Modernization and Loss of Biodiversty

In the city and the villages that surrounded it where I grew up,  almost anything that one throws away grows (Plants and Seeds) on its own provided they did not rot away due to too much water.

There was no need to water plants and like a clockwise fashion rain did come in 10 to 14 day cycles even in the dry season.

Inter-monsoon rain was regular and now I understand and believe that the vegetation itself fashion this rain and its cycles. 

More trees mean more regular  inter-monsoon rain. 
Less trees means less rain, for sure, inter-monsoon period.

I lived for short period in Kurunegala and we moved there since doctors advised my father to move out to reduce the recurrence of wheezy episodes I had in Kandy, when very young.

I moved back and never had any problems and the problems were probably, related to growing up and poor nutrition, I ponder now.


That is just to restate the damply state of affairs of my city, yesteryear.

Even Kurunegala the weather, then, when compared to as it is now with lot of vegetation and coconut trees was very mild with more frequent dry spells than in Kandy.

Now we are going through perennial failure of rain and even the rain fails in the upcountry regions where the most of the hydroelectric  power plants are located.

All these are related to modernization and clearing up of scanty vegetation for what we call development. It is going to get worse and there is no master plan to arrest it except adding more vulnerable projects including coal power plants.

Coal Power Plants will cause irreversible damage to our eco-system and by the time it is recorded by scientific pundits I would have been long gone (Dead wood sitting on a cremation site) but I hope somebody will trace back to year 2005 where I started voicing this on a regular basis in the web.

It would have been earlier had it not been for the slow pace of development of the web but the slow pace of the printed paper of course accelerated my efforts.

Now I have made it a pastime and I study what I call the "my sphere of activity" (very limited indeed) and its observation and I want everybody who is versed in biology (or not) would contribute to this type of observations and record since we cannot believe the government and will never make any worthwhile consideration (except pass legislation they, themselves violate with political patronage and impunity) to this effort since politicians and their stooges won't understand their policy impact on mother nature.

Like the mess we have inherited with cricket after 1996 and filling up an ancient tank and building a cricket ground on it is the classic example of the idiocy of our policy makers cricket or otherwise.


We are set for power cuts in spite of thermal power added to the system.

Now if I do not water the plants including water plants they will dry up and wilt away in as short as three days.

Unfortunately there is nobody to help me with a little background knowledge in biology to look after my plants.

If I go out for a short holiday for two weeks abroad all the plants I have collected over the period of a decade will be no more.

I am late in using my power of observation since when we were young we did not have to worry about plants wilting away.

The observation period is over 25 years.
This started rapidly from 1975 when plantation section was nationalized.

Everything I observe is in the direction of loss of bio-diversity.

The little exotic (I have lost all the orchids) plants I have now if I do not replant will be lost, if not in the wild, but in my garden which is very very tiny.

Lot in my neighbourhood has changed and except for the remaining jack-tree and the breadfruit tree (which is gradually dieing) which stand tall, all the other trees have been felled by the owners and all the tree shade/s we have now is / are less than 20 years old.

Glad to say I have contributed to many of the remaining ones with a few exotic palm trees in that lot.

None of them were for commercial value but for shear beauty of their presence in my garden.

Now I have to make a significant observation and this writing was prompted by need to emphasize that.

We live in a small hill (in the middle) not very step but the road now we use is where the waste water ran down and I believe there was a little stream trickling (probably during the heavy rainy season) down and the underground water table is very near the surface with solid rocks on top and we were without pipe born water and we had to dig a well for our daily use.

It took another 10 years to get the pipe born water and with my friends who were engineers (they worked hard) were instrumental in the Nilambe Project from which present politicians in the city steal water when they come for a respite from Colombo.

Particular president made sure he gave connections only to his partisans and I had to wait till he died for everybody in the area to get a regular water supply and that was the only time we had a president from the hill country.

Now what they do is surreptitiously divert our water to Kandy and elsewhere and depriving us at times of greater need.

Suffice is to say they never started a new scheme for a long period of time.

There was a natural shallow well at our level which we used liberally during the construction of the house and I used to take a bath on some days for pleasure.

There were plenty of fresh water crabs there (they are gone now) and I had saved couple of big crabs who landed on our low roof to safety who had escaped on flight from birds of prey. 

You should not believe that the crabs could fly on to my roof. Way our politicians travel by air I have to believe even frogs and crabs would learn to fly if they happen to be partisan with politicians, with or without wings.

The whole place is dry now in spite of ancient minor stream long long time ago.

We came to this area when water was becoming scarce but there was still some underground water, left.

Now to my point and re-directing my thoughts and the reason why I came this far.

1. I said I live in the middle.

2. The road was once where there would have been a minor stream now totally dry.

3. Unlike those days which I drove a car I walk up the road for my exercise which is my workout and the day I cannot walk up the road I would retire from this world for good and do not need a bypass or a borrowed organ or two to live

as a living destitute.

4. Unlike those days (it was a brisk walk,then) now I take my time to watch the flora and fauna (now dogs and cats only and a few birds).

5. I one day notice the flowers of the seeds I tried to grow in my plot but could not on the wayside at the beginning which is the ground zero level.

5. Seeds that I used to get sometimes from abroad are germinating in not my plot of land but in the plot of land at the bottom.

6. All the seed I put at the middle level could have got washed away and settle at the lowest level.

7. Strangest of my observations was a white flower (I got the seeds from botanical garden and tried to grow in our plot but never succeeded). Very pleasant surprise and the owners had left to Canada over 20 years ago and that house is still empty and once in 5 years somebody cleans it up and there was no way the cleaner (not a gardener) had planted it.

Few of them are still there.

8. Same day I went to the botanical garden from where I got the seeds (from the hanging runners coming over the fence). To my horror those runners have all gone, no flowers and dried up stems were seen in a tall tree.

I think I did some honours to the Botanical garden for picking few seeds (which I never was able to see  flowering in my garden) and spread in my garden which had got washed away and landed on a foreign soil where nobody was living now.

9. The sense of sympathetic joy was overwhelming and that is why I have to pen it down here.

10. I now remember, just couple of meters away there was an exotic plant and on a rainy day dug up the yams and I now have an enormous collection (personal favorite) of it in my roof garden.

This Sunday when I walk up I will be picking up some seeds from that flower and then try again to germinate them, and perhaps I might even donate it to the botanical garden chief (previous one was a good friend of mine and I never asked him for any exotic plants except those on sale.
The present one when I met, I suggested  he should start selling water plants (which has become a monopoly of a selected few) and I am glad to say he has obliged and there are a few new guys doing water plants in Kandy now.

I should now go for cuppa tea and wind up after stating from whom I learned the secret of throwing seeds all over the foot path (by accident) where I walk, now, though ambling.

It was my wife's grandma.

She had the habit of spreading the seeds all over the garden and I used to pull most of them out to get some order in the garden. She was a sweet lady and she needed flowers for her daily offering to Buddha and we had at least 5 varieties almost everyday.
Now she and her daughter and my mother all gone we cannot pluck two varieties on a single day.

Strangely enough my roof top garden has three to six including three varieties of Jasmine which I grow (a trick I learned from her) in the memory of my mother who died well past 90 (and the other two ladies too I fondly remember when I see these flowers).

I wish I should not live that long since then there won't be any birds or wild flowers to smell in this blessed island.

But as long as I could walk up the footpath (any footpath, for that matter) I am going to pluck dry flowers and spread the seeds like birds do.

I don't care where they start germinating and like a good Buddhist I have to lose attachment to any worldly thing including flowers from now onward.

In this scenario I differ slightly from Buddhist virtues.

I want our great great grandchildren to have a reminder of the old times not of my photographs but some beautiful and fragrant flowers which we are losing by the day.
We do not have bees and the the little innocent black variety which were there for over 20 years and they come collect honey from my tiny water plants.

20 years ago there was a seed i tried to germinate by various mean but never could.Then one day I asked the lab assistant who was a keen gardener and my patient till he died when nearing 90 told me that the seeds crack when there is intense heat and then when the rain comes it germinate and if i soak the seeds it will rot.
Just today I picked up three of those plants to pot before they are run by the three wheelers. The road now finished with concrete to lure the voters get heated up and the seeds on either side crack and germinate.
Suffice it to say all the seeds coming from a plant / tree my mother in law planted.
When generation take the exit pathway like in America we will have only commercial growers and mono-culture.

Update on Dropbox and Concerns

Current news and security lapses are bringing bad publicity to Dropbox.

I had all these concerns when I joined Dropbox but I had My Mast Plan (MMP).

When my friends join me I highlight MMP (My Master Plan) and state I share only Linux Images.

It is a convenient place to drop latest tit bits there and share.

In any case is I am following Linux Philosophy and share all the good things in my life with my friends except daily headaches.

What Dropbox does is takes headache out of context.

Very few people are web comfortable and competent especially at my age.

I have one advice for them

Unless you have become an universal philanthropist pleas do not drop your smelly pants (Like the IMF guys and girls) in the open.

The word encrypting is a jargon word and any encrypted word or words can unencrypted by the law enforcing officers.

But it takes a hell of a big time consuming job until one crack the coding.

We were a country (for the last 35 years and even now) because of the war secret service has the option of breaking into any private material.

This paranoia has gone into American mind set after WiKiLeaks and there are demanding the web services for free access of private material.

News of the World is a good example how one makes its circulation grow by illegal means.

Thank god that web came in and destroyed the monopoly these private institutions had for dirty tricks.

Web is still evolving but one has to realize if one opens an email account one has to be ready and sacrifice ones own privacy and identity for the greater good for self and the wider audience.

This is a very good philosophical question, should one share information or not?

In spite of all red herrings I go for sharing.

In my way of understanding Buddhist Philosophy, self does not exist now or after my death but people will only talk about all the bad things I did (I am not there to defend myself) and not the good things.

Man has not evolved into a higher state (in spite of massive law enforcing institutions) of mind as yet and probably will not unless one becomes selfless (which is highly unlikely).

When you share something one should use the wiser counsel, should I or should I not?

If you have answered that premise, very unlikely one is going to get into trouble by using Dropbox.

Bottom line do not put sensitive and valuable information in the public domain, if not hackers, the so called democratic government will have access to your information.

No true democracy has evolved yet, philosophically speaking.

In any case I will standby with Dropbox in difficult times and if they cannot I will start pulling out my hitherto not published (at least in the web) writing in one stroke of mine.

I think this discussion should go on for at least the next 5 years.

Something good will evolve out of it, if we respect human dignity unlike the Daily News Papers.

We took over private paper saying it is partisan and for the last 40 years we have not been able to free it from the government grip.

It is how democracy operates in this world and future too.

there are only two entities.

One who holds power.

The other who is subjected to that power.

Sadly, there is nothing in between.

Sanity, Vanity and Insanity

A brief moment
Of Insanity
Destroys
Thousand moments of sanity
And the vanity
That drives
This perpetual
Self image
Of Ego concept
Is the one
That make us become
Insane even for briefest moments

Calm and serenity
And sanity
Dwell  upon
My mind
The moment
I is taken out
Of the context
That gave rise
To the brief moment
Of Insanity

Then there is no
Vanity too.

French Patched up with English

This is a comment I posted on blog post where the blog poster (new word for English Language) who mixed French with English.

French is a beautifully spoken language which I started learning at 50 (fifty) with my daughter.

We decided to (but never did that) tease Amma (Mother in Sinhala, my native language) in French, with beautiful sounding words.

I can read but never understand the spoken French (language) well enough.

But I have never heard anybody mixing English with French and I am going to try it myself one day. 

I do speak little Tamil and never mixed two Western languages but we mix English and Sinhala (transliterate, we call it) very nicely in spoken language.'

Now, I realize it is a talent some people have including your father and please keep improving (both languages) this talent. 

Even though French will hate you for that but we who speak  English will love it in spite of tongue tie and twist that it may cause us / you.

I promote Linux (computer operating system) and give bonus mark for Linux distributions  with multi-language capability.

Currently I promote Linux with Sinhala and English.

Please visit my blog site asokaplus to know about Linux and I posted a few French Phrases there and one day there will be some French Editions too, even broken French, patched up with English.

I really enjoy your wits!

When not to help or interfere?

I have been doing few irrational things lately with industrial action going into the 8th week in total.

That included climbing the roof and striping the casing of the the internet cable /wire and enclosing the same in a sturdy tube where it is exposed to Ceylon civets (KalaWaddas) to chew accidentally at night.

Strangely enough the Ceylon civet also has his routine walkabout (pathway) along where I have laid the internet cable.

Once it chewed the wire leading to the Monitor which was extending little outside the open corridor.

Now this incident was related to squirrel who visited my bed room through the open door.

My dog was sleeping under the dog, it is no secret that I was oversleeping, on that day and got up with shrieking noise of the squirrel who was frightened by the dog who advanced from under the bed.

I was up in seconds and landed a big pat on the head of my dog, just giving enough time for the squirrel to find a hiding place, which it did behind the waste paper basket.

My dog when little had the habit of catching rats and one day caught a squirrel too and I had a long drawn out training period to wean him from this habit which is natural for a dog rared totally inside the house.

He listened to my command but refused to leave the room, knowing that when I leave, he will have a another chase to catch the young squirrel.

I had to do lot of coaxing to get the dog out of my room and he refused to drink the milk to state his annoyance with me in no uncertain terms.

I closed the door and finished the work of burning the iso image downloaded overnight and the little squirrel went three time between my legs not knowing what to do.

This must be the first time he had ventured into a house and trapped inside and he was not good at climbing and finding his way back outside.

If he comes out the door now already annoyed with me will pounce on it and I made sure I closed the door several time with a big noise to show he was not welcome inside.

Then I had to go out and closed all the doors so that the squirrel is safe from my dog and the cat from the next door who is resting in the balcony.

Idea was to restrain the dog and catch it if he remains in my bed room when I return home.

Luckily for the squirrel I had three cable going in three different directions from the router and if it wished it is the matter of climbing to the table and  find its way to the roof and out on the cable.

Having said that finding the way was almost impossible, the way the things are laid in my room. 

My guess was it will never find its way to the cable.

I returned home early to see he was gone.

To my surprise it had found his way  out and unlike rats they are extremely clever and look at from where the light comes (unlike rats) and work their way to outside world.

To his horror the cable was loosely hanging and he would have struggled to reach the window which for his luck was very high and the cat outside could reach.

My internet cable does save life apart from sending messages.

The reason I climbed the roof was to tighten the cable a bit in case he ventures again from outside to build his nest and it is sturdy enough to hold his pregnant wife and subsequently kids.

Not only civets I have to worry now (protecting the cable) but probably an army of squirrels.

As I stated earlier elsewhere they use power lines to come and go and if you lay internet cables make sure they are weather and squirrel safe.

Major part of the cable which is leading to my son's room is now inside a tube and these cables are (weather proof ones) are very expensive.

SUMO Linux

SuMo Linux is a compilation of 4 security Linux distributions headed by Backtrack 3, Helix, Smurai Linux, Damn Vulnerable Linux and DBAN.

Even though Backtrack is into version 5 (five) and the DVD contains version three (3) backtrack 3 which is an Ubuntu derivative is the one I downloaded to track a guy who was peeping into my download habits of Linux and interfering the downloads.
It is good enough to track compromised computer and deliver offensive counter attack when a hacker tries to enter into your system.

This is for the Geeks and Savvy Linux developers but even a newbie can download and learn the geeky stuff like a professional guy.

As far as I was concerned I used it once when a guy from India, probably with the knowledge of some proprietary commercial distribution's initiative tried to stop my download of Linux which I detected in about 3 hours and traced it back to India.

Since then I have used certain amount of firewall and I am not paranoid about attacks now and if somebody attacks me I will trace back and counterattack appropriately even if the computer happen to a be zombie and destroy it's ability to act as a zombie or destroyed it totally out of web context.

I hope nobody ventures that far so that I have to explore the dark side of web episodes and Linux pro-activity.

Even Sumurai will do the needful for me.
I have no intention being secretive anyway.

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

Update

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) 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 a 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 UNO 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 too.


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.
And 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 MiB and  4MLinux which is 50 MiB
(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 antiamerican (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 (or 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.

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 Sri-Lanka, 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).

Sri-Lanka is the only country in this world where Americans do not need to have any secret spies and our defense secretary is American by registrations 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 Sri-Lankan 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-SLiTaz is only 30 MiB) distributions in Linux, including Puppy 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 AntiMicrosft stance from the DoD (Department of Defense) which accepts Microsoft is 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 will be very elaborate when I give my next comment.

If you need more details please visit distrowatch 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.

Dream-10 and its interpretation from Heaven

This dream was somewhat painful but its interpretation is amazingly futuristic.

But I must give the background for dreaming such a bizarre episode that you will never get in our soap opera televisions.

One of my Christian friends who is a good scientist, one day approached me with a pile of medical reports which he was using to prepare a request for help for organ transplant in India. I am not going to divulge any of the details that might give a clue to the one who is diseased now and probably gracefully in heaven,too. 

He was nice soul but his company could not or was not prepared to raise money for his medical treatment.

I looked at the reports and told him hurry up lest he want have time to raise a huge amount of money before his demise (details again would not be appropriate here).

As usual I have a little story for my friends to get them activated, by relating how these things are done in developed countries. In this country by the time one finds an  ambulance which takes ages, the patient is moribund.

This month itself we have gone for 4 funerals and the stories I hear should be canonized for posterity how things are done here.

Many moons age when I was working in countries down under on a Saturday night and  nearly Sunday morning, I got a call to see a patient. Unlike here the nurses I worked with there were very energetic and smart and I knew something was amiss for they to call me since I just returned home after very hectic night.

I told the switchboard, I need at one hour of rest and exactly one hour of rest was interrupted with the emergency call.

I could not visit this ward before coming home. I went there immediately and saw the patient with what we call acute abdomen.

It did not take five minutes for me to realize what was wrong and I called the surgeon on call and asked him to come as soon as possible

He did come and looked at the notes and asked me why you have not written anything on the notes.

I told him I cannot do that honestly.

He asked why?

If I write the diagnosis you and your friends would have to curse me for the rest of my life.

He got the message and we had a quiet chat.

We set everything in motion and Monday morning he was airlifted to a country where needful could be done.
No money spent on the part of the patient.

This is the only time in my life I did not write a single letter on the notes, even though my name was all over the nursing record.

Few months later, I returned home and the patient had an organ transplant and was recovering.

Needless to say all three surgeons (they trusted me for everything I did) were trying to fix a job in another hospital for me when I said I am going to leave.

I politely declined and came home.

Point I am illustrating is the time and speed of action are intimately related when life is critically endangered.

Then on Friday when I was waking up to the  Bank, I saw the photograph of the one mentioned above posted on the wall. I immediately rushed to see my friend but he had already gone to the funeral house.

The dream

It was brief and being a dream the setting was unusual.

I was call in for a delivery at short notice.

Mother not married.

Site was new supermarket of Kandy and the first floor, probably near a toilet.

It looked like a labour room and no people were there (very uusual for even a labour room). 

Delivered the baby and wrapped it with something and kept  him/her on the floor.

The suddenly another one came out not breathing and there was no resuscitation equipment and suddenly like from heaven packed came down with a ET tube.

Then I asked where is the laryngoscope?.

Beautiful plastic disposable one came down.

Then I said where are the batteries and somebody like an angle (not the Nighting Gale) put the batteries and handed over the laringoscope.

All these happened in lightening speed and I tried to put it in the air passage but it went in a little and broke up with the larynx. This has not happened to me and never have I used a plastic equipment in my life in this type of scenario, I really got frightened and felt I was in alien ship.
Then I looked round to see the other baby was pale and not breathing.

I asked the woman why didn't you tell me that you were having twins.

She grinned like witch and said I did not know.

I got more frightened.

With that fright I woke up.

Gladly I was in my bed but not fallen out.

No aliens, no angles and no witches around, I went back to sleep, anticipating another with a humorous tone.

But that never happened and poste the email to Mah Brahma in the morning.

Sure enough I got almost return of post interpretation.

Interpretation

He exchanged pleasantries and said this is a good one.

I immediately asked what was the second part of the episode which I missed.

Did the babies die?

Big No.

Then.

That part you saw was a playback of a video of an earlier delivery.

Don't con? 

I said.

The babies were real and they were not breathing.

NO, NO, You were not that bad, both of them survived and you did very well and you resuscitated them in good time.

They were bonny babies.

Then why a video?

That was to fool the mother.

What for?

Don't you realize she was not married?

She would be happy that they died and she could be released without any birth certificates.

What's Up?

The babies were whisked away to a Five Star Hospital in a helicopter?

Why?

Can you guess?

Not a faintest of idea, I said.

So they have Five Star hospital to look after parentless babies.

That is futuristic for me.

Don''t you realize you idiot?

That hospital is the best transplant hospital in Sri-Lanka.

That is a miracle for me.

It is not a miracle but it is true.

In your time frame what is the price of an organ.

100 million.

Don't con?

We give 100 million to dead ones in this country but a policemen has to shoot first.

In future they do not shoot anybody but they take them to transplant hospital and anaesthetize them.

I was getting confused.

What for?

Are you good at arithmetic?

Yes?

How many organs in the body?

Many, let me count.

Can you multiply that with 100 millions.

Why?

That is the current cost of a live baby and then multiply with two (twins).

That hit me on my frontal lobe which is the neobrain.

So they take the baby and used every possible part for transplant.

Yes.

Who are the eligible or expectant recipients?

All rich and politically connected or related to the ruling party.

Who authorize the papers.

Can't you guess?

I suppose, I can.

But I told him that cannot be futuristic.

Our current plan is to harvest organs in pigs with stem cells and in your time frame we would be realistically harvesting organs in a genetically manipulated half animal (half pig) half human symbiont and we do not need to kill babies to do that especially twins.

That is what you dream but what really will happen is what I told you, Maha said.

Will I be a transplant surgeon then.

No.

Thank you Sir.

But it is not futuristic.

How come?

I told him. 

It has happened in this country (poor refuges were used, under the guise of appendicectomy and one Kidney at a time was removed) in Colombo and will happen in this country in future too and foreigners come here to adopt children in developed Western countries and some use this method and trade for transplant schemes, of the host country.

What is the price of adoption?

Under 1 million.

What was the price I quoted.

One hundred (100) for each organ and may be 100,000 for  baby or cradle transport.

Don't you realize that is futuristic?

I suppose so.

Shall I wind up these session?

Why?

It sickens me to hear these future developments.

I am happy with what is now and these things are gaudy, I said.

Then what about my hobby?

Can't you change to a new hobby.

I suppose I can but I have go back and think.

Don't gods think?

Not generally and we don't have any worries know?.

But we think about you to keep occupied.

I see.

Then he turned round to go with a little bit of sad face.

Do you get sad?

Sometimes I do and real Maha is on eternal holiday know?

In that case  I have a new proposal. 

What?

Do you like to have a hearty laugh?

I really do.

Can you sent me some funny gas (Nitric Oxide) from heaven?

Why?

It gets one into dreamy state and funny dreams too.

Can you make it more funny?

Yes.

So here onwards, when I send you a dream you should scan it on a scale of 1 to 10. 

If it is above 7 you give me the interpretation provided that the interpretation is also funny.

Can you make a software for it.

No problem, I said.

I will make a software and have a tickly brush attached to the mouse and it will jump up and tickle you if the score is 7 and above.

Can you make the score to 10.

No problem.

And then he vanished.

So guys, if you don't here anymore dreams soon it is because that scale is put to 10 on Maha Brahmas request.

If you have anything of that nature please post it here, under my name, will you?

A New Way to Blog-WebOS

A New Way to Blog-WebOS

WordPress is adding, a cool way to blog on HP Touch pad.

It is called WeBbOS.

They say they will add this feature to other Touchpads soon with WYSWIG (What You See What You Get) approach.

Apple ipods will have to wait and probably beg for it to be included in its applications list which is huge. in thousands.

Which one reason I promote Ubuntu's Unity approach, catch and go with the trends setters of modern age determined by OEM guys producing new gadgets.

It is sad the ones who paid for netbooks, have to buy another gadget and put the netbooks in the skeleton cupboard.

Unlike few years ago, new devises reach the market within a year of innovation except for  3yers as in the past.

I hope Kindlier also take giant strides.

It is heart worthy to note Amazon is introducing audio books for the visually handicaps.

Nothing is going to be roadworthy unless the software catch up with the gadgets that come by dozens.

Multitasking

There is some system lag when one try to do multitasking with TouchPads.

This I consider a teething problem, every new gadget will have but given few years from now Linux in the fringe (not windows) will do all these faster that it is today.

There is lot of background activity when you activate any gadget.

I think now Linux has to refine tim sharing activity to nanoseconds and not milliseconds. I believe Linux can achieve this with tweeking and compression and possible adding a swop partition to its hard disk (small disk-SSD) upping the RAM memory.

Below is a comment I borrowed and reproduced from a tech writer.

The philosophy baked into the iPad of one app at a time might be viewed as a shortfall in some folk’s eyes, but it results in a smooth, consistent user experience for all of the millions of owners. Do one thing and do it well was advice from my Dad growing up, and it has served me well. It is serving Apple well too.

IBM and Linux and Thinking Big

I need to write  detailed note about IBM and Linux Philosophy when I find time but this is brief to the point.

All my computers on regular use except those assembled to my specification are IBM variety.

All are second hand and one is a server with SCSI hard disk.

The only one which is new with 4 GiB RAM is the one I bought on a short stay abroad, one third of the price in that country (which is one fifth of the price in Sri-Lanka) without an operating system which I use to test 64 bit Linux distributions.

I am waiting for the PCLinux 64 bit variety to come out to test but I had to wait for two years for that pleasure.

Linux is 20 years now but IBM is 100 years old but still batting with Old American Capitalistic Thinking Big Image (Thinking Rich, fabulously of course) and have made many blunders under the cloud of big successes.

One of the big blunders is to sell IBM Think Pad to China and not capitalizing on netbooks and new tabloids (which Apple Mac dominated and Google's Android and soon Ubuntu's Unity will enter the fray).

One of the big business (clever) acumen was using Linux (Linux with the System/390 mainframe platform) from 2000 onwards and its support for Linux at least on mainframe if not desktop.

Mind you, Yahoo and Microsoft's big servers are running on Linux which they fail to mention to the average customers who are gullible idiots, especially Americans.

Dream-09 and its interpretation from Heaven

I had two bad nights in which I kept up all night doing some bizarre routines of editing a long text file into print form, downloading, burning iso images and testing them, blogging and making PowerPoint type of presentation with Google's free TripWoW.
I had a good night sleep yesterday and woke with a nice dream.

I thought Maha Brahma would be happy since the dream was related to heaven itself.

I was fed up with living on this planet with so much mosquitoes and very warm weather and sleeping only a brief period at night (reason for my keeping up at night is to thrash mosquitoes and send them to heaven instantaneously with my blessings).

They are crushed with rapid alternative and reciprocal movements of my hands closing together in symphony with mosquito music beating down by ears and the mosquitoes are not spared a moment of thought (thought block) of their own (when they die) and when they wake up, really reborn, they are there in heaven with Maha, fanning the senior Devas with hand held fans (instead of beating drums like on earth).

The Dream
I decided to vacate my post on earth and made an early entry to heaven,with the message in a long electronic PHP form.

1 made sure, I entered every cage, like when you fill the USA Visa forms, similar to our elderly politicians who wish to be born in America instead of heaven.

They call America the heaven on earth and only the most corrupt politicians that curry favour America, including Indians organizing IPL Cricket are allowed (Not Qaddafi Type) Visa to America and reborn again, there.

In my case I made sure I did not leave any gaps fearing anybody who enter the data into the computer might add unnecessary details that might prevent my qualification for entry to heaven.

Then I saw Maha himself going through the form personally because it was recognized as my personal writing by Maha.
 

However, he was not happy for not leaving any room inside and between cages where he can make some correction entries, if he so desires and put his stamp of approval.

 This was very unusual for me unlike e-forms in the web where they make it compulsory for almost all the entries to be filled so that search engines can put you in  some form of commercial category to market web goods and services at lib.

I was asking and making a big fuss why do you make it so difficult like pension claims and Maha put his hand on my shoulder and said, you are trying to be very clever aren't you?

With the press of his hand I felt very heavy shock and woke up.

Sadly I was not in heaven but on my bed.

But I had a very pleasant sense of some ease and happiness that even in my dream I was speaking to the all almighty the Maha and not to a political big wig or a Sri-Lankan cricket selector who is a decider cum political leader who invites a yesteryear cricketer out of his skeleton cupboard to represent at Kingston Oval having looked at his previous record book on political affiliations.

Of course one gets a ticket to London and return on Cricket Board expenses.

Maha was bit puzzled.

He thought I really wanted to join him in a hurry and deprive him some good dreams from earth.

Equally he was concerned I was pulling a fast one to get some facilitator for rear entry like our old politicians and national thinkers who are almost demented but want to secure a National List MP Post.

Did you really dream this?

Of course, I replied.

Do you know how the leave is granted in heaven?

Not a slightest bit of idea, Sir.

Then he calmed down a lot and said, this was a good dream and it is futuristic and does not apply to you.

I was relieved.

Why were you concerned about leaving gaps in the e-form.

It is like this.

In heaven we grant leave to all applicants irrespective of their need.

But one has to leave a little space as a grace, offering me some administrative work space which is mandatory.

You have to mention the date of commencement only and not the date of return.

In our case what is important is the date of return.

Not the date of commencement, Sir.

We tend to fall sick for no reason, if the leave is not granted and if the date of return is not entered, then there is  a bigger problem.

It is not like that in heaven since we leave the date of return cage empty, I can just put a date at random when things demand and automatically the server sends an email alert with nice music to wake up the angels on leave on the right day.

By doing this I never have the problem of everybody applying for leave at the same time.

Or I see.

Do they sleep on holidays and do you go to other heavens for vacation?

I suppose they do so, but they get easily get bored when on leave and want to come back and activate their inborn desires and pastimes like listening to music, bit of gossiping about earth and it's politics and interpreting dreams like what I am doing, now.

Did your boss real Maha leave an empty space.

No.

My goodness.

That is why I am stuck here.

I do not have a space to make an entry and call him back even if I wanted to.

So this new regulation is one of your own creations to call back whenever you need somebody.

Yes, that was why I was bit worried and thought you are trying a fast one to get to grips with administration here even before coming here.

It is like our U.G.C Chairman putting a backdated regulation for his own survival.

Can I put an entry without empty spaces.

I will let you do that since now you know my devises but do not tell other gods and angles.

OK,OK.

Dream Interpretation.

The interpretation is very simple because it relates mostly to Sri-Lanka.

In future when the future presidents want some things for himself he calls the guy /girls to the president house and give them a sumptuous meal.

Then he gets you to sign some blank papers undated and make you to leave gaps in the entry form.

For example you have a Tourist Hotel which is very popular at the beach side.

He comes there for a holiday and become interested in the property.

He invites you to his house for a drink and get all the papers ready for a 10 year rolling lease period.

So that is the end of the property, I guess.

Yes, especially if the guy or girl rub shoulders at a re-election or of the ruling party.

The problem is he will do this to the entire registered population  with in one year of election.

Only one census is enough and he will own the entire length and breath of the country.

How big is the country then?

The sea has advanced almost to Kandy and all the population is now in the hills and population is 100 times now.

If they do not sign what happens?.

They are loaded and sent as refugees to India by boat and India has 100,000 times more people than now and their sea has advanced almost to foothills of Himalaya.

There is no room for someone to lie down and all are standing upright and one out of thousand get a chance to lie down once a year for a holiday break for 10 to 15 minutes.

The humans have mutated a lot and have very strong legs and very long tapering hands to reach even trees (or for begging) and hang on for few minutes a day to give the legs a break and that also has to be done in turns and there is a token that handshake like a tablet (Like in ethernet and railway) that pass around from hand to hand and one can keep it only for few minutes lest you get a teaser shock with a laser satellite on orbit.
One takes the table in one hand and reach a branch of a tree and let go the tablet before the tracer shock is given.

What about the toilets.

There is no problem, there is an automatic suction tube that sucks urine and scat separately even when one does not have the urge to go and they are used for new form of energy and water is recycled for reuse.

This is similar to the space technology developed in the shuttle.

What about the air one breaths.

One has to open an insurance policy, the moment one is born for air safety (security)and it is controlled by the Government in power and the President himself is in charge.

Process is similar to water and electricity bills but more expensive and the cleaning plants  for air are connected to the same tube that suck out all excreta but with a different and safe viaduct for (breathing) air.
Free air is polluted and one cannot breath it.

I do not think you should worry about these little things you will be gone many moons before this happens. 

Where to?

I am not suppose to tell you when you are still a human.

OK; 
See you soon.

4MLinux-AllinOne-2.2

4MLinux-AllinOne-2.2

This is a seies of Mini CDs from 30 to 50 MiB and All in One incorporate includes everything in one image of 50 MIB.

This is another example of Linux which illustrates what a lot can be packaged in 50 MiB with some compression (there are many in Linux) utility.

4M stands for 

1. Maintenace (Rescue a operating system and hard disk)

2. Play Multimedia

3. Serves as a Miniserver

4. Mystery means games

It boots live and once booted up lets you change the root password in the first instance with its shell, which is an excellent way of dealing with the guest account.

I had to gues after several booting and there are no instructiuon how to boot it.

I visited there home but was not helpful.

This is another classic mistake developers make.

Forget to include a mini text file with mini instructions. Bigger version forget to include a flash image with instruction and this time round PCLinux make a clear boot flash at the beginning.

Of course PCLinux is one distribution, from the very beginning got this part of the booting booting process right from Big Daddy stage.

This is again a Slackware based and I am not very familiar with Slackware except Salix.

PCLinux Update-64 bit version is coming!

Long awaited 64 bit version is coming this week and the 32 bit version is at bit torrent now with seeders joing in fast.

It has lot of updates and drivers for new graphic cards.

Downside is that some of the old legacy graphic card may not work with the new live CD.

It has added installation at boot menu and that is a very good thing for the people who already has used earlier version.

Instead of Open Office it has LibreOffice that needs downloading after the installation.

I have all these in my PCLinuxFullMonty but I need a new Live CD for demonstration for newbies.

i will be with you soon it is now being downloaded.

SliTaz-3.0

Small is Beautiful!
Below  are a few lines by a guy like me who like me lie little things.
this was written probably 5 years ago when the distribution was 25 MIB
I thank him for his precise description of SliTaz.

(This is easily my favorite live CD now. I admire DSL for being versatile and fast, and I do like the way Puppy Linux has evolved. But it’s hard to beat a pretty, usable, complete system that ducks under the 25Mb mark, and does it so well. Fatter distributions (and I’m thinking of Xubuntu, et al., here) would do well to notice how much can be done with so little).

 Read Porteus Linux too.

This minimal Swedish distribution is only 30 MiB and it has burner, browser, install script, gparted and a manual.
It can play music and watch a video and visualize a photograph.
Amazingly it is smaller that the Damn Small Linux (DSL).

It has a lovely graphic presence and is a server version.

I new about this and never bothered to downloaded it thinking it is only in text mode and no graphic.

I was proven wrong and it has a lovely graphic mode.

After installation one can use the package manager to install what one wants.

The is the down to earth customizable version of Linux and any version bigger than it will have to be treated with insulin.

It has two version stable version and a cooking version with a DVD with packages.

1.5 GiB for stable version and 2.7 for the coking version.

I am sorry guys and girls at SliTaz of my prejudices coming from a windows background.

Like Porteus Linux you get 100 out of 100 points from me and another 100 for being the smallest functional distribution and will be the latest convert of your distribution and would be downloading the packages.

Android Desktop-Installable

Android Desktop-Installable

Android Linux desktop installable distribution is now available.

It is very small and only 50 MiB.
In the range of Damn Small Linux (DSL)

It is live as well as installable.

It has all the web utilities (browser and email) one needs for a quick browse of the web.

One can carry it in the front pocket in a Mini CD.

This is something windows can never do and even if they do that they cannot do that under even 100 MiB.

My answer to Ubuntu's Unity Desktop Critics

My answer to Ubuntu's Unity Desktop Critics

It looks like Ubuntu Linux has given lot of heartaches to its fan base.
I only use Ubuntu for demonstration of Linux versatility.
I am bit different compared to other Linux uses.
When I demonstrate Ubuntu I always say "Linux is not only Ubuntu".
My point is to state that there are over 100 lovely Linux distributions for one to try.

Unlike the majority I strongly support the canonical's new move to Unity.
I will only state one out of the many reasons.
Because of the smart move by Microsoft to give XP to OEM guys with netbooks, practically free, Linux could not penetrate netbooks.

If Ubuntu does not penetrate emerging tabloids market another opportunity will be lost..
Linux will be ahead of both Mac and Microsoft (Like the Android of Google) because of this move of Unity.
It is a smart move by the Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth.
Only smart people will survive in this game.

I think ones who had come from Microsoft base will spread this negative publicity with hidden agenda but young and newbies will embrace Unity without reservation.
Time will be best judge whether what I say will materializes.

Ubuntu has to do one small thing right to shut the negative campaign.
Give them both options in a single DVD (two images for the prize of one, old and the new Unity) and I am sure they also will embrace Unity in no time.
I believe they already give this option and if thereis any problem Mint is there to fill the void.
Having said that Big Brother or the Good Father Debian will be is there to take the free open software to another level without anybody noticing it.
That is why I support many distributions.
For example Porteus (SLAX) base has done a excellent job without much funfair.
It is one of the best (KDE, LXDE) little distribution that has hit the market.
It is a little gem.

Marketing and Labelling or is it Cheating?

Marketing and Labelling or is it Cheating?

There are many ways we can poison ourselves.

Just drop into a supermarket, rest assured, one is able buy an assortment of poisons home from vegetable to bottled water to drinks.

Basically biologically and chemical but in some instances physical which include radiation in contaminated coal imported for power plant.

 Beware those who live around power plant. in any case land value and house value of the houses will go down in proportion to how close it to the plant except for ones who have no choice but to live there.

I will be brief here and deal with the supermarkets.

Just yesterday, i went to a supermarket in Kandy and wanted to buy a soft drink.

 My first problem was they do not store item in an organized way.

I was looking for a particular Sri-Lankan brand but I could not find it.

With hot and dry condition even within the supermarket, I could not wait till go home and drink some plain water.

So, I browsed, rather scanned through all the shelves and found a cool tea brand for RS 50/= and fruit brand of the same company price was over Rs.100/=.

I have never seen this brand and I wanted to see the contents and where it is produced.

I could not find whether it was marketed or produced in what country.

The  expiry date was there with very small font and my poor eyesight I could not read it properly since the letters were on font 5 (even a child won't be able to read it).

I got a service girl and a shelf manger and then the manager of the floor to tell me exactly what the information is.

They could not.

I asked if not Ceylon why can't the put SIRI LANKA on the bottle.

Are they ashamed to state it not from SIRI LANKA?

Bottom line is the exporters were cheating us to the tune of millions.

Mind you the expiry date was stuck with a label to cover most probably the label on which the expiry date printed in the country of origin (date probably passed).

An imported stuff from some godforsaken nearby country and all the information was missing except for a email printed in very small letters.

I was so annoyed I left the place without buying anything and when I glanced through the cold chain area I could count at least 4 varieties of flies not seen in Kandy but imported from Colombo with the foods stuff.

I think it is time for us to say good bye for good before we get poisoned including arsenic (the latest discovery) and start growing our food in tea pots.

Read my entry Poisoning the Nation, too.

Update on Mosquitoes

This is a prescription of remedies I proposed an old lady on the web, which she was probably looking for.

This discussion has even stimulated writers of the Scientific American, to write about mosquitoes.

I have subjected myself to extensive examination by all types of mosquitoes (they actually research on me and my behaviour rather than I do on them-I am the Guinea Pig) and I will roll out my own (not proven but very probable) theories too.

I hate cats and mosquitoes but unlike a cat I can kill mosquitoes.

Currently, I believe in control rather than killing of them.

The reason of that statement is that the larvae of mosquitoes have a biological role which we still do not understand yet.

I am going to write how to control them in detail in my blog asokaplus when I find time but for you I give some tips.

1. There are over 400 varieties (I am going by my memory and not by any search or research).

2. Only few of them carry diseases like Dengue and Malaria.

3. So I do not believe in WHO strategy of spraying and killing all the other insects too.

4. Do not believe WHO for a dime (most illiterate of doctors do research for WHO and most of them come from American Drug companies) but I believe in the clout dollar has on world economics including China.

5. Mosquitoes have remarkable property to adapt (probably the best genetic make up to resit and survive killer drugs within one year of its spray, much better than the fruit fly)

6. With global warming, they will migrate from tropic to temperate regions

7. They have elementary but properly developed sensors to find an unwilling prey and make a hot meal (37 C) at midnight when everybody is trying to drop to sleep.

Control

1. One must get the name/s of the mosquitoes in your neighbourhood.

2. Know their life cycle

3. If the life cycle include larvae in water, the control is easy.

4. Breed some fish in the water and the Guppy fish will do fine.
You must choose a type of fish which survives in winter. In the case of Guppy one can raise them indoors in winter and release them come summer to the pools. 

They are easy to breed and very hardy fish and also very colourful.

5. My recent finding vary with WHO. 

They breed in the cesspits and they love that feature. 

If one is a scatologist this is for you.

Larvae thrive on residue of human feacal matter, which is mainly  a cocktail of aerobic and anaerobic bacteriae.

It has some fine biological tuning here (not the adult mosquito and that is why I consider they have a biological role).

If we look at how much rich Americans eat a day, a cesspit won't last even a few days, if not for the ability of the mosquito larvae to get involved in bio-transformation and production of bio-gas, the pit will be full in no time.

I am a believer Americans can produce enough bio-gas from their faecal matter to supply even China (just for record they eat one pig in three years and one bull in 10 years -from 5 to 10 cows/bulls before they turn (50) fifty.

Things that one can do is to cover the commode when not in use. Mosquito laying eggs is prevented.

Look at where the cesspit is located and cover all the exit holes from where the adult mosquito escapes including the pipe that releases bio-gas (with a mosquito net and a rubber band). 

You must tell all your neighbours to do the same and I can assure you it will cut down the mosquito population to 85% of the population. 

With fish I have cut it down to 95% and the rest if they come to my bed room is of criminal intent and procedure.

No spraying for me, since they kill other insects except cockroaches.

If all this fails move to a higher ground with  cooler temperature where they do not breed. 

Over 5000 ft and what matters is not the height but the average temperature below 65 F.

• Activity
  When we are active, mosquitoes do not approach us.
  May be our movements hinder their ability to home in or focus on the target chemical.Our bodies produce chemicals which have diurnal variation (steroids) of waste metabolites. 
  
  
• Drinking beer:
  The reason isn't exactly clear, but mosquitoes are more likely to be attracted to you after you've had some alcohol or beer.  I have two chemicals, the ketone and urea in your breath.
  But most plausible is they get a little more kick out of a meal with pure alcohol.
  Alcohol is a social attractant even in the insect world.
  
  
• Dirty Feet:  
  Mosquitoes are attracted to our toe-jam (smelly feet) but not mine. 
  
  
• Body heat: 
  Mosquitoes have sophisticated heat sensors, that is why they target our ears first and then target our breath
  When we are down with fever mosquitoes make sure they are around to provide background music to entertain our recuperating souls.
  
  
• Moisture:  
  The moisture we exhale in breath and sweat in perspiration (urea and CO2) attract mosquitoes.
• Relative darkness:  
  Mosquitoes are attracted to relative darkness, evenings and early morning and they hate bright lights (may be dry heat switch off heat sensors) and within seconds of switching the lights they emerge from under the bed or from roof.
  
  
• Blood type:
  People with O and A type blood are more likely to attract mosquitoes and especially if they're young. This is a conjecture and I am blood group A and my son is AB and they do attract me more than my son. 
  
  American Scientist.
  They are discovering various sensors with micro-imaging and gene technology. 
  They try to transplant gene segments of mosquito to Fruit Fly at various stages of (larvae) development and study the effects and the details are too heavy for a blog site like this.
  

Porteus Linux and Beilby Porteus

Porteus Linux is the best of SLAX (Slackware) distribution under 300 MiB with KDE and LXDE desktops.

SLAX is known for small Linux distributions and is now almost defunct but this production is excellent following of its old tradition.

It has LMZA compression utility to pack all the KDE in under 300 Mib and has K3B which I love.

It has excellent text explaining how to use it including making a USB stick.

I wonder why they use the name Porteus?

I give 100 out of 100 and another 100 for the name Porteus for reminding me of recent history.

 

Anniversary Sermon

Porteus used the opportunity afforded by the invitation to preach the 1783 Anniversary Sermon of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to criticise the Church’s role in ignoring the plight of the 350 slaves on its Codrington Estates in Barbados and to recommend means by which the lot of slaves there could be improved.

It was a well-reasoned and much-reprinted plea for The Civilisation, Improvement and Conversion of the Negroe Slaves in the British West-India Islands Recommended, and was preached at the church of St Mary-le-Bow before forty members of the society, including eleven bishops of the Church of England. When this largely fell upon deaf ears, Porteus next began work on his Plan for the Effectual Conversion of the Slaves of the Codrington Estate, which he presented to the SPG committee in 1784 and, when it was turned down, again in 1789. His dismay at the rejection of his Plan by the other bishops is palpable. His Diary entry for the day reveals his moral outrage at the decision and at what he saw as the apparent complacency of the bishops and the committee of the Society at its responsibility for the welfare of its own slaves.
These were the first challenges to the establishment in an eventual 26-year campaign to eradicate slavery in the British West Indian colonies. Porteus made a huge contribution and eventually turned to other means of achieving his aims, including writing, encouraging political initiatives, and supporting the sending of mission workers to Barbados and Jamaica. Deeply concerned about the lot of the slaves as a result of the reports he received, Porteus became a committed and passionate abolitionist, the most senior churchman of his day to take an active part in the campaign against slavery.

Above is a small part WiKiPedia reproduction of life of Beilby Porteus for the reading of some British football hooligans turned Human Rights Activist of present day.

I should say when I was working in estate sector as a doctor, the conditions of Indian Tamils were far worse (look at the BBC production of 1975-BBC then did not fake videos, like Channel 4) when British were running the Estates.

In 1975 I had to do postmortems of Tamil Estate Workers who ate Manioc with the leaves and died of cyanide poisoning.

We have a saying "do not spit looking upwards".

They land on your face immediately.

How to make a Hot ABI-Word Soup out of Word Processing (Mallum) Noodles

I was writing a small booklet from the gathering of various pieces of my writing, not related to y blogging of course.

Blogging and copying one web format to another can be a noodle soup with entangled code soup if you paste from one web application to another even though web format is a standard without jargon or macros.

But due to universal presence of Java applets that creep into the web format that is also can be pain in the ass.

But nothing to compare with Word processing applications from Microsoft to Word Perfect to K-office to Open Office to LibreOffice.

I had done the formatting in all of the above and when I wanted to get that to print form for a particular length and breath of the book the macros were playing Pandu (Cricket).

After 24 hours of struggling with K-Office and Open Office, I decided to give up.

What ever I did a macro from five years ago will creep in and none were print ready in spite of conversion to PDF.

I decided to remove macros.

Can you guess.

In earlier edition of Open Office before it became a Gorilla and much bigger than Microsoft Word sometimes, Open office 1 and 2 let you remove the macros and when I had the same problem when finishing my thesis and get print format ready I used them.

Even I find LibreOffice is a pain in the neck.

So what I did was import the document over 100 pages to a ABiWord, my dear friend, now very versatile.

With 3 hours of juggling I removed all irritating formatting macros and got it less heavy.

Mind you I could not change the colour blue (I use blue for eye pleasing effect) to black in some part of the document due to so much of background macros.

I saved the document in abi format.

Luckily Abiword does not have page formatting ability and my current page layout of 6 by 9 inches were left untouched.

Then I forgot I have to post a blog in the morning and I did not want to write something long having worked three hours on the trot on a word document of 100 pages.

If you are stuck only ABiword will help you to remove macros.

I kept the the page size and number of pages to my original plans but few pages less than the original.

Not only that I saved huge amount of memory and when I upload it to America it will be quick too.

There is always a package in Linux to bail you out and for 24 hours I am going to sleep without typing a word.

It will be 24 hours before you get a post from me.
Thank god we are on industrial action and today is Saturday.

Please excuse me for the typos.

I will edit them when I get up.

Upadate.
I hope above blog post done in only ten minutes before I went to sleep needed, another 25 minutes of editing and looking for typos.
I was I was listening to BBC radio and listening to cricket and I had to give up editing and went down to my son's room and peo TV was blocked for (cricket from UK) then I had make my wife to move out to answer a call to get to the digital TV (Capture card)and tune into Eye Channel and was able see to Mahela's mastery.
Take my word, they are the modern version of Rohan Kanhaie and Kallicherran of yesteryear West Indies.
This I said long time ago when they were young
I will not miss a match when Mahela is on song.
Sanga should learn a lesson or two from Mahela.
West Indies cricketres who are young and never seen the two classy players mentioned above should watch Mahela and Sanga play limited over games and believe that they can produce high class players (there problem is batting once Lara was gone).


The difference in the above two players as opposed to Sri-Lankan players were they always played like that every time they came to the crease, limited or not.

I never missed them when they came to Colombo on short visits (including great Westly Hall, Greenich and Griffith and I think Lance Gibbs the spinner).
Sorbers I have not seen playing live.

There is a documentary on West Indian cricket of yesteryear produced by a cricket loving Englishman. Everybody who is a cricket liver should see that documentary including West Indians.

Without them cricket will be dead the way Indians cronies (not players) not West Indian who are marketing cricket like tooth paste and soap opera (Bollywood style).

I hope west Indies stop fighting and play gentleman cricket and beat India who has become too big for comfort for any cricket (IPL included.)
They actually gave Indian a wake up call and  scare.
If not for Dravid, the Wall (a real mature cricketer of class, whom I like very much) I will be rubbing salt on their woulds.
Dravid was one player who was very badly treated by Indian Cricket Selectors, who thinks that any Indian who can play soft ball cricket can represent India.
Now that Kersten is gone like in Sri-lanka (political involvement) all the cronies will get in to ruin Indian Cricket Board and ICC.

On a finer note my daughter, my wife and the Gon Bass (work supervisor) did not let me sleep even three hours at a stretch and woke me up three times on three different occasions in spite of the fact it was a Saturday.
My dog was the only considerate soul who did not disturb my sleep but left a big poo in the living room to state emphatically, industrial action all right I need to go out and I am not a prisoner on hold like in Guanthhimala Bay.

I got the message and decided to regularize my daily routines at least with the dog.

Coming back to ABiWord, it has 30 odd different formats including PDF and LaTex.
Its Pdf file is so light and opens in a Flash.
Who needs Adobe Flash anyway?
I have now decided to learn LaTeX as soon as possible before I am too old (grumpy dog) to learn a new tricks to please the master, from above the Maha Brahma.
I think LaTeX would take even less code behind the keyboard.
Learn it now if you are a young person.