New Year, Alcohol & Driving

It seems this season is an appropriate time to talk about alcohol related harm as alcohol related problems increase sharply during the Sinhala - Hindu New Year period.
This year alone Sri Lanka police nabbed 189 drunk drivers during New Year period.

Also it is known that one dies every 4.5 hours in road accidents according to a survey carried out in Sri Lanka and 11% are due to drunken driving.

Drunk drivers are a worldwide problem. In US alone almost 30 people die in alcohol related motor traffic accident, which is, one death every 48 minutes.

It is worthy to note that,

The consumption of alcohol, even in relatively small amounts, increases the risk of being involved in a crash for motorists and pedestrians. Not only does alcohol impair processes critical to safe road use, such as vision and reaction time, it is also associated with impaired judgement and so is often linked to other high-risk road use behaviours such as speeding or not using seat-belts.^[4]

There are adequate legal measures to curb the drink driving problems. A suspected driver can be subjected to a clinical examination by a government medical officer. Still these are enforced only when major disasters occur due to drink driving.
In Sri Lanka legal limit for Drink Driving is 80mg/100ml ^[5] & selling Alcohol products is prohibited to persons under 21 years of age^[6]. This limit is still very high compared to the predicted effects of Blood Alcohol Concentration on driving. 
On a lighter note, old law bars liquor sales to women & there are suggestions to change the policies & laws governing the drinking in Sri Lanka & the world.

1. Sri Lanka police nab 189 drunk drivers during New Year 16 Apr, 2013
2. One dies every 4.5 hours in road accidents - survey - 9 July, 2002
3. Injury Prevention & Control: Motor Vehicle Safety CDC, October 2, 2012
4. Drinking and Driving: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners. Geneva, Global Road Safety Partnership, 2007.
5. Examination of a driver alleged to have consumed alcohol (view on-line) 27 Dec 2007
6. The law & Tobacco control in Sri Lanka, Page 30, May 2012
7. Effects of Blood Alcohol Concentration February 11, 2011
8. National authority on tobacco and alcohol act, no. 27 of 2006 (view on-line) 29 August, 2006

Tsunami 2004

Occasion: On the way to a health camp after 2004 Tsunami
Location: Ferry, Verugal aru
Date: 2004 Dec 27

Ferry at Verugal Aru (marked) Google Map

Ridi Viharaya goes online

A new web site was launched yesterday for the Ridi Viharaya, Kurunegala.
It has a Sinhala Unicode version thought not fully implemented.

Ministry of Education Hacked into...

Well not exactly...
I was browsing among the Government Web sites, when I came across our Ministry of Education web site (see the image on right). I was shocked to see that it had been Hacked by some hackers. I quickly checked the Google cache for the snapshot they had created (see the image on left side). It was dated 15 Aug 2007, 14:18:06 GMT. So this site had been hacked during last 3 days. The hackers intentions are not very clear from what they had done. May be they just wanted to deface a government web site for fun.
It seems only the home page of the site had been hacked.
On further research I came across Zone-H which has an archive of Web sites that have been hacked. I was amazed to see the number of Sri Lankan Government web sites that had been subjected to defacement by various Hacking groups.

As I could not link to the particular table, I have copied the text, as you can see below:

Date	Attacker	Domain	OS	View
2007/07/30	RitualistaS	mcg.mpi.gov.lk	Win 2003
2007/01/27	Dr.Jr7	dmc.gov.lk/external.asp	Win 2003
2007/01/06	yas	mail.samurdhi.gov.lk	Linux
2006/12/04	DeltahackingSecurityTEAM	primeminister.gov.lk/record/delta.htm	Linux
2005/12/12	Devil Code	mpdinor.gov.lk	Win 2000
2005/10/16	Tz4r	muslimaffairs.gov.lk/forum	Linux
2005/03/14	batistuta	muslimaffairs.gov.lk/forum	Linux
2005/02/06	H4ck3rsBR	slelections.gov.lk	SolarisSunOS
2005/02/06	H4ck3rsBR	sec.gov.lk	SolarisSunOS
2005/02/06	H4ck3rsBR	ports-aviation.gov.lk	SolarisSunOS
2005/02/06	H4ck3rsBR	npd.gov.lk	SolarisSunOS
2005/02/06	H4ck3rsBR	trc.gov.lk	SolarisSunOS
2004/01/24	Red Eye	ibsl.gov.lk	Win 2000
2003/06/19	[ LunixO ]	moe.gov.lk	Linux
2003/06/07	Digital lords	moe.gov.lk	Linux
2002/09/27	PaGgY	hinduministry.lk	Win 2000
2001/04/08	SadoR	erd.gov.lk	Windows
2001/04/04	Silver Lords	customs.gov.lk	Windows
2001/04/01	Silver Lords	erd.gov.lk	Windows
2001/04/01	PoizonB0x	customs.gov.lk	Windows
2001/03/31	PoizonB0x	erd.gov.lk	Windows
2001/03/18	LOUCOS.BR	erd.gov.lk	Windows
2001/02/26	Alien00	erd.gov.lk	Windows
2000/12/24	Silver Lords	erd.gov.lk	Windows
2000/12/23	Silver Lords	customs.gov.lk	Windows
2000/06/04	EhW	erd.gov.lk	Windows

Still most of the above sites are not back online or have not been repaired completely. Any way most of our government websites are ill designed & not maintained well. Almost all of them use tables rather than CSS for layouts & are very poor in design, compromising their usability.

Earthquake near Sri Lanka!!!

Earth tremors have been felt in some areas of Sri Lanka, including Colombo & Kandy. The images here are from USGS Earthquake Hazards Program.

According to USGS,
Magnitude: 5.2
Time: at 04:27:28 (UTC)
at 10:27:28 am local time at epicenter
at 09:57:28 am Colombo, Sri Lanka
Location: 6.548°N, 84.455°E (In bay of Bengal)
Distance: 510 km (315 miles) E of Colombo, Sri Lanka
More details visit here Magnitude 5.2 - BAY OF BENGAL

I couldn't find any details regarding any Tsunami Warnings at the time of posting.
The relevant links are:

• JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY
• Department of Meteorology - Sri Lanka
• Geological Survey & mines Bureau - Sri Lanka
  
• ITIC
  

Talents 2007

There were only two days remaining, when I got hold of the news about Talents 2007. I had to make some arrangements in a haste so I can attend the occasion.
During our University life, Talents was a major event where we looked forward to with much enthusiasm. During the period we got prepared for the variety show, the faculty start to overflow with life. Heads bent on books, start to wander around singing, dancing, acting & laughing. It's the time to dream, rather to make creative dreams & make them a reality. It's a welcome break from the tedious work at the faculty, but still managing to find time to run for lectures, tutorials, practicals, ward work, etc..
Committees elected from the students look after various aspects of logistics in this mega event, with help from experienced seniors & the ever so helpful staff members, ranging from the academic to non-academic.
It always brings back memories when I sat in front of the stage, of the time we were in the limelight. Ahh weeks, if not months, of preparations, sleepless nights... After all it lasts only for few moments on stage...
There were only very few I knew among the students. I only can remember them very faintly, even tough they could remember me very well. After all it was a grand show second to none, of it's predecessors...
Keep it up dear sisters & brothers, it's our signature... A unique blend of Arts & Medicine...


Please visit my previous post on Talents 2006

Also visit: Talents

Boys, you are our Champions.

We are proud of our cricket team even though they couldn't beat the Australians. Still they are our champions. You did your best guys. What could we ask for more?
The Sri Lankan team returned home from Caribbeans today. Amidst torrential rains many gathered by the sides of the roads just to greet them.
I'm very much relived to see & hear, that Sri Lankan media has all the praises for them, unlike the attitude the Indian & Pakistani media had towards their teams. (ehh, Indian & Pakistani friends don't get crossed with me, but that's the truth.)
I found something very interesting that will keep our heroes right on our desktop. A screen saver from Cricinfo.com (Cricinfo home), which has each player in action & some statistics about their performance. You can down load the screen saver from here>> teamsrilanka.
Also visit here for other screen savers from cricinfo.com. They have some pretty screen savers on other major cricket teams & also some on legends of cricket.
Below are some screen captures of the screen saver. First one is the startup image. Next one is a composite of four screens.

Woodpecker's headache!

These are a couple of Red backed Woodpeckers or Black-Rumped Flamebacks (Dinopium benghalense) I saw in my backyard. I got their attention because of the characteristic hammering sound they generate while searching for insects in tree barks.
When I did a web search, I found some amazing evolutionary adaptations they have for their niche.
They hammer 10 times a second up to 5 hours & creates a force of 30G (30 times the force of gravity) when the beak hits the tree bark.

• beak is stronger than steel with a chisel like tip
• neck muscles highly developed for hammering
• skull is relatively thick with relatively spongy bone to cushion the brain
  
• bones between skull & beak are joined by flexible cartilage, which cushions the shock
• relatively less cerebrospinal fluid around brain & relatively small brain, less prone to concussion
  
• contracts mandibular muscles just before impact, transmitting the shock to whole body passing the brain

Read more,

• Cure for a headache, Ivan R Schwab, British Journal of Ophthalmology 2002;86:843
• Evolution: Library: How the Woodpecker Avoids a Headache
• West Virginia DNR - Woodpecker Adaptations
• Wikipedia: Woodpecker