Nisadas

For about a year, my internet access was severely limited. Being far from the WiFi at home, I relied on my mobile phone for access. That sucked.

Using a Nokia 7260 as a GPRS modem wasn’t such a hot idea. Thanks to the Opera Turbo feature (then still in Alpha) helped a little, but it was even slower than dial-up. Surfing the net from the phone itself was a little pointless, especially since most blogs on Achcharu/Kottu aren’t very mobile friendly.

Well, amongst other things I upgraded to a newer phone and the Dialog Data package. It serves my purpose – quick checks on email, the blogosphere and updates on Cricinfo.

That said, it was a quite interesting to check out the latest Beta of Opera Mini. Having an iPhone-like theme, the browser is faster than the built in browser (due to caching/compression of the content through Opera’s servers) and makes it easier to view blogs off the phone.

However, it was a pleasant surprise to see Kottu on my phone. Since there’s no way I can think of showing you what it looks like on the phone, let me show you what Kottu looks like to Firefox masquerading as an iPhone 3.0 (thanks to the User Agent Switcher):

The result seems to a lot friendlier to mobile browsing, which is great for times when I’m just stuck with only my phone. Of course, since the blogs that are linked to aren’t running MobilePress, there’s not much change once you leave Kottu.

Sadly, it looks like MobilePress isn’t available as a plug-in for anyone on WordPress.com. Perhaps if there was more interest in mobile browsing, that would change.

So there I was feeling all upset that my crappy photo made it to the front page of Ada Derana without my being credited.

But why stop there? Turns out the people at the Daily Mirror (http://www.dailymirror.lk) aren’t very original either.

Barely a coupla days after my photo turns up on Ada Derana, it turns up on Daily Mirror as well, which at the time I took the screenshot below, was right next to their own copyright notice.

As of September 24, 2009 their article on the subject at http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=61811 still carries the photo, despite an email informing them of their unauthorised use in violation of the licensing terms.

What occurs to me however, is that these guys probably stole the photo off the Ada Derana site and therefore don’t even know the licensing terms in the first place.

O tempora o mores!

…of my intellectual property that is. What really hurts is that it’s not even one of my better works.

UPDATE (2009-09-15): The folks at Derana replied my email and apologised for the unauthorised use. They have taken off the pic from their site. I forgive them, but am keeping the post up, since I still think there will be a need for a stock photo site.

ORIGINAL POST: So I’m surfing the net on a lazy Sunday afternoon and I come across the pages of Ada Derana. I scroll down and find something that looks vaguely familiar (click on image for larger picture):

The picture highlighted seems a little familiar, so I click on the link http://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=5210 to get to the main story:

And there it is – why does this image look so incredibly familiar?

Then it occurs to me that this picture is identical to the one you will finid on my blog. Yes, the same one in the post Pow-Wow-II dated September 07, 2005. That’s not very nice. Especially since my blog has always carried a copyright notice, which generally means you’re not supposed to copy my work without my endorsement. Even then, the picture itself – if you were to browse on Flickr – is licensed under a Creative Commons license that requires the author to be acknowledged. Don’t see any of that either.

Is there any point in even bringing this to the attention of the authorities at Ada Derana? I drafted them an email just in case. What really irks me is that this is just a photo randomly taken, with no greater a camera than the one that comes with the Nokia 7260 (VGA, 640×480). Obviously it’s not high quality.

I can imagine photos by Thishya W, Chamil T or Sandun S (all of whom have some fantastic photos on Flickr) being stolen. But then again, those are just fantastic, high quality photos. Nothing very humdrum about them.

So here’s an idea for all you photographers out there in lovely Sri Lanka: A stock photo site. Maybe something like ThreeBlindMen, but with some ordinary, day to day photos thrown in (I’m not an expert, but I don’t think either Rukshan Jayewardene’s, Dominic Sansoni’s or Sebastian Posings’ photos can ever be called ordinary). Licensing might be an issue (did I mention that www.creativecommons.lk seems to be down?) but I’m sure there’s someone out there who can help. Charge an appropriate fee (not too expensive, since the local media prefer stealing, which only costs them their reputation) and you just might be on to something.

Melting ice cubes by Stevendepolo

Following up on the maverick Junichrio Koizumi’s 2005 “Cool Biz” campaign it seems that that “the Prime Minister of Bangladesh has ordered public servants to ditch suits and ties for short-sleeved shirts to cut air-conditioning use in the power-starved nation.” (via the Freakonomics blog).

This brings to mind the subject of the necktie. I’ve hated having to wear the  thing since my school days, but mostly because of the heat. Not many school halls were air conditioned in those days. If I were living in colder climes (perhaps Kandy even) I’d be more sympathetic towards this accessory. I certainly don’t mind wearing one in the air conditioned environs of our offices, but I make sure it comes off if I ever have to take a walk in the afternoons. How our schoolgirls cope is beyond me.

With Sri Lanka’s position so close to the equator, heat will always be a problem. Well, a problem for anyone wanting to wear clothes designed for countries with colder climate. Therefore, I can understand why there would be a leaning towards changing things as drastically as in Japan and Bangladesh.

However, I doubt Sri Lanka will adopt such a measure and doubt even more whether our corporate execs will let go of their “corporate image”.

Nevertheless, there’s good reason why reducing our power consumption for air conditioning purposes would be a good idea. According to an article in the Nation, 60 percent of Sri Lanka’s electricity generation is through diesel. This may not be a problem if we hit oil off the coast, but with global oil prices slowly rising, there’s bound to be problems with the related costs.

Therefore, I forsee opportunities for the future;

1. In terms of suits and clothes, I’m sure there’ll be demand for those that can maintain a “corporate” look while still being compatible with the scorching heat of Sri Lanka.
2. In terms of design, architects who can design the coolest buildings (in both senses of the word) will undoubtably have a higher demand for their services, especially with the shortage of hotel rooms forecast.
3. Air conditioning companies could step in and provide services for making exisiting air conditioning systems more efficient and effective. Sometimes our buildings might be unnecessarily cold and thereby costly due to not using the most efficient settings.

Not much chance of the necktie going away, but I’m sure Sri Lanka will find some interesting ways of keeping cool…