2021 was supposed to be the year that the vaccine was introduced to all and COVID deaths would (mostly) be a thing of the past. Instead, Delta happened and Sri Lanka (and the world) saw the situation worsen drastically. We lost many invaluable lives to the virus. Here are some 2021 personal stats: Transport In 2018, I took 556 bus ...

This is mostly a note to self. You know how you often have photographs of notes or forms that you need to print out, and there's a shadow or uneven lighting across the image which makes the print look bad? These are the steps I take to make something like this friendlier for a black-and-white printer. I am using the ...

Since the advent of React Hooks, there have been a few hook-related anti-patterns that have popped up. To be fair, these existed before hooks as well, but in different forms. The use of derived state is one of the most pervasive of these. As the React blog pointed out way back in 2018, "You Probably Don't Need Derived State". In ...

This weekend, I did something I had never done before: binge an entire 13-episode anime AND its movie. I usually like to consume media at a much slower pace and sit with what I’ve just watched in an episode, but two things colluded in this case to make me buckle my usual habit: my weekdays are packed (making me wait ...

I am alive and... well? I don’t know much about quantifying wellness— but in the age of a pandemic—I feel lucky to be healthy. There hasn’t been much activity in this blog, not just because I have been busy (work really took over life in quarantine), but because I have had a lot to say but no way to say ...

One week ago, on 7 March, I released my animated short Paramitha. I stared working on it in early February and just as I expected it took ~4 weeks of work to finish. I used Krita for the drawing and frame-by-frame animations, and Synfig Studio for things like parallax. The story and setting were inspired by a random piece I ...

Sometimes I wonder if I am A shard of glass Safely disposed Away from any exposed flesh A burning ember separated From dry cotton It wishes it gets to know A little too intimately For a fleeting second A malignant tumour Discovered early Before it could cut short A mother's warmth Is feeling a little incomplete Really that bad Is ...

There no getting around the fact that 2020 was defined by the pandemic. With that in mind, some personal stats: Transport In 2018, I took 556 bus rides. In 2019, I took 265. In 2020, I took 15. Not a typo. 14 rides in January and a solitary ride in February. With the threat of Covid rising (even before the ...

Watching the Adam Ragusea New York-style pizza dough recipe inspired me to make pizza at home, something that I never thought I was capable of. Now, about 3 batches of pizza later, I think I’ve got most of the big details sorted out. Credit also to Andrew Rea for his pan pizza recipe which really helped me with kneading and ...

I’m sure everyone at this point has read about the paradox of tolerance. It’s a pretty common sense argument and there are many historial examples that are often held up, one of the most popular being the rise of the Nazi party in the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic. A problem that I've see cropping up recently (first in ...

I finished Isaac Asimov's seminal work, the first book of the Foundation trilogy, yesterday. This is my short review that I added on Goodreads: I think it's a bit harsh to rate this book using modern standards when it was written in the 1940s. Yes, it's not as fast paced or as expansive as modern SciFi, and there is a ...

Here's a small recap of what I've been watching on the ol' YouTube. Practical Engineering Grady Hillhouse just has the most calming presence on screen, and he explains complex engineering concepts with simple practical setups. His series’ on concrete, hydraulics, and the power grid are not only information-packed but witty as well. See Also: Technology Connections: The old faithful when ...

I like blank slates, and I like closure. My JIRA board at work has a bunch of stubborn tickets that won't go away. This seems to mirror life in general, in that the peace that I seek, of finally finishing what I've been working on, seems to be drifting further away the more I run towards it. It's been a ...

you fall in love over a phone call in the backseat of the cinema reading whatsapps at 1 am at a candle lit dinner or when you're the first to hear about their day you fall in love every time you work out or take a good shower sit down to write a new song or learn something new and not because someone asked you to is one really any better than the other? can the first even exist in a void?

You will often need to implement text that looks like this: Now, it's fairly simple enough to do in HTML, but when you do it in React Native it looks a bit gnarly: <Text style={styles.text}> You’re going to <Text style={styles.highlighted}>send a message</Text> to{" "} <Text style={styles.highlighted}>Pingpong</Text>. Please confirm? </Text> Now, I prefer to keep strings like this in a separate ...

Flagitect just hit version 1.2.0, and so this is a brief introduction into the technical aspects of how the app is structured. Stack The app is written in React Native (currently version 0.62). There is no navigation library in use, as the app only needs some modals in the UI at the moment. The editor uses react-native-svg to render the ...

I created this little timeline graphic as a crutch for my non-American self trying to navigate the complex history, culture, and inter-network rivalries of American Late Night TV shows. There are some shows that should be mentioned but aren’t, because they weren’t on the big three: The Late Show/The Joan Rivers Show The Arsenio Hall Show The Jon Stewart Show ...

Cheng Xin in space I recently finished the last book in Liu Cixin's masterpiece trilogy, and created this little piece in Krita. Cheng Xin's name translates to sincerity. This single character gets so much flak from fans of the trilogy, and gets hated far more than even genuine villains. But everything she did, she did out of a sense ...

Am I doomed To an existence Where you You, you, and you (Yes, I know you're all the same— though it took me a while to catch on) Will be near enough to see But never to hold? Always tantalisingly close But no cigar? To check up on After a hard day To celebrate your wins (Not that you'll never know) Applaud, be proud of, Have imaginary conversations with Late into the night Am I doomed To exist?

Jaki, Maali, and DD on one of their vacations Down South circa late 1980s. I finished Shehan Karunatilaka's Chats with the Dead last week, and it was incredible. As Thimal puts it about Jaki, "how can a character say so little but still be so amazing?". This Krita piece took all day to finish, and could still do with more polish... but I'm sleepy.