Archduke Franz Ferdinand is famous mainly for dying and setting off World War I, which in turn set off World War II. It thankfully wasn’t a trilogy. Above, however, is a photo of him killing something. In this case an elephant, in what was then Ceylon, AKA Sri Lanka. Honestly, looking at that photo makes me want to assassinate him a little bit. Perhaps the elephants had their revenge.

Everybody likes sex, but I suppose not everyone is getting it. According to Google, Sri Lanka is number one in regional interest for search terms relating to sex. By a mile – Sri Lanka scores 100 (out of 100) and Bangladesh and India are number two and three with 87. In response, the National Child Protection Authority has taken the sensible step of asking for sex education to be taught in schools, rather than people Googling for it (or, more likely, learning from porn).

The game Colombo Racer is out tomorrow. This follows Colombo Ride 3D, which was a trishaw ride around Colombo. This latest version (for Android phones now) follows the buzz of the Colombo Night Races to let you take proper racing cars around the city, beginning with Fort.

I saw this on Conan of all things, with comic Charlyne Yi explaining how Sri Lankans kept mistaking her for a boy. And telling her so. There’s a lot of stuff things Sri Lankans say to, well, anyone that can seem rude or odd to outsiders. Questioning gender is one of them, here are a few others.

There are a lot of Sri Lankan eCommerce sites these days. Anything.lk has combined with Dialog’s various ventures into wow.lk, a shopping aggregator of sorts. Venture capitalists have backed takas.lk (an electronics store) and just today I saw AVStore.lk, a site selling somewhat specialized audio equipment.

The Ministry Of Health has released new standards for the types of food people should donate to monks. Alms givings are a hallowed part of Sri Lankan culture, and a good one, as it enables people to renounce the world and meditate and survive. Over time, however, it’s become cultural practice than a religious one and monks, who ideally eat minimally and mindfully, have been eating too much rich food, leading to these rather shocking stats:

The cabal at the ITU seems to be losing their effort to bring the Internet under UN control. Which is good, because that’s as terrible an idea as it sounds. Now India is opposing the move, leaving Saudi Arabia, China and Russia as its proponents (which should tell you something). What was most interesting about India was their statement, perhaps the most expansive defense of Internet freedom I’ve heard:

Il Gelato is selling dog ice cream for Rs. 280 a cup (80g). For reference, a liter (1,000g) of Elephant House is Rs. 220. Which is to say, this is expensive ice cream. I’m not one to say that people shouldn’t buy expensive things while others struggle, but this is a bit out there. I mean, the ice cream isn’t even good.

Dialog has recently re-launched wow.lk, formerly a Suntel portal, as a sort of e-commerce aggregator. I’m sure it was a Herculean effort to integrate iBuy, anything.lk, Tradenet, etc, but it all sorta comes together. Into something I don’t want to use, admittedly, but something which I’m sure has some appeal.

Ceynor is a seafood restaurant near Fort which is actually supposed to be OK. However, they’re severely damaged their reputation by trying to cheat HSBC customers – offering them a public discount and then giving them another menu with higher prices, thus negating the discount. It’s so stupid that it almost boggles the mind. In another country that might be serious damage to a business, but I oddly feel inclined to go try them now. I do hear that the food is ok.