Will the World end on 2012 ? what about 2038 ?

"The end of the world on December 2012" , probably the most feared and widely discussed thing these days. This has been probably aggravated by the recent natural disasters faced by the world such as hurricane Sandy. Though there are no scientific evidence to suggest the end of the world on 2012 most of the people reluctant to accept it as just a myth.

They claim the Maya calender ends on December 21st 2012. So whats the big deal ? Calenders do need to have an end. In fact every thing do need to have a beginning and an end. The Maya calendar starts from 3114 BC . Does that mean that the world started or began on 3114 BC ? not really. The years 3114 BC and 2012 were the years where Mayans had to remove their old calenders and get a new calender. Just as we change our calenders on January 1st. The only difference is Mayan calender was so huge and one calender was enough for massive number of generations (Calender making would not have been a prosperous business in Mayan culture).  They may have further extend their calender if they had more space and time to write the calender.


Similar problems of running out of space for keeping the time occurs even in the modern world. The Year 2038 problem is one example. This will occur on January 19th 2038.The reason is that we use 32 bit integers to represent the date objects in computers and digital systems. In these systems the date is represented as the number of seconds since January 1st 1970. The maximum integer that can be represented  by 32 bit representation is 2147483647. This is the number of seconds up to January 19th 2038. So effectively our digital calenders ends on 2038. So will the world end on January 19th 2038 ? May be in the future when a more civilized and developed society finds about this conflict, they may fear that the world ends on that day. 

Although this 19th January 2038 does not physically end the world, many problems will arise in digital systems. Almost all the systems now been used would not be able to perform date calculations. The day will be reset to Friday 13th December 1901 after 2038 causing many problems. The solution is to increase the number of bits used to represent a date in digital systems. But this will introduce backward compatible problems with current software architectures. So still a universal solution have not been found. But probably in the near future people with come up with many plausible solutions and there is no need to fear about the end of the world, unless we dig our own grave due to wars and environment pollution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

SLPL - Sri Lanka Premier League

The inaugural session of SLPL finished yesterday with "Uva Next" crowning as the champions in a rain shortened match.  Although the final was highly affected with rain the thrill of a final was never lost mostly due to the unbelievable batting cameos by Mathews and Dilshan Munaweera. Probably the use of the "Duckworth-Lewis Method" in this match would not that fair to both the teams. But as per the performances of the teams I believe "Uva Next" deserved to be the champions after beating in form "Wayamba" convincingly in the semifinals. As in the half way stage it is also important to look at the performances of the teams and individual players. 

• The main target behind the SLPL was to improve the cricketing skills of the local players and giving them a chance to perform with international players. Some of the players performed very well and some failed to take the maximum use of their chance. Some senior players such as T.M. Dilshan and Mahela regained their form through SLPL while players like Ajantha Mendis gained their way to the national team once again through SLPL. Mathews showcased his captaincy skills and his improved consistency as a finisher. 
• Akila Dananjaya and Dilshan Munaweera have been the finds of the tournament. Both of them earned a place in the squad for the World T20.  Munaweera surpassed Mathews as the highest run-getter in the tournament by 1 run in the final. Probably this should earn him a place in the starting 11 in the T20 world cup. Though Akila Dananjaya performed well in the early stages he was attacked severly in the final matches he played. Thus I think he should improve more before getting a Sri Lankan cap.

• Dinesh Chandimal and Thissara Perera were among the disappointments of the tournament. As the next generation of the Sri Lankan cricket a lot were expected from them. Also Bhanuka Rajapaksha failed miserably during the SLPL. The performance of local bowlers were also below par. 

• Undoubtedly Pakistan players are the most benefited international players from this tournament. Most of the Pakistan players took part in this SLPL and they performed well in their respective SLPL teams and most of them got the chance to be in the playing 11. Players like Kamran Akmal made this a chance to regain their form and earn a place in their national teams. Also the experience they got from playing in World T20 venues will be very useful.

• Another disappointment was the failure of retired players. Jayasuriya and Muralitharan was totally out of form. Surprisingly Muralitharan remains at the bottom of the best bowlers list. He failed to take a wicket in his four appearances for Uthura Rudras and leaked 8 runs per over. His performance probably affected Uthura and they lost their first four games in a row. 

• The most disturbing thing about SLPL is not the failures of upcoming players nor the success of foreign players, but the success of Sri Lankan players who have failed repeatedly at the international level. Their success induce a fear in the minds of Sri Lankan supporters. Fortunately despite the  cameo played by Kapugedara against Ruhuna , he failed to secure a place on national team for the T20 world cup.

• Basnahira and Uthura were the main disappointments of the tournament. Although they had good teams the performance was well below par. And Wayamba was the chokers of the tournament.They outplayed all other teams in the league stage but choked in the semifinal. They had a very good team balance which can play on par with any other club team in the world and they would have a realistic chance to win the Champions League if they got selected. Missing Kamran Akmal in the semi finals due to national duty dented their chance of winning the semifinal.    

• The SLPL started with lot of controversies. This was expected to start last year. But due to intervention of India it was postponed. Even in this edition no Indian players took part. Also the expected foreign stars decided to stay away from it at the last moment. And some players leaved SLPL at the halfway stage citing different reasons. But yet I think it helped Sri Lanka to uncover the next generation of cricketers. Also Hope that "UVA NEXT" will perform well at the upcoming Champions League in October.

SLPL at the Halfway Stage

Inaugural SLPL is now in it's halfway stage. 15 matches out of total 24 matches have been completed and two teams have almost been knocked out (there is a slight chance for Basnahira and Uthura to qualify, given that a combination of results go in their favour, which is highly unlikely ) and one team have already qualified to the semi finals.Other four teams are playing for the three slots available in the knockouts. Here are some of my opinions on the SLPL so far.

• The attendance for the matches were very low. The matches played at the RPS Colombo were the least attended matches. This has been one of the major criticism of the SLPL. As I get to know the price of the tickets are not high and a lot of tickets are distributed freely. But it should be noted that unlike in India the available market is very low. After all we don't have a population of 1.2 billion as in India. Even Mumbai have a population of 12 million which is more than a half of Sri Lanka's entire population. So it is somewhat unfair to expect a good attendance for SLPL as in IPL.

• However I think if matches are played on different venues the attendance can be increased. Galle and Dambulla would have been good revenue generators. Probably for the next edition of SLPL they should have some matches at those venues. 

• The teams are named according to provinces in Sri Lanka. But being a small country divisions based on provinces is not that evident as in India. As the matches are just played in Colombo and Kandy there is no fan base for these teams from their respective provinces. I think this is also a reason for the low attendance in matches. Also the players in those teams do not belong to the respective provinces. It's funny that Sanath Jayasuriya being an icon from Matara playing for Kandurata. Also the names given to teams are very annoying. After all I am still wondering about the meaning of word "Dundee" ???

• Currently Sri Lanka is facing a power crisis due to droughts and the breakdown of the Norochcholai power plant. Most of us experience a power cut of three and a half hours each day. But most of the matches are played under floodlights. With the low number of attendance and the current situation in the country , flood lit domestic matches are the last thing we want.  

• The major motivation for organizing this tournament was the profit. SLC was desperate for money especially after going bankrupt. After the successful audition of the team-franchises it was evident that this has the potential to become financially successful. But we must not forget that Sri Lanka manged to incur a huge loss from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, while all other hosting countries made huge profits. Thus I am not surprised if I get to know that SLC incur a huge loss from this SLPL. 

• Anyway I think this is a great opportunity for Sri Lankan players. Senior players can make this a chance to prepare for the T20 world cup next month. Also this will be a great opportunity for young players  to show their talents and make a name for themselves. I sincerely hope that at least few players will make their way in to the national side through this series. 

A Simple Card Trick

This is a simple card trick and it's correctness can be easily shown using the Pigeon-Hole principle.For details about Pigeon-Hole Principle visit http://shashindrasri.blogspot.com/2011/11/pigeon-hole-principle.html.

Card Trick based on Pigeon hole principle from Shashindra Silva

It's Left Handers Day - some facts about left handers

Today (August 13) is International Left Handers day. Here are some interesting facts about left handers.

A Great Place for Free Online Learning - Coursera

Coursera is a great place for online learning. This has subjects varying from Computer Science to History , Sociology, Medicine and Music. All the subjects are offered from the top ranked Universities in the world. Currently there are 16 Universities affiliated with Coursera and this includes MIT, CIT , Stanford University and Princeton University.

Some available courses 

The courses offered are well organized. Around 5-12 hours per week are required to complete a course and the duration of the course will be 6-16 weeks. Almost all the courses includes weekly lectures which have a duration of around 10-20 minutes. There will be several lectures per week adding up to 2 hours per week. Also there may be weekly quizzes, assignments or programming assignment depending on the course. Quizzes will either MCQ or short answers which will be evaluated automatically. Assignments are normally peer reviewed. Also most of the courses have an end exam and mid exams.After the completion of the course participants will receive a certificate if they have performed well in exams and assignments. But this certificate will not be considered as an official certificate offered by the relevant University.

Coursera is started by Andrew Ng, an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab and Daphne Koller a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University . Although this was started in this year it has many partners. Currently all the courses are free and the business model is not finalized. It is expected that it will be something about selling the information about participants to potential employees and offering of certificates.

Currently Coursera offers more than 100 different subjects. The number of enrollments per subject some times exceeds 100k. These courses will give a very good chance to learn some thing new in a very organized manner. The quality of the courses are very high and it is very good chance to experience the future of e-learning. This will be a very good opportunity to gather international quality knowledge freely.Visit the Coursera web site from the following link.


https://www.coursera.org/

Hotspot Technology

One of the main technology used in Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) in cricket is the Hawk-Eye technology which tracks and predicts the path of the ball. Other main technology which is not mandatory under current cricketing laws is the Hot Spot technology. Hot Spot is the best available technology to establish the contact between the ball and the bat or pad.

History

Australia's Nine Networks owns this technology

Interestingly hot-spot technology was not intended to be used in cricket initially. It was expected to be used in military applications. These includes tracking jet-fighters,warships, tanks and satellites.This technology was founded by french scientist Nicholas Bion and later developed by other companies in paris. The Australian Nine Networks bought and adopted this technology. This technology is now offered by BBG Sports,an Australian company responsible for Snickometer in conjunction with Sky Sports.This technology was first used in the first ashes test match at the Gabba on 23 November 2006. The first usage of Hot Spot in the decision making process in cricket was in 2009 in South Africa.

Technology

Hot Spot uses infra-red cameras to capture images. There will be either two or four cameras at each ends of the ground. These cameras sense and measure the heat.When a collision happens either between bat and ball,bat and pad,pad and ball or ground and ball the temperature of those areas will be increased.Thus collided areas will be shown with a different color.

Advantages

Hot Spot has considerable advantages than other technologies used in Decision Review System.Hawk Eye is only used to predict the path of the ball.The only other technology available to detect collisions with the bat or pad is Snickometer or a very slow motion camera replay. But it only gives an idea about the time the collision happened and its amplitude. Thus no information about the point of contact can be obtained from Snickometer. But Hot Spot cameras gives the exact point of contact of the ball with the bat or pad. Thus Hot Spot is the best available technology to detect whether the ball hit the bat or the pad.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of this technology is its high cost. The cost of two camera set up is around 5000$ per day for two cameras. So if four cameras are used for a test match total price add up to 50000$. This is a huge amount of money and if we consider the limitation of number of reviews per innings for a team (which is currently two incorrect reviews) this cost can not be justified. Even when hawk-eye and other technologies were available at a much lower price some cricket boards still can not afford them due to financial reasons.

Also the number of Hot Spot cameras available are limited. These cameras are classified as a military device and needs a temporary export license from Australian Defense Department when used in another country. Also there are other government regulations that need to be satisfied.
Due to above reasons the usage of Hot Spot in Umpire Decision Review System is not mandatory.This technology was not used even in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

Controversies

Although the inventors of Hot Spot claims very high accuracy, some of the decisions involving this technology have been controversial. There have been instances where Snickometer and other technologies confirms that there is a nick but ultimately Hot Spot did not show any evidence. Also during a test match between India and England there was a confident appeal for a caught behind. Although replays suggests that there may be some bat involved Hot Spot technology failed show any edges. Later Michael Vaughan tweeted that Laxman may have used Vaseline in his bat thus making it impossible to detect edges using Hot Spot technology.

Due to this criticism the inventors of hot spot technology carried out more tests on the reliability of the technology and now they have improved there technology and thus the accuracy of the system. Also they have proved that applying Vaseline or any other substance on the bat can not manipulate this technology. 

With new improvements this technology will be very useful for a fair game of cricket.But the problems with the cost and the unavailability of the devices have limited the usage of this in most cricket matches. Unless the price of this technology is reduced and the number of cameras available are increased this will not be part of the mandatory technologies needed in Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS).