Nisadas

I have often wondered why there was no alternative available to allow for the mass of people crossing the roads in Bambalapitiya, Kollupitiya and Fort, mostly while sitting exasperated behind the wheel of my car, behind many other drivers in a hurry to get to work. So I was honestly quite thrilled to hear about the proposed overhead pedestrian bridges that are to be included in the urban development plan for Colombo. This also put me in mind of another area that the authorities should pay attention to – the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL).

As you can see from the map below (please zoom in for clarity), the CCU is separated from the main hospital complex by the junction created by the intersection of E W Perera Mawatha and Kynsey Road.

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 I happen to travel along Kynsey Road on a daily basis and have noticed that often patients are wheeled along on trolleys over from the CCU to the main complex. Being the only person in the car at the time, I’ve not been able to capture any photos of this practice, until recently when a minor repair resulted in the opportunity to travel to work in the passenger seat.

As you can see from the photos below, patients are being carted off from the CCU (which I think is where you’re put if you have some serious heart conditions) to the main complex (where I think the surgery wards are located) during morning traffic, under no cover. Looks a pretty lousy deal to me.

The patients are carted over by attendants, with their families in tow:

On this particular day it was two trolleys/mobile beds in use and there were two families(I assume) following the patients.

Now I’m no medical expert, but this seems a rather horrible risk to be exposed to, especially if you’re having some sort of heart condition. So while we’re looking at the possibility of overhead pedestrian bridges for the main junctions, perhaps this area could also get some attention?

An overhead crossing of the sort you find in Singapore or Hong Kong, with escalators and elevators would no doubt provide some relief.

Photo from here

One of the hazards of being in services is that people expect you to be responsible for all service issues they’ve experienced with that company. So general conversation moves very quickly from the usual “Where do you work?” ice-breaker to the “oh! you work there? I had this terrible experience last Tuesday with …”

All too often, my response has been an apology on behalf of the company and a request for the new acquaintance’s contact details so that I can pass them on to someone in the Customer Service Department.

Until recently, that is. Now I ask “Have you complained?” and surprisingly get the answer “No” more often than not. When I ask about the hesitation to complain – “no, it’s not nice – no?”, “but service is generally very good except for that specific area” are the cliché responses. I then take some time to explain that complaining is the best way the company will find out about the problems in its service delivery.

Do we as Sri Lankans have a problem with complaining? Is it because culturally we are expected to be nice to people and therefore feel bad about pointing out a failure, albeit a minor one? Or is it that we as a people don’t take complaints in a positive manner – so much so that the “victim” feels that there is no point complaining since there will be no redress?

I looked back on my own experiences with less than satisfactory services/suppliers. Historically I’ve been the type to just not make a fuss, but somehow I find that I’ve become less tolerant of poor service.

And then there’s the time that I was put on hold for 15 minutes when booking a flight with JetStar which made me appreciate the better response from our local call centers. When I gave them the feedback via their website, I got a letter from their Manager apologising for the inconvenience. When Sri Lankan Airlines forcibly offloaded my Mother-in-law with no proper explanation and we complained in writing, in the months that have passed we have not even received  an acknowledgement of the complaint. So basically we can complain, but YMMV.

From a personal viewpoint, it’s the criticisms of my actions that have helped me improve. Sometimes those criticisms have been misdirected, so I’ve had to exercise some judgement on whether to change or not. But overall, complaints have had a positive impact. I would imagine that companies would benefit from adopting a similar stance.

Sunshine over the jungle by Walter Saporiti

Not too long after my post on LED lighting, it seems that Sri Lanka has commissioned its first solar power plant in the week ending 13 August 2011.

The state media has publicized the commissioning of the 500kw plant, as has LankaBusinessOnline.

While the economics may still be debatable, it’s good to see that Sri Lanka is moving in the direction of independence from oil-based power generation.

At a presentation during the recent CIMA Leadership Conference, the Minister for Power & Energy talked about other things in the pipeline – including Net Metering.

I first read about Net Metering in Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded. In the book, Friedman discussed an energy-net, much like the Internet.

In this scenario, homes can have their own solar panels and generate electricity to be fed to the national grid. As a result, ho me consumers can enjoy a reduction in their usage at the end of the month, which would be the net of their actual usage and units fed to the grid. A great way to reduce electricity bills, methinks.

Friedman also discussed “Petropolitics” (or the power that comes from being an oil-producing nation) and how turning to alternative power sources was also a means of creating national power.

In this background, it’s heartening to note that Sri Lanka is making some progress. Even more so, since we have the advantage of being smaller and having a monopoly situation with electrification – which could allow us to adopt the key strategies towards a greener nation faster than other countries.

The Youtube video embedded below is a news clip (in Sinhalese) of the ceremony marking the commissioning of the plant. Unfortunately, the images show a cloudy day in Hambantota, where the plant is situated. Given how much sunlight they are supposed to get in Hambantota, that’s quite ironic.

Nevertheless, I hope this works out well and that we are able to see more alternative energy generation in action in Sri Lanka.

And if it did, how safe would you be feeling?

Photographed today at Lanka Hospitals. Amazing how well aligned it is, tho. License plates smudged to prevent owner from public humiliation.

I was very happy to read in the Sunday Times that there’s a proposal to bring in LED street lighting to Sri Lanka. The company concerned with the project, Carbon Futures is also planning on using local production facilities in partnership with local company RONA Electricals (Pvt) Ltd. The initial investment that they make is not a gift or donation – the company plans on making use of the carbon credits that it will generate to recover the costs. But that’s still great news. At least it will make it possible to reduce the costs of lighting our streets. With development taking place, we will have even more roads to light up, not to mention homes, factories and offices. With better LED lighting, there should be at least some cost benefits to people.

Given that we use oil to generate almost half of our total electricity supply as of 2008 (IEA statistics) any methods of reducing eneregy consumption should be made use of.

Given the low energy consumption of LEDs, one other point that came to mind is that these could be married to a Solar solution. Although established Sri Lankan company SolarTherm also provides a similar solution, it seems to be more of a standalone product, whereas solar panels on street lights could be connected to the national grid. The result would be generation of power during the day (although a small amount, given current power generation capabilities of solar panels) which is fed to the national grid, followed by minimal usage during the night when the lights are in operation. The electricity bill is calculated on the net of the power supplied by the grid and the power used by the lights, so the state should save some money. Apparently, MAS Thurulie uses a similar “netting” method as well, among its many other energy saving methods.

If the news of Solar Power Stations in 2011 turns out to be true, then it would seem that we are already moving towards some sort of renewable energy use. But then again, I’m not sure how long lived the solar powered street lighting initiated in 2006 turned out to be.

It’s also interesting to note that Sri Lanka is better positioned than America to make use of the “Energy Internet” described by Thomas Friedman in “Hot, Flat and Crowded”. Having just one electricity grid, we would be better able to have individuals or companies able to generate their own electricity (using non-fossil fuel methods) feed the grid. Imagine all those houses just exposed to the hot Sri Lankan sun – what if each of them had a Solar panel, feeding the grid during the day, while also reducing everyone’s electricity bill?

In the beginning there was no spam. Or well, maybe there was, but no one wrote about it.

And then people who wanted to sell stuff decided that the best way to sell it was to let everyone know. So there began bulk mailing and literally junk mail.

With communications moving on to the internet, the junk mail developed into junk email. The general cluelessness of many email users, coupled with clever scams (e.g. “Win a free iphone, mail this to ten friends with WinAFreeIfone@gmail.com in the cc field”) led to many people receiving loads of junk email. Thankfully, filters can be put in place to stop that.

With attention turning to mobile devices, we started getting text messages from people. From New year greetings from the top, to updates on the latest Metered Three Wheeler service in town.

And now, we have the phone call spammer. Cold calling at its coldest. You get a call on your phone, which you answer since the number is not a known one. “Hello…” you start, only to find out that instead of a human being on the other end, you’ve got a little recording telling you stuff you didn’t know you were going to hear. So far its been about Star Points and Leasing, but I guess anything else is possible.

In an age of limited attention spans and crowded media outlets, is this really the way forward for companies – telecoms, advertisers and agencies? I hope not. After all, who’s going to decide how many ads per phone per day?

I’m not very impressed. My phone is for people – real people – to contact me. Not some automaton trying to sell me something. And besides, how do I know whether an incoming call is genuine or automated? I’m going to be annoyed by every new phone number that turns up on the CLI…

While reading for my postgraduate qualification I came across Yahoo’s value statement as part of the coursework. Interestingly, they also include a separate page for what they don’t value.

One of the terms I came across in all of this, is the “Monday Morning Quarterback”. As always, Google helps us find out what that means:

Monday morning quarterback

a person who, after the event, offers advice or criticism concerning decisions made by others; one who second-guesses

Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/monday-morning-quarterback

After Saturday, wonder how many you will encounter over the next couple of weeks?

silhouettes for tagging people, from http://reface.me/

So first it began with people tagging their friends on Avurudu (New year) greetings, then school/college/office/party function adverts. Then it turned out that there’s a whole subset of pictures which you can get tagged in on Facebook. Depending on what your friends think you are, you will find yourself tagged on a generic photo.

This is kinda cute, but can be downright annoying if ever you try to log in to Facebook from a different country. Should you choose to verify your identity by correctly identifying friends in photos, then heaven help you if the ones that turn up are assorted greeting cards and tag-friendly ones. I guess this has implications for anyone who wants to recover their account – forget your secret question? Then hope the friends whose photos turn up are unlikely to be tagged in generic photographs on FB.

It’s just as annoying as getting friend requests from people who have flowers/kittens/manga as profile pics. I for one am going to spend some time untagging myself from a lot of photos…

Morris Minor, by James & Vilija

I was among many others who celebrated the possibility of a better car when the taxes were brought down. Sadly, I am now among a handful of people who’ve sold their cars for the same price they bought them (despite a couple of years’ use) and are now pondering what to buy.

With all due respect to the Indian car makers, a Maruti is not in my list of possibles. Like many other Sri Lankans in the mid-sized car category, I would prefer a Japanese car – even reconditioned – over a Maruti. Then again, the purported four month waiting list for Maruti – which is supposedly going for less than a million rupees  – means there’s plenty of demand for that as well.

I certainly can’t afford the more expensive options. There are brand new cars above the 3.5Mn mark, with the KIA Sportage running in the 4Mn range, but coming with a 4 year warranty (!)

So, that puts me in the middle – the 1Mn-3Mn crowd. The crowd that finds itself in a fix. Check out any of the local classifieds, or the oldest online car sale – Autolanka - and you will find that cars over 10 years old are still expected to sell for their original purchase value. Some for even more. I know people who’ve sold their cars for more than what they bought them for and judging by the prices being quoted online and in the Hit Ad, they’re not the only ones.

Cars with more than 100,000km on the odometer are going for prices that are much higher than I think they should. The people importing direct from Japan keep varying margins – anything between 300k-900k. I know a car that was advertised for USD 7,600 in Japan (on a site), which was quoted for LKR3.1Mn (USD30,000) – a margin of over LKR 900k(!) after taxes. I almost bought it, but couldn’t reconcile myself to paying so much over what it was worth.

I mean, how much is one of these cars actually worth? Take them to a valuer and you’ll find the Seller’s expected price on the final valuation. But that’s just crazy. Take a look at any of the japanese exporter sites – Tradecarview, Goo-Net Exchange (a terrible name, if ever read in Sinhala), RamaDbk (has local connections) – and cars that don’t qualify for import to Sri Lanka (more than 3 and a half years old) are so much cheaper. A 2004 Allion costs around USD 8k in Japan – even if you had to pay double as duty that’s USD24k, but the rates quoted in the papers for the same thing tend to be around USD 34k (minimum).

So it works out that if you’ve got access to less than 3Mn, then you’ve got to buy an old car, for the same price (or sometimes more) than what the owner paid for it. If you’re in the 2-3Mn range and actually have cash, then you can try importing a car yourself. If like me, you’re looking to make use of a car loan then you’re in trouble. A direct import has to land in the country for you to take out the loan, so you’re at the mercy of the importers and their crazy margins. Or else, if you’ve got around LKR 1.5Mn in cash, you could possibly get the vehicle imported and take out a loan to cover the difference. Again, not that kind of money available to yours truly.

So all in all, the middle class car buyer is stuck. The budget buyer benefits, while the same applies for the luxury category – for the price of a Honda Civic not so long ago, you could get an Audi

Demand has increased and I guess people must be paying these amounts, or else prices should be dropping. Add to that the news that Sri Lankan buyers drive up prices in Japanese car Auctions and a volatile exchange rate and heaven only knows where this will lead.

My only hope is that the mad rush for importing cars causes a shift in the market, where supply exceeds demand and the prices drop. Until then, I’ll be running on Tuks and the generosity of friends and family.

So there’s this little segment on radio called “The first step” or something of that sort. It involves a particular phrase being said in all three main Sri Lankan languages – Sinhala, Tamil and English.

It’s a good thing certainly and most of the phrases are likely to come in handy. Except that since I’m concentrating on driving, I don’t really remember most of them.

Except for one.

The lady says in Sinhala : ???? ???? ???? (Oyata call ekak – there’s a call for you)
Then some guy says in tamil the same thing in Thamil, except he uses the real Thamil words (my knowledge of the language is rudimentary, but it involved something like Ungalukku Tholeikasu Pesi)

That’s interesting because “????” isn’t even proper Sinhala – it’s the english word expressed in Sinhala. The right term would be “?????? ???????” (Durakathana Amathumak – phone call). Why complicate the Thamil version when it’s most likely that speakers of both languages would slip into using the easier english word? Especially since that word would be understood definitely by both of them (which is quite fascinating in itself – how ubiquituous English is in our daily lives).

This struck me as especially interesting when I was talking to an Indian colleague today – he was telling me about his driver teaching himm how to say good morning and good night. Of course, the driver had used the original Sinhala words – “??? ???????”(subha udhaesanak) and “??? ??????????” (subha raathriyak) – which my colleague found helpful due to their similarity to Sanskrit. Of course, I explained that no one really uses those terms anymore and the usual greetings are in English. Turns out, most people in India don’t really use purely Hindi while speaking, slipping in quite a few English words as they go.

The last time I heard anyone speak pure Sinhala was when we had Sathischandra Edirisinghe deliver a lecture at a workshop I attended.

Purists will shudder and thunder about the pollution of the language, but can that really be avoided in this day and age? With the proliferation of communication technology and all that jazz about the world getting flatter and smaller, there’s going to invariably be mixing. If that means we can all understand each other a little better – is that really a bad thing?