L.P.S- Light Weight Portable Security Linux and TENS

 L.P.S- Light Weight Portable Security Linux
 

My impact on L.P.S- Light Weight Portable Security was devastating and it has never recovered and gone dormant.

LPS-Public has been downloaded 17,467 times so far!

LPS (Lightweight Portable Security) is an open source distribution of Linux that provides users with a thin client designed to run directly from a portable device and not to expose your private data and credentials to anyone.
It has been created by the US Air Force Research Laboratory, as part of their Software Protection Initiative project, and can be used for PIV (Personal Identity Verification) or CAC (Common Access Card) restricted government websites.

Distributed as Live CDs in multiple editions
The operating system is distributed as three Live CDs, LPS Public, LPS Public Deluxe, and LPS Remote Access. 

They can be easily deployed to USB flash drives using the UNetbootin application, or written to blank CDs using any CD/DVD burning software.
 

The first two are available to the general public, but the third one has been specifically designed to be used by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), as well as various other US federal government agencies.
While LPS Public is the smaller one and includes a minimal set of packages, LPS Public Deluxe comes with a bigger collection of applications and utilities. 

They are both engineered to allow productive use of the Internet.

 

Trusted End Node Security (TENS), previously called Lightweight Portable Security (LPS), is a Linux-based live CD with a goal of allowing users to work on a computer without the risk of exposing their credentials and private data to malware, key loggers and other Internet-era ills. 

It includes a minimal set of applications and utilities, such as the Firefox web browser or an encryption wizard for encrypting and decrypting personal files. 

The live CD is a product produced by the United States of America's Department of Defense and is part of that organization's Software Protection Initiative.

Update and My comments
I have now tested L.P.S and it is below par in every respect except the size which is small enough to fit into a Mini CD.
Having said that it detected all my hardware and it looks like it has taken Redhat (at least the GTK and the toolkit) toolkit as the base by looking at its squarish graphic outputs.
 

I am not going to detail all the pitfalls but warn newbies not to use it and go for Peppermint which is good for you guys and girls.
 

Even Peppermint gets 750 out of my 1000 points which is being revised by me recently.

I am not going to state how much it gets from my scale of points, fearing, few of the developers might get heart attacks.
 

Any distribution without Muliti-Language capability gets minus 250 and only Debian and Fedora gets about 200 points, for that feature.
 

LPS is only in English and No Sinhala means, it as discriminating small guys in smaller countries which is against U.N.O charter.
 

Only Debian supports Sinhala as a living language and Fedora also does a reasonable job in that respect but because of its rapid change (including partition type) I cannot recommend Fedora.
 

As for my final comment for LPS anybody including a newbie who uses root permission at lib is naked enough to be insane in a Linux community.
 

Rooting naked is not in anyway a gamesmanship.
 

So if you want to be naked or insane use LPS at lib.

Otherwise I have listed SliTaz which is 34 MB and 4MLinux which is 50MB (4Ms stands for Mini Server, Multimedia, Maintenance (security), Miracle-games) in this blog site recently, would fit in your Mini CD.
LPS cannot match these two and has a big security hole to plug.
If you are like me download and use it for irrational fun.
 

Happy Independence day to all Americans and would be (aspiring) Americans!

Light Weight Portable, (Private) and Secure or is it?

It looks like American Defense Industry is doing catching up service (activity).

It is 20 years too late of course with Linux.
 

Sometime Americans let me laugh at myself.
I am not anti-american (there is no word called antiamerican in the American Dictionary, unfortunately) in philosophy but in ideology.

My theme is small is beautiful.
 

The American ideology is bigger the best.

The Thinking Big is IBM philosophy.

In other words, the richer an American becomes better is for the world.
The American dream is to become rich from cradle to the grave, even if you are not a politician.
Our dream is to let only politicians become rich by default especially if they administer cricket.

My theme is "become rich just enough to become small in thinking of becoming big but big in thinking to be sustainable and not become a big White (Black or Yellow or Brown) Pest in this world which cannot afford to sustain anymore of them with scarce resources.

I like one American Philosophy and that is to be liberal in thinking not aristocratic or regimented like in a orthodox religion.

Become a free thinker and an open inquirer in other words "Kalama Sutta of Buddha".

The WiKiLeakes has done enough damage to American esteem and reputation and they are adopting some of my Linux strategy in practice.
 

United States of America's Department of Defense has produced a Linux Live CD for public use probably for Americans abroad and would be non-american spies in the Middle East (Not necessary in Ceylon, we do not have secrets that Americans do not know except the last two days of our departure or radio silence when most essential silence was maintained by the defense establishment which American have to come here and learn from our Big Ball Boys of Cricket-how to land a carom ball or a googly at will- we never tell English boys how much Mahela is going to score in the next match or the World Cup final).

Ceylon is the only country in this world where Americans do not need to have any secret spies and our defense secretary is American by registration and does not trust Americans a wee bit but our mothers would be when pregnant, do not say Baby going to London town but My Baby is going to New York or Washington or Chicago is the current theme and from mothers to fathers to babies will give American embassy their money to spy on our mother Lanka.

It is amazing to see they are stealing my original Ceylonese ideas and I feel bit flushed and bit redundant in thinking now.

1. Number one is I promote Light Weight (Bonobo type of Linux distributions-Slit is only 30 MiB) distributions in Linux, including Puppy is my favorite.
 

2. Number two of my dream ideas is to make all distribution Public including Microsoft and Apple which are all American Creations with serious bugs when WiKILeaks used them to exposed American wits.
 

In other words American inventions are the most reliable security lapses that we can exploit to get American secrets.

3. For security I say go for Linux and the Americans have turned to Linux for safety and security but leaving daring loop holes in executing them.
 

Having said that they are new to Linux and one never uses root permission (only when one roots on top of a problem or underdog) to boot but their Live CD is already booted and rooted all the time like American based French IMF guys.

Another alarming feature is hashed passwords are stored in the would be-readable /etc/passwd file, that can be cracked.

The funniest part and which I laugh at length is they are promoting my Anti-Microsft stance from the DoD (Department of Defense) which accepts Microsoft as the Biggest American Love and Liability.

Another great idea is to use Flash which recently had breached security through Firefox browser.

These Americans in the Defense Department got them all wrong and Linus Torvalds must be laughing nonstop like over nonstop singers and dancers.
American please use this distribution at your own liberty and risk but non-americans beware that this must be another ploy to make some unrest in the Middle East which they are fast losing ground.

I am downloading it and it will be very elaborate when I give my next comment.
If you need more details please visit www.distrowatch.com weekly review but their description lacks funny tone coming from America.
American do not know how to laugh at themselves and DoD has given them a big opportunity.
Use that opportunity to laugh and there is freedom at your disposal to laugh at self, Linux-wise, which is a healthy habit.
I do not know what their future plans are but project without a vision or fun won't last long.
But I will be very nosy in any case when an update comes with bug fixes.

STUX, D.E.F.T, M.A.D and C.W.F (Cyberwarfare), Cyberparanoia and Stuxnet

 Tux, STUX, D.E.F.T, M.A.D and C.W.F (Cyberwarfare), Cyberparanoia and Stuxnet
New vocabulary is entering general use with cyber attacks  becoming preemptive at international stage. I am not going to be expressive here  since hackers (they) might think my IP address is some defence attaché and attack with D.O.S (Denial of Service Attack).
Cyber space is free but it is not is not a fair play ground for a simple academic like me to engage in, who is nearer to the grave by natural causes and  do not need any interference to my intellectual exercises unless of incapacitated by natural illness or loss of memory.
I am disturbed by the use of TuX in Stuxnet and this Simple Linux Guy (S.M.G) whom I adore. His girls are Penny and Gown.
Stuxnet is the Virtual attack that was directed at Iran’s nuclear reactors.
Tux is a penguin character and the official Mascot of the Linux kernel. Originally created as an entry to a Linux logo competition, Tux is the most commonly used icon for Linux, although different Linux Distributions depict.
Tux in various styles. In video games featuring the character, female counterparts, named Penny and Gown, accompany him. The character is used in many other Linux programs and as a general symbol of Linux.
STUX
STUX is a bootable CD with a collection of software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and U.S.B devices and other peripherals.
STUX also contains an installation wizard on the Live CD for putting the distribution on a Pendrive and thereby booting from it. However, a 1GB pen drive is required to do this which is far larger than other U.S.B Linux distributions.
DEFT is a Linux distribution with Digital Evidence and Forensic Investigations tools attached. It is not at military level bu at simple desktop or server leve.
I was trying to download (point to point) it and I have failed in 5 attempts now due to abrupt termination of service.
MAD is Mutually assured Destruction
Mutual Assured Destruction is a doctrine of military strategy and National Security Policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction.
C.W.F is Cyberwarfare.
There are very interesting articles and one who interested in can browse but suffice is to say even an innocent device like Play Station can be used for an attack.
Other interesting point is that proprietary operating system with the O.E.M guys can use a device to send secret message to the company or the country’s National security for spying on your web activities.
This is why I am strongly against Windows 8 attempt to invade and intrusion of One’s Freedom of Use (O.F.U).
Cyberparanoia is the word I coin today to describe this phenomenon from a doctors point of view.
That is my contribution to the jargon and vocabulary.

Stuxnet

 Stuxnet

Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm first uncovered in 2010 and thought to have been in development since at least 2005.

Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to the nuclear program of Iran.

Although neither country has openly admitted responsibility, multiple independent news organizations recognize Stuxnet to be a cyberweapon built jointly by the United States and Israel in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games.

The program, started during the Bush administration, was rapidly expanded within the first months of Barack Obama's presidency.

Squashfs File System

 Squashfs File System

 

Squashfs is a compressed read-only file system for Linux.

Squashfs compresses files, inodes and directories, and supports block sizes from 4 KiB up to 1 MiB for greater compression. Several compression algorithms are supported. Squashfs is also the name of free software, licensed under the GPL, for accessing Squashfs filesystems.

Squashfs is intended for general read-only file-system use and in constrained block-device memory systems (e.g. embedded systems) where low overhead is needed.

Uses

Squashfs is used by the Live CD versions of Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, Linux Mint, openSUSE, Salix, Ubuntu, NixOS, Clonezilla, Kali Linux, KDE neon and on embedded distributions such as the OpenWrt and DD-WRT router firmware. It is also used in Chromecast, in Tiny Core Linux for packaging extensions, and for the system partitions of some Android releases (Android Nougat). It is often combined with a union mount filesystem, such as UnionFS, OverlayFS, or aufs, to provide a read-write environment for live Linux distributions. This takes advantage of both Squashfs's high-speed compression abilities and the ability to alter the distribution while running it from a live CD. Distributions such as Debian Live, Mandriva One, Puppy Linux, Salix Live and Slax use this combination. The AppImage project, which aims to create portable linux applications, uses squashfs for creating appimages. The Snappy package manager also uses squashfs for its ".snap file format".

Squashfs is also used by Linux Terminal Server Project and Splashtop. The tools unsquashfs and mksquashfs have been ported to Windows NT – Windows 8.1. 7-Zip also supports Squashfs.

 History

Squashfs was initially maintained as an out-of-tree Linux patch. The initial version 1.0 was released on 23 October 2002.In 2009 Squashfs was merged into Linux mainline as part of Linux 2.6.29.In that process, the backward-compatibility code for older formats was removed. Since then the Squashfs kernel-space code has been maintained in the Linux mainline tree, while the user-space tools remain on the project's GitHub page.

The original version of Squashfs used gzip compression, although Linux kernel 2.6.34 added support for LZMA and LZO compression, Linux kernel 2.6.38 added support for LZMA2 compression (which is used by xz), Linux kernel 3.19 added support for LZ4 compression, and Linux kernel 4.14 added support for Zstandard compression.

    

    


    

    

Squashfs is intended for general read-only file-system use and in constrained block-device memory systems (e.g. embedded systems) where low overhead is needed.
Uses

Squashfs is used by the Live CD versions of Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, Linux Mint, openSUSE, Salix, Ubuntu, NixOS, Clonezilla, Kali Linux, KDE neon and on embedded distributions such as the OpenWrt[1] and DD-WRT router firmware. It is also used in Chromecast,[2] in Tiny Core Linux for packaging extensions, and for the system partitions of some Android releases (Android Nougat).[3] It is often combined with a union mount filesystem, such as UnionFS, OverlayFS, or aufs, to provide a read-write environment for live Linux distributions. This takes advantage of both Squashfs's high-speed compression abilities and the ability to alter the distribution while running it from a live CD. Distributions such as Debian Live, Mandriva One, Puppy Linux, Salix Live and Slax use this combination. The AppImage project, which aims to create portable linux applications, uses squashfs for creating appimages. The Snappy package manager also uses squashfs for its ".snap file format".

Squashfs is also used by Linux Terminal Server Project and Splashtop. The tools unsquashfs and mksquashfs have been ported to Windows NT[4] – Windows 8.1.[5] 7-Zip also supports Squashfs.[6]
History

Squashfs was initially maintained as an out-of-tree Linux patch. The initial version 1.0 was released on 23 October 2002.[7] In 2009 Squashfs was merged into Linux mainline as part of Linux 2.6.29.[8][9] In that process, the backward-compatibility code for older formats was removed. Since then the Squashfs kernel-space code has been maintained in the Linux mainline tree, while the user-space tools remain on the project's GitHub page.[10]

The original version of Squashfs used gzip compression, although Linux kernel 2.6.34 added support for LZMA[11] and LZO compression,[12] Linux kernel 2.6.38 added support for LZMA2 compression (which is used by xz),[13] Linux kernel 3.19 added support for LZ4 compression,[14] and Linux kernel 4.14 added support for Zstandard compression.[15]

Linux kernel 2.6.35 added support for extended file attributes.

Booting Linux on a Intel NUC BOX

Monday, August 15, 2022
Booting Linux on a Intel NUC BOX

I have some good news, I bought a USB stick with WiFi utility with a Microsoft supported CD long time ago but could not mount it on my old BIOS Linux PC.

I stuck that USB on my new Intel NUC Box and it connects automatically with the Huawei Mobile Unit.

Another long black wire code is removed from my clutter free table.

Additionally, my cellphone with no voice data is switched off.

I was expecting a call from a young guy whom I tried to convert to Linux.

He interestingly only trusts bogus Astrologer Manio!

He is ruined for life.

But this Visual BIOS does not mount external SATA mounted on a case, not even to retrieve DATA.

I decided to ditch the functional PC to a tiny Intel NUC box to save power and noise.

PC is very slow with the plasma desktop.

It is running only on BIOS and UEFI gone defunct for good.
I did not change the BIOS but UEFI was inactivated.

The NUC box's characteristic are;

1. It is little bigger than a large cellphone.

2. Unlike the cellphone it has 8GB RAM.

3. Boots fast with UEFI.

4. Two New (HDMI) VIDEO outputs for two monitors. I had to buy a converter for VGA monitor.

5. No audio outputs but I can stick a USB Audio Jack.

6. No fan.

7. 3 USB 3 ports.

8.1 USB 3 with power and data.

9. Silent in operation.

10. Boots all my Linux distributions on USBs.

11. Won't boot from the external SATA disks but reads data and films.

12. Mobile or portable and cleared the clutter on my table.
That is the very reason for changing. 

Portability is not a issue with cellphones doing that job.

13. Stuck a SSD inside and in five minutes I was running Knoppix and Linux compatible.

14. Removed Knoppix, only 120 GB. 

Removing SSD safely secured in was difficult. I had to remove 4 nuts and took a long time due to cramped up space and very small nuts

15. Installed Emmanantus in a 320 GB SSD and saved 180 GB for NTFS partition for data.

16. Jack one terabyte external disk with steam games and saved films.

17. It has side ports for standard  SD card to load photos from the cellphone. In other words compatible with cellphone data.

18. No heating after 3 hours run.

19. Bit expensive but overall a good buy. 

But it is a fraction of what one pays for Apple and not  bulky.

20. So look for audio ports and  for fan if you go for a bigger and expensive Game Box.

22. WiFi was instant with a dialog dongle for Internet connectivity.

Connect to internet fast with WiFi.

It has a Ethernet port for wired connection.

21. I   am going to use it for office jobs and not for games, so audio is not a problem.
I have a USB digital speaker with my favorite songs in  MicroSD card.

 22. I have been  using it for the last two years on Debian 12.6.1..... and no problem at all..

Late Development is a boom and prevents individuals becoming surrogates

 Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Late Development is a boom and prevents individuals becoming surrogates

I support late development to pushing them over.
There are many reasons.
Mostly psychological and not intellectual.
I saw a program in Youtube with a kid under flash point.

It was obvious the smart kid was reticent.

But the channel has made many inroads to ruin this kids life..

I will list a few of the global figures who demised before fifty.

1. Elvis Presley at 42.
2. Debian Developer Ian at 40
3. Bob Marley under 40
4. Jim Reeves 45
5. Carpenters below 40
6. Micheal Jackson 42
7. Pink Floyd ?

I want all of them rest in peace and wish not to open can of worms.

They could have lived well past 55 but the people who saw the money potential including psychiatrists betrayed them.

I was one who had unusual potential in physics and mathematics and I deliberately went for biology to hide my potential.

If I went into physics I would have been dead at 35 with no friends in isolation.

I mean what I say and if unusually talented are pushed too early their steam blows away in no time.

Who is a Doctor and who can hold the Title Dr.?

 Who is a Doctor and who can hold the Title Dr.?
Posted on October 12, 2011

 
This is a reproduction from New York Times.
Being myself a Medical Person D.P.T.O (Do not Practice and Teach Only) who can use this two letters and the dot for many reasons, avoid using it, doctor part in my life for the last 10 years and it has made my life very easy and simple.
In fact on of my neighbors asked me are you really a doctor to which I smiled and did not give an answer, making him more confused.
Most of the guys/girls who know me come for second opinion, I am more than willing to oblige.
But free of charge and they do get better with simple remedies.
I have few emergency tablets in my purse always for such and eventuality, just in case.
I totally agree with this gentleman and I am more than grateful to him for bringing to notice what ever the PhD one holds if it is not relevant to the (if it is not germane to the holder’s primary current occupation) post currently holding it should not be used as a label of distinction.
After all the PhD may be 30 years old and disproved by at least three times  over that period of time  if it was a good one to tag one’s own thesis.
I am in fact currently finishing a book (which actually was a 10 year research work ) and I have decided  not to put that for PhD referral or title and would share it with the general public.
If somebody gives a PhD posthumously for this creative work , the funeral director can put a single copy in my coffin before cremation so that it goes to heaven or hell with me.
Who’s a Dr.?
Our continued use of courtesy titles — increasingly rare in the news media — prompts many questions. Rules on the use of “Dr.” in particular can lead to confusion, for readers and unfortunately sometimes for our writers. Here’s our style book entry:
Dr. should be used in all references for physicians and dentists whose practice is their primary current occupation, or who work in a closely related field, like medical writing, research or pharmaceutical manufacturing: Dr. Alex E. Baranek; Dr. Baranek; the doctor. (Those who practice only incidentally, or not at all, should be called Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.) Anyone else with an earned doctorate, like a Ph.D. degree, may request the title, but only if it is germane to the holder’s primary current occupation (academic, for example, or laboratory research).
For a Ph.D., the title should appear only in second and later references. The holder of a Ph.D. or equivalent degree may also choose not to use the title.
Do not use the title for someone whose doctorate is honorary.

There is No TAX on Discontent (NTD)

 There is No TAX on Discontent (NTD)

Sri -Lankan are very creative people but that creativity comes only after retirement when one sees that the grave stone or tomb is the final place of conquest!

This ultimate reality is also taxed; the Masters of this creation are British Tax Inspectors of Yesteryear.

British only had Police and Inspectors now we have Private Security in the Universities too.

We have lost everything including freedom but they cannot take our simple humour rather the satire (I thought satire is bit psychopathic) out of context.

 

Very soon humour against the rulers will be Taxed.

 

The academic Freedom in the University is also Taxed and Malabe is the Beginning.

 

Mr. O.M. Weerasooiya is a Retired Commissioner General of Inland Revenue and a Corporate Member of Sri Lanka Institute of taxation and former Treasurer of Netherlands Alumni Association of Lanka.

A personal note of somebody who is nobody in this Tax World:

Mr. O M Weerasooriya has done a wonderful job by writing this poem but there is something that we would like you to know.

A Developed country will collect 20 to 35% as taxes in this world.

A Developing country will collect 50 to 60% as taxes.

Today Ceylon collects 70% as taxes.

Every 100 rupees you earn 70 rupees will go back to the government as taxes.

This means Ceylon is heading for disaster like Zimbabwe (this is true- my own comment-We are heading that garden pathway rapidly in the name of development Who cares?) who collects a whopping 88% as taxes.

Support somebody who could change this at least to a developing level.

Read My Comment below and please add your comment, too.
 

Few lines would do.

 

The Tax Poem

At first I thought this was funny…then I realized the awful truth of it.

Be sure to read all the way to the end as that’s the punch line!

Tax his land, tax his bed,
Tax the table at which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, tax his mule,
Tax his cow, tax his goat,
Teach him taxes are the rule.

Tax his work, Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts Anyway!
Tax his pants, Tax his coat.
Tax his ties, tax his shirt,
Tax his work, tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco, tax his drink,
Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his cigars, Tax his beers,
If he cries tax his tears.
Tax his car, Tax his gas,
Find other ways to tax his aRss (after the daily purge).
Tax all he has, then let him know
That you won’t be done, till he has no dough
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till he’s good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he’s laid.
Put these words upon his tomb,
‘Taxes drove me to my doom…’

When he’s gone, do not relax,
Its time to apply the inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax,
Airline surcharge tax
Airline Fuel Tax,
Airport Maintenance Tax
Building Permit Tax,
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax,
Death Tax
Dog License Tax,
Driving Permit Tax
Excise Taxes,
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment (UI),
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax,
Petrol Tax (too much per liter)
Gross Receipts Tax,
Health Tax
Hunting License Tax,
Hydro Tax,
Inheritance Tax
Interest Tax,
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes,
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax,
Mortgage Tax
Personal Income Tax,
Property Tax
Poverty Tax,
Prescription Drug Tax
Provincial Income Tax,
Real Estate Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax,
Retail Sales Tax
Service Charge Tax,
School Tax
Telephone Tax,
Provincial and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax,
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax,
Water Tax,
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax,
Workers Compensation Tax
Entertainment Tax,
Tourism Promotion Tax
Value Added Tax……..
 

Finally Nation Building TAX NBT.

We have still not yet built our NATION three years after ending internal war.

G.S.T. (Gona Saha Thanakola TAX-Bull and the Grass TAX)

Still Think This Is Funny?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our Nation was one of the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt, had a large middle-class and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
 

What in the hell happened?

Can you spell ‘Politicians’?

It is all PoliTricks Scientists (my creation for Oxford Dictionary-Coined for American Scientists who make mockery / distort facts and make fiction / out of real facts).

I hope this goes around Ceylon at least 100 times!!!!!

YOU can help it get there!!!!

GO AHEAD – – – be a CEYLONESE !!!!!!!!!!

Send It Around Everywhere for a change

Help make a difference.

Ayubowan, is Long Life.

If you live long you pay more TAX so kick the bucket early!

May he attain the Final Goal, the Nibbana in this life and not next life.
   

If not his next life we believe is NOT spared, at all.

The TAX Inspector will follow him in the Samsara.

 

Even the PIN in Pin Kate is TAXED now.

 

I will send a Note / Email to Maha Brahma to TAX the TAX man and requesting him to Grant HELL for TAX recuperation.

J.V.P. Contribution to Economy

Friday, September 11, 2020

J.V.P. Contribution to Economy

Out of the 130 C.E.B transformers, 2 were in my locality.

I managed to replace three of the transformers (many more elsewhere) with the help of a lady engineer friend (she said this is the last one I have) and saved the third one until the chaos subsided with risks to my own life.

 

I think as a mark of remembrance JVP MPs should not be given a laptop free but charge at five time the costs of a laptop from their salaries. 

 

J.V.P's Contribution to our Economy

Referring to the contribution made by the JVP to the national economy, the state minister read out a list of damages and destruction attributed to the Marxist party during its second insurrection in the period of terror from 1989-90. 

“They destroyed 684 post offices, 13 telecommunications centers, 550 buses, 75 tea factories, 40 estate bungalows, 130 CEB transformers, 12 trains and six railway stations. The total loss by those actions has been estimated at Rs. 55 billion rupees.”

Medical Note

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Medical Note

I was ambiguous of my first note, simply because I have lost interest in many fields including medical matters.

1. I lost interest in politics after 50 years of its observation globally.
    
2. Then I lost interest in religion, that dated back to my childhood but hiding behind the masses who follow one or other form of it. Then after my retirement from active work, this resurfaced in vigour, questioning their contribution to humanity.
    
3. Then I lost interest in helping (not empathy) the beggars. My idea of creating (including political, I prefer a different word sounding similar but would be nice here) a beggar in any form is counterproductive.
    
4. Then, to keep me occupied I stared feeding all the dogs, where ever I meet then.
    
5. Finally, I developed a keen interest in birds after noting disappearance of sparrows, that made me to visit Bird’s Park in Singapore. Then I developed the idea of making bird friendly environment.The cats (snakes,too) are their biggest enemies but the biggest impact is from unregulated agricultural poisoned dished out that get deposited in the ovaries and eggs.
    
6. Finally Coronavirus came in and it made me to wake up from slumber, as it was.
    
7. By the way, this piece is medical. 
    
8. We were taught to be very careful when dispensing steroids due to many (some exaggerated) of its side effects. After the loss of two children who were under my care (due to D.J.V.P insurrection in 1989) who could not reach me (cell phones were not available then) physically, I totally revised my policy globally, in Ceylon and abroad dishing out steroids, (especially Dexamethasone) liberally. A reserve course (dose depending on the individual) of steroids was given to each deserving family, with an instruction to take first dose and see any available (Typed Note was dispensed, no computers then) medical person (do not go on looking for me). The reason is, their is delay in action of steroids 8 hours or more. This saved many an agony to many of my patients. Now Coronavirus, there is no treatment. At least to avoid respiratory complications that result from various kinds of interleukins, a fast and furious (this new terminology of mine, furious to mean large and aggressive dose of steroids) dose of dexamethasone should be given, (not chloroquine) with the onset of respiratory symptoms, and if need arises a course of antibiotics. 
    
9. This will SAVE lot of lives.

Discipline - Vinaya

 Discipline - Vinaya

Vinaya — the disciplinary code of Buddhist monks and nuns

By D. Amarasiri Weeraratne
 

The Vinaya constitutes the disciplinary code of conduct for Buddhist monks and nuns. The Buddhist Sangha consists of both monks and nuns, and not monks only as ignorantly believed by many Sinhalese Buddhists.
Buddhist monks have to observe 227 Vinaya rules, and the nuns have to observe 311 rules.

When both monks and nuns are novices (Samanera) i.e. before higher ordination they have to observe only ten Precepts known as Dasa Sila.

The Buddha expected the Sangha to continue to observe the Vinaya rules in the original spirit with changes in the minor rules if deemed necessary by the majority of the Sangha.

The Buddha said, "O monks! So long as you will not enact new rules and will not abolish existing ones the Sangha may be expected to prosper and not decline".

The history of Buddhist countries shows that when the monks neglected the precepts and became lax and corrupt Buddhism declined. It revived again when Sasana reforms were effected and monks observed the Vinaya properly.
Lay person play an important part in helping monks to observe the Vinaya.
Monks depend on lay persons for their material needs. So it is important that laymen should know the fundamentals of the Vinaya. Then they can support the monks to lead the holy life.

If lay people are totally ignorant of the Vinaya they could spoil the monks, condone wrong behaviour, and will not be able to differentiate between a good monk and corrupt apostate.

The Buddha advocated that the Vinaya should be available for all to see. He said, "Monks, there are three things which shine when not hidden, viz. the sun, moon and the Dhamma-Vinaya". Therefore, it is important that lay persons should have a basic knowledge of the Vinaya.

The Dasa Sil Mata nuns observe only the Ten Precepts of the novices and they are not required to observe the 311 rules for fully ordained nuns.

Eight Categories
The Vinaya-rules of the Sangha are classified into eight classes.
They are;
1. Parajika,
 2. Sanghadisesa,
3. Aniyata,
 4. Nissaggiya-pacittiya,
5. Pacittiya,
6. Patidesaniya,
7. Sekhiya,
8, Adikarana Samptha.

The first two incur heavy offenses, while the rests incur light offenses. They are redeemable by confession to another monk.

Only the more important rules concerning lay-people will be discussed in this article.

Capital offenses Parajika
There are four parajikas or rules of defeat. Any monk or nun who breaks any one of the rules is automatically "defeated". He/she falls from monkhood/nunhood even if he or she wears the yellow robe. Also he/she is not allowed to enter the Sangha in this life-time.

The first parajika forbids sexual intercourse.

Therefore in Buddhism, a monk could never have a wife.

The second rule forbids stealing any object of value over Rs. 1500.

The third rule forbids killing a human being.

The fourth forbids making false claims to supernatural psychotic attainments i.e. jhana or even Arahantship.

Willful intention is necessary for these acts to constitute an offense.

Pardonable after Penance Sanghadiesa
There are;
13 Sanghadisesa offenses.
They entail a formal meeting of the Sangha. Any monk/nun violating these rules has to undergo a period of penance. After this, if the offender shows repentance he/she may be reinstated by an order not less than 20 monks/nuns.

The second sanghidisesa forbids physical contact with a woman/man with lustful intention.
Besides this handling money, gold, silver, gems, and such valuable, animal traps, weapons, musical instruments and fruits on trees constitute Sanghadisesa offenses.

A Buddhist monk cannot solemnize marriages like Hindu or Christian priests.

The 13th Sanghadisasa forbids over-association with lay families or behaving like a layman.
He cannot give gifts to layman hoping for return. Bad behaviour entails playing or associating with girls, playing-games, singing, dancing, etc.

Doubtful cases Aniyata
These are two indefinite offenses when a monk is accused of being with a woman in a secluded or screened place. If the monk devise misconduct and no one has seen misconduct, he gets the benefit of the doubt, unless there is over-riding evidence.

Expiatiables Nissaggiya-Pacittiya
These constitute 30 rules which entail expiation with forfeiture of the disallowed articles.
The monk has to confess his guilt.
Rules 6, 7 and 8 concern ‘Pavarana’ or invitation. Generally, a monk may not ask for something form a lay-person unless it is a reaction or a lay-person who has consented to be a supporter.
An example of a dedicated lay-supporter is a man who says ‘Rev. Sir as long as you stay here when you are in need of any permissible requisite ask me and I shall be glad to comply’.
Rules 12 and 13 concern using an item considered luxurious.

The Buddha inculcated frugality and contentment with little.

He forbade items considered luxurious to a monk. Expensive carpets, and rugs, richly embroidered coverlets, and in the present age we may include air-conditioning units, T.V. sets etc.

Here we have to take into consideration that items considered luxuries of one age become necessities in another.
Rule 18 concerns money.
A monk may not receive directly any money for himself, for others, nor even for the monastery, etc. He may direct a donor to put a donation into a donation box or bank account only if the donation is for the monastery fund, orphanage fund or any such impersonal fund. A monk may direct the use of such funds, but lay-persons have to handle financial matters. There is an allowance called Mendaka allowance for a lay-person to deposit money with a monk’s lay-attendant, or patron for the monk’s personal use. The lay-attendant has to do the monetary transactions — A Sangha Trust is a modern practical way of a accepting and administrating money and property for the benefit of the Sangha. Reliable trustees could administrate the trust, and the Sangha may advice them in their work.

Rule 19 forbids buying and selling to a monk. Since a monk cannot handle money he can neither buy nor sell.

A monk is not allowed to possess money, gold, silver, gems and similar valuables. He cannot possess land, animals, slaves, animal-traps, weapons or musical instruments.
Rule 23 concerns medicines or seven day allowances which a monk may keep.

92 Expiatables - Pacittiya
There are 92 rules which entail expiation.
The fifth rule for bids a monk to sleep with a young novice for more than three consecutive nights.
Rule 6 forbids him to sleep in the same place with a woman. Therefore a monk if invited to stay with lay people should be given a separate room.
According to rule number 7, a monk cannot speak more than six sentences to a woman without a man present. The man or boy should be able to understand what is spoken. This rules limits a monk to speaking only the minimum necessary words to a woman-alone. The eight rules debate a monk from speaking of his super normal attainments even if true to lay-persons. The ninth rule forbids a monk to disclose another monk's offenses to laymen.

According to the tenth rule a monk cannot dig the earth if it contains worms, insects, vegetation etc.

He can give an indirect request to a layman, "we need a pit" etc.

A monk is not allowed to damage plant life, cut-grass, pluck-flowers etc. He has to remove the seeds before eating fruits.

Rule 35 concerns a monk taking only one main meal a day. He can take nourishing drinks in the forenoon. He has to take his midday meal before 12 noon. Rules 44 and 45 forbid him to be along with a woman in a screened place — a repetition of the aniyata rule.
Rules 48-50 forbid a monk to go and see a military establishment, a battle or an army parade.
He may go for a valid reason to speak the dhamma or visit a sick person for a religious purpose. In terms of rule 65 a candidate for higher ordination should be 20 years of age.
Nowadays there seem to be no age limit for ordination of novice-monks.
Originally it was 15, but now they say a boy who can scare away a crow can be admitted.  

Rule 67 forbids a monk going on a journey with a woman having made an arrangement before hand.

Rules 74 and 75 disallows a monk to resort to violence.

Rules 87 and 88 restrict the use of expensive furniture.
Confessional
Patidesaniya

These four entail confession, and are minor matters.
Training and Deportment
Sekhiya
There are 75 Sekhiya rules. They are rules of training concerning deportment. 57-72 concern teaching dhamma to lay-people.
A monk is not allowed to practice palmistry and fortune telling, astrology, making charms, exorcism.
Nor can he practice medicine for money.
A detailed list of forbidden arts, crafts and professions is given in the Samanaphala Sutra and Ambatta Sutra.

Nagaravindeyya Sutra
In the Nagaravindeyya Sutra the Buddha told lay-people who visited him which monks and Brahmins were worthy of respect and honour. "Those monks and Brahmins who are not rid of greed, hate and delusion regarding pleasures of the senses, whose minds are disturbed by passions, whose behaviour is righteous at times and righteous in others — such monks and Brahmins need not be respected, honoured or venerated."

When asked how they could judge the worthy the Buddha said "It is in so far as these venerable men frequent sylvan hermitages, and keeps away from the madding crowds. In the sylvan hermitages there would be no forms, sounds, and other temptation to distract their minds. On account of this we can say "surely these venerable ones are either free from greed, hate and delusion or are treading the path that leads to the elimination of greed, hate and delusion."
The way that leads to the removal of greed, hate and delusion, is the noble Eightfold Path consisting of Sila (Virtue), Samadhi (Meditation) and Pragnya (Wisdom).
Thus it can be understood that if a monk does not uphold the Vinaya-precepts sincerely, he is far from the path that leads to the elimination of greed, hate and delusion. Then he need not be honoured, respected and venerated as a true son of the Buddha (Buddha-putra).
Thus, it is important that lay-Buddhists should have at least an elementary knowledge of the Vinaya to distinguish between genuine monks, and worldly bhikkhus pursuing the path of greed, hate and delusion.

Revision of Vinaya
The late Ven. Walpola Rahula, when he was alive advocated the revision of the Vinaya rules at an international conference of the Sangha, where Hinayana and Mahayana monks and nuns were present. He pointed out that many rules are out of date and require revision. The rules were enacted 2500 years ago when monks were itinerant ascetics in India.
Since then the Sangha has passed to the sectarian stage, and arrived at the monastic stage. Social, economic and political conditions have undergone vast changes. The Vinaya rules are superannuated and require revision.
In the Maha Parinirvana Sutra towards the end of his life, the Buddha permitted the Sangha to revise the Vinaya rules where necessary by common consent in keeping with changed conditions of the future. However, they have to conform to the spirit and objectives of the original Vinaya. He has given four guidelines within which framework this could be done. They are called Vinaya Satara Apadana.
But the Sangha has been so conservative and backward that they would not consider revising the Vinaya at the 6th Council held at Rangoon in the Buddha Jayanti year the Sangha Elders greeted with laughter the idea of amending the Vinaya. Therefore the appeal of Ven. W. Rahula fell on deaf ears. Today we have the ludicrous spectacle of the hierarchy refusing to revise the Vinaya while at the same time they turn a blind eye to all the Vinaya violations that are a common everyday occurrence in Sri Lanka. And there are enough apologists to rationalize and defend the present apostasies.
"The observance of the Vinaya constitutes the longevity of the Sasana. When the Vinaya is observed the Sasana stands." These are the words of the First Council Elders.
From this, we can infer in which direction Buddhism in Sri Lanka is heading.

Corruption from systemic to endemic to political

Corruption from systemic to endemic to potential political

I am not qualified to expand on this by default but I can formulate a thesis for the young in financial fields to be successful by forging ahead with these strategies.

The least required qualification is the degree and it has no value at all only theoretical but with no practical know how.

The most wanted crime is to bend the law, say for example for the speaker of the house, who can never speak but stop other people speaking about him.

Our mothers an fathers have perfected this at year five entry into National Schools and our schools are the seats of corruption or the institute to learn corruption in style from younger age, as young as five years.

We are trainee to lie from the age of 4 to 5 years.

If born before 31st December at 4 years but born after 31st of December at 5 years.

Born after 31st of December is a crime in this blessed land.

I have excluded forces including the Police that only investigate potential rackets but not the established rackets.

I have excluded the Cricket Board and Cricketers since they are the Elite of This country.

But a few words about a guy said to be from UK (putative estimate) and claimed to be a lawyer but no legal experience in winning a single case in UK or Ceylon.

I call him Nagaya or Naganada an appropriate name.

He fills the GAP between the student lawyer and a practicing lawyer.

He was an operative (docile) from may be 2017 onwards on YouTube.

His strategy was to collect 20 million from unsuspecting Sri-Lankan expatriates for his SCUM BUG SCHEME (SBS for short similar to S.O.B son of a B????) and succeeded in claiming half of that.
 

I can remember only one other guy in UK, a guy similar to him apart from our own Sounderanayagam (a minion in this field).
 

The leader of the Labour Union during Mrs.Thatcher.
He hoodwinked everybody and disappeared to South America (probably) with millions of Labour Union money.

I think Panama was a later offshoot.

That was the end of my sympathy for British Labour Party still limbering under Gerome Corbin.

Corruption in Ceylon
    Bribery
    Cronyism
    Kleptocracy
    Economics of corruption
    Electoral fraud.
    Nepotism
    Slush Funds
    Political scandal

    To this I should add the dummy candidated originating from the field of Rugger.

Dummy Candidates
    This is the latest vogue Ceylonese can be proud in political history of the world where the ballot paper is printed on scented toilet paper of edible variety.
    It is so long while waiting for casting the vote one can consume 34 of the 35 candidates and leave only one candidate as the democratically desirable choice of one’s own.

This is a ploy/scandal to evade Tax on black money made white.

 
    Let me finish with my experience in the last 24 hours in Ceylon in Kandy, the venerated Buddhist City.
    A guy tried to cheat me (I dressed myself like a Foreign Visitor and my disguise worked) Rs.2000 in cash in a HiFi Display Center.
    A guy cheated me of Rs. 3000/= on a cheap cellphone (which I am going to return).
    A guy cheated me Rs.50/= on Appa (an Egg Hopper) in spite of asking for a receipt. He did not give me a receipt. I did not complain, fearing backlash.
    A stale coffee (probably the coffee strainer was not cleaned properly) in a mug as old as me.
    A banana with cadmium poison.
    A banana cake without banana.
    A cheese sandwich almost without cheese and the slice of bread was as thin as a toilet paper.
    A toilet paper non absorbent.
    

A glass of Red Wine without spirits in it but 15% VAT and 2% N.B.T.

    The war was finished 10 years ago and we are still paying a TAX named after the WAR of attrition.

Nation Building Tax.

    Reproduction
    Sri Lanka’s banking and finance sector has been treated unfairly by the government when charging taxes from these entities in this sector, experts say.

This Piece is OLD!
Unlike other companies, barring tobacco and liquor firms, the banks and finance companies pay nearly 60 per cent in taxes to the government. 

“We pay collectively 60 per cent from our profit before taxes,” a CEO of a finance company told the Business Times.
It turns out that the banking and finance sector pays over US$1billion which translates to around Rs. 160 billion in taxes to the government annually under the present taxation system.
These taxes include 28 per cent in Income Tax, 15 per cent VAT, 7 per cent Debt Repayment Levy and 2 per cent Nation Building Tax. 

So it’s 52 per cent in taxes. 

Bankers say that when computing taxes on a profit before tax base after adding employee salaries etc, it comes to some 57 per cent in taxes.
The reason to tax this sector seems almost sinister. 

As one CEO put it, it’s almost as if these entities are penalized for doing well.

So how are the banks and finance companies reporting such stellar profits?

All major banks and sound finance companies don’t seem to be affected by these taxes. 

This is so because they invariably pass these taxes on to the customer. 

As one CEO put it, “ultimately it is the public that suffer with these taxes.”

Another sector expert said that the government treats the banking and finance sector companies like they do with the liquor companies when slapping taxes. 

This (liquor) sector pays almost 92 per cent in taxes. 

The expert also added that the government is the major beneficiary of these taxes earning nearly 60 per cent whereas the shareholders get 40 per cent of the profits.

“This is not fair. They are taxing the golden goose.”

They urged that the government must not discriminate the sector when taxing. Analysts say that as operating conditions continue to be difficult against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop this regressive taxation is expected to continue to pressure bank performance in the short to medium term.
A CEO of a major bank noted that the government should not target individual sectors or industries just because they are  easy . 

“The banking and finance sector is easy to target. Successive governments have done so in the past,” he said.

A finance company CEO told the Business Times that each owner of a leased three wheeler costing Rs.400,000 has to pay Rs. 1,500 each month to the finance company.
This means that the finance company has also passed their tax invariably on to the three wheeler owners. 

Rightly or wrongly this has been done by the companies and the banks. 

“So the Government’s objective in taxing the banking and finance sector has fallen flat,” he said.

My death wish is not be born again here.

Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, 

extortion, 

cronyism, 

nepotism, 

parochialism, 

patronage, 

influence peddling, 

graft, and embezzlement. 

Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities.

 
Political corruption (from Wikipedia)
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities. 

Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption.

Over time, corruption has been defined differently. 

For example, in a simple context, while performing work for a government or as a representative, it is unethical to accept a gift. Any free gift could be construed as a scheme to lure the recipient towards some biases. In most cases, the gift is seen as an intention to seek certain favors such as work promotion, tipping in order to win a contract, job or exemption from certain tasks in the case of junior employee giving the gift to a senior employee who can be key in winning the favor.
Some forms of corruption – now called "institutional corruption" – are distinguished from bribery and other kinds of obvious personal gain. 

A similar problem of corruption arises in any institution that depends on financial support from people who have interests that may conflict with the primary purpose of the institution.
An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties, is done under color of law or involves trading in influence. The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, some political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or ill-defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. 

Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually.

A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves".

 

Anarchy

 Saturday, September 14, 2019

Anarchy

A state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
I refer the word, the chaos or the disorder with scientific connotation and how the our universe operates in its day to day affairs from quasars to pulsars to black holes in evolution.

Mind you the order is only seen in the biological systems apparently of recent origin and development, whereas the disorder is seen in the human thinking especially in economic and political affairs.
 

Synonyms:
lawlessness,
absence of government,
nihilism,
mobocracy,
revolution,
insurrection,
riot,
rebellion,
mutiny,
disorder,
disorganization,
misrule,
chaos,
tumult,
turmoil,
mayhem,
pandemonium

antonyms:
government, order
absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.
 

Let me introduce myself.

I am not a politician but a scientific and analytical thinker.

My observations are based on real life stories coming from a short history of medical teaching and long history of medical career in many fields including being myself a flying doctor (Korean War is an analogy but not a participant).

Example is Ceylon.
The expression is the classic example of “Failed State” having disbanded the democratic first pass the post parliamentary democracy for autocratic anarchic rulers hiding behind saffron cloth and other garbs of religious fanatical nature.

Solution drop or severe the connection of religions and state and go back to the real democracy with equality, brotherhood and liberty.

The last three elements are not seen anywhere in this world.
 

That is the entry point for my short discussion.
Let me summarize the world history, demography, economics and political outcomes.
1. Autocracy without meritocracy
2. Theocracy
3. Firm embrace of theology and autocracy
4. French Revolution
5. Brief Period of Renaissance
6. Expansion of British Empire
7. Two Wold Wars without any objective reasons
8. Total Embrace of Capitalism
9. Marxist Theory of Capitalism
10. Emergence of socialism and communism
11. Failed state of Russia with Socialism and Orthodox Religion
12. American (IMF and World Bank) Global Economic Empire
13.Plunder of the Oil Capital of the Middle East with the help of Israel and Lebanon
14. Collapse of Capitalism and Communism in Europe
15. European Union
16.Emergence of Chinese communism with economic recovery (but with slavery and no political freedom for subjects)
17. Hongkong Acquisition by Mainland China and Current Unrest
Acquisition of mainland Tibet was the preview of the Hongkong current scenario.
18. Italian Mafia
19. Russian and East European Mafiosi
20. Religious Mafiosi in Myanmar
21. Middle East Mafiosi and Vatican Mafiosi
22. Collapse of the American Capitalism and emergence of Donald Trump and White Supremacy and Populism
23. When the West collapses China too will collapse
24. Domino Effect
25. Total Anarchy or Chaos

 
I may have missed few points but that is beside the point.

Ceylon has gone from relative pruned Marxism to Capitalism to two or three insurgencies and currently religions mafiosi (all three religions) and new brand of Marxism.
 

This all started with JRJ’s grand and critically failed political and economic (called liberalism for the few and anarchy for the rest) plan aided by IMF and World Bank with European union fiddling with LTTE.

In 70 years we are in total debt for 100 years or more with school children using tablets to learn failed American capitalism.

We created a constitution to prune (abolition was the original target) the post of presidency but still the anarchy rule sway.
 

There are over 20 guys contesting and none of these guys have any knowledge of any of the 25 points highlighted above.
 

Do not waste your vote.
Choose the best guy out of the totally rotten lot.
Strangely not a single girl.
Are the totally trapped or very intelligent in demeanor?

Pigs are our closer cousins please adore them!

 Sunday, August 25, 2019

Pigs are our closer cousins please adore them!

These are little things that will be prohibited to teach in schools in Ceylon, soon.
Pigs are very similar to humans in genome study.
They are communal species ( not like in pig farms).
They look after their young in the wild.
There is hierarchy dominated by mums like in the elephant family.
They are not ferocious as depicted in the wild boar clan.
They keep clean if left to their own devises.
Pig’s diseases are similar to human diseases especially cardiovascular risks.
Pigs become chubby like our politicians.
They are an intelligent species to tolerate (not the pig eaters) humans and their survival in a increasingly hostile planet where elephants with big brain fail is a dilemma.
Their intelligence and brain size are similar to the comparison of dolphins to humans.
Pigs diverted from wild boar probably million years ago.

Why god created pigs and hate ham is open to question for some religions.

The miniature Wuzhishan pig is extensively inbred and individuals are genetically similar.
Its small size makes it easy to handle and useful for medical research. The team looked at genes and protein domains that pigs and humans share. These are important targets for drugs. The researchers found the physiology of the two is 84 per cent similar at the genetic level.
The studies identified 112 positions in the genome where pig protein has the same amino acid that is implicated in a human disease.
This supports the use of pig in studies on human diseases. Some of the protein aberrations that pigs share with humans are associated with obesity, diabetes, dyslexia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
This understanding of the genetic origins of modern pigs is important for their breeding and to find new ways to deal with old and emerging diseases.

Skin Colour and Pigmentation

 Friday, August 16, 2019
Skin Colour and Pigmentation

I was trying to find an article on pigmentation on big Medical Texts and could not.

This was an extraction from a very old power point presentation.

I have destroyed my notes by conviction.

When we were medical students there were good articles on pigmentation, not now (? new policy).


I am much interested in Guppy and Zebra fish pigmentation not human.


Skin Colour

Skin colour is determined by two factors.

One is the amount of melanin formed in response to sun's radiation effects.

This amount of formation of melanin is determined by different  alleles and are poly-geneticaly inherited.

There is hardly any difference between whites and blacks in melanin formation.

The second is the packaging of that melanin in membrane bound packs.

White skin people lack the ability to form (melanasome melanisation) membrane bound packages efficiently.

Melanosomes are either degraded or dispersed in white skin.

It is a genetic deficiency and not a superior quality of white man.
 

White man is deficient and why and when this happened is currently unknown.

That is why they are prone to cancer and a very serious condition, the malignant melanoma.
They cannot sun bathe in reality.
This happened during their migration while dark skinned people retained that ability and were protected from cancer.

Additionally dark skin is resistant to weathering and old age.

Melanins

The are several varieties of melanins

Eumelanin
Dark brown melanin proper
Chemically an insoluble polymer of tyrosine
Phaeomelanin
Yellow or red skinheads
Chemically a polymer of tyrosine and cysteine, soluble in alkali solutions
The are several varieties of melanins
Eumelanin is present in skin, hair, pigment epithelium of the eye, in the meninges, in brain stem (substantia nigra) and adrenal medulla
All these organs are ectodermal in origin like the nervous system
Produced by the melanocytes and are packed membrane bound and are transmitted to surrounding keratinocytes.
Each melanocyte actively implants its granules into the body of the nearby cells.
One melanocyte supplies melanin to thirty-three keratinocytes according to signals from the keratinocytes.
In other words roughly 100 cells of the epidermis have three melanocytes.

Black Skins
In black skin the melanosomes which are larger than those of white skin remain free.

White Skins
In white skin the melanosomes are taken up by the autophagosomes and are degradaed.
They are dispersed lightly causing the social pathology.

Light absorption
Functions of Eumelanin is to bsorb ultraviolet and visible light and get oxidized in the process
It is a Free Radical sink, so prevent carcinogenesis.
Black skin ages better than whites
It is an Ion-exchange resin
Melanin is an electron acceptor and binds many drugs Chlorpromazine
Melanins are biologically very important but very little is understood
Their physiochemical properties are frustrating to the chemists
Much remains to be learned
Little fish called Zebra (also Guppy) is unraveling its mysteries
The pathology of melanin is largely a matter of increased or decreased pigmentation
Hypopigmentation
Hyperpigmentation

 Tuesday, July 30, 2019

My First Day As A Hospital Manager

I was appointed as the manager of a private hospital newly acquired by one of my old but rich doctor friends.
He does his consultation only in the latter half of the day and he requested me to go and find the running problems.

The old doctor who was over 80 years, did come to the hospital and sat in his chair and started seeing patients, only a few in number.
I was not sure he had forgotten that he had sold it outright to my friend or whether he is expecting a job from the new administration or totally demented to understand that he had sold the assets.
 
Anyway, it was a blessing in disguise and I thought of looking at the sanitary facilities.

A little boy came for testing of a urine sample.
 
I volunteered getting the sample and picked him up from his mother’s hand and walked to the toilet with the mother following me closely behind.
I could not enter it with filth coming under the door.
I went looking for another and that was even worse.
I handed over the kid to the mother and was looking for a conservancy labourer (that's how they are called in this blessed land) to order the cleaning job.
Then a guy came in front of me and I quickly figured he was one of them and asked him to do the cleaning.
 

Then the matron intervened me and said he was fired yesterday.
 
I said never mind.

He is reinstated but “You are fired from this moment”.
 
Then for my bad luck my entire family (only time I had seen the entire family in one place) has come to see me and all of them were sleeping in two bed rooms hastily made, one for males and one for females.
I went for the back door of the bed room to secure it but before I could reach their, I saw a female attendant was entering through it.

I told her to go home for today and when she comes the next day, bring a letter why she came through that door as an explanation.
 

The sister intervened and said “she was appointed the very day” and I told her never mind, she goes home.
 

The sister and the new attendant were snooping on our family instead of looking after the patients.
Or may be the previous occupants may have been screwing them in that room.
 
That is how it operates in Ceylon.

I decided to give a running commentary (report) to the new boss, but did not expect the worst of scenarios to happen.
I related the first story.
He was not moved.
I related the second story.

Before I could finish, his face became blue and he hit the floor, face down.
He was dead or he had a heart attack.
 

The pressure got to him. too.
 

The third he knew that my resignation was coming fast.
 

I ran to the bed room where my family was resting to say to them “that we are leaving right now”.

That was the first time in my life, I left a patient unattended, mind you my boss and I ran home.

With the shame of not attending to my old friend and my boss. I woke up cross with me.

Mind You, this was a real dream.

I have interspersed a few items in real life and reader is free to guess.
 

It actually illustrates how a hospital is run its day to day affairs.
This is the answer to my friends who asks me “Why I do not see patients in my twilight years”.

It is a stressful job.

Now I enjoy looking after the rooftop garden and feeding the fish.

Both these hates were given up but a few guppies remain in the fish tank to control mosquitoes.
Looking at the birds who frequent the little garden is a by product of having a water garden.
They come to clench their thirst and some of them including chameleon gobble my fish.

Linux-100-Criteria

I started this blog post on the 27th of March, 2010.

Posted a few blog posts and  started writing on the 100 Linux distributions.

I have not counted the final list but still write about Linux.

My books on Linux Essentials is almost finished but I decided to add some account of my blog posting which is free for everybody.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Most of the Puppy Linux distributions and my favorites are in my Gnome download folder. It is almost full.

Friday, March 15, 2019

First Five out of the First 10 or more

Beware Linspire and Freespire that Microsoft Guys/Girls try to use for destroying interest in Linux newbies!

It is time for me to narrow down the first Five Linux Live CDs (Please note not Installable CDs) only.

I have no intention of giving points or put it in any order except alphabetical.

However criteria for selection were based on few important qualities.

They include the followings.

1. Stable Boot Loader preferably GRUB.

2. Ability to live with other Linux distributions side by side (not only with windows). Black Track4 fails on this issue. I cannot have it installed along with other Linux distributions so that it is available for me in an emergency.

3. Good Partition Manger (which include other OS types)or a editor which does not cause problem with many other partition tools available in Linux.

4. Installation process easy and compatible with other distributions.

5. Security tools and firewalls and parental control.

6. Availability of root and user options (unfortunately Ubuntu fails on this issue).

7. Availability of commonly used general purpose utilities or the ability to download them as an open option.

8. Attractive but light weight (tone downed KDE would do).

9. CD burner ideally KDE.

10. an assortment of light weight games (including card games) or one single high features game everybody loves.

Unfortunately all of the Live CDs fail on this feature.

1. Knoppix
2. Mepis
3. PCLinux
4. Puppy
5. Suse

I have Iso images of all in my 80 GB hard drive.

6. Linux Mint
7. Fedora
8. Vector Linux
9. Berry Linux
10. Zenwalk

For specialists and Newbies with special interest.
11. Arch
12. Chakra
13. Granular
14. aLive / aLinux ? Peanut Linux
15. AV Linux
16. Yoper
17. GoBo Linux
18. Linvo
19. Dream Linux
20. Ubuntu / Lubuntu / Kubuntu / SuperrOS and the lot

Then the Light Weight beauties.

21. Slax
22. Imagine.
23. Peppermint
24. Element
25. gOs
26. Paldo
27. Unity
28. Untangle
29. Chameleon
30. Imagine
31. Igelle
32. Myah
33. Leenux
34. Netrunner - Current net Runner is very good distributions with KDE
35.Exodus
36.ELive
37. ViperOS

Commercial but most of them are gone bust or dormant
38. Mandriva
39. XandroS - I really liked Xandros
40. ? Linspire ? Freespire

I have not include the educational distributions like Scientific Linux, Fermi Linux, ADIOS. QIMO. Knoppix for Kids. Kids Linux.

I have also not included the middle weight or the heavy weight like. Sabayon, Monomax, Openmamba, Calculate Linux, ALT Linux, Epidermic and Genitoo.

Linux-100-Criteria

I have over 200 distributions and images stored all over my hard disks and CDs and DVDs and I continue to download at least a few more of them a week to test.
My search for (looking for) best hundred has not being of no avail.

 

It is time for me to do it myself for the benefit of Linux fans and newbies.

Internet has being immensely helpful.
First of all I must thank the guys / girls of the following non-commercial sources and few commercial sources.

Number one goes to www.Distromania.com since they keep a catalog of old distributions and and also list the new and latest distributions.

www.Distrowatch.com also doing a good job of it but unfortunately they seem to miss some of the old ones.

Softpedia com has enormous number of pages and like Distrowatch.com do not keep a repository of old distribution images and their links.

Linux online also list distribution in their site. 

 

However, Linux Freedom gone dormant has few of the old distributions at its site.

Linux Live CD list is the only one which list the distributions according to to the types, education, games. desktop, multimedia. science, medicine etc.

I recommend this site for anybody who is choosy for a particular type say for kids, education.

Elive for at least releasing the development version free.

There are many more and thanks to all of them.

Couple of years ago the story was different one had to browse or read a Linux Bible to gather information.

Now these guys who write books do not bother to update them since the task is extremely difficult due to the pace at which Linux is moving.

Only a rocket scientist can keep pace with.
My attempt is to fill this void.
I thought of using somewhat scientific approach using my own criteria.

My criteria are based the practical difficulties we face in this country due to poor (comparatively better compared to India but no where near the capabilities of Singapore) Internet service and download speed.

It is practically impossible to download a DVD more than 1 GB. 

It takes ages even for that.

So I have concentrated on CD rather than DVDs.

My impression, it is better for us to have number of CDs rather than DVDs.

I used to download up to 7 Debian CDS in the past when we had only Redhat and Mandriva.

 

Currently I use only Debian and Puppy Linux for testing.

To decide my 100 Linux distributions of choice I will use many criteria.

1. Live CD which can be installed on hard disk 25 points
2. Easy access to Internet 20 points
3. Automatically Configure Internet 30 points
4. Browser (ideally FireFox) Capability 10 points

5. Other browsers 05 points
6. Google gadgets but not essential 10 points
7. Skype 15 points
8. Office Package (Abiword or Open office) 15 points
9. Light Weight (very important) 30 points
10. CD burner, very important (ideally K3B) 20 for K3B and 5 for others
11. Stable Grub configuration 30 points
12. Partitioning tool is essential(ideally (Gparted) 30 points
13. Light weight games 20 points
14. Ability to clean up the temporary file at boot time up 50 points 

Only Debian does this on a regular basis and that is why I use it. 

Of course Debian updates are regular and stand solid for 2 years, that is until 2025, July.
15. Updates and Package management 10 points
16. Reliability (most of them are) 50 points
17. Many versions form Mini to LXDE to Standard and Children's 25 points for each
18. Speed at start up (most of them are slow except YOPER) 100 points
19. Quick installation 20 points
20. Multi-Language in addition to English 25 points
21. Separate administrator in addition to normal user 50 points
22. Digikam and Gimp 20 points
23. Media Players including ability play itunes and divx 30 points
24. Type of Desktops (Genome / KDE / Fluxbox) 25 points
25. Down loader that start from where one has left / stopped earlier 50 points
26. Infrequent Cycles of Change (new distributions) but frequent updates 50 points
27. USB boot op 30 points
28. Live CD creator 20 points
29. Wine (window emulation) 20 points
30. Apple Emulation 30 points
31. Innovative approach like GOBO and YOPER 100 points

32. Home web site and the facility for registration and writing reviews 100 points
33, Scientific packages like statistics 100 points

34. Blender (Maya equivalent) 200 points

35. Children Educational packages with games 300 points 

36. I have not discussed Linux Games, since in 2010 Linux games were in infancy Steam and Steam Deck has changed all that.

I will start with Linux Mint, gos 3.1 gadgets and Berry to begin with, which is a cute one. 
Children educational packages I have given bonus marks since they should be developed as separate distributions such as youknow4kids, Knoppix for kids and sugar.
Asoka

4^th April, 2010