Nisadas

The glorious thing about the internet is that even non-experts like myself can plough on and put forward silly notions on any variety of subjects. Therefore, allow me to present my proposal for future ODI visits by the Indian cricket team to Sri Lanka:

In future, there will be no need to fly in all the members of the Indian team. Instead, the captain of the team can be flown in with a bunch of tourist-journalists. The journos will be given full access to the rest of the country so that they can write about stuff the rest of the world doesn’t know much about.

On the day alloted for the match, M&M (M. Dhoni and Mahela, not our beloved spin-twins Murali and Mendis) will be escorted to the ground. After the usual talk about the pitch and the conditions, they will have the toss. Unlike any other occasions, we will have conch-blowing, drummers and even lighting of the oil lamp to herald this magnificent moment.

Once the toss has been called, the winner will have his hand shaken by the rest of the congregation. The man of the match will be chosen from a couple of names shuffled about in a cricketer’s helmet and the cheques for winning the match and other awards will be handed over as part of the ceremony.

This in turn will result in such low overhead that Small and Medium businesses can afford to sponsor the series, perhaps on a match-by-match basis. I haven’t figured out how the exposure can be fully utilised without the willow and the leather in play, but I’m sure the talents of the creators of Sri Lanka’s Dancing Stars can be put to good use. By saving over six hours per day of people’s time, productivity will increase, while there will also be a significant saving in terms of bandwidth due to lower usage of Cricinfo‘s live scorecard facility. Families will be happier for their fathers/sons/brothers/husbands being home earlier instead of dallying by the big screens at Abans/Singer showrooms on their way home.

Why do I say this? A brief look at the results of the last two series in Sri Lanka:

What about that aberration where India won a toss and Sri Lanka won? Well, that’s because MSD didn’t know that batting first works at RPS, not at the Rangiri Dambulla stadium. Let’s look at the matches by who bats first:

But seriously, have we forgotten that barely two years ago our boys were in the world cup final with Australia? Well, apparently so. This is in no small part due to the fact that the team that made it into the finals in 2007 displayed a lot more courage, intensity and overall flair than what most of us cricket-mad Sri Lankans saw in the recent past. It hurts to be beaten on home turf.

I can only hope that the itinerary for the rest of 2009 proves to be more fruitful for our team.

The tables in this post are my first in a blog post and are thanks to the tutorial at Web Design from Scratch.

I came across an article on the Freakonomics blog today about the difference between autorickshaw (3-Wheeler in Sri Lankan parlance) drivers in Delhi and Mumbai.

According to law, autorickshaw drivers must only go by the meter reading that is reported after a commuter’s trip is finished. However in Delhi, there are hardly any autorickshaw drivers who go by this law, and instead they quote nefariously high prices. In Mumbai though, no matter what the time of the day or night, the drivers go by the meter.

The reason for this difference put forward by the writer Abhishek Rawat (himself a reader of the Freakonomics blog) is simply competition – there are more 3-wheelers in Mumbai than Delhi and there are less alternatives in Delhi. As a result, the commuters in Delhi are more likely to pay whatever the three wheeler driver asks for and get to wherever he or she is headed.

Stephen J. Dubner put forward the following first three reasons, whereas the other reasons were also submitted in the comments;

• Differences in law enforcement in Delhi and Mumbai
• Whether or not drivers belong to a fleet or operate independently
• The possibility of differences in professional culture (Abhishek discounted the notion of cultural differences).
• The government-set rates are not sufficient for the drivers in Delhi to make a profit
• Differences in the commuters’ economic status in the two cities – Delhi having wider gaps between the rich and poor while Mumbai has a middle class more interested in value for money.

This reminded me of the All Island Three Wheeler Drivers Welfare Association (Meter taxis, contactable on 0712-500800) which has gained a lot of Word of Mouth popularity these days. Here in Sri Lanka there are plenty of three wheelers around. The profession isn’t viewed very favourably, which led to the formation of the Association, as can be seen in Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera’s article about the Meter Taxis from the Sunday Times.

Calling the hotline mentioned on the website revealed that the rates are now Rs. 50/- for the first kilometer and Rs. 30/- for each thereon. Given the current situ, I’m wondering if they qualify for the reduced rate of petrol for three wheelers announced for the 2009 budget. They certainly meet the requirement of having a meter.

So what are the chances of mass adoption of meters by the Sri Lankan three wheeler drivers? Pretty slim, I think. My reasons?

1. Regulation and the lack of it. Apart from registration (due mostly to the negative reputation of the profession) with the local police, there doesn’t seem to be any other type of regulation. Without any formal rules, I’m not convinced that many of the three wheeler drivers will adopt using the meters.
2. Peer pressure – not everyone wants to give up the opportunity of fleecing prospective customers, especially foreigners. With most three wheelers operating from “stands” where groups of 3 or more operate, the guy with the meter is likely to be ostracized. This will result in resistance to using a meter. For example, anyone picking a 3 wheeler from near Odel or Majestic City will be surprised at the rates charged by other three wheelers.
3. Lack of information. In the article mentioned above, the profit per day from running with a meter is given as Rs. 1,500/-, while there is also mentioned a greater demand than the Association can meet. However, I don’t think many three wheeler drivers are aware of this.
4. Lack of customer pressure. People who use three wheelers often would have honed their tactics (or Tuktics) for getting the best rates. Some people will travel with only a selected few, whom they contact on their mobile numbers and are guaranteed reasonable rates. This leaves the occasional traveller to deal with and that probably doesn’t warrant the trouble of having to fix a meter.

However, given the popularity of the three wheeler as a means of transport and the difficulty in parking in Colombo during the day (and sometimes night) there’s a likelihood the situation will change in favour of the meter. That should benefit the traveller by means of more economic transport, while also providing the owner/driver with more business. More business because the hassle of bargaining is taken out and transparency in the pricing is created.

It’s weird. I like the service I get from HSBC. I don’t bother them very much. I have friends who work there.

So why should they (the local branch) have a problem with me switching to a more secure and less crash-prone operating system/web browser?

When I took up my first intern/trainee job, one of the things I did was get an HSBC card. Not only did it look good, but it also meant that come payday, I would be one of the lucky people to get my hands on the cash first. The others would have to wait a day or two longer before their allowance was in their accounts. So I’m happy.

But I stopped using Internet Explorer and switched to Opera. Bad move. The Internet Banking facility doesn’t work for me. But thankfully Firefox came along and things were ok.

Fast forward to 2005: I’ve switched completely to Linux when it comes to surfing the net. This is because I’m paranoid about spyware/adware/zombie networks and frankly I haven’t the faintest of confidence in Internet Explorer’s security.

And then I try to access MY account via Internet Banking. No dice. Opera (even with “Identify as Internet Explorer” enabled) doesn’t work. Neither does Firefox.
I’m told that

To access internet banking, please use

• Internet Explorer version 5.0 or above; or
• Netscape Communicator version 4.72 or above (version 6.x currently not supported)

What gives?

So I inform the bank of the issue. This I do on September 12, 2005.
I get the following reply on September 15, 2005:

We refer to your mail of 12 September 2005.

Please be informed that we have taken your request to consideration and are looking at the possibilty of enabling Linux Users to login to our Internet Banking Service.

However we wish to inform you that we are not preventing any users of Linux from accessing the Internet Banking Facility.

Right.

It’s become common knowledge that Microsoft’s Windows OS and Internet Explorer browser aren’t exactly the most secure software in the world. Even if the developers manage to patch the security holes, the very fact that Windows/IE are so popular the world over make them ideal targets for hackers. This was common knowledge ages ago – that’s why alternate browsers have been able to make such an impact in the global internet community.

While I agree that there is no silver bullet for surfing on the web, I feel that institutions shouldn’t place restrictions on how people access the information they put on the web.

A little searching led me to this email at the Lanka Linux User Group(LKLUG) that seems to discuss the problems in the JavaScript code at the site that seems to restrict users. Note the date: July 19, 2005.

I’m not a coder, but according to the email, it seems that the web site doesn’t consider Linux as an operating system that the potential visitor might be using.

It’s been more than three months since the LKLUG have figured out what’s wrong with the web site’s code. So how come the problem hasn’t been fixed yet?

Ah well.

For anyone interested, there’s a workaround (thanks to Chamindra) . The simplest method (which I’m using now) is to download the User Agent Switcher and install it on Firefox.

UPDATE: As of late 2007, the HSBC site got revamped and now supports internet banking with many different browsers. I have so far had success with Firefox, Opera and Safari (on Windows).