World Cup 2011- Who will be the Champions?

First of all let me congratulate England for winning rather retaining the Ashes down under..This should have happened long time ago when Macgreth and Warne (sorry if I got the spelling wrong Glen) left the field and credit goes to Australia also for holding on until now.

The era of Australian domination is over just like the West Indian domination in seventies. However, I cannot forget Sir Botham's contribution in mid eighties but this time it is the team work that lead to the victory and credit goes to Flower behind the scene and Strauss for workman like leadership. I knew he had all the credentials to lead a victorious team but do not be complacent the Australian team by all its worth and standard was very poor outfit.

Like Australian politics and not being able to stand up for their man of Wickileaks Australia has shown it is still under the Queen's Grip but not a Republic of People who can be proud of their history and achievements as a nation.

Coming back to World Cup, who will win?
In cricket it is hard to predict but I go for South Africa and with the shrewed leadership of Smith, they can do it.
South Africa did a good thing by appointing him as the captain when young. He has matured to be the best standing captain and with stature and amiable smile, like our smiling assassin Muththiah come World Cup he should (without injuries of course) be able stand to the rigours of one day cricket and raise the World Cup.
Their only weakness is spin (slow) balling department in both facing the spin ballers and using spinners to compliment the army of pacies they have.
The wickets and weather are going to be their spoiler enemies and Smith should be able to smell the weather as well as dirty politics well in advance of the World Cup.
Please do not be corrupt like Gilchrist and play the game by the spirit of the game.
Unlike football (it is a corrupt game, anyway) in South Africa they are not under pressure and when one is not under pressure one achieves better results.

Good Luck Southies!.

Mind you umpires can be spoilers especially Australian and English!

Now why I did not fancy any of the South East countries.
In this part of the world the cricket is corrupt like politics. Good example is Sri-Lanka and my gut feeling is that they will not even pass the Round Robin Stage (unless they use some undercover political maneuvering).

India got the Mega Star image like Indian celluloid's and Pakistan is still struggling to emerge from Military to civilian life with terrorist holding the country transom and unfortunately religion has become a curse to neighboring countries (it is so in Sri-Lanka too, it does not matter in what form it comes with monks in the parliament doing sweet nothing).

To the players I have one warning.
Cricket is stronger than a religion in this part of the world.
Do not play dirty or politics with the game.
Win or lose enjoy the sunshine and the game.
Good workman like players we will remember to our twilight years.

What matters is the game not the individuals and one should be able to say "I did it my way" and "it worked" and a smile for the waiting cameras.

If you play by the rules we will be with you when you are under the weather and the press.

One example would suffice.
When Shrawag was denied a century, a few of us were behind you.
You have a point to prove and when you play against Sri-Lanka but do not make it spoil your excellent performance.
You can be the " player of the series" if you have a simple game plan and play one ball at time.
Your balling will be a secret weapon and practice that too to win.

It Is Christmas and Linux Spirit is High

I woke to the the sound of Knoppix CD booting and Happy Christmas and Happy Birthday (10th Anniversary) to Knoppix.

It is beautiful and that was the first Christmas (I am a Buddhist by the way-perhaps not Orthodox) gift I gave away.

Thanks Guys and Girls and all the vast Linux Community.

All of you are doing a wonderful stuff.

It looks as if Jesus as come again.

Their is little Jesus in every one of you who share his vision in you.

It feels wonderful and in spite of the stock market crisis you still can smile and give the Christmas its real meaning.

To my surprise even KORORAA has come alive.

Reincarnation, I believe.

PCLinux is on the heal and there is no Achilles Tendon problem.

I cannot cope up with the downloads with the download speed that has come to a grounding halt, in this country.

Happy New Year 2011 too

10 things your Counselor won't tell you and 50 ways to Leave your Counselor

Come Christmas with everybody in elevated spirits (both in spiritual and blood alcohol content) counselors are wee bit hard pressed to find customers and I was hard pressed to find a topic to keep my web friends in highly elevated Mode / Mood and with a Beautiful Mind.

If for some reason people who read this and exchange this with others, increase by exponential proportions, quite a number of counselors might lose their jobs or find their income drop drastically during Christmas and I have a way out for them to redeem themselves.

Become an instant Buddhist (like instant noodles) and start preaching and practicing meditation (it is a lucrative industry in this part of the world where Dhayana Stage Certificates are offered to Primary School Children to pass their competitive examinations disregarding their childhood fantasies, dreams and spontaneous fun and games).

Coming to the first part of the discussion that psychiatrists do not tell you in advance.

1. They are more depressed than average person who comes for counseling

2. They commit suicide more often than an averagely stressed doctor in practice.

3. Their rate of consumption of alcohol is higher than an average doctor (that the doctor's consumption is higher in proportion to an average simple man's consumption>

It is 10 times or more depending on the income and the status of the doctor.

4. That many of them cannot start a session without a good tot to boost their ego above that of the one who is counseled (patient gives a wrong connotation to the victim- they are not patients but bit stupid in the first place not been able to manage their own simple affairs).

5. Many of them take up this post since they get a free license to indulge in mood elevating drugs themselves apart from making others addicted to them.You must have got the hang of it by now do you want me to continue and bore you or continue with the common sense approach?

6. Many of the theories (they are still theories and waiting to be fixed or implanted to an unsuspecting victim of theirs) are never proven in practice but are found only in old textbooks.

7. Their vocabulary is far in excess of physics, mathematics and philosophy all put together and none of them have a proper definition or ( true or false) truth and validity concept of philosophy.

8. A psychiatrist never discusses his or her own problem (with nobody in fact) with another psychiatrist lest both of them end up diagnosing opposing conditions and they cannot agree who is a counselor and who is being counseled.

They live with this handicap throughout their life unless of course they commit suicide or become clever and change their profession to some other mundane one.

9. They never want any patient to recover fully and also pray that god should not come back to heal them in one go, lock stock and barrel!

10. They never believe in incarnation or reincarnation since they are so confused whether they themselves are in this birth or past birth or next birth or what ever the birth it may or could be.

I can add a few more but if I do so any further and by strange coincidence, if any one of them reads this, he or she might think I am gone bonkers and incarcerate me for life.

Now how to leave a counselor.This is very easy, elementary and you must come out of the very same door you went in but not the door he opens for you.
Otherwise you are in deep trouble.
You are hooked and he is more hooked to you than you may be (that is a professional hazard)

In Buddhism we say "let go" and "focus" but in psychiatry the opposite happens permanent attachment and fixation to a abstract psychological tenet and eventual slow but sure self destruction of mind.Most of them are very simple ploys even a kindergarten kid should be able to play and pratice them with their parents!

1. When you go to him remain deaf and dumb (or pretend you to be blind).
Without you opening your mouth he cannot enter into your mind (not even with Magnetic resonance) or and fix a bizarre concept and or make a diagnosis.

2. Always think of what he feels in the session than what you feel (whether he is broke or whether he is under the influence a drug or alcohol) and outsmart him in every nick and corner.

In other words you become the counselor and he becomes the reciprocate.With these two ammunitions majority can come out unscathed and unharmed.

Please do not break the poor souls composure mentally.

3. Ask him some money to settle an outstanding loan and promise him that you will settle it in good time.

4. Ask him for drink (at least a beer) before you start the counseling.

5. Ask him to open the windows for a healthy draft.

6. If the room is well lit asked him him for a dark room ( most are scarred of darkness).

7. If the room is large ask for a smaller one and if the room is small ask him for larger one.

They cannot do this because they have a fixed way of doing things.

8. If he asks you to write something say you prefer electronic mail to save the trees and the planet.

9. If he asks you to fill an electronic form say either you do not trust computers or make a vehement protest by stating that it violates Microsoft's Piracy Act and you are not willing to pay a fine.

10. If he still insist on counseling, you have to have an exit strategy preplanned.

This is very a simple ploy an average Sri-Lankan employs.

When you are in a busy meeting and you are getting cornered or fixed, then you get somebody to give you a call stating that your only great great great grandma died of a car accident (she was driving the car- even a healthy male cannot drive in this country).

So take your cell phone with you and just send a S.M.S to the guy or girl who gives the call, just in time for the exit door.Please do not use the story I mentioned above since all the psychiatrists I knew hated their grandmas (unlike us) and they do not still know how to slip out their hands even as an adult leave alone as a brat.

Moment you say grandma they soil their pants.

All these tricks have worked for me and I do not need to hinder your creativity, imagination and reciprocation (give as much as you take principle).

If any one of you need more than 12 strategies, you perhaps may need to go to a psychiatrist but before that you better contact me for help (not consultation).

If you are a Linux Addict or visit this blog at least once a year, it is free.

Otherwise the chargers I have increased by 100 folds since I cannot survive with 5% salary increase and I cannot go home without few Bombay Onions in my hand.

My wife will cut me into Onion Rings and fry me live, if I go home without onions!

God Help Me, if you have time!

Merry Christmas and Happy New year 2011.

Do we think when we upload or download?

This is the time of the year when messages fly across the web in millions of little pieces.

If my download (my payment subscription) is 56 bytes at least 4-6 bytes are taken by the header and we do not get 100% efficiency.

Up time is even worse.

I find only the twitter restricting its characters to 140 (out of 256 alphanumerical code) and the keyboard has about 36 keys to play with.

Pali has many and Sinhala has little less since our phonetics are as close as to the nature since human dialogue is as old as its existence and the English keyboard cannot accommodate our language characters used for phonetics with 36 keys.

My question is our intelligence restricted by our keyboard or touchpad for that matter?

Touchpad is very innovative and S.M.S may be fast in the character transfer in the web but does not fit into our analog way of life.

We cannot transfer our thinking and creativity over the web.

I saw one of my friend's grandson playing with an electronic "kitty" at a function where everybody was there and the kids were the ones. a vee bit neglected (adults were fully occupied and preoccupied) lot.

To my amazement the kid's use of the binocular vision was affected by the little electronic "kitty".

I did a bit of testing of his eyes (I have befriended him on earlier occasion) and after 20 minutes of testing I was not sure what was going on.

Is his eyesight defective?

Is the game too fast or difficult?

The kiddy could not figure out how to win.

He was so engrossed that I could not get a word out of his mouth.

The next morning we had early morning chat with the guys of my age who had not returned to their bases. This was a rare occasion I decided to stay back to attend the next day's function (many others did not).

One grandad told me that his grandchild had his earphones fixed to his ears from Colombo to Matara and never bothered to listen to anything outside let alone a bird's song.

I told him if his grandson becomes a doctor one day he want be able to hear a soft heart sounds or a crackles in the lung and get it fixed / (corrected) now, not before it is too late.

On a slightly more frightful context radiation from the cell phones might end up with an epidemic of soft brain tumours in a decade or so especially in our girls, and that would be covered up like coconut saga (disputed heart attacks) by the big powerful companies until they shift to another venture.

Eyes, Ears and Brain can be affected.

What next?

Fingers too with touchpad.

But none of these gadgets will help creative thinking.

All these gadgets when excessively used hamper children's creativity!

We cannot transfer our thinking and creativity over the web.

Only connectivity.

Thinking has to be done (fast too) before touching the pads or keys but most of these actions are reflex actions and nobody seems to be reflective in their approach.

Think at least once what the benefits the kid get (age appropriate games) out of the gadget and what hidden harmful effects are there before you buy it, including choking with the battery.

That is the point I am driving at in this short piece.

Going back to up-time and down-time we need to educate the users, what ever the material they transfer across the web make them very light (quality does not matter) as possible to get the maximum throughput (MP3 or 4 instead of the fully featured family video) so the friend who downloads it will benefit and bystander users will also have enough bandwidth for their work and a very fast internet for everybody.

Follow the trend of twitter which sends millions of messages across with only 140 characters.

In that sense this blogging is on the Gorilla (sized) side but my intention is not to send a message but to make creative thinking possible even in this electronic age.

What we enjoy is analyzing the facts of the message.
That is the food for thought toady.

Not Cricket-Selections

I have faith in Gutsy Aravinda De Silva, if he takes the following points to consideration but I believe the ruins set in by the previous Chief Selector by his Political Wheeler Dealer (not cricket) selection of players to the National Team cannot be rectified for a decade and not less.

1. Fitness of the player to stand the rigors of the World Cup for the entire period (dashing and slowly wasting away-good example is Sanath)

2. Fielding Ability (nobody fits the cap for this characteristic now)

3. The neat fitting of the player to his role (the position he plays, coordination of senior player with the junior player, not to run out the junior player-Dilshan type)

4. Shear Determination to win (Mahanama type-nobody now) and withstand and bear pain

5. Quiet Achiever (Gurusinghe Model)

6. Dasher in Crisis (nobody better than Aravinda himself)

7. Ability to fit anywhere from 1 to 6 and the ability to wicket keep (Kaluvtharana Model-nobody now) wickets

8.Supportive type to the chief wicket taker (Kumar Dharmasena type)

9. Kangavena Type but Accurate (We have two Dilhara and Malinga) in wickets helping pacies like in Perth

10 Gritty Smart Psychological Type (The Arjuna (typical) the Greatest- not as irresponsible like Kumar Sangakkara) take as much as ONE can give back and a proactive thinker

11. Good knowledge of the opposition players (weaknesses and strength-SWOT Analysis)

12. Who can have a little snooze at the time of a major crisis and when given the ball or bat delivers the goods-they are the match winners

Avoid Please if you may

1. We do not want a Chatterbox behind the stumps

2. Un-gentlemenly Type (depriving Shawag a century)

3. No cheating (Gilchrist type with extra gear) but do not be too gentlemanly like (if the umpire makes the mistake unless obvious let the Umpire bites the dust)

4. Political Stooges

5. Pure Sinhala Buddhist Type Team

6. No extroverts

7. No introverts

8. Whimpering type

9. Paper Tigers (journalists who seem to know better-Arm Chair Type)

10. Annunkeli Type ( who promote their celluloid image at the expense of National Team, and players)

11. Who thinks cricket is an individual game and do not want to share all the spoils

12. Pissa (idiots) type of cheering spectator/s or underworld Gangs who have their own agenda - do the act for the TV and the Gallery- You may call it the Dr.Mervin Type

I have decided to sleep during the entire tournament when Sri-Lankans bat but wake only when they field to see the balling and fielding and perhaps other teams better performance!

SLAX-ReMix

SLAX_ReMix has done a beautiful Live KDE CD / LXDE CD,
I am going to drop it in my DropBox soon.
Join the pack.
Still no install.
They should do that soon in the coming year.

Like Puppy Linux (TeenPup) it should grow up.
Good Work. Guys and Girls.
Keep it UP.

I am not playing Cricket Now

This a note I posted at Dropbox-Blog.

I am new to Dropbox but found it by accident when I was testing Live Linux (recent ones) CDs.

I used to write a short comment on each Live CD and when I see a new feature would allocate somewhat arbitrary (my marking scale) points as a plus feature.

When I saw Dropbox in several of the Live CDs (Fedora, Ubuntu) in the internet section, I was curious but left it for another day to investigate.

Then, finally I investigated it (they were promoting for school kids) and being myself a teacher in the University, the question why not for me and my students.

Presto!

I am hooked to the Dropbox now as an Educational Tool.

Thank you for that and another reason.

I am depositing Linux Live CDs (unfortunately not DVDs- I advocate light version of OS instead of the Gorilla Versions) in the box for my Linux friends to test and try.

All in all it is a Linux Depository for Testing and Trying not a Repository..

The download spread are awfully slow in this part of the world and this is a simple remedy.

You do the synchronizing I do the depositing (Eggs -not Easter yet) on the Nest.

We have a bird in this country who deposits eggs on another type of bird's nest.

I am a lazy bird who does not want to look after (intellectual property of mine) my laid eggs!

I am trying to collect enough MiB (at least 4 GiB for me to deposit a Linux Big Image once in a while-for example games DVD) by promoting Dropbox.

I sent a virtual spam (to all my contacts) and some of them thought somebody has hacked my email. Never done that before!

Most of them are afraid of Dropbox (I have lost my sanity, they think in my old age) but I keep brainwashing (with coconut oil which is very expensive-we use it in anointing in our New Year ) them (at least I get all my friends together and some Mibs in the process) and with my humour, it seems to be working especially with younger counterparts.

I have found one problem that is unique to me.

I have up to 5 operating systems in the same Linux Box with different home partitions (with the same name-and same password) and they do not seem to synchronize the Dropbox which is in my home partition.

Linux distributions are finicky when it comes to sharing unless I ROOT Myself (which is not healthy at my age) every time I BOOT.

Apart from that Dropbox makes me lighter at the dinner parties.

Happy Christmas and New Year to all of you.

If you have some spare bones or MiBs please drop at my box (not the Cricket Box-I am not playing Cricket now).

Thanks.

K-Torrents

I was wondering how to speed up my downloads but could not find a solution yet.

The point to point downloads are painfully slow and only in early hours of the day the download speed recovers its speed to what we pay by the minute.

Guys / Girls working at the Telcoms are nice but due to not upgrading the infrastructure for decades and by consistently increasing (without increasing the loops and servers) the number of paid users without increasing the throughput, the Telecom as an industry is failing in its duty and also in efficiency.

In no time it will become like the Electricity Board or Water Board.
All the signs of impending crisis is there.

Electricity Board has failed on two counts.
1. The Cost of Electricity way beyond an average user.
2. The Power outages are frequent (both high and low) and recently our switch board caught fire. The cost of repair was over Rs. 15,000/=.
All we have to do it ourselves (private) no compensation or help from the Electricity Board.

Water Board is worse.
1. Water purification is questionable (one has to drop into a Service Station and see what I mean).

2. Again payment structure is badly streamlined.

3. When an important guy visits Kandy, water is diverted from elsewhere and never restored even day after the guy leaves the city.

4. Wastage is enormous.

5. Corruption is rampant (including illegal tapping of water).

Why I stated above is not as a diversion but in spite of its giant strides in another 5 years Telecoms will be very similar to above two.

Why?

Mismanagement?

Like flood gates opened, they are increasing the connections without increasing the throughput (both uploading and downloading).

One has to go and look at the www.speednet.com site and verify the speed.

It is easy.
Anyone can do that.

The testing is free.

I went for K-torrents.
Even that is a failure.

Bit torrents cannot help us if the services (Telecoms) are poor.

Since we cannot expect the Government to do anything about it, I have a few suggestions for those using Torrent Services (what ever the client side may be).

Mind you, institutions block torrent downloads due to various reasons including the Universities.

Like Open Software Community, Torrent is a Community Service.

Services should be open 24/7.

This is how you do it.

1. There are Seeders and Leechers in the Torrent Community.

Like politicians do not become only the Leechers (bleeding the country-with war or otherwise).

2. I want go into technicalities but please follow my leads.

3. If you download a file after it is finished do not Switch Off the computer. Let it run for few hours (connected to the Internet) after the download for the Tracker to establish seeding of computers.

4. Keep the upload speed to 90% of your service speed. That is, give as much as you take from others.

5. If you download 700 MiB make sure you give back at least 500 (better 700) MiB.

All what you have to do is to keep your computer running and leave the downloaded file in the same directory (do not remove or change the directory) for seeding to occur.

That is it.

6. You can copy the file at your wish and fancy but leave it there as a copy for others to access it.
Tracker knows how to do that.
Only time you remove it is when you run short of memory in your hard drive.

Then also remove in stages.
Oldest one to go first and the newest one the last.
In the mean time one believes that at least several other seedings have been established.

This is how the community exists.

7. More you give back more you get.
Just keep your computer running connected to the Internet while doing other tasks.

8. Keep off days not doing downloading so others can use the limited services.

9. More seeders are there in the community the more the download speed will be.

10. So leech less and seed more but not excessively to a bleeding point (like our politicians).

11. Give what you have to the community.

After all this is Christmas time.

I know lot of our guys / girls are downloading films / songs and not letting other people have them (to sell sometimes as pirated copies for a profit-if it is a pirated copy you are selling you aught to be ashamed of yourself.

Buying pirated copies keep these guys in practice (I want call it a business) and we need to wean them off this society for good.

Understanding in the web is that you download for your personal use and not for selling.

Sharing with friends is a different story.

Pirating is illegal especially if we call this a Buddhist Country.

Even Dhamma is sold in CDs.
I cannot believe it.

Because of a few bad leechers in the community even my Linux downloading comes to a standstill.
There are no seeders.
I leave some of the Linux images in my Dropbox and they are for sharing.

Cloud Computing at its best-Share my folders with Linux distributions

My Dropbox share folder has two (2) light weight Linux distributions to share with you.
All what you have to do is to Register (cloud platform) with Dropbox and send me your email stating that you wish to share Linux Distributions.

It will certainly save your download time and cloud computing will look after the service!

Mind you I will get some extra space as bonus in MiBs (only a little) and then I can deposit bigger images!

This is cloud computing at its best.
Happy Christmas and enjoy your holidays with Linux Games.

WordPress

WordPress is a Open Source Content Management System (C.M.S) that provides a simple web application platform for web hosting.

If you a Linux geek you can download it and tweak it to satisfy your needs but the open license prevents you from developing new themes other than what is already agreed and known as the standard.

It probably developed from Ubuntu Turnkey applications and has a significant market share of web hosting for smaller companies.

My intention here is to let you know that there is www.wordpress.org that gives you a blog space like here in Google's blogspot that can be your personal web site before you mature into a Web Wizard.

Other reason for me to highlight it here is that it has support for Sinhala fonts and Tamil fonts for your web writings.

Do not wait till Government provides you with necessary infrastructure in IT including fonts, go and become a Web Star (not a Mega Star) by learning the basics with WordPress.

It is easy as a word processing program and you will ascend to greater heights once you master the Codes.

A glossary of the Codecs are published elsewhere free for access.

It is free but once you are mature you can pay a nominal fee and upgrade your blog site which for me is almost a complimentary website without annoying advertisements that hide your creativity.

I downloaded WordPress some months ago but failed to write something about it since I was obsessed with Linux 100 Live CDs.

Now I am quietly delving into inner strengths of Linux and Open Source talking about WordPress is appropriate here.

The omission was a serious lapse on my part and my apologies for that.

WordPress is as important as Dropbox for new wave of web activity with cloud computing on the horizon.

WiKiLeaks and Sri-Lankan Diplomacy and Cricket

It is obvious international diplomacy is a job paid to do the undesirables and the nature of some of the operations if classified properly undermine the very nature of United Nations Charter and human dignity.

Less is said about current wave of diplomacy is better but Governments should be accountable to the subjects of their territory (citizens) before they consider themselves to the international audience and conditions.

If also looks like "likes of feather flock together" nature of operations where medium and in between countries get together to program an agenda and dictate terms to smaller countries like us.

It was very evident in the role what Norway and Sweden played in our conflict, pretending to be neutral but very partisan in the dealings and impotent to arrest the trends of destruction.

The role UK played "using cats paws to deliver the clout-using facilitators to do their undermining job- was / is evident from the recent events unfolding.

If UK police cannot manage and secure a small compound housing the prestigious University how can they play the role of international policeman in Iraq and Afghanistan or Somalia.

Is the police in UK also politicized one has to ask the begging question?

We could manage the World Cup in 1996 in spite of heavy odds.

When the English cricketers come for the World Cup 2011 not only they will get a thumping in the field but they may have to hide behind policeman of the Indian Subcontinent or perhaps bring a contingent of British Police with them who seem unable to control a band of placard holders.


Is this the way diplomacy in acted in broad day light (not under cover)?

We have a case of ex-president granting ex-gratia to a diplomat.

It looks like history will repeat itself come next Cricket World Cup.

But coming back to WiKiLeaks if they leaked the diplomatic correspondences during Mr,Dixits tenure how Mrs, Gandhi blatantly violated code of conduct would be obvious but let bygone be bygones!

Big brother played a nasty role, even perhaps now.

Have we got friends?

Yes.

Enemies of enemies are our best friends whom we can love.

That comes from British philosopher Bertram Russel.

If he was alive today he would have written a nice code of conduct for British Police and Diplomats.

He was one who loved free speech.

That is why he had to hide in China a century ago.

Let me say China is a true friend and granting a Nobel peace price to a dissident in prison is a real violation of national integrity of any country big or small.

I cannot find a big difference between a home grown terrorist or a corrupt political dissident.

Let us rally with China who will be the next big power player not the corrupt Western diplomats and the peace (worth only the paper) certificate selectors.

In this context Cricket World Cup will be an Acid Test for Indian Subcontinent Police Force.

Let us show the British Police how we manage crowd control and enjoy our cricket too.

Unfortunately cricket officials are corrupt and police too is corrupt but come cricket it is a big time leveler of the spirit of the nations in this subcontinent.

Let us not spoil the fun with a bunch of undesirable diplomats lingering in air conditioned containers (Safe houses or Councils).