I’ve put away the whole online anonymity thing, and moved to my own domain. A portfolio of sorts.

I’m now at http://www.dinidudealwis.com

And yes, my name is Dinidu de Alwis.

I started this on the 22nd of Jan, and for this short time I’ve had over 3,200 visitors coming in. Thanks guys for the comments, the support and the linking. Hope to have the same kind of happy blogging from my new site!

Due to a persisting back problem, I’ve been looking at disposing the current laptop that I carry around, and buying a lighter ultra-portable notebook. The current Acer Aspire 5570 I have, manages to have decently good spec whilst maintaining quite an impressive (<2kg) weight.

For me, replacing the current notebook has both pros and cons. Replacing means selling this off for a decent amount of money, which eases the burden on the wallet. But the cons are more. I’ve kind of modded the spec to enable me to run Photoshop and InDesign with ease, and the large (15.4″) screen also helps. A friend also did the whole color calibration thing for me, and letting this go hurts.

I’ve got to choose between the two paths. One is keeping this for those assignments which requires me to run Photoshop and InDesign, and getting something like an Eee PC for everyday use. The other is to replace this with a normal ultra-portable. I’m currently looking at the Acer 2920 Gemstone which has better spec than the one I’m using now, but with a 12.1″ screen.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. We are getting old. I’m hitting twenty-something now, and kids in buses call me uncle instead of Aiya. Us getting older means our parents and grandparents are getting older too. I’ve kind of been conditioned to death in a sense, cos my maternal grandmother has been really ill for the past year or so, and now it’s a matter of time, or sorts.

Then it was Gutterflower’s mom going in for surgery to remove some tumours, my closest-thing-I-have-to-a-better-half’s mom getting a colonoscopy, which turned out to be clean, followed by pissu perera’s friend’s mom getting cancer, and this morning the wise-uncle-from-the-bus (who’s quite an interesting character, BTW) declared that his golaya is having cancer.

The contemplation on death is also fed by the unbearable amount of chronic pain that I have in my lower back. I’m becoming something in the line of a druggie. A House MD of sorts (I used to be witty, mean and sarcastic from before. It’s not anything new.), but it’s Tramadol, and not Vicodin in my case. I’m so hooked on the sensation of not having pain, that I pop the pills like I’m chewing M&Ms. And then it’s going back to my ADHD meds (Ritalin) to keep me awake, as Tramadol has quite a strong woozy feeling packed into it when it’s wearing off. And if you’re wondering, yes, I do have ADHD. I though you would’ve noticed by now.

My mother (who is in prime health) is adamant that if she is someday diagnosed with cancer, we shouldn’t treat her. She wants to live with it as long as she can, and then let the cancer take over. I’ve been telling her that I’m getting a court order which states she’s bonkers, and I’m going ahead with the treatment.

This got me thinking, if we look at it from a choice perspective, one should have the choice to make decisions about one’s health, including the choice of getting treatment or not. So what happens to deciding when I don’t want to live anymore? I don’t know if there is a possibility to leave DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) instructions in Sri Lanka. But I do know that the majority of medical professonals would not even consider euthanasia (Medically assisted death) which is a highly debated topic, since they are highly reluctant when it comes to abortions.

So the questions I’m laying out are,

1. Should one be able to refuse medical treatment?
2. Should euthanasia be allowed / legalized?
3. Should abortion be allowed / legalized?

Yesterday was an interesting day. I had two comments which didn’t contribute (positively or negatively) to the posts, but were personal attack hate comments. I was smart enough to figure out that replying to these was the last thing I should do.

After consulting Deane who is a veteran blogger, on what to do about this, his opinion was that I should keep it, as most bloggers do.

I wake up today bright an early as usual, check my mail, and hey! There are two more hate comments on the Say The Magic Word post. I’m thinking, no way. The comments are full of NGO-bashing and death-to-anyone-who-opposes-the-war type of remarks.

So now, I’ve decided to delete hate comments. The criteria for deletion would be simple. If the comment does not contribute to the discussion happening, or of the the comment is just a hate comment, out it goes. Does anyone else have any experience with this?

And if you’re wondering what they were about, the comments were left on the posts about Dayan Jayatillake’s recent Geneva meeting, and  the one on Mahinda Samarasinghe’s statement at the UN Human Rights Commission.

Dayan Jayatillake had an after-lunch chat recently with a couple of folks, where he moderated a panel discussion on the now defunct Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. SLMM has apparently closed down their website also. Total “Pedurath akulang gedara yanawa“

Dayan was stern about the government’s position of “look, but don’t touch” position :

“Engagement, yes; permanent monitoring mission or external presence on the ground, no“.

Mahinda Samarasinghe during his remarks commended China for the solidarity expressed. Modern-day International relations 101 would tell you,

• China commending you on your Human Rights record is a bad thing.
• You thanking China for the said commendation is worse.

China is fast becoming Sri Lanka’s biggest arms supplier. And basic sales rules say customer is always right.

After a short break, BoyToys is back with a new mobile. Readers might remember the Nokia 5610 and the N81 that I looked at a couple of weeks back. So here I am, with a spanking new, Nokia 5310. This was something I was eyeing for a while now. And a friend of mine bought one for me last week, and I’m loving it!

At a glance, it’s a candybar design phone from the XpressMusic family. Has EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, a radio, 2MP camera, and dedicated music keys. It’s incredibly slim for a music phone, measuring in just under 1cm in thickness.

The cons first: There seems to be a couple of software issues with the phone. Nothing big, but things like the phone randomly restarting on its own, and the fact that I still can’t get the GPRS connection hooked up onto my laptop. A bit distressing since I’m writing this from a remote part of Hambantota, and I can’t check my email. I need to call my trusted friend Brickster for that. Hope he doesn’t read the “private” mail.

Camera quality is nothing to party about, but delivers what is expected of a fixed focus 2 megapixel. The lack of a dedicated camera key however, is a bit of a letdown. It manages to record images at 1600×1200 resolution, but video only at 176×144. And video playback is also limited to 3GP format. No MP4, DiVX or FLV here.

Once you’ve overlooked these (minor) issues, the phone really starts to deliver. The phone is very solidly built, and the aluminium-finished keys are a joy to use. If you remember the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic that I purchased last October, you might remember one of my biggest complaints was the music player interface which was a nightmare. This has been addressed almost to perfection with the 5310. Creating and modifying play lists is a snap, and the music player comes with interchangeable skins.
The screen is a almost a dream come true, with everything from photos to videos rendered in vivid and sharp 16-million color detail. It also comes with an ambient light sensor which adjusts the screen brightness depending on the amount of light; more light for brighter situations such as direct sunlight, and lesser brightness for darker places, managing to conserve the battery.

In terms of the “music phone” factor, it delivers by the bucket-load. Sound quality is excellent, and because it comes with the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, you can plug it into your stereo, or if you’re a sound-snob like me, you can buy a super-expensive pair of headphones to enjoy your music (I’m currently looking at a Sennheiser PCX 250, and my birthday is coming up. So, hint hint). The packaged earbud-type earphones provide decent sound quality, and the headset is “transformed” into a handsfree kit via the provided microphone cum extension cord.

So, how would I score it? I’ve decided to move away from the out-of-five scoring system, and give a more qualitative scoring. It’s a brilliant piece of engineering. It’s a dream to use, looks quite cool, and has performance to match. Go ahead and buy one.

Published on the Mirror Magazine on 9th March 2008/

Three posts in one day. That’s a first for PBG, and it shows how bored I am.

It was pretty much the same yesterday. So I did a bit of rhyming and came up with this, which I sent to a couple of friends who might have work for me.

This is me being me, and checking to see…
If you’ve got work, which is not free…
Kind of jobless and quite broke…
Which inspired this rhyme as a friendly poke…

Shows how broke I am, and bored I am. So if anyone is looking for a Photographer, Blogger, Freelance Journalist, Copywriter, Event Manager, Translator, Designer, Dialogue Facilitator, E-Discussion Moderator to work on freelance basis, or on short term assignment, leave a comment.

The Sri Lanka Youth Parliament is a youth led, youth run initiative, whose aim is to mobilize and create a network of young people to bring about positive and sustainable change to issues that affect youth and their communities in Sri Lanka .

The first step towards this endeavor was the ‘first sitting of the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament’ (SLYP 2005) which took place on the 24th to the 28th of August 2005 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall.

Building upon the successes of the inaugural sitting of the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament (SLYP) 2005 a diverse mix of youth activists, Action Partners, and members of the original steering committee are putting their heads together to formulate and implement the next cycle of action for the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament.

Young people who are between the ages of 16 to 25 who are interested in working in their communities to address social issues, and are committed to work towards creating a cohesive Sri Lanka are invited to apply to become Action Partners. Those who are currently actively involved in social change activities are invited to apply, as are the budding social activists who have a dream and a vision within them to be the change they want to see. They would then come together during a learning, sharing, enabling and empowering event in the form of the Second Sitting of the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament in September 2008.

Download Application (PDF)

For applications and related inquires, contact:
(011) 2697355 (Sheela) / 0717599211 (Dinidu) / 0773248393 (Jaliya)
Email: infoslyp@bcis.edu.lk

For organizational / corporate support related inquires, contact:
0777259155 (Hisham) / 0773248393 (Jaliya)

To volunteer before and during SLYP 2008 and related inquires, contact:
0717599211 (Dinidu) / 0773503976 (Supipi)

Mahinda Samarasinghe made a breakthrough statement at the UN Human Rights Council on the 4th.

Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe responding to the earlier statements made by a few countries on the situation in Sri Lanka strongly refuted the assertion that the situation has worsened.

He said “We regret one or two statements made here, that fly in the face of all concrete evidence, that the situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating, when we have dealt more firmly with terrorism, with far-less damage to civilians, than in any comparative situation.“

(Defence.lk – 4/3/2007)

Following the example, Sir Elton John stated that he is not gay, George W said that Iraq was under complete control of the US and Hugh Hefner said that the girls are there to help him keep the Mansion clean. I also made a breakthrough statement, in which I finally declared that I’m damn cute.

The Air Traffic Controller at the Bandaranaike International Airport during an official media conference said that they have tracked a number of flying objects which they’ve later identified as pigs. So, pigs have officially flown.

Apparently there have been some issue with the creation of a mosque at Kadawatha Road down Dehiwala. Navigating on Balance blog had a backgrounder.

In Ramazan this year, some Muslims started a thakkiya (small mosque) on Kadawatha Road , Dehiwela and were conducting tharaweeh prayers. The mosque was operating on a very low key and causing no hindrance to anyone. However some Sinhalese villagers banded together, along with a few monks who then sent a delegation to this mosque demanding them to stop conducting prayers. The activities of the mosque were stopped overnight. Some Sinhalese villagers had already started intimidating Muslims in the area and dumping garbage right in front of the building in question.

Deane summed up the situation pretty well. Upto now, Sri Lanka only had the some LTTE guys strapping bombs to themselves and jumping in front of the Secretary of Defence. We didn’t have the type who strapped bombs to themselves and jumped in front of school buses yelling “Allahu Akbar”.

Sri Lanka has some paramilitary factions, and segments of the established military forces which are religiously biased.

The second thing which we need to remember is that even though Sri Lankans are smart when considered as individuals, when taken as “people”, the majority of Sri Lankans are bleeding stupid. This was evident in the 1983 July series of incidents, when CBK lost her eye, and even now, when the cost of living is shooting through the roof.

Sri Lanka is not a secular state. If it was a secular state, the constitution wouldn’t give prominence to Buddhism. And when you have a president who came into power on the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist wave, the people who voted for him are also high on Buddhist-Nationalistic meth. And you don’t want to piss them off. They’re not the type to burn themselves, but to take to arms in a very non-Buddhist manner.

You won’t go around Texas wearing a “Fuck Bush” T-shirt, you wouldn’t ask for a bacon sandwich aboard Emirates, you wouldn’t publish a blog post on the Prophet Cartoons incident after three years without getting hammered, you shouldn’t build a mosque down Kadawatha Road. In an ideal world, you would. But then, that’s the ideal world. This place we’re living in, is far from that.