DRG and realskullzero are being busy since last November because they engaged in shooting material for this groundbreaking amateur documentary about the Sri Lankan metal music genre with the visions of the four underground bands that represent various sub genres of metal...
Now everythings being put to the right places and the film is passing its final editing stage. To give a glimpse of what it is gonna be like, we have put up a teaser trailer in Youtube for you to watch...
So just check it out and tell us what you think and most importantly spread the word around...
For more info visit the Facebook Group - Click here
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Private Medical Faculty Saga
This post was triggered by a news article I saw on the dailymirror website, where Gamini Samaranayake had stated that the UGC had'nt granted approval for the establishment of Private Medical Colleges -PMC in Sri Lanka. The self appointed pundits on almost every subject on earth that take great pleasure in commenting on almost every news article on DM seemed to have had a field day in vilifying and distastefully attacking Dr. Samranayake- a very learned and one of the foremost intellectuals in the country.
First and foremost, the decision to establish or not establish a PMC in Sri Lanka is one that Samaranayake is not respnsible for, so let's stop calling a guy who has several doctorates a mutt etc. Of course this behavious is rather typical of Sri Lankans who are easily aroused and blindly start pointing fingers at people in authority, without evening knowing the procedures and protocols that are followed in the public service. It seems to me that everyone is an expert on this matter judging from the comments on DM... before I get down to the nitty gritties of the issue.. lets just say that i am not wholly opposed to a PMC in the country.
The primary issue that has to be dealt with is the quality of these so called graduates. From what i know these Med students will have their clinical appointments at Apollo and Oasis, need i even say that their exposure to severe or even mild truama would be pretty much limited. Add to that the amount of patients at these hospitals are pretty limited, as opposed to a student studying at government medical faculty who would see upto 50 medical or surgical cases a day.
So provided that these graduates pass out, pass the Act 16 exam and qualify for government jobs we would have a bunch of doctors who are book smart but not exactly geared to handle emergency situations. Which would severely compromise the quality patient care.
Not that I am opposed to the idea of PMC... personally i feel very privileged that i had enough marks to get into a government medical school, and i am fully aware that most of my class mates who were probably a lot smarter and a lot more hard working than me couldn't. The issue here is not a case of Uni students being xenophobic to private education... but one must look at the ground realities and understand that the purported PMC in Malabe is one that is destined to produce sub-standard doctors.
Knowing the Sri Lankan public and the politicians who are remarkably quick to start accusing doctors of this that and the other...(take the recent situation where a surgeon was taken to task for performing a so called cosmetic procedure at state expense.. where in fact he was treating morbid obesity in one of the most effective ways acknowledged in the medical community.) this does not bode well for the future of the medical profession in the country.
Of course the politicians in this country qwould relish such an opportunity,,, blame it all on the Docs... cant blame them really, its probably a great way to cover up their swindling of billions of rupees from the state health service.
First and foremost, the decision to establish or not establish a PMC in Sri Lanka is one that Samaranayake is not respnsible for, so let's stop calling a guy who has several doctorates a mutt etc. Of course this behavious is rather typical of Sri Lankans who are easily aroused and blindly start pointing fingers at people in authority, without evening knowing the procedures and protocols that are followed in the public service. It seems to me that everyone is an expert on this matter judging from the comments on DM... before I get down to the nitty gritties of the issue.. lets just say that i am not wholly opposed to a PMC in the country.
The primary issue that has to be dealt with is the quality of these so called graduates. From what i know these Med students will have their clinical appointments at Apollo and Oasis, need i even say that their exposure to severe or even mild truama would be pretty much limited. Add to that the amount of patients at these hospitals are pretty limited, as opposed to a student studying at government medical faculty who would see upto 50 medical or surgical cases a day.
So provided that these graduates pass out, pass the Act 16 exam and qualify for government jobs we would have a bunch of doctors who are book smart but not exactly geared to handle emergency situations. Which would severely compromise the quality patient care.
Not that I am opposed to the idea of PMC... personally i feel very privileged that i had enough marks to get into a government medical school, and i am fully aware that most of my class mates who were probably a lot smarter and a lot more hard working than me couldn't. The issue here is not a case of Uni students being xenophobic to private education... but one must look at the ground realities and understand that the purported PMC in Malabe is one that is destined to produce sub-standard doctors.
Knowing the Sri Lankan public and the politicians who are remarkably quick to start accusing doctors of this that and the other...(take the recent situation where a surgeon was taken to task for performing a so called cosmetic procedure at state expense.. where in fact he was treating morbid obesity in one of the most effective ways acknowledged in the medical community.) this does not bode well for the future of the medical profession in the country.
Of course the politicians in this country qwould relish such an opportunity,,, blame it all on the Docs... cant blame them really, its probably a great way to cover up their swindling of billions of rupees from the state health service.
Friday, September 18, 2009
A Tale of Websites
A very long time ago I created my first website. I did so because my friend said it was kinda 'cool' and I should definitely do so. Naturally I rushed off to Angelfire.com as he directed and created my account.
Everyone in school had a website then. My friends said "My name is XXXX. I am 12 years old. I like Cheetahs." Funny enough he soon started getting mails from a retired American Navy Man who was in his late 40's. I thought it was a bit odd, but being 12 I didn't know what it was. This guy kept mailing my friend as months went by informing him about how he just bought a new computer and it just went on. Apparently he really liked Cheetahs too! I figure now that he was definitely a Pedo...
Anyway this first site was lame, as lame as everyone else's. So I wanted to create something that wasn't crap. So being a big fan of Star Wars Jedi Knight II, I created a site to host something I made. A secret locations guide. OoooooH!
This time though not satisfied with the Angelfire web editor and also because of the significant cost associated with creating pages online I used notepad instead. These were the days when connecting to the Internet was only associated with Peeky Peeky Peeky PEEEEEKYYYYYYYYYYYY Peeky Peeky Peek.
But creating the site in this manner required careful planning. Having a fair number of pages I soon learned the problem of using the regular linking, which created links that led to my harddrive... very frustrating. Changes in structure also lead to broken links in multiple places. Uploading images also had to be planned to military precision to save money. All in all it was fun and had quite a few pages. I liked my site, it was cooler than the other crap everyone else had, but it never really took off. I was pleased, it had a set scope of content which I achieved and that was that. Eventually it was forgotten.
It was much later that I created a different site that actually had some traffic. In 2004 a game called Chrome came out. I kinda liked it though it wasn't great. Went on to the official forum and somehow got stuck there. I ended up answering people's queries on there, and there were a lot of ANGRY people for the game's shortcomings.
Soon the dev's asked me to become the official moderator. I did. Then I noticed that a lot of the complaints were being repeated in different threads, newer threads. So in my infinite wisdom I created a FAQ of well... FAQ's! I dubbed it ingeniously... the I'm Stuck Guide! I then needed a place to host it...
Dun Dun Dun... the birth of a new website, this time on Geocities. I started with the I'm Stuck Guide which significantly reduced the number of complaints on the official forum. Over time the FAQ grew... but then new less frequent problems came along, like how to play etc.
So then I expanded... added a full walkthrough complete with picturZ! I created a homepage (with a picture!) that led to another index page of stuffs. Soon the traffic was rolling in. My account was being taken off due to exceeding daily allotted bandwidth. But this was due to large images being scaled down. One user actually sent me a mail telling me to resize them and to use IrfanView. I still use it today.
So after resizing all the images, I still got blocked after bandwidth usage was too high. Then another user told me to switch to his brothers web hosting service, fusioncities.com with no bandwidth restrictions. After some consideration I did. There were some relatively minor challenges, but the site was eventually completed and traffic was still good. I monitored with Stat Counter. Days with peak activity were tied to excessive activity on the Chrome official forum. I still moderated there. I created sticky threads linking to my site, and my signature also linked to my site.
The dev's of Chrome... Techland based in Poland sent me some freebies for my trouble. A Chrome mug and shirt.CoolZ. The forum was managed and the site kept getting traffic.
But then an unsolvable problem hit the game. The complaints got larger and larger, more vocal. Fusioncities was bought over and my site just erased. I wasn't making any profit from these activities and eventually exited.
Today I realize that creating a site is easy. The challenge lies in the maintenance and growth which is achieved through the creation of relevant and rich content. If you don't plan for it and successfully capture/hold people's attention, then you're pretty much doomed. Content is king.
Everyone in school had a website then. My friends said "My name is XXXX. I am 12 years old. I like Cheetahs." Funny enough he soon started getting mails from a retired American Navy Man who was in his late 40's. I thought it was a bit odd, but being 12 I didn't know what it was. This guy kept mailing my friend as months went by informing him about how he just bought a new computer and it just went on. Apparently he really liked Cheetahs too! I figure now that he was definitely a Pedo...
Anyway this first site was lame, as lame as everyone else's. So I wanted to create something that wasn't crap. So being a big fan of Star Wars Jedi Knight II, I created a site to host something I made. A secret locations guide. OoooooH!
This time though not satisfied with the Angelfire web editor and also because of the significant cost associated with creating pages online I used notepad instead. These were the days when connecting to the Internet was only associated with Peeky Peeky Peeky PEEEEEKYYYYYYYYYYYY Peeky Peeky Peek.
But creating the site in this manner required careful planning. Having a fair number of pages I soon learned the problem of using the regular linking, which created links that led to my harddrive... very frustrating. Changes in structure also lead to broken links in multiple places. Uploading images also had to be planned to military precision to save money. All in all it was fun and had quite a few pages. I liked my site, it was cooler than the other crap everyone else had, but it never really took off. I was pleased, it had a set scope of content which I achieved and that was that. Eventually it was forgotten.
It was much later that I created a different site that actually had some traffic. In 2004 a game called Chrome came out. I kinda liked it though it wasn't great. Went on to the official forum and somehow got stuck there. I ended up answering people's queries on there, and there were a lot of ANGRY people for the game's shortcomings.
Soon the dev's asked me to become the official moderator. I did. Then I noticed that a lot of the complaints were being repeated in different threads, newer threads. So in my infinite wisdom I created a FAQ of well... FAQ's! I dubbed it ingeniously... the I'm Stuck Guide! I then needed a place to host it...
Dun Dun Dun... the birth of a new website, this time on Geocities. I started with the I'm Stuck Guide which significantly reduced the number of complaints on the official forum. Over time the FAQ grew... but then new less frequent problems came along, like how to play etc.
So then I expanded... added a full walkthrough complete with picturZ! I created a homepage (with a picture!) that led to another index page of stuffs. Soon the traffic was rolling in. My account was being taken off due to exceeding daily allotted bandwidth. But this was due to large images being scaled down. One user actually sent me a mail telling me to resize them and to use IrfanView. I still use it today.
So after resizing all the images, I still got blocked after bandwidth usage was too high. Then another user told me to switch to his brothers web hosting service, fusioncities.com with no bandwidth restrictions. After some consideration I did. There were some relatively minor challenges, but the site was eventually completed and traffic was still good. I monitored with Stat Counter. Days with peak activity were tied to excessive activity on the Chrome official forum. I still moderated there. I created sticky threads linking to my site, and my signature also linked to my site.
The dev's of Chrome... Techland based in Poland sent me some freebies for my trouble. A Chrome mug and shirt.CoolZ. The forum was managed and the site kept getting traffic.
But then an unsolvable problem hit the game. The complaints got larger and larger, more vocal. Fusioncities was bought over and my site just erased. I wasn't making any profit from these activities and eventually exited.
Today I realize that creating a site is easy. The challenge lies in the maintenance and growth which is achieved through the creation of relevant and rich content. If you don't plan for it and successfully capture/hold people's attention, then you're pretty much doomed. Content is king.
Monday, September 14, 2009
They Must be MAD
Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Enrichment and Nuclear Programmes are something we hear a lot about these days. With states such as Iran and North Korea trying to develop their own warheads coming to much international condemnation, it seems everyone agrees that Nukes are a bad thing.
Nukes were definitely a good thing to have at one point... namely in 1945 when the US was the only nation to possess them. It gave incredible power that could not be matched by any nation. But once the Soviets developed (or stole) their own in 1953 it didn't seem like such a great idea anymore.
Gone was that Ace Up The Sleeve... instead we had Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Once a nuke was launched the other would retaliate. It is for this reason that no nuclear weapons have been fired on any other nation since 1945. Not to mention that the horrid immediate devastation and after effects are something nobody wants to see.
So when there were only two, Gorby (Gorbachev) wanted to reduce the number of warheads with that Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. A smart move since the number of nukes possessed during the early 90's was enough to blow the world up several times over and constant production of warheads was costly, more so for the USSR.
But now we see Obama on the path to try and eliminate nukes. But the truth is these actions are to benefit the US. Why? Simply because in a world without Nukes the US will have a much better competitive edge over other nations. The power of a Nuclear Weapon gives a smaller state like North Korea the ability to inflict tremendous damage without needing the support of a large army. The reverse is true for the United States.
So naturally the US wants them out. But is this really feasible? If there is a way to construct the weapons, then surely someone will always manufacture it somehow. In fact with more nations having nuclear weapons, the chance of actual large scale wars is significantly reduced as "Nuclear Deterrence" goes beyond simple 'MAD'. In fact this is one large factor to why the Cold War stayed Cold. In a way they are truly peacemakers.
So can we ever rid the world of Nuclear Weapons? I highly doubt it. Campaigning for their removal seems like a total waste of time.
Nukes were definitely a good thing to have at one point... namely in 1945 when the US was the only nation to possess them. It gave incredible power that could not be matched by any nation. But once the Soviets developed (or stole) their own in 1953 it didn't seem like such a great idea anymore.
Gone was that Ace Up The Sleeve... instead we had Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Once a nuke was launched the other would retaliate. It is for this reason that no nuclear weapons have been fired on any other nation since 1945. Not to mention that the horrid immediate devastation and after effects are something nobody wants to see.
So when there were only two, Gorby (Gorbachev) wanted to reduce the number of warheads with that Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. A smart move since the number of nukes possessed during the early 90's was enough to blow the world up several times over and constant production of warheads was costly, more so for the USSR.
But now we see Obama on the path to try and eliminate nukes. But the truth is these actions are to benefit the US. Why? Simply because in a world without Nukes the US will have a much better competitive edge over other nations. The power of a Nuclear Weapon gives a smaller state like North Korea the ability to inflict tremendous damage without needing the support of a large army. The reverse is true for the United States.
So naturally the US wants them out. But is this really feasible? If there is a way to construct the weapons, then surely someone will always manufacture it somehow. In fact with more nations having nuclear weapons, the chance of actual large scale wars is significantly reduced as "Nuclear Deterrence" goes beyond simple 'MAD'. In fact this is one large factor to why the Cold War stayed Cold. In a way they are truly peacemakers.
So can we ever rid the world of Nuclear Weapons? I highly doubt it. Campaigning for their removal seems like a total waste of time.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Ready for a Revolution?
Well our good friend Whackster, doing a tremendously good job with his communications efforts informed us of Beyond Borders and its work. Apparently they are open for recruitment. Might be something some of you want to check out... For more information visit their website
www.beyondborders.lk or blog
www.beyondborders.wordpress.com for more info.
www.beyondborders.lk or blog
www.beyondborders.wordpress.com for more info.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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