Next IMF Boss and my selection

Next IMF Boss and my selection

Moment I sent one of my dreams to Maha Brahma, strangely enough I stop dreaming altogether.

I know Maha Brahma is as lazy as me on holidays and he has cast a spell on me.
“Not to have good dreams on my account”.

I sleep well these days in spite of the mosquitoes and very hot weather.
I forget that we are on industrial action and voided our heads from all extraneous headship headaches.

That is the reason I am sleeping well.

So if you sleep bad resign from your administrative work and buy a good pillow, will you?

It gives you good dose of sleep, I can assure you.
Unfortunately not for the politicians who generally have no work except constant jabbering.

So I will write something on “I wish I could have dreamt”

I wish to dream myself as the next head of IMF.

Even better I wish I am the head (now I am headless) in the selection board for selecting next IMF boss.

My selection criteria are as follows.

1. He is Caucasian

2. He is White or African Brown and White mixture (Obama type) and never Chinese yellow

3. He thinks he is clever

4. He has no idea about how to help needy countries like Sri-Lanka.

5. He should have terrorist type of attitude to human relationship especially of the Third World (Bun Ki Moon type with round face and no smile) countries and Middle East. (That is Bun Ki Moon type without a false smile-special vagary of his archetype).

6. He should be a aspiring leader and member of a labour organization of his own country or has held a ministerial post without a portfolio.

7. He should be 70 plus

There is one exception
He should have a very small phallus (penis) or wishes him castrated while on the job and have some artificial spongy substance installed inside for him to squeeze when dealing with a big problem like white flags of Wesak of Sri-Lanka.

Castrated organs should be sent to WHO for live freezing and could be auctioned for transplantation (highest bidder from the third world) if he dies on the job while chasing behind a maid for childhood (Peek a Boo) fun in a hotel from a heart attack.

I am pretty sure he will not want his organs back but prefers organs from a younger guy who died from an accident (while driving his car) instead of his own.
He now can afford the big prize from his perks alone.

Now what is for me.
I wish I am the one entrusted with castrating him and looking at his testicles first hand being a pathologist I like round things and nodes and tumours.

But to have my own with the IMF I will put lead balls (or pellets excavated from Vanni) very heavy instead of sponge.

My justification.
He will sit and work all day and night and won’t chase maids on vacation.

It is very difficult to run with heavy objects dangling!

I wish this would have come as dream.
Maha Brahma I am sorry I cannot send this for your interpretation.
This is not a dream but a wishful thinking and a honest aspiration!

If my experiment works well which I have no doubt, I would like to share my experience with the WHO and UNO if there are any sensible ones still employed there.

Ten or more steps of my own

Ten or more steps of my own

I have taken some bold steps (decisions) in my life from my childhood and that had come good, when I reflect on them. Some of them cannot be mentioned here.

I was a keen observer of nature and people around me and learned to be bold and fearless.

Most of my teachers except who taught me Sinhala and English were mediocre.
I often wondered how they ever became teachers especially science.

1. One bold step was not to believe teachers especially in science.
That was a very scientific decision by itself.
I had the knack and keen power of observation and problem solving ability. For example I believed anything can be grown on our be soil, be that it may, seeds or yam or runner provided I water them regularly. My father was not a farmer but he was a keen gardener (which he learned from a burger gentleman0. Except potatoes I could do that on my own but could not figure out why I could not grow potatoes (those days potatoes came from UK and I did not know that they put chemicals to inhibit sprouting and made sure seed potatoes were never given to us. I discovered this many many years later. This is how western countries help us).

2. I decided never to ask scientific questions (why potatoes could not grow) from my teachers (knowing very well they will give a wrong answer to shut my mouth).

3. I decided to do science and one day I decided not to go to the school I was attending abruptly (there were many other reasons and flashes of them I have expanded elsewhere) and that was a very bold decision. Finding a school teaching science was difficult but i eventually found one (there was another story behind this I would not enlarge upon).

4. I decided not to proceed with cadetting even though I was the leader in my old school (I was thrashed by the teacher / principal three times in the new school but I stood my ground). I took part in all other sports except cadettting (reason should be obvious and there is / was a worse form of ragging which included sexual for the young).

5. New school was no better in teaching science and I made the decision to do D.I.Y learning science (thank god there were two Foreign libraries stocked with old science books in Kandy then).

6. Due to harassing by teachers I decided to walk out of the science class and asked permission from the principal who thrashed me for not joining cadets. He eventually acceded (I still thank him for that help) to my demand (man with military training) knowing my will power.

Little he knew that others will join me later.

7. We decided to work towards a common (first exercise in group work) goal and entire university in the first attempt (both Bio and Maths). Eventually all of us did pass and none from the class who attended normal class.

They thought we (me especially) had gone bonkus.

8. Next decision was to get rid of all the science teachers in one go (Boomi Puthra was one of them) and get some decent ones. By this time I have forged some connections with science school inspector who was very helpful.
Proof of the pudding was that nobody from the normal class passed.
Some teachers feared me more than the principal and I was a good cohort for him.

9. We never went for tuition classes and we never got involved in giving tuition to others except my cousin brother who eventually became an engineer. He failed all his subjects in “O” Level and till he entered the university he was under my clutches.

10. Next decision was to get rid of the compulsory government service act that we had to serve (IMF would love this) for six years and never to join the government service except university (semi-autonomous institution and not a government per say).

The way things are happening and developing in the university now leaving that is also not a big decision for me.

Rest that followed is history.

I suppose nobody should try these methods now since all the systems including schools in this country are very poorly managed by over 100 of ministers and ministries.

There is no half way house for us now as the saying in English goes.

Penultimate Linux

It is difficult for me to give an ultimatum as far as Linux is concerned.

The innovations that come by every minute of the day prevents me from announcing an ultimatum to Linux way forward and next distribution that will come out of the blue.

Enough is said about the Linux 100 and I have gone beyond the hundred by many a mile.

It is time for me to concentrate on Mobile Linux from Mobilin to MeeGo to Android to Unity derivative that might come soon.

Naming my top 10 will cause lot of injustice to that are not mentioned.

Life is making choices, prejudices and making decision at a given point of time which only lasts for that moment of time.
What is not mentioned is not a deliberate exclusion but a subjective statement with some value added judgment.

I have to go by the gut feelings but not with culinary delights.

1. Number one for me is 10th anniversary Knoppix 6.4

2. Number two is Puppy (lupu, quirky and wary, slimpup and the lot). If not for Puppy I would not have come this far.

3. Number three is PCLinux including FullMonty which opened me to the world of Live CD.

4. Number 4 is Mepis and AntiX (including Taylor Swift) for looking after old computers.

5. Debian is my Number 5 but my choice by deafault with many flavours including Sinhala Capability of installation

6. Gparted, Pmagic, RIP

7. Peppermint

8. Imagine-OS

9. Incognito and Polippix are new derivatives with a strong political statement.

10. Last but not least Ubuntu, Mint and Unity and all  are Ubuntu derivatives making the feel of Linux universally available for the ordinary folks (not the Developers) who are taken for granted by the multinational companies hell bent on making money out of a poor product since the other choices are discredited by false propaganda.

If I miss any it is due to personal circumstances for me to use a particular distribution.

To rectify that anomaly I always talk about Linux 100 and not top 10 like a Video / Audio Charts.

Linux 100 and more going to stay like Dalmatians 101 in the web and IT world.
You have lot of choices now.

Go and select your own 10.
Please note that I have excluded Games and XBMC due to their craving on graphic intensive hardware requirement and environment which many poor people cannot afford at this point of time.

Other reason is manufactures with squinted eyes on Linux not providing not providing sapce for Linux modules.

In 10 years time the story may be quite different.

I may be gone but Linux will rule from Mobile, to netbook to laptops to desktop.

World Cup Cricket-Final Count Down

Well before the Cricket World Cup, due to many a reason, I decided not to write about Sri-Lankan Cricket.

This not the time to list them except to say, there are many who have never played or watched cricket except on TV (armchair cricket pundits) who have entered into cricket fray and making money at the expense of poor cricketers in the Asia subcontinent.

IPL can be taken as an extreme example but what I mention here is much more subtle and lot of politics involved.

Cricket is going to enter into a different era with all the contenders of the West except New Zealanders have been eliminated and gone home already.

I feel really sorry for Strauus, who played a gem of an innings at the beginning and showed all the signs of long winter of cricket and petered away in an almost burnt out or run out of steam fashion.

He has lot of cricket left in him and all the cricketers except a few in the team deserve the respect they deserve for trying out hard under extreme whether conditions. It is easy for the normally grumpy (politicians and diplomats included) Britishers who sit like potatoes in front of the TV with an ancient Axe in hand and try to destroy them.

I was expecting some unruly Sinhalayas with anger towards harbouring LTTE in their political and diplomatic folds make some unwelcome gestures towards the team. Nothing like that happened but they expected a real beating at the hands of Sri-Lankan cricketers.

When several catches were dropped, it was uneasy for everybody watching but England failed to capitalize on them but capitulated themselves.

Our boys were ready for Australians but since weather prevented it and India had done the honours, the cricketers were ready to pounce on England as an alternative.

It is as if we wanted England to score over 200 hundred (only a wishful thinking, catches were badly dropped) and getting two centuries was a record that is going to be in our memory for a long time.

As for Ricky Ponting unlike Strauus, time has come to say good bye to Asian Subcontinent and his century was glorious. We want to remember him for that century and as a cricketer of high caliber, somewhat steely like Steve Waugh, and not as a rugged Australian who lost the Ashes.
Good luck for his future.

For Graham Smith, I was thinking that they had a chance of lifting the cup but when they lost to England, I knew something nasty will happen eventually and I was actually banking on New Zealand to do that.

I like Smith’s demeanour very much and he was my most favorite captain of this world cup even surpassing Sanga for that category.

In my mind he made the mistake of opening the innings and he would have come down the order, may be one down or two down. If he was there in the middle when chips were down, unlike the younger players, the outcome would have been very different.

We are going to miss hm as the most amiable captain of the world cup.

Now there are only four of the captains left to prove their mettle and Daniel Vittory is an ace who may even challenge Sri-Lanka when chips are down.
Watch out for him. even with injuries.

He was of the same caliber as our Murali when injured and even though he was not our captain he (Murali) was the one who every opposition captain envied and every Sri-Lnkan captain revered, as a god send messenger of cricket.

He is our ambassador of cricket and long live his memories, only the good ones not the bad ones that come from Australia.

The Hassle one has to go through when you buy a new Laptop / Netbook-Isn’t it pain in the neck?

The hassle one goes through when one buys a computer with Microsoft installed is something that I never wondered for the past 3 to 5 years or so.

It is mind boggling for a Linux guy.

Once a year I format the root partition and sometimes leaving behind the home partition for a while and install the Old / New version of the Linux distribution in that partition.

This time I had to delay it till March (including Mageia) since most of the distributions including Debian delivered or released the distribution (except PCLinux which was right on the button during December) in late February or March.

The slowest and the laziest was SuSe, though.

My work and cricket world cup were other distractions.

Mind you I install many distributions for various reasons and for testing and not because I lack anything on PCLinuxFullMonty.

Other reason is I need to fill the hard disk so that it is not left idling and rotten.

I will list the hassle a Microsoft guy has to go through.

1. S/He has to backup the data.

2. S/He has to remove the crap the OEM guy install

3. S/He has to download the free software

4.Then has to install the paid software

5. Then anti-virus software

6. Then he has to get Firefox, Opera or safari

Suffice is to say in this time I will install 15 (3×5) distributions in my main computer and two other spare ones I use for testing.

One of the major benefit of Linux is I save lot of time and do other interesting things like watching cricket or water the plants or feed the fish and testing distributions and this time additionally Sinhala Linux distributions.

This list is endless and I will stop at this point and give you a list Linux Free (point number 3 expanded) software that one get FREE

Please go to NiNite web site and get them free if you are a Microsoft user.

If you have chosen the right Linux distribution of your choice you will get all this and more in one go except perhaps Flash.

1. Web Browser Group- Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera

2. Messaging Group-Skype, Pidgin, Google Talk, Yahoo, Messenger, Thunderbird

3. Media group-iTunes, audacity, KMplayer, HULU, Songbird and many more

4. Runtimes – Flash, Java

5. Imaging Group- GIMP, Picasa, Inkscape

6. Office Group-LibreOffice, OpenOffice,Adobe PDF Reader, CutePDF, SumatraPDF, Foxit reader

7. File sharing-uTorrent, eMule

8. Security- What a medical problem for sick machine?

9. Cloud computing-Dropbox, Google earth

10. Image Burners-Nero

11.Compression- win 7, winzip

12. Utilities

13. Developer tools-Putty, Python, Filezilla

14. Others I may have missed

You do not have to do any of these if you select a Linux distribution and all are packed in one and installed in one go.

What a waste of time trying to run windows 7.

That is why Windows users do not have any creativity and continue to lack creativity at work place or on the go.

They are Potato (not hot potato) Guys bloated with Image of Crisis.

How to Freeze a American Credit Card

It is very difficult to be a very SMART credit card user.

About 12 years ago when I returned from sojourn abroad and decided not to go back in spite of the many risks involved (including losing my life on public transport or in a public place like Central Bank of Ceylon-now it is no more public, it is almost private where few cronies make all the decisions, or while watching a cricket match) in Ceylon. 

I had six credit cards and a small saving abroad.

Unfortunately those cards were international and one can use it in this country in spite of the war.

I was without a job and was not hunting for a job wanting to take a welcome respite since the sojourn abroad was lot of work covering for three local doctors who did not want to work where I worked but was a beautiful, place now almost wretched by the recent earth quake.

I was enjoying the welcome respite but I could not resit the indulgence with the credit cards.

One day when I looked at the credit balance abroad and the amount of money I owed and the interest accumulated, and it dawned on me I may not survive even a year.

That night I took all the cards and cut them in half and went to sleep.

I have made a few smart decisions in my life and very many structurally poor decisions (including returning to my mother Lanka and watching absolute corruption at all level including schools, health sector (both public and private) and electioneering.

But this was one of those SMART decisions.

I could foresee the credit market collapse (but not so soon though) even though I was not a financier.

The decision was to live within my means and not bloated like the mega politicians on credit loans from abroad.

I have some information for you how to FREEZE your Credit Card that you got the other day, thanks to the Lifehacker International for sharing their wealth of financial advice with me.

They are as follows

1. Take the card in your hand and oil it with some Sri-Lankan butter and wrap it with a tin foil. It may be useful to swipe a strong magnet over it to demagnetize the inner foil.

2. Buy 12 plastic containers that fit in inside the other and gradually become smaller that would have the capacity to hold a small piece of fish cake sold at Rs.100/= in a super market food stall-For example Majestic City.

3. Now put the credit card nicely foil covered in the inner most container and place other containers on top of it. By doing this you are going to save on the electricity, bill .
The innermost will have the coolest air trapped which cannot escape and the outermost will have the warmest air.

4. Now switch on the freezer and put the lowest cooling rate and place the credit card containing cartooned cartoon deep inside the freezer compartment and put all the reused or rotten food you eat on top with few onions and garlic to sanitize the rotten food.

5. Now you have to pay your electricity bill with cash and not by credit card.

This way you can Freeze your card till you become old enough to say good bye to this world.

Do not forget to put a note inside stating that “I do not owe the bank any money”.

This will stay put and a STATUS SYMBOL for your name since you may the only one under the hot Sun in Sri-Lanka who does not owe anything when you died.

All the rest are pawned for another 60 to 100 years by our caretaker politicians.

Judgment Day

Policeman was brought to the stand (box).

His offense is Contempt of Court.

Court stand to order and the proceeding begins.

Do you wish go to prison for 3 months with rigorous imprisonment from which you will never be allowed to come back alive by very people you have sent in there or do you wish to work under me for three months.

Well then, you were very keen on my well-being and good keeping order, you will from now onwards be in charge of my private water closet and all the other water closets of the court room.

They are very badly maintained and you should bring me a report in 3 months time to make improvements.

Mind you in the mean time you should investigate into the lost gold crown of this veritable guy.

You are relieved of all other official engagements and I will write to your superior officer in due course.

Then the complainant was called in,

It does not look like that you have made a prima face case against your defendant but your excreta has got an officer in uniform into trouble, have you got anything to say?

Sir, I need my gold crown found.

Well I have already given instruction to the officer in that regard.

I can send you to prison for 6 months.
3 months for wasting the Court’s time.
3 months for false allegations.

Or would you like to work with this officer looking after the toilets. We will pay you a reasonable sum bit better than in prison.

Then the defendant was called in.

He was pleased with the above two judgments and thought that he will get scot-free.

You have been a public and court nuisance and besides, you have pleaded guilty and in the process put two others in trouble.

Anything to say?

He did utter anything fearing a reprimand.

I am going to send you to clean the Chief Minister’s toilet for one year.

And after one year report back with good conduct report.

I suppose with these three verdicts even the King of Kakille will be pleased.

Wait for future hearings.

If I am made a Judge – Judgment-01

If I am made a judge in an imaginary Court some of my Judgments may look like this.

Complainant

One who lost his gold crown on one of his teeth.

How did you lose your gold crown?

He smashed my face and I lost my gold tooth.

My Lord,
He took it.

Sir he is lying.
My Lord.
He swallowed his tooth and put the blame on me.

Is it a gold tooth.
Yes sir.

Can you prove it with your dentist.

Yes, My Lord.

Take him to protective custody and observe all his excreta and see where the gold tooth is and reports back to me soon.

Keep custody of all the productions intact.

Next hearing.
The case about the gold tooth Sir.
We did not find the gold tooth and we through the productions away.

They were smelly. I thought it might offend you in courts, Sir.

Did I ask you to bring the productions?

No Sir.

Did I ask you to throw the productions away?

No Sir.

Contempt of Court.

Take him to custody now.

Turning to the defense lawyer.
Are you happy with the policeman’s report.
Yes Sir.
I are you pleading for lesser offense of theft?
Or are you defending grievous hurt?
Judging by his mood and tone, the lawyer pleaded for lesser offense.

Turning to the lawyer representing the complainant.

I want to see the dentist next time.

Next hearing
Dentist appearing in court in professional attire.

Are you the dentist who attended to case No-001?

Yes My Lord.

Is it a gold tooth?

No it is a gold Crown?

What you mean it is not the whole tooth?

No Sir, it is the top most part.

This man says he lost a gold tooth.

What you call the bottom part.

We call it the root Sir.

Have you ever made a gold tooth.

No Sir.

Why?

In cosmetic surgery people are only worried about the external appearance.

The root is hidden and we put a different amalgam there to save costs.

What is the cost of the gold?

After some pause he gives an estimate.

Now tell me your charges for this case.

He gives the charges for the case.

Gold costs less than your charges?

Sir, we charge for the cosmetics and not for the gold.

Isn’t it a fabrication?

Dentist was lost for words.

Aren’t you ethically bound to tell the patient the procedure in simple terms.

You are warned this time.
Next time i will report the matter to the Medical Council.
Thank you for your time in courts.

Judgments were postponed for the next hearing.
The dentist was sweating by the time he left the courts.