I was trying to register a business name at drc.gov.lk but their payment gateway was broken. So, I drove out to central Colombo, missed the place, turned back, parked, went inside, asked two people, got the form, forgot my pen, went back inside, asked a question, filled it out, got it stamped, gave it to the cashier, came back with the receipt, was told to come back in two days. Phew. And to think, all that work could be replaced by fixing literally one click online.

Consider this an info-layout. This shows the size of India’s Internet population, how many are on mobile, Facebook, and a map showing electrification for color.

The Southern Expressway (E01) served 6,000 vehicles in its first 18 hours, collecting Rs. 1.5 million in tolls and seeing one accident. As the latter shows, for this highway, it’s important to read the manual. The RDA has been running ads in all the papers, I noticed when I wiped my face with one at the lunch kade. Here are some of the relevant instructions republished.

My friend Imaad is hosting a poetry jam at Green Path tomorrow. To quote: “Poetry jam(/open mic) this Wednesday, 30th november, 5 pm onward at Green Path, Colpetty. spread the word.” It’ll feature musicians, some sketch artists and poetry. The Green Path house is past the checkpoint (before Liberty roundabout), first left. There’s a map here.

The Colombo Southern Expressway opened to much fanfare and one accident. It’s still a great thing. To quote a tweet from Hajara: “It took just 55 minutes from Galle to Kottawa.. And I am supposed to believe this is #LKA. I love #E01 =]” What you may not know is that highways are being planned from Jaffna, Kandy, Katunayake, and a ring road around Colombo. Soon much more of the country will be an hour or two away.

Contrary to popular belief, the Buddha did not visit Sri Lanka, was not Sinhalese and would not recognize what we call the Buddhist flag. He was an Indian, sorta, except at that time India didn’t exist. More than anything he was a human being. While Sri Lanka has done yeoman service in preserving Theravada Buddhism, a simple and practical form, it’s important to remember that Buddhism is a practice open to anyone.

This starts off quite normally, until they start eating lightbulbs, smashing bricks on their heads and getting run over by Tata Nanos. It is literally like watching a street riot on stage. It just gets crazier and crazier until the judges are covering their eyes and screaming. The image of a young boy waving an Indian flag on top of three men on three bed-o-nails is terrifying.

What strikes me about old school prophets was how inquisitive and iconoclastic they were. If we had a prophet today I’m sure she would not reject science but fold that reality into something greater, and no not like Scientology. People talk of science destroying wonder or somehow sterilizing what’s natural, and I think nothing could be further from the truth. Science is awesome and inspires awe. For example, outer space.

I’m all for the Southern Expressway. It makes going south for holidays easier and makes living out of Colombo more feasible. It just opened yesterday, and saw its first crash when a vehicle skidded off the road. Despite having a history of ancient water engineering, Sri Lankans have a surprising propensity to be surprised by the rain. Yesterday it rained in spits and this seems to have caused a vehicle (carrying a foreigner and local driver) to skid off the road.

You could loosely divide the past into oral, literal and digital ages. Oral would be prehistory up to Homer and on, spoken word. Literal would be books, and digital would be, like, the Internet. Those were the mediums. What was the massage? How did we touch the medium, throughout those ages, how did we connect? Then I got to thinking about it. Digital (literally) means fingers. As fancy as we think this tech is, that’s how we connect.