Introducing.... ScienceMaldives!

ScienceMaldives is one of my latest pet projects. It is a collaborative effort that saw its beginnings in January 2006 and features Muthasim and Adnan in the driving seat, in addition to myself. The work is currently still under development and is scheduled to be officially launched on 1st March.

The aim of the venture is to nurture and support the development of science and science education in the Maldives. We want it to be a resource for students in various stages of education as well as a resource for the curious non-students. We will be publishing articles, how-to's and providing/facilitating answers to specific questions that any of you may have. It is also aimed at being a means of access to material - journals, news, research papers etc from around the world. Additionally, we wish to promote research and application of science in the Maldives through increased awareness and education. Despite the name, it is not our intention to stick entirely to pure sciences and therefore we welcome the applied sciences and social sciences as well.

The ScienceMaldives wesite is mostly blank for now as we are working on the content at the moment to be readied for our official launch. The site also contains a discussion forum targetted at engaging our users in intellectual debates and as a means of obtaining answers to questions. The forum is already active with quite a few members aboard and many ongoing discussions. We hope that the site and forum would be better able to serve the needs of the Maldivian populace than similar foreign resources.

This effort is a strictly not-for-profit operation and we will be relying on the participation and content contribution by our visitors and users to achieve and maintain ScienceMaldives a reliable and rich source of information. Educators are encouraged to contribute articles as we wholeheartedly believe such deliverance of knowledge would help build a more educated and enlightened society in the Maldives. If you are interested in contributing to our efforts, please do drop me an email.

We do carry big dreams and hopes for the future of the venture. If things workout well, we intend on publishing a newsletter/journal in the Maldives. We also hope to cultivate practical forays into science by organizing and executing science fairs (which is something which the government has conveniently abandoned in favour of having more singing competitions per year ). These strictly remain long term goals for now and we are concentrating on compiling the website into a notable resource for all science lovers in the Maldives.

The ScienceMaldives site is located at http://www.sciencemaldives.com/ . Join the forum and start posting at http://www.sciencemaldives.com/forum/

A busy bee I have been lately - a lot on my mind and acting up on that lot that churns through it.

Exercise was the keyword for the month of January, as I introduced a hefty amount of exercise and sports into my daily routines starting early in the month. My deteriorated state of physical fitness had been disturbing me for a long time, especially since I once was (dare I say) athletic and agile . My schedule now includes two days of working out at the gym and a day of playing badminton. I've also started taking Shotokan Karate classes - which I must say is quite invigorating. So, everyone, be very afraid and do not dare challenge me for a physical combat! I am kidding of course - I am crap at karate and fighting as of yet... sigh.

Artificial intelligence has me as a devout now. Scientific papers and journal articles on AI (and the related) provide me nourishment and entertainment well into the dawn of the next day. I intend to test out a few implementations of the stuff I've learnt. As always, ideas are aplenty but time remains a constricting factor. Despite that, I've committed to developing a crawler with intelligent categorization and classification abilities for the mvblogs.org project - which shall feature tiny yet useful amounts of AI methodologies to automate the task of categorizing and analyzing the content on blogs. I've also recently developed a renewed interest in quantum computing. I am still stuck on trying to get my head around the theory bits. Nonetheless, it is a fascinating, fascinating field. If you are a science lover and want to know what Quantum computing is all about, try reading this introductory article on qubit.org.

On the business work side, I've taken helm control at Technova in a drive to take our little company to the next level. A few more of the website projects under Technova are expected to be released over this month. Additionally, as I had mentioned earlier, our dhivehi OCR software will be released soon, with beta versions for customer evaluation scheduled for release in early March. A few other software products are also about to roll off the coding stages sometime this month, while the company website will (finally) make its debut end of the month too. February will be a month of intense activity if everything goes to plan.

Toodles.

The very first website development project of Technova Pvt. Ltd. rolled out of the assembly lines a few weeks ago and has been officially made public. Our project client, SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre, launched the website in a ceremony held today. The project had a good chunk of the work handled by me and features design work by yours truly as well.

The website is now accessible at http://www.sczmc.org/

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome

Blobsy 2 ( beta, rc6 ) has been made official today. The release brings together a number of minor updates from various cvs commits over time as well as a few major feature additions by a few other developers. The release comes after a long time of inactivity in the project but hopefully marks a rekindling of more intense development work to keep up with the changes coming with Windows Live Messenger rollout.

Change log
- Upgraded to support MSNP10, MSNP11 and MSNP12
- Personal Status Message support
- Added Challenge Response Generation Object (chl.obj.php)
- Fixed SB WLM8 compatibility bugs
- Fixed SB MSG headers bug
- Removed redundant configuration file entries
- Added Unicode encode/eecode functions
- Fixed MSNFTP bugs and added multiple simultaneous File Transfer support
- Modified MSNP2P functions
- Updated UserRelated to utilise $msn functions


Go to Blobsy homepage

I am missing home today. Home as in Maldives - the people, the sun, the blue sky, the humid air, the lagoons, the sea, the beaches and wind...

A friend of mine sent me this video ad of Maldives titled "A little bit of Maldives". Apparently it is currently being shown on BBC and used for tourism promotion in the European markets. The video is a little bit over-the-edge, with shots mostly of the sculpted landscapings from the resorts and paints a dolled-up image of the country. Despite that, it still is good to watch the sunny beaches and idealize the homeland. The images trigger warm feelings of nostalgia. Plus, the ad carries a catchy tune which does a good job of lingering around in the crevices in the head, ready to pop up in mid thought - especially on these winter mornings.



Enjoy!

I got elected into the Central Committee (2006) for the Maldivian Students' Association (UK) beginning of this year. It does come with a bit of work load, especially since the MSA website comes under my care now. I am working on revamping the site soon in an concerted effort to make it more useful for prospective and current Maldivian students in the UK, after all, the website acts as the center of communication for MSA activity. I am also trying to push for changes and activities that I think will help towards making MSA a real success story.

Quite a few seem to view MSA as a redundant establishment; as just another front of influence by our beloved government. It may be or may not be the case, however, what I do know is that it is a tool that can be manipulated for achieving good. There are a lot of difficulties the students face here. Everything from getting visa to finding accommodation has obstacles and difficulties littered along the way. Students are now required to spend about 2 weeks in Colombo in order to get a student visa for entry into UK. What the government has done to alleviate this hassle is not known by many - including the Minister of Education who recently visited the UK and met the students. The lovely Minister informed us all that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been asked and hasn't responded on the matter. So, hello Mr. Foreign Ministry and hello Ms. Education: can you please get these things sorted out before the world expires? I can understand there are more pressing matters which is precisely why I understandingly said "before the world expires" - that should give ample time, I hope.

There are a lot of areas that MSA can make itself useful. For example, new students are often fresh off the sandy beaches and are parting the safety net of family and friends for the first time. Thus, as can be expected, quite a few of the students also have to battle with the differences in culture. Apart from handling the silent but nonetheless prevalent racist attitudes, students also have to digest and find a solution to having a good time with the fellow British colleagues who on routine finish up day at university and then retire to alcohol for solace. In addition to obvious culture shocks, most of the students coming have never lived alone, never cooked, never managed a budgeted life etc. A student association can definitely help in preparing and offering help to students to settling in - from buying utensils, books, clothes and other gear to hunting for food and whipping up healthy, edible concoctions. It would do great benefit to build and maintain a healthy support group for all students, new and old. I know a bit too many students who freaked out at the behest of the world separating them from their loved ones. Not all who arrive have family/friends already in the UK to call and ask for help when needed. A familiar face, a familiar story and a familiar language does seem to go a long way in offering comfort. The MSA can facilitate a lot for the experienced students too. Part-time jobs, internships, holiday work and scholarships can all be facilitated by MSA. These are little things of importance that the association can achieve and should strive to offer.

By now, a few of you would probably jump up and say "but MSA is only a tiny student body run by students - in their own time". Yes! So what?s MSA to do? Organize yearly meetings and leech money from whoever would be kind enough to spare a few cash notes to be put into the good use of arranging "bilehmeerukohlevvun" as we Maldivians are so used to back home? A glance at the MSA constitution shows many an objective proudly listed. If there is a constitution outlining a modus operandi and goals to achieve, then it should be followed otherwise the objectives might as well all be replaced by the single word "naacharangy".

Lastly, I must note an interesting development this year. The government (Maldivian of course!) has "blessed" the MSA with the responsibilities of managing 9 Rosemont Avenue- a government owned house used for Maldivian student boarding and as an MSA activity hub. There hasn?t been proper (if any at all) maintenance done over the years, leaving the house in utterly poor conditions. The house is truly in an unholy mess. I sympathize with the students living there. Of course, all of this is justified by giving out the rooms in the house at a discounted rate. However, is that enough when the house breaks several UK housing rules? It doesn't even adhere to the fire and safety regulations. Jeez! Many students have raised their concerns over the matter and as everything political everywhere, a committee was created to "investigate". The committee has now compiled a report along with a prioritized list of renovations that would hopefully make the building decently habitable. This is all fine and dandy, but the funds for renovations has to be obtained from the government. Hopefully, there will be no difficulty this time, just as the Minister promised.

Now that vented out a few (MSA) things on my mind, I must say that I hope this year will be a very productive year for the association and the student community.

Yes, I AM around still.