Mahasen does blogging

Dul

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Clean up your Island first!

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:15:00 +0000

[This was received through email, addressed to all Sri Lankans]

I am a regular visitor to Sri Lanka and for the past 10 years I have enjoyed coming here for both work and leisure; currently I am here on holiday and have covered quite a sizeable chunk of the Island in my pursuit of the stunning landscapes and fascinating wildlife that Sri Lanka has to offer, but I now feel I need to criticise your attitude towards tourism. Firstly, why don’t you clean up your Island – it’s beautiful as nature intended, it doesn’t need pink and blue plastic lunch wraps, plastic bags, cans, rags and packaging strewn all over the beaches and carried wherever the wind or rain chooses. It looks so unsightly and the biggest culprits of disseminating the litter are the day trippers from Colombo and the big cities who come to spend a day on the beach with friends and family. Perhaps they should take their rubbish home with them or better still, decent rubbish bins should be provided and regularly cleared. Why are there large and small chunks of concrete rubble on walkways and beach paths each piece acting as a trap for more litter? In the West, garbage is big business. We spend billions on disposal of rubbish. Householders need to divide their garbage into three or four different containers, ready for re-cycling so we are very aware, we’ve been brainwashed and it offends. Do you really want to be known as a dirty Island? I am generalizing. Some areas are absolutely pristine, there is no trash anywhere, there is obviously a system in place in some areas; compare the popular beach of MIrissa which looks like a garbage dump (the locals should be ashamed of themselves), with the spotless main road past Unawatuna.

The other complaint is your dogs; I know I’m not the first, but is it really so difficult to keep your dog population healthy and happy? Nobody takes responsibility for the street dogs, but they do get fed and so enjoy a fairly happy and sociable existence, but why can’t there be regular neutering? Why do your dogs have to walk around with limps and mange? Why are they always scratching? You have no idea what a turn-off this is for the foreign tourist, who probably comes from a country where dogs enjoy the same medical perks as humans and irresponsible owners are taken to court - we do notice but we are polite and say nothing. There is no need for culling, just a realistic attitude to the status quo.

I usually travel with my partner or with a group of tourists but a few times recently I have been on my own and was unhappy about the number of men who approached me asking inane questions regarding my marital status and where I was staying, do Sri Lankan women have this experience? One of Sri Lanka’s big attractions for all visitors is the friendliness of the inhabitants - they make you feel welcome - but there is a fine line between friendliness and imposition.

On reading this, you may well say, well don’t come if you don’t like it. Of course that is true, but do you want more tourists or don’t you?

The decision is yours.

W. S. Bryden,
UK.

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 06:40:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:52:00 +0000

Some old memories worth publishing...

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:01:00 +0000

On the shoot-out

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:22:00 +0000

So here’s what I think (knowing that nobody cares what I think).

In 2009 Mahinda really wanted to win the western provincial council election big, specifically he wanted to win Colombo district big. This was at the very late stages of the war, a strong election win was needed for him to show the world that people approve the war. A big win in UNP stronghold Colombo would have created good news, and also made good grounds for the upcoming parliamentary elections (Presidential elections were probably not planned then).

The previous election results for Colombo wasn’t that good. The win was marginal; and that too at a weak period of UNP with people starting to reject the cease fire agreement. worst of all, there weren’t any strong candidates for UPFA in Colombo.

2004 Provincial Council Elections, Colombo District | Votes

POLITICAL PARTY	VOTES	%	SEATS
UNITED PEOPLE'S FREEDOM ALLIANCE	322,653	49.11	25
UNITED NATIONAL PARTY	276,759	42.12	15

2004 Provincial Council Elections, Colombo District | Top candidates of UPFA

Candidate	Preferential votes
Aruna Hemapala	36,029
Andarage Don Gamini Thilakasiri	34,992
H. Kanchana Peiris	34,658

So, Mahinda did what he does the best, bought a couple of candidates from the UNP, not with money, but with power! Duminda Silva and Thilanga Sumathipala. These two had enough money of their own for them to be bought with money, what they lacked while in opposition is power, and that’s what Mahinda had to offer them. The deal probably was win me Colombo and I’ll give you parliamentary tickets and organizer posts.

Results were quite clear, win they did. They literally bought votes for themselves spending insane amounts of money.

2009 Provincial Council Elections, Colombo District | Votes

POLITICAL PARTY	VOTES	%	SEATS
UNITED PEOPLE'S FREEDOM ALLIANCE	530,370	57.78	25
UNITED NATIONAL PARTY	327,571	35.69	15

2009 Provincial Council Elections, Colombo District | Top candidates of UPFA

Candidate	Preferential votes
Arumadura Lorence Romelo Duminda Silva	165,128
Uduwatuwage Janathpriya Thilanga Sumathipala	159,603
Udaya Prabhath Gammanpila	116,144

So, Duminda and Thilanga got their parliamentary election tickets and organizer posts as promised. But, unfortunately, that meant someone else lost their organizer post and possibly election tickets. To compensate for this, Mahinda offered Bharatha some other posts including the presidential advisor post.

For Duminda, the electoral seat doesn’t matter. He buys votes – literally. So he could go in to any area, throw some cash around, muscle out any resistance and get voted. But for someone like Bharatha, getting voted depends a lot on relationship building and small scale spending's over a lifetime. And giving his electoral seat to Duminda meant the end of his active political career; presidential advisor post didn’t really compensated for that. Thus started the battle between Duminda and Bharatha.

Where did Duminda get his money from? I don’t know. His brother owns few radio stations and they probably have other businesses. Some say it’s drugs. Can’t rule that out, but it’s highly unlikely that Rajapaksha’s would get a drug dealer in to the defense secretariat. Most claim drugs because they don’t know people could actually make an insane amount of money with legit businesses. And all they could think of is drugs.

There are no black or white characters, they are all shades of grey. Duminda had lot of thugs surrounding him, and I wouldn’t believe if someone said Bharatha didn’t. And most of all, I don’t think either of these two had got into a fight of this nature where the other party responded in the same way. They are probably so used to going in with brute force and shooting away the opponents.

So, when the first to get out of the vehicles – be it Duminda or Bharatha – started waving the guns around, probably didn’t expect the other party to do the same. And they didn’t know what to do next. They either had to pack-up and leave, or shoot. Alcohol probably stopped them from making the wise move and shoot they did. The ones with most guns, made the most kills. But I don’t think Bharatha’s group didn’t shoot back, or Duminda didn’t get shot, as some bloggers claim. With three bullets in the head, I’d be really surprised if he’s not vegetable now.

So, is this Mahinda’s fault for bringing in a thug from UNP to muscle out – and kill in this instance - the old SLFPers who helped him vin the elections? It’s obviously a consequence of a series of incidents, but I don’t think it could be directly attributed to bringing Duminda and Thilanga in to SLFP. Mahinda is just another grey character, with good and bad, making decisions which he thinks is right for him, his family, his friends and after some more items in that list, the country (hopefully).

Related: http://indi.ca/2011/10/hearsay-about-duminda-silva/

A quick recap on the weekend in Trinco..

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:08:00 +0000

ඇයට කුමක් වීද?

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:11:00 +0000

2007 වසරේ මාව ඇමෙරිකාවට යැව්වා ඒ කාලේ මම වැඩ කරපු ඔපීසියෙන්. මුලින් විස්කොන්සින් ප්‍රාන්තයේ මිල්වූකී වල මට මාස පහක් විතර ඉන්න උණා. මට නම් මිල්වූකි මෙලෝ රහක් නැති පලාතක්. මම එහෙට ගියේ 2007 දෙසැම්බර් පළමුදා, එදා එහෙට හිම කුණාටුවක්. මම එහෙන් ආවේ 2008 අප්‍රේල් මැද, එදත් හිම කුණාටුවක්. එහේ හිටිය මාස පහ හමාරම, හිම හිම හිම.

එහේ අපේ කණ්තෝරුවෙම තව අය හිටියත් මම නැවතිලා හිටියේ තනියෙන් අපාර්ට්මන්ට් එකක් අරන්, මම පෞද්ගලිකත්වයටත් නිදහසටත් කැමති නිසා.

කොහොමින් හරි අප්‍රේල් වල මම ගියා නිව්යෝක් නගරයට. එහේ මම වැඩ කලාට අපාර්ට්මන්ට් එකක් ගත්තේ නිව් ජර්සි වල. එහෙත් ඔෆිස් එකේ අය හිටියාට මම නැවතුනේ තනියෙන්. මම එහේ ඉඳලා නිව්යෝක් වල වැඩට ගියේ ආවේ බස් එකේ.

වසන්තය ඉවර වෙන කාලේ විතර, එක සෙනසුරාදාවක, මම නිව්යෝක් නගරයේ රස්තියාදුවක් යන්න හිතාගෙන ගිහින් බස් හෝල්ට් එකට වෙලා හිටියා. ගෙදර ඉන්න කම්මැලි හිතුනම මම ඒ දවස් වල කරන්නේ ඒක. මම බස් සීසන් ගන්නේ මාසෙටම, ඉතින් ගමනට වැඩිපුර වියදම් වෙන්නේ නෑ. අනික නිව්යෝක් නගරේ බලන්න ජාති හෙන ගොඩයි. ඇවිදලා කෙලවරක් කර ගන්න බැරි උනා මට එහේ අවුරුද්දක් විතර ඉඳලත්.

ඉතින් ඔය බස් හෝල්ට් එකේ තියෙනව බංකු තුනක්. මම යද්දී දෙන්නෙක් ඉඳගෙන හිටියා. ඉතුරු එකේ මම ඉඳ ගත්තා. සෙනසුරාදා ඉරිදා දවස් වලට බස් යන්නේ පැය දෙකෙන් දෙකට විතර. ඉතින් මට කලින් බස් එක මිස් වෙලා තිබ්බ නිසා සෑහෙන වෙලාවක් ඔතන ඉන්න උනා. ඔහොම ඉද්දී ඔතෙන්ට ආව සෑහෙන වයස සුදු නෝනා කෙනෙක්. ඉතින් එයා හිටන් ඉද්දි මට පුලුවනෑ ඉඳන් ඉන්න, ඉතින් මම නැගිටලා දුන්නා පුටුව. එයාට හෙන පුදුමයි. ඉතින් එයා මගේ රට තොට අහලා මාත් එක්ක කතාවට වැටුනා. එයා නැගෙනහිර යුරෝපීය රටක. පොඩි කාලෙම ඇමෙරිකාවට ඇවිත්, එහෙන් කසාද බැඳලා නැවතිලා. දැන් මහත්තයා නෑ, ළමයි රටේ ඈතට ගිහින්. එයා තනියම, මම ඉන්න අපාර්ට්මන්ට් වලම නැවතිලා ඉන්නේ.

එදයින් පස්සේ, ඉඳලා හිටලා අපි බස් හෝල්ට් එකේ දි හම්බුණා. බස් එකේ එක ලඟ ඉඳගෙන අපි අපේ රටවල් ගැන, ළමා කාලේ ගැන, ඇමෙරිකාව ගැන කතා කරා. ඇගේ ගෙදර ඇවිත් යන්න කියලා ඈ මට ආරාධනා කරත්, මම ගියේ නෑ. මම මිනිස්සු එක්ක බොහොම සීමිත සම්භන්ද කම් පවත්වන කෙනෙක්..

කොහොම හරි, මම ලංකාවට එන්න දවස් දෙකකට කලින් මට ඈව හම්බුණා. මම ඈට කිව්වා, මම ලංකාවට යන බව. මම සතුටින්ද දුකෙන්ද යන්නේ කියා ඈ අහුවා. මම කිව්ව මගේ අම්මලා අප්පච්චිලා දකින්න මම ආසාවෙන් ඉන්නවා කියලා. ඈ මට සුභ පතලා, වෙන විස්තර කතා කරා.

අපි වෙන් වෙන මොහොතේ ඈ මගේ අතින් අල්ලගෙන කිව්ව "ඔබ ආයේ ඇමෙරිකාවට ආවත්, ඔබව දකින්න මම ජීවතුන් අතර ඉන්න එකක් නෑ, ඔබ බොහොම හොඳ ළමයෙක්, ඔබට දෙවි පිහිටයි" කියලා. ඇගේ වයසක දෑසින් කඳුලු හෝ ගාලා ගලාගෙන ගියා.

නොදන්න රටක, නොදන්න අම්මා කෙනෙක්, මාව ආයේ දකින්න වෙන්නේ නෑ කියලා ඒ විදිහට දුක් වෙලා අඬයි කියලා මම බලාපොරොත්තු උනේ නෑ. මගේ ඇහෙනුත් ඉබේටම කඳුලක් වැටුණා.

ඇයගේ ඊමේල් ලිපිනයක් වත්, දුරකථන අංකයක් වත් මට ඉල්ල ගන්න බැරි උනා. අඩුම තරමින් ඇගේ නම වත් මට හරියට මතක හිටලා තිබෙබේ නෑ. ඈ නම නම් මුල් දවසේ කිව්ව. හුරු නමක් නෙවෙයි මතක හිටින්න.

දැන් මම ලංකාවට ඇවිත් සෑහෙන කල්. ඒත් ඉඳලා හිටලා මට තාම ඒ වයසක මණුස්සයාව මතක් වෙනවා. ඒ වෙනකොටත් එයාට අසූව පැනලා. දැන් ඉන්නවා ද දන්නෙත් නෑ. පව්..

Advocating and Opposing Agile for the wrong reasons

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:49:00 +0000

Development processes have fundamental problems they address, a philosophy by which they try to solve that problem and methods by which they implement that philosophy.

Problem that Agile solves is ever changing requirements of enterprise applications.

There are those who laugh at Agile for how awfully it would fail in building an air plane (technically speaking, proper agile will not fail, but it’s not at all the correct process to use there) and then go try to make an information system to a galactic government using a formal process and fail even more miserably. (I wanted to say kite, but wanted to emphasize size is not the problem). And this goes vice versa.

Smart project teams chose the right process for the right project. They don’t brand themselves as agile or formal. They are simply good engineers who are good at applying proper solution for the problem at hand right from the process itself.

How’s your agile process working for you?

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Are you practicing an agile process in your team? Do you still find your team working through the night? Do you still find your software to be rigid, fragile and immobile? Do you still find changes of requirements to be nightmares to the developers? How do you suppose those situations are possible with an Agile process?

Unfortunately, this is the situation in almost all Agile practicing and Agile preaching companies we have around in Sri Lanka. I’ve crossed my paths with quite a few developers from these companies and they all have the same story to tell; agile for them, is the same old cycle, without the documentation and without a designing phase - which makes their development life worse. Non-technical project managers are still around, being called by other names, and to add to the misery, now the customers bring the pressure directly to the developer - because it’s “Agile”.

Is Agile a bad idea? What’s going wrong? Why can’t we make it work? Have you seen the list of names in the Agile manifesto at http://agilemanifesto.org/? Do you think those are the kind of people who would invest on a failing process? Besides, they’ve been practicing and teaching it for over a decade now. So if there’s anything wrong with Agile, it’s more likely in the way we practice it.

Management elements such as deadlines, budgets and sucking up to customers’ aside, we developers too need to change some fundamental ideologies towards development in order to make Agile, well Agile. It is not to say that the operational model doesn’t matter, indeed, that’s what makes Agile possible. Someone should be available to the team to represent the customer, acceptance tests should be automated and made available to the developers when feature requests / changes are made; team should be responding to changes than follow a plan; team should be able focus on getting a working product out instead of documenting etc. etc. which all agile gurus will tell you; but the part they don’t speak about; the part the folks came up with agile manifesto took for granted; the part that is responsible for more than half the agile failures in Sri Lanka is with the developers.

One misconception most developers in Sri Lanka have about Agile development is, it is coding without design or documentation. The other misconception is to think getting software to “work” means getting the functionality out one way or another. The Agile philosophy has very different interpretations for these and is defined with the implied expectation of strong object oriented concepts and design principles of the developers.

By the term “a working product” what’s meant is a functional, testable and maintainable product. Not just functional. If a piece of code provides the functionality required, but only the developer himself could read and understand how it does that, it is not a working product by Agile definitions. Developers are to get the code to work and then refactor till it’s readable, not duplicating code and as simple as it could be but not simpler.
Refactoring to make code readable, non-duplicative, simple and free of unused design complexities and code is a constant practice that developers are expected to follow whenever they code something.

The design focus of Agile is much more implied than explicit. In each iteration, Agile focus on getting a working product to the customer. The team narrows their focus only on the features that are planned for that iteration making it as simple and expressive as possible; yet not losing the overall picture - or at least what exist of it at the time. This practice makes sure that the design never gets complicated than necessary and serves to the problem at hand than expected (but volatile) problems of the future. One of the problems in designing the whole application at once is that the architect is force to foresee requirements of the future; with requirements ever changing and little understanding of them to begin with; this is not a task someone could get 100% right. That’s why Agile promotes this simplistic approach which could accommodate changes more easily.

Unit Tests for agile developers are a design practice than a verification step. Writing the non-compiling unit test is defining the contract for a component. Developer should do due diligence and consider who are the consumers and think how the consumers would want to use a class. Note that the tests are written for the public interface of the class, the tests care only about the functionality exposed through that. Once the developer get the unit tests to pass, he can then go on refactoring his code to be simple, readable and non-duplicative - one step at a time - without worrying about breaking the functionality unknowingly; because the tests are there to guard against that.

The next aspect of design developers ignore in Agile is how exactly the changes are accommodated. Remember that agile designs are as simple as possible meaning that when code is first written, it is not accommodating flexibility for “potential” change. But when the first change comes, the developers should follow the object oriented design principles and separate the changing elements of code from the non-changing elements of code, evolving the design in that part, so that a second change in the same area would be easier and simpler than the first. This practice prevents the code becoming stale over repeated changes, still keeping the code as simple as possible.

As always, developers should keep themselves up to date not only with the new technologies but of the time proven concepts; and the organizations who wish to harness the benefits of any methodology should invest on getting their developers in par with that methodology.

References
Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# By Robert C. Martin, Micah Martin
Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game, Second Edition By Alistair Cockburn
Test-Driven Development By Example By Kent Beck

Yellow, Orange and Green

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:56:00 +0000

Kandyan Dancer

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 29 May 2011 11:28:00 +0000

The specification of a method

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sat, 28 May 2011 21:13:00 +0000

Sometime back I read Alan Shalloway’s wonderful book “Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design” which I think makes a wonderful pre-read for anyone who’s going to read the GoF design patterns book. But even if you’ve already read the GoF, like I had, Alan’s book still is a good read.

In that book, Alan brings the point that any object oriented software component should be looked at in three different perspectives,

Concept - which is the responsibility of that particular component (i.e. what it’s supposed to do)
Specification - which is the contract with the external entities (i.e. how it would be used)
Implementation - which is how that component is actually going to get the job done.

At any given level of abstraction - application | component | package | class | method - this stands true and is very important to separate these concerns in designing at each level.

I'd like to give a thought on how this is applicable at the level of a method. Let’s take an example to make things easier to understand. A method that converts a string to a number.

What is the responsibility?
Convert a string to a number of cause, but does that statement describe everything?

What’s the contract?
Defining the contract is the step which is going to make the responsibility of the method more explicit, and define the explicit usage of the method.

What are the parameters the method would take? Just the string to be converted? Should it get control parameters?

What’s the format of the string should be?

What would the method return if the format is incorrect? Would it return a default value? Would it throw an exception (what type of exception) or would it return null?

What type is the number? Integer or float? Could it be both? If so, how would the method return it?

What’s the implementation?
We should only get at this once we have the answers to the above two questions. And our implementation should depend on them, the responsibility or the contract should not change by our implementation - remember the dependency inversion principle!

So why is this post called “The specification of a method”? Because that’s where I’d like to focus for the rest of this post. That’s where I see room for a lot of improvements.

How exactly do we define the contract for a method after we do have the answers to the questions like what we saw above? It should all end up in the method signature. But, most languages only allow us to specify parameters and return types; so how do we communicate exceptions and whether a method would return null or not?

Java is a language that goes one step further and offer checked exceptions that allow us to express in the method signature what type of exceptions are thrown by the method; which I learned to appreciate only very recently. That’s a feature which make sure an application will not ever crash due to an unhandled exception, by making method contracts explicit.

That’s one good example that making the contract explicit contributes directly towards application stability and better coding practice. (But there are debates on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing - I think it is good.)

How do we do this in .NET? We could add the exception details in the XML comment documentation. But that’s not as good as the compiler mandate of java.

The other part of the signature which we miss a lot is conveying the fact whether a method would return null or not. We see quite a few null reference exceptions and quite a few null checks on methods that do not return nulls than we would like to in our day-today life. Some argue that it’s a “good” practice to check null even if a return value cannot be null. But that’s a pretty lame claim isn't it?

There are two ways that I could think of to overcome this. Obviously we can comment if a null value is returned by the method. But there’s no guarantee that someone someday would forget the comment and would not check null. The much thoughtful approach is to implement the Special Case pattern (PoEAA). In which, separate implementations are given to such anomalies as null for the same interface, so that the consumer need not worry about exceptions. But, it’s a design decision that has to be taken much earlier than you start to design method signatures.

Regardless of how we are going to handle these information in the method signatures, if we do define them upfront and communicate to the consumers of the method (and of cause stick to that contract within the implementation) we are bound to improve stability and the quality of code in our applications.

Vesak is a Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:18:00 +0000

Seems it's finally over. There were insane number of people on the streets last week and traffic was horrible.

Apart from the traditional lanterns and lights, there were quite a few drunk men on the streets doing all sorts of drunken stuff and generally being assholes. I saw couple of musical shows, and a Ferris wheel in Dematagoda as well. Good Carnival, I thought - may be we'd compete with Rio someday and attract tourists.

I highly doubt, Buddha, the person who preached of simplicity and being unmoved by eight worldly dhammas would have appreciated this "carnival" and public menace to celebrate his birthday and attaining nibbana.

But who knows, Sinhala Buddhists(TM) have a strange way of practicing Buddhism...

Black and White Portraits

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:41:00 +0000

It's been a while since I made a post in this blog, and I've realized now that separating photo blogging from regular blogging is not going to be practical.. so.. here we go..

The $10 extension tube is worth the money

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:44:00 +0000

It's worth for $10, compared to Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor Lens for $1000.. (Heck, it was less than $800 last year.. the price go up as if it's made of gold..)

I attached the 50mm f/1.8D to it's end (It was $107 when I bought it in 2008, now it's $160.. insane!). You'll need a lens with an aperture ring (not a G) or the lens would be stuck at the lowest aperture and you won't be able to get any light in. Also, a zoom would be a bad idea due to reasons I point below. 50mm f/1.4D or the 85mm f/1.4D would be slightly better, but the 50mm f/1.8D is the most cost effective.

It's really really difficult to capture something that moves with this extension tube on, and you almost always need strobes to light the subjects. The thing is, with this thing attached, the effective focal length is probably something like 150~160mm and effective aperture at F/1.8 at the lens is probably around F/6, I don't know.. do your math.. anyhow, the DOF is razor thin at F/1.8, and at F/8 and up when you start to get a decent DOF (by decent I mean something like below, the above shots were at F/16 and up) You virtually can't see the subject through the view finder without holding a flashlight at the subject..

(I shot all these at ISO 100, 1/200s and SB600 at full power from side and on camera flash at full power)

And it only focus to like couple of inches to the front of the lens, you can't do much other than shooting small insects and flowers..

I focus by moving the camera back and forth than moving the focus ring as that shifts the frame dramatically.

So, you get my point right? It's not an alternative for a $1000 solution at $10.. but, within a pretty limited scope, you can achieve some amazing results with it.

I bought it on ebay, but here's the amazon link.

There are much expensive tubes with auto focus. But, all you get for that extra money is auto focus, proper metering and aperture reported on your exif. But the limitations in DOF and focus distance would still be there.. At that point, you might just as well throw some cash on a cheap macro lens.

Moods of a flower

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:58:00 +0000

නුඹ මගේ වන්නට...

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:55:00 +0000

රන් හුයක් අවැසිද දෑඟිලි බඳින්නට

අත පැන් අවැසිද ප්‍රේමය හඟින්නට

පෝරුවක් අවැසිද හදවත් බැඳෙන්නට

අත්සනක් අවැසිද නුඹ මගේ වන්නට

It’s time you stop masturbating and go have the orgy of your life...

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:55:00 +0000

Rationalists, secularists, Humanists, Agnostics, Atheists and all the free thinking intellectuals and scholars of our time in Sri Lanka, seem to be hiding behind anonymity of internet and closed doors of “punchi theater” in Borella when they masturbate (alone or as a group) about their intelligence and the ability to comprehend things independent of religion and tribalism. They all seem to be afraid of the confrontations they may face if they speak in public.

They speak of Richard Dawkins, Mark Twain and all the western leaders of such intellectual circles; they speak of intellectuals from last generation of Sri Lanka, like Senaka Bibile and Osmond Jayaratne, but where are the intellectuals of this generation who go out there to speak to the public about this revolution that has to happen?

We need independence from tribalism, we need governance separated from religion, and we need to move forward from cultural dogma; but who’s taking this message to the masses? Does a blog that gets couple of thousand hits per day do that? While those Rationalists and Secularists hide behind blogs and forums, Likes of Kiribathgoda Gnanananda, Champika Ranawaka, T B Ekanayake and Mahinda Rajapaksha are among the masses, brain washing them to make the Sinhala Buddhist Taliban in Sri Lanka.

So I say it’s time you bunch stop masturbating and go out in public to have your orgy.

Strong name validation failed. on 64bit windows - 32bit Visual Studio

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:51:00 +0000

If you are running a 32bit version of Visual Studio on a 64bit Windows version, and want to add a strong name exception for a delay signed assembly, the usual methods of running

"sn -Vr *, [public key token]"

Example:
sn -Vr *,89845dcd8080cc91

or adding the registry key manually to

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\StrongName\Verification\"

Example:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\StrongName\Verification\*,89845dcd8080cc91]

would not work.

The reason being that the 64bit windows registry has a separate area for 32bit applications. And, the sn.exe is not updating that.

To work around it, you have to add your strong name exceptions to the following location of the windows registry.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\StrongName\Verification\

Example:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\StrongName\Verification\*,89845dcd8080cc91]

Taking free education forward - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:56:00 +0000

In my last post (almost a month back :(); I concluded that contributing factors for better standards in an educational institute are the financial capital, expectations of students and parents, and the commitment of faculty staff and the management.

So what do we need in the system to make things right? What can the government do? What are the successes and failures of other countries?

Government, no doubt, can put in a little more money. But is that money going to be enough? How much money do you think is required to take Moratuwa University to the level of Chicago State University? And what would be the cost of staffing and maintaining? If the government could put the 2008 war budget (166 billion rupees) to education, may be it would be sufficient to build one or two universities and few schools. But that’s not going to improve things immensely, would it? And could the country afford to allocate such funds every year on education?

What’s wrong with vice chancellors, professors, lecturers etc.? What’s wrong with principals and teachers? To start with, I think they aren’t being paid enough. Then, there aren’t any strong enough consequences for their actions; they can choose to work or idle. Thirdly, it seems they set their own standards, and have no competition.

Most parents, put aside students, don’t know what they are entitled to and what they should expect from an educational institute. They just go with the flow. Those few, who actually do care about the quality of education, don’t have much choice or voice to change things around.

How can we improve all this?

First of all, we need to bring in money to the system. Government can invest a large capital to uplift the standards for couple of years. But the running costs should be covered up within the system itself. There are enough people in Sri Lanka who can and will pay for quality education. And, if the university students had to pay for their education themselves, may be they would be more serious about it than now. So I think it is certainly an option for the government to start charging for the education - at all levels.

For primary and secondary education, the government could provide scholarships for the economically challenged families. But there’s no reason why university students can’t earn for their education themselves.

The second option is to bring private investors in to establish educational institutes and utilize the tax money on government schools and universities. There are private schools in existence even now but I don’t think they are generating enough revenue to fund government schools. Judging by that, establishing private universities - even though is a good step towards expanding capacity and creating competition - would not provide enough revenue to fund government universities.

So I believe, in order to provide quality education, we should provide it free only to those who actually deserve free education.

With money in the system and faculty staff being well paid, it is only a matter of setting up standards, regulations and strict discipline in place that is required to get the management right. With private schools and universities competing with government institutes for better educational facilities and lower course fees students would receive greater benefits.

Taking free education forward - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 14:11:00 +0000

Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world offering free primary, secondary and tertiary education. The high literacy rate of 97.3% in the country shows that free education has worked out well.

The government, no doubt, is putting a lot of money every year in to the educational system to provide free education, but as it is evident, that money is not enough. Only 16% of eligible students get to enter the government universities. May be about 2~3% of the remaining get to obtain degrees from private institutes like IIT, SLIIT and APIIT. (Note almost all of them are providing IT degrees - leaving not much of a choice for students interested in other fields) Another 1~2% of students based on financial strength of their parents get to go abroad for their studies. Almost 80% of the students who qualify for tertiary education are deprived of their right.

Even though some students like the ones who are members of Inter-university student bullshit union do not appreciate the opportunity given to them for free education; depriving that from many others who would have embraced that opportunity; free education is still a good thing. It’s just that, if we can give that opportunity to only 16% of those who are eligible, selecting them through a competitive examination is not the best solution. That discourages the students in engaging in extra-curricular activities and essential personality building activities. From the 40 odd students who were in my advanced level class, those 2 or 3 who got through to the universities were the guys who had their heads buried in books 24X7 and didn’t had enough self-confidence to look someone in the eye when they were talking. That certainly is not the sample of academia we should have in a country.

Those who have seen class rooms and facilities available in international schools may attest for the difference in standards between them and an average school in north central province or central for that matter. Putting aside international schools, comparing leading schools in Colombo with schools in other parts of the country yields the same differences in available facilities and maintained standards. Moving on to universities; comparison between an average American university and the best universities of Sri Lanka shows greater difference in standards and available facilities than the above comparisons. Note that it is not money alone that has brought those institutes to the high standards; but also the will and expectations of the stakeholders involved, including pupils, faculty staff and of the government body.

So what do we have to do, in order to bring the standards of average schools to the same level as - say Ananda or Royal College of Colombo? And what do we have to do to get University of Moratuwa to the standards of Chicago state university - an average state university in America?

Prostitution and Porn

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 21:50:00 +0000

Bunch of jesters at the police women and children bureau and some court in Battaramulla or somewhere has published a set of photographs claiming to be of Sri Lankan “porn stars”; I saw them on gossip lanka website and I bet some of those photos are from 1980s and some are not even Sri Lankans - some of those Latin American porn stars even have Wikipedia pages dedicated to them. Yet; our police and the courts are searching for them and need public assistance in doing so...

Current situation and the stupidity of the law enforcers aside; I thought of writing down how I feel about the whole thing - prostitution and porn.

Sex sells. Just like liquor but with much more demand; it sells all over the world. And it’s been selling ever since mankind invented trading - in one form or another. Why? Because it’s in our genes to need sex; humans are a species that enjoy sex. No cultural bullshit can really suppress that need; there may be people who’ve suppressed it by some mean, but that’s not the natural state of humankind. And when sex is not available for free, there are always people who are willing to buy. And when it’s not available to be bought; there would always be those who’d just take it anyway. (Any females in here taking public transport, who’ve noticed a recent hike in molesters in buses?)

When there’s such a huge market available; there always would be people who are willing to supply to that market; legally or illegally. And when things go beyond the boundaries of law; the boundaries of imagination widens for those outlaws. Illegal sex would cost more for those who are willing to pay; and as there always is, there would be those who’d just get it themselves - since it’s illegal anyways. Those who’d run the businesses would find their own ways of recruiting and handling their “merchandise” and there would be no justice or guarantee of safety for those who would be traded - by their will or not.

The greatest tragedy in our society is that we fool ourselves over a culture that exists only on the surface and folktales. Underneath; we all have the same needs, lusts, obsessions and hatreds that any other human would possess; but we pretend to be saints outside. We make laws based on this nominal culture and break those very laws at the very moment we get to hide it away from others.

Even now; a lot of women and children are drawn in to prostitution in Sri Lanka; and most of their fate is ill-ridden. Much more innocent children and women would be victims of sex crimes in the coming years if we don’t legalize and control this. But I don’t see that coming in Sri Lanka... so suffering it is... Take good care of your children and women...

Death

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:37:00 +0000

Sometimes, I think about death. Of mine and of others. How would I die? Would it be painful? I hope not. How is it like to witness the death of a loved one? Is it better to die than be sick and suffer at old age? And, what happens after you die? Why are all people and animals scared of death?

I was raised as a Buddhist, so I was taught that the dead would be born again as another life unless they have achieved nirvana. The re-birth happens based on what karma we’ve done in this life and what thoughts we’d have in our last breath. Fascinating; a little scary too.

I’ve also heard of re-incarnation stories – of people speaking of their past lives and they being matched with true incidents; and then I’ve heard of ghost stories, of people who’ve died years ago and still haunt the living. Somehow; they don’t go together really well though... because, if someone dies and become a ghost, and that same someone also get re-born in another life; then the ghost seems pretty stuck being a ghost till the eternity...

I’ve heard some Buddhist monks explain ghosts as another life; not human, not animal but some super human life, that like any other, would end someday. I think I like the lives that end than something eternal. Personal choice though ;)

Anyways; what really happens? Religion aside; I really don’t know - I don’t remember of a previous life. I guess that not knowing what happens after death is what scares us all. And; may be; evolution has built it in to our genes, to fear death, so that all animals would strive to live; instead of just give in whenever death is on one’s way.

I’ve had an out of body experience in my childhood. I was sick and was in my mom’s arms. I was in pain and I wanted to move; and then, I passed out. Everything that happened thereafter until I woke up again are still in my memory in vivid detail. And; I was observing all that from outside of the body. And my parents say; I explain the events exactly the way they happened.

Looking back, I don’t think I died or was going to. I was in so much pain; my brain must have disconnected the consciousness. Because; all the while I was unconscious, I didn’t feel any pain at all. How did I see from outside of my body? I don’t know, but maybe my senses apart from eyesight were working quite sharply and my brain must have created the visual impressions through them.

I’ve read in some science journals that say; that’s exactly what people in near death experiences have experienced. The process of the body dying is a very painful process and that makes the brain - while it still lives - to disconnect the consciousness. Depending on the functionality of other senses and the amount of brain death happening; they might either see what’s going on around them or bright lights / their past / loved ones etc.

All this; doesn’t explain the phenomena of ghost stories and re-incarnation stories. But; just because science doesn’t explain that doesn’t mean religious explanations are correct. Most religions taught that the world is flat until they were proven otherwise. Buddhism, even with my biased opinion towards it, has had its share of myths associated with it.

So; when it comes to death I think I’ll take my chances with it and discover the unknowns myself; and that’s if my consciousness survives - which I think is highly unlikely. I think that would be the end of me and my consciousness would cease to exist. I hope to have a smile on my face when I die; so I hope I would realize the moment has come and have control over my facial muscles for that one last smile...

Animal sacrifices, protests, religion and morality...

noreply@blogger.com (Mahasen Bandara) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:45:00 +0000

I've been reading news on the animal sacrifices in Halawatha. I just think that is an inhuman, barbaric and savage act by a bunch of retarded psychopaths. Those poor animals had a right to their lives just as much as any of us. But; it happened. The bastards killed those helpless creatures in hundreds. Neither law makers nor law enforcers intercepted. In fact; I think the police were supportive of that bloodshed.

Some activists - mostly under the Buddhist flag - protested for no avail. I think it went wrong because of the religious label. No law maker could support it because that could label them as religious extremists who discriminate against other religions. Sri Lanka as a country does not want that right now.

What we should realize is that those savage animal sacrifices should stop - not because of we are a Buddhist country - but because we are a nation with high moral values (that is independent of our individual religious beliefs). Not because it’s taught in our religions that it’s wrong to kill animals; but because we realize and respect the right of the animals to live as much as we humans.

What we need, what the innocent and helpless animals in this country need is not a religious group racing their voice for them; but an animal loving, free thinking and independent animal rights group working to safeguard the rights of the animals without any other agenda or a label. Like PETA.

Religion, no matter how much humble and sincere, just bring too much of a burden to any controversial issue. Religion should leave morality alone - we should have high moral values independent of our beliefs. Had it been so; and had we had an organized and independent group who stand for animal rights (for which I doubt we do) we could have saved those poor animals.