Kottu and .NET Bloggers
on a completely random note, I just saw the coolest Cow in the Kottu photostream. It’s an excellent shot by Saisiv, and props to him. Especially the kids running in the background.
Jinath has raised a fully valid point as to me deleting his blog from Kottu without warning. What happened with the .NET blogs is that they’re good, normal blogs – but very committed to the .NET niche. Which is great. The only thing is that Kottu would get like 5 reports of Visual Basic being released, or the new Microsoft Certification or whatever. They’re useful for that community, but not too interesting for the Sri Lankan community at large. I wouldn’t mind in small doses, but the .NET bloggers are extremely prolific. Which is good, I just don’t think that many people who read Kottu are developers.
The reason that people were deleted without telling them was because I was lazy and frustrated. One day I checked Kottu and there were like 15 posts on Visual Studio 2005. I’m pretty geeky, but that information isn’t relevant to me. Unless you write Microsoft Software you’re not going to use Visual Studio. It’s not exactly Sri Lanka specific either, so I didn’t think it belonged on Kottu. For a while I’d been filing the posts as ‘No’, which didn’t show up on the front page, but it was taking too much time. So, that day I just deleted a bunch of blogs from the Blogroll. The best compromise works on sites like Merill’s where I can just syndicate the feed for his ‘Sri Lanka’ category.
I’d like to implement a more democratic administration of Kottu (i.e. less work for me) but until then I guess I’ll make editorial decisions. I added something to the About page on ‘niche technical content’. Jinath say that “Apart from technical things we blog about sri lankan .NET user group things and .net events also”, but I still think that’s too niche. Geeks and developers are important, but that the average Kottu reader doesn’t need to know about ASP.NET 2.0 or VB .NET or the latest certifications. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The Mahavamsa (a history of Sri Lanka) is full of conflicts between generals and kings. Usually, the more bloodthirsty and unscrupulous would win. Our current (elected) ruler Mahinda Rajapaksa has had his own general conflicts, namely with one Sarath Fonseka. In the old days Fonseka would have staged a coup, as in literally try to cut of Mahinda’s head, and Mahinda would – if that failed – tie him to four elephants and split his parts asunder. Can’t do that shit anymore. Instead Fonseka ran for office and lost and Mahinda tossed him in jail.
Today on the 
Janith has updated 
This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like 
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