Spending time with parents

For the past couple of months I was unable to spend much time with my parents. So this weekend I came to Kandy and spending four days with them. So I won't blog much till next Monday.

Mistranslation of Rathana theros speach.

The heading "Tamils don't belong to Sri lanka, they should fight in Tamilnadu- Rathana thera" in lankaEnews website is a slight mistranslation from the Sinhalese.
The monk is implying that Tamils has their origins in Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka is the home land of Sinhalese. Check the star gallery link in the same site and you would understand the standards of the site.

Got promoted

Yesterday I received my promotion letter to Associate Technical Lead, as usual back dated to April 01st.

I joined Virtusa on 01st of July 2004 as an Associate Software Engineer, had my bad times, good times, low performance times, high performance times and every thing in-between with three consecutive promotions.

Three years is a long time to be at one place compared to my career history. But I'm happy I could hold on to it. Looking back I'm happy about where I am today but the future stands full of potential.

One too less white van

The claymore mine in Rathmalana yesterday killed at least six (6) civilians including two females and injured more than 16 including children. Amnesty International or any other human rights activists doesn't seem to bother much about that. Perhaps it's not to the best interest of their funders.

Our country is at war. Enemy has it's roots in our society. Security forces along can not be held responsible for protecting civilian lives. It's the responsibility of every peace loving person in this country to be on alert and act upon anything suspicious. Perhaps more information from the public and/or another white van could have prevented yesterday's bloodshed.

Movie marathon

Yesterday I went to MC theater hoping to watch Spider Man 3. The darn queue was halfway down the second floor. (Compare that to less than 50 audience for Sankranthi - who said there aren't any movie goers any more?) So bought couple of DVDs and headed back home. Rocky Balbova and Babel.

First watched Rocky Balboa, this was release while I was in the US and I was longing to watch it. But couldn't make up the time. It had the most common story line ever for boxing and martial art movies. The main character for one reason or another wants to fight the ultimate fight (most of the time with the bad guy world champ), he train hard with a fight plan and wins (or loose) marginally at the last moment (just before the bell of the last round). Nevertheless, Rocky Balboa was still a worth watch.

Rocky after wining world heavy weight championship couple of times is retired in to doing a small restaurant. His kid is grown up and rarely ever visits him because he(son)'s having a personality crisis. His wife's dead and he's still miserably missing her. He's bored with life and spends his time telling old time stories to his clients at the restaurant. He helps people and still is the champ in the hearts of his fans. A sports channel screens simulated fight between the current world champion (who's never beaten and haven't found a match yet - disliked by the fans) and rocky in a program. Motivated by that Rocky reapplies for a license to box again. He was planing to fight in small fights but the now disparate managers of world champ invite him for a exhibition match with the world champ. Rocky train go for the fight, box all 10 rounds and marginally loose by split decision. Unlike most of the movies of this nature, very less time was taken to show how he practice. Much was taken to show his loneliness and his good nature. The final fight was given enough weight. All in all, I like it. But wouldn't call it great.

Babel, well - good story wasted by bad cinematographer. It's more like "Asoka Handagama" type...

“Sankranthi” - the bankrupted Sinhalese Cinema

I hadn’t watched a Sinhalese film for ages, probably I swore myself not to watch one again the last time I did. So yesterday I went to see “Sankranthi” a movie by Anuruddha Jayasinghe, staring Sangeetha Weeraratne, Bimal Jayakody and W. Jayasiri.

Dr Gerard (W. Jayasiri) a Primatologist with Phd s from an american university is studying the behaviour of apes in jungles with a nature photographer Sunimal (Bimal Jayakody). They spend a prolong amount of time in jungles leaving behind Pam (Sangeetha Weeraratne) young wife of Dr. Gerard. Apparently Pam is couple of decades younger to Gerard and starts off an intimate relationship with Sunimal.

It’s the perfect story for a porn movie I guess, but the only nudity the movie had was the posterior of Bimal and Jayasiri, which was disgusting and totally out of place for the movie.

I have seen cinematographers making use of much shorter and stupider story lines, so apart from the ill witted story, the director sucks too. The movie was dull and was a total waste of time and money.

I’m yet to see a “digestible” Sinhala film after Jayantha Chandrasiri’s “AgniDahaya”….

Heated at work

There is a power outage at the WTC and the entire building doesn’t have air conditioning. The computers, UPSs and we - humans, haven’t stopped emitting heat though…

It’s pretty hot here and difficult to breath as well.

Update: forgot to mention, there are no windows here - no air circulation

Ranil's fault or Mahinda's fault?

Bombing at the doorstep

Came to office around 7.15, had breakfast, checked mail and the syndications. Then slowly started with day's work when I started to receive IMs from friends asking about a bomb blast in Fort, where my office is.

I didn't hear a thing, but the IMs were too many for it to be a false alarm. One said it was in front of the harbour. I get a clear view of the harbour, so I took a look, nothing seemed to be moved. Hmm...

Half an hour later, it's in the front page of my iGoogle!!

http://defencenet.blogspot.com/2007/05/suicide-attack-on-army-transport-pettah.html
http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2007/5/15203.html

Anonymity and Screen names in blogsphere

Modesty and fear are the main factors that make us behave the way we do. We control our expressions of anger, hatred, disgust, lust etc. because of them. Anonymity provides the opportunity to be free from the need to be modest or feared to express their true opinions. It also shows the true character of a person. Most of the anonymous comments we see in blogs are expressions of such depressed opinions.

When the anonymity of those people is lost, they get hyper defensive of their acts as they know in the back of their minds that their true tarnished personalities are being exposed.

People who present themselves with screen names are often just being defensive of their opinions than being guilty conscious about it. They represent their personality with grace unlike the anonymous. These people wouldn’t mind exposing their true identities to those they trust.

Localized web

It amazes me how many websites provide localized contents these days, it's quite more than I would have imagined.

I'm working on a application that should be supported in several languages including Japanese and French. So often, I have my regional settings set to these languages. And when I browse the web, I get pages in those languages...

Me and my cameras

During my childhood, my brother had a camera, first a Konika auto focus point and shoot one and then a Zenit SLR. I loved them, however hardly ever was allowed to use them. Then I had a point and shoot camera of a brand I don’t recall. All I did with it was - point and shoot. Then there was a Canon point and shoot camera my sister brought from Japan… can’t remember making much use of it either.

Then I bought a mobile phone with an inbuilt camera - a Nokia 6230i with a 1.3MP camera. I shot a fair deal with that one and felt the need for a *real* camera. Perhaps it was the digital factor that made me addicted for shooting. So when I went to US last year, the first thing I bought was a Canon PowerShot S2 IS with 12X optical zoom. I needed more optical zoom for some reason but I seldom use the mega zoom. S3 was just released by that time but I wasn’t convinced it is worth for the extra $80.

I shoot a lot with it and go out solely to shoot as well. Among other things I’ve figured so far are the facts that, I got a lot to learn and I should have invested on a dSLR. Hmmm…

How you find me

It’s quite interesting to know how and where from my visitors come. There are like 40~50 visitors (unique IP) everyday who just type in http://mahasen.blogspot.com or use a bookmark. Probably syndicates count in here as well. Then there are another 50 or so coming from kottu.org, achcharu.org or geeklanka.com. Another 20 or so comes from sites that have linked to my blog. An interesting 15~20 come from search results every day as well. Search criteria that had directed here yesterday were
“Mahasen”
“Tamil Elam”
“Tamil blog Canada”
“sri lanka blog”
“Virtusa”

Interestingly, some IPs have visited me 20 times during yesterday!

Most of my visitors come from Sri Lanka, second highest is shared between Australia and United States. There are some regular visitors in the UK and the Middle East as well.

Being pissed off in the morning

I wish I could keep my head cool all the time. Being angered creates more suffering for me than any one else. But that’s how things are. Perhaps I don’t meditate enough. Even the monk told me so yesterday…

Any ways what made me angry this morning is the dumb head neighbor of ours (I hate having neighbors - doesn’t every one?). I had to pick up my sister at 7 this morning. I got up late and had to hurry so didn’t lock the gate as I was leaving. The idiot came out from no where and very rudely said “make sure you ‘close’ the gate when you go out” (no “please” - no smile). I was in a hurry as I said so just said “yeah sure” and walked away without locking it.

We, living in an apartment complex, share the same gate with our neighbor. There were times when they (neighbors) just take the darn padlock with them for days and we weren’t able to lock the damned thing. But this bugger had the nerve this morning to tell me what to do. I was in mood to tell him a thing or two when we came back but the bugger wasn’t around - that prevented some thing that could have been a really bitter experience for the rest of our stay there.

So what made me cool off later? It’s the friendly stray dog I feed with biscuits every morning. She came on to me smiling and wagging her tail. She probably sensed I was in a bad mood so she made sure I feel better before attending to the biscuits. Isn’t that wonderful? The animal had more sensibility than that human.

Did I post these before?

You might want this

I’m intentionally avoiding commenting on certain posts these days. Because I’m pretty sure, if those discussions last any longer, every one would need one of these

Mahinda and the agreements

One thing I don't like about our president is his signing of agreements with every jockey he could set his eyes on. I mean, it's been hilarious, so has been politics in our country for quite some time.

But seriously it's hard to say, to which agreement he stick to. And it's even more difficult to believe all these parties and people agreed to his "Mahinda Chinthanaya". But again for politicians here, it's about power than policies. So what's said in the document must not really matter for them as long as they get in the power they wanted.

Try finding it yourself first.

Yesterday, some one from another team came to our cubicle and asked:

“machan, have you heard of ‘firehose state’ in SQL sever”

I goes,

“Nop, never heard, did you try google?”

“No, I thought you guys would know”

%$#*…

So I type “sql server firehose” in google. (Actually in http://start.icloneable.com ;) ) and dalaaa… here comes the first link, with the answer to his question. So had he really googled, he could have solved his issue before standing up and walking to our cubicle.

The truth is, for a software engineer in a service oriented company like ours, there could be very little technical issues that are left unsolved. And google, would almost always direct you there to the answer. What are there for us to solve are only the business problem and the environment issues specific to the solution we build.

In what way were you discriminated?

Since there are a lot of Tamils who believe they have been discriminated because they are Tamil, and I’m still in the stance that the discrimination was purely geographical, I would like to know facts. What discrimination did you face because of being Tamil?

Australian Cricket and Microsoft

These two has one thing in common at least, no matter who shouts foul, they get their job done.

I’ve been receiving countless number of emails requesting to sign petitions and send mails to ICC etc. about this squash ball issue. Okay he had a damned squash ball in his glove - not fair. But it’s over now. They won and we lost. Its one thing to fight for some thing rightfully yours and it’s another to fight for some thing that could have only had a slight advantage. It wasn’t the damned squash ball that hit the ball in to right places. It was the man having it in inside his glove.

Perhaps those who are still not over with the squash ball thing could write a stupid game like “kill bill” named “ball ausies”. So you could all have that sense of pleasure that you beat the Australians.

Aren't preventing these worth loosing our rights for?

I hate having to stop at the check points. And I know there are people who face greater difficulties than that because of the security reasons. But I believe that process help prevent at least few of these massacres. Isn't it worth all that? It is for me at least.

Fuel price hike and us

Fuel price equate to cost of living. There for it’s not only vehicle owners who feels it when the fuel price go up. We blame the government, government blame the crude oil market, opposition says the government is wrong and we support the opposition.

No matter who rules, the percentage from my salary I spend on fuel has increased constantly. Hmm…

There had been two major issues in this country which has been the trumps for the politicians after the independence; war and cost of living. But none ever successfully countered either of them so far.

Americans pay less for fuel. How come? Probably because they have oil there and they own a fair share of the oil market as well. But nevertheless they are also investing a great deal on alternatives. What do we do? Can we do any thing at all rather than blaming some one?

Who’s right is this?

Yesterday during the Emergency debate Mr. Kajendran, a TNA (pro LTTE political party) MP said ‘Our Air force would be used to attack enemy targets’. When he uses the term ‘our’ he was referring to the LTTE, a terrorist organization banned in many countries of the world. What right does he have to make such terrorist threats in parliament?

All MPs takes oaths to safeguard the unity of the country and oppose its division. Apart from breaking that auth Mr Kajendran has openly admitted that he’s a member of LTTE.

Decision lies ahead.

The Tamil Elam you want

For the history I know, the northern part of Sri Lanka has been under constant attack from Indian invaders - mostly Tamil. So time to time they have been ruling the north but eventually a southerner would go and win back the land. Let it aside so the historians could debate on whose native land is it. Put aside the manipulations of Tamil minds to make them want a separate country.

I’m pretty sure there are Tamils who honestly believe north and the east of Sri Lanka is their’s. The reason is not I ponder about neither the fact whether it’s possible.

Let’s hypothetically think that they get the separate country. Done. No war. There’s a border separating south from north and east.

The south - the smaller Sri Lanka retains it’s capital and all the critical cities of economical importance. All the industries which produce the income would prosper without the war and more investors would probably come because the war is no more. Tourism would flourish and so forth.

But what would be the situation in the “Elam”? Right now, the LTTE gets most of it’s funds through illegal business like arms smuggling, drug trafficking and stuff like that. Would the economy of the Elam be based on these? Irrigation and farming would be one option but could they run a country just with that? Surly Norway, Canada and other pro-LTTE community would provide funds for uplifting other industries. But do they have the resources to invest those funds on? They now don’t have a proper educational system nor a proper governance structure. Surely, some of the educated Tamils now abroad would come to help. But how effective would it be? Hmm… to top all, there could be political battles and a misery in the administration. And that’s like only the economical aspect of it. What about the social aspect? There’s a huge gap left there as well.

All in all, I think what they are fighting for is a worse misery than what they are already in.

Liberty

Everybody captures the front, Niluksha had the nerve to capture the back...

Sinhala Buddhist Racism and Politics and my stance

EDIT: I have matured since this post, and I do not believe in what I speak here anymore.

As much as I like Udaya Prabath Gammanpila of Sihala Urumaya (note: not Hela Urumaya) to be the president, I know he’s more to mature. Nevertheless I vote him. Is he a racist? Yes. A Sinhala Buddhist racist.

So why do I vote a racist? There are three reasons why.

Sinhala Buddhist racism does not discriminate other races or religions. Buddhist teachings are to equally honour all other religions the same as Buddhism. Had they really tried to understand what Sinhala Buddhist racism is, all other races would have welcomed it more.

I’m not voting a political party nor a person but what a person or the party represent. I believe collectively the political view of Sihala Urumaya is close to mine. If the leaders of the party is to divert from that view - that’s their option. If the party as a whole is to divert from what it represent that the option of its leaders as a whole. To whom I vote would still be a logical decision I make. If I feel the party still represent what I believe in, I shall vote. If not I would look for other’s who does. But leaders leaving the party, or few things going the wrong way wouldn’t really change any thing in what they represent.

I believe Udaya and Champika at least believe in what they say and honestly want to do it. And their arguments seem logical to me. They are willing to take constructive criticism and are willing to accept if they make mistakes. They are very less corrupted than any other politician in this country.

Finally on monks doing politics, I believe it’s not right. Monks are supposed to dedicate themselves to achieving nirvana and to guide lay men on the same path. That’s the sole reason why any one should become a Buddhist monk. To get away from the complexities and attachments of lay life and to live a more simple and purified life, meditating, advising and preaching lay people on dhamma which lord Buddha preached.

But over time the values of being monks have perished and Buddhist monks or rather people pretending to be Buddhist monks have engaged in various activities which Buddha explicitly prohibit them from. To imply how much we have come to live with the malpractices of monks, treating patients as doctors is explicitly prohibited for monks by lord Buddha. But how many monks do we know who does this? Some even engage in activities considered indecent even for lay people. So given that, politics isn’t that bad… yet that doesn’t mean its right. A monk should be a monk.

So they've been talking

Lot of ms geek blogs started to bitch about Silverlight over the past few weeks. I don't have a clue what the heck it is. There was a time when I read a lot and knew every thing that happened out there; relevant to MS development at least. But now I'm more focused on few things and only have a clue about the others. But I always know where to look for when I need information or guidance. In this case, I was clueless - So I looked for information.
While most bloggers were all bitching about it, very few were actually posting useful information.
Merill linked to this and ScottGu posted this
So the all new name "Silverlight" is actually for the WPF/E which every one was talking about for quite some time now. That made things easy. I knew what WPF/E was. Hmm..
So you know what... Bill Gates just might rename his children when they graduate... Yeah - really he could..

Death

"In Colombo, a young woman was drowned when she fell into a large water hole in the centre of the pavement at Wijerama Mawatha. The hole was not visible since the whole pavement was covered by flood waters. She has been identified as S. M. Anoma Gunadasa. A woman teacher, Thilini Palihakkara, attached to the Royal Institute was electrocuted in Slave Island. She had fallen into a pit that was covered with water and tried to get out of it by holding on to a damaged lamp post which was electrified. In the Kirillapone market a man died when lightning struck him during the morning rains. At Nagoda, in Galle, a brother and sister were buried alive by an earth slip." - news

"Scepter and crown
Must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade."

"Now when a man is truly wise,
His constant task will surely be,
This recollection about death,
Blessed with such mighty potency."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratna/wheel102.html

Photo shoot