kanabona.com on drupal 7

sinhala: check your spelling

Submitted by shehal on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 06:35

i was referred to this blogger who submits a few words every few days on correct sinhala spelling. the blog posts are title "නිවැරදි අක්ෂර වින්‍යාසය උගනිමු" (see related links). we don't seem to show much respect when we spell in sinhala. i know i don't. this is mainly due to ignorance. i don't remember half of what i learnt in class 20 years ago! so i'm glad that this blogger keeps introducing at least a few words every few days.

religion: the universe is not the result of chance - pope

Submitted by shehal on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 06:08

don't panic. the pope is a science retard. so it's "just a theory". he doesn't offer any logical reasoning to his claim in his homily. ironically, his claim can be falsified by his own words: "we must not let our minds be limited by theories that always go only so far and that - at a close look - are far from competing with faith but do not succeed in explaining the ultimate meaning of reality."

drupal: disqus

Submitted by shehal on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 19:26

i installed the discus module in kanabona.com. but it doesn't work properly. what works are the blocks on the left column. the comment widget on each node is not off the module. i embedded the javascript widget in to node.tpl.php. the widget generates an error in the front page so it should be rendered only when $page is true.

health: how long should a mother exclusively breastfeed an infant?

Submitted by shehal on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 16:37

how long should a mother exclusively breastfeed an infant? that is, without solids or supplementary nutrition. the world health organization (who) recommends 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding.

opinion: respecting one's tasty animals

Submitted by shehal on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 13:09

people eat various tasty animals. they also don't eat various tasty animals. of these the ones that don't eat are of significance because the reason to not to eat a type of meat most often is religious or based on strong principles that matter to the person. this blog post to assholes in the hospitality industry who tend to fuck-up their orders because they don't pay attention to detail.

science: lead acid batteries on relativity steroids

Submitted by shehal on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 12:09

yeah! your car battery is on (special) relativity steroids! newscientist reports of research conducted on the relationship between special relativity and lead-acid battery performance apparently by 80%. i've not read the paper so i cannot comment. based on the article, this is because lead atoms attract electrons about 60% faster. mass of matter is composed of rest mass which is the mass of it when at rest and relativistic mass which is the mass it induces temporarily when in motion. total mass of matter in motion is the sum of its rest mass and relativistic mass.

opinion: science is a form of prophecy

Submitted by shehal on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 20:03

one of the cool things in science is its ability to predict future events. we apply various theories (sometimes hypotheses) 'hoping' to obtain results as predicted by them. for example, we sit on a chair hoping that i would not break. if the chair seems broken we do not sit on it (unless you are paris hilton). prophesying is about predicting a specific event in the future. since science is able to predict and most often accurately then i feel that it is a form of prophecy.

sri lanka: it's cold in january - get over it!

Submitted by shehal on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 13:18

18.8°C this morning? are you kidding? go back to january 06 last year (2010)... katunayake reports 19°C at 6.40am... no one noticed that? it's cold in january!
and 18.8 hype will make a massive contribution to global laming

link: geohot sued by sony over ps3 jailbreak

Submitted by shehal on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 10:00

iphone jailbreaker geohot is being sued by sony.
Sony Corporation has filed lawsuits against Geohot (aka George Hotz) and the fail0verflow team for making PlayStation 3 exploits and jailbreak tools public.
more info

opinion: epicurus' quote on "why call him/her/it/them god(s)"?

Submitted by shehal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 22:20

Epicurus says...
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

the hypotheses

  1. god is willing to prevent evil, but not able to
  2. god is able, but not willing
  3. god is both able and willing
  4. god is not able nor willing

link: zero calorie wafers

Submitted by shehal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 19:35

i think this is news worthy: a polish researcher patents a type of wafer with almost no calories. sorta a all you can eat but not get fat kinda wafer. what's missing? the zero calorie ice cream!

"Because our bodies can't absorb the cellulose in buckwheat hull, the wafers are effectively calorie free, but still provide several antioxidants" which support cell health, Harasym told AFP Tuesday via telephone.
read more

link: one of the coolest eclipse photos

Submitted by shehal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 19:12

check out this photo of the partial solar eclipse of 04 january 2011. astrophotographer thierry legault captures the eclipsed sun with the international space station (iss) and some sunspots.
nasa: lining up the sun, moon, and iss | photo credit: thierry legault

link: lake vostok

Submitted by shehal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 19:02

my cousin cited a wikipedia article about a massive lake in antarctica called "lake vostok"
check out its stats: max. length: 250 km, max. width: 50 km: surface area: 15,690 km2, average depth: 344 m, max. depth:1,000 m, water volume: 5,400 km3
i thought it was pretty amazing. read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok

opinion: what does science regard as a natural phenomenon?

Submitted by shehal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 17:19

i was asked once by my girl friend: "I question the definition of "Natural Phenomenon" because if Science has failed to explain the laws of nature then throwing the term 'natural phenomenon' and all its elements around for its own purposes is quite presumptuous "

to which i replied:
what science considers a natural phenomenon is something that is observable or measured repeatedly yielding similar results.
(i can't find a citation for this. i made this up based on my understand of science. you are obviously free to challenge it :p)

drupal: kanabona on drupal 7

Submitted by shehal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:41

kanabona.com is running drupal ver 7
theme used is based on the starter theme fusion - entirely on css

kanabona.com has been on drupal ver 4.7 and has seen version upgrades since then
each time there is a new release of drupal the site has been upgraded and thus the database has been migrated from 4.7 to 5.x to 6.x to version 7

the upgrades were not seamless but that is my fault - i had complicated the content structure in ver 5 using "container" and "category" modules

opinion: facebook's instant personalization

Submitted by shehal on Sun, 04/25/2010 - 18:19

my opinion about facebook's instant personalization. this blog post explains why i feel that facebook is NOT violating user privacy.

opinion: making parents season 3

Submitted by shehal on Fri, 04/09/2010 - 08:57

my wife is producing a new season of making parents. making parents is a tv series about parenting. it discusses various parenting issues. making parents is aired on art television (arttv) on sundays at 8.30pm. more info here: http://makingparents.info

sri lanka: 2010's first tropical summer

Submitted by shehal on Thu, 04/08/2010 - 22:21

i had made two blog posts related to this topic titled science: the two summers of colombo and sir lanka: first tropical summer.

theater: antigone

Submitted by shehal on Sat, 02/20/2010 - 08:15

some photos i took of a theater production called 'antigone'.

celestial sphere: biggest and brightest moon accompanied by mars

Submitted by shehal on Fri, 01/29/2010 - 11:49

tonight you will be able to observe the biggest and brightest moon for this year (2010) accompanied by mars. and mars will be closest to earth this week. NASA has even set up a facebook event for this. a slightly significant astronomical conjuncture?

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