A Voice from the Silent Majority

Dusty Art

2009-10-25T08:43:00.002+05:30

Seen on an old abandoned car at a garage.

Waiting to be Pumped

2009-10-24T12:32:00.005+05:30

And i thought that there were people in the country to make sure these things wont happen. guess i was wrong. the line was really really long and most people had got out of the vehicles and were waiting outside.

location: near rajagiriya fuel pumping station

ගරිල්ලා Marketing

2009-10-14T19:11:00.004+05:30

මේ දවස් වල campus එක Marketersලාගෙන් පිරී ඉතිරී ඇත.ඇතැම්හු T-shirt විකුණති, තවත් අය පෑන් විකුණති, තවත් අය නාට්‍ය ප්‍රවේශ පත්‍ර විකුණති. මොවුන් ක්‍රියාත්මක වන්නේ group වශයෙනි. කැන්ටිමට ඇතුළුවූ විටම ඇවිත් වට කරගනිති.යාළුකමට නොගෙනත් බැරිය.නමුත් එක්අයකුගෙන් ගත් විට අනිත් අයගෙන් ඇනුම් පදද ඇසිය යුතුය.

මෙච්චර කල් පොඩි බැච් එකවු පිරිස දැන් level 2 එකට පැමිණ ඇත.ඔවුන්ගේ තැන අළුත් බැච් එකක් ගෙන ඇත. දැන් පොඩි බැච් එකටද පොඩි බැච් එකක් සිටියි.දැන් කට්ටියව department වලට බෙදා ඇත. සම්ප්‍රදායානුකූලව department එකේ seniorsලා පොඩි බැච් එකට නයිට් එකක් දියයුතුය.

නයිට් එකක් දීම මහා භාරදූර කටයුත්තකි. හොඳ තැනක් සොයා ගත යුතුය, කෑම ඇණවුම් කලයුතුය, transport organize කල යුතුය, invitation ගැසිය යුතුය, විවිධ video නිෂ්පාදනය කල යුතුය, කොටින්ම කියතොත් ජරමර ගොඩකි. මේවට ඉතින් කොහෙන්ද සල්ලි? මේ සියළු marketersලා උත්සාහ කරන්නේ මෙම නයිට් එකක් දීමේ අරමුණ සාක්ෂාත් කරගැනීම උදෙසා අරමුදල් එකතු කිරීමටයි.

Department දෙකක් පෑන් ගසා ඇත (අපේ එකත් ඇතුළුව).හැමෝටම පෑන් පෙට්ටියක් ලැබී ඇත.එක පෙට්ටියක පෑන් 60කි. පෑනක මිළ රු.20කි. හැමෝම අන්තිමට රු.1200 ලබා දියයුතුය. අතින් පාඩු නොවීම සඳහා හැමෝම පෑන් විකිණීමට නොගන්නා උත්සාහයක් නැත.සමහරෙක් පරම සත්‍ය අවබෝධ කරගෙන ඇත.එනම් පෑන් සියල්ල විකුණාගත නොහැකිව අනිවාර්යයෙන් අතින් පාඩු වන බවය (දෙගොල්ලම පෑන් 10,000කට ආසන්න ප්‍රමාණයක් ගසා ඇත.එකේ සිසුන් ගණනද 5000කට ආසන්නය.ඉතිරි 5000 කාට විකුණන්නද?).මගේ එක් මිතුරෙක් මෙම පාඩුව අවම කරගැනීමට අපූරු උපායක් යොදා ඇත.ඔහු දැන් පෑන් තුනක් රු.50කට විකුණයි.පෑන් සියල්ල විකුණුනහොත් පාඩු වන්නේ රු.200කි. ඔහුට තව විකිණීමට ඉතිරිව ඇත්තේ පෑන් 6ක් පමණි.

තවත් එකමිතුරෙක් දණහිසේ ආබාධයකට ගොදුරුවී ඇත.එමනිසා ඔහුට පෑන් විකිණීමට දැඟලිය නොහැක. එම්නිසා මොහුත් පෑන් විකිණීමට නියම ක්‍රියාමාර්ගයක් අනුගමනය කරයි. Campus එකේ ප්‍රධාන Y මංසන්ධියක් ඇත. දෙකට බෙදුණු පාරවල් අතර තණකොළ වවා ඇති අතර එතැන බැම්මකින් වට කල එක ලොකු ගසකි. මොහු බැම්ම මත වාඩිවී පාරවල් දෙකෙහිම ගමන් කරන යළුවන්ට හා අළුත්ම බැච් එකේ අයට කතාකරයි.ළඟට එන කිසි කෙනෙකුට පෑනක් නොගෙන මොහුගෙන් ගැලවීයාමට නොහැක.

නාට්‍ය ප්‍රවෙශ පත්‍ර විකුණන්නේ electrical department එකයි.නාට්‍ය ප්‍රවේශ පත්‍රයක් රු.100කි. එමනිසා මෙය විකිණීම හැමොටම කලනොහැක. මන්දයත් රු.100 campus එක තුල ලොකු ගණනකි. මෙයින් වේල් දෙකක් කා plain T කිහිපයක්ද බීමට හැක. එමනිසා department එකේ හැමෝගෙම යහළුවන් වන පිරිස අනිත් අයගේ ticket පොත්ද එකතු කරගෙන විකුණති. මේ අය campus එකේ එළ පොරවල් ලෙසට පිළිගෙන ඇති උදවියයි. එමනිසා කිසිවෙකුත් එවැන්නෙකුගේ ඉල්ලීම අහක දමන්නේ නැත.

මට ලැබුණු පෑන් පෙට්ටියේ තව පෑන් 30ක් පමණ ඉතිරී වී ඇත.බොහෝ දිනවල එම පෙට්ටිය මට බෝඩිමේ අමතක වේ. එමනිසා තව වසර කීපයකට මට පෑන් කඩෙන් ගැනීමට අවශ්‍ය නොවන බව පැහැදිලිය.

Problems, Problems

2009-09-30T20:45:00.001+05:30

There was a time when crying used to solve problems

Back then I only had to cry and there would be no problem

Growing up changed the situation

But I still could always tell my parents

After a few harsh words it became their problem

But just like a virus they develop resistance

Crying and telling parents become ineffective against stronger problems

Finally I find myself having to deal with my problems

Some are easier to be dealt with but some are not

Some become unwelcome companions and stop there they do not

They stay at the back of the head

Adding weight to every smile and happy thought I possess

Oh tell me, tell me what can I do to make them go away?

Find out the Radiation Level of your Mobile

2009-09-27T19:54:00.002+05:30

I wasn't planning on writing a post this week but this really caught my eye. Nowadays everyone has a mobile phone, and we are so used to the thing that it feels kinda awkward even to leave home without it (I mean it's really hard to find a person who forgot his phone at home these days). We have all seen the email which shows, using mobile phones to cook an egg (that one is a fake by the way). But the threat of radiation is real (even though we ignore it hoping beyond hope that researchers are wrong).

Well Environmental Working Group has come up with a new online tool which displays the radiation level of your mobile phone. This was one the most visited sites of last week. And more than 1200 phone models are rated according to the radiation level. The best phone with the lowest radiation level upto now is the Samsung Impression. So visit http://www.ewg.org/cellphone-radiation and see how much of radiation you are absorbing.

Just think about it, won't we be the first generation to experience cell phone related diseases. Although the cigarette\tobacco industry thrived till the 1970s the no. of new users is coming down drastically so much so that they have gone on to produce low tobacco cigarettes (lol). Who knows in a couple of decades the cell phone might meet the same fate. But there is still hope I guess since the mobile is way more useful than the cigarette (I mean come on most people started on the cigarette coz they wanted to look cool or grown-up) and coz way more people worry about their health than back then.

Giving Up

2009-09-21T16:47:00.005+05:30

what's the point of painting them anyway? the guys are just waiting for a clear space aren't they? If they paint it anything written first would be highlighted, at least this way the graffiti artist has to have good talent to make his mark.

Spotted near : musaeus college

Net Loss වීම

2009-09-18T17:47:00.000+05:30

මෙය ගැනීමෙන් ADSL පසුව උද්ගත වූ භයානක තත්වයකි. Loss වීම යනු වැදගත් වැඩ තිබියදී නිකරුණේ කාලය කා දැමීමයි. අන්තර්ජාලය තුල මෙලෙස නිකරුණේ කාලය කා දැමීම Net Loss වීම ලෙස හැදින්විය හැක.

බොහෝ විට අන්තර්ජාලයට පිවිසෙන්නේ විෂයකට අදාල කරුණු සෙවීමේ අට්යෙනි, නමුත් දැන් අන්තර්ජාලයට පිවිසෙණ විට Facebook වල gmail වල හා google reader වල log වුනේ නැතින්ම් හිතට හරි නැත (මට එන මහා ලොකු mail නැත බොහෝ විට තිබෙන්නේ forwards ය, ඒවායින්ද මම කියවන්නේ අතලොස්සකි, බොහෝමයක් එකවිට select කර delete කර දමමි.) ප්‍රශ්නය ඇරඹෙන්නේ ඔතනිනි.

Facebook වලට log වූ විට post ගොඩකි. එක්කෝ quiz results පල කර ඇත, නැතිනම් විහිළු video එකක් හෝ movie trailer එකක් share කර ඇත. එහෙමත් නැතිනම් photo uploads කිහිපයක් හෝ photo වලට comment කිහිපයක් ඇත (comment වලට නම් අනිවාර්යෙන් ප්‍රතිචාර දැකිවිය යුතුය). video එක හිතට ඇල්ලූවිට නිතැතින්ම related video බැලීමටද යොමුවේ. Trailer එකක් නම් ඊළඟ අදියර එහි imdb rating එක බැලීමය, එයත් හොඳ නම් වහාම torrent එකක් හොයාගෙන movie එක download කල යුතුය. මේ සියළු දේට අඩුම වශයෙන් පැය භාගයක් වත් ගතවේ (තව කොහෙද barn buddy, farmville, marfia wars වලට සම්බන්ධ වුනොත්?). මේ වනවිට එකෙක් දෙන්නෙක් chat එකට set වී ඇත. සංවාදයක් අතරමැද නතර කිරීම සුදුසු නැත. මුල් අය chat එකෙන් ඉවත් වනවිට තවත් අය එයට එක් වේ. අන්තිමට මහා ජංජාලයකි.

මේ අතරතුර බලන විට reader එකේ feeds update වී ඇත. අලුත් blog post පළවී ඇත. Endgadget එකෙන් අලුත්ම ගැන ලිපි 100ක් පමණ එවා ඇත. මේවා බොහොමයක් සිත් ඇඳගන්නා සුළුය. Endgadget එකෙන් touchscreen smartphone ගැන ලිපි එවා ඇත්නම් ඒවා ගැන වඩාත් සොයාබැලිය යුතුය. (මම touch phone වලට මහත් සේ මනාපය, තවමත් එවැන්නක හිමිකරුවකු නොවුනද, කවදා හෝ එවන්නක් ගත යුතුය. එමනිසා දැන් සිටම ඒවා ගැන තොරතුරු සෙවීමෙන් අවැඩක් නොවනු ඇත.) Podcast, Vodcast බොහෝමයක්ද පළවී ඇත. මේවායේ තියෙන දැනුම් සම්භාරයම අපතේ යැවීම සුදුසු නැත. කවදා හෝ ප්‍රයෝජනයක් ලැබෙන බව නොඅනුමානය. එමෙන්ම හොඳ post මිතුරන් සමඟ share කිරීමෙන් ඔවුන්ටද දැනුම බෙදාදියයුතුය.

මේ සියල්ල හමාර වනවිට වැදගත් දේ සෙවීමට තිබූ කාලය හමාරය. බොහෝවිට මම වැඩකට පිවිසෙන්නේ කාල සටහනකට අනුවය. මේ වනවිට මඳ විවේකයක් ගන්නේයයි මා සිතූ වෙලාව එළඹ ඇත. කාලසටහනකට වැඩ කිරීම හොඳ පුරුද්දකි. එමෙන්ම සෞඛ්‍යමත් දිවියකට විවේකය අත්‍යාවශ්‍ය්ය. එමනිසා මම විවේකය ගනිමි.

එම session එක සඳහා Net Loss වීම එතැනින් හමාරය. පෙර භාගත කරගත් movie එක බැලීමෙන් loss වීම සම්පූර්ණ වේ.

The Childhood Ends

2009-09-11T08:50:00.005+05:30

How do people work without vacations (I mean long ones)? That I've always wondered since I was a small child. During school days we are always waiting for the holidays to come, so no matter how hard the work became we always managed to draw some comfort by reminding ourselves that the holidays are coming nearer. And when they came it was 2months of playing, going on trips and just pure idling. But I've never seen an employed person enjoy such freedom (unless they get fired, in which case they become unemployed). So how do employed people manage to go on and on everyday from 9am – 6pm without feeling miserable?

What might be my last long holiday (2 ½ months) ends on the 14^th of September as uni starts on that day. And I find myself dreading the end of the vacation, wondering whether it's the last, and asking myself whether I managed to enjoy every moment of it. How will I survive once I'm employed?

Pen Drives: How to Lose One

2009-09-01T12:28:00.004+05:30

Long gone are the days when 1.44mb floppies ruled the standards of portability. Nowadays its even hard to find a PC or a Laptop with a floppy drive. But the thing about usb drives (or pendrives or thumb drives or whatever you wish to call them) is that they are soooo easy to lose. I'm currently going on my 5^th because of this matter.

The first one I got had a capacity of 64mb that was in 2004 (and the damn thing cost rs.3500, that was for getting through O/Ls). In school this device was a blessing. It was so easy to conceal so the prefects couldn't find them. So I managed to increase my collection of mp3s considerably using this (those were the days of the dial-up so downloading a mp3 was a costly business). But then my father also started to see the uses of this device. Now he could work at home and take all those stuff back to office in this magical device (initially he was totally opposed to spending rs. 3500 on this small device). So he decided why buy a new one when there is already one at home. So he started "borrowing" it, and after a couple of days forgot it in office, and the pen drive was never seen again.

So no pen drive till I got to campus. When I first got in to campus I thought this was downloading heaven (boy was I wrong, during day time I rarely see speeds above 20kBps) so I decided to buy a larger capacity pen drive preferably 1GB(by this time pen drive prices had come down) . But I made the mistake of going with my father so after listening to the prices and figuring out that that 512mb one was cheaper he said, ඔච්චර එකක් ඕනෙද? (which means I think the 512mb one is more than enough). So I had to settle on the 512mb (Thank God the shop didn't have 256mb pens). Then couple of months later I heard my mother complaining that a piece of the washing machine had come off (මෙන්න washing machine එකේ කෑල්ලක් කැඩිලා!!). True enough she was holding few fragments of a circuit. However one piece showed a remarkable resemblance to a usb connector, then it dawned on me that I probably must had left the pendrive in the pocket of my denim. I quickly looked inside the washing machine and found other pieces of incriminating evidence which I quickly disposed of before my father saw them (also managed to get that usb connector thingy from my mother). Then I joined her in blaming the washing machine.(However a friend of mine managed to salvage a pen drive after it was put in the washing machine, he was lucky twice.)

Again no pen drive. But now the pendrive had become a crucial part in my life. So after saving for a couple of weeks I managed to finance a new one and this time 2GB. By that time I had managed to persuade my father to get ADSL, so had a healthy collection of movies. So my boarding mate and I used to swap pen drives when we were going home (since the capacities were same we couldn't be bothered to transfer movies from mine to his and vice versa). By now I was a bit more responsible and from experience (see above) I knew put the pen drive in my pocket was not a good idea. So I used to put it in my bag. One day (this was after about a year) when I got home no pen drive (I had swapped pen drives as well, so the lost pen drive belonged to my boarding mate, more serious). Upon further inspection of the bag I discovered a small hole at the bottom just enough for a pen to fit through (talk about being a victim of circumstances, ආයේ ඉතින් කොහෙ කියල හොයන්නද?). So what to do, I told him to keep mine.

Then I went and bought a very cheap Chinese pendrive (2GB again). However this too didn't last long (and mind you the cheap technology didn't play a part). Thanks to the huge number of assignments and course works that needs to be submitted I have to visit communication shops a lot to get printouts while in campus (although I have a printer at home it's much more cheaper to print from outside, hp cartridges are more expensive then the printer). There I left the pen drive on the computer (and needless to say when I got back it wasn't there).

So I decided no more pendrives for me. I started working on google docs to prevent carrying stuff with me, no more movies , no more music or any other cool things, and most importantly no more worries. Plus there was also the added advantage of less virus attacks to my pc. But recently a friend presented me a pen drive (4GB, he had no idea about my history with pen drives). Until now it's NOT lost (oh I did manage to lose it's cover/clip) :) .

හැමදාම නෑ හැමතැනම නෑ

2009-08-25T10:33:00.007+05:30

මෙවන් දර්ශන e-mail වල you-tube එකේ දැක ඇත්තෙමි, නමුත් සියැසින් දුටු මුල්ම අවස්ථාවයි. මෙම වාහනය මෙම රූපය ගන්නා මොහොතේදී අසල සිටි ත්‍රී රෝද රථ රියදුරන්ගේ හා parking ticket කඩන කාන්තාවගේ උපහාසයට ලක්වි තිබුණි (මෙමගින් අනිත් වාහන නැවැත්වීමට ඉඩ අඩු වන නිසා ඇයට මදක් තරහ ඇවිස්සීද තිබුණි). නමුත් වැඩි දුර සිතා බැලීමේදී මෙය හේතු දෙකක් නිසා සිදුවිය හැකි බව වැටහිණි.

*රියදුරාට වාහනය reverse කිරීමට ඇති අකමැත්ත හෝ නොහැකියාව
*මෙම වාහනය නවත්වන මොහොතේ වෙන කිසිදු වාහනයක් නොතිබීම නිසා රියදුරු වාහනය මෙලෙස පාරේ අයිනට කර නවත්වා යෑම

හේතුව මින් කුමක් විය හැකිද?

ස්ථානය : ආසිරි රෝහල ඉදිරිපිට රථ ගාල

වේලාව: පෙ.ව 7.30ට පමණ

Time Travel is POSSIBLE????

2009-08-22T19:23:00.006+05:30

For years I considered time travel as one of the most farfetched fantasies in science-fiction. But a recent documentary I watched called "Discovery Science – The World's First Time Machine" altered my thinking forever. This documentary explained how time travel can be done theoretically, with the help of Einstein's Theory of Relativity (I had heard that this theory contained explanations about black holes, teleportation, time travel, but before this I never understood most of it). Also most amazingly work is going on even at this point to make time travel a reality. Here I have included the part of the documentary which I found in youtube, which explains the whole thing.

Most interestingly Einstein's theory never showed how to travel back in time, but the scientists have managed to come up with a way as to how to make this happen. Even other extreme things such as parallel universes, traveling at the speed of light are also explained.

If you want to watch the whole thing too, download it from here. (however it did take some time to download)

Get That Mobile Phone to Work For You – Top 5 Apps

2009-08-17T17:40:00.008+05:30

What's the damn point of owning a high end mobile phone if you only use it for calling, messaging and the occasional photograph. Although you certainly can live without the damn thing (that's how our ancestors got by till the 21^st century) some apps really make life more enjoyable and easy. Mind you all these apps are free as well.

No. 5: Fring

If you really want to keep in contact with your online friends this is a must have. This app allows you to connect to all social networks + most popular chat sites. Yup that's right chat on Facebook, yahoo, google, skype, msn using only one application. It gets even better you can take calls through Skype, GTalk & Yahoo. What's more the data transfers via GPRS is very small. You don't have to worry about the phone bill much (from my experience usually 7min call on skype for 700KB, chat transfers only a few KBs), and if your phone has Wi-Fi (sadly mine doesn't) the cost won't matter at all in a Wi-Fi enabled area.

Mobile platforms req: Works fine in any java based phone, Symbian S60 v3/v5, Symbian S40, Windows Mobile, Iphone

Get It @ : http://www.fring.com/default.asp

Similar Apps : Nimbuzz

No. 4: SMS Preview

Do you feel an itch until you read that message that you just received (no matter what you are doing, like taking notes down in a class)? Do you stop whatever you were doing and turn your attention to your mobile to read that message (only to find it's another one of those news alerts). Well this app may just suit you. The app can be adjusted to display a preview of that message was a specific amount of time, upon receiving a message. Therefore only a glance at your handset would suffice to decide whether the text message needs further consideration.

Mobile Platform req: Symbian devices only (yup that's the sad part)

Get It @: http://www.getjar.com/products/25386/SMSPreview

Similar Apps : Hmm couldn't find any other similar apps for this one

No. 3: Conversations

This app really allows you to organize your inbox. All messages received and sent are placed under the contact you communicated with. This makes it much more easy to find a text message within your inbox. Also deleting unwanted text messages is also much easier. Just select the person who sent you all the unwanted text messages and delete them all together. No more going through the inbox marking, and unmarking messages. (Some mobiles such as SE Xperia provide this with the handset itself).

Mobile Platform req: Again for Symbian s60 devices only

Get It @: http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/conversation

Similar Apps : SMS Threader (Windows Mobile Only)

No 2: Google Maps Mobile

With this it's so easy to find a place, and also to find your position. (Even in Sri Lanka works great in Colombo district, however routing doesn't work). With the new 3.0 version you can even use My Maps on Google Maps, just mark a place in Google Maps and you can view it on your mobile. And what's amazing is that you don't need gps to find your position on the map (although availability of gps on your handset makes positioning accurate, yeah yeah gps works fine in SL and, NO the government hasn't banned it) Google Maps Mobile uses the signal towers to find your location (I mean how cool is that?).

Mobile platforms req: Works fine in any java based phone, Symbian S60 v3/v5, Symbian S40, Windows Mobile, Iphone

Get It @ : http://www.google.com/mobile/products/maps.html#p=default

Similar Apps : Nothing even comes close to this. But Nokia Maps 2.0, Ovi Maps can be classified as similar apps. But they don't have complete SL maps.

No 1: ShazamID

You are on the street and hear a catchy tune, want to know the name of the song? ShazamID makes this a reality for FREE (Or you can use Dialog Song catcher that is if you have money to waste) . It records a small part of the track and compares the recording with it's global database. Within seconds you not only know the name of the song, but the artist, album and release date as well. Comparison is done using GPRS and never takes more than 5KBs.

Mobile Platform req: works on all symbian devices and most SE devices

Get It @: this is the tricky part. This app is for UK Citizens only. However a Google search displays many alternate download sources in forums J. A listing in www.4shared.com worked just fine for me

Similar Apps : TrackID (for Sony Ericsson, all the features)

Honorable Mentions: Opera Mini, Nokia Photo Browser, Gmail Mobile, Nokia Search (lets you search through all content in your phone, even through text messages http://dailymobile.se/2007/10/30/nokia-search-40-available-for-download/)

If anyone knows better apps I'd like to know too.

Note : apps were numbered from 1 to 5 depending on the frequency that I use them. (1 being most used while 5 being least used)

Ask For More!!!

2009-08-10T21:30:00.005+05:30

Has anybody watched Spellbinders – The Land of The Dragon Lord? There in that series I can remember the existence of an oracle which governed the way of life of those people. It was the oracle that chose what crops to be farmed, the places to live in and most importantly the professions that each person should pursue. That way every person was guaranteed a job and there was no unemployment, people may not have been happy for what was chosen for them but however they had some job. I think we Sri Lankans also need an oracle, coz time and again we have proven that we are unable to make decisions about our lives.

Today I saw a news story of some unfortunate people. A temporary shelter housing unemployed graduates, in Aesthetic studies who were protesting for teaching positions was removed from in front of the Fort Railway station in compliance to a court order. Those poor souls portrayed a sorry sight. Some females had attended that protest with their small kids (Although I'm no child psychologist I don't think that this is a place where a child should be brought to.) These days such protests by unemployed graduates have become a common site, and most people don't give a shit to such protests as well. These guys are not the first set of protestors and most certainly won't be the last as well. These things get shown on several channels, and the convener (කැඳවුම්කරු) gets to address the public (probably the highest point in his entire life) and everybody just forgets about it. These are the best minds in the country who have got through the local A/Ls, the universities and now should be working on the development of the country.

But how did these people get there in the first place, do we ever worry about that? When it comes to choosing a profession or a career path there are two basic things to consider (in my opinion). Firstly whether you like doing it and secondly (sometimes most importantly) whether there are employment opportunities in that field of study (for example I highly doubt whether anybody would be able to earn a decent living these days if they majored in Pali considering the fact that Pali is a dead language). This certainly is not child's play you need to find out how current professionals in that field are doing, new developments in that field, and the overall direction of that field (With the boom in communication technology, World Wide Web, if you can't find that information then it's a shame). This is a decision you have to make for yourself. Ultimately it's you who have to find employment.

But being Sri Lankans we assume that we can study anything we want since it's the government duty to find us employment. I mean come on, the government does more than enough for us, we get free education from the primary until passing out as a graduate, clothing materials, free textbooks, free health care, so what more can we ask for? ( I personally think Sri Lankans are living example of the Pepsi slogan "Ask For More" coz that seems to be the only thing we are capable of doing).

However it must be also said that no professional guidance has been received by the students on this matter. Unfortunately most kids have never even heard of Career Guidance (this in no wonder when some schools don't even have teachers of regular subject, therefore those kids getting results to even enter universities should be really praised)

The government's responsibility lies here. Currently all students who wish to apply for local university courses must obtain a handbook/manual (or whatever you may prefer to call it) from the University Grants Commission. This book contains information about various courses. However no details of current employment statistics, improvements in the field are mentioned. I guess including that information in that manual would be beneficial (this book is not given away free so it won't hurt to add some extra details in to it, especially if it helps students.). Also addition of some knowledge about the future of areas of study in to the school curriculum would also help a lot.

To most children obtaining entrance to university is something that they have worked for in their entire life. They assume everything is going to be just fine after that. Therefore it's really sorry to see some graduates losing their way after reaching that dream.

note: image scanned from Divaina 09/08/2009

Contributing to the Growth of the Photocopy Industry

2009-07-26T18:16:00.003+05:30

Opening up a little shop with a few photocopy machines near an educational institute preferably a government campus paves the way to fast riches. There are no seasonal variances in sales since the academic calendar of different batches or departments are not uniform. Therefore when one department/batch is on vacation others may be having exams. (The examination eve brings students pouring to these little shops to make sure they have all the notes, past papers, some students in their desperation photocopy whole books at that last moment. Only god knows whether they can go through all those notes. But nevertheless it's a peace of mind atleast to have all the notes with you even though you don't go through most of them.)

So within an year the little shop which started with a several photocopy machines in a dark dirty space, has many computers, broadband services and air conditioning, with several personnel to run the machines. Such is the opportunity for expansion in the market. (Recently one shop relocated to a bigger place to facilitate the growing number of customers, and one of friends known as the king was invited to the opening as he is a very frequent visitor.)

When in school I rarely had the need to photocopy notes. Bulk of what was said in the class was comprehendible and notes were made with a general understanding. Since the period was only 40mins even if we didn't understand anything it was still bearable. Also cutting classes had to be done with care since getting caught by a teacher or a prefect could land you in trouble, therefore cutting the class was kind of a last resort thing.

With the entrance in to uni this whole system changed. Here I met a set of people called lecturers of who most had the incredible ability to bore your pants off. (I am referring to most here as there are a few very good lecturers). Some have the extra capability to teach something so that you won't understand a thing. The two hour lecture periods did nothing to help as well. Therefore even if I'm in class most of the time my note has no academic value. (Some of my friends take this time in the lecture hall to catch up on the countless hours of sleep they have missed.)

There are also others who feel that there calling is elsewhere than in the lecture room (I also feel this at times). This where the so-called great freedom at the university becomes a blessing. If you don't want to stay in class then there is nothing stopping you from leaving. A mix of boredom, dissatisfaction, depression motivates others to not to attend lectures. (In my department there is one guy who doesn't have time to come as he is always busy attending funerals)

But unfortunately we all need the notes sooner or later to sit for the exam. That is when all hell breaks lose. Sometimes it's really hard to find a complete set of notes as we find out that none have attended lectures or because even the few who went have no clue as to the subject matter. So you end up photocopying what ever you can find. Most of the time photocopies of photocopies are made. (I once had to photocopy from a photocopy of my own notes as I friend lost my book which I gave for him to photocopy.)

By now with experience most photocopy shop owners know what kind of notes have the highest demand. So they themselves make an extra copy of a note or a book which arrives at their shop frequently and put up a poster about it. (Man these guy know their customers, these are the homegrown marketing gurus)

Wow it really scares me to think that photocopier very nearly didn't make it to the market, as the inventor of the photocopier Chester Carlson was turned down by over 20 companies, including IBM and General Electric neither of which believed there was a significant market for copiers. What ever would have happened to us he gave up then.

To All Those Face Book Addicts - Keeping up just got easier

2009-07-15T18:22:00.012+05:30

Are you one of those people who just can’t do anything without wondering what’s happening on facebook? Even when you are away from home do you always use your mobile and precious credit just to check whether someone has commented on your photo, status update, or replied to your FB message? And are you one of those people who stays logged in to FB during all the time you are using a computer which you should be using to work/study? Then this may just interest you.

Thanks to one of my friends (Sukiri) I heard about mobile text alerts. Although it does not do what I want I guess it’ll help most people. Guess what this service is free. You also don’t need a sophisticated high-end phone to use this service. All you need is the ability to send and receive text messages on your mobile. (isn’t that great)

(Disclaimer: If you already know about FB mobile texts then this is not the place for you)

How does it help? :
• It alerts you when somebody has commented on your postings of photos, wallposts and status messages.
• And you can reply to all of those with a text message. (Now you don’t have to wait till you get home to get back at those smart comments. When they insult you, you can get right back at them)
• If you are a virtual stalker then this service just made your job a whole lot easier. All you got to do is go and subscribe to someone’s profile and you receive all that person’s updates and postings on your mobile. (this activity is not recommended by the GoSL or by any other government for that matter)
• If you use an “upahara” for all those mobitel and landline calls and a blaster for all the dialog calls, still you have nothing to fear you can add more than one number to the text list.
• On a serious note if u are a team leader at your work, study group and want to communicate cheap with all your team members at once, then just tell them to subscribe to your profile then facebook will do the job for you and for free.

However:
• There is no way you can get alerts about the birthdays that are upcoming. (this is what I really wanted as I still keep forgetting to wish people, and FB has taken away our freedom to forget them)
• This service is only offered to Dialog and Mobitel customers.

How do you activate it:
Well it’s really simple.
First go to Account Settings on Facebook
Then Here don’t do any fancy things just type the letter “f” and send to 32665. When you send the message you will receive a confirmation code. Enter the confirmation code where it is asked for and you’ve done it. If you don’t want people to see your mobile number just uncheck the box below the text box. Upon confirmation you will be asked as to what alerts you wish to receive. Just check the alerts you want to receive and you are done.

Well that wasn’t so hard was it?

(gosh there should be some easier way to add the photos, and then to organize them on the blogs. I cant help feeling the screenshot texts are hard to read)

Getting there on Time

2009-07-07T19:15:00.006+05:30

When we are going to think of the time to do something there are two times we have to consider the Actual Time & Sri Lankan Time. (It becomes three if we consider auspicious times/රාහු කාලය as well)

Sri Lanka as a nation is late. We all know it, and all of us contribute towards it. We are late when it comes to bringing on important education reforms, important laws (seat belt law for example), responding to critical situations. But most of all when it comes to going to a place on time we are late (including me).

From the tender years of our lives we are told many things about punctuality and all of us remember the wise words of our elders. One favorite quote is “Value of time is equal to the value of gold/ කාලය රන් හා සමානයි”. So we all know the virtues of working on time. But the thing is we never make an effort to be somewhere on time. Unless we know that we have to make a very good impression. (Job interviews and exams are not the only to be on time.)

There are several reasons for being late, one being our laziness. On a day without traffic I can go to university in about 30mins if I travel by car. So this is the time I allocate for my trip to university every day I go in a vehicle. I’m too lazy to consider factors such as weather, traffic , accidents. So when these factors are adverse I’m late. (so I have to spend the extra time to come up with colorful excuses to tell the lecturers as the reason for being late.)

Another reason for being late (which by the way is very popular) is that we think that others would be late. We see this especially when it comes to departing on a trip. During my whole life I have never left on a trip on time. So most people come late intentionally because they think others will come late. These people even go to the extent of making fun of the people who actually came on time (“අපි දන්න හින්ද තමයි වෙලවට ආවෙ නැත්තෙ”).

(When I was small in about year 7 or year 8, when it was the day to go on the class trip I wanted to leave home as early as possible, I really thought my whole class would come on time and would leave without me. So being there on time was a serious business. I used to freak out, urging my father to get ready saying that he’s going to make me late, and if I’m really lucky I would get to leave the house by the time I was supposed to be in school. And when I got to school I find myself belonging to the few people who came early. I would be so angry with my class mates. I would also find out that I have left some important stuff at home in my haste to leave home. Now it’s my father’s time to yell at me for all the nagging and bothering I did earlier. This is how I picked up the habit of intentionally being late.)

There are also some who think it’s fashionable to be late, and then get all the attention of some place. I think it were the politicians who were the trendsetters this time. When it came to gracing an occasion they were always late. I remember waiting and waiting during prize givings at school waiting for the relevant politicians to come. (I’m sure my thoughts during those moments, which mind you were long, would have brought many ill effects to the parents’ of those politicians.)

Guys used to employ this technique a lot to during A/Ls classes to make sure the girls knew that they existed. (Nowadays we seem to have outgrown that habit. But I’m certain the current A/Ls students have taken up this, to replace us.)

And for all those humble souls who get late thanks to feeble memories, well I feel for you. You just can’t help being late.

Since i myself is guilty of being late, i don't think i'm in any position to offer advice on the matter. So if some one does have advice it would be appreciated.

Remember “Better late than never, but never late is better”.

Oh those Troublesome Beggars

2009-07-02T20:33:00.004+05:30

To get from university to my house I have to take a minimum of 3 busses no matter what route I take. Each day I travel by bus, I lose about Rs.5 – Rs. 15 thanks to beggars. Statistically I meet a minimum of 1 beggar each day during my return journey. Since I go to university early in the morning, in crowded busses I don’t meet any on my way to campus. (this is the time I meet pick pocket guys, so I have constantly touch both my trouser pockets to make sure my purse and phone are still there.)

Beggars come in various shapes and sizes and but usually with the same old story. Some have incurable diseases, others have a big family to feed, and some have just lost their job, these are the common stories. Some have hideous and scary skin diseases that people would give him anything to make him get off. There are also the singers. They get on the bus with some instrument and drive us to the very edge of insanity by singing something which is so out of tune. (Now I know how Asterix a.k.a Suura Pappa and Obelix a.k.a Jim Pappa must’ve felt when Cacofonix a.k.a Kaako Pappa was singing) And beggars even threaten and insult people when they don’t give money. (And all people just let them do it).

Then there is the occasional English speaking beggar. He is usually a security officer or a clerk who lost his job at some government institution. (Well that is according to them.) Sri Lankans think that if somebody can speak English that person has a better social standing. It is this thinking that this beggar wants to exploit. They hope that English will help them to convince people of their story.

The interesting thing about most of these people are that they have the strength in their arms and legs to do something useful to the society other than living off our hard earned money. (Well I must admit that they also earn money through hard work, gosh getting in the right bus with the right amount of people and then yelling away is hard work.) But I guess they earn more through begging than they earn through some other job why else would they resort to begging.

Once a beggar with a very different story boarded the bus I was travelling. This was a young guy dressed in denims and this guy went on to elaborate how he didn’t complete his schooling properly as he got addicted to drugs, and how he was rehabilitated after getting caught to the police while stealing clothes. (At this point I was thinking ok now what is he coming to?) Then he asked the people for money saying it was their responsibility to give him money to stop him from going back on to drugs. (Man, what the hell?) I just couldn’t help laughing.

Until recently I was very careful when giving some change, and never ever gave money to kids because I’m of the opinion that if they go for easy cash they will never know the importance of education which is the only thing that can bring them out of this mess. But a question from a friend made me rethink about the whole thing. What if all these beggars resorted to stealing?

NOTE : While doing A/Ls one of my teacher’s said of a professor who actually lived for about an year like a beggar and then wrote a book about it. Those days I thought the man was nuts, totally jobless fellow. But here I am writing a blog post about them. (But these days I am having a vacation so I have to say that I am a bit jobless)

Private Education is BAD (Well I don’t think so)

2009-07-01T14:03:00.001+05:30

Sri Lanka is one place where change is looked as something that is always bad. We see so many protests, hunger strikes, petition campaigns that it has become part of our lives. The situation is further worsened due to people who try to exploit this natural resistance to change within Sri Lankans for their own hidden agendas.

Not all change is good, and change for the sake of change is also bad. But we need change to move forward as a nation. Before changing anything else we need to change our attitudes.

One such attitude is that ALL PRIVATE EDUCATION IS BAD. This discussion has come to centre stage again due to talks about a private medical faculty in Malabe. Education is something that is always good, education is not only about learning a profession or a skill but true education is about opening your mind up for new ideas and broadening your horizons. The government universities can only accept a limited number of student and the facilities and resources are also limited. I myself is one of the lucky few, fortunate enough to enter one of the government universities. But what of the others who couldn’t?, should they serve us for the rest of their lives? Well I don’t think so.

People always ask “What Will Happen to the poor?” But look what’s happening now it’s the poor and medium class people that suffer. All the rich kids go abroad and learn whatever they want and the medium class students don’t get to do what they want. So the only option to them who don’t get selected to the local universities and still want to study is doing either IT, Management/Business or CIMA/CIM (Because those are the most popular private education options available). But that might not be what they want.

Ask your self would a child who always dreamed of becoming a Doctor or an Engineer all his/her life and just missed entrance to university by 0.01 marks wouldn’t they be happy to learn what they truly desire even through private education? Wouldn’t private education available for an affordable price right here in Sri Lanka help them?

The real issue is about selection. If all who get 3 passes at A levels are entitled for private education at this private Medical Faculty it would be very unfair for those who studied all those long sleepless nights to get through. (Coz I know that most who fail put a lot of effort in the wrong direction to fail.) So the criteria for selection should be an A level result which nearly missed entrance to medicine, and people with the capacity to reach a knowledge level as that which is required to enter a government university.

The same is true for all other professions, which may be offered privately.

So to me the idea as a whole seems good if executed properly. And as always these are my thought so obviously open for debate.

Days of the Dial-Up

2009-06-27T06:14:00.001+05:30

Remember dialing all those numbers, then the weird connecting noises, finally the ability to download a song of about 4mb from roughly about 30 mins, yes people those were the days of the dial-up. I remember how I used to constantly monitor the clock to look at the elapsed time to make sure that I don’t use the phone line too much generating thumping phone bills.

When we got internet to our house I was just 12 (1999/2000). That was supposedly to help my father to send his office emails. But he very rarely used the computer at home let alone send emails. So this new technology was kind of “all mine”.

Those were the days before youtube and the concept of social networking had not touched the lives of people, and navigation on the world wide web was a structured and a well planned affair. I used to prepare a list of all the things I wanted to learn and search all those stuff every time I connected, and mind you that list did not contain any of the random crap that I go through mostly these days. Yup that list was a guide for a quest of knowledge and contained sites related to astronomy, automobiles, and howstuffworks.com was one of my favorites (Nowadays a rarely go there). And to save on the call charges I used to save the pages that I found interesting first and then read them properly after disconnecting. (hmm those were the days)

Most of the internet access was after 9pm coz after that time the call charges with Sri Lanka Telecom was cheaper.

And then there were the emails. At first I didn’t have my own mail address so preferred to use my father’s. All mails were handled using Outlook Express and that didn’t have spam filters those days( hopefully they have them now). So it took a while for all these mails to be received. Gosh was I stupid, the first “You have Won” emails really excited me.

The mail box size was a mere 4mb( can u even believe it 4mb?????) and once my friends started forwarding emails this 4mb was exceeded everyday. And when my father got that all important email from office it got deleted from the server since mail box size had exceeded. (then came the lecture about using technology in the proper manner). So I made up my mind that was the time to get myself a new email account (as if I had to receive very important “emails”).

And after A/Ls in 2006 I got ADSL and the rest is history.

The Spectators Curse

2009-06-24T07:55:00.001+05:30

It really hurts when you sometimes really look forward to something and plan for something which is not in your control and when that thing goes wrong. You feel that you wasted a lot of time and effort for that. Well leaving all serious things aside, cricket matches tend to lead to this outcome a lot.

When I was young I use to hurry from school hoping and praying for my school van to move faster to get home quickly to watch the cricket match on tv, and then when I get home I find out that there is a power cut, or just when I turn on the tv a wicket falls (this happens a lot when I wait a bit too long to go for a lecture at the university) or the opposition are well set for a victory. (Oh the feelings of disappointment)

Last Sunday was a perfect example for what I call the curse of the spectators. Me and a couple of friends went to a friend’s place in Deniyaya after finishing the dreaded exams. All of us are avid cricket fans. So after much effort we managed to find a color tv and an antenna and a booster (just in case) to watch the World T20 finals.

Then when we got to Deniyaya we spent over two hours moving, rotating the antenna around to catch Channel Eye properly. One guy watched for the quality of the channel while others moved it. Phrases like “than onna hariyagena enawa”, “aiyo onna aaye upset una”, “thawa poddak oya paththata”,”naa oy oya paththata neme anith paththata” came constantly out of the quality controller’s mouth.(it was only later we found out that the match was being telecasted on rupavahini which has far better reception than channel eye, in outstation areas).

All along we were discussing on the strategies Sri Lankan team should take to win the match. We all agreed that batting first would be the best thing to do, and decided any score over 140 would surely be defendable because our bowling was very good. We talked in length why Chris Gayle won the toss and decided to bowl first in the semi finals (gosh wasn’t he stupid?). And specially about Dilshan and his performances. (we also formulated a few theories on how he managed to be so consistent)

By 7.30p.m. we were already with food, couple of mega bottles, water and all the other little things.

What Happened : Sri Lanka batted first made 138 and still lost the game.

A classic case of the spectators curse.

My Favorite Super Hero

2009-06-15T22:40:00.000+05:30

I am one huge movie fan. I am one of those guys who go through all those reviews and critics and trailers trying to find out which movies to watch. Then after watching a movie that I think is great I scan the reviews and critics again to see whether there are others like me who think the same about that movie.

As of lately I have seen a flood of superheroes coming to our lives through the silver screen. Now Hollywood is a multi-million dollar business so they won’t give all these Super Heroes if they didn’t bring in some heavy cash. The superhero movies are doing so great that even spoofs are coming on to the big screen.

So think about it how do all these superhero movies do so well in Box Office? How do they create a buzz? Most of all how do they get so many viewers? What do all these “Super Heroes” have in common?

Well may it be the wall crawling Spider Man or the high flying, x-ray visioned Super Man or the knight of darkness Batman they all have one thing in common, yeah you guessed it THEY FIGHT CRIME.

Today we live in the fast moving, ever changing, highly competitive 21^st century where we sometimes have to do morally questionable things (which are not illegal by the way)to be competitive, but deep down inside we still have the ability to distinguish the RIGHT from WRONG, the GOOD from EVIL. Well it is this thing deep down inside that keeps our humanity intact. We still remember those bedtime stories our parents/ grandparents used to tell us. Remember those stories about the mighty kings, Robin Hood, William Tel? Wasn’t there a time we wanted to be like those legends?

Well now, we have grown up we have accepted reality, and most of us lack that courage to be the man who changes the world. But still somewhere within us we still want to be that man, who fights the corrupt system, deals with the people who we think bring unfairness and evil in to our life. This is where the super hero comes in. He’s that man come to life. That’s why we love those super heroes so much.

Why are most superheroes masked? Well you’d say that it is to protect their privacy and to protect their loved ones from coming to harm. But just think of it this way, isn’t it easy to place our face within that masked face. With a masked face it is much easier to fantasize ourselves as the super hero. We forget all our problems, those misunderstandings at the work place, the exam that you have to sit for which you have not yet studied, we forget about all of them embrace our dreams. For a brief period during the movie and after that (just think of the times you fantasized in your alone time about various parts in movies) you are helping people, changing the world and most of all feeling satisfied with your self.

Well this is why I think Super Hero movies are doing so well today, but then again I am no Psychologist or Social Analyst so it’s open for debate.

PS : and if u are wondering who my favorite super hero is well it’s the Batman.

The First Hail

2009-06-15T21:46:00.000+05:30

Hey people this is my first blog entry, a realization of an idea that has been nagging me in the back of my mind for quite sometime. Usually such ideas are forgotten after sometime but this just kept coming back.

I am a Sri Lankan student studying Engineering and i hope this would enable me to share some of my ideas with the world.

(Gosh that was boring wasn't it? You must have seen crap like that in blogs many times. Well i really felt that i just had to say something about my self before i start posting)