Rukshan

I was really thinking seriously about what to do when Tumblr was bought by Yahoo whether to switch to some other blogging platform. What if Yahoo screw up Tumblr? What if they keep putting ads on the blogs or won’t keep developing? What if they start charging for Tumblr features that we get for free?

So with all these thoughts I thought the most rational option is to give some time to see what will happen on Tumblr. There is no other platform that gives everything for free like Tumblr. Also yahoo is not the company that it used to be when Yahoo bought GeoCities in 1999. And now it’s run by a former Googler. So things might be different.

Also David Karp is still there and according to Marco, Tumblr’s 2nd employ who founded Instapaper said that because David is still in charge and Yahoo has said it won’t screw tumblr it’ll be good. That’s a positive sign.

But I still have doubts but I guess it’s better to wait more give more time to see what’ll happen. Because there is no better place to move out from Tumblr. And nothing has happened yet to panic.

Keep calm and Tumblr on, panic and freak out later.

buying tumblr

toemas:

Paul Graham’s take on the Yahoo!/Tumblr deal. I am rooting for a Yahoo! comeback but the point is made. Let’s hope Tumblr doesn’t go the way of Flickr.

Washington Post.com

Copyright 2013, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. 

Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr for $1.1 billion is a big gamble by Marissa Mayer, the company’s recently-hired CEO. The microblogging site is a valuable asset, but media accounts of Mayer’s thinking suggest she hasn’t come to terms with Yahoo’s fundamental dysfunction: that it can’t decide whether it’s a media company or a technology company.Technology investor Paul Graham has written about his experience at Yahoo when the firm acquired his start-up in 1998. “One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to work there was the way they insisted on calling themselves a media company,” he wrote. “The worst consequence of trying to be a media company was that they didn’t take programming seriously enough.”The most successful software companies, including Microsoft (in its prime), Google and Facebook, have focused obsessively on recruiting the best programmers. In contrast, even in its early days, Yahoo viewed content as a generic commodity to be packaged and resold to advertisers.That ambivalent attitude toward technology was one reason Yahoo lost its dominance of the search market early in the last decade. And it explains why Yahoo failed to capitalize on the early popularity of Flickr and del.icio.us, two sites Yahoo acquired in 2005 and has done little to improve since then. In all of these cases, Yahoo squandered an early lead as more nimble, programmer-focused companies built superior products.”Most technology companies eventually get taken over by suits and middle managers,” Graham wrote. “At Yahoo it felt as if they’d deliberately accelerated this process. The company felt prematurely old.”Hiring Mayer away from Google was supposed to rejuvenate the firm. Yahoo’s board hoped Mayer, a computer programmer who had been immersed in Google’s hacker-centric culture for more than a decade, could bring some of Google’s cultural strengths with her to Sunnyvale.But media reports of Mayer’s thinking about the Tumblr acquisition suggest that Yahoo’s culture may be rubbing off on Mayer more than vice versa. According to AllThingsD, which broke the news of the transaction over the weekend, Mayer became interested in Tumblr because it was “just the kind of property that Yahoo needed to make it both ‘cool’ and relevant to new consumers.”This is media company thinking. Media companies build brands by associating themselves with hot cultural trends. Because these trends are fickle, media companies can’t do much more than observe which way the crowd is moving and race to get in front of it.In contrast, technology firms build strong brands by creating technology that is objectively superior to other products on the market — for everyone. Google didn’t become the dominant search engine through strategic partnerships or savvy marketing. It did it by having better search results than its competitors. And while younger users switched to Google more quickly, Google has been gradually winning older users for its search engine as well.Tumblr’s current “cool” factor is a reflection of the fact that it’s the best product on the market for a certain style of blogging. If it can maintain that technological edge, it’s likely to continue growing. If it stagnates technologically, then its popularity will atrophy just like Flickr and del.icio.us.Mayer says she will give founder David Karp autonomy to continue operating Tumblr as an independent entity. That’s probably wise, as it will avoid smothering the firm in Yahoo’s bureaucratic culture. If Yahoo simply provides Karp with resources and stays out of his way, the acquisition could prove a savvy investment.But that may be easier said than done. Part of Tumblr’s charm is its minimalist design and simple user interface. Yet part of Mayer’s argument for the acquisition is that Tumblr can benefit from integration into Yahoo’s personalization, search and advertising platforms. But it’s not clear that these changes will improve the experience for Tumblr users. And more importantly the integration process will be a major distraction for the firm’s engineers and management.The much bigger challenge would be to transform Yahoo itself into a company that takes technology seriously. In her news release announcing the merger, Mayer wrote that “Yahoo is the Internet’s original media network. Tumblr is the Internet’s fastest-growing media frenzy. Both companies are homes for brands.” Mayer’s vision of Yahoo as a media network and a “home for brands” suggests Yahoo won’t be producing great software products like Tumblr any time soon.

Go Home Yahoo. You Are Drunk.

I travel daily by train and by bus and everyday I meet people who’re asking for money to have a lunch or selling small things to find money to make a living. I’m sure most of you have seen them, but for some reason when I see these people I become frightened, what if that happens to me?

I wasn’t born rich or not even a rich guy now although I live a better life than I used to live as a child. When I was born my parents were just university students getting their lives started. And like until I’m like 10 12 years old they couldn’t afford to buy things that I’ve asked for as most children do.

But I think it made me use money wisely and think before time and time again before buying something. Although my parents can now afford to buy anything I want I feel very reluctant to ask for something from them.

But when I see these people asking for money I get this feeling what if that happens to me? What if I won’t become a doctor and then have to be homeless what can I do? I have not made a single dollar for myself, so I definitely haven’t made enough money for the rest of my life.

I mean how can we be sure of our lives? I think the people who are asking for money might have lived good lives before they go homeless and have to live by asking money from others? Things like that happen to me you or anyone out there. Don’t you feel the same way as I do? A fear of going bankrupt.

Most of my friends don’t seem to have any fear that they’ll go bankrupt or homeless one day. So why just me get a feeling like that? I think it’s more like a phobias I guess. I wish all the people are fortunate to have a good lives like us. So at least I can be free from this fear.

We’re getting it to the business end of out community medicine subject, community medicine deals with the public heath and dealing with the community as a doctor. So today we had a seminar regarding community medicine where the lecturer told this story about a father and his two daughter.

One day the father returned to home from work, and when he came home he brought an orange, just one orange. The farther had two daughters and after the farther came home the two daughters started troubling the farther to hand the orange to them, there was only one orange. But both the daughters were asking for the orange.

The father was facing a tough situation, he can’t give the orange to just one of them because both were his daughters and he can’t give special treatment to just one of them.

Then lecturer asked us, what’s the best way to divide the orange? so both daughters can be happy with what they get of the orange.

So the guys stated giving answers,

 “Divide the orange in to two pieces same in size”, The first answer the most obvious one. 

“The father must go to the market again and bring another orange”

“The father shouldn’t give the orange to nay of the daughters and have it for himself.”

“The elder daughter should have the orange because she’s the most eldest one”

“The younger daughter must get the orange because she’s the most youngest one” 

“The father must make orange juice out of the orange and give it to the daughters so everyone will be happy”, this was the answer that I thought as well.

These were some of the answers that were given by the guys, but none of them were right. 

The lecturer said that this it the problem with most of us living in society. That everyone is giving their own answers and opinions about the problem rather than asking from the people who has the problem.

So the father asked from the daughters why they need the orange. The elder daughter answered that she needs the orange peels so she can use it on a dish she made. The younger daughter said that she need the orange to make some orange juice. So the elder daughter need the orange to get the peels and the younger daughter need the orange to make orange juice. 

So the answer to the question is that the orange should be peeled and the peels should be given to the elder daughter and the younger daughter can have the juicy inner part or the orange. That the only way the orange can be divided so both can have a win-win solution.

So the message of the story is always listen to the person who is having the problem, get their opinion and ideas about the problem. Just seeing the problem and trying to find out answers and giving your own opinions will not help to solve the problem one single bit.

Pretty interesting story with a deep meaning Isn’t it?

Finally after 128 chapters and 510 pages I finished reading Digital Fortress. I never expected the book to be so interesting. When I first started reading it I thought it’ll have a typical ending of an action novel.

But it didn’t the story got more and more interesting and story getting deeper and deeper and finally hitting the climax. The times magazine has said `Engaged me instantly… Keeps up a cracking pace as the mystery deepens and disaster follows disaster`. It’s the best way to describe this book in short.

The most funniest part for me of the book is when the whole NSA crypto guys try to find the difference between Uranium and Plutonium from the internet. They are in a race against time, what should be a simple Google query today. In 1998 Google was just starting and back then and searching the web was a pain. Back then you can enter a search query and go for a cup of coffee while you got the results which the NSA didn’t have. And also the NSA People use NetScape browser. Which is non existent today.

When I was reading the book I’ve realized how much I’ve missed reading. When I was schooling I used to be a heavy reader reading 10 15 books per year. Now I have a big collection of books. And I don’t even let anyone to take a book outside of our house ;)

After entering university I never had time to read any thing other that text books. If one thing I hate the most is cramping books. I think I should re kindle my love for reading. Maybe I should carry a book in my bag to read while travelling by train. I usually spend that time browsing and checking Facebook and Twitter.

I got some unread books of Sir Arthur Charles Clarke. Maybe I should try reading one of them. If you have not read Digital Fortress By Dan Brown it’s totally worth reading.

Also did you know that typing the word illuminati backwards followed by a .com will take you to the NSA website? Pretty interesting.

I got free time of 2 weeks loads of coursework at university, I thought to spend this time by reading a good book. So, I decided read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown which I had bought from last year at the Colombo book fair.

The book was published back in 1998. The book is about cryptography, where a programmer writes an Unbreakables encryption method and NSA trying to break the code. I want go go detail with the story. I can’t spoil the fun. Get the book and read it. It’s totally worth reading.

In the book I was shocked to read where Dan Brown writes about describing that would look something like Google Glasses today.

Remember the book was published back in 1998, 15 years before Google Glasses. Back then there were no smart phones, iPhones, tablet computers. Personal computing was the thing and the word was having the first internet bubble.

The device in the book is used by a assassin hired by NSA. Here is what the book say about it. Sorry about the long paragraphs that’s how it’s in the book.

`On the street, the man in wire-rim glasses reached to a tiny device attached to his belt. The rectangular pack was about the size of a credit card. It was a prototype of the new Monocle computer. Developed by the U.S Navy to help technicians record battery voltages in cramped quarters on submarines, the miniature computer packed a cellular modem and the newest advances in microtechnology.

It’s visual monitor was a transparent liquid crystal display, mounted in the left lens of a pair of eyeglasses. The Monocle reflected a whole new age in personal computing; the user could now look through his data and still interact with the world around him.

The Monocle’s real coup, though, was not in it’s miniature display but rather it’s data entry system. A user entered information via tiny contacts fixed to his fingertips; touching the contacts together in a sequence mimicked a shorthand similar to court stenography. The computer would then translate the shorthand into english.

The killer pressed a tiny switch, and his glasses flickered to life. His hands inconspicuously at his sides, he began touching different fingertips together in rapid succession. A message appeared before his eyes.

SUBJECT : P. CLOUCHARDE -TERMINATED

He smiled. Transmitting notification of a kill was part of his assignment. But including victims’ names…. that, to the man in the wire-glasses, was elegance. His fingers flashed again, his cellular modem activated.

MESSAGE SENT`

This was in the 25th chapter of the book page 143.

What do you think about Dan Brown writing about something that looks like Google Glasses today? Pretty exciting isn’t it?

I’m doing my appointment at Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) unit these days where I have to stay for 2 weeks. It’s a pretty interesting appointment that taught us so many things that I personally never knew up to now.

In Sri Lanka sex and sex education is pretty much a taboo subject. People don’t want to talk about sex in public and even though there are lessons about sex education at school teachers who are pretty much skip these lessons quickly or never teach them at all. 

Sex is a taboo subject in Sri Lanka because I think the culture and the religion of the country. Where unlike in other countries where people have casual sex and a single have many sexual partners, things are not the same in Sri Lanka, or is it?

Although we think our culture prevents us from having casual sex and have multiple partners, it’s not true at all. There is an increase (I mean serious increase  of people having multiple sex partners and having sex in places like where they work etc. One must come to a STD clinic to see from their own eyes how far the reality is from the “2500 year old culture” that we think exists in the society.

According to the latest stats there are roughly 1700 HIV infected people in Sri Lanka. What do you think the common way that people get infected with HIV in this country? Do you think it’s from having sex with prostitutes? No main reason we are seeing an increase of HIV in the country is due to homo sexual people, not females. Men having sex with men, or MSM as we call it in the medical field. MSM is highly dangerous and carries a chance of 25% of being infected by HIV.

Would you believe that there are places around Colombo and Negambo that allow men to have sex with other men just like female prostitutes. And do you know that just like the female prostitutes there are male prostitutes as well, who make money from having sex with other men?

Yah it’s hard to believe that these things are happening in the country. But believe me the numbers are pretty high and specially high among young males (between 20-30) tend to enjoy having sex with other men. And most of the time they also have sex with females as well.

Men having sex with males mostly occurs in places such as prisons, boys hostels and places where men stay together for a longer periods of time.

One of the main problems the so called culture has brought upon is the taboo-ness to the subject called sex. Sexually transmitted diseases are just like any other disease like common cold and can be cured and prevented. But people tend to believe that getting treated for an STD or going to an STD clinic is one of the worst things that can happen to a person in the country.

The the culture in the society, the very thing that prevents from people misbehaving also becomes the main obstacle that prohibits people from seeking medical attention and an obstacle in preventing STDs in the country, because of the false taboo-ness and the false guilty towards people who get infected by STDs by healthy people.

I think these attitudes should be changed, people should talk more openly about sex and about sex education. And must change their attitudes towards people who are being infected with STDs. Yes people might misbehave, and have multiple partners. But that’s not a crime, it’s the way that we humans are designed my nature, we are designed to reproduce more for continuity of our species. On the moral side of it having a single life time partner is better.

We as people must change our attitudes or it will be harder and harder to prevent diseases like HIV from spreading in the country, as the numbers will increase if we continue to be taboo on these subjects like this.

Some of the stories that you can hear, and see in a STD clinic will certainly blow your mind. But these stories can’t be posted publicly.

“There are more things between heaven and earth that meets your philosophy” ~ Shakespeare 

Today wen I logged on to Facebook I saw that Facebook has enabled Graph Search to my profile. Actually I applied for graph search just two days ago and was surprised that I got graph search this quickly. I’ve read so many people talking about how graph search can be used to digg in to personal data of other people, so I was pretty eager to check it out.

First of all Facebook the best thing I like about graph search is the way it build the search queries like “People who have gone to St Mary’s College” (my school) and “Friend who have gone to Kandy”, the search queries are pretty neat.

When it comes to the search results they are pretty handy. I searched “Restaurants nearby”  and part of the search results are the one I’ve posted on the screenshot above. The search results are pretty helpful and gives basically everything you need to know like address, contact details, opening hours and map of the location, my friends who have been to the place and what they think about the place.

Well looking at the search it’s not a Pandora’s box like is shows it to be. The way it works is like this. Let’s say 2 million on Facebook live in Colombo and  1000 of them like the movie Social Network. 

So let’s say I search people who lives on Colombo that like the movie Social Network. So it’ll first filter out people who live in Colombo which is 2 million, and filter the 2nd query who like Social Network. And display the results. So the way it works is somewhat simple. 

Facebook graph search can’t search things like “Movies my friends watched last weekend” because the profile doesn’t show when they watched the movie, just shows what movies they watched, or things like “Best places to visit in Colombo” because they only have list of people who have been to different different places in Colombo, and graph search doesn’t have a way to find what are the best places to visit.

The graph search has only a statistical value to it results, no emotional or qualitative value to it’s results. Because my friend likes a Facebook page of a restaurant page doesn’t mean my friend likes the food that it makes, or exactly what food he likes. And with most of these likes to pages are now coming from advertising I think it makes the search results less valuable (Correct me if I’m wrong).

So overall it has long way to go, lot of things to improve and right now don’t even think about comparing Graph Search with Google.

Photoset

Foursquare location page

Foursquare search results

I checked out the new Foursquare, pretty impressed with the information you can get about a location and the redesign. Although there are so many negative things said about Foursquare I really want to see it succeed.

And when it comes to local location based websites like Nearby have to be afraid. Really afraid if they can’t  keep up with Foursquare. 

Today morning I was shocked to see a Tweet with a news that reported a university student has poisoned his girlfriend who was an engineering student at Moratuwa (she died soon after) at the Peradeniya hospital and then committed suicide by injecting poison to himself by using an injection. I was even more shocked to read that the boy was actually from Ragama medical college where I’m studying. 

I don’t know what’s wrong with these people. This weekend a newspaper reported how a 16 year old girl and his boyfriend murdering the girls parents because the parents didn’t like their relationship.

Well looking back at today’s incident I the medical student was indeed from our medical college and as he was 2 years senior to us, and was having a troubled university life by failing his 2nd year exam and had to come to the junior batch (one year senior to us) and has failed his 3rd year examination and was about to sit for the 3rd year exam with us this September.

Although two news websites report two different kinds of incidences that led to the murder and suicide. I talked with few people who knew the medical student and the story is pretty foggy at the moment and even people from the faculty itself do’t know what’s the real reason for all the unfortunate events. But both news websites claim that it’s due to some issues regarding their relationship.

It was a shame that the two lives were wasted because of such a small incident and let’s hope we won’t hear such sad incidences again. I don’t know whether it’s because medical students are having such a stressful life that they cant control their emotions. A month ago we had another unfortunate incident at Ragama where a medical student who got 5As for her final exams committed suicide because she couldn’t handle the pressure of her work because she was suffering from depression. 

R.I.P. And let us not see such unfortunate incidences in the future.

News Link : Body of Ragama medical faculty student found in Kurunegala