First of all, this has nothing to do with president Obama's politics or any of his actions. (I personally like some of his decisions as well)
President Obama is awarded with Nobel peace price for his actions. Actions still not have achieved anything? May be for hope that he has which is not measurable. On the other hand people like Mahinda Rajapaksa (our president and i am little bit biased) has created peace in Sri Lanka. This is measurable peace, not just words, initiative or hope. Here is why.
Before the end of terrorism in our country we were expecting a bomb blast anytime anywhere in the country, and when it happens, we just keep calling all our loved ones to check if they are safe. Then we could only hope that they would be safe from the next one as well. People go out with the fear that they might not be able to come back. Sometimes we didn't even like to watch news. Every day we had to here news about distractions done by terrorist or killing of innocent civilians. Terrorists did attack temples, government offices, banks, civilian houses killing everybody they see. There was no mercy for even toddlers. Some say that those terrorists were given orders not to waste bullets to kill children rather just cut them using knives.
This was the country we used to live. Not just few months, but for our entire lives so far. Thanks to the supervision of our president and the courage of our brave solders, today we have achieved freedom. We no longer hear about bus bombs, car bombs or suicide attacks. Today we hear about stock markets, road constructions, and politics. People start living again.
So the question is what is more valuable? Valuable to give a prestige award. Is it just expressing hope or doing something measurable?
A relevant article by Jonathan Kay
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Hope
Today, our armed forces have eliminated the terrorism from my country. Many sacrificed their limbs and lives to achieve this. With all the destruction and the blood in war we can see hope, hope for the future generations. We should remember all who sacrificed their today to give us this hope forever. I think the above picture captures a lot of aspects of the mission ...
(I found it from here)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Swine Flu, Sri Lanka and the Media
About three weeks back, most people were stunt by the Swine Flu outbreak and the news related to that. WHO raised the pandemic alert level to 5 calling it a widespread human infection. Most media started educating people, locating epi-center and identifying the patient zero and almost created a widespread panic. We realized this when one of my friend try to find a surgical mask because he planed to travel by plane. We could not find a single surgical mask in most of the pharmacies in Bloomington IN. Thanks to media people have already started preapring for a widespread flu outbreak.
However, after about a week of its start, the media has reduced its weight on the flu outbreak although still the threat is at level 5 according to WHO. Somehow the media has figured out ( or may be instructed) that creating a panic among people does not make any good to the situation.
In my openinon this movement of media is good although they created a big panic at the bigining. They educated people, they provide real infomation, then they regulate themselves and now following up the situation.
Now let's see what is happening in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is fighting with LTTE (a ruthless terrorist organization) for almost 3 decades. Now the democratically elected government has cornered the LTTE into 4 squre killometer piece of land. Although the finishing of the remaining terrorist gang is just a matter of few arial bombardments, Sri Lankan government does not do that because the terrorists is keeping several thousand people as hostages. So currently the governmetn forces are trying to rescue these civilians from the LTTE and conduct a humenatarian mission.
LTTE is a terrorist organization that has roots and connections in many western countries. International weapon dealers, latest colonization experts (Norway), people who think that Sri Lanka is still a colony of UK (Mr. Milliband) and many others try to intervene with this situation.
For most of the media organizations and the human rights group the war is a way of generating income. They need to have incidents to support their pay check. LTTE uses this fact to get as many media organizations and human rights groups into their side, by bribing them.
Sadly, LTTE has taken some of the prominent news agenceis also for a ride by placing insiders in those organizations. For example, this is what the Channel 4 news UK has done few days ago.
They got some video tape of few people talking about hardships in refugee camps in Sri Lanka.
Those people in the video tape does not even show their faces and also there is no video evidance on any of the claims they mention.
Channel 4 news without any investigation aired this tape causing an agitation among international organizations.
Al Jazeera is another media organization that did a similar idiotic broadcasts. Once they showed some photographs taken from a pro LTTE web site claming Sri Lankan forces have shelled a hospital. The photos they showed even had intact glass bottles on tables where they claimed to hit a shell. There were decorative trees in a place where they claim that a shell has hit. I cannot belive that these organizations does not know about shelling and the damage a shell would cause. They just ignore those and trying to create news.
CNN is conducting a poll raising the question "Should The International Community Intervene In Sri Lanka?"
So what does the results of this poll reveal? Don't they know that most people in Sri Lanka (who are the sufferes of the real situation) does not have internet? So most people voting "Yes" for the above questions are LTTE supporters living in western countries. There are some number of people would vote "No" but those are the minority in Western world.
Still I am waiting to see a respectable media report in this issue. The same media acted for the betterment of people in swine flue is now helping terrists to kill more people.
However, after about a week of its start, the media has reduced its weight on the flu outbreak although still the threat is at level 5 according to WHO. Somehow the media has figured out ( or may be instructed) that creating a panic among people does not make any good to the situation.
In my openinon this movement of media is good although they created a big panic at the bigining. They educated people, they provide real infomation, then they regulate themselves and now following up the situation.
Now let's see what is happening in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is fighting with LTTE (a ruthless terrorist organization) for almost 3 decades. Now the democratically elected government has cornered the LTTE into 4 squre killometer piece of land. Although the finishing of the remaining terrorist gang is just a matter of few arial bombardments, Sri Lankan government does not do that because the terrorists is keeping several thousand people as hostages. So currently the governmetn forces are trying to rescue these civilians from the LTTE and conduct a humenatarian mission.
LTTE is a terrorist organization that has roots and connections in many western countries. International weapon dealers, latest colonization experts (Norway), people who think that Sri Lanka is still a colony of UK (Mr. Milliband) and many others try to intervene with this situation.
For most of the media organizations and the human rights group the war is a way of generating income. They need to have incidents to support their pay check. LTTE uses this fact to get as many media organizations and human rights groups into their side, by bribing them.
Sadly, LTTE has taken some of the prominent news agenceis also for a ride by placing insiders in those organizations. For example, this is what the Channel 4 news UK has done few days ago.
They got some video tape of few people talking about hardships in refugee camps in Sri Lanka.
Those people in the video tape does not even show their faces and also there is no video evidance on any of the claims they mention.
Channel 4 news without any investigation aired this tape causing an agitation among international organizations.
Al Jazeera is another media organization that did a similar idiotic broadcasts. Once they showed some photographs taken from a pro LTTE web site claming Sri Lankan forces have shelled a hospital. The photos they showed even had intact glass bottles on tables where they claimed to hit a shell. There were decorative trees in a place where they claim that a shell has hit. I cannot belive that these organizations does not know about shelling and the damage a shell would cause. They just ignore those and trying to create news.
CNN is conducting a poll raising the question "Should The International Community Intervene In Sri Lanka?"
So what does the results of this poll reveal? Don't they know that most people in Sri Lanka (who are the sufferes of the real situation) does not have internet? So most people voting "Yes" for the above questions are LTTE supporters living in western countries. There are some number of people would vote "No" but those are the minority in Western world.
Still I am waiting to see a respectable media report in this issue. The same media acted for the betterment of people in swine flue is now helping terrists to kill more people.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
University of Moratuwa Tops the Google Summer of Code 2008
It is truly amazing. This year, it is a total of 24 awards for the University of Moratuwa, where I did my undergraduate studies, and it is the rank one in the world!!!
Ms. Vishaka Nanayakkara (Head of the department - Computer Science and Engineering Department) has sent the following email which has all the details. So instead of repeating, let me paste it here.
=============
Dear all,
It is with greatest pleasure I let you know that University of Moratuwa has
become the Global Top University with Highest Number of Awards as well as
the highest number of applications in this year's Google Summer of Code. I
am certain that you will be very proud of the achievements of our students.
The information about this can be found at
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-weeks-top-10s-universities-for.html
CSE students started with one award 3 years ago and have bagged 18 GSoC
awards this year. There is one ENTC student and another first year student
from the Faculty of Engineering. With a total of 24 awards for the entire
University, University of Moratuwa has become the First in the entire world.
CSE students undoubtedly had a tremendous influence on this from Dr Sanjiva
Weerawarana. It was Sanjiva who first told them about this, it was his
guidance that led them to achieving the first award, it was his continuing
support (together with members of the FOSS community) which enabled them to
come this far. I think we at CSE owe him a lot for this great achievement.
I am certain that all of you as people who helped CSE come this far, members
of the CSE department industry consultative board, mentors, visiting
lecturers or well wishers of the department also have contributed in many
ways for the upbringing of our students and will be happy to share this
wonderful news with us.
Best regards,
Vishaka
=============
Ms. Vishaka Nanayakkara (Head of the department - Computer Science and Engineering Department) has sent the following email which has all the details. So instead of repeating, let me paste it here.
=============
Dear all,
It is with greatest pleasure I let you know that University of Moratuwa has
become the Global Top University with Highest Number of Awards as well as
the highest number of applications in this year's Google Summer of Code. I
am certain that you will be very proud of the achievements of our students.
The information about this can be found at
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-weeks-top-10s-universities-for.html
CSE students started with one award 3 years ago and have bagged 18 GSoC
awards this year. There is one ENTC student and another first year student
from the Faculty of Engineering. With a total of 24 awards for the entire
University, University of Moratuwa has become the First in the entire world.
CSE students undoubtedly had a tremendous influence on this from Dr Sanjiva
Weerawarana. It was Sanjiva who first told them about this, it was his
guidance that led them to achieving the first award, it was his continuing
support (together with members of the FOSS community) which enabled them to
come this far. I think we at CSE owe him a lot for this great achievement.
I am certain that all of you as people who helped CSE come this far, members
of the CSE department industry consultative board, mentors, visiting
lecturers or well wishers of the department also have contributed in many
ways for the upbringing of our students and will be happy to share this
wonderful news with us.
Best regards,
Vishaka
=============
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Vehicle Accident - My Experience
Last week my car was rear ended by another car while I was driving in a busy road. The speed limit of that road was just 25miles/hour and I can't believe how can someone just rear ended my car with the traffic at that time.
The vehicles were moving very slowly and suddenly I heard a big bang and my car went few feet to the front and sightly knock the car in front of me. The sound and the shock made me think that probably the entire trunk of my car is lost. Surprisingly, the only damaged part in my car was the raer buffer. However, the other person's car was badly damaged with all the air bags deployed and the radiator broken and causing lot of smoke.
Luckily nobody was hurt.
The driver of the car get down from the vehicle saying "I am sorry" and that simply removed the anger developing inside me towards that driver.
After that, for me, the procedure was very straight forward.
Got the police report
Call the other person's insurence Agent
Get a quotation from a repair shop
Give it to the insurance agent
Put the vehicle for repair
Use the rented car arranged by the insurance agent during the time my car is in garage
Bring the car home without paying a cent.
I know that it is too good to be true and many does not experience the same, but for some reason, that is exactly what has happened to me.
Still I am not sure what causes that person to hit my car. My only guess is he was distracted by something (most probably by his cell phone) and did not see me stopping at all. I came to this conclusion because of few observations I made.
I did not hear him breaking before the crash.
His left arm was slightly bruised, probably because he was holding his phone from that hand.
Even after the accident, he was getting lot of phone calls.
In any case, I have noticed that almost all the people drive with one hand on the cellphone. It seems like most of them can't drive without talking to someone over the phone. Even at color lights, it takes at least half a minute for some people to realize that the green light is on, simply because they are busy talking over the phone.
Hope they have some law prohibiting the usage of phone while driving as in my country Sri Lanka.
The vehicles were moving very slowly and suddenly I heard a big bang and my car went few feet to the front and sightly knock the car in front of me. The sound and the shock made me think that probably the entire trunk of my car is lost. Surprisingly, the only damaged part in my car was the raer buffer. However, the other person's car was badly damaged with all the air bags deployed and the radiator broken and causing lot of smoke.
Luckily nobody was hurt.
The driver of the car get down from the vehicle saying "I am sorry" and that simply removed the anger developing inside me towards that driver.
After that, for me, the procedure was very straight forward.
Got the police report
Call the other person's insurence Agent
Get a quotation from a repair shop
Give it to the insurance agent
Put the vehicle for repair
Use the rented car arranged by the insurance agent during the time my car is in garage
Bring the car home without paying a cent.
I know that it is too good to be true and many does not experience the same, but for some reason, that is exactly what has happened to me.
Still I am not sure what causes that person to hit my car. My only guess is he was distracted by something (most probably by his cell phone) and did not see me stopping at all. I came to this conclusion because of few observations I made.
I did not hear him breaking before the crash.
His left arm was slightly bruised, probably because he was holding his phone from that hand.
Even after the accident, he was getting lot of phone calls.
In any case, I have noticed that almost all the people drive with one hand on the cellphone. It seems like most of them can't drive without talking to someone over the phone. Even at color lights, it takes at least half a minute for some people to realize that the green light is on, simply because they are busy talking over the phone.
Hope they have some law prohibiting the usage of phone while driving as in my country Sri Lanka.
Friday, February 15, 2008
DOS 6.2 Windows 3.11 Bridgeport CNC Software BXX
The title of this blog contains few of the legacy software that I had to configure to solve a problem faced by one of my friend. Let me explain my interesting experience with all these old softwares below.
The Requirement:
Approach:
First I had to find the requirements for the Bridgeport software.
I decided to give it a try in my computer running windows XP.
I copied the required files as they were in the original computer and try running it in my computer. It did not work.
In the mean time a friend of my friend has suggested him using a virtual machine running DOS. So I setup VMWare and installed DOS6.22. Then I setup the Bridgeport software in the virtual machine. It did not work as well.
Then I decided to try the exact DOS version that the original computer has. That is DOS 6.2.
I got a copy of the hard disk of the original computer and an old computer(let's call this computer X).
I formatted the computer X for FAT16 file system. (Although I could not find any confirmation, this is one of the requirement for the Bridgeport software)
Then I copied all the files in the hard disk copy that I got to the hard disk of computer X.
Next, I use a DOS 6.2 boot disc to setup DOS 6.2 in the computer X.
This time for my amazement I was able to see the blue screen (The initial screen of Bridgeport software). Needless to say that it is working now!!!
One barrier is over, but now I have to setup file sharing.
One of my friend (Eran Chinthaka) gave me a valuable piece of information. That is Windows 3.1 can be installed on top of DOS 6.2 and it won't update the DOS version.
After searching on ebay, amazon etc... we were able to find a Windows for Workgroups( WFW) installation diskettes in ebay.
I installed WFW in the computer X on top of the DOS6.2. I have used WFW about 12 years back and that time it was really a big thing with the windows and mouse. This time it is the rescuer.
WFW supports file sharing for work group computers and hence we were nearing our goal.
Next hurdle is configuring a network card. (Computer X had a Realteck PCI network card but I could not find a driver for that for WFW)
From all the NIC's supported by WFW I found that SMC Elite 16 Combo card on ebay which supports 10 BaseT connections.
The disk came with the NIC card contained a software named EZStart.exe which supposed to help configuring the network card. However it did not work in our computer X. It simply could not identify the network card.
Luckily the disk contained another sofware named SMCA70.exe which extracts all the configuration files in it to different location. I use this and copied the configuration files to another floppy disk.
After several attempts I was able to configure the NIC card with WFW. However, still the network (TCP/IP) was not working and WFW does not support TCP/IP by default.
A Google search pointed me to this site where they have a TCP/IP version for WFW.
I installed it in the computer X and WOW!!! The computer X running WFW was able to connect to the network using DHCP.
Now the file sharing is just matter of enabling it using WFW and accessing them using any other machine in the same workgroup.
After a long battle the goal is now not a dream any more.
Bottom line:
The version of the Bridgeport software that we have: BOSS DX/32
So far we were only able to run this software on DOS6.2
Windows for Workgroups can be installed on top of DOS 6.2 without changing it.
With WFW we can configure file sharing.
This enabled my friend to do the following:
Design the parts(machine parts) on his laptop
Transfer those files to the computer X
Drive the CNC using computer X
If he notice any changes to be made to the design:
Stop the CNC
Access the file using his laptop (using file sharing) and modify the design
Start the CNC process.
I tried to explain some of the challenges that I faced during setting up the above computer and the software for my friend. Hope this helps someone trying to reach the same goal as him.
The Requirement:
- My friend(Fazni Aziz) has bought a CNC machine for his newly established company and it is working fine with a computer which is running DOS 6.2. The only interface that computer has is the floppy disk driver and he has to transfer all his design files in floppies in order to use them with the CNC machine. If he did any changes then the files have to be copied again using floppies. The process is really painstaking.
- The only copy of the Bridgeport software that he has is the installed copy.
- He wanted something like file sharing so that he can simply transfer files between this legacy machine and his laptop. (This was his goal)
- He also suggested that we setup a different computer so that he can use the old computer till I get a new one setup.
Approach:
First I had to find the requirements for the Bridgeport software.
I decided to give it a try in my computer running windows XP.
I copied the required files as they were in the original computer and try running it in my computer. It did not work.
In the mean time a friend of my friend has suggested him using a virtual machine running DOS. So I setup VMWare and installed DOS6.22. Then I setup the Bridgeport software in the virtual machine. It did not work as well.
Then I decided to try the exact DOS version that the original computer has. That is DOS 6.2.
I got a copy of the hard disk of the original computer and an old computer(let's call this computer X).
I formatted the computer X for FAT16 file system. (Although I could not find any confirmation, this is one of the requirement for the Bridgeport software)
Then I copied all the files in the hard disk copy that I got to the hard disk of computer X.
Next, I use a DOS 6.2 boot disc to setup DOS 6.2 in the computer X.
This time for my amazement I was able to see the blue screen (The initial screen of Bridgeport software). Needless to say that it is working now!!!
One barrier is over, but now I have to setup file sharing.
One of my friend (Eran Chinthaka) gave me a valuable piece of information. That is Windows 3.1 can be installed on top of DOS 6.2 and it won't update the DOS version.
After searching on ebay, amazon etc... we were able to find a Windows for Workgroups( WFW) installation diskettes in ebay.
I installed WFW in the computer X on top of the DOS6.2. I have used WFW about 12 years back and that time it was really a big thing with the windows and mouse. This time it is the rescuer.
WFW supports file sharing for work group computers and hence we were nearing our goal.
Next hurdle is configuring a network card. (Computer X had a Realteck PCI network card but I could not find a driver for that for WFW)
From all the NIC's supported by WFW I found that SMC Elite 16 Combo card on ebay which supports 10 BaseT connections.
The disk came with the NIC card contained a software named EZStart.exe which supposed to help configuring the network card. However it did not work in our computer X. It simply could not identify the network card.
Luckily the disk contained another sofware named SMCA70.exe which extracts all the configuration files in it to different location. I use this and copied the configuration files to another floppy disk.
After several attempts I was able to configure the NIC card with WFW. However, still the network (TCP/IP) was not working and WFW does not support TCP/IP by default.
A Google search pointed me to this site where they have a TCP/IP version for WFW.
I installed it in the computer X and WOW!!! The computer X running WFW was able to connect to the network using DHCP.
Now the file sharing is just matter of enabling it using WFW and accessing them using any other machine in the same workgroup.
After a long battle the goal is now not a dream any more.
Bottom line:
The version of the Bridgeport software that we have: BOSS DX/32
So far we were only able to run this software on DOS6.2
Windows for Workgroups can be installed on top of DOS 6.2 without changing it.
With WFW we can configure file sharing.
This enabled my friend to do the following:
Design the parts(machine parts) on his laptop
Transfer those files to the computer X
Drive the CNC using computer X
If he notice any changes to be made to the design:
Stop the CNC
Access the file using his laptop (using file sharing) and modify the design
Start the CNC process.
I tried to explain some of the challenges that I faced during setting up the above computer and the software for my friend. Hope this helps someone trying to reach the same goal as him.
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