THE CRACK

As my father is a computer instructor, computers were never strange to my life. I’m working with computers for more than 15 years. But when it comes to internet it is something different. About seven years ago we got a internet connection which was very slow and expensive. It was a dial up connection and in that time we have to dial to a number in Colombo. As I’m living in Ratnapura, our telephone bill in the first few months was more than Rs.6000. So you can see how much it was expensive!

In that time Yahoo was the most popular e-mail provider and they provided a 6MB free mailbox. Also with the help of Yahoo I created a personal home page and published in their free domain(blogging was not much popular at the time). That site is no longer online now. Within few months I published my second web site called “Math Tricks” which was never upgraded. But the site is online even today.

Today the internet and its concepts are much more advanced than those days and fortunately the internet connections are also powerful.

It is only about two months that I came to know about the Google Adsense program. First I thought it is a great chance to earn something with very little effort. I’m sure you’ll also think like that when you first hear about it. But it’s not so easy always.

According to what I have seen in the last two months most people create a web site just after they came to know about Adsense just to make money. Their ambition is not to provide something useful for the visitors but to make revenue. So they put some garbage into their sites and ask their friends to visit the site and click on the ads (that’s what I’ve seen). But here what happens;

After few email campaigns and getting help from friends you can earn something around $20-$40 within few weeks. But Google withholds your earnings until your account reaches US$100. But if you created a web site just to earn revenue and if your content is poor you won’t have anymore visitors. So, you stuck without knowing what to do. And you won’t be paid.

These pending payments are recorded on Google’s balance sheet as “accrued revenue share”. According to wikipedia, the sum of all these pending money in the end of year 2006 is little over US $370 million. So you can see how much money they are holding which is actually owned by Adsense users.

But here I’m not asking you to stop using Adsense. It’s actually a great way of earning for the small scale web site owners where they can’t find sponsors. But the first thing you have to be aware is that you have to be able to earn at least US$100. So, you need to have a master plan. The content of the web site should be good enough to attract the visitors and you have to make sure to have a constant rate of (or increasing number of) visitors.

So again I’m warning you, use Adsense if you can earn at least US$100 or otherwise you’ll have nothing.

Recently I watched a nice movie called “Deja Vu” and that leads to write this post. This is not about the film but about the deja vu concept. Here’s the description about deja vu from wikipedia.

The term “d�j� vu” (French for “already seen”, also called paramnesia) describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously

As it further says,

the experience of d�j� vu seems to be very common; in formal studies 70% or more of the population report having experienced it at least once

So I think you have also been witnessed this. For me it is common. I can’t remember how many times I have been through this. Deja Vu film is giving an explanation what’s happening there. As in the film an ATF agent travels through the time 4 days and 6 hours to the past to save hundreds of lives. There he says something to a bomber which the bomber was told to him in the future. Here the bomber encounters deja vu. In the end of the film this agent also meets the experience of deja vu. So the film suggests this happens because of time traveling.

As soon as the film is over I began to think why can’t we explain this using the reincarnation rather than using such a complex idea of time traveling. Eventhough time traveling is theoretically possible we don’t know what are the effects of that (such as paradox of grandfather). But we have so many witness to say there’s reincarnation and it can explain the situation more precisely.

When I visited wikipedia to collect some more information regarding this I didn’t expect there will be a explanation using reincarnation but I expected something related to time traveling. Both my assumptions were wrong. There were so much explanations such as links with disorders, pharmacology(people who use certain recreational drugs increase the chances of d�j� vu), etc. If someone is interested here’s the link to read more.

So now, if you encounter deja vu again remember that it can be from your past lives or from dreams or you may have a disorder or you have taken some specific drugs etc. But remember it can even be someone have traveled through the time! So, you have hope to take a journey though the time in future!

Anyone who is looking for a vacation to relax from your workload? Well, how much time do you want? I’m sure if you are loaded with work you’ll ask for a long long vacation. But I prefer not to take a vacation more than a month. Here’s my tragedy about my vacation!

All this happens after our end semester exam of the 4th semester (end of 2nd year). We were supposed to have a vacation from 28th January to 17th April. Last time, when the 1st year ended our vacation was from 30th January to 22nd May (2006). But I thought that rather than having a vacation it’s better to have a training period (in last year). So I worked for CECB in a site in Ratnapura. Our official training is after the 3rd year and soon after the training our final year begins. After that work work work! So it’s obvious that this year’s vacation is the last one I’m having of this kind (somewhat long). Therefore I decided not to go any training sessions and stay in home this time.

In February it was very nice and I went on some trips specially to Matara and to Sri Pada. I also studied for the 1st semester of BIT. The exam was on 9,10 March. In the meantime I watched some nice movies and tv series. A little by little I began to feel boring and frustrated. Anyhow, just before the new year I received a letter saying that due to unavoidable circumstances our field camp which was to start on 17th April was postponed. Then after a week the non academic strike began.

Today, in the news I heard that the non academic strike is over. That’s a sign of starting the university. But suddenly my feeling was “Oh I can’t go”. That’s because after having such a long vacation now I’m lazy to do work again. I can neither go to the university because I’m too lazy nor stay at home because it’s too boring. So what should I do? This is all about my vacation!