Mirissa

Mirissa is the largest fishing port on the south coast and is known for its tuna, mullet, snapper and butterfish. In 1980 the first tourist accommodation was built however it wasn't until the mid-1990s that tourism to the town started to dramatically increase.

Book your tour today with Barari Global Holidays. Contact me via email onvinayak@barari-globalh.com or WhatsApp on +94 765 512 756.

How to take care of your ears

Very often we take things we have for granted. Our body has a value of $6 million according to a documentary that featured Donald Trump talking about it. Hearing loss is the third most common health problem in the United States.

Set the sound volume low

Better be safe than sorry. It is always nice to listen to music or a movie at a loud volume, but you won’t to keep this to a bare minimum. You don’t want to harm your hearing health.

Exercise

Get your heart pumping and your ears will be taken care off, recommend health experts.

Remove air wax properly

Put your little finger in and clean up your ear the old-fashioned way.

The other things I can think of are to eat better and consult a licensed hearing health professional. 

USD - LKR History

Catamaran fishing - Negombo

Ride on a traditional catamaran at dawn on one of Sri Lanka’s many inland lakes. The birdlife and scenery as the sun inches over the horizon dispelling the misty stillness is magical. Watch and learn as the fisherman effortlessly casts his net in a great ark across the water. The fisherman will only be too happy to let you try your hand at casting his net. Later, help the fisherman to draw in the net on his way back to shore. The mood will either be somber or jubilant depending on the weight of the catch.

Book your tour today with Barari Global Holidays. Contact me via email on vinayak@barari-globalh.com or WhatsApp on +94 765 512 756. 

Average Sri Lankan Salary

According to Numbeo, the average monthly net salary in Colombo, Sri Lanka is LKR 43,314.49.
This figure, I think, is pretty accurate.
There was a job vacancy for an assistant manager for a branded footwear company. The salary advertised was LKR 40,000. Additionally, the candidate would be offered sales commissions. This post is for upcoming showrooms in Marino Mall, Colombo 3 and Colombo City Center.
Another vacancy advertised by George Steuart Recruitment was for a business development executive paying between LKR 65,000 to LKR 75,000. 

Top VoIP Wireless Routers

What is VoIP?

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. You might have seen all those Vonage ads and I am sure you would have used Skype, etc. Well, this is the technology that makes those free internet telephone calls happen.

Wireless routers in a nutshell

Nowadays, more and more businesses and homes are moving towards wireless routers for their networking needs.

ADSL 2+. How many volts is a lightning strike they insure upto 4000V.

USB to RS232 cable; portable wireless router, wireless headphone (create separate hubs for them)

Linksys WRT54G

It is based on the 802.11g Wi-Fi protocol.

I want to rival something like HowStuffWorks.com. You might think that it would not be possible, but I do have significant advantages - a more personalized service, a tight niche.

So yes, I will make it a point to read all the responses and respond - this is not coming from one faceless Fortune 500 companies.

How many airports are being built

The traffic in the sky is increasing. The boom in tourism has caused 350 new airports to be constructed in the Asia-Pacific region. China alone is looking to build 100 new airports as their middle class grows. A South China Morning Post article reported that there are ever-growing queues at immigration and overflowing baggage carousels. What is more the flight delays are proving to be expensive. Beijing’s new airport will have 7 runways with the capacity to handle 100 million passengers a year.

The total investment cost of the new airports is estimated at more than US$100 billion. India is planning to spend US$ 60 billion on constructing 100 new airports over the next 15 to 20 years.

There is an article on Wikipedia titled “List of airports under construction”. Fascinatingly, there aren’t many airports listed in this topic. The aviation space keeps evolving. It must be kept in mind that the current Melbourne international airport came about as a result of the older one not being able to keep pace with the growing tourist arrivals and departures during the 1960s. Tullamarine was a rural area in the 1950s and now it has grown into an urban area in its own right. 

How Long Does it Take to Find a Job

I’ve had quite a few jobs over the years. My first job was at HSBC as a customer service executive when I was 18 years old. Since then I’ve had short stints at reputed companies like The Capital Maharaja Organisation Limited and Wells Fargo Advisors. So I’ve been wondering to myself how long it takes to find a job.

Experts have come up with an estimated time frame for this particular question. For every $10,000 of the paycheck you would like to earn, it would take about a month. So if you are looking to make $60,000 a year, it is going to take 6 months. I think this estimation is quite accurate given my history. There are various factors that affect the length of time of a typical job search. But I am not going to delve into that here.

There is generally an interview process that goes on for 2 weeks. To get any job, you will be looking at a few weeks. Getting a job is hard work and often involves a lot of luck. You could get one in as little as a few days and sometimes it takes months. Having said that, there are a lot of companies that will invite you for an interview. Looking at my experience this year, I was invited to 9 interviews from name brand firms. I was given one job offer and the rest of them didn’t move past the first interview.

One tip to keep in mind is that it takes 200 plus applications to get a job. Even software developers need to hit up several applications before they see something good, requiring on average 150 plus applications.

At the end of the day, good things come to those who wait. 

Is Traffic Increasing

I remember once seeing a documentary about Kobe Bryant where he remarked on Los Angeles traffic. When looking at LA, the population density of the city is increasing. More and more people are sharing the same amount of space in LA.

The problem is that a lot of people will be driving their own car. In another 20 years, there will be 2 billion cars in the world. The planet isn’t getting any bigger to accommodate all of this. I guess there will be a growth of smaller cities and remote areas.

The problem is that a lot of people want to live in California. I saw on Quora that 2 billion people would like to live in California. Southern California’s population was growing at 2.3 percent a year in the 1980s and there was a 1.3 percent average growth in 1990s. Going forward, these numbers must be considered very small.

In looking at the question posed here, I would say that traffic is indeed increasing and there is no way of stopping it unless we fundamentally change our thinking. 

Is Allen Iverson broke?

Allen Iverson earned over $200 million during his basketball career. But sources claim that the NBA Hall of Famer is broke. For instance, there is a YouTube video that states that he lost his $32 million Reebok trust fund. As part of this contract, Iverson gets $1 million per year and will receive a lump sum of $32 million at the age of 55. What is more, Iverson is eligible to start drawing an NBA pension at age 45. He will be able to receive $8,000 per month.

There aren’t any recent reports of Iverson being broke. He even recently appeared on ESPN First Take. Additionally, Iverson along with Reebok helped to come up with money for the new basketball court at Newport News Boys and Girls Club. The kids in attendance were provided with lunch and given backpacks with clothes and school supplies to take home. 

How To Nail An Accent While Acting

In today’s world with the explosive growth of YouTube, accents are easily recognizable. From the highly desirable New York accent to the dull South Indian one, accents are out there for most people to look up and master. Speaking of which, there is a guy on the local radio show that is able to speak in different accents in an effortless manner for a certain segment.

When it comes to acting, there are stories of actors doing different things to get into character. Actors with accent skills will command a premium in the marketplace. For all those aspiring actors out there, there have been several instances of actors doing a part really well in an accent that differs from their own. This trend for production to make use of actors that can do different accents is a global thing. As far as Hollywood is concerned, look no further than Gary Oldman. Oldman has used a ton of accents in his movie roles which include a Russian terrorist in Air Force One and Commissioner Gordon in the Dark Knight series. If you look at Bollywood, superstar Aamir Khan worked hard on his Bhojpuri accent in the comedy-drama film PK and nailed it as far as critics were concerned.

Start with mouth exercises

It is about getting your muscles to take shapes. These are tiny muscles in the mouth and lips. However, you’ll want to have some knowledge of the language that allows for flexibility when looking to acquire an accent. All in all, it requires a lot of work on the muscles in your mouth and jaw.

Dialect coaches can help

If you’re lucky, you’ll have a dialect coach. It definitely takes the pressure off. Someone with the knowledge of an accent or multiple ones is the best help for your ability to nail an accent while acting. The drills that dialect or accent coaches are able to put together will be of great assistance in this endeavor. When you are short on time to prepare, getting hold of a dialect coach can go a long way.

Head to YouTube

Sometimes there is nothing greater than observing a person whose accent is one that you desire to learn. Or you can just look to actors like Cate Blanchett who is an Australian, but plays American, British and French characters. If you watch her closely, you can see that in these performances such as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator she never betrays her down under roots. 

Why are strangers so attractive

I occasionally divert from my love of economics and today I am going to talk about something from a sociological or psychological angle.

To the best of knowledge, currently, I’m not attracted to anyone I know. Okay, now that I think about it I may be attracted to one or two. When I’m talking about people I know, I’m talking about the people on social media especially Facebook and LinkedIn. I think it’s fair to say that it’s pretty easy to strike up a conversation even with the ones on other sites like Twitter as long as they are following me.

But what is it about a stranger that makes me fall in love with them. Is it that the brain falls in love or should I say becomes infatuated with somebody or something that it knows it can never have. Often, I forgot about the stuff that I have and I am in a hurry to think about all the things that I don’t have. It has been said that love is pain. Love is misery, also. In the 1999 movie Notting Hill, Hugh Grant’s character William Thacker remarks that falling in love with someone and then getting them to love you back is so miniscule.

One thing that presses me when trying to date a girl I know is that I may lose her friend and this is a rather hard situation to be in.

When it comes to attracting strangers, there are some tips out on the web. Being yourself, smiling and making people laugh are some of the things that Medium states are necessary for attracting someone in 5 seconds or less. There are more or less tips in a similar vein from Inc. They do say that you don’t necessarily get hurt if you are truly in love. 

On which hand should men wear watches?

I saw a guy wearing his watch on his right hand and this got me thinking about this question. According to wrist watch specialists, there is no definitive answer. It just so happens that 89% of people are right handed and so they wear it on their less dominant hand which is the left one.
So the next time someone walks in and his watch on his left wrist, don't think that they are daft. It may be just that they are left-handed. 

How much taxi drivers make

I did a post on taxis in NYC and that inspired this post. So here is how much money taxi drivers make in different cities across the globe.

NYC

Uber - $90,000 per year

Yellow Cab - $32,000 per year

Source: CNBC

Colombo

Tuk tuk – 30,000 LKR per month (Source: Indi)

Uber – 100,000 LKR per month (Source: Medium)

Chennai

Ola/Uber – 30,470 INR per month

Source: Quora

How many taxis in NYC?

There are just over 13,500 taxis on the streets of NYC. The black cars now dominate the scene in New York with a size of 60,000. More than 46,000 of these black cars are connected with Uber. So the iconic yellow cab must be a pretty rare sight. All of these tuk tuks coming one after the other in Colombo, got me thinking about the number of yellow cabs in New York City. There are 1.2 million tuk tuks in Sri Lanka (this is the popular number listed everywhere), but I couldn’t get a figure for Colombo. It must be a pretty high figure. If you look at Chennai, there were just about 72,000 autorickshaws, according to a recent article on The Hindu. Chennai is 10 times the size of Colombo, but I still see autorickshaws zipping past whenever I go for a visit. 

Workers can't afford products they make

A Foxconn worker makes $1.78 per hour he or she is on the line. For a month, this works out to $290. The company deducts $72 for the small dorm room and meals offered by them. This leaves them with some money just north of $200. A large chunk is sent home to their villages. If they were to be selfish and spend on nothing else, it would take six months for them to buy an iPhone.

There is a piece by Business Insider on the amount of work done by the employees and the nature of it.

Bottomline: Foxconn workers don’t own iPhones, in general. 

How many cars are there in the world?

There are 1.02 billion cars in the world. This number is expected to double by 2040. Still, having a car is a luxury that most people in the world cannot afford. I have a driving license, but I am not the type of person who likes to drive. I can’t wait for the time when self-driving cars become a common sight on the roads. Then I’ll be able to afford one.

My father kept asking me whether I needed a car, but I preferred to ask him for that money to start a business. I’ve been looking at the various costs of having a car and whether it is worth saving for something that will depreciate so much and be worth next to nothing in ten years. There is the cost of acquisition and then maintenance, insurance and the gasoline. According to Consumer Expenditures in 2016, released in August of 2017 by the U.S. Department of Labor's U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average vehicle costs $8,003 per year to own and operate.

Personally, I feel that I could spend some money on a nice car, just one car for the whole household. So if I had a wife and two kids, we would all have one car for the four of us. 

The Life of the Five-Thousand Rupee Note

I was wondering how long the 5000 rupee note would last. So I researched the $100 bill as it is the note equivalent to the Sri Lankan five-thousand one. There is very little data on Sri Lanka and so I always have to look up the stuff in India or the US to get a rough idea. The Washington Post reports that the $100 bill is built to last with an estimated “life span” of 15 years.

The Fed has something to say on the topic too. It has estimated life spans of the $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes. It states that the larger denominations are used as a store of value and so they pass between users at a much lower frequency.