Friday Linkdump – Ganja, Sex, Digg
Marijuana photo by Jesse Warren
I do a lot more reading than writing and this is an attempt to bridge the gap. These are some of the things I thought were interesting this week, as posted on del.icio.us. Delicious, incidentally, is owned by Yahoo (like Flickr) meaning the dullard of the Internet giants is at least buying OK stuff. This week in the SL Blogosphere there was a good sex post from Ravana, a soft launch of a Digg-type ratings site and a report from an Italian fellow in Galle. There was a more general report on why 90% of people don’t contribute online but rather read (not a bad thing). In other stuff, I also saw a few things on Iraq, menstruation, solar-powered backpacks and why Hip-Hop has degenerated to the point that it’s hard to listen to.
Troops battle 10-foot marijuana plants – Yahoo! News
Canadian troops in Afghanistan are having to fight enemies hidden in thick marijuana forests. They’ve been trying to burn the marijuana to eliminate cover but that had ‘side effects’ (marijuana war funny … saved by 2 other people… just posted)
lkHOT – Sri Lankan Digg Implementation
Digg is a popular tech site that allow people to ‘vote’ for posts, which rise to the top. Makes for good content. This is an implementation of a similar engine for Sri Lankan content (to digg srilanka websites … 5 hours ago)
A new pill stops menstruation – Slate Magazine
I think you can already do this with current birth control. Apparently the period you get under the normal pill is ‘fake’, there’s no egg to disburse.(to period pill contraception fertility menstruation … saved by 1 other person … 22 hours ago)
Lets Talk About Sex in Sri Lanka
Ravana on Sex, and why discussion is so taboo in the SL (to srilanka sex … 23 hours ago)
Interesting article on the late Kethesh from the University Teachers for Human Rights. Everyone is biased, but this seemed insightful until it got into electoral judgements. Or maybe I just don’t agree (to srilanka uthr kethesh politics ltte … 1 day ago)
Is a fetish of mine, wireless power, but it can’t charge a laptop. It can charge other gadgets, however (cell phone, camera) and it looks pretty cool. This is designer however, and freaking expensive ($700), though 100% of profits go to Doctors Without Borders (to solar backpack charger shopping … 1 day ago)
Literature review which says ‘ In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.’ ( community participation lurkers blogging online … saved by 425 other people … 1 day ago)
From Washington Post. I don’t remember a Hip-Hop that wasn’t violent and sexist, but apparently it existed. (music hip-hop … saved by 10 other people … 1 day ago)
The only worthwhile post on the thing from the only guy I know in Galle (galle ltte srilanka war navy … 1 day ago)
Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite? – New York Times
Scary (anecdotal) report from the States on how many candidates do not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite. In the midst of an Iraqi civil war along those lines, that might be important (nytimes iraq sunni shiite security incompetence … saved by 8 other people … 2 days ago)
I recently wrote about gay marriage, which is not even on the radar in Sri Lanka. But we have another type of marriage discrimination here as well. Foreign marriage. If you marry someone non Sri Lankan, they can never become a citizen. Their lives and their rights to even be in the same country as their children are permanently unstable, and it’s patently unfair.
When 
I started off not really liking General Sarath Fonseka, him being part of the aggressive war effort. I didn’t support the war (largely cause I thought it would fail), and I thought Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Fonseka were gleefully stomping everything. Fonseka even came out and said “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people,” in 2008 (
General Sarath Fonseka was arrested on a bunch of trumped up charges, but mainly for daring to threaten Mahinda in a Presidential election. Despite his poor health, Fonseka was arrested in February 2010 and sentence to three years. Word on the street now, however, is that he’ll be released soon. Like any day now. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has told 
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