Feeling Very Wiki-ish

Despite the fact that I had tons of work pending, I just spent 2 hours of my morning creating my first wiki!


After 2 hours of googling, brain wrecking and writing content the child was spawned and christened Writum Wiki. I have to say that the effort was totally worth it. The wiki was born leaving me with the feeling of wanting to come back for more. :D

It was amazing to see how easy it was to create the basic layout just after a few click hither and thither. All you need to have is a basic idea (a map in your head) of what you need to put in the wiki and presto...everything else will magically fall into place. There are tons of wiki hosting sites, some of them are generously free. I chose Wikidot to host my wiki. Wikidot has a great set of cool tools for content authoring, site management and user management. In order for you to create your own wiki, you first need to register with wikidot. After that you are meticulously guided through the creating of a wiki process. You may restrict authoring privileges of your wiki. The level of restriction may vary from one person to unlimited number of people (public wiki). In my case, I selected a set of people I would like to see contributing to Writum Wiki. These users will have to register with Wikidot first. In order to induce them to join the wiki, Wikidot has an inbuilt email notification system, which can be used to send emails to approximately 200 users. I have to say I was more than a little eager to use this feature! ;-)

It is also possible for you to receive email notifications whenever content is updated. You can customize your notification settings along with other configs that are applicable to your user account.

What I like the most about Wikis is the sense of community it exudes. Moreover, you are free to come up with a site that perfectly matches your style, your taste and your need. Wikidot also has a super community to assist you in case you found yourself in a bit of a soup with regard to your site.

So, come, partake in the most wikish method to share knowledge.

I LOVE YOU

"Sach... have you ever said the three word sentence?" asks my female confidante. "oh yeah!" out comes the reply. And I let go of the flood gates, which harbor a whole deal of churning thoughts. The churning thoughts somehow magically find their way in to these notes; my surreal fortress of concession.



This female confidante is one persistent little spitfire, who knows how to make me talk. Can't blame her though, for some weird twist of fate we are stuck to each other. I for one am feeling so mighty glad that we are stuck to each other!!! As taken over by instinct, she persists. As frank as I could get, I narrate. The Tale of Woo!

So there, I have uttered the three word sentence. Quite uncanny it is that the first few times I had to say it, it came out of sheer politeness. :D Hence, no meaning, no feeling, no relevance... Debate arises with the question of my trying to mislead the unsuspecting recipient. But then again, if I sufficed the sentence with the phrase"I mean it" I would be cheating two people instead of one; myself and the recipient. True enough it is said that two is better than one, but me thinks the guy who said that must have been extremely pedantic.

To me, the title phrase carries very little meaning. I feel a whole lot more comfortable for as long as I do not hear it. The moment I hear it I am caught in a limbo, not being totally sure if I should succumb to tradition or be unorthodox. Being unorthodox in romance does not have the best of histories, while the sugarcoated sweet talk could get you from point A to point B without a single hair being ruffled. It is just amazing to see advantages one could get with sweet talk should you happen to be with "a recipient" who possess a sweet tooth. It is still sad that supposedly the most prettiest sentences in the literature is brutally exploited by many of us, so much so that it has completely lost its fire and charm...

And so, you the reader might already be squinting your eyes at this little inscription. Oh! you self conscious little miss righteous indignation... bla bla... So be it. Words alone will get me as far as the distance an ant could move me :D Don't I believe in infatuation? Of course I do. We all are bound to make that profound mistake at least once in our lives. When we do eventually commit the crime, time stands still, the earth stops spinning and we begin to see the world in colors we have never seen before.

Respect; that be the word I would be replacing LOVE with. Not only the newer version is hard to mouth if you don't mean it, it sounds ridiculously stupid to the recipient if he/she does not see you behaving accordingly. As far as I am concerned, respect comes bundled with trust, honor, humility and a superior emotion compared to the sugar coated love! Plus one need not bother thinking too much when one says that one respects one. The state is entirely binary; either you respect or you don't! Unlike with regard to love, which has almost a million intermediate stages like "complicated" , "I do but he/she doesn't", "just a crush", "a thing for so & so", "a fling", "no strings attached.." etc. Respect is action-driven. As for love...well...y'all know what drives what!

Actions always speak louder than words.

- NOT OPEN FOR DISCUSSIONS -

In The Back Seat Of Your Car!

The back seat of a ride is a place of excitement for people of many tastes & attitudes. There...a rather mundane opening for another one of mine self-generated, randomly inspired chronicles. Stories about maniacs, scum bags, screw ups, idiots, grown ups who have refused to grow up.... in other words, us!

Rides with tinted shutters have always fascinated me. To be frank, I myself was toying with the idea of being the chauffeur of a tinted shuttered ride, but for some cause unknown to me(and to which I am so frikkin thankful for) the fantasy never materialized. Absence of light, to many people mean plenty of privacy. Absence of light also means security in the same context to the same group of people. Human beings tend to cut themselves lose when it is dark and the environment is closed up. Much like all those werewolves & vampires people have invented to vent out the darker sides of their inner selves. To me,
although those mythical beings are unreal, they are the most violated group of people ever to be spawned. How hopeless pedantic it is to be able to spring into "action" only when the full moon perches itself up on a cloudless sky? For all we know, it is full moon only once a month. It is not like those people
can hitch hike on a random form they happen to meet at a party, run into on streets or meet online....I am guessing it must be extremely boring when you know your self-inflicted curfew lifts itself only once a month!!!


Egad...a derailing!!! As usual!!!! Now let us break free from this temporary indulgence in werewolves and get back to tinted shutters....

Cutting lose, more often than not leads to oneself being a little too careless & finding him/herself at the wrong place at the wrong time. Human beings have needs. Sadly for us, the most demanding of our needs usually require closed environments. Take peeing for example. I am not sure many of us will find it pleasing to relieve our bladders in public. We, somewhere down that long dismal time line of evolution been blessed (or cursed?) with the requirement of wanting darkness when it is time to let go. Once provided the seclusion required its winter wonderland to all of us...Like they say...when you gotta go, you gotta go!!!

Takeaway point: Feelings are hard to put a lid on...


And so we crash down on our object of discussion; rides with tinted shutters. They come bundled with an assortment of VERY favorable properties for the "needy". It is mobile, it more often than not comes with just the right amount of space to do just the right type of things, it comes at zero cost, depending on where you decide to land...etc. and when you do find all properties smiling at you, beckoning you to loosen what you have been harnessing so laboriously in you, you just do nothing but giving in....O! sweet succumb...

Takeaway point: Convenience is not always a blessing...


Who do you normally like to accompany into the seclusion a tinted-shuttered-ride provides? How dense can I get huh? Is that a question to ask? Well....If you are still questioning yourselves whether or not to answer that question in your heads let me help you. You don't need darkness to have tea parties!!!
*Wink*. The quality of the specimen who happens to accompany you into darkness matters a lot AFAIK. It can invariably be your lifeline if it be the right specimen. If not....well....then you can get down on your sorry ass & start hoping for the best. One thing that mustn't elude you though, is the fact that when it comes to the moment, hope sure has the knack of leaving you!

Takeaway point: Beware of who you are with in the darkness...


Seclusion has two faces. It can provide you security. At the same time it can put your life on the line. Well, if you are somebody who happened to make a living out of being alone that is entirely a different story. But I doubt the majority of my audience is in that category. With all due respect, let us read on. One thing I have come to realize over the course of my life, is the fact that there is no such thing as "harmless fun". First of all, that phrase is not logical. Harm & fun should not be in the same sentence to begin with! It has also come into my realization that when fun comes tagged with the word harmless, there are 101 ways things can go hideously wrong. To an observant eye, it must have come into focus that excitement and seclusion go hand in hand in many a occasion. Human beings can excite one another in an assortment of ways. Be it from a gentle touch, a word, or by sharing some substance (coffee, juice, ahem ahem...). Excitement, like seclusion has two faces. It can make you feel good the moment the right buttons are pushed. However, the general case is such that, human beings tend to be extremely negligent when they reach the peak of excitement. Negligence, has a wild reputation on putting a damper on all your glorious moments. Aren't you just tired of my euphemisms!?!?


Takeaway point: Seclusion may provide opportunity and rob you of opportunity...


Opposites are a cocky invention of English language, I reckon. Simple words like give, take, up, down, can generate myriad of emotions in the reader's mind so effortlessly. The opposite of darkness is...yes...light. And such a delicious opposite it is don't you think? A sudden flash of a torch and you are jolted back into reality, out of darkness, into light. With light, strangers may infiltrate your tinted sanctuary. Light provides clarity & strength of mind to most of them who barge in. Does light really provide strength of mind? If you are afraid of the dark then I am sure you would "see" my point! Have you realized that, all Gods (in movies of course) appear amidst bright flashing lights? Good Gods in bright light, and bad Gods in ominous light. Where does this analogy take us? Light can accompany both your saviors and your destroyers. Scary thought don't you think? Light tends to make you see things in a whole new different perspective. Things that you have missed in the dark, you begin to see in haunting clarity when there is light. And then comes all should have s, could have s, and would have s, which usually make you feel even more miserable, should light happens to come on at the worst possible occasion for you. The question comes up; come unto light they say, but do you really want to?

Takeaway point: You ought to be scared of light if you are in the dark for the wrong reasons...


Strangers who come with light usually carry questions. The usual "what" "who" "where" "how" that require you to answer regardless your willingness to open up. People are rather shy of "opening up" when there is light. *Grin* Hence they go in search of darkness! Unfortunately, answering questions in the light may prove to be more difficult than answering them in darkness. For instance, when you are in the dark a question like "what are you doing?" can safely be silenced in the most delicious ways imaginable. *Mondo Grin* However, when the same question comes up when there is light, delicious answers would probably be the last thing on your mind! Moreover, your questioners would not exactly be looking for delicious answers. When the questions are fired, no tinted shutter is going to be good enough to protect you from expectations of strangers.

Takeaway point: Two is company and three (or four) is a crowd...


Then there is indignation! "This is my life, my game, why can I not do what I want? What is wrong with doing this?" etc. attitude. Well paley...that is just the way it is. There is no room to do what you want around here. This is not "the promised land". Nor there are good Gods wandering about us at your disposal to come in all their glory for your rescue. Should you happen to be somebody who has the "need" minus the "iron will" then you might as well take the chance and pray and hope lights will not come on before your party is over. You may not have been the first to break the rules. But somebody before you did break the rules and broke 'em bad. And now we all are doomed to be shackled by all these restrains until we get the green light. I myself have always been a fan of rules, hence I have no complains. A set of rules, like it or not, is a hideous guise to your perfect safety net.

Takeaway point: Respect the rules & rules will respect you back...


And it all happens... in the back seat of your car!!!

Behind The Third Eye

Given the talented man/woman the right apparatus, he/she maketh magic. The ramblings of this soul today will feature the amazing traits of such talented individuals who have found their calling behind the third eye.

Although the list of featured artists is limited to only 6, (not to mention this was all I could recall in the dismal abyss of my brain) that does not mean I think you suck if you happened to be good with the tools. People are entitled to their own comments & criticisms, I believe. Thus, should you happen to fall into the latter category I just mentioned about, you ought not have your feathers ruffled. Just brush the dampening thought away & be on your merry way.

Since I am not sure all you readers of this script will be able to access the links I will be attaching here, I will take the pride in sharing a few masterpieces that tickled my fantasies. All credit goes to original artists

Featured Artist #1
Srimal Samarasooriya
My good ol' crash pad, who has valiantly rescued me from many a mishaps, seen me through a plenty of bumpy rides is a gifted individual. The noteworthy fact is that the lad is gifted not just with the third eye but also with many a humane virtues. :-) This be a tribute to all the good times, the raised voices, arguments, most of all for being a very reliable cushion whenever a crisis arises. Depending on access privileges you should be able to see his work here. Well if you are curious of his camera type, the tools & techniques he uses & what not, I suggest you not pester me with questions. Why? If ignorance is bliss, I am as happy as a clam with respect to his tool specifications. The picture of the passage you see here happened to be one of my personal favorites from his collection.



Featured Artist #2
Anjula De Silva
Aaah...from my days of learning relative velocity & dynamics & brain teasers of such like being leg tackled from under the table, comes this "fun" individual who knows how to push the lens to the limits. Given a few more clicks and you can surely rate him as a pro! The fella possess the most sophisticated camera gear I had ever laid eyes on. What is amazing is that the tools respond to his demands & they respond oh so well. A silent man by nature, but as you can see in the picture, you can see that he talks to millions behind the third eye. If you the reader is lucky enough there is more from where this masterpiece came from right this way


Featured Artist #3
Sachini Weerawardhane (erm..did I spell the surname right girl?)
Fret not dear readers, I am not gifted with the lens. But this awesome lady generates passion behind the third eye, as you will all see in a while. I might as well share a few funny facts that she & I have in common. First in the list comes the name, Sachini Weerawardhane (spelling??), second comes the birth month, third comes our Alma-mater, and now that I realize, the fourth in the list be the shortened forms of our names, e.g. sach, sachi etc :D Girl, do pitch in with a comment if you see anything I have missed regarding the list of similarities. ;-) From what I have seen, the subjects she sees through the lens is more often than not unorthodox. Want proof?
The source from where this picture was excavated, drove many a ladies insane...


Featured Artist #4
Yajith Dayarathna
Well, since I am going to publish a picture I might as well publish a picture with a story behind it. :D And the picture is... (drum roll) More can be found on his Flicker photo stream The story behind the picture involves, Crabs, YesFM ShoeBox Project, shopping on Christmas Eve (2009), a horrendous downpour, & a few good gift vouchers that never found the purpose of their existence. I am not sure the status of the vouchers that plunged into the darkness of his backpack, but every once in a while a petite camera pops out of it & voila...moments speak!!!


Featured Artist #5
Sasiri Wimalarathna
I remember the day he consulted me for some pointers toward buying a good third eye. I for one am so eternally grateful the good doctor realized his mistake, did not listen to me & trusted his gut instead. Pretty is all I can say.
More of his work Here be a living example of what you can do if you have an open mind & open doors to limitless possibilities. Kudos Sasiri!!! :-)


Featured Artist #6
Charlie G. (Chathura)
Sorry mate.. I forget your last name! Perhaps if you had a surname as spectacular as your photography maybe none of this would have happened (LOL) One album I keep on revisiting on a regular basis is his Project 365 It is simply amazing to see the album being reborn with valor, fire & life every time a new picture is added. Dear readers, consult this man right here if you want to find out how to exploit a perfectly mundane moment & mold masterpiece out of it.


PS - The order of the list here has no relevance whatsoever with the level of skill each individual possesses. The note was just to voice an appreciation, as appreciation is always meant to be.

Psychotic Work Guys!

When I Am a Bike...

I Am Free

Why?
I feel the wind whizzing past me caressing my ears. The wind is a funny thing you see, creeping into the most cramped up locations & yet managing to freely wander about. One place she never fails to visit is underneath my riding jacket. Aah... such delights she gives me (choke)! Countless times, she has pushed me into states of extreme euphoria & all those times I profoundly forgot my latitude & longitude. Ma woman....purrrr....bless you!

I Am Brave

Why?
The bike undoubtedly gives you the best sitting position God has ever devised; legs on either side, slightly elevated from ground level. The position however has made me extremely lazy to put my feet on the ground, which in return makes stopping a nightmare! But who needs to stop with such hassle? I will just go & kiss somebody's bumper with my tires & voila, effortless stationing. I usually visualize myself as superman when I am riding my bike. Whoa...hold it...I said I "visualized" myself, does that necessarily require me to wear my undies over my pants? Well, if that is what you require for me to appear Mr. Invincible, then by God I shall wear my undies over my pants. The two wheels that spin so closely to my legs more often than not induce me to work magic on the road. Them all other losers on four-wheels plus, I laugh atcha suckers! I wag my tail feathers while I am on it & my ride responses. I wouldn't want to imagine y'all trying to do the same in your whack wagons. Trust me it will not work.


I Am Macho

Why?
The road is mine & I am burning hot! Ho yeah baby!! Who gives a flying fig about the state of the person driving the carcass I am overtaking. It is just me & my hot-ride forever & ever. I will just squeeze myself past this 20 Ton contraption & people around me would look in awe & throw flowers & confetti! Awesomeness!! A brave idea suddenly hits my small brain! Perhaps I could show these motorists how maneuvering is done. A tweak here, a tug there, a brush here & a yank there & a-waaaaay weeee go!

I Am Blind

Why?
Whoever the egghead who decided to stick these side-view mirrors & signal lights & what not onto my cruise machine ought to be hanged. I need no stinkin' mirror or light or anything that remotely relates to highway safety. As long as I have my undies over my pants I ain't got nothin' to worry'bout, no sir!!! What...I can twist & turn & wriggle my way in & out a jam. It's just too damn bad that you have to just sit there & be jealous of me & perhaps commemorating my folks at home with such love & adoration!

I Am An Idiot

Why?
I see an 18-wheeler carrying cargo, making & precarious turn to the left. In my own drunken stupor I go try to over take the 18-wheeler from the left. I just love feeling so small & so drastically outnumbered in weight, height, length & also the wheel count! By some miracle the 18 wheeler keeps a hairbreadth distance between my hot-ride, my legs & a good deal of metal junk that could easily flatten me like ham! Am I disturbed? Hell no!! I go along as if nothing happened & meet a van again finding me on its left. Is it just me or is everybody heavily left-oriented today. This guy too is turning left & I am rammed between 2 feet of triangular space between a pavement & a big white bulky mess! Curses...let me just stop right here & curse the causes of putting this man on this earth. *#&@$(*&@#$


Brummmm....Brummmm....Aaang....Aannggg....

The Earth Rumbles & Why Do We Have To Age Sooner! :-(

There I was, trying to catch up with my daily reading & I run into this queer article in the newspaper. Few minutes after gloating over it I was engulfed with much respect for the Mayans for their premonition skills!

Sources from NASA claim that the recent Chilean Earthquake was powerful enough to knock the Earth off its axis, resulting in shorter day time. The 8.8 magnitude quake struck massive blows to the city of Concepcion on February 27th, killing more than 700 people & most weirdly affection the geography of the planet.

It is argued that since the Earthquake has affected in the distribution of mass of planet earth, it has in return had an impact on the rotation speed. Computer simulations done at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Pasadena, California, by geophysicists have revealed that due to the alteration to the Earth's axis, the day has gotten shorter by 1.27 microseconds. They further claim that the Earth's axis has been shifted 8cm from its orientation. How this rotation speed change occurs can be explained by a phenomena called "Ice Skater Effect". In layman's terms this means that the further the body mass is spread from the rotational axis of an ice skater the slower he can spin. If he wants to spin faster he can easily crouch his limbs, thus altering the distribution of body mass & as a result the rotational speed changes.

However, since the change is quite insignificant, the geophysicists assure that no alteration to clock time has to be made. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the Sumatran quake (2004) which measured at 9.1 in the Richter scale, altered the orientation of the Earth's axis by 7cm despite the massive size of the quake!

Perhaps a few quakes hither & thither & a million lives later I would get to celebrate my birthday a day quicker than I used to 10 years ago!!!

On account of the number of natural disasters the world has had to withstand during the past couple of months, one could not help but wonder if the Mayans had been right about 2012.

Hope is a good thing, don't you think? It is just too sad that when everything falls into place hope always has the knack of leaving you!

-Source Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Fire

This day in February, the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Moratuwa caught fire. We dwelling on the floor above had a wonderful time inhaling the foul fumes, watching the show & trying to sound like mr/ms Situational Analysts. Stories were flying around as to how the fire started, as the case is for many a such random accidents. The closest news to the truth, stated negligence on the part of some maintenance folks. The story had references to welding gear, electricity cables, the A/C & (surprise surprise) water!! Apparently in the excited state of mind or by sheer dumbness some soul had decided to use water to put the fire out. And by some long forgotten good karma that everybody failed to pay tribute to no one got hurt.

Fire does require respect & plenty of it. The staff at the Electrical Engineering Department had their work cut out trying to curb the flames & minimize the damage while the fire brigade & the police took their own sweet time to arrive at the drama. Thankfully they eventually did & left almost as soon as they arrived! :D

Accidents like these usually make you realize how vulnerable you are. Also it makes you wonder how well (or under) equipped we are tackling an emergency situation. It was quite appalling to see such so called educated people standing right outside the burning building watching the extravaganza, while glass was splintering in thousand one directions! I mean come on...curiosity did kill the cat, did it not? Since the electrical circuitry was damaged by the fire, the power supply was cut off for approximately an hour. When you say power was cut off due to a fault you don't expect to see certain areas within the same building remaining unaffected by the power cut. The engineering genius of these people is such that we in our working area had power despite the alleged "power cut", thanks to an "old power line" they had just generously left in tact!

Luckily the incident took place when most of the students were away on their vacation. Had it been a normal work day with thousands of students attending lectures, we could have witnessed a retake of a blockbuster movie! :D People may argue, blame X, Y & Z, try to sound like mr/ms know-it-alls, but it is highly unlikely that the present loopholes will be addressed & undone in the near future. Why? we, the Sri Lankans have been graciously blessed with the gift of forgetfulness & with a lapse of a few days nobody would remember of the whole fiasco, until the next one takes us by surprise.

Tomorrow...