Chainsaw PR, Canada's maple dude, Kandy perahera and my Matrix-inspired podcast
Back in the day when Elon walked into Twitter with a kitchen sink (you forgot that, didn’t you?) we thought this guy was quirky. Consider his comment on that performance: "Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!" The platform soon became a wasteland. I deleted my account then.
In mid February he came back with a red and silver chainsaw. We haven’t seen this kind of theatrics since, well, the younger George Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight jacket, with a ‘mission accomplished’ banner in the background.
Censorship used to be what happened in other countries.
Now, of course, this kind of story about censorship by the government is becoming more common. In early March, employees of the Social Security Administration were blocked from ‘general news’ websites, according to this WIRED story by David Gilbert, a reporter who covers disinformation. Here’s how they ran the story.
Voice of America is another casualty, and may be soon dismantled. The VOA has a storied history. It was created by an act of congress in 1942 to counter Soviet and communist propaganda and reached more than 300 million people. The VOA was continuously jammed by the Soviets, but was known to have inspired defectors like Martina Navratilova. I found this piece in a Congressional record, via Wikipedia.
—— WORK OF OUR HANDS ——
1. Oh, Canada!
Here’s a story from Canada—more refreshing, completely apolitical. Johann Xavier, and old friend, now owns a 35 acre farm with maple trees. At the time of writing —we just spoke—he was evaporating the maple in his ‘sugar shack.’ A few days ago he and his family created a network of lines after tapping into the sugar maple trees. Today, 20 March, being the first day of spring, he had a tight window to get the syrup out of the trees. The story is so interesting, from a technology perspective as well as nature itself, that he agreed to be on a podcast in a few weeks. (See below my latest podcast.)
Johann is a guy of many parts. We ran track together at St. Peter’s College, he went on to be CFO of Saatchi and Saatchi Asia Pacific and greater China, and recently got his pilot’s license.
2. Through the lens, brightly
It’s a different take on the Kandy perahera: Shannon Raymond’s coffee-table book, 2020: Kandy Danced. Shannon, a mortician by profession, took up his brother’s camera in 2020, at the height of Covid and decided to document the “resilience of the human spirit” capturing the dancers’ passion and dedication, He notes that they form a major part of the perahera—besides the elephants, the fire dancers, drummers, torch bearers and whip crackers.
“I was looking at things that most people wouldn’t typically notice. In these pictures, you’ll see shadows, the play of light and dark, and the artistry of the dance itself.” - As told to Tyron Devotta in February 2025
You see, Shannon is a professional dancer and chorographer. When the world was in lockdown, this event went on with no spectators lining the streets, as they did each year. His photographs capture something that tends to get lost in the smoke and noise of this multimedia street event. The perahera is one of those must-experience cultural events in Sri Lanka, a pageant that has been held since 400 AD.
(A personal note: While growing up, I must have witnessed a dozen of these peraheras, from the balcony of Central Medical Stores—an ancestral family business in Kandy town.)
3. Website, GoDaddy, tape measure, drill
It’s spring break. I completed two projects:
A website for church group, raising funds for a school in Tanzania. I used GoDaddy for the design and hosting.
Yet another structure for my wife’s ever-expanding garden. There’s something about a cordless drill that gets me started.
The world ain’t flat. It’s being flattened.
I came across an interesting commentary by Ted Gioia on what we are experiencing.
He says that the “whole rich tapestry” of our lives through family and friends “has been replaced by the most shallow and flattened digital fluff.” Basically feeds full of fluff minus context or community. Take a look at his graphic:
Competing for our connections, Starlink’s rivals
You’ve heard of Starlink. But have you heard of Taara, or Cuiper? Musk’s Starlink has been leading the pack with some 4.5 million global subscribers. Amazon’s other project is project Kuiper which plans to have 3,000 low-orbit satellites.
But I’m very interested in Taara. Alphabet, parent company of Google is now involved in a rival form of connectivity very different from, but a potential rival to Starlink. Taara uses light lasers to transmit data and is tower-based, making it less expensive than internet-in-the-sky type of broadband service it once attempted with Project Loon. (Loon was piloted it in Sri Lanka, New Zealand and a few other countries.) The man behind this is Mahesh Krishnaswamy, some. You could listen to him here on a podcast.
Science with a sense of humor
On a lighter note.
When my friend Channa Perera was visiting Princeton he came across this remarkable display in Guyot hall. A toy ‘allosaurus’ was put in place of the life size model in the geosciences building, since the big guy had to me moved. Something to do with budget cuts, apparently. Yes, scientists do have a funny bone!
One more thing…
My friends in Sri Lanka informed me about this. The wind farm debacle in Mannar is over. The legal battle at least. You may remember if you are a subscriber that I wrote a strong Oped about it, in the December 2024 issue of this newsletter.
And finally a plug for my latest podcast, Wide Angle. This had been something I had recorded almost a year ago and held it back for various reasons.
Remember Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne in the Matrix? There's something similar going on today, in 2025, that feels slightly like that synthetic world. Not just social media, but now with AI. Do you sometimes feel we might be trapped inside a simulated, controlled world and not realize it? That’s what it is all about. Listen to it and please let me know your comments.
