Nisadas

For those of you who have noticed the lack of unstructured Sinhala poems (Nisadas) on this blog;

I used to work at Vesess.
Prabhath (the uber-designer) blogged at Nidahas.
Venushka (the uber-coder) blogged at Adahas.

I wanted to blog as well – lack of talent notwithstanding – and tried to come up with a name for the whole thing. In my attempt to find a name that rhymed with Vesess (Sinhala for “Special”), Nidahas (Sinhala for “Freedom”) and Adahas (Sinhala for “ideas”) I put Nidahas and Adahas together -> Nidahas Adahas = Nisadas. So no, I can’t write poetry,

While Nidahas is no longer updated, you should definitely check out Adahas. Venushka is back from whatever dark place he was hiding. If you are one of those people who runs WordPress on your own domain, then you should definitely pay him a visit. Go to http://adahas.com now!

This year you’re sixteen and you’ve only just got on the internet. Some chap from a Bradby playing school (where at some charity walk you will win the voucher to get you internet access) has tagged me to write to you.

No of course not, that link doesn’t work ‘cos it links to a site in 2009. No, Netscape isn’t that cool, but yes, anything is better than Explorer. For what it’s worth, your dislike for Microsoft will continue and you will only get over it with the introduction of something called Office 2007. But then again, that will be more out of necessity than anything else.

And yes, you will (cringe) have your own site under (y)our real name. But you will call it Nisadas (a combination of Nidahas Adahas, which are two other blogs by friends at your old work place) and people will think that’s (y)our name, so don’t worry about sudden popularity. Besides, you still can’t write to save your life.

So what do I tell you?

1. You will not become a monk. Amma is going to be very worried about you and this tendency of yours to be cynical of life in general. Please spare her the trouble. You’re not cut for that kinda thing and sure as hell the Sasana isn’t cut out for the likes of you. But take the time to join her on her visits to the temple. You will grow out of this Heavy Metal/Atheism combination and mellow out with a more Agnostic and far more buddhist attitude to life. That will help you and it’ll help Amma as well.
2. No, that means you won’t be going to Wudang mountain either. Geez.
3. Yes, you will know all the songs of Metallica’s Reload by heart. What did you expect, playing it in the background while studying? Although, you might not want to write most of them at the end of your English Lit paper…
4. That first (and only) piece of vandalism on your school desk? The one where you painstakingly draw the Whitesnake logo? Well, you’re gonna miss school one day and come back to find it gone. Dilan will have scraped it away and replaced it with the words of “My heart will go on”. No, we’re definitely not going to understand nor forgive…
5. You have impeccable taste in women, my boy. Almost all of the really interesting ones you will not pursue on the grounds that they are older than you(No, we never really get along with anyone younger than us until much much later in life), the wrong religion (y’know the ones where your kind of atheism isn’t approved of) or just plain out of your league. This is generally due to your inherent geekiness, and you’ll never really grow out of it.  Nevertheless, you will be blessed with some very good looking and intelligent friends of the fairer sex. As for the ones out of your league, that won’t stop you from marrying someone who’s as out of your league as the All Blacks are in comparison with the school team. So don’t worry too much. But make the most of every opportunity
6. Yes, the All Blacks are a rugby team. Malli will take up rugby, so you will get to hear a lot about it. Try and be more involved – it’ll save you both the trouble of having to get him explain various technicalities while watching the matches.
7. Love your hair. Er… as in take good care of it. You’re gonna lose most of it pretty soon.
8. Yes, you will do Maths for your A/Ls. I know you wanna do it ‘cos of all the cool stuff in the Demo Scene, but you’re not going into IT. Not that it makes much of a difference, since everyone in your department is going to tell you that IT would suit you more than Finance, but the CIMA classes are a lot more fun. Trust me. But pay more attention when you’re in class, especially calculus.
9. Save money. A couple of years later in 2000, track down a guy called John Pereira. He has already sent himself a list of all the results of sporting events in your not too distant future. Be his friend and see if you can find some stuff out. Bet on that and make a lot of money.
10. Keep some of that money and invest in shares. All those times that you think share prices are good for buying will turn out to be just that. Well no, I didn’t save so I didn’t have the money to invest. So you change that.
11. Stay in touch with your friends more often.
12. Dream. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Yeah, that’s about it. That last part is from an awesome speech. Look it up when this thing called Youtube gets on the scene…

Enjoy being young. You will find that growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.

Chill, bro.

D.

P.S.

Just in case the Pereira fellow doesn’t help out, I’m sending you a list anyway. Check your mail in a little while.

And with that, the tag stops here. That’s all folks!

I recently had the opportunity to read Banker to the Poor – the story of the Grameen Bank by Muhammed Yunus. While you can easily find out the story of Grameen at its Wikipedia page, there are some points of interest in the book that don’t make it into Wikipedia:

The worm’s eye view

Most interesting is the point that is made right at the beginning, where the professor is confronted by the magnitude of human suffering caused by famine in 1974. Upset by the scenes of death in Jobra village, Muhammed Yunus decided to take a different view in order to help solve the problem:

I promised myself to try and learn everything about the village. I thought I would be fortunate if I could understand the life of one single poor person. This would be a big departure from traditional book learning. By attempting to equip the students with a bird’s eye view, traditional universities had created an enormous distance between students and the reality of life. When you can hold the world in your palm and see it from a bird’s eye-view, you tend to become arrogant – you do not realise that when looking from such a great distance, everything becomes blurred, and that you end up imagining rather than really seeing things.
I opted for what I called the ‘worm’s eye view’. I thought I should rather look at things at close range and I would see them sharply. If I found some barrier along the way, like a worm, I would go around it, and that way I would certainly achieve my aim and accomplish something.

Not only did Muhammed Yunus adopt a radical approach to the problem, but he also adopted an attitude of not letting obstacles prevent him from achieving his goal. There is a lesson here to anyone in business – your feet need to be on the ground if you plan on delivering a good value proposition.

Cynicism and Independence

Another constant theme throughout the book is the professor’s cynicism towards the various international aid agencies and notably, the World Bank. His reasons for independence from their influence reminds me of the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. By refusing to obey the rules set by international agencies, he has been able to formulate an approach to the problem of poverty in Bangladesh. The book details many occasions where Grameen has maintained its independence, even though it meant refusing significantly large amounts of funds in the form of “soft loans” from the World Bank.

Interestingly, he alludes to a proposal made by the World Bank in 1984 for an alternative micro-credit organisation; the Bangladeshi government rejects the proposal which (according to the prof.) is then amended slightly before being thrust upon the government of Sri Lanka.

Too often we are prepared to take solutions from elsewhere and simply dump them on our problems with the expectation that the results will be the same. Blind faith in foreign intervention is clearly not the best approach. Possibly, the approach of learning from others (the prof. was a Fulbright scholar with a degree in economics from Vanderbilt University) and tailoring the solution to the specific problem would be the better alternative.  Here in Sri Lanka, IMHO we find that many policy proposals are made by people who believe wholly in western ideals, or those who wholly reject them. Perhaps a healthy dose of disbelief of foreign motives, coupled with lessons learned from foreign lands would be better?

Charity is not a solution

This is a theme also constant throughout the book, where that age old adage of feeding a man for life by teaching him to fish can be evoked. Muhammed Yunus criticises Bangladesh and other third world countries for adopting and sometimes deliberately promoting the view that they are in an incurable situation. Being a realistic observer of politics in South Asia, he points out how little of donor funds would actually end up helping the supposed beneficiaries and how much would be pocketed by intermediaries. This is a lesson that we should take to heart. As a nation we have many issues to sort out, but also many avenues of growth. While it may be difficult to sway those “educated” people who firmly believe it is the government’s job to generate employment, there are surely plenty of people with the skills and the desire to grow wealth who can do some wonders with access to funds (see Rajaratarala’s post on Sri Lankan ingenuity).

Passion and Attitude

HRH the Prince of Wales in his foreword mentions the passion in Muhammed Yunus towards poverty alleviation. Similarly, there is mention of how recruits to the bank were hired not on banking experience but on their desire to carry out the bank’s goal of reducing poverty. In fact, “experts” with experience in traditional banking were rejected, since “re-programming” would take too long. By generating the feeling that they are instruments of change in the community they operate in, Grameen empowers its employees to help alleviate poverty, empower rural women, encourage entrepreneurship and educate the younger generation among other things.

In a country like Sri Lanka where the traditional “honour thy elder” culture has been perverted to the stage where hierarchy exists to stifle employee motivation, there is much to be learned. There are companies which have grown thanks to passionate people which have nevertheless burdened themselves with unwieldy hierarchies. While in some cases a hierarchy cannot be simply done away with, it must not exist to distance the employee from the company’s objectives. Of course, it’s a lot easier to create employee engagement when dealing with a notion like eradicating poverty, but there are surely ways of engaging employees in order to achieve optimum results. By creating a passionate environment and encouraging a “can-do” attitude firms can achieve good results, but it may require a lot of management of the egos of those higher up on the ladder in many cases.

A poverty free world

The book closes with the question on whether a poverty free world is possible. While economically there will quite likely continue to be a gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”, Professor Yunus’ ideal of a world where everyone is able to meet their basic life needs seems quite plausible. Hopefully, we can learn from his experiences in Bangladesh and perhaps adopt a similar approach in Sri Lanka.

Passing along the highlevel road, I thanked my stars that the tank was full. Although, I might’ve just as well been better off with a diesel vehicle…

The vehicles belonging to these good people were probably the same ones parked along the road right upto Police Park.

Clearly, LIOC was doing better off than these guys…

I’m fairly sure there must be some kind of demand for these things. With a heel of variable height, straps to hold the shoes in place and other features depending on the lady’s taste and enough protection to ensure that those delicate toes are well protected.

It’s either that, or there’s gonna forever be a new variant – the Cha-Cha-Ow!

Of course, 595 US dollars is a little too much for what I’ve got in mind…

Anyone in the footwear industry?

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.

Right above that Nalaka wheel alignment/tyre merchants joint in Colombo 02 is another branch of the famous Food Waves restaurant. This one’s called “Thiru Kumaran’s Food Waves” and it’s a vegetarian restaurant that serves South Indian food. Good food for good prices – enough reason to like it.

The reason that I wanted to blog about it was to put up their phone number on the net. After searching online in vain for the number (don’t get me started on how fun it was trying to find it on the SLT online directory), I ended up going there to place my order, which was thankfully ready in ten minutes. Of course, my order wasn’t a full meal, so that shouldn’t be a benchmark – take away should ideally still be called in advance.

The lunch buffet is priced at Rs. 130/- and is supposed to be good, although I don’t know this from experience. I can recommend the Naan, Paneer Butter Masala, Malaysian Kottu and Chilli Parota (my favourite). Very nice.

Recently, six of us dropped in for dinner, had the main dishes that I just noted plus soup (one portion is generally enough for two people), some starters and dessert, all for around Rs. 500/- per head. I’m not too familiar with the restaurants in Colombo, but I think that’s pretty good value for money.

Their flyer reads that they’re open 365 days of the year, 11:00am to 10:30pm. Lunch available from 10:30am and Dinner from 4:00pm.

The Address:

Thiru Kumaran’s Food Waves

55, Hyde Park Corner, Colombo 02.

Tel: 471 8709 / 471 9522

Not so long ago I wrote about the scam involving the use of the AirTel name and the promise of an iPhone to harvest email addresses. It seems that any new entrant to the Sri Lankan market can be almost guaranteed that its name will be used for a scam.

Just consider what I found in my inbox today:

If this is indeed the genuine article, whoever is behind it at AirAsia should be given a good dressing down for shoddy publicity tactics. I harbour serious doubts that this can be anywhere close to legitimate.

Why?

• The fact that there are no contact details apart from a gmail address and the AirAsia website.
• The bad spelling – e. g. “SriLankan’s” (although a misplaced apostrophe is quite common in countries where english isn’t the first language).
• The bad grammar
• The use of an older background image which was used in AirAsia’s initial promotions for the low cost fares to Australia.
• The sneaky use of the “Sale” tags on the current AirAsia promotion (the ones in red, blue, green and yellow hanging off the top) renamed “Free”.
• And finally, the use of the term “their” when referring to the company – doesn’t sound legit at all

If I were working at AirAsia I’d try to find out who’s behind all this – although I don’t know whether harvesting email addresses is an issue addressed by the laws of our lovely isle.

Alternatively, anyone who just watches and waits for the spam ads to turn up in their mailbox would know exactly who is behind this.

So in conclusion, if you happen to have gotten this email – please do the world  a favour; delete the message and break the chain!

UPDATE: It seems that Amitha Amarasinghe also came across this recently. Of course, he managed to get through to Air Asia and confirm that it’s a scam. Well done Amitha!