A few things that made my 2018 interesting..

A day in Monaco

2018 is one of my most favorite years. It gave me lots of happy moments. Adhering to the habit I started in 2012, this post summarizes 30 things that made my 2018 interesting.

1. Submitting my Ph.D. thesis

I planned to defend by 2018 October. But it got delayed, and I will defend early next year. However, I have submitted the thesis, and my Ph.D. research is complete. :)

2. Return to Emory University, Atlanta
Emory BMI for a longer stint after my previous short one in 2016. Everything felt the same and different at the same time.

3. A day in Monaco, walking across the entire country
It is trivial to walk across a country if it is as small as Monaco. :)

4. The conclusion of Ph.D. collaborations
It is important to conclude the collaborations on a positive note. As my Ph.D. nears the end, I am happy that my collaborations from URijeka (SDSC) and KAUST (NetUber and Dynam-IX) also came to successful completion.

5. Sleepless nights in Shenzhen, China
When deadlines come, you get to work wherever you are. I ended up working overnights for the successful submission of Óbidos.

6. Shopping in rainy and windy days in Jeju
I was lucky (or was that Jeju, which indeed was fortunate to receive me?). After I left Jeju, in a few months, I learned that Jeju does not offer visa-free entry to Sri Lankans anymore.

7. Best Paper Award at SDS'18
I received the best paper award at SDS'18 for my paper on Software-Defined Data Services (SDDS). It was an exciting moment.

Barcelona, once again!

8. Random Walks in Barcelona, once more!
This is a city I adore. I am getting familiar with this city more and more.

9. Cruise in Zurich Lake
Zurich was still cold in May. Of course not as cold as my last visit for the 2017 New Year's Eve. But still raining.

10. IFIP Networking 2018 with an overdose of caffeine
IFIP is a conference I always wanted to participate. Had the chance to present NetUber there this year, finally.

11. Spending a whole day in Sesimbra Beach
Sesimbra is a beach town close to Lisboa in the Setúbal district. I always wanted to go there. I got the chance finally this year.

12. First journal papers and book chapters of my Ph.D.
I started working on 3 journal papers (Évora, Óbidos, and SD-CPS) and 2 book chapters (SDN for big data and SDN for service compositions) last year. They all got accepted and published this year!

13. The views of French Riviera
Despite the predicted weather that it would be warmer than Barcelona, Nice turned out to be cloudy and colder.

14. Fresh Seafood in Jeju
Watching the show of octopus, squids, and several similar sea creatures being cooked alive for me.

15. Leaving Portugal and EU after 6 years
I don't think I will ever forget those sweet memories of Lisboa. Experiencing 'saudade', as we call it in Portugal.

16. Almada, just across the Tagus River.
Pleasant environment, but busy days.

17. Presenting my CAT at IST
I should have tried to make the IST's CAT and UCL's confirmation as a single presentation. But due to the difference in UCL and IST requirements, I chose to make 2 different presentations. With the CAT and my thesis submission, I have met all the requirements for the thesis (ABD/All But Dissertation).

18. A slow-paced year, quite the opposite of 2017
2017 was way too fast with several migrations and travels. 2018, on the other hand, was more stable and slow-paced. This was the first time during the past 6 years that we stayed home during the new year's eve. Feeling somewhat old.

19. Becoming a morning person in Atlanta
Love those early morning commutes to work while it is still dark and cold outside.

20. Hopping on to random buses in Jeju, hoping to reach the destination eventually.

Rainy days in Jeju

And we did. I even made an algorithm out of this.

21. Bus Commutes from Calçada de Carriche to my lab
My apartment was in Calçada de Carriche, a bit farther from my lab, INESC-ID Lisboa, compared to my previous neighborhoods. Therefore, needed a relatively longer bus commute.

22. Parque das Nações revamped.

Parque das Nações is my favorite spot in Lisboa. It has improved within the past few years with new restaurants, yet maintained its charm. It felt nostalgic.

23. Exploring more of greater Lisboa

Even after 6 years in Lisboa, we realized that there were a few places that we hadn't visited. This year, we visited the Loures region and its big shopping mall for the first time. 

24. Évora after 4 years

Évora has its historical significance. It is also where I was informed that I was selected to the prestigious EMJD-DC program with the grant, 4 years ago.

25. Trying to relive moments in Portugal

As we count the last days in Lisboa, we tried our best to visit our favorite places just one more time, with mixed success.

26. Atlanta Botanical Garden in night lights

The entire botanical garden was shining in colorful lights and music during the December nights.

27. Ponce City Market, Atlanta

I like the interiors of this small-scale shopping mall, especially its food court. It gives strong memories.

28. Assembling Furniture from IKEA

IKEA furniture shopping and assembling them for the first time. A fun experience.

29. Atlanta Christkindl Market

Christmas markets are a significant part of the festival season. This market in Atlanta reminded me of the ones I experienced in EU during the past 6 years, such as, Lisbon, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Louvain-la-Neuve Christmas markets.

30. Poble Espanyol, Barcelona

An open-air museum that summarizes entire Spain. Not too big. But it was a pleasant walk with architectures and some snacks from different Spanish regions.

Every year, I have one new year's resolution - to outperform my previous year. :) I already have high expectations for 2019. I wish you a happy new year everyone. Thanks for reading my list until the end. You may also read the blog posts of all the previous years as well.

The horror of losing access to your email

Shenzhen Skyline

There are a few free and trialware VPN services (such as Psiphon and LanternPro) that come handy when you travel in countries with censorship. I had a hard time recently with Google locking my account due to suspicious activity (logging in from a random location via VPN). It was not letting me in since I could not remember the answer to my security questions and I did not have my phone working with me as I was traveling. Eventually, I restored the access to my account. However, it was quite a scary experience given how much I rely on my email account.

Inconsistencies at the Airports

Raspberry and Green Tea KitKat from Jeju

Airport security can be confusing. In the US airports, you should remove your shoes and belt, and also take out the laptop and big tablets from your bag, as you pass through the security scanner. Elsewhere, it is not necessary to remove your shoes as long as the shoes do not look bulky or big. In China, I found that removing belt is not necessary. However, in addition to the laptop, you should also take the camera, power bank, and umbrellas out. It is interesting to note these differences though I am not quite sure of the reasoning behind these choices.

Traveling is always fun, though preparing for it and its aftermath are not always fun. Due to deadlines and busy schedules, I usually have to work while on travels too. This time was no exception, with a deadline to submit my paper coming close by. However, it is all good memories.

The rise and the fall of a Facebook star

1. The Hi5 Era
It was early 2006, if I remember correctly. Hi5 was getting popular. It was a social media where each new member is encouraged to invite 5 of their friends to the platform. My friend asked me why did not I accept his invitation. I told him that I had an email account (Yahoo!), which for now was enough for me. He tried his best to convince me that Hi5 was good for sharing photos and chatting. He still failed. I did not even have a digital camera till early 2007 to share the photos. I told him that I would rather email the friends I care about, instead of joining another random platform.

2. Dawn of the Facebook

Later that year, I would join the engineering faculty, and in mid 2007 I joined the department of computer science and engineering as an undergraduate. New social media platforms were getting popular. Everyone had started talking about Facebook. At some point, a clear majority among the 100 of us in the batch had joined Facebook. I was not among them, despite having received an invite from one of my good friends. My reasoning was still valid - I had a very active Gmail account which I used for sharing photos and sharing emails (including cute pictures of cats and jokes, as well as the emails to project mailing lists and class email groups dedicated entirely for friendship and fun).

3. The Entry

In 2008, a lecturer who was teaching us Software Engineering finally managed to get me into Facebook. He asked us to create a Facebook group for his course, where he would initiate group discussions based on the lecture sessions we had. I was not impressed in the beginning by this idea. However, I eventually started to become active in Facebook by the mid of 2008. It felt great when I was able to connect to the friends from different continents. My school friends were distributed across the globe, and receiving messages and updates from them was so encouraging. Apart from the friends I already knew, I also got to know new friends from Facebook itself through mutual friends, and some online communities. My Facebook account was entirely dedicated for fun and friendship by that time.

4. Intern Diaries

I joined WSO2 as an intern in September 2008. The company encouraged everyone to be active in social media, and motivated us to collaborate and communicate in social media, spreading the word about what we do as a team. By early 2009, I had a Facebook account that also contained technology related posts in addition to that of a regular undergraduate that just had funny posts and photos. I even had friend requests from a few customers of the company. My Facebook friend list had grown above 1500 by that time, spreading across the globe. By that time, I knew that my Facebook account was a reasonably valuable asset to me, and losing it or deactivating it was never an option.

5. Professional Gangster

Around the end of 2009, I had become a professional Facebooker. I was aware of the scams of Facebook. I also knew which were the dodgy links and how viral posts were born. I never clicked or shared anything that had a hidden agenda. I carefully avoided politics. My Facebook was still in its golden era. There were even random people asking me questions through Facebook about some of the technology posts I made. As I completed my second Google Summer of Code in 2010, my Facebook had more content intense in technology with links and often content I wrote by myself. I also joined WSO2 as a software engineer later that year.

6. Social Media Pro (alias shameless promoter)

In the latter half of 2011, I was leading the social media engagement of the company and had shared massive amount of promotional material. Later in 2012, I quit my job to continue my higher studies in Europe. I eventually became a frequent traveller, and shared many of my travel stories and photos online, in Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. Facebook became even more important to me, as I used it to connect to my friends back in Sri Lanka. It also helped me get news updates. I basically was logged in Facebook always. Never logged out.

7. Maturity

My Facebook started to age, along with me. :P As we grow older, it also reflects in the social media. The number of fun posts started to decline while more promotional content from companies and photos of babies started to appear more frequently. When I went to China in 2014, I made sure to install and configure the relevant proxy and VPN solutions so that I would not miss the updates when I was away, since Facebook was otherwise inaccessible from China.

8. Facebook Wars

By 2015, I knew how "visionaries" or "thought leaders" and "idols" from Sri Lanka and other countries would manipulate their follower base to get their views across. It was easy for them to sensationalize their view points than merely stating the facts. Sometimes it got annoying to see how a large base of followers fall for trivial tricks and scams. It was easy for the visionaries to provoke an unsuspecting victim for their hidden agenda. Politics - I tried my best to avoid - was not always easy to omit. I had to engage in multiple occasions, when it appeared in my feed. I started to give my voice for whatever I felt was right.

9. Getting Intense

There were some failed politicians in Sri Lanka (as well as globally) starting to use social media to spread racism in order to regain the grounds. They did not have a really huge follower base. But they did have support from some "social media stars" and "thought leaders". Racism - I loathe in any of its forms. I tried my best to voice against the online bullies and racists, without sensationalizing the view points. In my observation, the IQ or EQ of average Facebook population was very minimal. Though I had a very intelligent LinkedIn, lately I noticed that this had started to happen to my LinkedIn as well. I unfollowed bulks of people who shared irrelevant content on Facebook and LinkedIn. 

10. LinkedIn as another Facebook

I wanted my LinkedIn account to contain professional and educational material. Though not many of my contacts did that, still some irrelevant posts from the 2nd level connections ("connections of connections" or "friends or friends", though I do not usually call LinkedIn connections as "friends", unlike Facebook). Those who solve simple mathematical equations (even with the claim that only  geniuses can solve them), those who claim how a few thousands likes will help them feel happy, help them quit smoking, or even help them recover from cancer, those fake recruiters who would ask you to like or post "interested" in their post so that they can review your profile, those who posts their random cute photos, those who seek prayers in LinkedIn for themselves or their far relatives, and also those who posts photos dictating LinkedIn ≠ Facebook (quite ironically), all I had to unfollow - those who posted them, or those who interact with these posts by commenting or liking. Even if you comment "Please do not post this", it appears on your followers' feed. So somehow I managed to keep my LinkedIn clean.

11. Unfollow Marathon

However, things were different in Facebook. I did like to get updates - random updates - from Facebook. I liked political posts - but not the way they appear sensationalized. I unfollowed around 500 racists and those who simply posted spam during my almost decade long stay in Facebook. However, racists and Facebook thought leaders managed to spread their view by commenting on others' profiles. Same story with those who posted annoying posts. I realized I was spending more time managing Facebook, which was not effective and worse - counter-productive. The social media is made in a way that it promotes viral content, regardless of its lack of quality.

12. Demise of a Facebook Star
One of my close friends had deactivated his Facebook, citing similar reasons. I decided to finally deactivate my Facebook account. After 5.5 years, I did not fail to notice that the Facebook deactivate and permanent delete options remain the same, with no change in display or user experience, regardless of tens of major reformations of Facebook itself.

13. Final Good bye

I re-assigned the ownership of the Facebook groups I had created to those I trusted as suitable candidates. I also sent my contact details to my Facebook friends, who would lose contact with me otherwise. By mid-December, I deactivated my account, and kept it deactivated for 2 months successfully, without ever feeling the need to go back. I did re-activate it once in a while to send some quick messages, as required. However, I was simply able to break the habit of social media. I rather increased my updates to my blog and twitter. If in the future, a better social media platform appears, I will give it one more try. 

14. The End

This marks the end of my 8 year long Facebook life - the rise and the fall of my Facebook kingdom. :P My friend who initially deactivated his account had it reactivated though. However, looking back, I felt like I had traveled in a circle. I feel like I have come back to the period of 2006, after 10 years. I do not really feel I am missing something by not having an account in the most popular social media platform of the world. It is not to boost that I am saving more time or have become more productive. We always find ways to waste some of our time in the Internet, regardless of the existence of Facebook. Just I find that my time with Facebook has come to an end. I will continue writing in the other platforms, such as this blog and my Twitter account.

The Internet from China

The Internet from China

I was more prepared with a proxy/VPN software during my first trip to China. However, I was careless this time, and went unprepared. During my visit in 2014, I had a VPN/proxy configured to take care of the great China firewall. Just because I wanted to make sure I was still connected to Facebook. Following my Facebook deactivate, this time I was under the impression that this is not needed anymore. I was wrong! A long list of other web sites and services have been blocked in China, in addition to Facebook.

Interestingly, Google (search), Gmail (in basic HTML mode), Skype web beta, and duckduckgo worked with a simple proxy service (such as Eduroam). However, they did not work without them. Still ShareLatex, Skype application, Yahoo search, Amazon AWS, Wikipedia, and Meetup worked even without a proxy.

In addition to Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox (the web site as well as the application), Google+, Blogger, YouTube, and Google Docs did not work at all. It was interesting that, from a foreigner's perspective, a list of useful sites were blocked. Yahoo search was not blocked, while even duckduckgo was blocked (unless used with a proxy). Probably duckduckgo is a bigger threat than Yahoo?

P.S: Lately I found Shadowsocks. I am yet to test it.

Chinese New Year in Shenzhen

This was my second visit to Shenzhen, China. Splendid China was once in my list. Last time, we just did not have enough time to see all of it. With the second visit, I am sure we have seen most of it. Chinese new year in Shenzhen was just awesome with lots of delicious food. Missing them.

~~ Memories of long travels..

M/S Silja Serenade, returning from Helsinki to Sthlm

Sometimes people amuse me by their linguistic abilities. I remember, during my cruise to Helsinki from Stockholm, the bartender said, "Namaste". He also did not fail to notice that I am not that impressed. But then that happened, "Eppadi Sugam? (means, How are you, in Tamil)," he asked. It is interesting to see some Scandinavian speaking Tamil. He replied himself, "I should reply, 'nallam (means, good, in Tamil)'. right?" Big smile. :D

This time in Shenzhen. Not many people speak English. But then a few shopkeepers in the shopping districts - they were trying to greet me in multiple languages, probably including Hindi, Bengali, and many other regional languages. I was in a shop confirming two phones are identical. The lady replied, "Same phone thaan (means, they are indeed the same phones, in Tamil/English mix)". These people know how to sell the stuff. :D

The trip to Shenzhen was remarkable. It was a long journey, and included a 12h30 mins non-stop flight from Amsterdam to Guangzhou airport. The last time I travelled this long was for the Mentor Summit at Google HQ. It included a 17 hours of flight: Los Angeles <-> Dubai.

This time I was watching 3 - 4 movies each trip (going and return). So when I reached the destination, my eyes were red. I do not recommend watching too many movies on the flight. :D Usually I don't remember the movies I watch while flying, specially because I watch movies from the languages that I don't understand - with English subtitles, of course. However, this time, I was able to remember one movie (Miss Granny, a Korean movie), and find its songs online. I really liked one particular song - you may like it too.

Shenzhen 2014

23rd of August - 6th of September, 2014

This was my summer trip this year, replacing the usual summer vacation in Sri Lanka this time. A long trip, since I am travelling from Europe, and was also remarkable.

Had a visit to Splendid China and Window of the World theme parks in Shenzhen. Splendid China impressed me more with the touches of China, where Window of the World seemed more like something for kids or for those from Shenzhen city who cannot afford to travel much.

Grandma's 粽子 (Zòngzi)was so delicious. I also enjoyed the tea party - Chinese style. The Chinese desserts were so delicious and also nutritious. They were delicious and healthy. Also the meals were equally delicious. The weather was hot and humid, similar to Colombo, which was a bit uncomfortable. Nevertheless, Shenzhen did not fail to entertain me. :)