Little help for our little VBloggers

VBloggers, as I like to call our little Village Bolg community.

I have been receiving essays numbering in the tens, for corrections and feedback before they are posted on them web. I was reading through them and saw that some of the shortcomings were very common or were across the board. So I just thought I'd make up a list and have these little check boxes that they could go through before they are posted, and may be that will help them to improve their writing. May be you could suggest some tips too.

One of the most disturbing things I found when going through these essays was that many were using the spell checker and the grammar correction option, but they were simply doing it in a blind fashion. What ever the word or phrase that was suggested first was used to replace the mistake. I remembered what one of my colleagues said when asked about the "One laptop per child program", he said "If I give my son a calculator he will learn to use it to add and subtract and multiply, but will he learn adding, subtracting or multiplying? I don't think so. It is not about giving a laptop to a child, but how it is used to learn". Similarly these little bloggers and many others don't use the spell checker and the grammar correction option as a learning too, they simply use it to correct mistakes and they keep on repeating the same mistake over and over again. In an instance when they do not have access to a computer and need to write something, they are going to be in deep trouble.

So hope that the people who donate computers and conduct programs also point out the importance of using them as tools of learning rather than just tools for doing tasks.

Click to view

Tamilselvan killed in Sri Lanka Air Force aerial bombardment

Well that is the cost of pissing off the Air Force, with their so called "daring" Attack. Rest in Pieces!

At 6.00am today, Friday 2nd November 2007, Head of teh LTTE Political Division, S P Tamilselvan (no more false smiles) was killed by the Sri Lankan Air Force aerial bombing. With him the self appointed jackasses "Lt Col" Anpumani (Alex), "Major" Mihuthan, "Capt" Nethagy, "Lt" Adchgivel, and "Lt " Vahaikumaran were also killed.

Boom of "Village Bloggers"

Been visiting some blogs of village kids lately, and each day I search for these kids I find more and more popping of from all corners of the country. While the kids in Colombo and the big cities play WarCraft living in the world of avatars or browsing porn, the kids in the village seem to be making better use of technology for a much more productive purpose.

It is amazing how confidently they express their views and that too in their second language. May be not in perfect English, but then again who says there is perfect English, you speak to an English kid and he will make a mistake or two in five the sentences he speaks, so what the heck it's his first language and only our second language. It really does not matter whether it is "an apple" or "a apple", all that matters is the communication and getting your ideas through. We used to call people from remote parts "Bayya" or "Godaya" (now now don't deny you said it at least once) but there is no such thing today, there in no place called remote, technology has broken the barriers of distance and remoteness, now everybody is a neighbor on the Internet.

Each time I visit a blog of one of these kids I try to leave an encouraging comment, since blogging is no easy task if others don't read and comment on your blog. Blogging needs motivation (specially for the new comers and the kids), it's not simple as "dear diary" where you did not want anyone to read, but now you want someone to read and also comment. I don't try to comment on their language or some mistakes they make, but I give them time to get their confidence. May be after several months of posting I might just give them some "constructive" criticism for them to improve both their communication skills and language.

So people if you find some free time do visit the blogs of these kids and take a minute to leave a comment. They may seem to be uninteresting with titles like; "my mother", "my village", "my school", "my teacher", "Sigirya", "king Dutugamunu" etc. etc., but think of it as you playing your part in helping the next generation to beat the world.

Remember "A Smile and a kind words goes a long way".
PEACE!

The new Apple MacBooks and Pros are out?

I want to buy an apple MacBook and have been keeping an eye on things. I just heard this rumor that apple would be releasing the new MacBook and a MacBook Pro with the Santa Rosa architecture with a bus speed of 800MHz, and tomorrow is Friday (if apple keeps to the tradition of launching stuff on Friday) the new Macs should be out tomorrow. I noticed on the Apple websites too that 1st they had the new spec, but now they have taken away the whole Product Bar so that visitors cannot see the new Mac specs. Still if you search hard enough, you can find a link they forgot to take off, so here are the new spec,

The MacBook

• 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
  
• 4MB shared L2 cache running at full processor speed
• 800MHz frontside bus
• 1GB (two 512MB SO-DIMMs) of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300); two SO-DIMM slots support up to 4GB
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

The MacBook Pro

• 15-inch MacBook Pro
  • 2.2GHz, 2.4GHz, or 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed
• 17-inch MacBook Pro
  • 2.4GHz or 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed
• 2GB (two SO-DIMMs) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 4GB
• 800MHz frontside bus

So whats New? Well now it is 2.0 - 2.6 GHz (used to be 2.0 - 2.4 GHz) , RAM upgradeable to 4 GB (used to be 2 GB), 800MHz frontside bus (used to be 667MHz), the MacBook with the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (instead of GMA 950) and they also comes with new OS-X Leopard (watch the demo on the apple site Leopard is really awesome). The best news from what I have seen up to now is that, all the extra features with no price increase :-) WOW!

So I might wait another day or two to get my new MacBook. If you bought it recently, me deepest sympathies :-(

Child monk... Girl or Boy?

News Item in the Island paper of 26th Oct 2007

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Rape and killing of six-year-old child Monk,teacher arrested
by Neminda Samarajeewa

A monk and a womanteacher of a day care centre in Naiwala in Minuwangoda were arrested over the suspected rape and killing of a six year old girl. Following complaints by the mother of the child that she suspected foul play, Attanagalle Magistrate ordered the body be exhumed.

The body of the child was brought to the Ragama Hospital yesterday and a team of medical specialist's are expected to perform a post-mortem on the body today (26), Ragama Hospital sources said.

It was earlier said that the child fell ill and died and was buried at the Vigada cemetery.

The boy's grave at the Vigada cemetery was kept under police guard until the exhumation.

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The headline can be interpreted as a "Child monk", I though so at first
Then it says the child was a girl,
Finally it says the child was a boy?

WTF how do these things miss the Editors eyes, is he/she doing the job properly? Just irresponsible like the article by an impostor of B.Raman (which was a blog post of a LTTE supporter, not from a reliable source) making news on the Island paper of the 25th Oct. Talk about "responsible" journalism and media freedom...! These fellows need a good "Ass Whopping"!

Rubbish on the "Island"

Felt like breaking the long silence of not blogging, even though I am really busy. I thought I just needed to speak out my mind, to let them know. I was probably the first in the world to read the online version of the Island news paper today (25th Oct - but it's still 24th here). I respected the Island paper, so I even went and payed US$ 10 to read the paper online. Well any! way I just read the article with the heading "Ex-Indian Addl. Cabinet Secy details attack on air base - (supposedly) by B.Raman" and remembered that I read this article on kottu yesterday. I knew it was a posting by "someone" with a sympathetic eye for the terrorist, and the wording and the respect shown to the LTTE barbarians and the amount of misinformation published was so obvious that I knew it was some S-o-B impersonating B.Raman. I thought of letting the editor of the Island newspaper know, that he had published something with no truth and not from and authentic source and baring the name of a "reputed" intelligence expert from India. So I filled this form for opinion and clicked send, but it gave me an error. So I thought I'll put it out like this;

To the Editor Island Newspaper: Your article with heading "Ex-Indian Addl. Cabinet Secy details attack on air base" is not an authentic article by B.Raman. It is a blog post (intellibriefs.blogspot.com) by some LTTE supporter and impersonator of the "reputed" intelligence expert from India. We the truth loving people would appreciate that next time you publish something, you look at your sources and facts and verify their authenticity. I have bought subscription to the Island and don't expect to read rubbish like this and see irresponsible information on your paper. Please act more responsibly and apologize to my Sri Lanka and the armed forces for publishing this rubbish. As an Editor; can't you read between the lines and see this is an attempt by an LTTE supporter not B.Raman to mislead the world community and the Sri Lankan public to puff up the LTTE terrorist's image?

I would say if Island does not correct their mistake and apologize they should refund my US$ 10, cause I have no intention of paying to read rubbish on "Yellow Media".