Happy Independence Day. If you want to see how far Sri Lanka has come, just see Independence Square. In 1995, a cart bomb went off there, killing 22. For years afterwards it was neglected, high security, and dark. In the past few years, the space has blossomed. It’s now full of people, voices and light. If you walk around there you feel free. Free from traffic, free from pollution and – most importantly – free from war.

Not that Sri Lanka doesn’t still face demons. Corruption and crime are still major problems, problems we’re only beginning to see since the front pages have room. Walking around, however, you can see that – for the first time – we have the wherewithal to even begin to face ourselves.

Post-Independence, Sri Lanka never really had a secure government. The first Bandaranaike Prime Minister was killed. His wife faced a military coup. JR Jayawardena lost (some say gave) control of Colombo in bloody anti-Tamil riots that stain the honor of Sri Lanka still. President Premadasa was killed, Chandrika Bandaranaike lost an eye, et cetera. This is actually the first time the country has been united in any coherent sense. It is the first time we’ve been independent from both the British and, well, ourselves.

…

I think the guys who make money are running the dispatch services. Trishaw drivers pay some amount per month to get referrals, so they just have to run a small call center and connect customers with drivers. So, that’s what I know of trishaw economics.

The thing is that I take trishaws all the time but I’d never consider buying one. There’s a social thing about being a trishaw driver and – ads showing middle class families with trishaws aside – it’s not a real class marker. I see more office guys taking families on motorbikes than in trishaws, it really is more of a taxi and a job than a form of personal transport. AFAIK. They’re really not a bad mode of transport, if a bit unsafe. If they were electric and had doors to keep the smog out I guess I might consider it. Perhaps Vespa should make a trishaw for hipsters.

Maya Krishna Rao, channeling Ravana

I honestly didn’t get it. I’ll be honest here. I was mostly befuddled and bored, and irritated at the sheer volume of sound. The story is damn interesting.

There are numerous Ramayanas, the story of Rama trashing Lanka to get back Sita (like the Iliad. Or Mario Bros). There are a few (The Slaying Of Meghananda) that take Lanka and Ravana’s side. But not many.

On stage

In Rao’s interpretation, Ravana is misunderstood and she’s trying to understand him. Through vaguely traditional movement, a lot of untraditional movement (including a dance number to Michael Jackson’s Bad), and spoken word and sound. The story is that, well, Sita was a Moses baby, cast downstream cause it was told she would get her father killed. Rao’s idea is that Ravana was Sita’s father. Which is a pretty Vader take.

It sounds more interesting than it was, at least to me. A fair amount of the play was her messing around with clothes and opening her MacBook and drinking tea onstage. Interesting idea though.

The traditional epic take is that Ravana was once Vishnu’s guard. He pulled the velvet rope on some VIP, which resulted in earthside exile. Ravan had to go through I think 10 rebirths before he could come back. Ravana was the last birth, and Rama was Vishnu, so killing him was karmically complete.

Sita’s narrative, however, is really the central part of the story and it’s largely unwritten. Nina Paley did an excellent animated take in Sita Sings The Blues, btw.

Rao explores another aspect of Sita via Ravana, essentially the big question mark that’s their relationship (hostage/captor as it were). However, a fair amount was too abstract or self-absorbed to really capture me. There was a fair amount of deliberation about the artistic process on stage, a fair amount of severe abstraction, and ear splitting amount of volume, at least where I was sitting.

So, interesting story, but wasn’t a huge fan of the presentation. Other people were. It was a good event. Happy birthday and thank you.

Artwork by psd.

What this means in practice is that your behavior across Search, Maps, YouTube, etc, will be combined to provide a better product and, more importantly, serve you better ads. Google is actually more transparent than Facebook in this regard, but it still gets more blowback.

Honestly, Google is like the nerd who helps you with your homework whereas Facebook is a friend. People voluntarily tell Facebook everything, but Google has to sit on the sidelines, just listening. Even if Google is better (or equally) well-intentioned, it still comes off as creepy.

Anyways, that’s my general impression. If you have a sense of the new privacy policy, do tell me what you think.

Shitworks, Bambalapitiya. Photo by Navin.

Offer from the Shirtworks FB page.

Well played Shirtworks, well played.

Plotto. It’s a pretty sexy book.

Well, some things are better in print. This particular book is called Plotto: The Master Book Of All Plots. It is a rather detailed manual for stitching together outline plots (1,462 to be exact, with more variations in character and conflict). I actually bought the book on my Kindle and found it incomprehensible. It’s not like Game Of Thrones, you can’t just read it through, you have to flip around, mark pages, get a visceral feel of where stuff is. So, I returned the Kindle edition (which took like 10 seconds) and ordered the print. It just arrived today, and it’s worth it.

Why? It’s beautiful for one thing, but I’ve never been that attached to books on a fetish level. What’s more important to me is the function. This book uses a not simple annotation, so I have to keep referring back to indexes and glossaries. On a Kindle this is exceedingly painful, but with a book it’s natural. The annotation for any one conflict scenario has multiple references going back and forward, which I can manage in book form. Since the Kindle edition isn’t hyperlinked, this is effectively impossible. Even if it was, it’s confusing and not fun.

So, that’s one aspect where print wins. Reference books (of a certain kind). I still think school textbooks should be electronic, largely for cost reasons.

Another book I ordered in print was Religion In Human Evolution, simply because it’s huge. Also, because it’s something I like referring to for writing blog posts. On my Kindle (an old version) moving around is very annoying. You can’t really flip through, or jump back, not with any natural sense of where you are. Yes you can jump to reference numbers, but they’re like 0-12,000, which I find baffling. I’m perfectly happy with the Kindle for fiction and shorter non-fiction, but for anything more dense or interactive I prefer a physical book.

So is print dead? No. When humans evolved away from apes it’s not like apes disappeared, our cousins the chimpanzees now occupy a similar niche. In the same way, books have their own niche. eBooks are getting more advanced all the time and they have huge advantages, namely time and money. The interfaces will undoubtably improve. For me, however, I’m quite happy to live in an ecosystem with both eBooks and print, ordering both as best suits the occasion.

The other event that wrecked Colombo, of course, was the anti-Tamil riots of 1983, also a deep shame. The cycles of violence that had been building for years really hit home in 1996. From that point Colombo was a battlefield, the site of numerous terrorist attacks, I think the most upon any one city until, perhaps, Baghdad. The LTTE, lest anyone doubt, was at its core a terrorist organization and this was what it did – killing Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and foreigners alike.

I really don’t want to get into tit for tat here. Both were unjustifiable acts of violence and neither justified the other. Let’s just say that we mourn the Central Bank Bombing now, Black July in July and both, in their own way, every day.

The tragic irony is that Colombo is a majority Tamil speaking city (including Muslims) and, more than anywhere, is where people coexist. This was tragic in that the 83 riots played out here, and in that the LTTE continually targeted the city. Colombo is also a city that gives the lie to the idea of racial separation being a solution. Then what of all the minorities in Colombo or, more accurately, what of the majority in Colombo?

Until this year, really, you could still feel the shock waves of the Central Bank Bombing. As recently as April 2010 I wrote “Downtown Colombo is a strange post-apocalyptic scene – full of troops, barricades and crumbling, shuttered buildings”. Only now are we seeing redevelopment – the Dutch Hospital Shopping Complex, the Colombo Night Races – and this is only because the war ended and terrorism stopped. Now people can live, work and play in the city without worrying about a portal to hell suddenly emerging on the street. Thank God that’s over, and peace upon those who have and who were lost.

Thing is that I already learned Java in University. And forgot. So I’m relearning those basic principles, and learning that JavaScript is quite different from Java (in a good way). Even if you’re a pure beginner, however, it’s pretty easy. The thing goes step by step, and you can run and test code from within the browser. It gradually gets more advanced, but it’s gamified, with badges and stuff.

Pretty cool. If you’re going to learn anything, code is good to know. I recommend.

The Dreamland Bar, Slave Island. Homeless man underneath.

There are a couple of obvious options:

1. Work From Home

You can work from home. A lot of people do this now. The disadvantages are that it’s sometimes harder to work with other people. You can’t drop by someone’s desk, you aren’t motivated to stay late cause everyone else is there, all those subtle human cues that are worth so much. Those problems can all be technically solved, however, perhaps through gamification of the same objectives. As in, offer badges or high scores for doing the behaviors that make a physical office run, and make those behaviors more natural through better user interfaces, video-conferencing, whatever.

What, however, about things you kinda need to do in the same physical space? Negotiating deals, drinking with clients, overseeing construction. These can all be combined with business travel, taking you away for much longer than 45 minutes. What do you do then?

2. Home From Work

The traditional respite from this separation is calling or Skypeing home. In terms of the tangibles of a healthy relationship, however, this often reminds you of how much you’re missing. You can’t relax or lounge or have sex, and at the end of the day you’re still alone in a hotel room. What if, however you could have a much more tangible experience of being back home, or of being anywhere with the people you care about?

Inception had it right in drawing on lucid dreaming. When it comes to Virtual Reality, your brain already is the best equipment possible, and we go to hyper-realistic places ever night. What if you could lucid dream that you were back home, and consensually hallucinate whatever or wherever with your loved ones? Hence you could be a thousand miles away but still tangibly be with your homies, as if in a dream.

Then What

At some point, however, these two concepts mix. If you can work from home or home from work with almost equal ease, then what do you do? Do you virtual dream into work – using your brain’s computational power for an awesome virtual office – or do you virtual dream home – going on some Bollywood escapade with your wife. When everything feels real, where are you, really?

Monty Python’s Ministry Of Silly Walks

Constitution

I skimmed through the Constitution but I can’t find anything relevant. Since whole chunks of the Constitution (ie, the 13th Amendment) are completely disregarded, perhaps we can concede that this is not a fundamental rights issue.

Company Law

I think the relevant section goes something like this:

No firm, individual or corporation shall carry on business in Sri Lanka under a business name which-

(a) contains the words-

(i) ” President “, ” Presidential”‘, ” National ” ” State ” or ” Sri Lanka ” or which in the opinion of the Registrar suggests, or is likely to suggest the patronage of the President or any connection with the Government or any department thereof ;
(ii) ” Municipal ” or ” incorporated ” or “company ” or its abbreviation, or which in the opinion of the Registrar suggests or is likely to suggest connection with any municipality or other local authority or with any society or body incorporated by Act of Parliament or otherwise ; or
(iii) ” corporation ‘” or ” society ”

You can view the exact docs at the Registrar Of Companies.

Note that the term ‘Ministry’ is not explicitly banned. Hence the registrar would have to conclude that Ministry Of Crab suggests the patronage of state which, like, really? I don’t think it suggests that this a government department, any more than the Dutch Hospital Shopping Complex is a hospital.

Ministry Of Silly Walks

I would venture that the President’s Secretary and Registrar are over-reacting. The law and enforcement of law are drastically different in Sri Lanka, and largely depend on the whims of the President. I think they’ve taken his offhand comment as a whim and are doing a rather silly walk in response to it. I’m assuming this will blow over. If not, well, that would be silly.

The holding cell of the last king, in what is now a parking lot.

Royalty and power are often about family and class more than race. The current British royal family is actually of German descent, having changed their name from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor after Gotha aircraft began bombing London. Around the same time, King George V’s first cousin Nicholas II was on the throne in Russia. European history is full of foreign monarchs who could barely speak the language of the country’s they inherited or married into.

Anyways, Sri Lanka was no different, and the last Kandyan kingdom was taken by one Prince Kannasamy, a member of the Madurai royal family. The current lion flag, which some take as a sign of Sinhala chauvinism, was actually (perhaps mythically) brought to the island by an Indian (Vijaya) and last flown by a Tamil King (Sri Vikrama Rajasinha).

AFAIK, for a while Tamil queens were imported, until Vira Narendra Sinha died without a heir. At that point the throne passed to his wife’s brother, and remained with the Nayakkars till the whole monarchy ended 75 years later.

In the end, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was deposed due to some fascinating scheming and double crossing by Prime Ministers and the British shipped him off to exile in Madurai, or shipped him back to Madurai, depending on how you looked at it. It just goes to show that race is just one way of looking at things, and it terms of power, rarely the most relevant.

Android droid at Cinnamon Lakeside.

Business Model – Hardware Independent

Neither Google nor Microsoft were direct pioneers. They both copied a lot from Apple, while changing the business model. Both took Apple innovations and made them hardware-independent.

Apple makes both hardware and software, leaving a huge market gap. The company’s tight control makes for great products, but it also makes for limited supply, high prices, and often dictatorial behavior. Apple simply doesn’t sell their products in many parts of their world, and the products are rarely affordable to the mass.

By contrast, companies that separate hardware from software have been able to drastically drive down prices through competition. However, this also tends to lower the quality of experience. Microsoft Windows enabled other companies to make hardware, driving prices down and supply up. Google’s Android has done the same thing. For this reason both Windows and Android were able to overtake Apple in market share, if not profitability

The Difference Between MS And Google

The difference is that Microsoft is largely reviled among geeks whereas Android is revered. Why? Because Windows cost money and spread through piracy more than anything else, especially in the developing world. Android is (kinda) open source and free, so they haven’t fought the tide on that one. Windows actually did help millions of people, but they were grudging about it. Google has been generous.

Do They Suck?

One place where they may be similar is that both Windows and Android may be subjectively worse than the Apple products they’ve emulated. Windows just sucked, but most Android implementations are needlessly tinkered with by phone hardware companies. Android phones often lack the ease of use and unity of vision of iOS. I wouldn’t say that Android sucks, but I think an iPhone/iPad is still generally sexier than an equivalent Android smartphone or tablet.

So

Still, I think it’s just striking that Apple creates these markets and then leaves, essentially, a majority share open to hardware-independent vendors. This must be conscious, in their desire to control quality, but without Steve Jobs, I wonder if they can A) keep opening new markets and B) maintain a quality level verging on art. I also wonder if Google can do better than Microsoft in pushing direct innovation rather than simply filling market gaps that others have left open.

Opposite GFG is like an unofficial parking lot. You used to see military vehicles, then steamrollers, now buses. Rows upon rows. You can’t quite see from this photo, but there are at least 10 buses parked here. These are the new Volvos These are Micros, and I think there is one Volvo now running on the Galle Road. You have about as much chance of catching it as catching a unicorn. Hopefully this lot should improve the odds.

Update: Rise Of Lanka has more details on this, including my photo :). Apparently they’re going to deploy eight buses at peak time, for a fare about 2.5 times the usual.

UPDATE: Here’s the Daily Mirror on the subject. Appara the buses are Chinese, but made by Micro here.

New luxury buses imported from China will be introduced to six routes in the Colombo city this month (February) as part of a pilot project to promote public transportation to passengers who use private vehicles, the Transport Ministry said today.

Ministry officials said it would introduce low-floor, air conditioned buses and they will ply the following routes: Moratuwa-Pettah, Kesbewa-Pettah, Negombo-Pettah, Gampaha-Pettah, Kaduwela-Fort (via Malambe) and Homagama-Pettah routes…

The eight new buses provided by Micro Cars Ltd will be run by the Sri Lanka Transport Board and will run during peak hours in the morning and evening in 15 minute intervals. (New luxury buses from China)

The Unsavory Valley

Sri Lankan cuisine suffers from an Unsavory Valley. Lower class food is great, but then it drops off there, for a long time. On the other side of the valley there’s barely a bump, as Sri Lankan high cuisine hasn’t really evolved yet.

Home food is great and cheap food is great, but the moment a restaurant commercializes it starts to suck. The place gets fully tiled, the service gets terrible and the food loses the love and honesty that made it good. Only one (running) restaurant has come out on the other side of the valley (Ministry Of Crab, IMHO), combining local flavors with innovations that add value rather than volume.

For daily value, however, I’m quite happy with the local, cheap bath kades. My bath kade in particular. Perhaps you have yours.

Look For The Kade With No Name

The best bath kades have no names. They are literally part of someone’s house and they make more than they would usually get. This is, in essence, home-cooked food and it’s both cheaper and more tasty than anything else. These are places which you (obviously) won’t see driving by, but they are where people in the neighborhood would eat. Here are a few for reference:

• Saranakkara: on Sri Saranakkara Road, Dehiwela there is a nameless joint that serves the best vegetables and rice, occasionally a tender and succulent chicken. Tamil flavors, but the usual Sinhala rice and curry formula (these are vague distinctions). It’s near the Canal bypass road, near some place called Sampath
• Bath Amma’s: We call this place Bath Amma’s, literally Rice Mother’s. They have a great pork curry and Bath Akka is pretty hot. You literally eat in their dining room, surrounded by family photos and kids. It’s across from Majestic City, near Romafour, down a tiny indistinguishable lane. I think they’ve put out a board.
• Yarl: I think this place was featured by Anthony Bourdain. Just down Wellawatte Station road there is a literal hole in the wall, between some appliance repair shops, I think. You walk in and they serve spicy crab, goat meat and cuttlefish on banana leaf plates. Jaffna (Yarl) style.

Rules Of Thumb

These, of course, are just the kades I know. Since these things are nameless, they’re often unknown until you know, or unless you know someone that knows. They’re not places you’d find with a car or any guidebook, and they’re usually not places you’d know unless you live or work in the area. As a general rule of thumb, well, here are a few rules of thumb.

1. Avoid places that look gentrified (even more, avoid places where they’ve spent money to look village)
2. Avoid places with waiters
3. Avoid places with menus
4. Favor places that are busy
5. Favor places that look family run
6. Favor places without signs or branding
7. Try random places that fit this criteria

I must admit, I saw that the film was sponsored by Groundviews and thought that it would be (negative) agenda-driven as well, ie, complaining about how Sri Lanka sucks and demanding the usual pound of flesh from the government. But it’s not. There is actually no external narrative to the film at all. It’s just mechanics and taxi drivers talking about what actually happened. Blaming the content on Kannan is a bit like blaming a mirror.

Anyways, here’s the Island’s piece, for reference:

One of the four short movies shown at the Galle Lit Festival 2012 on Friday targeted Sri Lanka over banning transport of medicine, fuel and food to the northern Jaffna peninsula in the 90s.

Directed by Kannan Arunasalam’s ‘ Kerosene’ which had been used previously by those campaigning against the present government, wouldn’t have upset any if the event wasn’t sponsored by countries trying to haul Sri Lanka up before an international war crimes tribunal…

When the sponsors declared that they were independent and the Sri Lankan state had nothing to do with the Galle Lit Festival, the journalist pointed out Norway and the Netherlands were among the sponsors.

This is dumb for multiple reasons A) the film was average people telling their truth B) I guess that ‘used by people’ would be the Groundviews type affiliation, but that’s not the film itself C) the sponsorship thing is just dumb, those governments also ‘sponsor’ the government and, again, the film is not the venue.

There is this tendency from both the government and people hostile to the government to lump any stimulus into their preset agenda ie, ‘Everybody Hates Us’ or ‘We Really Do Hate Them’. This should be resisted. There are a lot of human beings in between, and this film just transmits their voices.

All I could say is to watch the film, and check out Kannan’s IAM project (an ode to 50 Cent a collection of direct narratives from the elderly and awesome). I had to get past the sponsors and venue and usual battle lines, but if you just watch the films it is what it says on the box. Old people talking about their memories, simply accounting the past. It’s a worthwhile and entertaining record to have and behold. I suppose we must thank The Island for giving it publicity.

These signs to ‘Keep The City Clean’ are now at almost every bus stand. I’ve kept track though, and I have yet to find a garbage can within 200 meters of any such sign. One would think that the graphic of a guy throwing something in a trash can would be next to an actual trash can, but no.

So, now that the city has briefed on garbage cans and how to use them, it would be nice to actually have some.

Art by by Thilina Prasangika. This lady is her mum.

Stiltwalkers At The Kala Pola

Green Path (or Ananda Coomaraswamy, or Nelum Pokuna, the road name keeps changing and even now is named different things every hundred meters or so)… mmm, too long, starting over. Green Path is between the Vihara Maha Devi Park and the National Art Gallery and artists have been selling their wares there for years. Both the park and the gallery have been kinda neglected, however, and the art thing was an amateur affair. Now that they’ve opened the Nelum Pokuna performing arts center and are kinda fixing up the park, they’re doing the street stuff in a big way.

They’ve shut down Green Path for stuff in the evening, and during the day they seem to do this kala pola somewhat regularly now.

Art by Thilini Prabhath (I’m guessing at the name)

Some of the art is derivative, but some is quite interesting and original. Even the stuff which wears its influences like a knock-off Louis-Vuitton bag can be nice to have around the house. I was in the bus going past and I just got out to see.

Quite colorful circle art by Colin Girabaddana, 071 187 1930

It’s really lovely to see people in the streets, walking, talking, eating, looking at art, buying stuff. Terrorism really cramps street culture, but it’s coming back. I think it’s going on right now, I just came home for a nap. Do check it out, or check out some more photos thereof.

The books are all old. Some old books are fine, but as you can see, they’re almost all rebound Indian reprints of books that were relevant somewhere else 20 years ago. They were reshelving things so the Philosophy section contained the Princess Diaries and kids books were piled on tables. Entire sections (History Of Known Persons) were missing and other books were misfiled (there was a history of England in the Mesopotamia section).

Space wise, also, it’s tiny. I could throw a ball across the length of the lending library, and I can’t throw that far. I won’t even get into how one actually borrows a book, in Dehiwela at least it’s a process that involves an application form, references and an absurdly small yet annoying deposit. I didn’t even try. The library isn’t especially welcoming, all but one of the doors are barricaded with a table and a security guard asks everyone where they’re going. ‘To the library?’ I said. He asked why and I said to look at books. That seemed unusual but enough.

As you enter there’s a rather grotesque statue and a picture of former President Premadasa. I don’t think the library’s seen much hope since then.

Sri Lanka donates about 3,000 corneas a year and has provided tissue to 57 countries over nearly a half century, with Pakistan receiving the biggest share, according to the nonprofit Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society…

The U.S. is the world’s biggest cornea provider, sending more than 16,000 corneas to other countries in 2010, according to the Eye Bank Association of America. But Sri Lanka, which is 15 times smaller, actually donates about triple that number of corneas per capita each year.

There is no waiting list for eye tissue in Sri Lanka, and its people get first access to free corneas. About 40,000 have been transplanted locally since the beginning, but that still leaves a surplus each year.

Pakistan, an Islamic country where followers are typically required to be buried with all parts intact, has received some 20,000 corneas since overseas donations began, Cassim said. Egypt and Japan are two other major recipients, receiving 8,000 and 6,000 corneas respectively to date, he said. (AFP, via Yahoo)

The culture of eye donation seems to run quite deep, it’s an interesting story. Leo Burnett also tweeted this recent ad they did to encourage donations.

I don’t suppose I’m doing anything with my eyes after I’m done. I think the numbers to register as a donor are 0112698040, 41, 43 or 0115742929.

My dad had an interesting bit of sorts sci-fi on this:

Gone were the days of massive manufacturing plants that made lots of identical things that were then transported to far places at great cost and damage to the environment. Instead, goods were now produced through decentralized smart manufacturing processes that were controlled from central design centers at the nodes of massive data networks. Instead of making the same thing in millions of copies, the new manufacturing allowed customer input into the design process in ways that made supply follow demand, not vice versa.

The relentless pressure to drive down transaction costs that emanated from the budget telecom network model that South Asia pioneered stood the region in good stead. Combined with the paradigm of design for extreme affordability that drove corporate strategy in the region in first few decades of the 20th Century, it gave South Asian tortoises an edge over the Chinese hares that had prematurely got locked-in to old style mass production. (LIRNEasia)

I’m not sure I’d go that far, but who knows how far 3D printing will go. The models I looked at make stuff out of lego material or other plasticky gloop. You’re not going to make an iPhone anytime soon. Even with home printing, people still use old Heidelberg machines for magazines and books. The Pirate Bay, however, has a view where people will be printing speakers, car parts, et cetera, and they already have files for toys and what’s labeled as 3D porn. Who knows. I’m pretty sure basic 3D printers will break the $500 mark in a few years, at which point you can imagine how powerful a $2000 printer will be. And this keeps going.

Trishaw and Range Rover, GLF.

It’s actually kinda funny. Development means more consumption – you move from the bus to a motorbike, bike to car, car to plane. In the same way, you go from hal maso to chicken to burgers and processed food. Then, it seems that after a certain point, you develop awareness that this was kinda a bad idea and go back, except with an iPad.

I should note that there are allegations of foul play in the van burning (someone throwing petrol at it [?]). Hence, not normal traffic. That’s just the news that I woke up to this morning, and a lot of the news has been traffic accidents, a lot of them, sadly, involving school vans. In the time of terrorism the LTTE could hit one van or a bus and people would legitimately freak out. It’s just striking that it’s not the quantity or quality of death that matters as much as its cause.

We are really not mathematical, logical creatures. We’re quite emotional, and the reasons for things matter. Even death is not an absolute. There are reasons we understand and reasons that horrify us, as long as we’re not the ones dying.

For one thing, I simply have no natural connection to paper. I don’t have a printer, I don’t have envelopes, I don’t even have a pen. For all of these things I have to go out, to buy, beg or borrow. Then I have to walk like 2 miles to a post office (as opposed to an Internet cafe, which I can find within a block), frequently miss opening hours, wait in line, end up spending a grand total of five rupees for a stamp. This system can’t possibly work out for anyone.

Part of the problem is generational. My generation and below almost never uses the post. I haven’t written a letter since the last century and all I get in the mail are bills and bank statements, which I don’t open. I pay the phone when they SMS me and I follow my bank account online. Everything the post could do for me I can handle more efficiently electronically.

Another problem is that the Post kinda sucks. The average Sri Lankan household spends Rs. 4 per month on postal services compared to Rs. 750 for telecom. The postal service is obviously not sustainable or valuable in its current form. I can reload my phone or use the net A) from home B) on the corner or C) within 1 mile of almost any place I might be. To use the post office I have to go to the sub post-office down the street (which is never open) or walk to the main post office which are really far.

For today’s errand I had to buy a pen and an envelope (gumless, why?) and put this invoice inside. That invoice was another thing, someone had to print it at their office and I collected it at their house. Then I go to the post office, wait, spend Rs. 5 for a stamp and then look around for some gum to seal the deal. What they have is a pen stuck in some gum, and you’re supposed to just glop it on. It drips on my feet and the floor and the table is covered in it so now my envelope is going to stick to whatever it lands on and end up in Batticaloa. Damn.

So, all in all, mailing this invoice has required the support of four people in five properties as well as two bus rides, one trishaw, and about half an hour of walking. And the post office has netted a grand total of 5 Rupees. This is obviously retarded. The next time somebody asks me for a paper invoice I’m just going to say no.

In other news, I think the Postmaster General just resigned. Perhaps he tried to mail something.

Solar eclipse through a brain scan.

Evolution As Dance

The idea of evolution as progress is pernicious, and probably wrong. Darwin (according to Stephen Jay Gould) avoided the term evolution, opting for natural selection. It has to be seen as a two way process, species adapt to a changing environment, thus adaptations which once seemed awesome (dinosaurs) can become liabilities with environmental change. It’s not a steady progression towards anything, it’s more of a never ending dance.

Humans As Bit Players

Humans, however, tend to think we are the pinnacle of evolution and that all things trend towards us. Including alien life. However, we are by no means the most successful species possible. According to Gould, we actually live in the age of bacteria, which has been going on for 4 billion years.

In that sense, I think we’ve confused the act of being conscious of what we’re doing with actually being good at what we’re doing.

The Other World

The promise of humanity, however, is that we have some other capacity in us, something which is more adaptive to this universe. We’re like the kid in class that gets in fights and sleeps through class, but who just might be a genius. On one level, we could be creating artificial intelligence with God-like powers, and we could venture out into space, likely some combination of the two. The past may look back and see us as the biological substrate of highly sophisticated light beings that travel around the universe and do awesome things. Or they may look at us as a soggy blip. Or they may not look back at all.

Couple walking along Marine Drive. Small tsunami.

There is actual beach.

Colombo is a beachfront town where you can go months (even years) without seeing the beach. Coming down Hill Street or across the Dehiwela flyover, I often find myself surprised that it’s there. Galle Face Green is really the only public beach front in the city limits, that and Marine Drive.

For some reason this building exists. It is on the beach, but might as well be in the USSR.

There are three main arteries down the coast, Galle Road, the aptly named Duplication Road and Marine Drive. The latter is less used and, until recently, ended near Majestic City. Now it runs all the way to Kollupitiya, and straight into a traffic jam. I hear they’re going to extend it further down to Mount making it a proper bypass road. Right now, however, it remains a bit of a charming oddity.

I always dreamed of refurbishing this house near Majestic City. It turns out that its a sewage pump. So no

People take their walks down there and there are a few places to eat or hang out. Then there’s the beach. I actually saw somebody swimming there the other day, which I wouldn’t recommend. It’s beautiful, especially at sunset.

Marine Drive sunset. Always classic.

I think Marine Drive and that stretch along the Galle Face Green are my two favorite roads in Colombo. It’ll change into a thoroughfare soon enough, but right now there’s a moment of stasis, of waiting. You can sit there, eat ice cream and watch the trains go by.