While getting my daily dose of blog updates from MvBlogs, I stumbled across an entry by primary0 titled "Vision 2020: Get out of Maldives!". Most people would be too lazy to go to his site and actually read what he's said, so let me summarize: new data claims that by 2100, the sea level would rise even further than previously expected.

We could go on living happily, were it that the data suggested mere millimeters or maybe even few more centimeters but unfortunately, that is not the case. The reports claim rises of anywhere from 3m to 20m. RealClimate.org has this article summarizing four papers that were published recently in the popular "Science" journal. These papers has stirred up a lot of discussions on the issue of global warming and sea level rise. Global warming has been an issue on table for ages. Heck, our beloved President is revered on government TV and Radio for his 1987 UN General Assembly speech in which he brought up the global warming and the resulting sea levels rise issue as a matter of concern to a country - especially as a low-lying island nation. (Yes, wise man he is. *respect* *cough* *cough*).

What got to me after reading the results from these latest research is that all of them predict sea level rise rates of 3mm to 10mm per year. Image that. That is a lot. By 2050, there'd have been an increase of 50cm!! That would immerse a lot of the Maldives under water. According to the Environment Research Center, the island elevations in Maldives varies from 0m to 2.4m. The 2.4 meters is the highest level and is found on the island of Vilingili, Addu. I couldn't find more specific island elevation data, however, I did find this report at UNEP that estimates that 80% of Maldives is 1m or less! This could indeed mean that a few of our beloved islands could slowly start to vanish off the map - starting with the alluring sand banks or "finolhu". Maybe with island elevation data available, we could even draw up a time-to-vanish schedule for all the islands

Sea level rise isn't to deter us though. There has to be *some* solution to this right? RIGHT? Yes, I thought so too. I recalled that the Dutch are in the same boat as us. Holland is a country with quite a lot of low lying land, with some parts going as low as 7m BELOW the sea level! The Dutch are a smart bunch and they have already started preparing for negative effects of sea level rise. Their plans knocked me out of my seat. Well, not really but it is fascinating nonetheless. They've already built houses, 37 to be exact, that rise with the water - up to 5 meters! The houses don't care what level the water is at - they simply float on water. Have a look at this article - it features pictures! Apparently, they plan to build "cities" with 21,000 of such "amphibious" houses at a cost of 250,000 to 300,000 Euros per 120 square meters. Hmm. I wonder how much it costs for the "production" of the same land in Hulhumale'. I couldn't find any cost/expenditure information about this on the net. Any government site got this published? The HDC site certainly has zilch on anything financial...

Another interesting project that is not so related to global warning but goes along well with the concept of floating cities is Freedom Ship. It is essentially a ship that would house 18,000 living units with commercial services and other life?s amenities all thrown in. Maybe we Maldivians should build such ships (or arks - of Noah's Ark fame) to prolong our existence till the Ice Age wears off. The last ice age took 100,000 years though - quite a lot of time to live in arks.

The floating cities remind me of an "experiment" I carried out about 3 years ago. I had the idea of building a floating platform - not a new idea I know - but I wanted to build it anyway. The idea was nicked from a quite famous man and his self built island, known as Spiral Island. If it succeeded, it could've been made an exotic restaurant or even a holiday getaway. If it failed, it would become my home - a floating home for myself (Please refrain from laughing for as long as you can). I got together a bunch of friends to join in and we collected empty "Oki" cooking oil containers - those large ones. We also got a large wooden (container) crater from the Customs area. We dragged all of it to Vilingili and built ourselves a raft. It worked - within our "experimental parameters". We got bored by the end of the day and dumped the setup on a mostly secluded part of the beach and forgot about the entire thing. It was agreed it was feasible and a solid framework with enough containers would be a cheap and effective method to achieve what we were after. Seriously.

Anyway, back to global warming and sea level rise. Somebody please pass on my request to the President on starting a project to build floating homes/islands, for all our beloved people. The project can be called "Extinction Survival Program". It will be a project along the lines of Hulhumale' but only a lot more grand and sophisticated. Of course it will be something to take away more funds from the budget but it is guaranteed to provide safety for everyone (Fine print: all those who can afford to buy units. Even finer print: all those who are mega rich and privileged ). Psst. I volunteer to lead the project!

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.

Happy New Year to all! I had a lame new year's eve but then again it is how I chose to it be.

Looking back over 2005, it can be singled out as a period that brought dramatic and notable changes to my life. The most remarkable thing was that the year had me in a constant state of change and confusion all throughout - let me tell you; that is something quite new. I've always maintained a motley of dreams and schemes that I was quite adamant about and kept a steady sight of a future without wavering too much. The chaos delivered a serious blow to my self-confidence and general approach to life which kicked the enthusiasm for life out of me for much of the year.

My academic future was in limbo at the beginning of 2005. Much of it seemed to be beyond my control - I had no clue as to what I would be studying, where I would be studying and even when I would continue on with the ?study till death? journey. I ended up spending a good deal of time evaluating and then reevaluating the field of study, career options and then comparing it all with my forte?s and dreams. It worked out better than I expected as here I am in UK (a place I did not expected to land in), studying AI & Cybernetics (which is something I had never dreamt of) and most importantly, being satisfied with it all!

The year also saw my bank accounts hitting rock bottom. My income via my then business venture had gone stale and somehow things all seemed to head downhill on the business front. Finally, around mid year, I resigned from the company forfeiting the 44% shares I owned of the company. That really was a hard call to make since we had been running the business for almost 5 years and my partners in business were long-time best buddies, however, it was a necessary step. The resignation left me all alone (and broke) for quite a while - much of which I spent in thought and planning. I shot an arrow into the dark soon after, by gathering a few not-so-close-friends and convincing them of joining up with me for a business operation. Thus, ?Technova? was born early in the latter half of the year. The road has been rocky but the business is improving. My new partners have become my closest of friends and are people I deem trustworthy and reliable. They?ve had a good influence on my life and I thank them for it.

My love life was a mess in 2005. The slow death of a 4 year relationship had me crippled emotionally. We said good-byes, walked away peacefully and as good friends. I had to turn down a tempting and lucrative offer from a girl I liked while I was in the relationship. Sadly, the offer wasn?t on by the time the long term relationship was bid adios. Additionally, as I had mentioned in my blog recently, the time I made a move on a girl last month also resulted in zilch. So as 2005 ended, romance seems to have gotten as far as getting rid of the old but not replacing the old with new. Hopefully, 2006 would see this facet of life smoothen out too.

I do not usually bother celebrating new years but I have many a dream for the coming days and wish that this human created time-marker serves to signal the beginning of a lot of positive changes I wish to be brought to myself and life. I hope the New Year brings in a whole lot of happiness and joy to all of you too. Enjoy!

Oh boy Oh boy Oh boy! I've got a four week break away from the university starting yesterday. I am so glad I don?t have to wake up early morning and I could even numb my mind from the usual bombardment of information that I subject my poor brain to everyday. Anyway, a timeout from studies to settle other matters queuing up in my life seems to be an essential step right now.

There seems to be a gazillion projects Technova needs to handle and finish now. We are currently working on several projects including websites for National Center for Information Technology and Miadhu Daily newspaper. I also have one project lingering from the days I was freelancing earlier this year after I resigned from Itek Pvt Ltd (a business I had co-founded and worked under since 1999). The holidays have given me time to dive back into programming.

I can now spare chunks of time to work on my pet projects as well. There are quite a few technical experiments I have wanted to undertake over the past few months - like I could finally take out that PIC chip I've had stashed in my cupboard and get on with experimenting with microcontroller programming. I think my electronics course covers PIC programming next semester so this hopefully will be beneficial for then too. This year has also seen the coming of what has been named "Web 2.0" and other new technologies that am just dying to read up on and familiarize myself towards fluency. The science book I am trying to write can also begin with new vigor and maybe reach a conclusion.

The winter holidays coincides with the beginning of a period that my horoscope calls an excellent time for love and relationships. So hoping that the astrologer is right, I?ve decided to head out to acquire new female companionship ( that's ?female companionship? as in "girlfriend"!). This concludes a period of conscious aversion to females. Hehe.

I recently stumbled across an interesting website called "Undergroundfilm". This site contains a growing collection of indie movie productions. You can find a variety of movie types there, ranging from cheesy advertisements to documentaries on topics you will not find on public TV channels. The "Highly rated" and the "Featured films" section on the site may provide a good starting point to locate some interesting movies to cater for your liking.

The movies are in Apple QuicktTime format and you can grab the videos using your favourite download manager for later viewing. In most cases, they offer a high quality as well as a lower quality video download. The size of the high movies is still manageable in most cases, with the average size lurking around 20MB thus making it quite accessible for people on slower connections as well. I do recommend choosing the higher quality versions even though they take a bit longer to download.

I came across the site when I had followed a link to a documentary on the "Cult of the Dead Cow" hacker organisation who became extremely famous around 1998 after their release of the BackOrifice remote system administration software for the Microsoft Windows environment. It is an interesting selection and I suggest you view it even if you are not interested in the computer hacking scene. Here is the link to it, incase you are interested.

Other interesting movies I found include "Latex" (hilarious!), "A Normal Life" (interesting, artistic) and "New Testament" (must see!).

Have fun!

There was a comment by someone on one of my recent posts titled "Future of the Maldives: blurry?". The person mentioned the now famous magic number "27", which is used handsomely by the political opposition to refer to the time in office held so far by our beloved President Gayyoom. Now, this 27 year thing everyone shoots off so easily really pisses me off. I would challenge anyone who does this and for good reason too.

Truth of the matter is, it is not only under current ruler that we have suffered. Moreover, it would be unfair to blame the current state of our society entirely upon one person however easy it is. I admit, the boss has to take most of the responsibility, however the blame falls on each of us too. Every citizen is to be criticized for letting it run this far. I recently snapped at a government employee with a high status job. Like everyone these days, he was whining about how pathetic our society has become and how this is to be blamed on one person. I firmly, with gritted teeth, told him to shut up and look to himself. As a member of the older generation he has failed to take stand in his time and in doing so helped pass a society escalating towards self-annihilation. As a member respected in society he has failed to use his influence to better the lives of the people. As a person educated and with resources, he has failed to do his duty to the country and to the rest of us less fortunate. How dare he go whining on and on? This situation wouldn't have come about if it was snipped in the bud before it got out of control. But then, that is bringing in the ?if"s which is quite pointless now...

Maldivian people were under a larger suppressive force under the dictatorship of Nasir. To name one, the Thinadhoo incident where innocent unarmed civilians were SHOT, where children and pregnant women were FORCED to flee to the cold lagoon at dawn are part of more serious atrocities committed then. I have listened to recounts of the event by surviving Thinadhoo people of the time and each time I cannot believe this is an event that took place on such a scale and in such recent times. I have no choice but to listen to them in utter amazement and share their anger that lingers on. Such events in our history have silently been swept under the carpet, to be forgotten. Moreover, thanks to the "richness" of our literature and "effectiveness" of our educational and media institutions, few of the younger generation are aware of these dark times even in our recent history. (If anyone of you have personally experienced this or have close family who did, do feel free to share the experience with the rest of us. I for one, would be interested in hearing more about it.)

Maldives really sickens me at times. Our ancestry begins with pirates, prostitutes and criminals who either settled here or were banished here. Our history has been forged - dark times and the cruelty of people and rulers hidden and locked away in the unmanifest, for heaven forbid that our history have anything but heroics and bravery. Fantasy and magic have been introduced to full the void. The list goes on...

So please, do away with the twenty-seven. Let us all work toward the Utopian Idealistic Society we all dream of.

I started to write a book about three months back. The project has been idle for about a month now but I've returned to it today. The book is aimed at teaching or rather introducing science to children. It is being written in Dhivehi and is targeted mainly for distribution in the islands. Yes, I did say distribution - I have no intention of making this a for-profit endeavor. I have yet to work out the details of how the distribution shall take place. However, I certainly intend on letting it loose on the internet once it's done.

The book shall begin with a prologue to science, scientific methods, analysis and critical thinking - all simplified enough to suffice in communicating the essence of these topics while maintaining comprehensibility. The book then proceeds with a number of practical investigations and experiments each tackling a different phenomena. The investigations themselves are each divided into segments: introduction, materials used, step by step method, explanation and finishes off with further thoughts and suggestions. This method of hands-on investigation followed by theory elucidation is an often adopted form of teaching science used in many books. I hope this tried and tested formula stands true for teaching science in Dhivehi.

The experiments and ideas used in the book are more or less used universally as introductory material. The experiments featured also have reflections from my childhood, when day in and day out I used to experiment with stuff. I am running the material through a few of my friends as I write it, to get their comments and input. Much appreciation goes to my buddy Muththu for the help he has been lending to the project since I started it.

There are a few reasons why I have made the choice to write a science book and that too specifically for kids in the islands. I am targeting the islands because of its neglected status in our society. The islands have been under-served, especially in the educational sector, for a reason. I want to challenge that and will, hopefully, continue to do that through further activities. I chose to write a science book not only because of my love for the scientific field, but more because of the lack of Dhivehi literature in the field. This is especially true for material available to children. While there is a yearly award offered by the President to the authors of educational material for kids, it is generally seen as a superficial game to taint the record books by increasing the count of books rather than encouraging the production of quality and diverse material. I hope my book can do a little bit of good to my intended audience and that it may aid them in rising up to a better life.

Now, I have a request from any science aficionados among you. Please send in suggestions for experiments you think will be effective in teaching or inducing deeper thought in the little fellows who may read the book. I have a request from the rest of you as well. That is, to tell me of anything from your childhood that really got your mind whirring. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance!