I first came across George Redhawk by accident. Someone on my Facebook shared a GIF. A GIF, for the very few who don’t know what I’m talking about, is a short, animated image, usually looping in on itself. This one showed a human face; a man, woman, I can’t tell, but on his head was a phoenix vomiting fire. His eyes and ...
Some time ago, the Colombo Telegraph published an article titled “No Wise Country Celebrates Victory After a Civil War” by the NPC. The NPC here is not the Northern Provincial Council that’s trying to split the country again, but the National Peace Council. Despite the rather stupid stab at describing American celebrations, that article raised a few very important points: ...
Every newspaper in the country seems to have visited the ICIJ website and published the names of the 65 Sri Lankans named in the Panama Papers. Being on this list or being associated to it, however, does not make anyone a criminal. Yes, four Avante-Garder are there, but Emma Watson is also on that list; so are two Hirdramani’s. I don’t ...
Every human suffers from two painful maladies: boredom and loneliness. I’m pretty sure these two have wreaked their havoc on every single generation before us. Boredom and loneliness are an inseparable part of the human experience … if you look back far enough, you’ll find a bored and lonely caveman scratching on the walls, and if you look forward far ...
A couple of days ago I spotted a curious question on a YAMU review: “Has the economy improved here so much that 1500-2500 per person is considered middle-class?” I’m not here to diss YAMU or its writers or their definitions of middle-class. I’m here to try and answer this question. Let’s set some context. I. I work in Colombo. I ...
Context: As an outsider and a bit of a data geek, I’ve been tracking the US Election campaigns with interest. My tools are slightly different for this: I’m using the Election Monitor, a Twitter analytics engine we at WSO2 built as a big data experiment, and it’s tracking everything happening around the US Election live. A lot of things just ...
A man died yesterday. Train. Walked up to the 11.30 express, apparently. Drunk. Laid his neck on the tracks. Waited. The train screamed over him. A thousand tons of noisy steel. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Squish. They never found the head. Today they held his funeral. The wife made loud wailing noises and cried. Just ...
I was at the Negombo beach this morning, doing what now seems to be the standard ritual for 2 AM on a Sunday – stare grumpily into the sea and wonder when Rodeo opens for breakfast. A lawyer chappie I’d just made friends with dropped by and we started to chat. Halfway through our conversation, he asked a deceptively simple question: ...
Microsoft deletes ‘teen girl’ AI after it became a Hitler-loving sex robot within 24 hours (the Telegraph) Microsoft Executive Apologizes for Not Understanding How the Internet Works (Gizmodo) The Internet is plastered with headlines about Microsoft’s disastrous chatbot. If you haven’t heard of it, here’s a bit of context: Microsoft launched a chatbot called Tay (@tayandyou). This simpleton Ai was designed to ...
I grew up a Buddhist. Or at least, they tried to make me one. Growing up, it was interesting to see how my parents approached religion. My mother was zealous and by-the-book. Truly bad luck was attributed to karma. Poya days were inevitably spent at the temple. Monks were never to be argued with. My father was the complete opposite. Sarcastic and ...
Some days ago, a boy was denied access to an education on the suspicion that he had HIV/Aids. It seemed the entire Sri Lankan rose up in protest over his plight – and over the retarded comments of the Education Minister, who tried to make a case for separating the child from his mother. And what did we do? Nothing, ...
On Sunday, the 6th of March, about a hundred people sat down at the hall in the middle of Independence Square. Despite it going ham on social media (there were definitely a couple of thousand more Facebook commentators than actual protestors), the aftermath seems to be fairly muddled and open for debate. Here’s what happened. A bunch of people sat ...
Ah, the US Election. The one event in recent history where the entire world looks at the most powerful nation on the Earth and goes “what the fuck are they smoking?” Hillary Clinton Putting the ‘old’ in ‘old guard’ “On my first day as President, I’ll set two big goals,” said Clinton. “I want the U.S. to have half a billion ...
If your digital friends read Asian Mirror, you’ll know that 14 Royalists were recently arrested for breaking into a girls’ school in a Big Match fuelled testosterone frenzy. If they read Colombo Today, it may have 24 Royalists. Regardless of the actual headcount, opinion is divided on the matter. Many believe that the police overreacted to a fairly harmless tradition. ...
If you’re on Facebook, chances are high you’ll have seen at least one CEPA-related post by now. What started out as an argument by a few high-level commentators has now evolved into video campaigns, a Facebook group with 21,000 members and actual physical protests. There’s even a profile picture template. It’s all over the Sri Lankan Internet. The backstory behind CEPA ...
On February 4, 1948, Ceylon was granted independence by England. The British didn’t exactly pack up their things and move out overnight, however; Ceylon remained a Dominion of the British Commonwealth for the next 24 years. Being a Dominion meant that the Queen, God Bless Her, knew you were independent, but you still had to bend the knee and make ...
A week ago, a new friend (and a bit of a kindred spirit) and I turned this question over in our minds. Rewriting the Bible in programming code seemed like a very cool idea (especially if you’re a few glasses of wine into the evening). Not only would it be a fantastic intellectual exercise (init_light() print “Let there be light” ...
When is racism not racism? Apparently, when it’s a minority doing it. Many people who read my article ‘Wali Kukul Le’ liked it. Many didn’t. Ironically, it was those who hated it that saw through to the next question: why are we bashing one particular ethnic group for being inordinately proud of their race? What about the others? Granted, the ...
This article originally appeared in the Sunday Observer (10/1/2015). A long time ago, there was an Indian Prince. His name was Vijaya. Later generations would practically worship the guy, but despite the marketing, said Prince was a deeply disturbed individual. His grandmother had been carried off and knocked up by a lion. History tells us the lion is a metaphor; ...
My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night But ah, my foes and oh my friends It gives a lovely light. That poem was written by Edna Millay, whose life spanned the 18th and the 19th centuries. While her original context might have been lost, the poem applies to something we all go through: that ‘night’ ...
