Can Dogs Go to Heaven?

The pontiff came and went but the question whether dogs could go to heaven, remains unanswered.

One must not blame the pontiff since he came during our election campaign.

I think one has to follow my simple solution.

Convert them to Hindu or Buddhist before their demise.

Can Dogs Go to Heaven?

The simple answer is Yes.

They are the only ones that can be trusted in heaven, if they happen to be from Sri-Lanka.
 

The answer to that question is very simple.

But there is a caveat.

If the dog is Hindu or Buddhist by descent there is no problem.

Most of them go to heaven (if the master is not a Sri--Lanka politicians with ministerial posts who deal with heroin, Kassipu or other major vices, they go to hell with them) by default, especially if it is a Paraya (stray) dog.

But if the dog is Catholic, it has to wait till the present pontiff re-defines humanely the plight of dogs according to the scriptures and interpretations made by predecessors.

But, I have a suggestion for the pontiff who visits us next year.
There is an easy solution without going into scriptures.

Please make all Catholic dogs of Sri-Lanka blessed and converted to Buddhist or Hindu at the time of their demise.

There is no harm they remain as Catholic, in their active life.

After all Catholics in Sri-Lanka need them for their security with B.B.B (until Bodu Bala Sena is proscribed) in action like a pack of rabid dogs.

What remains to be done for the dogs of Muslim descent of Sri-Lanka is a difficult preposition.
They cannot be converted to any other religion at the time of their demise.

It is sacrilegious!

I have a plausible strategy.

These dogs must be made a permanent member of one of the many branches (not Shea or Sunni sectors) of their political parties before their death.

Then at the time of the demise, there should be an affidavit to the effect that they switched allegiance to the ruling party.

By this subtle method blasphemy can be politically avoided and the religion can be safely bypassed (after all they are animals they need not have a religion).

After all, dead dogs are only valid to the ruling party for propaganda.

They are mortally scared of the living dogs, anyway.

That is why they unleash violence while preaching Avihinsa (non violence).

But if the dog belongs to an atheist, the owner should go to a psychologist and get his advice before writing his Will.

The question is why does an atheist needs a dog, if he or she is not fearing hell or heaven?

Perhaps, she / he may be fearing another atheist from another planet.

Or is he or she fearing all the religious guys and girls on this planet.

Sir, Bertram Russell had to flee from England to China in 1930s.

He feared England more than Hell and Heaven.

When he was in coma (down with double pneumonia) an obituary was published but he recovered to the displeasure of the saints.

He lived to 97 or 99 with no help from any religion.

That is amazing!

This is the debate they are having at present.

Can animals go to heaven?

Some people all over the world have been excited in recent days about reports by news agencies worldwide -- including one from CNN -- declaring that Pope Francis apparently believes they can.

It turns out it's unclear what he believes about this.

A previous pope, Paul VI, had no doubts. "One day we will again see our animals in the eternity of Christ," Paul once told a boy grieving the loss of his pet.

That quote, from the pontiff who reigned from 1963 until his death in 1978, was inaccurately attributed to Francis.

The confusion may have begun when Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera referred to Paul's quote in a story that carried the headline, "The pope and animals: 'Heaven is open to all creatures.'"

The story itself does not indicate Francis said that. Instead, it refers back to Paul VI.

The writer for the newspaper pointed to something Francis actually did say: "Sacred Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this marvelous plan cannot but involve everything that surrounds us and came from the heart and mind of God."

That remark, the writer suggested, "widened the hope of salvation" to animals and all of creation.

The headline on the article quoted Francis as saying, "Heaven is open to all creatures." But there's no sign Francis said that.

A search through the current Pope's writings and remarks showed no immediate sign that he has taken a clear position on the question.

Dog Shit as a Meditative Object

Dog Shit as a Meditative Object

All dog lovers should read this.

I was to write about my 'Mini Garden Concept' but this is more urgent matter to deal with.

It was only yesterday, I was walking down our foot path and there was a little tussle brewing.

I generally avoid such encounters like, I avoid dog shit on our path.

This guy was a old polio case with a big limp and at the street level with direct eye contact.

I knew him as a casual labour when young not for good reason.

He refused to cut grass as fodder for the young cattle (cow and a bull) my wife had saved from the slaughter house.

His refusal did not deter me doing this menial job of looking after them for over seven months.

The other was a wife of a policeman who died recently as a pensioner.

She was on top flight of the steps.

I did not look up but diverted the guy's attention to me.

Then he said that dog shit was on his steps everyday.

He knew, I love dogs and feed all the stray dogs I meet on my walkaway.

The lady, in a second retreated to her house.

This guy is living at a higher level and there is another guy who is very friendly with me because of his reading habits.

He is relatively poor but I make a point to buy a book or two of his choice, if I meet him in a bookshop.

I like him since he always has a question or two for me to answer or expand upon, which sometime end up as a blog piece.

I have this canny habit of rephrasing his question to make his next question more vulnerable.

He is caring for all the dogs (now partially stray) that come to his house from the neighbourhood.

I told him the other day, that he is stupid and with the cost of living as it is, feeding dogs is not a minor matter.

I told him, I feed stray dogs on the street but never take them home as my company.

These dogs have the uncanny habit of pleasing you with a drop of a hat.

I tell him, follow me, when I see dog shit in my garden, I clean them up immediately in meditative mode (my dog never does it on the steps) since my wife has a big aversion.

Mind you dog shit is dog shit and smelly if your dog is not a vegetarian dog (there aren't any vegetarian pedigree dogs).

My dog has limited space but his shit is small and in pellets formation and easy to cast away like a bad though in meditative mode.

His only problem is constipation both he and I suffer due to dehydration (extremely hot weather even in Kandy).

So dog shit is a meditative object for me but for many Buddhists in this country dog shit is enough to start a war now that the ethnic war is extinguished (but the mad hatters are harping on).

I was able to stop the tussle, just yesterday.

But I won't try it once the parliament is dissolved.

All our political stray dogs are there cohabiting with shit on the floor of the house with p words.

I was looking down from my balcony and there were five or six dogs on the road making their territorial marks.

It just reminded me one of our present minister's pedigree dogs were poisoned for political reasons.

So they (now he is just a citizen with lot of spare time on his hands) will be busy igniting the ethnic war while at the same time visiting Buddhist temples.

How can these Buddhist monks practice meditation not on 'dog shit' but on 'ethnic purity shit'? 

This theme is called 'territorial integrity' which dogs possess in abundance.

Warning for Newbies using LiveCD/DVDs

Warning for Newbies Using Live CD/DVDs

It is an advantage to use PAE based distributions.

PAE stands  for Physical Address Extension (32 and 64 bits machines)

Now that it very easy to obtain a Linux Live there are certain prerequisites or conditions one must satisfy before experimenting with them. I would list some of the mistakes I have done and continue to make in spite of the familiarity. Some of them I call killer sharks. The take over the entire system with minimum warning and they forget Live Booting is fun and game and there should no be any commitment to them like Microsoft Apple Mac as from the box.

1. First priority is the graphic capability. NVidia is the graphic card Linux find it easy to configure. Lot of manufacturers do not provide necessary OEM data for Linux to configure them. If you have the wrong card you may not be able to join the fun. They may boot up bit might do some damage to the card. The damage may be due to wrong low level configuration or due to graphic intensity of the distribution. One example is SuSe which is graphic intensive KDE. On the other hand it may be like Swift Linux with low graphic intensity with the mind set for old computers and may not be suitable for graphic card with much power.

2. Second is the RAM. I recommend minimum of 1 GiB but more the merrier then the live session will be quite fast to boot and execute its virtues.

3. Third is the monitor. Lot of old distribution cannot configure LCD monitors. I of course in my early days with wrong horizontal and vertical configuration burnt few cathodes out of commission. Now of course most distributions tell you it has not got the driver for the card and uses the least harmful configuration for the live sessions.

4. If you have got a hard disk without an operating system or data no harm can be done. I often use the live session for preparing the hard disk. Partitioning and formatting can be done to get the hang of the process but with Operating system and data in the hard disk and no changes to the hard should be done without saving data.

5. Doing any of these without a UPS power supply is a risk. If power fails one should immediately terminate the session.

What can go wrong for Android Tablets?

Lot can go wrong with Android tablets.

This was posted in 2011 and Google has improved.

I started using an android and testing it on real time.

I will post you with my updates, some of them are already in asokaplus.

Long period elapsed from the concept to execution and most of it was tested on high end of the market.

The average user was not involved in the decision making.

It was probably an effort of a small team which worked hard (dedicated to the task at hand). To begin with it was the development of the browser. Then the tiny OS without security enhancements.

It was a new browser not a time tested one.

There were many suitable candidates for this new browser in the  Linux community and none of them were considered or compared with the Chrome. 

Now take FireFox.

It has lot of loop holes when used in the Microsoft Environment.

It originated from Linux but then arched its way out to embrace Microsoft community.

With that it lost the security features.

It is possible to customize it in the Linux environment and even in that environment some cookies till lately (penetrated even my computer) do some undesirable things.

I was doing lot of downloads without a firewall and hacker (most likely windows guy from India-that is far as I went in search of the guy) installed a script in the browser.

Fortunately I detected it in matter of hours and took necessary steps.

Instead of point to point I went for Torrents which has a way of of using the port and testing the threads.

Even torrents can be attacked and it happened to LinuxTracker and lately Linux foundation is affected by a similar attack.

If Linux could be attacked it is going to be chicken feed for attackers in Microsoft environment.

Chrome will have to deal with this threat.

It has no human resource to deal with like in the Linux Community.

In a commercial environment Linux does not prosper as was shown in Fedora Project.

Fedora’s contribution was marginal when compared to Debian.

It was today I (rather PCLinux) detected something fishy.

I was using point to point download overnight (two files) and one of them (either Zenwalk or Absolute Linux let in a cookie in between the download streams disrupting my download (point to point) today.

Equally it could have happened after the downloads were finished and I did not terminate the download as usual and left the computer running.

If I had the torrent running this would not have happened which I usually do.

I removed all the Google Cookies (including useful ones) to get some sanity back and system running smoothly.

Any browser is vulnerable and not foolhardy.

So Google gadgets are also vulnerable.

In any case I do not use Chrome.

I am into Cloud computing I have to and I will be using the browsers.

I think Linux has to develop a utility like torrent to deal with this problem and Google with its limited staff cannot do that.

For cloud to succeed something better than the browser has to take the  tiny  computing moments and events into control.

I believe the browser is not the best vehicle for Cloud computing.

Time will tell whether my apprehensions are true or false.

Google cannot do it alone.

The stakes are high if they fail. 

Like viruses for Microsoft viruses it will be Cookies for Google that set in a bad omen (for Chrome and Google).

It has to forge a friendship with Linux Community for it to be successful.

The mistake it did was to declare it’s kernel is pure and original. It is not and it is vulnerable.

Linux has to look forward to the challenge and take a giant stride now  (before it is too late) in Cloud Computing.

Linux can do it with or without Google’s help. That is my belief.

WordPress Web Hosting

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 http://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.

Internet Banking = Dangers 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 banks 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.

If you are 'Senior Dog' Friendly, you are invariably 'Kids Friendly' and 'Senior Citizen Friendly'

If you are 'Senior Dog' Friendly, you are invariably 'Kids Friendly' and 'Senior Citizen Friendly'

We get old disproportionately.

Some of my pet fish never gets old.

They never sleep and I cannot figure out the biology (not advantage) behind it.

They are always always alert and kill themselves by their alertness.

I decided to changed the fish tanks and in the panic one fish got trapped behind the aerator and could not get out and it escaped my attention (old age).

I forgot to remove the aerator (forgetfulness another malady of old age) before changing water.

It took five solid hours (which I did not) since the water I do not discard but put them to my plants as fresh supply of nutrients (no artificial manure except tea leaves and my dogs liberal supply of not so friendly squirts, everything biodegradable, and environmentally (trying) friendly and I hate plastics).

Our dog got annoyed and after cleaning up utensils could not find the dog.

I do not call him (he prefers me looking for him and he hides like a seven year old) but go looking for him but after 10 minutes (of my daily exercise) searching I could not find it.

He is almost 80% blind with cataract and has early arthritis,I feared and figured he is injured.

Called him loud and after about another few minutes which was expanded my anxiety to about one hour, he just appeared on the top steps and I was on the bottom.

He has not lost his old tricks.

He thinks I am at his age of seven not geriatrics like him.

Dogs needs exercise.

Dogs needs lot of water.

His dish was empty and filled it up, fed him with yogurt and I made some yogurt drink (if I make it myself it costs 5 times less) for myself and dropped to sleep immediately (I skip lunch now, eat when I am hungry only-'Single Meal' principle of prehistoric man and his dog).

I woke up with some beautiful dreams (enough material for few more scientific articles but decided to pen down on the above issue).

My friendly advice is that one should not have a dog.

It reminds me of my age now.

I prefer to be young at heart, just 18 not the octogenarian feel.

I need freedom but I cannot go out and come late.

Dogs gives you lot of exercise at the expense of your freedom.

I prefer the freedom now.

Lot of young adult with young kids go for a dog without thinking (emotions) which is very demanding.

They do not take into account the risks.

I will list them now without any priority.

1. They low to gnaw on your footwear.

They are very expensive and even the slippers are expensive and we do not discard them once the slipper part is broken. For few rupees one can buy the upper part but removing the old putting them back are very difficult (I had a haematoma under my thumb and the shop keeper refused to push them in for me-that is the way we are served in a shop in this blessed country).

2. They gnaw on the extension wire, when there is no supply but when you switch on the plug there is impending fire hazard.

3. They urinate all over (It is liquid urea for plants me) and very smelly too.

When he is angry it squirts on my pillow, the pillow has to being a top place.

Imagine you wear a hat and it does a squirt on the hat.

They are not accidents like in kids but deliberate ploys to mark his treasures.

If you have any, they have to be hidden well away from your pet.

It might break up a family of young adults, especially one is averse to dogs.

4. There is enough dog hair to cause allergy.

5. Rarely it might do the big job on the sofa.

The above is enough to put you off rearing one but if you decide have one, dog's safety is almost equivalent to kids safety and senior adult safety.

6. No tripping wire.

7. No multi-plugs but dedicated plugs well away from the reach of toddlers/dogs.

8. Kids monitors have known to kill toddlers (strangling, fire, electrocution).

9. Fish tank should be on solid stand (dog does not drink from it) so they do not topple over kids.

They are heavy, I have known of a kid dying with a fish tank on top of the kid cutting his belly like a knife.

10. Ponds are a hazard for kids and puppies.

Bathing on puddles one can get drown in mud.

This list can go on but a small garden with flowers is much better than indoor fish tank, dogs and cats (unlike dogs steal food-especially cheese).

But a pond is a risk but I have a mini pond on a cement raising out of any hazard.

Kids friendly environment with open air is a luxury that one can ill afford.

That is why I hate condominiums.

That is where children learn to develop temper tantrums.

I hate to come to Colombo, even a lift is an antithesis to me.

Skyscrapers is a nightmare and that is why I have the shortest stop overs at Singapore.

New Additions to my Artificial Biosphere

New Additions to my Artificial Biosphere

I have four new addition to my artificial biosphere.

1.Yellow winged dragon Fly.

2. Mud Dabber

3.Toad

4.Tree frog.

5. Antlion, I called it the AntiLion with a political sting was brought by my Mason Bass with special request.

I have made an artificial sand castle without cement for their existence.

The tree frog was found in the pantry.

I cannot figure out how it ended up there.

I caught it in a fraction of a second which I perfected as a advanced level student.

I won't state how since, (catching a frog) the Korean visitors would catch them and they would soon end up in a dish in addition to dogs' flesh.

This frog was not at all scared of the camera flash but let me play with my camera giving due regard to my activity.

He/she ended up in my artificial pond.

They are nocturnal creatures and I am thinking of installing night vision camera (only when they come down in prices, when I can afford one).

I have a computer (Linux) friend who would probably help me in installing them.

With all these my wife got up thinking a thief had entered.

A good sign that nocturnal vigilance is mandatory since Chinthanaya Golayas have encouraged prowlers and petty thieves in our neighbourhood (drug addicts and peddlers who supply drugs to the university students).

I thought of fixing the prowler sensitive night light which was in my store room for the last 15 years.

But the electricity cost is prohibitive factor with Chinthanaya adding taxes to our electricity bill to cover their extravagances.

Frogs and Toads

Frogs and Toads

It is strange that many daily writers (Internet) and editors of national newspapers run short of ideas to write.

Most of them steal ideas from others and pad them up with their own prejudices.

Unfortunately, the unscientific and biased opinions make me feel sick.

My last post Measuring Prejudice was to make them analyze their own makeup and try to minimize their own fallacy when writing.

I hope they become detached, informative and creative and stimulate other freelance writers a space to emerge from the sand castles, the others have built around them.

In my case, it is the exactly the opposite.

I write for fun.

I come across, many ideas to write, but because I love reading more than writing (I was a late developer for writing), the time constrains are the major factors that make me not to pen them down all or enlarge upon, the new ideas.

I also get distracted by reading the material intended for brainwashing the reader with a theme (Racism, Buddhism, National Heroes) to suit a particular political agenda.

Some of my outrageous blog pieces come with that background and not spontaneous.

My outlook is scientific (not always) but satire is my goal.

For the last 10 years or more we did not have proper cartoonists or philosophical writers.

I did find anybody rivaling my outrageous views.

That was not the intention anyway.

If that happened, I would have retired gracefully, not due to pain or fear but I was happy that I was instrumental in making that trend constructive and alternative views find a fertile and viable ground to operate.

I am going to tone down and wind up slowly in this blog space.

That had been my long term goal, this space was for Linux and Linux is becoming less relevant to me now.

The Linux Magazine keeps me occupied and there are lot of Linux guys and girls to take the baton from my aging hand.

Particularly because, I do not want to be hunted down for reproducing materials taken out from some other sites to illustrate a point (Prejudice).

I do not know how the copyright law operates in World Wide Web.

In its original form (it was formulated before the existence of the Internet and digital material) it has no validity.

That is my opinion.

Wikileaks and other incidents opened  cans of worms and security arms are paranoid now and what is called 'Free Writing' is a myth and there is some eagle eye watching us incessantly.

Coming from the Free Software mentality, that leaves behind a bad taste in my mouth.

If you see this blog space die a natural death, please do not blame me.

It is like 'the radio killed the radio star' in operation.

Owl eyed operators / observers and lawyers with a penchant to file a case for money to be blamed.

Free Writing is no more in a corporate world.

I thank the Google for this space, the final good bye will come sooner than late.

Coming back to the title 'Frogs and Toads',

They are fast becoming extinct, in my locality.

The other day I found a large toad (for me frogs live mainly in the water and toads are basically terrestrial as adults) climbing up the coconut railing on our veranda. 

It hid behind the pole, having probably seen me with its large eyes.

I could see its belly and the front leg, which looked like a fingers of a bat.

I have never seen a bat in this position, thinking it was an injured soul, I came closer to investigate.

It was a large toad with beaming large eyes.

I ran for my camera by that time he was on the top railing enough to catch half of its body frame, in a camera frame.

Thank you and I clicked my camera with the flashed on.

In one go he feared the flash and jumped onto the roof of my fish tank below.

I lost him in the darkness outside.

He was targeting my indoor fish tanks for breeding.

Now he would do that on my outdoor tank with my fish at risk.

When the tadpoles come there is no place for me to dispense them.

The open well that was there is no more and is filled up with soil.

I wonder how many strains of frogs were decimated by our mega road development in the south, in open wetlands?

Somebody should do a study.

In New Zealand, they made open drains for frogs to migrate with the roads they built, but in this land of Buddhist revival, frogs are expendable.

Frogs and toads are a good barrow meter for water quality of the locality.

At least in that sense alone one should do a 'Frogs and Toads Study!'