's wait and observe the first mouse a bit.

Feel free to express your burning, flaming disagreements (and meek agreements too!) and let all of us learn something from them.

Meditation and Chess (now officially too!) is connected. Programming too ?

2011-04-28T13:34:00.004+05:30

Positive influence Meditation can have on Chess (and vice versa, I would add) is now officially acknowledged.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov signed an agreement with Mr. Anant Asavabhokhin, the World Meditation Academy Chairman. According to the agreement, chess federations throughout the world will receive scholarships to send participants to meditation courses. Those who love Chess and Meditation both, here's your chance!

In addition, World Meditation Academy chairman is now a senior adviser to the FIDE president. Academy too has appointed FIDE president as one of it's honorary advisers.

According to FIDE site, "The benefits of meditation to chess players were reviewed" and amongst the principal achievements are Physical Benefits, Emotional Benefits, Mental Benefits and Spiritual Benefits. For more on benefits of meditation, you can visit here. More about the agreement between FIDE and WMA can be found from FIDE official site in here.

Positive influence of Chess on education in children is well known and acknowledged throughout the world. Chess is specially considered as helping students develop their critical thinking, analytical skills and the ability to concentrate. These studies are so comprehensive that many countries have already included chess in their primary school curriculum and some have even made it a mandatory subject.

Benefits of Meditation on emotional well being and mental prowess is also well known for years and proven by several scientific research carried on Tibetan monks for example.

Therefore it is hardly surprising that the two organizations has come together and publicly acknowledging the benefits of each can have on the other.

A separate discussion on how Meditation can help in computer programming is in here.

Fashions Of Our Time.

2011-04-25T19:35:00.005+05:30

Our country is notorious in making people grow and live according to a set of predefined ideals, goals and expectations. Think about it.. most parents want to make their child either a doctor or an engineer. Most children have spent their entire childhood, youth and ambitions to become either a doctor or an engineer as their parents wanted them to be. Sad part is, most children are not even aware of it. Instead, they think (or made to think) that they really do want to be either a doctor or an engineer themselves!

This is sad not only because a country or a society need lot more other professionals than just doctors and engineers, but also because sending all the children to this big competition is guaranteed to make 99% contestants fail at it. What a waste of time, energy and spirit! Regardless of how good you are, if all the kids are pursuing the same goal, heavy majority would be doomed to fail. It's worse than our education and higher education system is geared towards making doctors and engineers only, people's minds are actually engineered and conditioned in a very narrow way.

Another way to look at it is by investigating why exactly are people trying to make their kids (or kids trying to be) either doctors or engineers only. Why really ? it's nothing else than the perceived social status and set of limited benefits! Nothing more than just showing off to the neighbors and relatives that my kid did it! There lies the root of the problem. Our society haven't still matured to a level to appreciate the need and value of all professions. Humans can't be build in stereotype models, we have unique skills and talents, things we are naturally good at. Any system which doesn't take advantage of that fact, doesn't allow kids to enhance their natural gifts and contribute to the society in the way they can do it best, is an inefficient and failed system.

Good lawyers, Accountants, Scientists, Politicians (yeah them too, specially so!), Journalists, Managers, Officers to enforce law and order, Artists, Businessmen, Entrepreneurs, underground thugs (kidding - just to make sure you are not drowsing off already!) are needed for a society and a country to grow.

However, our culture (since independence) has produced a weird result that most of professionals in other areas are where they are because they have failed to become a doctor or an engineer. With a psyche like this, how can we guarantee an able person is in charge of a certain profession, or a professional who take pride in what he engage at ?

Luckily, things have slowly started to change... pressure to pursue a career only in either medicine and/or engineering is relaxing bit by bit.... There are other fashions in this society which are not so pronounced but still dictating our choices.

There was a time most of bright minds and successful students (even engineering students!) wanted to follow CIMA for some reason. We saw batch after batch math students doing CIMA courses after their A/L exams. Why ? was it because CIMA was the best thing to do at the time to enhance their careers ? How many of those who studied CIMA those days got actually benefited or successful due to it? Again, the real reason was simple. Fashion! One has to do CIMA and pass in flying colors, that was the thing you were supposed to do. That Is What Everybody Else Do!

Aha! there we have a useful and practical definition for fashion..

There is lot more other fashions we do without really being aware of it. Putting children to international schools can be another. However, the objective of this post was to introduce or highlight a particular disastrous fashion we have a week spot on. This hasn't got as popular and as common yet (because it's more expensive and has a barrier of entry may be), so better we become aware of it now!

What would we do after getting a degree or a diploma and ready to start a career ? What is the next thing we should aim for ? What are others doing ? Well, apply for a citizenship in a developed country, right? Go some where as a student or even as a holiday maker and try to get PR eventually! How many people have we seen who has this particular goal. Why ? because (among few other things) it has also become a fashion!

Few more tips and tricks to make sure it's a fashion and nothing else. Apply the fashion test : Do parents proudly announce that their children are abroad ? YES THEY DO! just as some proudly announce their kids are either doctors/engineers. Do we see people trying extra hard to get visa's even if that means spending lot of money and so desperate that they even getting caught in scams. YES WE DO!

Being an agent to help someone migrate or secure a job abroad or a 'chance' to secure a place at a foreign university (not as a scholarship but by paying a huge amount of money, yet it's considered as a big chance), or to advice people how to win PR in certain countries is already a lucrative business. These are all signs of established fashions. Additionally do we feel pressured to look for ways to migrate, pressure from peers, extended family etc. Do we only see those of our friends who do migrate and so getting the inclination to follow them ? That's another sign of Fashion. Fashion pressures others to follow!

Other part of fashion is that there are loads of people who have burnt there fingers by blind following of the dream of the day. Unfortunately this section of the population is not visible at the height of the fashion, no one pays attention to them when all we we want is to cherish the dream forward. They become apparent only when we awake from the dream. like when we count casualties after a battle. Take Gold Quest or Sakvithi scams for example.

Now, do we see casualties of the today's fashion to go abroad, study abroad, live abroad dream ? Sadly we do. Take the cases of thousands of youth spending millions of their parents money in so called universities in UK, AUS etc trying to live the dream of studying abroad. Their parents may be boasting at home, however numbers of those returning after loosing everything is in steady increase. Turned out that those stories about abundant part time jobs to fun their education are slightly exaggerated! so do stories about automatic PR, posh jobs after graduations etc.. Just the tip of the iceburg.

We are not saying all those who migrate are just doing a foolish act or we shouldn't try to do so because it's a fashion. What we are saying is there are enough number of people who just want to do so because others are doing. There are parents who like to see their kids abroad because neighbors and relatives are boasting about theirs. It's been considered as the next mark of success. Kind of a milestone in life. Like, getting the degree, marrying, build a house.

If we take a decision not by looking at whether that is the best thing for us and whether that is the right thing to do, but automatically because of others are doing (because that's the thing to do! EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING IT) it, then chances are such decisions may bring us failures more often than they bring us successes. That's the only point we are trying to make here. It can be useful to mindful about whether we are taking a decision because it is the Fashion or because of sound reasons.

Sometimes societies are blind to their own fashion! We as a country are notorious on this! We are such great blind followers, such fashion maniacs that it is almost a religion to us! There was a time going to middle east for work was a fashion. Bringing in Cassette Recorders, DVDs and stuff you really don't need but was needed to showing off to your neighbors was so important. Thanks to few nails that particular fashion may be coming to an end now....

So, beware of the next!

Those who were following the Interactive Blogging 1 and Interactive Blogging 2 - Why people Leave Lanka will notice that we may have just covered yet another reason why people try so hard to leave. Some of other more sane reasons were discussed in that series of posts and in their comments.

What do you think.. What are the other fashions in this society that we could list down in here...... ?

(Image source : http://solidrock-batupejal.blogspot.com)

Why People Leave Lanka ?

2011-04-20T17:05:00.001+05:30

So here we finally starting the second phase of our interactive blogging experiment. Those who are new to this new lucrative business of ours, do have a quick glance at the initial interactive blogging post and you will be ready to hop in and do some damage!

Lots of thanks to those who participated in the first part by reading, commenting, personally giving me ideas and thoughts etc. Specially, few of you have provided very detailed analysis and thoughts to the first post.

However, interesting part is beginning just now!

As you would have guessed already by now, to discuss all the aspects of the problem and discuss all different solutions will require little more than one post. So I'm going to split this across few posts. This will also allow us to gather more feedback (keep them coming please!) and include them in future posts.

As is the fashion of the day, let's start this series by a nice little story...

Long time ago, (even I was a kid those days) we lived near university of Peradeniya, due to some reason or the other lot of my fathers friends from university used to visit us time to time. Most of them were doing there post graduates so they were uncles and aunties to me. When ever I found them planning to leave the country and migrate to some other developed country (which happened very often) I was curious and wanted to know their reasons. Now, this was in like mid to late 80s there were no series problems in the country by then, IPKF havn't come here yet, LTTE was not a such a big monster yet, 87-89 dark days were yet to come.. Still, there were bright and educated minds trying to leave.

A typical coversation went like this :

Me : Uncle, why are you leaving Sri Lanka ?
Them : Well, difficult to do things in here and get things done. Those countries have so many facilities, good pay... etc

Most of the time conversations stopped there, but once in a while I get to talk to someone who is more close and and friendly with me that even I would not hesitate to ask a bold question or two.. When someone like that is on the menu, I would ask the question which was and still is bothering me the most.

Me: But you got your education by free education system, from poor people in a poor country. Don't you have to serve those people first? can't we build this country ? If we all migrate and go to developed countries, 3rd world countries will get even poorer and developed countries will get even richer. When will that stop ? Why don't we try to serve and build up this country instead ?

Now, I may be lot naive there, probably wouldn't have said all those in those exact words as well but that was the problem I had and I was trying to convey it. Now, those folks were generally very good, kind and understanding, even if a kid asked a good question most of them (well, all of them infact) did not ignore me. They really tried to give good answers.

There was only one which really made an impact on me. Only one answer which sounded as a good argument.

Them : Well, important thing is to serve the world isn't it? important thing is to serve the fellow humans and the human race. Why should it matter from exactly which place we deliver that service? we are world citizens. (yes, even in 80s there were people who used that phrase "world citizens". "global village" was yet to appear then)

Convincing answer isn't it ? even to this date this is the most challenging reply I get to this particular question.
However, even in those days I had a little answer ready (or another question really) for just that! I still put that to my friends who making this particular argument for the case of migration. So, I put the same to interactive bloggers..

"If Russians argued like that in 1940s and choose to serve the world from America, Hitler would have still running the world. If English fled and choose to serve from America when Germans have surrounded them in world wars, we would be speaking German now. If our ancient kings fled (well, we were an island so was not easy to flee those days) when mighty invader armies landed here, it would have been a whole different story now."

Well, in short, there are challenges in any country in any period of time, some challenges are greater than others but those who shape the future and build the world are those who fight with those adversaries on the spot and try to make a difference. Those who serve from where they are or (better) from where the need really is, are the heroes.

Now, this struggle may be a long term one, in the case of black Americans, it was a struggle of few generations, in the case of Russians against Hitler or Napoleon it was just a few years but extremely hard few years. In the case of Sri Lanka, we too have won a struggle recently, it was a few hard decades for us. Some times the fight can be brief and short but still a history making one in magnitude! Like the recent threat of nuclear melt down of Japanese reactors, some could have easily choose to serve the world from a safer place (so that they can do a better service uninterrupted :-) ), but there were heroic Japanese workers who chose to risk their lives for others and fought with it, if not for their efforts, it could have been a much bigger disaster for all.

There is a time the fate call for our services. At that time we have a choice to ask "why me?" and run away leaving someone else to do the job. We all have our duties to perform and debts to pay and unique opportunities and responsibilities to serve our communities at times they need our services most. This is how I would argue against that particular argument of serving the world and humanity from a comfortable place where there are less challenges. Very word "serving" means facing the challenge and help where the help is needed.

What do you think ?

The issue of migration and brain drain for developing countries is not a simple black white issue all the time. What we have discussed here is just one case (we could be wrong as well!), this may not apply for all cases. That's why we are splitting this discussion for few posts!

Do send in your thoughts/comments/disagreements etc.. We will see where we end up!

Meanwhile In The Software World...

2011-04-19T20:44:00.005+05:30

I'm trying to make good on my promises!

(image source from : http://frenchboxing.blogspot.com)

Check here if you are interested to see what we are doing these days. An online gaming site for all - and free too!

(Image source http:/www.decidetostayfit.com)

A new programming language to replace Java! yea and it's called Ceylon !! more..

Progress (or otherwise?)

2011-04-18T13:29:00.002+05:30

As often, progress happens gradually. However, when it happens it can sometimes be in unexpected fields, in unexpected ways at unexpected times!

Even though I have started this blog long ago, for one reason or the other, it never got enough attention it deserved. I always wanted to do a good blog for computer software and programming. Since I started that blog last month, I thought this blog will get even lesser attention and die down soon. How wrong was I!

Despite my best efforts, some articles kept coming for this blog and it seemed like I was wondering about few bit of extra things than I was aware of myself. Since the start of the programming/gaming blog, it was this wondering blog that have actually performed for some unknown reason!

In the last 20 days or so, this has recorded more than 3000 hits, more than 1000 new readers in more than 60 different countries... I know most of those visitors may have just stumbled upon an article and may never come back and most of those hits can be (very well be) just page hits and those pages might not have been red even. Still..... it is not bad going for just 20 days. Specially for a blog which was supposed to die! And somehow I have ended up writing 15 - 20 posts, again, despite my best efforts to do otherwise!

There were few mysteries as well, one is our readers seem to be mostly foreigners, only 30-35% are form Sri Lanka. Again this too has come despite my best efforts to write more in Sri Lankan context! Also, this goes against the trend in other lankan blogs I have seen, where the heavy majority readers are from sri lanka. I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing...

So, to make it bit more interesting I changed the blog heading for a start! Thos who have actually seen the previous blog title would know how ugly it really looked like. Well, current one may not be great either but at least it says what this blog trying to be. :-)

Right now, I'm in cross roads as to continue this blog further or to put myself more into the other blog. I will certainly try to keep this one alive as I liked the way things have gone in last 3 weeks. Or may be I should let it "die a natural death" like I did in last 3 week, if I want to see the blog succeeding! For it certainly seem to do better when I try to look away! May be I should let the other blog die down... :-) Now, that can be a good thought...

A special thank for all those who have visited, given me encouragement, comments, feedback and shared their thoughts with me during this time. That experiment about interactive blogging comes to mind, I still owe you a post there!

After my disastrous result in prediction business and the way things have gone with this blog recently, I dare not say anything about future.

We will see what tomorrow will bring... Or as was mentioned in the famous movie Cast Away, "who knows what the next tide will bring ?"

Expanding the Sinhala and Tamil New Year even further - part 2

2011-04-14T10:22:00.009+05:30

There were some more thoughts and encouraging updates after our first article on new year. Initially I tried appending them to the old post itself but realised it would make it longer and these batter have a separate short post instead. So here we go :

1) Seems like we are not alone in our line of thinking. Mt Lavinea hotel has this to say. "This is a celebration – one of a kind held in great reverence in Sri Lanka alone. Sinhala and Tamil New Year is an annual event that stimulates society, enlivens the nation and fosters national consciousness in Sri Lanka. The festival is celebrated mainly by the Buddhists and the Hindus. Now Christians too participate in New Year celebrations as this highlights the authentic customs that are synonymous to the event rather than the religious attributes and thus it has become almost a nation-wide festival" more

2) If all Sinahalese and Tamils (including Christians), are celebrating this event, then it becomes a national festival, one without no religious attributes. If it is a non-religious national festival, then our Muslim brothers and sisters too can join in I would say!

3) In our childhood days we used to enjoy a long vacation in April. At leas 4 weeks. That allowed us to visit relatives, celebrate new year in much more relaxed manner and of course to play more! New year games started 2-3 days before the new year day and continued even after the new year for 2-3 more days then.

Nowadays, sadly school holiday period has shrunk from year to year. (This time it is only 2 weeks!) If we want to preserve our culture in future generations, we should consider allowing our children to participate more freely in April festivals and follow traditions. Take an additional week from August holidays if needed but leave April school holidays for full 4 weeks!

What do you think ?

Expanding the Sinhala and Tamil New Year even further !!

2011-04-13T20:28:00.006+05:30

What a great event the New Year Festival is......

Among all the other obvious, great, cultural and traditional reasons as to why New Year is such a special event like it is, there is yet another one reason we tend to overlook!

This is the only special event in Sri Lanka where more than one ethnic groups join and celebrate together! Let's just think about it a little ......

In a nation battered by 3 decades of terrorism and even longer period of mistrust among ethnic groups, this one event where Sinhala and Tamil people can get together and celebrate as one group is a blessing indeed! Avrudu is a proud , identity defining occasion for Sinhala and Tamil nations.

And that's not all.. the potential of New Year celebrations to really unite this nation and bring together all it's ethnic groups together is far greater than we realise at present!

We call this Sinhala and Tamil new year. Saying Sinahala and Hindu would be the wrong way.. Can you say why ? yes, New year celebrations in April has very little to do with Hinduism as it does with Tamil nationality. That's why we don't see an equally enthusiastic celebration in Hindu Northern India. Similarly New year has very little to do with Buddhism as it has to do with Sinhalese. Come to think about it, Aluth Avrudu has very little or nothing at all to do with religions.

Roots of the festival would link to the fact that agricultural communities in this region will be bringing home their harvest at this time of the year. Hence it is also a proud occasion of celebrating the labour, honest sweet work!

That brings us an interesting possibility. Sinhala Cristtians and Tamil Christians also can celebrate the New Year festival as enthusiastically as Sinhala Buddists and Tamil Hindus!! There is absolitely no reason not to! It is a very inclusive festival which has a meaning to all Sinhala and Tamil people, regardless of their religions. Since more than 99% of Christians in this country are either Sinhala or Tamil this would mean all our christian freinds can (if they so wishe) get involve in the festivities!

True, buddist will celebrate Vesak, Christians will still celebrating Christmas as their main event in the year and tamils will do so with theirs. Yet, in April we all can join together and have a great united festival. For instance, our Christian neighbours got heavily involved (and still doing so as I'm writing this post) with Kawum and Kokis making activities with us today. Alas, they seem more adapt than us on this!

If you have Christian friends neighbours, who wouldn't mind, extend them a hand to celebrate the event with you! I think this is one initiative we should promote! Somewhere in the past, some mistake has been done and Christian community was not celebrating New Year as other Tamils and Sinhalese in the country. I think this was some colonial divide and conquer tactic played on us rather than anything else. At least I haven't heard any theory yet from anyone on why Christians can not celebrate New Year festivals, in fact, looks like they (at least the ones in my neighbourhood!) are loving it!

If I'm ignorant on this and there is some deep Christian religious issue why it was happening all these years like the way it is at present, then some one please educate us on that via comments. Meanwhile.... Let's celebrate the greatest, common, most inclusive, grand cultural event in this country!

Now, this is why the Aluth Avrudu is a real blessing to this country! It can made to be even more inclusive than it is right now!!

Few more hours left..... so brothers and sisters, let's join in the celebrations!!

PS : Few updates and more thoughts after the initial post have forced me to make a part2 for this post.

A solution to road construction ?

2011-04-10T14:27:00.004+05:30

There are so many kilometers of roads being constructed in sri lanka each year. Then in the following year, there will be additional expenses in repairing them! We see most of times, how the same road getting repaired again and again while still being low in quality at times.

In the last flood alone, it was reported a staggering amount of damage (if I remember correctly, Rs 50 billion!) was done to country's road network.

There are number of reasons why road constrictions are such a big challenge to us.

1) Financial constraints. (being a developing country, we have limited budgets)

2) Corruption (Offering of the tenders to friends or under 'commissions')

3) Law quality (again, related to item 2 above. It is being said that a contractor has to "satisfy" so many people in the chain that he get left with too little to actually try and build the road itself!)

So this is a problem we all see daily and affects all of us....... Having that in mind, it is easy to see why this video is filling us with hope!

Try for your self!

This machine uses something called Layered Diagonal Herringbone style, the one most suitable for commercial brick layered roads. An approach like this with the help of technology, could solve few big issues all at once.

1) Time to build roads get drastically cut down.

2) Low wastage

3) High Quality (at least the quality will be consistent through out everywhere, making it easy to compare or spot problems)

4) Low cost (labor costs will be drastically reduced!)

5) If we still want tar or cement, may be we could still pour them over the laid out structure. (opinions of civil engineers will be good in here, don't just just the word of yours truly on this one!) Video shows this can be used with both earthen and cement blocks.

6) Biggest advantage I see is that this will reduce the need to go for contractors using the tender processes which are known to be hot beds for breeding corruption. Just imagine, if each provincial council owns a machine like this! savings could be drastic!

This last point however can be it's week point as well in the sri lankan context :-(

Those of you who are into civil engineering, construction or knows people at policy making positions, If you think this is a good technology for our country, let us spread the word! There is already enough information on web! Like this one

What do you think ?

A Pawn who fell in love with the enemy Queen!

2011-04-09T18:27:00.001+05:30

I found this little gem in youtube. A Chess love..

Meanwhile, do send in your thoughts to our interactive blogging experiment! "Why people Leave Lanka?" ....

Stay tuned....

Interactive blogging !

2011-04-08T10:52:00.000+05:30

In the coming days, I will be putting bit more time into my other two blogs. AI Game Development and Software in General.

However, I am certainly not planning to leave this blog unattended! In fact, I'm preparing for my next post... In a totally different manner ! Like to know ?

This is an experiment!

Before writing the article, I'm going to announce the topic and give 1-2 days for our readers to comment on it. Those who know me can call/email/chat with me and give me their thoughts like they have done in last few weeks, however, commenting them on here would be even better! That way there will be discussions/arguments and I will do my best to take essence from all valid points and accomadate them in the post!

Have you heard those funny Cinema experiments to provide interactive movies ? Well, this would be not that exciting, but certainly will add a new dimension to traditional blog posting. It should be possible for letting readers to take a more active role in blogging than this, right ? Taking reader's ideas BEFORE A POSTING can also lead to interesting outcomes!

What do you think ?

Let's see...

OK, Next post I'm going to write is about "Why people leaving us?"

No, it's not about broken hearts / relationship breaks or anything like that!

What I mean is why good educated professionals are leaving Sri Lanka? Is it because of selfishness or is it because Sri Lanka is really not a good place to live ? or bit of both, or something entirely different ?

More importantly, what can we do to keep our good friends in here ? Can we turn this tide on it's head ? Should we try to do it in the first place ...... So many questions!

Keep your thoughts/suggestions/questions/answers coming.....

This is going to be exciting!

Stay Tuned ................

Daily Quotes

2011-04-07T19:21:00.079+05:30

Daily winners will be archived be archived in this "hall of fame" for quotes. If you miss a daily quote, this is where you should look.

Got a good one? share with us !

Similarly, Daily images will find their resting place in here.
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Wednesday January 18th : "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." - Oscar Wilde

Sunday January 15th : "Heart of the best women is pitiless toward sorrows of a rival." - Alexander Dumas

Friday January 13th : "Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't." - Jerry Rice

Friday 8th July    : "People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Tuesday 5th July : "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" - Joseph P. Kennedy

Saturday 25th June : "The Enlightened take things Lightly." - Principia Discordia

Friday 24th June : "Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also." - George Orwell

Thursday 23rd June     : "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - Wilhelm Stekel

Wednesday 22nd June : "That government is best which makes itself unnecessary." - Wilhelm von Humboldt

Tuesday 21st June     : "Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." - Michael Jordan

Monday 20th June    : “Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sunday 19th June : "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison

Saturday 18th June     : "Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite, but they all worship money." - Mark Twain

Thursday 16th June    : "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russel

Wednesday 15th June : "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." - Winston Churchil

Tuesday 14th June : "Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential." - Winston Churchil

Monday 13th June : "Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love." - Khalil Gibran

Sunday 12th June    : "Freedom is just another word for having nothing left to lose." - Clint Eastwood

Saturday 11th June : "As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious. " - Mark Twain

Friday 10th June     : "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Wednesday 8th June : "Dignity does not come in possessing honors, but in deserving them." - Aristotle

Tuesday 7th June     : "Security is mostly a superstition... Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." - Helen Keller

Saturday 4th June    : "For myself, I am an optimist, it does not seem to be much use being anything else." - Winston Churchill

Friday 3rd June        : "It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong." - John Maynard Keynes

Thursday 2nd June   : "Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise." - William Congreve

Wednesday 1st May : “I am not my memories. I am my dreams.” - Terry Hostetler

Tuesday 31st May            : “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” – Isaac Asimov

Monday 30th May         :  "There are two kinds of freedom to be found in our world, the freedom of desires, and the freedom from desires." - Ajahn Brahm

Sunday 29th May       : "The only     thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency." - Eugene McCarthy

Saturday 28th May        : "Choose a     job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." - Confucius

Friday 27th Friday         :  "No man has     a good enough memory to make a successful liar." - Abraham Lincoln

Wednesday 25th May : "The     graveyards are full of indispensable men." - Charles De Gaulle

Tuesday 24th May : “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” - Albert Einstein

Monday 23rd May : "A mind     always employed is always happy." - Thomas Jefferson

Sunday 22nd May   : "The   difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man  knows  what to say, a wise man knows whether or not to say it."  - Frank M.  Garafola

Saturday 21st May  : “The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is because they have a common enemy.”- Unknown

Friday 20th May     : "Do not      handicap your children by making their lives too easy." - Robert A. Heinlein

Thursday 19th May : "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the  evidence.  It biases the judgment." - Sherlock Holmes

Wednesday 18th May : "Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe,  and nothing is stronger than necessity for all must submit to it." - Thales

Tuesday 17th May  : “The secret of  success is learning how to use pain and  pleasure instead of having pain  and pleasure use you. If you do that,  you're in control of your life.  If you don't, life controls you.” - Anthoney Robbins

Monday 16th May   : "We’re   all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us   love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by   trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing." - Bukowski

Sunday 15th May    : “If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” - Bruce Lee

Saturday 14th May  : "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine." - Diogenes (When Alexander The Great asked him if he wanted anything)

Tuesday 10th May   : "Are you bored with life?  Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart,  live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had  thought could never be yours." - Dale Carnegie  

Monday 9th May : “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” - Napolean Hill

Sunday 8th May   : "To appreciate heaven well, it's good for a person to have some fifteen minutes of hell " - Will Carleton

Saturday 7th May : "It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea." - Robert Anton Wilson

Friday 6th May     : "It's  easy to be miserable. Being happier is tougher—and cooler." - Thom Yorke

Thursday 5th May : "If builders built buildings the way  programmers wrote programs, then the  first woodpecker that came along  would destroy civilization." - Murphy's Laws

Wednesday 4th May : "Knowledge is  realizing that the street is one-way, wisdom is looking both directions  anyway" - Unknown

Tuesday 3rd May : "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies." - Aristotle

Monday 2nd May : "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Exupery

Sunday 1st May : “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” - Plato

Saturday 30th April : "Send me 300 francs; that sum will enable me to go to Paris. There, at least, one can cut a figure and surmount obstacles. Everything tells me I shall succeed." - Napoléon Bonaparte (in 1791, just before making  history)

Friday 29th April     : "Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in  overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Edison

Thursday 28th April : “The pessimist complains about the  wind; the optimist expects it to  change; the realist adjusts the  sails.” - William Arthur  Ward

Wednesday 27th April : "I love Mickey Mouse more than any  woman I've ever known." - Walt Disney

Tuesday 26th April    : “Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.” - Victor Hugo

Monday 25th April    : “What shall it profit a man if he  gains the whole world but loses his soul?” - Jesus Christ

Sunday 24th April     : "I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe." - Dalai Lama

Saturday 23rd April  : "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Socrates 

Friday 22nd April      : "Freedom is being happy to be where you are." - Ajahn Brahm

Thursday, 21st April : "To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true." - Bertrand Russel

Wednesday, 20th April : "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people." - Anna Eleanor Roosevelt 

Tuesday, 19th April : "Even this shall pass." - Theodore Tilton 

Monday, 18th April : "I know not with what weapons World War  III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and  stones." - Albert  Einstein

Sunday, 17th April : “In the beginning you will fall into the gaps in between thoughts – after practicing for years, you become the gap.” – J.Kleykamp (Regarding meditation) 

Saturday, 16th April : “The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friday, 15th April : A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. - Mark Twain

Thursday, 14th April : "Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man."  - Benjamin Franklin

Wednesday 13th April : "The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has." - Confucius

Tuesday 12th April : "But how could you live and have no story to tell?" - Fyodor Dostoyevskey 

Monday, 11th April 2011   : Boredom: the desire for desires. Leo Tolstoy  

Sunday, 10th April 2011 :  “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Charles Darwin

Saturday, 9th April 2011 :  "I     haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

Friday, April 8th 2011 : “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by  your anger.” - Buddha

Thursday, April 7th 2011 : "Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be." - George Carlin

A selection of interesting imgaes from the net

2011-04-07T19:02:00.059+05:30

Trouble!

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Monday 4th July : Wrong Turn
Thursday 23rd June    : oh dear
Tuesday 21st June        : Presidential Hybrid
Sunday 19th June : Happy Fathers Day! wait, what ?
Monday 13th June    : A fancy Chess Board
Sunday 12th June     : 'yes' from Eastwood
Sunday 5th June     : Tsunami Cloud
Saturday 4th June    : You are what you eat
Thursday 2nd June : Curious Owl
Wednesday 1st June : Body Building Hacker
Monday 30th May        : Scenary ++
Saturday 28th May      : Fantasy vs Reality
Friday 27th May        : Flood
Thursday 26th May    : Neat
Wednesday 25th May : Chance Encounter
Tuesday 24th May       : Refreshing!
Monday 23rd May       : Some workplace!
Sunday 22nd May    : Different Perspectives
Thursday 18th May : Traps
Sunday 7th May    : Mothers Day :-)
Friday 6th May    : Why Here?
Thursday 5th May    : Hidden Depth
Wednesday 4th May     : Breeze
Tuesday 3rd May : Finals. Live!
Monday 2nd May : Parade
Sunday 1st May : Twister
Saturday 30th April : Tornado
Friday 29th April : Timing!

Thursday 28th April : Lone Reader

Wednesday 27th April : Restaurant
Tuesday 26th April : Who's Watching Who
Monday 25th April     : Horses
Sunday 24th April    : Frozen Wave
Saturday 23rd April : Childhood
Friday 22nd April    : SpiderMan
Thursday 21st April : Must find meat ..
Wednesday 20th April : Salt Lake
Tuesday 19th April    : Baby Owl
Monday 18th April    : Humming Bird
Sunday 17th April : Greed
Saturday 16th April : Blast Off
Friday 15th April         : 5 Weeks After

Thursday 14th April    : Happy New Year!! (source flickr.com)

Wednesday 13th April : Some Bridge!

Tuesday 12th April 2011 : Image

Monday 11th April 2011 : When Down under heavy load.. (source : http://www.reddit.com)

Sunday 10th April 2011 : Butterfly (source : http://www.bbc.co.uk)

Saturday, 9th April 2011 : From Time Travel Wish List (source : http://www.daylife.com)

Friday, 8th April 2011 : Wallet

Thursday 7th April 2011 : Lines of Life

Wednesday 6th April 2011 : Best Out Of A Bad Situation

Tuesday 5th April 2011 : Back To Reality (source not known)
Monday 4th April 2011 : May Be Next time

Sunday 3rd April 2011 : Final Of The Final

Saturday 2nd April 2011 : Some guys Have All the luck

Friday 1st April 2011 : Image Of The Day - Check the Date!

Thursday 31st March 2011 : Chinese Circus

Wednesday 30th March : I'm Out Of Here!

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Every Image that will get published in "Image of the Day' section, will be archived in this resting place for them. If you miss a daily image, this is where you should look.

Similarly Daily quotes will find their resting place in here.

Enjoy!

Quote of the Day!

2011-04-07T13:55:00.000+05:30

Starting from today, there will be a new feature in this blog, "quote of the day".

Few reasons for giving out a famous quote everyday (not all are equally noble:-))

1) A good quote is like a good image. It conveys a message quickly across and powerfully.

2) Quotes are short and easy to read hence, tend to stay in memory.

3) Because a quote has to be short, creators have to pack a big idea into as fewer words as possible. In this sense they are like high powered medicine. Concentrated juice if you like! Maximum benefit for the readers for the amount of time spent on reading them!

4) A good quote can make us feel good and gives an opportunity to learn something or to experience a new way of thinking.

and some of less noble goals are :

5) Quotes are easier to find from net, no shortage at all!

6) It takes only a little time to type a quote and and link to it's source, could be handy on busy days where there is not enough time to make a new post yet want to keep the blog updated as well.

Enjoy!

PS : got a better idea! each day, when I remove the last days quote, I will append it on a dedicated quotes page in Daily Quotes. This way, there will be a quote page that is growing daily! people who miss the daily quote can always find them there! What's more you all can chip in with your own favorite quotes and share them with others via comments. When I see a good one, I will move them to the Daily Quotes page from your comments.

Similarly, I will do the same for images here in Daily Images .

King Ravana, Chess and Lanka

2011-04-06T15:15:00.001+05:30

Every once in a while we here a nice story/theory about how advance the great king Ravana was in his day and a new addition or two to the list of high tech gadgets he allegedly possessed. Air crafts, space crafts, nuclear weapons etc were never in short supply for him. (Yet he somehow managed to loose the war to a army of apes, but that's a different discussion altogether). It doesn't end there either... theories/stories expand further into describe how Ravana had links with Aliens, and how the mythical lost civilization of Atlantis was a part of Lanka once etc...

Therefore, I really didn't take it seriously when I saw a piece of news on the net claiming King Ravana has invented Chess. "Ah.. one of those Ravana stories again... must be coming from either Dr Sooriya Gunaseka, Arisen Ahubudu or Jackson Anthony" I thought. A humble person like me would normally require little bit more hard evidence to believe in simple stories like nuclear wars in 3000 or so years ago etc. (With all the respect for above knowledgeable individuals and while admiring and appreciating their creativity and imagination).

Just as I was going to pass the news item... something else caught my eye. The author (or at least the person from whom the claim is coming from) was not one from Sri Lanka! In fact, it was non-other than the current world chess champion! yes, well loved and respected Viswanathan Anand himself!

I know you may be checking the date of publication of this article now and making sure it is not April first. Yes, it is not April 1st alright! Here are few links on the story.

ndtv, The Indian, chess.com, chessBase, Susan Polgar's Blog

All these sites confirm above mentioned essay of Anand's to Time Magazine (I couldn't find the original essay itself, if someone find the link, please submit in comments) and the excerpts they present are all alike. So I deduce that Anand has indeed made the comment. Here are few key comments :

"It would take me 17 years to find that route, and along the way I've had hundreds of conversations about the origins of chess - with players, fans, officials, taxi drivers, barbers and who knows how many people who sat next to me on a plane. I've heard the ownership of chess being claimed by Russians, Chinese, Ukrainians, Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Spaniards and Greeks. My own view is that the sport belongs to everybody who plays it, but the question of its origins is easy enough to answer: chess comes from India."

Anand goes on to supplement his argument by delving into history. He says: "Our claim is based not on dominance - although the Indian school is now producing lots of high-quality players, including (ahem) the world No. 1. Some of the oldest references to the sport are found in ancient Indian texts. In the great epic Ramayana (which, according to some sources, was orally transmitted sometime between 750 B.C. and 500 B.C.), the demon king Ravana invents chess to amuse his wife Mandodari. A brilliant mind, she promptly beats him at it. My grandmother told me that story when I first began to play the game at age 6. "

Wait! isn't there something very wrong here? "chess comes from India" since it was invented by Ravana ?

Unlike nuclear weapons and space crafts, chess is something we certainly know as something which was invented long ago and there is no particular reason why it shouldn't be in King Ravana's day... Problem is Ravana is made to look like an Indian King in those paragraphs !!

Indians are well known for their reverence for king Rama and Hanuman, for them, they are Gods while Ravana is a daemon king at best. A daemon king from Lanka whom King/God Rama justifiably and gloriously beat in the war. Normally, in Hindu mythology (some may say it is history, not mythology. I don't want to argue on that here, let it be history/mythology whatever!) very little (or none at all!) respect is given to king Ravana. After all, he is the villain in the story!

Here however, we see they give the credit to Ravana (his wife Mandodari or the sister Surphanaka to be precise) for inventing chess but in all those articles the origin of Ravana himself is portrayed as in India! In no where it is mentioned about where Ravana's kingdom was, even though all present Indians and mythologists firmly believe Ravana was in Lanka and Rama's army had to cross Falk Straight to get at Ravana etc. The fact that Ravana was a Lankan king was hidden in this case.

One can't help get the feeling that Ravana is a daemon king from Lanka in all other times but except in certain times where he can be useful, at those times he is silently and conveniently being passed as a Indian king so his inventions also belongs there!

Personally, I really don't care much whether the credit for origination of Chess goes to India or Lanka, to me what matter most is how do we fare in chess at present. We are doing very poorly in chess compared to India, in that light it may seem ludicrous if Lanka too stage a claim to the origin of chess. (or may be it won't if we back it up with more facts!) I would like to think about present and future rather than living in past glory, we as a nation has a weakness for living in the past bit too much. It is true some great past Kings have done us proud.. interesting question is, "are we doing enough at present to live up to it?" However, if there is a clear error/mistake happening in reporting, it is good if can correct it. Sooner the better!

We hear all fantastic hard to believe stories like nuclear weapons, Atlantis, space crafts and even about Ravana helping Egyptians building pyramids! yet, we are letting this great invention of Chess (which is much more easier to believe and on that even Ravana's most ardent enemies agree!) pass from us. I haven't red or hear from anywhere that any of our chess fans or historians or mythologists (mind you, even the theory Anand is putting forward is based on mythology and stories nothing else!) speaking up on this story. For western world, this may be the first time most of them have even hearing about a King Ravana and that they hear as if he was an Indian King! Now that would be little wrong wouldn't it?

When we publish an article in web, we try to give a link to the source site, if we have an image we try to give credit or link to the source. In that manner one would except at least a slight mentioning about Lanka when one is talking about Ravana and trying to claim something he has invented as theirs. One can't help thinking that above courtesy haven't been done in this case. May be this was something not intentionally done from Anand's part (for the gentleman he is), may be the press got that part missed.

Ideally, if Ravana indeed has invented chess, the credit should come few hundred kilometers southwards! Of course one can not except foreigners to talk on behalf of Lanka and carry Lanka's name forward, it should be up to Lankans. This is the biggest problem I see about Lankan historians and fans of Ravana, while they are busy trying to prove much fancier (and harder to prove) theories, they have let a real gem pass under them without even taking notice!

May be that is because Ravana fans and historians in Lanka were not that aware or interested in chess! Come to think of it, chess fans are rare in Lanka, Ravana admirers or historians are rarer still. Intersection of these two groups may be negligible! (The fact that there is a International chess tournament in Sri Lanka named after Ravana may mean it is not that negligible after all!) While in India chess is huge, and thanks to Ramayana and everyday worshiping of Hanuman and Rama as Gods, Ravana (even as a daemon!) too is a house hold name.

If there are any Lankan chess fans who are equally into history / mythology / and/or a admirers of Ravana, may be this is a topic they can and should take onwards and take into the world. That way, even if Lanaka to loose the battle on the origination of chess, at least Lanka will keep their Ravana!

Come to think of it... it would be a fun argument and a campaign to have, it will at least generate some attention to Lanka and Chess both, (not to mention Tourism) nothing much to loose anyway!

What do you think ?

PS : I found the original Times Article.

Wonderings on UFOs and a theory on conspiracy theories

2011-04-05T15:04:00.001+05:30

UFOs are a favorite subject for many, and a hot topic for some. Rather Disappointingly, I don't have anything new to add onto UFO sightings or theories. So, don't blame me if you end up leaving here disappointed! (always safe to keep expectation low!)

Yet, there was a time I wondered on following channels of thoughts....

Assume (just for a minute, don't get carried away!) that UFOs actually are real and there are indeed extra terrestrial beings more intelligent than us, watching on us everyday. Now, if we do believe that (again, only for a moment, imagine just for the argument's sake), we will ultimately have to deduce that there is a conspiracy by governments and higher authorities to cover up that 'fact'.

That is, either all those stories about UFO sightings are just hoaxes and/or misguided beliefs, illusions. Or at least some of them are real (if just one story is real then that will do for the pro UFO camp!) in this case, since no government, air force, NASA, etc admits such an event, a pro UFO enthusiast will eventually have to also believe in a combined government conspiracy to hide the 'truth' from public. Otherwise it will simply be impossible to explain how US/Russian/Sri Lankan government, NASA, air forces in the world can not see what many people have seen. I hope I'm clear this far.

Now, I don't belong in any of those camps. Personally I'm just open on this subject like many of you who read this. When we don't have good enough facts or knowledge on something, sometimes it is best to just stay shut up! However, like mentioned before, I did have this crazy way of reasoning once. Just assume (for the arguments sake only) that UFOs are real and then wonder why should a government and/or some other body should try to conceal that knowledge from general public. Most common answers would be to prevent a mass panic, use that knowledge and technology as a weapon, to keep a competitive technological advantage over other nations etc, But I came up something far more interesting to ponder upon! something little bit more controversial yet sounds logical at the same time!

If you are not bored already, you are now in a position to click below and read that old article I have written on that point. If there is a conspiracy to cover up UFOs what is it and why such a conspiracy is necessary ? Now, this doesn't mean UFOs do exist or there is a conspiracy to cover them up or anything like that! This is just a train of certain thoughts. Also, it doesn't reflect any prejudice towards any religion. In fact, the article also tries to understand if there are certain set of believes which can influence a person to believe in extra terrestrial.

In fact, what I present here is not even a personal opinion. Just publishing a certain thought because I haven't heard from anywhere else before and found it as interesting (at least in a conceptual and an intellectual way)

Of all the posts I have written back then, this short old post was the one which got red most and triggered most conversations/arguments at the time. You are welcome to share your thoughts on this as well...

Alright, now that I believe I have taken adequate security measures, over to the wonderful world of c onspiracy theories on UFOs.....

Post-Mortem on World Cup Final

2011-04-04T13:46:00.000+05:30

This blog is getting increasingly like a cricket blog, which was not my intention at all. So for all those who are not much into Cricket, I do apologize a bit and promise that there won't be a cricket post for a while AFTER THIS. Really and seriously....

At the same time, I do hope it will be OK by all to bare with me for one last cricket post. After all, a world cup comes only once in 4 years and a world cup with our team in the finals has happened only twice for the whole 10 000 or so history of "modern" human civilization! Surely, no harm giving some coverage to such a rare event ?

Now then, back to the finals.... As so many people in this country keep asking, "what happened to SL team? why did Sri Lanka loose ?" Well, first of all, India and SL both teams were at least equally likely to win and India was the tournament favorites and the final was played there under conditions which are more suitable and familiar to them. In that light, even the very question "why SL lost ?" become less important as it shouldn't be a much of a surprise to many. It just was one of 2 equally likely out comes to happen. So, cool down......... Nothing wrong in an Indian victory. They were a good team too and certainly the better team on that night.

However, SL did win the toss. Courageously (after loosing the way early) posted a imposing target of 275 . What's more, SL bowlers (Malinga) dismissed both high profile Indian openers early. Therefore we can ask the same question little bit more specifically. Why (and how) SL lost after getting India into 31 for 2 wickets ? Now, that's an interesting question indeed! We have heard so many cricket pundits voiced their opinion on this and heard many theories, so much so that this topic already sounds like old news.

Surely, everything which need to be discussed is already discussed and done with, right ? Since all experts have already given their verdicts and we have already made up our minds and are happy with runners up, not much point going over this again right ? What more can laymen like us add new into this discussion ?

Well, all those are very valid points and I don't have a convincing argument to even to make you read rest of the article (or for me to write the rest in the first place!). Yet, I do think some of verdicts people have given and some of expert comments on this are utterly non sense. Some real issues and reasons were never discussed in my mind. So here we go .........

First of all, few off the mark (according to me) reasons as to why SL lost.

1) SL could have taken at least 350 to stop the strong Indian batting line up. (275 was not enough)

This argument really came only after Sanga did his diplomatic and sporty comments to the press after the game. (hats off to that speech, he had to say something graceful like that in front of the press after losing the world cup final. One has to praise the winning team and give the due credit to their batters, thats the sensible way of handling the press after all, and Sanga being a skillful lawyer himself, knows it better than you and me!) However, during the first 3 quarters of the game I heard no one saying 275 is not enough! This was a world cup final, Indians were playing under pressure in front of their crowd. They were playing under lights. If all those were not enough, consider this : Tendulkar and Sehvag both were already back in the pavilion well before even the start of bowling power play!

Do you really believe SL batters haven't put a decent score to defend ? SL was considered to be possessing the strongest bowling attack in the tournament. 275 was enough to win! (it was only made to look smaller, ore on that later) that was not the reason why SL lost. At least it alone can not explain the SL defeat after putting India on 31 for 2 at one stage!

2) Choosing Kapugedara over Chamara Silva and/or Kulasekara over Rangana Herath.

This is not it either. After injury to Matthews, SL was forced to pick the other all rounder Thisara Perera. But he was not enough replacement for Matthews' batting for SL has already having a issue with middle order batting strength, so they have decided to include Kula as well to bolster batting and to get something out of the wicket which was offering some bounce. A totally justifiable option! The fact that Kapugedara didn't perform with the bat was a non issue here. (It is actually a sub argument of point 1 above. SL did make a good score even without Kapugedara scoring, so how can it explain the loss ?) I think selectors were spot on on all those decisions. Selecting Thisara, Kula and Kapugedara and omiting Chamara Silva and Rangana Herath was OK.

3) Angelo Mathews got injured.
This again is a sub argument of point 1 above. SL did score enough even without Mathews! Unless someone is saying Matthews was one of our strike bowlers, this argument doesn't make much sense. For those who say Matthews could have made a difference as a fielder and a bowler. I simply do not agree. He may have done a little difference but not enough to change the result! Mathews was not among top Sri Lankan strike bowlers whom they depended on taking wickets.

4) Dew.
It set only in final 20 overs or so, the game was already starting to go Indian way by then. Besides, Sri Lankan spinners did perform well even with the dew against NZ in the group stages. We heard the stories those days about how they practiced with wet balls etc.. Once again, total absence of dew might have made some impact but not enough to change the result of the game.

Now then. What really made them loose then ? 275 on board, India were 31/2 and without Tendulkar and Sehvag. What really happened from there....

1) Choosing Randiv against Mendis.
To me this is it! Mendis was the most economical bowler in the Sri Lankan team throughout the tournament. He was considered a top strike bowler as well. One who can take wickets! Why dropping him and bringing Randiv whom wasn't even on the squad and haven't played a game for months is simply beyond me. I heard Arnold making the comment that India can pick Mendis well and so he was not in. This is poor reasoning in my mind. When was the last time India played against Mendis ? When we had his recent bowling figures to back him, (the real evidence) why worry over how Indians handled him in the past ? Mendis's recent figures suggested he has done his home work and improved as a bowler and was performing well in the competition. If that's not enough, what is ? If SL had Mendis bowling at Indians with all his variations on an assisting pitch with turn and bounce both, that would have been some sight to watch. Since there was a sizable score on board, Mendis could have bowled with lot of freedom, concentrating on wickets.

To back it further, look at following statistics of top SL bowlers, first figure is runs per wickets, second is runs given per over :
Murali 19.40, 4.09
Malinga 20.74, 5.54
Dilshan 15.75, 4.06
Mendis 19.14, 3.14

Mendis is not only the most economical, no other bowler is even near him on runs per over! As a short note, one also get the feeling whether Sri Lanka has under used Dilshan. He has the best average and second best economy rate, yet has bowled very few. Shouldn't they have used Dilshan more in the power-plays instead of Thisara and Nuwan Kulasekara ?

2) Bad fielding
This is the most obvious one and almost all have got this one right. SL fielding was not worthy for a international game let alone for a world cup final! A drop catch, a missed run out, several over throws, misses at the boundary line etc. This is one big reason why the good score 275 was made to look like a smaller total and a one which is hard to defend. Of course you can not defend even 300 if you are dropping catches and mis fielding resulting in additional runs!

3) Seemers (except the slinger) Giving it away.
This need some statistics to prove :
Muralitharan : 39 off 8 overs (rate under 5)
Randiv : 43 off 9 (rate under 5)
Malinga : Malinga 42 off 9 with two wickets (rate under 5)
Dilshan : 27 off 5 with a wicket (rate under 5.5)

We used to say spinner didn't deliver on that day, yet the chart shows they havn't done that badly either. True, they couldn't take wickets but yet they managed to keep the run rate checked. India needed a rate of 5.5, All the bowlers listed above managed that while taken 3 top wickets among them.

In total, Murali, Malinga, randiv and part timer Dilshan has bowled total of 31 overs between them and given away 151 runs for 3 wickets. Not only they have given below 5 runs per over, the 3 huge wickets they have got all came at an early stage of the match! making maximum impact. Malinga was also the one who had bowled most balls in power plays. Rest of specialized bowlers had to bowl 19 overs and only had to give something below 6.5 per over!

So we could afford to be little specific and say Kulasekara and Thisara Perera were the actual ones who failed with the bowl that day. (not to mention the missed catch) Between them they had bowled 18 and gave away 119 for just a single witket! Even that wicket came too late to make any impact on the match.

True, spinners didn't win Sri Lanka the match but they haven't lost it for them either. Rather than saying the entire SL bowling line up was a total disaster, I think we can safely say that only 2 bowlers had issues that night.

4) Indians batted really well.
This I think is the main reason above all the rest! specially M.S Dhoni batted brilliantly and easily smothered any Sri Lankan come back at it's inception. His brave decision to bat up in the order paid up nicely.

In summary, If SL had Mendis bowling at Indians, Sharp fielding instead of sloppy nut pickings and dozen loose deliveries less, we could have see a much tense struggle than that.

Congratulations India, you were the deserved winners!

Image of the Day - Final of the Final

2011-04-03T12:59:00.000+05:30

Source : http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/image/509275.html

Note : There will not be a separate post for "Image of the Day" from today onwards. Instead, it will appear on top, left (yes, on that place where you today see the disappointed faces of SL team members)

Image of the Day - Some guys have all the luck !

2011-04-02T12:35:00.000+05:30

No explanations needed!

From http://imgur.com/ibXFt

Can you name this singer ?

2011-04-02T11:49:00.000+05:30

Can you name the singer in this cool video ?

If you can not, there will be few hints in comments in a while. (don't look!)

Image of the Day !

2011-04-01T12:31:00.000+05:30

Image of the Day!

2011-04-01T10:45:00.001+05:30

This Image, comment and it's reply all appeared in today's dailymirror.lk site. I cropped it to suit into a single Image. Hope the comments are readable. (click on and view on full screen)

Cricket World Cup 2011 - Final round-up and predictions

2011-03-31T15:46:00.000+05:30

In an earlier post, I made a disastrous attempt at predicting the results. Only 2 out of my 6 predictions came true. Then again, even cricket pundits couldn't foresaw AUS and SA both missing semi finals. So I guess not much harm a person like me missing them. However, that episode convinced me not to venture into cricket predicting business ever again.

So we wouldn't see any prediction in this post. (even if the title of the post says otherwise!)

India vs Sri Lanka at Mumbai on April 2nd 2011 !

That would be some match! 2 best cricket teams in the competition pitted against each other.

Best spinners vs best batters against spinners!
Bad fielders against even worse!
Fanatic cricketing nation against another even bigger fanatic cricketing nation!

and the list goes on....

Who would win the toss? apart from all the other things, the side winning toss would have much higher % of winning the match. Sri Lanka so far have lost the toss in both quarter finals and semi finals while India have won it in the last match. Will Sri Lanka lose the toss for the third consecutive time?
Will Sachin finally get his 100th international 100?
Will Sri Lankans be able to end Murali's last international match on a high?

We will see the answers for all those in 2 more days. (Now that I can not predict anymore....)

World Cup Holders :

Australia 4 (1992, 2000, 2003, 2007)
West Indies 2 (1980, 1984)
Sri Lanka 1 (1996)
Pakistan 1 (1988)
India 1 (1984)

Winner of Saturdays match will overtake West Indies in the above list of all time cup holders. More than that, they will be the kings in One day Internationals till 2015!

Some other (less obvious) insights :

If India wins, how many additional energy will be consumed over the next week? (if every Indian fan watches TV for additional hour, multiply that much of energy in few billions and so on.... has someone done those calculations ?)

How will the result impact Indian stock market ? Will the people be optimistic/pessimistic resulting in a huge change in a day?

What about the productivity loss on Monday if India wins the match on Saturday? (again, think about a person drinking and partying on Sunday and then spend the time in the office Monday chatting/celebrating with buddies. calculate the loss of productivity and multiply it by few billions!)

If Sri Lanka win, there will be a holiday declared on Monday for sure! Still it will not be sufficient to make a noticeable difference either way since Sri Lankans already having so many holidays per year.

Now to the all important bets and gambling business ...

How would the odds against one of these teams change on winning/loosing the toss on this particular ground ?

How will the odds change if India loses Sehvag early ?

All in all, it would be one heck of a match. So far the biggest cricket match against these 2 teams was that famous encounter in 1996 semi final. It was a pretty much one sided affair then.

This match certainly eclipses that one in terms of importance and looks like the same would hold true this time around in terms of competitiveness as well.

open for debates and thoughts ..... What do you think ?

Image of the day!

2011-03-31T10:23:00.000+05:30

We are going to introduce a new feature to this blog. Every day there will be an image, which will be special in some way.

How do we define "special" ?

What is the selection criteria for the "Image of the day" ?

Well... for the time being we will decide all that ourselves and like true dictators in a democratic world, will pick whatever WE choose and thrust it on others :-)

Jokes apart, if you have a good image you can send us the url via a comment to the "Image of the day" post. If we like it, (or if we like you) we will pick it as the image for the next day. Who knows.. if this turns out to be interesting we could have a poll one day to select the best image of the day! (like true democrats in a dictatorial world)

Just make sure you don't send offensive stuff and to mention the source if it belongs to someone else! That's it. No more rules!

URL (source I got it from) for todays image : http://i.imgur.com/fiLXD.jpg

Shaun Tait - New high in uncontrolled sledging in Cricket

2011-03-28T19:25:00.000+05:30

Shaun Tait has announced his retirement from One Day Internationals today. On one hand we should feel sorry for the early loss of arguably the fastest bowler in the circuit today. On the other hand... well, I think he was also arguably the most uncontrolled and most uneducated sledger the game has seen in recent past.

This is the famous episode against Dilshan in the WCC match against SL. Look 0:40 onwards and one can even see clearly the words he has used at top of his voice without any provocation. In fact it was used as planned ploy to provoke the batsman. One could say it is game tactics while another may see it as a downright uncivilized behavior in what was called the gentleman's game.

Sledging of course is nothing new and Tait was not the only one involved, Infact SL captain Kumar Sangakkara was once known as "Most Educated Sledger" in the game. Sanga's tactic was different but aimed at the same objective : to unnerve the batsman. However, Sanga didn't mix it (or at least not recorded as) with bad language, threatening behavior or with hate. In fact, he did it with wits and control in a non-offensive manner, hence the title "Most Educated Sledger".

There are other versions as well, most of times fast bowlers are the most notorious rule breakers, Australian fast bowlers in particular. So much so that it has become a common sight to see a Australian bowler muttering something insulting to the batsman after a delivery. See Bret Lee for instance, specially in his very first over. One get the feeling sometimes that they require it to get charged up. Of non Australian bowlers Javagal Srinath and Nehra, comes to mind but there are many others involving almost every team.

Spinners are not totally innocent either. Shane Warne and Harbajahn Singh for instance. I think Shane Warne wasn't using bad language in as uncontrolled manner as Shaun Tait did. Matthew Hayden once described Harbajan as an 'obnoxious weed', wonder how would he categorize the countryman Tait in that same scale!

If sledging is so common, why are we talking about it so much ? I think with Tait in this world cup, things got nastier than the tolerable levels. Specially in the match AUS vs IND. Tait was seen repeatedly sending off bad mouthed insults at Tendulkar and other Indian batsman. One gets the feeling that the bowler was certainly not fit as a sane sportsman in any sport not just in the so called gentleman's game. Is this the example we should set for youngsters watching or is this the spirit of the game or the spirit of sport in general ? Qualities like respecting the opponents, appreciate good cricket from anyone when we see it, taking win/loss both gracefully etc are all seems old fashioned now and players are just after each others throats.

Let us just compare Sachin with Tait. One is just a novice (comparatively) even though he can bowl fast at times, other is a legend often compared with Sir Don, perhaps the greatest batsman we have seen in our times. What kind of feeling does one get when you see the inexperienced kid sledging away at a legend ? utter lack of respect, not just for a great name in cricket but for the game itself! This is why the behavior could be described as Most Uneducated Sledging. Uncontrolled hate should have no place in sport. If one is unable to get motivated by patriotism and belief in self or by the desire to perform and excel, and if one need to get physically abusive and beastly to charge himself up and perform, such individuals are not good ambassadors for the game or for their countries, and hence not good sportsman, to say the least.

ICC should enforce a code of conduct in here. We know tennis players get huge fines where they swear and get caught in the camera. In tennis, players actually swear out of self frustration and it usually directed on themselves rather than the opponents who are at the other end of the caught. If it is still punishable, how come Tait's behavior in the video (0:40 onwards) get unnoticed ? Whether his retirement has something to do with his behavioral problems, I don't know. However, ICC certainly has an issue to address here. It is clearly straightforward with today's technology to find, prove and fine the culprits and save the image of the game. Why should we let the game degraded into this level ? even in a world cup where everybody watch ?

It would be unfair if we don't mention the good players and teams in here. Very seldom that one see a NewZealander or a West indies fast bowler sledging at opponents. West Indies in particular has a huge culture and tradition of fast bowling. Malcolm Marshal, Courtney Walsh, Ambrose etc comes to mind. Those great players were exemplary in this regard. If such greats after archiving such great feats could still do it without barking away at the opponents and can still be modest enough to respect the opponents, what excuse can a novice like Tait have for failing to behave ? England, may have had problems in the past but the current team certainly seems not to have any problems of extra aggressive/abusive individuals. South Africans are another great example, for they too are famous for quick bowlers, those who have earned it by performance of their arms and not mouths that is.

One theory to explain the behavior may be found from psychology, players who have not mentally strong enough to cope with the challenges on field or does not have enough skills or self confidence to cope with the proceedings can easily resort into cheap tactics of over aggressive behaviors, while the true greats who can perform without that are doing so. May be that's why we don't see much bad behavior or worst type of sledging from great players. Take the highest wicker takers, take Murali, Can you remember a moment he was insulting the batsman or trying to unnerve by putting verbal pressure ? I may be biased here, but I certainly take pride in Sri Lankan bowlers who not only refrain from throwing bad words at batsman they even smile most of time. Lasith Malinga and Murali comes to mind.

Indian bowling greats are same. How often was Anil Kumble charging opposition batsman with foul words ? However Indian quick bowlers need to learn a lesson here and not follow the example of Australians. They can find better examples from home and else where, someone needs to tell that to Nehra for instance.

Cricket could be a great vehicle to promote friendship and understanding among nations. We should not let it degrade into a level that it become a vehicle to spread hate, rivalry and mis understanding among nations and cricket fans. If I were the Australian ambassador for India at the time of Tait swearing at Tendulkar on TV where millions of Indian fans watching, I wouldn't be enjoying the moment.

From Semi Finals - Into the Finals

2011-03-28T10:58:00.000+05:30

ICC World Cricket Cup 2011 has reached it's climax. NZ and SL will fight it out tomorrow in Colombo while PAK and IND will slug it out in Mohali, day after.

SL is considered the favorite to win the first semi final comfortably, while IND is expected come through after a tense fight. My earlier predictions were proved mostly wrong. BD didn't come into quarters, AUS didn't come into Semis and SA didn't come into Semis either. With that kind of a success rate, I should not venture into the prediction business again!

It will be good for the Cricket to have a SL vs Ind final. After all, these were the two teams who were favorites at the start. Ranked number 2 and 3 in the world (top rank team, defending champ, AUS is now gone out of the tournament). In subcontinent conditions, I think most will agree that the best two teams are in the finals if that were to happen. Of course PAK supporters will disagree here. In fact I think they at least have 40% of chance to beat the strong Indian team.

If we omit unpredictables and special events (such as a brilliancy from a single player deciding the match, toss playing a vital role etc). India is the stronger and hence more likely team to win in the semi. However I'm still little doubtful on their ability to hold the nerve in a crunch situation mainly due to the fanatic nature and huge expectations of billions of Indian fans, PAK might see an opportunity there. This applies to SL vs NZ as well..... One certainly can not rule out an upset(s) in the semi's

Anyway, at the moment it looks like a Ind vs SL final. Who would win that one ? When you compare team strengths head to head, it is easy to figure that IND is stronger in batting line up while SL is stronger in bowling. SL was considered (once) as a better fielding side than India, but not anymore after the 4 easy catches they dropped in the quarter finals against England!

So it looks close!

India will have additional pressure in front of home crowd and SL will feel bit relaxed with the underdog tag. In a huge match like this where team strengths are more or less even. It will all come down into three factors.

1) Who will win the toss
2) Who will manage to keep their heads normal under pressure.
3) Individual brilliancies, players who can win matches alone. (Sachin, Sehvag, Yuvraj, Khan for India. Malinga, Murali, Mendis, Dilshan, Sanga for SL)

Whats' your pick ?

Moods and mental statuses.

2011-03-22T16:23:00.000+05:30

This wonderful painting was briefly on at number 1 on reddit today. Fascinating isn't it ? One could very easily figure out the mental state, the problem or the mood the painter was on at the time of drawing. Few other details as well : one he is smoking is definitely not tobacco, not only it;s bit too long to be a regular cigarette but the expression on his face.. my god! tobacco is certainly not capable of generating such a mood on it's own alone!

Poor fellow seems like suffering a lot from his loss, the female figure suggests most probably his ex partner is no more (either dead or has left him, either way the same result!) the smoker seems to getting consoled by whatever he is smoking....

Anyway, back to our subject. Moods and Mental statuses. Do you really think the fellow in the picture is actually getting any consolation with the aid of what he is smoking ? I would say that he is reliving in his past memories. Since he can not live in those exact memories at present, this reliving can not be generating happy thoughts as we can so clearly see from the fantastic painting.

Why do we tend to relive in past moments and suffer ? what is a mood and what is a mental state ? I think a mood is exactly nothing more than reliving in a past experience either good or bad. When our mind want to indulge in a happy thought we could think about a past happy moment (or an implication of that) and we could be happy. Reverse is also true. When we get angry we know exactly what kind of a mood we should be having don't we ? that too comes from past experience, we know exactly how to enjoy and act up an angry mood. All our related past thoughts, experiences, memories come to us in a flash and "help" us relive in that mood.

As for the past, whether it is happy or sad or angry or whatever, it has already gone. it's no more! just a mirage, a never accessible, never real phantom! So what's the point ?

In a philosophical sense, most of our emotions, perceptions, moods are conveyed to us by our past memories, memory paths or thinking patterns we have been trained to exercise. In other words we are kind of hard wired to react in certain ways to certain situations. Good thing is, if we can be empowered with that knowledge, that is to be aware of this little trick our minds are playing on us (and we fall prey to it most of times it does that to us), then we can have a way out! It shows that all moods and mental statuses are in the end nothing more than our own choices. There is no such state as happy, or sad or angry. They all are decisions, choices!

It is us who want to relive in them, cherish and sink into them, surrendering our present thoughts to the old, set thinking patterns. If we wanted to we might just as well decide to relive in another different past state instead, or how about live in the present ? Easily said than done.. isn't it ?

One problem is that we are not always aware that we actually decide to relive in a past moment, we feel like it automatically happened to us, that we got sad, or we got angry for a reason. While it can be true that the direct cause for our happiness sadness or anger can be visible, immediate and very real but we are here analyzing the corresponding mental reaction to that cause. Mental reaction has a large part of a decision making, it is we who decide (or let it happen) what mental state we are going to adopt to that situation. For instance, should we let it pass as a joke or an insult ? It is that mental reaction which is going to then decide our mental state.

Yet, it's a fascinating thought. If only we could very aware of each small little changes happen in our mind... if we can instantly understand when our mind is trying to indulge in a past sad memory ? if we can quickly know our mind is going to indulge in anger as soon as it started to trying that.... aha. what a bliss that would be. If that was the case, we could break free from all mental agony, we stay open to what our mind suggest us, then we choose only what we want. we don;t let mind to control our moods and take us anywhere it want to take us. We get a grip on life. We let go of past feelings good or bad because they are just that. past feelings. If we just could let go of those mental tides, we could may be able to float in calmer soothing peaceful lake instead of being among tidal waves of mental emotions.

I think as in everything, here too training can do us wonders.

I think a trained mind can achieve that. At least the process of that training will bring us some lasting wisdom and peace..... I wish.

What do you think ?

World Cup Cricket Quotes : Kamran Jokes

2011-03-10T16:26:00.000+05:30

Few funny quotes users have sent to cricinfo live coverages. History : In the match Pak vs Nz, Pakistan lost sensationally due to many reasons. However, seems like people have picked Kamran Akmals (Pakistani wicket Keeper) dropped catches as the main reason.

I personally think Ross Taylors superb inning should be given it's due credit, then again he too was dropped by Kamran.... anyway, here's the list : (Names mentioned are those of viewers who has posted those to cricinfo)

Kabira: " I hope that Kamran's wife doesn't let him hold their babies! "

Arpan: "Behind every successful batsman, there is Kamran Akmal"

Brenton: "Kamran's favourite movie: Catch Me If You Can" And his favourite book? "The dropper in the rye"

Asif: "Elton Chigumbura's birthday on the day they play Pakistan .. Good signs for him .. only if Kamran plays as a keeper"

Hari: "Famous DON movie dialogue in Kamran's way "CATCH ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi, Namumkin hey". (someone who is good in Hindi, translate this one for us please )

Naila: Why is Umar Akmal the best batsman in the Akmal family? Because he got the most chance to bat in the back yard as Kamran Akmal kept dropping him."

And why did Adnan Akmal become a keeper? Since too many balls kept going into the bush behind the pitch when Kamran was keeping.

Ali: "After the last match Pakistan team management was found anxiously searching for the Birthdays of Aussies, if there is any on 19th March"

Paras: "Why can't Kamran Akmal be a Pakistani team selector? Because he will keep dropping everyone from the squad!"

vivek: "Kamran could be a good brand ambassador for Save water campaign. "Every drop counts"."

Abadit: "Why did Kamran Akmal have to walk back to the team hotel after the match? Because he failed to catch the bus! :)"

What is Kamran Akmal's favourite pick up line? 'Can I drop you somewhere?'

Note: added few more later. (April 3rd)
Geoffrey Boycott : "I could've stopped 'em better with my coat."

Ian Chappell : "If his batting was as good as Don Bradman's, he couldn't score enough runs to make up for what he costs them with his keeping."

and these are non related to Kamran...

Anas: "Looks like Sangakara has padded up ONLY for wicketkeeping today." (after sri lankan opening batsman having a long partnership going, Sanga is the man next to come, so is waiting all padded up)

Andy Zaltzman: "Team news: Zimbabwe's attempt to kidnap and use Lasith Malinga foiled just as they were trying to squeeze him into Tatenda Taibu's shirt..."

and my pick as the best...

Mickey Arthur : "The monkey's almost become a gorilla now and until we win an ICC event it's always going to be there I'm afraid."
(admits the pressure is piling up on South Africa to break their World Cup jinx)

Let us help him win his life back!

2011-02-27T11:41:00.000+05:30

Life is unpredictable and fragile. What happens today to other can happen to us tomorrow....

Let's help this guy (Ilandaariya) to win his life back.

Note : I just measured how long it actually took for me to get into the BOC branch on my way to office, contribute a small amount (it wouldn't have taken a longer time even if it was a bigger amount :-) ), and just continue to office. It took me only 10 minutes!

Most of the time when we think of doing a good deed, either 3 things (at least) influence us negatively.

1) lack of trust on the genuineness of the story.
This is definitely a non issue in here. Almost all in the blogging community in the country knows about him and there is absolutely no doubt about the authenticity.

2) lack of money to contribute in a meaningful way
Again, it is not only you and me alone, so many people are contributing. Whatever amount we can spare will definitely help to make an impact.

3) lack of time to invest on it since our daily routines are almost packed.
As I just measured, it took me only 10 extra minutes!! It might be slightly different in your case, yet... that's the magnitude of it. It is certainly not something which takes an hour even!

World Cup is upon is!

2011-02-19T14:57:00.000+05:30

2011 ICC World Cup. Who will win it this time ?

In the last presidential and general elections in SL, I had few predictions but didn't dare publishing them. Ironically, final results came very close to my predictions and I'm determined not to do the same mistake this time.

Besides, there is really nothing to loose by having a go and let the world know what your 'predictions' are. If they work, you may get some attention/recognition/glory/nothing at all or whatever. If not, you will be just like what you are right now. see, nothing to loose at all!

Many say India and Sri Lanka are the favorites. Really one doesn't need to be genius or an expert in cricket to say that, it's just obvious. India and Sri Lanka has to be among favorites, beside rankings and recent form, most of matches they play will be on their home grounds!

However, here is my prediction on India.

1) India will not be in Finals!

There, I said it...

Reasoning ? well, it's not a difficult one either if one look into history. India is not well known for putting up with the extra large pressure and expectations put up by billions of Indian fans. If one looks at their current team, it has many stalwarts at key places on whom the team relies upon. Tendulkar, Sehvag, Dhoni, Harbajan, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj etc. These players were the backbone of many Indian teams before this tournament, unfortunately, they don't have a good track record of (while offering a mild apology to Tendulkar) putting up with the pressure put up by home crowd. There is simply more chance for the same things to happen again.....

On the record sheet and statistics India are on top. psychologically, billion fans and billion expectations (and the little bit of extra pressure generated by the knowledge that their houses will be stoned and burnt by the 'loving' fans in case of poor performance) would be too much for them.

hmm.. what about Sri Lanka ?

Champions in 96, semi finalists in 2003, finalists and runner up in 2007.. although that look good on paper, Sri Lanka has had a little problem of winning big matches since late 90's. apart from above mentioned 2003, 2007 campaigns, they lost another worldcup final (20-20 format, against Pakistan). I think Sri lanka will come to finals but I'm not putting my money on what will happen in the finals. It could be any man's game at that stage....

2) SL will be in Finals

Dark Horse : it is funny to see the Kangaroo as the dark horse. After all, AUS are the current champions and number one ranked, continuously champions since 2000! Still, not many are rating them among hot favorites considering their recent form and subcontinent conditions. However I think AUS are pretty underrated. If one compare the current squad with the winning squad in 2007, many faces are still there. Ponting, Clarke, Hussy, Lee, Watson are players who can win matches.

3) AUS will be in Semi Finals (at least, and a likely candidate for finals)

SA has acquired a reputation as a side haunted by bad luck in world cups. However, there is an end to everything, likewise this haunting too has a place it should eventually end. Mr Smith has a very competent side with him which recently managed to mauld India.

4) SA will be in Semi Finals. (at least, and a likely candidate for finals)

Many rate ENG as a top side in world cricket these days. Indeed their fast ascend in the ranking ladder and the recent results are very impressive. Yet, I'm not totally convinced. Their recent drubbing at the hands of out of form australians in australia reminded us of old England. More importantly I feel this England team is not tested enough in subcontinent pitches yet. (despite noting that they have a world class spinner in Swann) Also, most of their team members havnt proved them selves in the subcontinet. (yet)

5) ENG will not be in Semi Finals

One last prediction :

6) BA will be in Quarter finals! (this is the riskiest prediction yet and I think as the one which is most likely to backfire on me, yet I will say this) most probably, at the expense of WI.

Let's see how many of these will come true!

I guess most of you have already figured out which team I'm supporting my self.

Go Lions !

The New Blog

2011-02-19T12:09:00.000+05:30

Today I started a new blog to dedicate to my long term hobby, Artificial Intelligence in games and puzzles.

This blog will discuss on gaming theory, algorithms and my experiences of developing games. More than theory, the blog will attempt to discuss individual puzzles/games and the challenges in solving/playing them.

It will also concentrate on winning strategies for AI engines. While I intend to share some of my code/algorithms to facilitate discussions among developers, the blog will mostly for anybody who has an interesting in solving puzzles, programmers or not.

see you there... !

Value of Miracles

2010-11-18T15:30:00.000+05:30

A little but true (as recorded) story...

Once Lord Buddha had to cross a river on his way to some place. As usual he was traveling with Ananda, whom is mentioned as possessing an amazing memory and later helped to document and store every single thing which he witnessed while being with Buddha.

Now, on this particular day, Buddha was waiting peacefully on the river bank for the ferry to arrive. Ananda too was waiting very respectfully and attentively to his teacher as he was used to for many years. For our luck, (to satisfy our need for a story) at this otherwise boring time, a series looking person with a long beard and long hair turned up at the river bank. He had the air of a holy man who possessed many mental skills and the ability to perform few miracles of his own.

The holy man paid little or no attention to the Buddha or Ananda, more interestingly, not much even to the river! for he started performing one of his favorite skills then and there and proceed to promptly walk across on the surface of the water! Soon he reached the opposite bank and walked away. Buddha with his limitless wisdom and compassion, stood calm, happy and peaceful with himself as he always was. Ananda (who was not yet an Arahath), however was little bit taken aback.... To think that the great lord Buddha who is second to none on mental prowess was made to look like a child in front of many people was bit too much for him.

Buddha still silent, calm, unmoved. Ananda has even started to look apologetically at the people around him. (for failing to entertain them as much as the holy man did) Finally the ferry arrived and all got the the other bank. Ananda was relieved that they are finally alone and away from on lookers.

Buddha spoke first, "is something bothers you Ananda ?"
"Yes Sire", came the brisk reply. "Couldn't we have done the same.. I mean err, without waiting for the ferry like the holy man did ?"

Buddha had a pleasant smile, one coming from a limitless compassion and wisdom. Even Ananda was made to feel at ease.

"Ananda, What was the fare you paid to the ferry man ?"
"Oh my lord, just 2c... regular fare."
"Aha Ananda.... so you now know the exact value of that skill" !!

A Poem

2010-06-27T15:25:00.000+05:30

Such emptiness, heartache ....
and no one to stretch out a hand in comfort
when storms overtake us.

year after year,
all our best years escape us.

To love, but why should we ?
for a while it's not worth the strain.

And life,
if you look around with cool headed attention,
is empty
and rather a second rate joke!

-- Mikael Lermentov ---

කවියක්...

2010-06-27T14:33:00.000+05:30

යන්තම් හය හත වන විටම මැර සලෙල කළුවර
යහනට අඩ ගසයි ලඳ බොලඳ අහසට
එවිටත් ඉරී ගොසින් රිවි කිරණ ඇඳි වත

පෙනේ වලා පැල්ලම් අතර තරු ලප
තුරුලුව ඒ දෙදන ඉන්නා අයුරු දැක
සපත්නිරෝශයෙන් පෙලෙන මහ මුහුදු ලඳ
උමතුව සල සලා තම නිල් පටසලුව
පොලොවත් අතැර ඈතට දුවයි බැන බැන

නිදා සිටින විට කළුවරට නුදුරුව
අහසට මතක් වෙයි කල් ගිය පැරණි පෙම
මැවී පෙනී පොලොවේ පෙම්වත් මුහුන
උපදියි සිහින් සිරි පොද කදුළු සිරි පොද

පොලොව තමයි මහ බඹු මැවු මට උරුම සම්පත
කළුවර හොදයි අර වස පාලු මුහුදට
සිරවී සිටින මුත් කළුවරෙහි ලොම් වල
සඳ දියනිය එවමි පොලොවෙ මෙහෙවරට

උනු කොට වගුරුවා වැසි ලෙසට ප්‍රේමය
අකුණු විදුලි සරයෙන් අහස කියන එබසට
එවසුම් නැතුව රැලි නියවන මුහුදු ලඳ
පවසයි අදත් තමනට මේ පුරුදු දොස

ලුනු රස වුවත් මගෙත් අඩු නැත ප්‍රේමය
පොලොව පවා හොද හැටි දත් දෙයකි එය
මට දී මගෙ පෙම්බර කුමර කළුවර
ගනින් නුඹ නුඹේ මහ ලොකු මුඩු පොලොව

අහස, මුහුද විරසක නොවව් ඔය ලෙස!
ඔහොම තමා හිතුවක්කාර දෛවය
පැතූ අය එසේ නොලැබෙයි කිසිවකුට
නොපැතූ අයම එති සෙනෙහසින් ලුහු බෑඳ...

---- සති අන්ත පුවත් පතකින්. නම නොදන්නා කවියෙක්ගෙන් ---

We need better observers!

2009-10-14T09:49:00.000+05:30

Some thoughts I had after reading this news article on TN parliament members visit to IDP camps. Interestingly some guy commented as "Sri Lankan IDP camps are better than the Indian shanties (huts). That's why the Tamil Nadu delegation have expressed satisfaction. So for them this is like heaven." There was a nice photo too, one of TN MP is offering a traditional gesture of friendship to the president. (Now, who would have thought of this few months ago!)

It's all about how you perceive things and in the end everything is relative.

Do IDPs having a good life out there ? you bet not. Then again with what kind of a situation you can compare their situation with ? Can you compare that against Tsunami camps we had once ... or should we compare it against (as some would like to suggest) Hitler's concentration camps? Can we compare their situation with ordinary village life and come to conclusions, or should we compare this to any other refugee camp in the region ? Whatever it is, it is very important to identify and categorise the situation correctly and select proper comparable situations to compare this event with. For human beings always perceive events by comparing or in relation to some other events. If we choose incomparable events, we may easily come into wrong conclusions.

There is another angle to this, our conclusions are also relative to our own personal experiances and standards. A homeless guy living on a street may call a welfare center a heaevn but a top diplomat who lives a luxury european life may even find even the normal urban life in Chennai or Colombo as appaling!

So there are already two obvious factors which look as useful considerations when forming conclusions on events and situations. First one is that we should try to compare that with similar situations (as close as possible), then the observer should be in a similar perspective or having a closer outlook to the ones who are actually involved in with the situation. If we are in a complete different background, we should try our best tp get in the shoes (get a feeling of the culture, standards of living in similar situations in the region, specific challenges, limitaions etc) of those who are really involved in the situation and try to make our conclusions with the perspective relative to those people.

Now, let's take the scenario of IDP camps and various Europeans, NGOs commenting on the living condition in those. Do they sereisly consider that the Sri Lanka is a 3rd world country which is struggling to cope (financially and resource wise) with 250 000 of displaced people just after a bloddy war in a economic recession? Do they understand the standard of living in poor parts in this region ? Do they understand the devastation happended to these areas and people in 3 decades of war and put that into the context ? Finally, Are they aware of how these very same people had to crowded up in a narrow beach front against their wills by LTTE and amidst a war under horrific conditions, how they ran into government lines risking their own lives (braving LTTE fire) just to escape from that situation..

In the case of Tamil Nadu politicians they are at least very aware what the normal life standards are in usual refugee camps in the region, How the living standards among poor parts in the region and among people who has to undergo various hardships for decades. Above all they are having first hand experiance about their own refigee camps in TN housing SL refugees fleeing the war. In this context it is not surprising at all that the delegation finds the situation at camps are not so appaling as the western media and diplomats have reported! True, we are struggling to cope with the large crowd and to attend their needs, but we are trying. Good freinds would be (like India in this case) helping us to cope with the immense task.

This brings us to an interesting question : Just what we can expect from letting more and more western media and diplomats into these camps and letting them interpret the situation relative to them ? On one hand, there is the unpleasant case of organizations/individuals/lobbyists sympathetic to LTTE or to Ealan course using the situation as a spring board for their propaganda activities. On the other hand there is the situation of some angry western powers trying to teaching a little lesson to the SL goverment on it's 'failing' to act accordign to their advices/wishes/interests while wiping out the LTTE in the final battles. Isn't it much better and sensible to instead have organizations/individuals from our reagion to inspect these camps and come up with their own suggestions/interpretations for improvements ?

We could let Indian, Bangladeshi or pakistani observers/social workers to visit these places and to come up their thoughts/ideas on how best we can improve the situation and how best our friends can help us in this. Our regional friends will understand lot better on how to compare this situation with similar situations in the region and would know better how to define words like 'appaling', 'life threatening', 'acceptable', 'adequate measures taken' etc... It wouldn't do us any bad to have some constructive criticism in the name of helping these people while making their difficult stay in these camps as short as possible.

Rain

2009-09-17T18:51:00.000+05:30

It's raining hard (as in tropics) and dark outside. What a show of force the rain is... It makes one feel so humble against the power of nature, yet at the same time it make one feel full of awe and respect towards it.

All your plans, schedules, are forced to get re arranged. Like our ancestors we too have to submit to the nature and allow it to go along it's wonderful ways. For a moment we become (or rather forced to) just an observer of this amazing display.

The wind is constantly blowing hard and you can hear the rustle of trees only to be interrupted time to time by a gigantic thunder. Suddenly there is light in the middle of the night! but only for a short fleeting moment of time. Once again the regular noise of the downpour against the roof and the wind against the trees take over. Despite it's magnitude and the monotone, what a enjoyable moment! Sometimes it feels so good just to surrender and observe the mighty nature.....

How small are we really when pitted against this... slowly the rain changes our mental mood as well. One instinctively get an inkling to cuddle under a sheet and to be on a comfortable bed. Just how lovely it would be to sleep right now... Inside the house it is dry yet there is overall mental feeling of wetness. Or can we actually feel a mist ? tiny little water drops somehow finding their way inside mixing with the air ? It's chilly. cold and lonely. Even if there are people around, it is as if you are alone with your self. Rain is doing all the communications. Only it does the talking, all other sounds are insignificant...

Once one get accustomed to the music of the rain, one identifies components within it. Water smashing onto the roof tirelessly, water then dropping down from the roof, flowing on the ground as it forming into little springs.. The wind howling into the dark night. Trees swaying around, rustling it's branches and leaves... Whole world has stop it's activities and had given way to the rain to have it's say. For now, it has total domination of every thing.

One eventually get reminded of similar past experiences hidden in the forest of past time.. Everybody has at least one clear memory either in childhood or in adolescence on rain. About a particular time one was as helpless as now and being reduced to an observer in front of the rain. Yet, once one totally surrenders to it and after stopping fighting against it, the experience become almost a pleasure. Relaxing and listening to the chore and its symphonies... How the wind, trees and water get their act together and become parts of one integral act.

Its a gift! nothing less, how fortunate are we to have an event like this visiting us once in a while to remind us of our littleness in the vast nature.

The rain in a cold damp night!

A theory on the conspiracy theories on UFO's

2009-09-06T18:05:00.001+05:30

Well, actually the content of this article may not be as sexy as the title suggest.

Just wanted to say few things on one fascinating observation. First of all, let me say that I'm not an obsessed UFO fan or someone who believes there are aliens before actually seeing one. I also do not belongs to the opposite group. Ok, here we go :

There are so many conspiracy theories on governments (mainly the US government) trying to cover up evidence on aliens, or trying to make us believe that there are no UFO etc. Now, UFO fans are taking these theories pretty seriously while others are well... ridiculing them. I belong to non of these categories, yet there are many valid reasons as to why a government may actually try to cover up stories (or 'evidence' as the say) on aliens and UFOs if they exist!

Now, don't get carried away! just because someone having a good reason to not like the idea of public believing in something does not mean that thing actually exist (or do not exist for that matter). Still, this is quite interesting.........

Think about the religion. There are loads on this earth. Let's take 3 main ones. Christianity, Islam and Judaism. (In alphabetical order and apologies for Hindus, Buddhists and Flying Spaghetti Monster followers etc) Now, all main 3 has one thing in common : yea you guessed it right, The God. He is omnipotent, the one and only one and the creator of everything. Also, he has created this universe, our earth and (this is little important in here) made the man out of his own image. On the other hand there are atheists who believe that there is no God.

Again, it is not the intention of this article to discuss about the religion or to make sides. Like mentioned earlier, just pointing out an observation which I find as fascinating....

Now, let's just imagine for a second that UFO, aliens and little green (or any other color) 'men' actually do exist! This will have some series implications for most of religions wouldn't it? How can we suddenly face up with the prospect of there is some other race (not human) which is far superior (from the simple fact that they found us before we found them) to us? After all we are supposed to be the preferred race created by god's own very image, and there can be only one almighty god as well! For the creationism in general, something like this has the potential to become the hardest hit after theory of evolution and/or the finding that the earth actually goes around the sun and not the other way around. Let's think about this scenario a bit... it (presence of another race superior to us) will shatter lot of things in our belief systems.

If the UFO's are true and aliens do exist... will the Vatican be eager to accept that fact? Will they like to see rest of the world believing that the aliens do exist? Most countries on earth have tight relations with religion as majority of people (specially politicians) are firm believers. So we should not be surprised to see US or some other government decide to silence things down even if there are evidence for the existence of aliens. Like it or not, organized religion do help towards controlling the masses and there by making things easier for the governments. Also, there are religious lobbyists with money....

Phew! lucky aliens have not appeared on TV yet!

Now, once again ... this of course does not constitute an evidence for the existence of the aliens. It is not even an argument for conspiracy theories, since it does not making the claim that governments are actually holding the truth. It only says that governments do have a good enough reason to cover up evidence 'if there are any'.

Come to think of it, there can also be reasons as to believing in the existence of aliens. Think of an atheist who like to prove (once and for all) that there is no god. Well, for such a cause, a little green man (has to be a little green creature in this case!) would be a nice gift indeed....

Are there any surveys or polls done to investigate the religious beliefs of UFO fans ? Or the beliefs of non UFO fans ? Can it be possible that there is a co-relation.....

what do you think ?

10 proven steps to get into the first page at Reddit (cool video)

2006-09-19T21:55:00.000+05:30

Hi all my fellow good souls @ reddit, (well, it's an easy guess that u arrived here via Reddit)

Here are the steps you were dying to know. These are tried and proven. (explained later). Have a look and enjoy!

1. Use a title like 'Top 3 reasons why men hate cooking' or ' 5 steps to write a good article' or '10 steps to improve your code'

Note the similarity: they all claim to give you easy to read, point format, no nonesense list. This attracts people, looks like readers automatically assume the claimed item list is fool proof, like some kind of a law. Wierd but it works........

2. Make sure your list of points are on something a typical user would really interested in reading.

like the subject here, 'How to get into the first page at reddit' . Since Reddit is mostly read by techies, Anything on Software, beer, technology, gadgets etc would do

3. In the title, be bold and ambitious on your claims. Bit of exagertion, over emphasizing, use of exclamation marks, etc.

All help win attention. No one wants to spend time reading something ordinary. So make it look like something extra ordinary. You should sound confident about what you have for them in your article.

4. Keep in mind the 'Resume Rule'

When we write a resume or CV, we are adviced to keep to a single page or at least present a short attractive summary. For good reasons too. If the Resume is unable to catch the readers eye and make him interested in the first 5-10 seconds, chances are that he will not even read the rest of the resume. Same goes for links. You have to grab the users attention and make him click on your link. This decision happend within first 5 seconds of reaing your title and readers have lots of links to view so you better fight for every gram of attention (how else to measure attention ?) you could get.

5. At the end of the title indicate that you have a cool video or an image for them to comfortably view.

This is self explanatory. People like to lazily look at a video or an image or to listen to a track rather than reading. It would be nice if you really have a video or an image for them as promised. :-)

7. In the article, leave some intentional mistake for attentive users to notice.

Hopefully this will encourage them to write a short comment pointing the mistake you have put there for them to 'catch'. I bet reddit ranking engine will look at the number of comments an article has. Can you spot the mistake in this article ?

8. Of course ask few of your friends to click on your submission once it appear on reddit 'new' items and ask them to write few comments as well.

May be you can try that on this article itself and see the difference. (see whether the reddit rank moves up noticiably after you ask few of your friends to click on this link)

9. Number of steps you mention in the title has to be a sexy number.
For istance, no one would be that interested on "7 steps to.... " or a "9 reasons why..." on the other hand 10, 3, 5 are 'good' numbers.

What this also mean is: it is not necessary that you have exactly 10 points in your artcle as promised. 9 would do as long as the title says something like '10 proven steps to..."

And how do I say these steps are proven?

Well, the mere fact that you are now reading this is the best proof that these steps work. You got attracted by the title of this article when you saw it on reddit havn't you ? So, at least as far as you are concerened, steps are 'proven' :-)

On terrorism : The newest 'strategy' of combating terrorism

2006-09-17T00:49:00.000+05:30

According to the Indian security expert B Raman, who is also a high ranking official in RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), India's equivalent of CIA or Mosad, you could combat terrorism by allowing their leaders to retire.

Since this a very innovative approach to outsmart terrorism, it warrants some attention. Mr Raman says : " If the Sri Lankan Tamil problem is to be solved, and unrest in Tamil Nadu prevented, LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran should be made to retire and not killed." and "... The best option, is for the moderates in the LTTE to persuade Prabhakaran to retire and had over power to them." etc..

Very interesting and creative thoughts indeed! perhaps U.S should consider allowing Bin Laden to peacefully go into retirement as well (the guy has achived enough in his life time anyway) and let Al Quida be run by a 'moderate' terrorist so that they could avoid unrest among his fans all over the world. It is bit confusing how one could define a moderate terrorist though. One who would kill less number of people and bomb smaller buildings may be?

Anyway, talking about LTTE and it's leader Prabhakaran, this fellow has definitely contributed a lot for world terrorism, that the least we could do is to consider him for a retirement scheme. He too, like Mr Bin, has achieved a lot in his life time and well deserves a break. his list of achievements are second only to Bin Laden himself (don't be surprised if his fans argue on this point).

record include :

killing the Prime Minister (Rajiv Gandhi the son of Indira Gandhi and the grand son of great Javahallal Neru) of world's largest democracy, India.
Killing a democratically elected executive president of a country (R. Premadasa, president of Sri Lanka)
Killing number of government ministers and politicians.
Responsible for deaths of thousands of innocent civilians including almost all of Tamil leaders (whom he is supposed to 'liberate' from the state) who did not agree with him.
bombing of world heritage sites

Among others.

Any terrorist leader will envy Mr P and find it pretty 'challenging' to beat that list! Come to think of it, this whole thing is not a bad idea at all. By allowing the worst leaders to retire early, you discourage them from continuing the destruction they would otherwise happily continue. If the 'moderates' who will follow them get more ambitious and try to beat the records, perhaps you should 'allow' them to retire as well. These people were mainly busy for the most part of their lives creating mayhem and may be they don't have earned enough to lead a decent retired life. So perhaps we can consider them for a government pension too.

Few problems though, Mr P is wanted for the Rajiv Gandhi killing by Indian high courts. Perhaps Mr Raman can arrange some workaround for that, but it's still not clear how he could 'allow' Mr P to retire. Not sure whether Mr P has applied for a retirement scheme from Mr Raman so that he could readily 'allow' him one.

Anyway, if implemented, this newest combating strategy will increase the job value of being a terrorist by a great deal. (rather than an ordinary crminal who are not immune from the judiciary system and law enforcement authorities) Now it even includes retirement after making a name for oneself!

On Chess : Kramnik should offer Kasparov a return match

2005-11-29T19:10:00.000+06:00

Well, sounds like it is too late for this now since Kaspa is well into retirement. However, Kasparov did try hard to get a return match after he lost to the then challenger Kramnik. As has happened in many times in the history of chess, new world champion was reluctant to do so.

Situation has changed now. Kramnik is no longer being treated as the world champion or as the strongest player in the world. Kasparov was dissapointed (he tried to participate in a match to regain his crown for about 4 years and finally gave up) and retired with his number one ranking in the rating list when he is still the world's strongest player. This is not good for chess. We havn't seen much of Kramnik at all after his brilliant performance in the championship match and now we don't see Kasparov in action either. Only good thing around is that Topalov plays brilliant chess at the moment. Needless to say, Topalov deserves to be theworld champion and he is the worlds strongets active player and also posseses the highest rating among active players.

It's a pity that Kramnik and Kasparov has this unfinished business between them and more so since Topalov havn't had an opportunity to play with either one of them on his way to winning the crown. All we know is that a very recent initiative for arrenging a 're-unification' match between topalov and Kramnik has failed.

I think if Kramnik now offers a re-match to Kasparov we still have a chance to salvage this sad situation. Kasparov has reasons to accept and come out of retirement. (I'm sure he still has fight in him to come and take his opportunity to win back the crown he tried so hard to regain) On the other hand, this is a very good way for Kramnik to come to the lime light again, at the moment he stands a very little chance of competing in a world championship match in the near future.

Hopefully, this will lead to a Topalov vs winner of Kasparov/Kramnik match which will have the potential of being the most exciting match since Fisher-Spassky.

All this is assuming, Kasparov will change his mind and come out of retirement if he is given a shot(I for one, think he deserves it) at the crown. Come on Kramnik, u offered a match to Topalov, why not one for Kasparov? show your generosity and the chess world will love you for it!