Onion Saga

Onion Saga is much better topic than the Coconut Saga.

Coconut saga was deliberate attempt by Americans (Jimmy Cater included) to undermine coconut oil industry (which they have succeeded until perhaps I came into the writing scene quite by accident- to promote peanut oil and peanut butter). 

The lesson in history is not to believe Americans if he or she happens to be an American diplomat male or female.

I am made to believe that the woman scientist who published the coconut theory (bad for heart) had an untimely death (was made to commit suicide by her very own masters) is not a tragedy in human sense but a discovery in science.

Now even if the coconut go up to Rs.100/= I am not inclined to write anything on coconut but Onion Saga is welcome reminder for me to get into full gear and explode if possible.

This time it was not American intervention.

This time it is coming from and booming Indians who have spawned a Scientific Inquiry and few pertinent questions of common sense.

According to economic pundits Indian economy is booming but despite the rocket carrying satellite burst in air, Indian farmers for the first time in Green Revolution initiated by Mrs. Gandhi have failed to take into account of the average Onion Bargjji Eaters.

But I was happy they did not.

When Indian market sneezes we have a political hiccoughs.

I was given strict instruction by my wife not to come home without Bombay Onions even if I have to go to Bombay for that (Sorry my Mumbaians -we still call onions Bombay Onions and Bombay Mutai is our sweet- we do not read or see global name changes).

I did find a place to buy Onions and just before the fellow started weighing I took a big onion in my hand and asked him to weigh and tell me the price.

Believe it or not it was 50 (fifty fifty), the price of a coconut.

I asked the fellow to parcel that onion separately and got a kilo of onion and came home happily.

My wife opened the parcel and asked me why one is separately wrapped.

My answer was that is fifty rupees and rest are multiples of fifty.

And I told her that it has poison weight for weight and do clean and wash them before cooking and eating.

But I thought the saga would end there but it did not.

My wife left home for some work outside and today the servant lady was doing the honours at the kitchen and she dropped the entire remaining (let’s say 750 grams of it to be precise) lot into the dustbin right under my nose.

They were sprouting!

Hold it I told her; Give me my Onions!
Why Sir.
I am going to plant them today in a pot.
She did not have any answer back.

Then I looked for any pots to plant them but I could not find any.

So I jumped into my Denim and raced to Kandy and had a haircut in the shape of a coconut with an onion ring (shape) of hair in the middle.

That is my hair style for the Cricket World Cup and Tharunnayata Hetek, Boys Brigade  would you like to copy it?

But the style is my copyright, you boys brigade, you have to pay me royalty!

On my return I bought some plastic pots to plant the onion bulbs.

Happy New Year with plenty of Onions and Coconuts!

My New Year Resolution is to post at least one post week on plant watching or banana watching or me gone bananas!

Clown Fish

What I am going to talk about is not the Nemo the clown fish who was lost in the sea.

I am going to talk about a fish I have named the clown.

It is one Gold Fish in our tank who has an erratic swimming style.

Most of the time he is OK (I am not sure whether male or female) but he seems to be in some erratic posture that I sometime think the fellow is dead or going to die.

In one occasion he was virtually dead, I decided to change the water late in the evening since with poor weather conditions the brown and black algae were growing in abundance. I had only few buckets of water (left out for chlorine to evaporate) to replace and was barely enough for the fish to swim.

Then I went to Colombo for 2 days thinking when I return clown would be dead with few others.

Presto my water change had worked they were in good condition.

Few days later the clown was dancing in erratic fashion and quickly changed water thinking the water was polluted again.

The air pump was not working.

Just today when I looked at the fellow he is still the same.

Now I am convinced this fellow has some problem with its swim bladder which helps the fish to balance with the air inside them. Come to think about the way the gold fish is built and how the fins are positioned without a swim bladder it could never float let alone swim.

I was never fascinated by Gold fish and had never kept a gold all my life and never have observed them in detail except looking at them in aquariums.

On the contrary my wife (that is why she is my wife-sometimes likes the exact thing I hate) loves gold fish but she has never kept them or studied them (fish altogether) as a kid.

The fish tank has a big partition one for her fish and one for my fish.

My ones live in absolute nature without a glass to see them and I only know that they are active when the males make bubble nests to care for eggs. That part has water plants and I rarely change water since the ecosystem is well seasoned.

My wife’s part has all the gadgets some working and some not working that is where the water pollution is occurring and frequent.

Because she is not well versed with the subject the fish vendor dish out all the sick fish.

We have three with cataract (two of them are gold fish) one is the clown fish with bladder problem, the other with problem with the fins.

What alarmed me was that one fish which had the running disease (Fish Tuberculosis) and infected several others before its demise.

When I told this she had second thoughts about the fish keeping but disease or not I will not sacrifice a fish and let natural events to take control.

Worse come I make little quarantine.

The clown fish I have is due to congenital swim bladder problem.

There are many theories about erratic swimming of gold fish this one is different and unique and I begin to love this fellow for his dancing habits sometimes upside down ( like our politicians make our life upside down with economic up and down turns).

I won’t give this clowned gold fish for even gold.

He keeps me amused unlike our politicians.

If you are shopping for gold fish look for a clown fish like what I have to keep you amused in the coming year.

Our politician will make us cry with another local election.

When they come this time round I will greet them with my downside up or pretend to be mad with their dry jokes.

Have I got any choice?

10 things your Counsellor won’t tell you and 50 ways to Leave your Counsellor

Come Christmas with everybody in elevated spirits (both in spiritual and blood alcohol content) counselors are wee bit hard pressed to find customers and I was hard pressed to find a topic to keep my web friends in highly elevated Mode / Mood and with a Beautiful Mind.

If for some reason people who read this and exchange this with others increase by exponential terms, quite a number of counselors might lose their jobs or find their income drop drastically during the Christmas season and I have a way out for them, too.

Become an instant Buddhist (like instant noodles) and start preaching and practicing meditation (it is a lucrative industry in this part of the world where Dhayana Stage Certificates are offered to Primary School Children to pass their competitive examinations disregarding their childhood fantasies, dreams and spontaneous fun and games).

Coming to the first part of the discussion that psychiatrists do not tell you in advance,

1. They are more depressed than average person who comes for counseling.

2. They commit suicide more often that an averagely stressed doctor in practice.

3. Their rate of consumption of alcohol is higher than an average doctor (that the doctor’s consumption is higher in proportion to an average simple man’s consumption).

It is 10 times or more depending on the income and the status of the doctor.

4. That many of them cannot start a session without a good tot to boost their ego above that of the one who is counseled (patient gives a wrong connotation to the victim- they are not patients but bit stupid in the first place not been able to manage their own simple affairs).

5. Many of them take up this post since they get a free license to indulge in mood elevating drugs themselves apart from making others addicted to them.

You must have got the hang of it by now, do you want me to continue and bore you or continue with the common sense approach.

6. Many of the theories (they are still theories and waiting to be fixed or implanted to an unsuspecting victim of theirs) are never proven in practice but are found only in old textbooks.

7. Their vocabulary is far in excess of physics, mathematics and philosophy all put together and none of them have a proper definition or ( true or false) truth and validity concept of philosophy.

8. A psychiatrists never discusses his or her own problems (with nobody in fact) with another psychiatrist lest both of them end up diagnosing opposing conditions and they cannot agree who is a counselor and who is being counseled.

They live with this handicap throughout their life unless of course they commit suicide or become clever and change their profession to some other mundane one.

9. They never want any patient to recover fully and also pray that god should not come back to heal them in one go, lock stock and barrel!

10. They never believe in incarnation or reincarnation since they are so confused whether they themselves are in this birth or past birth or next birth or what ever the birth it could or may be.

I can add a few more but if I do so by strange coincidence if any one of them reads this he or she might think I am gone bonkers and incarcerate me for life.

Now how to leave a counselor.

This is very easy, elementary and you must come out of the very same door you went in but never  the door he opens for you.

That is when disaster sets in for both. You are hooked and he is more hooked to you.

Most of them are very simple ploys even a kindergarten kid should be able to play and practice them with their parents!

1. When you go to him remain deaf and dumb ( or pretend you to be blind).

Without you opening your mouth he cannot enter into your mind (not even with Magnetic resonance) and he is at a loss or make a invalid diagnosis.

2. Always think of what he feels in the session than what you feel (whether he is broke or whether he is under the influence a drug or alcohol) and outsmart him in every nick and corner.

In other words you become the counselor and he becomes the reciprocate.

With these two ammunitions majority can come out unharmed.

Please do not break the poor souls composure mentally.

3. Ask him some money to settle an outstanding loan and promise him that you will settle it in good time.

4. Ask him for drink (at least a beer) before you start the counseling.

5. Ask him to open the windows for a healthy draft.

6. If the room is well lit asked him him for a dark room ( most are scarred of darkness).

7. If the room is large ask for a smaller one and if the room is small ask him for larger one.

They cannot do this because they have a fixed way of doing things and composure.

8. If he asks you to write something say you prefer electronic mail to save the trees and the planet.

9. If he ask you to fill an electronic form say either you do not trust computers or vehemently protest by stating that it violates Microsoft’s Piracy Act and you are not willing to pay a fine. (Mind you this piece or script or code is copyrighted and use the information at your own discretion)

10. If he still insists on counseling, you have to have an exit strategy preplanned.

This is very a simple ploy ab average Sri-Lankan employs.

When you are in a busy meeting and you are getting cornered or fixed, then you get somebody to give you a call stating that your only great great great grandma died of a car accident (she was driving the car- even a healthy male cannot drive in this country).

So take your cell phone with you and just send a S.M.S to the guy or girl who gives the call in time.

Please do not use the story I mentioned above since all the psychiatrists I knew hated their grandmas (unlike us) and they do not still know how to slip out their hands even as an adult leave alone as a brat.

Moment you say grandma they soil their pants.

All these tricks have worked for me and I do not need to hinder your creativity and reciprocation (give as much as you take principle).

If any one of you need more than 12 strategies, you are in serious trouble and you perhaps may need some help or have to go to a psychiatrist but before that you better contact me.

If you are a Linux Addict or visit this blog at least at once a year (Christmas) it is free.

Otherwise the chargers for help (no consultation), I have increased by 100 folds since I cannot survive with 5% salary increase and I cannot go home without few Bombay Onions in my hand.

Otherwise my wife will cut me into onion rings (pieces)!

Merry Christmas and Happy New year 2011, everybody.

Do we think when we upload or download?

This is the time of the year when messages fly across the web in millions of little pieces.

If my download speed (my subscription payment) is 56 bytes at least 4-6 bytes are taken by the header and we do not get 100% efficiency.

Up time is even worse.

I find only the twitter restricting its characters to 140 (out of 256 alphanumerical code) and the English keyboard has about 36 keys to play with.

Pali has many and Sinhala has little less since our phonetics are as close as to the nature since the ancient dialogue in the East  is as old as its existence and the English keyboard cannot accommodate our language characteristics used for phonetics with the 36 English keys.

My question is our intelligence restricted by our keyboard (or touchpad for that matter)?

Touchpad is very innovative and the S.M.S may be fast in the character transfer in the web but both do not fit into our analog way of life.

We cannot transfer our Thinking and Creativity over the web.

I saw one of my friend’s grandson playing with an electronic “kitty” at a function where everybody was there and the kids were the ones. a vee bit neglected lot (adults were fully occupied and preoccupied).. 

 

To my amazement the kid’s use of the binocular vision was affected by the little electronic “kitty”. 

 

I did a bit of testing of his eyes (I have befriended him on an earlier occasion) and after 20 minutes of testing I was not sure what was going on. 

 

Is his eyesight defective? 

 

Is the game too fast or difficult?  

 

The kiddy could not figure out how to win. 

 

He was so engrossed that I could not get a word out of his mouth. 

 

The next morning we had early morning chat with the guys of my age who had not returned to their bases. This was a rare occasion I decided to stay back to attend the next day’s function (many others did not). 

 

One grandad told me that his grandchild had his earphones fixed to his ears from Colombo to Matara and never bothered to listen to anything outside let alone birds singing. 

 

I told him if his grandson becomes a doctor one day he want be able to hear soft heart sounds or crackles in the lung and get it fixed / (corrected) now, not before it is too late. 

 

On a slightly more frightful context radiation from the cell phones might end up with an epidemic of soft brain tumours in a decade or so especially in our girls, and that would be covered up like coconut saga (disputed heart attacks) by the big powerful companies until they shift to another venture. 

 

Eyes, Ears and Brain can be affected. 

 

What next? 

 

Fingers too with touchpad. 

 

But none of these gadgets will help creative thinking. 

 

All these gadgets when excessively used hamper children’s creativity!

We cannot transfer our thinking and creativity over the web. 

Only connectivity.

Thinking has to be done (fast too) before touching the pads or keys but most of these actions are reflex actions and nobody seems to be reflective in their approach.

Think at least once what the benefits the kid gets (age appropriate games) out of the gadget and what hidden harmful effects are there before you buy it, including choking with the battery.

 

That is the point I am driving at in this short piece. 

 

Going back to up-time and down-time we need to educate the users, what ever the material they transfer across the web make them very light (quality does not matter) as possible to get the maximum throughput (MP3 or 4 instead of the fully featured family video) so the friend who downloads it will benefit and bystander users will also have enough bandwidth for their work and a very fast internet for everybody. 

 

Follow the trend of twitter which sends millions of messages across with only 140 characters.

In that sense this blogging is on the Gorilla (sized) side but my intention is not to send a message but to make creative thinking possible even in this electronic age. 

 

What we enjoy is analyzing the facts of the message.
That is the food for thought toady.

Not Cricket-Selections

I have faith in Gutsy Aravinda De Silva, if he takes the following points to consideration but I believe the ruins set in by the previous Chief Selector by his Political Wheeler Dealer (not cricket) selections of players to the National Team cannot be rectified for a decade and not less. 

1. Fitness of the player to stand the rigors of the World Cup for the entire period (dashing and slowly wasting and wilting away-good example is Sanath) 

2. Fielding Ability (nobody fits the cap for this characteristic now)

3. The neat fitting of the player to his role (the position he plays, coordination of senior player with the junior player, not to run out the junior player–Dilshan type)

4. Shear Determination to win (Mahanama type-nobody now) and withstand and bear pain

5. Quiet Achiever (Gurusinghe Model)

6. Dasher in Crisis (nobody better than Aravinda himself)

7. Ability to fit anywhere from 1 to 6 and the ability to wicket keep (Kaluvtharana Model-nobody now) wickets

8.Supportive type to the chief wicket taker (Kumar Dharmasena type)

9. Kangavena Type but Accurate (We have two Dilhara and Malinga) in wickets helping pacies like in Perth

10 Gritty Smart Psychological Type (The Arjuna (typical) the Greatest- not as irresponsible like Kumar Sangakkara) take as much as ONE can give back and a proactive thinker 

11. Good knowledge of the opposition players (weaknesses and strength-SWOT Analysis)

12. Who can have a little snooze at the time of a major crisis and when given the ball or bat delivers the goods-they are the match winners

Avoid Please if you may

1. We do not want a Chatterbox behind the stumps

2. Un-gentlemenly Type (depriving Shawag a century)

3. No cheating (Gilchrist type with extra gear) but do not be too gentlemanly like (if the umpire makes the mistake, unless pretty obvious do not walk back but let the Umpire bites the dust)

4. Political Stooges

5. Pure Sinhala Buddhist Type Team

6. No extroverts

7. No introverts

8. Whimpering type

9. Paper Tigers (journalists who seem to know better-Arm Chair Type)

10. Annunkeli Type ( who promote their celluloid image at the expense of National Team, and Players)

11. Who thinks cricket is an individual game and do not want to share all the spoils

12. Pissa (idiots) type of cheering spectator/s or underworld Gangs who have their own agenda – do the act for the TV and the Gallery- You may call it the Dr.Mervin Type

I have decided to sleep during the entire tournament when Sri-Lankans bat but wake only when they field to see the balling and fielding and perhaps other teams better performance!

Dropbox-I am Not playing Cricket now!

This is a note I posted at Dropbox-Blog.

I am new to Dropbox but found it by accident when I was testing Live Linux (recent ones) CDs.

I used to write a short comment on each Live CD downloaded and when I see a new feature I would allocate somewhat arbitrary (my marking scale) points as a plus feature.

When I saw Dropbox in several of the Live CDs (Fedora, Ubuntu, PCLinux) in the internet section, I was curious but left it for another day to investigate.

Then finally I investigated it (they were promoting it for  school kids) and being myself a teacher in the University, the question why not for me and my students.

Presto!

I am hooked to the Dropbox now as an educational tool.

Thank you for that and another reason.

I am depositing Linux Live CDs (unfortunately not DVDs-I advocate light version of OS instead of the Gorilla Versions) in the Dropbox for my Linux friends to test and try.

All in all. it is a Linux Depository for Testing and Trying not a Repository.

The download speeds are awfully slow in this part of the world and this is a simple remedy in avoiding downloads.

You do the synchronizing I do the depositing (Eggs -not Easter yet) on the Nest.

We have a bird in this country who deposits eggs on another type of bird’s nest.

I am a lazy bird who does not want to look after (intellectual property of mine) my laid eggs!

I am trying to collect enough MiB (at least 4 GiB for me to deposit a Linux Big Image once in a while-for example games DVD) by promoting Dropbox.

I sent a virtual spam (to all my contacts) and some of them thought somebody has hacked my email.

Never done that before, spamming of course!

Most of them are afraid of Dropbox (I have lost my sanity, they think in my old age) but I keep brainwashing (with coconut oil which is very expensive-we use it in anointing during our New Year)  them (at least I get all my friends together and some Mibs in the process) and with my humour, it seems to be working especially with younger counterparts.

I have found one problem that is unique to me.

I have up to 5 operating systems in the same Linux Box with different home partitions (with the same name-and same password sometimes) and they do not seem to synchronize the Dropbox which is in my home partition.

Linux distributions are finicky when it comes to sharing unless I ROOT Myself (which is not healthy at my age) every time I BOOT.

Apart from that Dropbox makes me lighter at the dinner parties.

Happy Christmas and New Year to all of you.

If you have some spare bones or MiBs please drop at my box (not the Cricket Box-I am not playing Cricket now).

Thanks.

SLAX-ReMix

SLAX ReMix has done a beautiful Live KDE CD / LXDE CD,
I am going to drop it in my DropBox soon.
Join the pack.
Still no install

You should do that soon in the coming year.Like little Puppy Linux (TeenPuP), you should grow Up.

Good work Guys and Girls.

Keeep it Up.

K-Torrents

I was wondering how to speed up my downloads but could not find a solution yet.

The point to point downloads are painfully slow and only in early hours of the day the download speed recovers its speed to what we pay by the minute. 

 

Guys / Girls working at the Telecoms are nice but due to not upgrading the infrastructure for decades and by consistently increasing (without increasing the loops and servers) the number of paid user connections without increasing the throughput, the Telecoms as an industry is failing in its duty and also in its efficiency. 

 

In no time it will become like the Electricity Board or Water Board.

All the signs of impending crisis is there.

 

 

Electricity Board has failed on two counts.
1. The Cost of Electricity is way beyond an average user.
2. The Power outages are frequent (both high and low) and recently our switch board caught fire. The cost of repair was over Rs. 15,000/=.
All we have to do it ourselves (private) no compensation or help from the Electricity Board. 

 

Water Board is worse.
1. Water purification is questionable (one has to drop into a Service Station and see what I mean). 

 

2. Again payment structure is badly streamlined. 

 

3. When an important guy visits Kandy, water is diverted from elsewhere and never restored even day after the guy leaves the city. 

 

4. Wastage is enormous. 

 

5. Corruption is rampant (including illegal tapping of water). 

 

Why I stated above is not as a diversion but in spite of its giant strides in another 5 years Telecoms will be very similar to above two. 

 

Why? 

Mismanagement?

 

 

 

Like flood gates opened, they are increasing the connections without increasing the throughput (both uploading and downloading). 

 

One has to go and look at the http://www.speednet.com site and verify the speed. 

 

It is easy.
Anyone can do that. 

The testing is free

 

 

 

I went for K-torrents.
Even that is a total failure. 

 

Bit torrents cannot help us if the services (Telecoms) are poor. 

 

Since we cannot expect the Government to do anything about it, I have a few suggestions for those using Torrent Services (what ever the client side may be). 

 

Mind you, institutions block torrent downloads due to various reasons including the Universities. 

 

Like Open Software Community, Torrent is a Community of Services. 

 

Service should be open 24/7.

This is how you do it. 

 

1. There are Seeders and Leechers in the Torrent Community. 

 

Like politicians do not become only the Leechers only (bleeding the country-with war or otherwise). 

 

2. I won’t go into technicalities but please follow my leads. 

 

3. If you download a file after it is finished do not Switch Off the computer. Let it run for few hours (connected to the Internet) after the download for the Tracker to establish the seeding of the computer. 

 

4. Keep the upload speed to 90% of your service speed. That is, give as much as you take from others. 

 

5. If you download 700 MiB make sure you give back at least 500 (better 700) MiB. 

All what you have to do is to keep your computer running and leave the downloaded file in the same directory (do not remove or change the directory) for seeding to occur.

That is it.

 

 

 

6. You can copy the file at your wish and fancy but leave it there as a copy for others to access it.
Tracker knows how to do that and get there.
Only time you remove it is when you run short of memory in your hard drive. 

Then also remove in stages.
Oldest one to go first and the newest one the last.
In the mean time one believes that at least several other seedings have been established.

This is how the community exists.

 

 

 

7. More you give back more you get.
Just keep your computer running connected to the Internet while doing other tasks. 

 

8. Keep off days not doing downloading so others can use the limited services. 

 

9. More seeders are there in the community the more the download speed will be. 

 

10. So leech less and seed more but not excessively to a bleeding point (like our politicians). 

 

11. Give what you have to the community. 

After all this is Christmas time.

 

 

 

I know lot of our guys / girls are downloading films / songs and not letting other people have them (to sell sometimes as pirated copies for a profit-if it is a pirated copy you are selling you ought to be ashamed of yourself). 

Buying pirated copies keep these guys in practice (I want call it a business) and we need to wean them off from the society for good.

 

Understanding in the web is that you download for your personal use and not for selling. 

 

Sharing with friends is a different story. 

 

Pirating is illegal especially if we call this a Buddhist Country.

Even Dhamma is sold in CDs.
I cannot believe it. 

 

Because of a few bad leechers in the community even my Linux downloading comes to a standstill.
There are no seeders.
I leave some of the Linux images in my Dropbox and they are for sharing.

Cloud Computing at its best-Share my folders with Linux distributions

My Dropbox share folder has two (2) light weight Linux distributions to share with you.

All what you have to do is to Register (cloud platform) with Dropbox and send me your email stating that you wish to share Linux Distributions.It will certainly save your download time and cloud computing will look after the service! 

Mind you I will get some extra space as bonus in MiBs (only a little) and then I can deposit bigger images!

This is cloud computing at its best.
Happy Christmas and enjoy your holidays with Linux Games.