Cricket taking Center Stage

In spite of bad weather and poorly prepared wickets, cricket is taking center stage over the weekend and last few days.
Ireland's win over England was best that could have happened to cricket.
If a tiny Island like Sri-Lanka can produce tiny but skillful players it was an irony that Ireland could not do that until now.
Now they have proved beyond doubt if it is taken to heart it also can produce players of high quality and big hitters at that.
Now England should lure them to play cricket and produce more players.
They do not have to go down to play test cricket in Australia.
Let New Zealand take the place of England and in any case they have healthy rivalry in cricket and rugger.
Now the time to build a healthy rivalry across the Irish sea and promote cricket there.
England loss was a big win for cricket since we cannot get French to play cricket for another century.
Then come the South Africa's loss to England. They were writing off England after loss to Ireland and had a vague feeling that with their experience in Australia, Strauss will pull a rabbit out the hat.
Sure they did that and they have five points and leading the table.
Now onwards they have to play cricket with ferocious intensity and it is good for cricket and the cricket fans.
With hind sight, I feel my decision not to be partisan and be neutral ( if at all it is possible) was a good decision and I can enjoy watching cricket which was fast getting commercialized and sadly politicized in this country.
Instead of players CEOs in UK and India are making major decisions spoiling it in the long run and it is time to revisit the future strategies.

SuSe-Community and Making an Image for the Archive

Edited on the 14th, March, 2011

I am not sure whether the comments i have mde below is correct, since I have found the same problem with Debian 6. DVD. Unable to copy the DVD image. It is 4.3 GiB (same size as SuSe) and Linux unable deal with a file size above 4 GiB in one file and has to be broken into two which can be done only with torrent.

PCLinuxfullMonty has restricted itself to 4 GiB and Gentoo with 4.4 GiB has probably divided the file into two (32 bit and 64 bits ) and by doing that has accommodated above 4 GiB.

I hope since the SuSe DVD has Gnome KDE, LXDE and xFce by dropping one of the latter two SuSe should be able to reduce the DVD lod to $ GIb in future so that image can be saved for posterity.

I hope somebody enlighten me on this issue.

SuSe community has the peculiar habit which they have acquired form Novel and Microsoft annoys me a lot, to say the least.
They let you download (which takes more than 36 hours or more from K-torrent in Sri-Lanka) a single copy of the image and and won't let you copy the image as an archive. In the final seconds of the copying it has a script to abort copying which only commercial companies can use as a ploy to protect the copyright (which I am in total support).

This is not a Linux Tradition even if they are commercially operational.

In fact violates the principles of FOSS and true spirit of open software and OS systems.

When it happened for first time I deleted the image and kept the DVD for installation.
If I want I can copy the DVD but always have two copies one for use other one for safe keeping.

Mind you DVD cannot be kept indefinitely and if the image is copied to a external hard drive, a CD/DVD can be written if the DVD in use is damaged.

For example for an emergency but not for re-sale. I am not interested in copying and selling it to a third party.

My intentions are are academic and only for archival and retrieval purposes..

Unfortunately most of the old distributions are not in any archives or servers. The servers and linux tracker included have the habit of deleting not used (frequently) distributions from the sever to accommodate space in the server for new distributions.

They write automatic script to do this house cleaning job without archiving them.

The point I am raising is relevant now. Currently LinuxTracker is down but gradually adding the images to it's servers and it cannot retrieve even the most recently used distributions quickly enough to get the sytsem running in double quick time and it is a headache and lot of heart burns for many system administrators.

There should be a way of transfering the infrequently used into a system category away from the main stream and thereafter after a lapse of a period if still not used can be transferred to an archival medium. All these cost time and money.

I was once downloading BigDaddy (my favorite PCLinux's original successful version) from a server. If I remember right it was softpedia. Half way through my download (which takes ages from Sri-Lanka) it was no longer available and I was heart broken. I could not finish the downloading.

I made a humble request at PCLinux forum and one nice gentleman let me directed to a server and I quickly downloaded it for archiving. It is live and cannot be installed but I use it for demonstrating the humble beginning of very successful distribution.

Similar incident happened with Pendrive Linux. These was a defect (I got it downloaded from a Microsoft machine with Nero) in the image.

This was the first time I got a bootable Linux Image in a Pendrive. Now even Pendrive site does not have a copy of the Original Image and I cannot get it from distromania or from Linuxtracker.

It is like collecting old stamps and coins.

It has become a hobby and a pastime for me keeping the archives.

Coming from an academic (not commercial) background, simple thing like these matter a lot in the long run.

Commercial investors when they want to introduce a new system they begin by not supporting and then destroying the old system by default making the user vulnerable. Microsoft does this very well.

I cannot understand why Linux does this and good example is SuSe who has got under the fold of commercial CEOs.

Coming back to my story what I did was to make a copy of the image (this is something I used to do for old Distributions without an image but only a CD/ DVD for archiving) with K3B and saved it instead of deleting after the image is written to the CD/DVD.

When I tried and used the saved image for writing to a DVD it gives an annoying warning that the Image " file size is different from the declared volume".

Linux (K3B) checks the file size before writing and gives a warning before it writes to prevent one from copying a bad image and wasting a CD or DVD.

This warning or the deterrent cannot be true since the file image property goes as 4 GiB.

These are some of the nuances of SuSe and Mandriva which are driving Linux fans or uses away from them.

I cannot simply agree with this ploy and that is why I am moving away from Oracle, SuSe and Mandriva.

A CEO with commercial interest makes these decisions and my concern is why can't they openly say DO NOT COPY but use these underhand methods.

Linux Extras-Sabayon -5.5

The new editions of Sabayon 5.5 are pretty good.
Their speciality latest XMBC is good too.
For the first time I was able to get XMBC running in my old IBM computer with inbuilt graphic card meager 1 GiB RAM without freezing of mouse or the videos.

It is the best available Media and Graphic centre.
The audio and graphic can be installed separately.
Live (for testing) and installation DVD.
It has no blender but lack of that is adequately compensated by graphic capabilities.
If I was not hooked to PCLinux and the PCLinuxfullMonty, this is the distribution that I will be having in my box in addition to other Linux distributions.
This time I am going to install (I have more than 150 distributions collected over 18 month period and going for the best 10 for me is an extremely difficult preposition) it and use it for graphic and audio collection.
Unlike PCLinux, Sabayon has 32 and 64 bit versions and I am happy that it follows the PCLinux tradition of having multiple distributions (all of which are light weight except fullMonty).
I have no hesitation of recommending it provided you have latest graphic cards and adequate RAM.
All above applies to CDs and DVD version of Gnome.
I was unable to test the KDE version which uses touchpad screen.
I do not have a monitor with that facility and if you have one this is the Linux distribution to try.
Good work and thanks to the guys and Girls at Sabayon.
The dream that we all believe.

Cricket and Sri-Lankan Weather

One of my predictions for the Cricket World Cup is coming good.

That prediction is weather is going to be a spoiler.

Another prediction is that the ground preparation is going to be a key factor.

What ever the inspections done prior the commencement of the tournament and whatever reports may suggest and what ever the officials in charge may say we have prepared poor wickets in Colombo.

It is obvious even Kumar and Mahela are finding difficult to bat in home conditions in Colombo.

Because of their shear skills, cricketing knowledge and determination we are surviving the hiccups.

Please do not blame the players.

They are a good lot and determined it is our politicians and officials who are killing the game.

These fellows who have no understanding of the game and the ground situation are waiting for the kickbacks to pocket which the players deserve and should get.

It is obvious that because of the political will more money was channeled to Hambantota and less money was spent on Colombo and Kandy.

These grandiose dreams of politicians are killing the game and in the long run real cricket lover's dreams and players welfare.

Coming back to weather playing Day and Night Cricket in Sri-Lanka was an extremely bad decision going by the prevailing weather conditions.

The team playing second is always at a distinct disadvantage and the history speaks itself.

I cannot agree with the argument more crowd will come for the Day and Night game (it may not be true for poorly attended games, too. Nobody will come for those games in any case).

In any case tickets are sold well in advance and a real cricket lovers have to buy tickets in the black market.

The Day and Night games are for the arm chair pundits who engage in their daily activities and return home bit early and after shower sit in front of the TV.

They are not the real cricket fans.

Poor people cannot come anyway. Tickets are priced to discourage them. Even if they come there is no way to return home after the day and night game. There isn't a proper public bus service at night in the entire country.

Politicking's should know it better.
We see them prior to elections and never see them till the next round comes.
They go to Colombo or to the nearest city and make money for them and their kith and kin.
That is the name of the game and cricket and other games included.

The sports administration has been worse than political administration over the past 15 years and especially during the last decade.

Please do not blame sportsmen and sportswomen for their poor performance.
The Common Wealth games were the best example.

We get a kick out of demoralizing the players but never the politicians who have got into sports!

I have written about weather pattern, global warming and how weather men keep bogus records (one month record is done in 2 to 3 days-cooked up records) elsewhere and the reader can refer them at leisure.

Many of them do not know how to make a weather balloon and if they have relevant data, they do not know how to report or interpret them.

Most of the seniors in administration are arts graduates who have done geography (without science subjects or background) and have a cushy job in Colombo without the will to run the affairs.

If the Cricket Administration got reports from them (Weather Men) and decided (I do not think-there aren't any brainy ones there but crooks in Cricket Administration) and decided the time and venues, they are in for run.

The fact of the matter is with global warming, the weather pattern has drastically changed over time. Unless we keep accurate record for the next decade or so we won't be able to predict the trends.

The blunder is we gave not kept accurate records for the last two to three decades

I will illustrate few points that are my personal observation in Kandy.

1. Kandy weather is like Kurunahgla (when I was a kid we briefly stayed near Kurunagala) now.

2. Kurunegala must be like Pollonnaruwa now.

3. Inter monsoon rain that used to come in 10-14 day interval on a regular basis does not come.

4. When it comes the amount of precipitation is 3 to 4 times and the volume has increased.

5. That is why we have earth slips in the hill country.

6. Temperature hits 90 to 95 Fahrenheits in between rains.

7. Rain only brings cooling to Kandy.

8. If I do not water plants for three days, they whittle away.

9. Plants that never able to germinate in Kandy are germinating.

10. Mosquito menace is no different to Colombo.

11. Monsoon rain comes at odd times of the day and there is a mixture of Monsoon and inter-monsoon rain.

12. The precipitation that comes around full moon day consistently fails

The list can go on.
All valid indicators of all environmental changes are obviously present and evident.
What we do is go and built two mega Coal Power Plants to enhance the destruction.
In any case poor man in the villages will not be able to afford the electricity bill.
What is worse will be he won't able to grow food for subsistence leave alone for commercial purposes.
All the evidence points to food scarcity, famine and catastrophe like in 1973 (oil crisis) even without oil crisis.
Nobody is ready for the crisis but Mega Mela and mega cricket fixtures will temporarily take the minds away from the realities and the hardships of the average citizen.

There is no way one can predict weather without accurate data.
Do not believe our weather men. They are like any other government servants, stooge to politicians and survive.
Only thing they never become a laughing lot like our politicians in sports.

What I am raising here is there is no place for Day and Night game in this Island unless we are able to predict the weather accurately in advance.

It is a disservice to foreign team visiting us.
We did that to West Indies.
Now we are doing it to Australians and out team.

There is a strong case against Day and Night Cricket in Sri-Lanka.
The amount of electricity wasted due power usage at the grounds and the uncomfortable temperature the players and the spectators experience are other minor points.
These Mega events are good for our and Indian celluloid stars and not for a average cricket fan or lover.

Vising teams take a note of what I say before agreeing on the time and schedules in future.

Cricket is your life and you are paid for that.
Do not say yes to our administrators without studying the pros and cons.