Myths, Mirage and Marriage

 It is said married life with kids (not without) prolong one´s life of existence.

I reproduce here posted in asokaplus at wordpress where no one visits.

I cannot remember when I posted this or ever had written this being a married man.

All the same it is worth repeating with some editing and formatting.

The 3Ms here have common ancestry.

None of can be achievable and each one of them is shrouded in mystery.

For example one who is lost and disorientated in desert sand would not know for certain he is arriving at a water hole or not.

Myths of can be expanded to any direction or dimension one who is seeking the miracle go to any extent to believe what in reality is not achievable and where there the reality is the major casualty.

Some common practices and beliefs merge into day to day life sometimes almost imperceptible to reality.

Marriage is an institution that has gained such a reputable credence that writing anything against is amounting to desecration and sacrilegious.

That is the myth I am going to expose and explode.

There is no intention of disrupting any healthy harmony that may exists in any relationship or institution.

Healthy relationships can exist and lasting friendships can be developed without this institution existing its power over individuals but when something is institutionalized and when it is bound to the common law and practices and finely tuned with ethical and moral practices of a culture aforesaid myth and mirage also will get entangled with it.

Idea here is to disentangle certain myths associated with marriage.

1. Marriage is a perfect union

2. Marriage works because of give and take

3. Marriage is a stable institution

4. There is freedom in marriage

5. It does not grow old but remain live

6. It gives security

7. It has common goals

8. It makes life complete

9. Without this institution human relationships cannot be developed

10. Everyone must commit to this institution at one stage of his or her life

This list can go on but suffice is to disentangle the entangled myths.

These arguments are not for one who is already entangled since with the wedlock there is a legal deadlock.

This is for one who leaps into deep water without addressing his or her own issues.

The first casualty in war is truth.

Similarly the first casualty in marriage is freedom.

If you love freedom and lot of hobbies thinks twice before taking the plunge.

1. The first casualty is your hobbies.

2. The second casualty is your friends.
If you have lot of friends and love their company think twice.

3. Third casualty is one’s finance (unless both are bankers with good investment funds for life like the Murdoch).
If you cannot manage finances alone two of you will not mange it better.

4. Fourth myth is the stability and security.
There are no institutions in this world which is stable and secure.
Even the best banks can bust. 

In marriage finances would bust first, especially when the kids come home.

5. It makes life complete is the biggest myth of all.
It makes simple life more complicated in marriage life and you never complete the set targets or your obligations, even if you live beyond 100 years.

6. In marriage more you give in more you have to give and less you have to take. 

One never get a chance to take in, if you are the giver.
It is like putting water into a bucket with hole in the bottom.

7. Marriage does not get old.
It is not true it is the institution that gets older by the minute.
Moment you tie your nuptials and finishes the honeymoon it is old enough to be called a marriage.

That is why we have so many marriage jubilees from its inception. 

This is written with the impending royal wedding in mind.

As long as you are a commoner please do not do what royals do.

Remain a commoner for life and you may advise the royals (couples) in trouble.

Better still you become a divorce lawyer.

Hope the royal couple reads this one day after the honeymoon (too late by then).

I wish Good Luck to them all the same.

Internet Banking = Danger not Evaluated; The WARNINGS not Heeded

Internet Banking = Dangers not Evaluated; The WARNINGS not Heeded

This should be read in conjunction with Bugger the Bankers.

I will only give only a glimpse of it.

The reader should update his or her own risk element, if not on daily basis but on monthly basis.

Let me dispense with the underline presumptions.

There are two presumptions.

One is that computers never make mistakes and better than humans.

Computers make huge mistakes whereas humans make small mistakes, like counting the balance.

Computer can make million of mistakes in a fraction of a second but human can make only one mistake at a time, which many of us do not guard against.
Humans try to prevent repeating the mistake, whereas computers keep on doing the same mistake million times.

(No fortune company will come out with the true facts, like the Ponsi scheme that went round globally without any hindrance, till the banking started collapsing.
We have too many banks .
What we need is a few banks with credibility.)

Like me forgetting, to take the balance after payment is made.

The cashier, if he or she is a good one will promptly return the money.

Computers will never gives back the money that was wrongly paid (server administrator can safely transfer it in seconds to some far away destination without any trace of the transaction) or comes behind you with the correct balance in hand.

The sever administrator can swindle any excess, knowing very well that somebody has made a mistake.

This happens in big shopping networks and that is why the items and articles are more expensive than in the open market.

They never audit or declare these frauds fearing that they will loose the market.

Banks are no different.

They only see one side of it.

The customer side.

Never its own staff.

If they make a mistake they will hide it by all means like a cat covering its poo.

The second premise is very simple.

Majority (99%) including me is very bad at balancing accounts on daily basis.

The bank jump into your shoes under this pretext and may even one day ruin you.

In fact, I managed without a bank account for nearly six years when I returned from abroad with six credit cards.

That was only period in my life, I never asked for a loan and did not make a single mistake.

I was doing my own banking and balancing my accounts.

But I have one cardinal principle.

That is, I may not make mistakes on a daily basis but one day I will make a huge mistake.

I will guard against that mistake which will ruin me.

It will last good for me.

I have also another resolution.

My maximum loss should be theoretically not more than Rs.100,000/= (never a million which young ones are enticed and coaxed into by all commercial banks).

Each one should have a credit limit which he or she can bear, which is usually three to ten times the basic salary (not the total salary).

If one exceeds that limit, he or she on his or her own peril one day, one has to blame oneself not the bank or the creditors.

The day I make that big mistake, I will close all my accounts and delegate my finances to someone whom I can trust.

The problem is finding one whom I can trust in this blessed Buddhist country.

So if you do Internet Banking,  the moment (fraction of a second) you press the button,  you are taking a big risk.

The song bugger the bankers is making a huge impact globally and the banks are hell bent on promoting their vices on many new form of advertisements and in many fronts.

Even children not born are not spared.

Do not fall to their trappings which are worse than Merchant of Venice..

That is, promote free spending with a noose around your neck.

I felt like writing this having seen a young mother with her baby attended by her mother did not check the bill when she was making her payment.

In my medical career I have seen many nursing mothers making big mistakes that include caring for the baby, let alone finances.

3 to 4 Ls and What is wrong with our Learning?

3 to 4 Ls and What is wrong with our Learning?

We have a very steep learning curve.

In that learning curve we learn three bad habits.

1. We Live on Loans.

2. We are Late on paying loans that include returning Library books burrowed on due date.

3. We live on Lies to take loans and defer payment of them.

4. Some live on other´s Loaned Live body parts.

5. We Live on Loaned Goodwill of others.

Is that a life worth living for 100 years?

I ponder.

PS.

This applies to voter as well as politicians, bankers and business investors of IMF.

Peanuts, Jumbo Peanuts, Digital Balance of Digital Age

Peanuts, Jumbo Peanuts, Digital Balance of Digital Age

Let me deal with the digital balance first.

Few years ago when I was in Colombo, I did a survey to see how many of the private hospital laboratories had proper scientific balances, in their laboratories.

The answer was none.

I cannot remember well but one place had two balances of scientific quality, may be Quality Control Bureau which were hardly used.

No wonder when one sends the same sample divided into ten portions to 10 places one gets 10 different answers.

In fact, I did this as part of my survey as a prerequisite for installing quality control procedures.

The I left to join university and it was no better.

I could not find a proper balance for my work.

After much deliberation I ordered one and it came three years later once, I had finished my data collection.

I bought one digital balance using my own money which the university never reimbursed.

I asked for a microscope which they never provided.

In fact, I bought a digital one during our strike from my saving from abroad.

During the strike I managed to find a digital balance for kitchen.

I bought that at cut price knowing very well a new one will cost a lot.

This came handy when we were feeding the young squirrel.

It weighed only 20 gram.

His weight after a feed was 21 gram.

Now to the crunch point.

I weighed real jumbo peanut it was 1 gram.

I weighed a local peanuts and two to three would qualify for 1 gram.

Then I looked at the price of jumbo peanut which is Rs.120/= 90 gram packet.

It had less than 100 peanuts and one jumbo peanut is over one Rupee in price and that was revelation.

One can buy two decent sized local peanuts for one Rupee.

Then I realized we have a Jumbo Sized Cabinet to oversee the plantation including peanuts not peanut butter.
 

I wonder whether some of these ministers even have a peanut size brain to understand, how bad our economy is managed.

When two legged Jumbos are in opposition (I think they do not have even the peanut sized brains) failing to voice an opinion for the poor voters (whose brains are undergoing starvation atrophy) I think the Jumbo Sized Parliament is an utter wastage.

Libre-Office-4-0-Great Stuff from Apache Foundation

Libre-Office-4-0-Great Stuff from Apache Foundation

I have downloaded (torrent file from www.linuxtracker.og) tested LibreOffice 4.0 and I am amazed by the quality of Libre-Office 4.0.

Thanks a lot Guys/ Girls in Apache.

You are simply marvelous!

I have been using Open Office for more than a decade but when Oracle dumped it changed myself to AbiWord for all my work but continued to use LibreOffice for presentations for my students (only) with Impress / Powerpoint.

The file can be accommodated in Mini CD and installs breezily.

Only problem was I had to install Microsoft Windows 7 in my computer.

I used a paid copy which I never registered (kept it for testing purposes and this is the first time in 5 years I have used Windows for a test) and to my amazement, it is telling me that it is not a valid copy.

It was in our dungeon for three years, exactly.

Anyway, all this was to help my daughter in her class work and she has Win-XP and Installed it to show that one need not buy Office 2013.

The Story of the Squirrel

This is chapter in my new book coming soon-rebirth revisited.

Second half of the story will be available only in the book.

The Story of the Squirrel

It is fitting to finish this book with this story.

In fact this story hastened me to write before other books that I was planning for sometime.

Fortunately, if happened during the prolong industrial action and I could record the story briefly for posterity with the help of my wife and my daughter.

Family Crisis, TRIN-GO the Trigger Mechanism of the Crisis

TRIN-GO was the newly coined name of our adopted grandson who was a very tiny squirrel who even had not opened its eyes.

We  kept a diary of its progress not with any intention of including it in this book but the unexpected events that unfolded had made me to do so, and in fact hastened writing this book.

After, I had attended to the emergency need (half of the rescue work by my wife) I let the tiny one relax and go to sleep since my wife had frightened it very much, the only sedative I could assure was a dark room conducive for sleeping.

I went to sleep myself and when I got up, the next thing was to name it.

GO was vital and I had decided that it had to GO when he is ready.

I won´t get attached to it.

TRI is that it had to survive from the CATS, and my DOG and the fiery Ants.

It also has stripes not three but many on its back.

I left a little notebook for my daughter to keep the records and again went back to town to find a suitable PEN.

Quite by accident the name rings on me the way we handle RECONCILIATION.

We are like CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS,

They cannot live in one house or a PEN.

Without any amendments the new name was endorsed by the adopted family and the poor  squirrel family has to be satisfied one minus but soon the juvenile would be roaming on rooftops and tree as bird.

We are worse than CATS, DOGS and SQUIRRELS.

In spite of the oddity in nature they somehow survive near human habitation.

Only rarely one has to intervene, when one is young, blind or injured.

Then, we have to extend some help.

Soon he has to be released to the mother nature.

That was my resolve and no attachment.

Diary of the Young Squirrel

Few pages of the diary are here with very little editing.

Day 0ne-1

Friday the 21st of September 2012.

TRINGO is a bundle of energy.

He climbs up to the rooftop of the hurriedly made and fabricated playpen.

He takes only 3 drops per feed.

Last feed was at 11.50 A.M make and some fresh milk needs to be prepared at at4.30 P.M.

He has not passed water / urine and appeared very dry.

His stools are dry like squashed, parboiled dry rice.

Day Five-5-Tuesday 25thSeptember

Opened its eyes and may be about five weeks old.

Day 9 -Saturday, 29th September

Weighed 20 grams.

Day 11

Barely able lick milk on the anatomical snuffbox of the dorsal aspect of my hand.

Day 12

Able to reverse backwards,

Day 13

I made a mess while feeding and his under belly and tail was soaked with milk which I attributed wrongly to his urine.

Tiny drop of urine on my hand but very concentrated.

Gives a signal before voiding bowel which were soft and yellow.

Still weighs 20 grams but 21 grams after a feed.

I had to spend over two hours since he was very active and won’t settle down in the pen.

First jump when left on the bed on its own.

Tears down my dog’s eyes

Why?

I was playing with the new guy.

Yes, for three days he had tears in its eyes.

Are you neglecting me because of this new guy?

That was the message my dog planted in my eyes.

Able to nibble at soft banana but not able to swallow but takes the juicy part and still not ready for solids.

Needs coxing and guiding.

Unable to find food on its own except milk.

Loves fruit yogurt.

Very active won’t go to sleep.

Climb up and down and wonder away and not able to define its sphere of activity and returning to the base.

All together  two and a half hours play time and no winder my dog felt sad for himself.

Very well settled down. Grooms and talk to self and listen to external sound attentively.

Day 14-4th October

Becoming independent.

Able to find food on a tray but goes into panic mode when feeding is discounted.

Grooms on its own but not not the tail.

Self assured and no wondering in the pen aimlessly.

Tail still not straight or fully formed.

Alert to the presence of me or my daughter.

Has not gained weight probably due probably to its hyperactivity.

Teeth growing but unable gnaw guava which was hard for its teeth.

Loves ripe banana.

Day 15

Sleeps well when he has had a good meal.

Feeds more in two sittings.

Loves fruit yoghurt.

Day 16

Very talkative.

Say no and able to refuse food.

Loves to wonder around aimlessly.

Day 17-7th October 2012

Teeth visible.

Feeds OK.

Voiding OK.

You will see the rest of the story in the book both in print form and digitally.

Dream 30

Dream 30

It was short dream but enough to record it and send it to Maha Brahma.

I had gone to an interview with over 60 odd other candidates and was called in and they did not ask many question.

It looked pretty ordinary interview and scene was local not on foreign soil.

I was so surprised of my selection and after the interview I could not resist asking the chairperson why I was selected.

He actually looked like my grandfather and he said you have the commitment and that is why we selected you.

Then I promptly asked how do you know?

He said, we know it and put on his coat and disappeared.

Then the next scene in my dream was I had to report to work almost immediately.

That scene was very strange and that is why I said it was probably local scenario.

I had to walk to my work station and not only that, with the suitcase in hand I had to cross a river which was running very fast.

i did a superficial survey and the river seemed very familiar to me and I decided to take a route downstream.

Then I was interrupted by a woman who I felt was in the pool of short listed candidates.

She said, I should take the the route upstream which looked like a narrow beam and which appeared like a bridge and without any second though I took that route and I was in the middle and when I looked down it looked a very deep precipice and frightening unlike the downstream path.

Then the woman asked, shall I help you and that moment I felt she was like a devil and I thought to myself that she is going to push me to the deep precipice and kill me to get my job.

I said big no, and in a matter of minutes I crossed, the river to the other side like a flash.

With that fright and the satisfaction of crossing the I was woken up.

I immediately posted it to Maha Brahma  thorough the special email facility I have.

He was laughing loud on the other side.

I was not amused and asked him why?

You were frightened.

Won’t you?

I said yes she looked a devil to me.

He did not verify my query.

I said why did you stop my dream.

Well, the second part is dangerous.

You were sent to a prison and it was not a new job.

Why?

Just because I blog and I posted altered version of the Bugger the Bankers, the higher authorities were wild with me .

I prompted.

It was the bank chairman who sent you to the prison.

No.

It was by the direction from the Central Bank.

No, STUPID.

Those guys do not have any power to appoint or send you to prison.

It must be the supreme court?

No.

Shall we say it is from the supreme higher authority and shall we stop at that.

It is not me that was involved.

NO, your is dream is futuristic just like others.

THANKS.

What is the time scale?

I am not suppose to tell, it is politically sensitive.

What was the crime that the guy got involved in?

He had opened a  web site with Microsoft.

Windows 8?

No Win 1008.

Or I see.

In future in this state nobody can open a web site without prior approval?

Why?

They say to prevent Internet Pollution.

Is that so and how?

This fellow was trying to document a pretty crime, by a big wig which was classified by the DOD as very sensitive internationally.

What is the type of political system then.

Autocracy!

He disappeared in a flash.

Rebirth Across the Border

Rebirth Across the Border

This is going to be a short chapter in my nook “Rebirth Revisited”.

I wanted to write a short essay on reconciliation on the National Freedom Day but I felt for some reason it is a waste of time.

Just reciting National Anthem in two or three languages may give some symbolic value but that symbolic value will vanish into the thin air moment the music stops. Reconciliation is much about attitude and tolerance towards diversity and it is not a political teledrama.

 It is cannot be forced fed like a bitter medicine.

So I decided to use Professor Bono’s Lateral Thinking Philosophy instead of the Vertical Thinking Philosophy of our politicians.

I had a good night sleep and some beautiful dreams, when I woke up late, just felt like writing what came to my mind spontaneously.

If is What If Philosophy of mine.

It is, what if the rebirth concept is a true?

It is in that context.

What if some of the dead during the conflict are reborn again in this island or abroad?

Those reborn will be 3 years old now and are ready and shaping up to tell us the real on the spot story of the dying moment.

Are we ready to listen to the story of the dead now, reborn?

Well, that is a good piece for writing.

Then, the next question is how many of them will be able to remember the dying moment.

My guess is one in a thousand birth one will be able to re-telecast it.

Then how many died at that time.

It is anybody’s guess and let us not split hair on it.

Assuming 100,000 there will be 100 of rebirth stories with the assumption all are reborn as humans. But according to the scriptures it is very unlikely all will be born human since when one dies of intense hate and grief they are more likely to end up in lower reams.

So let me be reflective and a handful of 5 to 10 who were reborn will be able to remember the dying moment.

I wish for my writing they be born like this.

1. A military recruit dies in conflict and he is born in Killinochchi to a Tamil parents who are Hindu.

2. A LTTE combatant who dies is born into a family in the deep south Hambantota to Sinhala parents who are Buddhists.

3. A Tamil civilian caught up in the conflict is born to a Muslim parents.

4. A Tamil civilian caught up in the conflict born to a family of mixed parentage in Colombo.

5. A military recruit dies in conflict and he/she is born in Canada to Tamil parents who are Christians.

6. A military recruit dies in conflict and he/she is born in UK to Sinhala parents who are Christians.

7. A LTTE combatant who dies is born into a family of Sinhala parents who are now domiciled in USA.

8. A LTTE combatant who dies is born into a family of Tamil parents who are now domiciled in USA.

9. A LTTE combatant who dies is born into a family of American parents who believe in rebirth.

10. A military recruit dies in conflict and he is born into a family of American parents who do not believe in rebirth.

The vagaries will extend beyond the 10 listed above but that is not the intention of this discussion.

If one is to investigate the rebirth story which family would volunteer to go through this ordeal of knowing the tragedy at hand?

My guess is nobody except probably the family in Colombo with mixed parentage and the American parents for publicity and curiosity.

Then have we got some mechanisms to verify these data.

Will the military give sanction to go ahead with the investigation? 

Will the Sinhala or Tamil parents go through this trauma? 

It is anybody’s guess but most of them will do all that is possible to suppress the rebirth story for different reason. 

They might very well say it is childhood fantasy.

Nobody will be ready to listen to the story of the dead person.

But I wish the LTTE combatant who is born to a Sinhala family would learn Sinhala, Tamil and the link language English and record his story for posterity and take up politics and become very vocal in reconciliation.

Similarly an army recruit who is born to a Tamil family would learn Sinhala, Tamil and the link language English and record his story for posterity and take up politics and become very vocal in reconciliation.

The way how we handle reconciliation, I think we will have to wait for another 20 years for those reborn characters mentioned above to take up the reins of tolerance, understanding and the futility of racism.

It is too late, by then we will have reignited another conflict under the shadow of religion.

All the signs are ripe for the latter scenario since our politicians refuse to be sensitive to human suffering whether they believe in rebirth or not.

They only want to cling on to power.

That is the name of the game.

Racism and religious fanaticism they breed.

They are grounds they encourage for their own survival and not reconciliation.

Postscript.

If one reads the recorded rebirth stories, there are plenty in the first and second world war stories; it is more than likely this is the correct time for them to resurface in this country. If one is interested in rebirth is they should have zealous and scientific approach to investigation of these stories since there will be lot of suppression by adults and teachers around them.

Wisdom Browser-Browser Hater

Wisdom Browser-Browser Hater

I am beginning to become a Browser Hater.

Most of the browser are good at eavesdropping at best but worse at preventing cookies with commercial advertisement.

I am glad that I use live CDs, light weight Linux distributions and light weight non-intrusive browsers most of the time.

This is not true for many guys and girls using the internet.

I thought, if I develop a browser these are the qualities, I will focus.

1. W for Wise Browser who is not eavesdropping on your habits.

2. I for individual freedom and the protection of the individual from all the vulnerabilities of the internet specially KIDs.

3. S for Simple. It should be simple to use even to a KID.

4. D for dependability on all circumstances and should not feed the information to DOD or the State.

5. O for obliging, objective and obedience to the cause.

6. M for minimalism on resources of one’s computer and it should be light weight.

None of the commercial browsers fall into WISDOM category and a few Linux come close to the qualities mentioned above.

With cloud computing in mind Amazon has developed a light weight browser called Silk to use with the Kindle Fire but it seems that Amazon cannot keep up with the promise.

I have some more points especially with kids in mind.

If one types play and game on a browser the search engine with a few clicks will invariable detoured to a pornographic site to lure kids and young ones.

That is how it operates now.

I have few suggestions for a future browser development which parents can use at home and teachers at school.

I think only Linux can address this and commercial browsers will never go to that extend.

1. The browser should be linked to a alight weight distribution like Bodhi or Arch (Manjaro).

2. It should have  a cloud access (a password and an email address to access) through a minimal browser from the front end.

3. The back end browser should have protocols and priorities.

The user should have the sole access (in this case parent or teacher) of the contents in the private cloud.

The service provider should have a maintenance password of it own but no full access.

In making the children passwords the degree of difficulty in access should depend, on the age of the child and the parent / teacher should be able to monitor it and the content should be appropriate for the stage of development of the child.

That part of the cloud can be made private with all the public clouds reserved for the grown ups.

All this can be achieved with meticulous planning.

The cloud can be used to streamline content and protect our children worldwide.

4. There should be a language element for rare languages and search engines should be developed tailored for these languages and they should be used to bypass major languages. 

Otherwise few languages will dominate the web and language like Pali (original Buddhism was handed down by Pali) will become extinct which is a shame.

5. The front end browser should be able to access the particular server end browser in that particular language.

By this method we might be able to preserve these language in pristine form for posterity.

There are lot of missing points and I hope developers will look at this scenario and teachers would provide inputs as the progress in development takes it course.