All Posts

2026

CGRA4ML: Py+SV+C Framework for DNNs → FPGA/ASIC

March 16, 2026

Lightweight Formal AXI VIP

March 16, 2026

SystemVerilog Course at Scale

March 15, 2026

Hardware Fuzzing Benchmark Framework for AXI

March 10, 2026

Adobe cities and Atomic bombs: New Mexico - Texas Trip ‘25

February 13, 2026

Santa Fe and ABQ Old Town have a unique vibe, filled with adobe-like houses. This architectural style originated with the native tribes a...

Texas Trip - 16 days, 4600 km drive

February 9, 2026

2025

AXI-Stream Systolic Array → SoC Testbed

December 10, 2025

TIL a little more about Noether's theorem

December 9, 2025

AI Engine Experiments

October 25, 2025

FireBridge: Verifying SoC Subsystems with Real Firmware Without Simulating a CPU

October 16, 2025

Tectonic Plates: TIL a couple of amazing things.

September 14, 2025

Reusable AXI-stream verification IPs in SystemVerilog

May 16, 2025

2024

Chicago - Raised & Burnt

April 13, 2024

Raised on Jackscrews, Reversed the River, Crime Capital, Nolan’s Gotham

A Drug Story in Jaffna

April 1, 2024

A Drug Story - Happened to a family friend in Jaffna few days ago. Source: mom

How GPT works: 15-minute intuition

February 21, 2024

Karpathy was an OpenAI co-founder and the Tesla autopilot vision team lead. Between Tesla and OpenAI, he released this gem of a guide.

Home Theater Setup: 3300-lumen 4K HDR projector, 120-inch screen

January 27, 2024

2023

Cable cars of San Francisco

July 9, 2023

Unlike trams, cable cars do not have any motors inside them. A cable keeps moving under the streets, and the cars catch onto it, to move ...

Hoover Dam(n)

April 7, 2023

TLDR: They spent decades gathering public support, 10 years in political lobbying, and just 2 years to build the largest dam in the world...

Grand Canyon - Longer than Sri Lanka

April 2, 2023

Monument Valley - Where Forrest Gump stops running

Road Trip along the Mother Road of America

April 1, 2023

2500 km in 6 days on a Convertible Mustang through 5 states

East Coast Onebagging in Winter

January 2, 2023

I visited Las Vegas (0.5) Baltimore (1), DC (2), Philadelphia (2), Boston (3) and NYC (8). I planned to spend 3 days in Buffalo/Toronto, ...

2022

Las Vegas - The City of Sins

December 16, 2022

Egypt, Venice, Rome & Paris, all within 3 hours. Nothing is holy here: fake mummies decorate grand casinos and a nightclub built like...

California: Mythical Island and 17th-Century Fake News

September 17, 2022

Around the same time Columbus landed, some guy published a random fictitious novel about a mythical island where only black women live (A...

Bengaluru - Tech Museum, Eat Street, Iskcon Kovil [India 2022]

August 29, 2022

“The Silicon Valley of India” is neither Delhi, Bombay, nor Kolkata, but this South Indian capital of Karnataka. The city is full of skys...

Mysore Palace: Wealth beyond your wildest dreams [India 2022]

August 28, 2022

The second most visited spot in India is home to the Wadiyar dynasty, who have been ruling the Kingdom of Mysore for 551 years, through 2...

Mysore & Food [India 2022]

August 26, 2022

Mysore is easily one of the best cities to visit in India. It is compact in size, laid back in vibe, rich in history, and unique in cultu...

Kochi - Queen of the Arabian Sea [India 2022]

August 25, 2022

In 1341, a massive flood of the river Periyar destroyed Kerala, reshaping its coastline in the process. This formed the natural harbour o...

Kathakali - A dance of emotion and colour [India 2022]

August 14, 2022

Katha (story) kali (play) is an iconic traditional dance of Kerala. Void of dialogues, the story is conveyed through expressions, mudras ...

Kerala Food [India 2022]

August 13, 2022

I once called India the ‘foodie’s paradise’. Then Kerala is its unrivalled capital. I could try only a fraction of Kerala’s wonderful foo...

Alappuzha (Kerala) - Venice of the East [India 2022]

August 12, 2022

Dubbed “God’s Own Country”, Kerala truly is amazing beyond expectations. Serene backwaters with boat rides, unmatched cuisine, and a genu...

Kanyakumari - Where India Ends [India 2022]

August 11, 2022

It’s the tip of India, where three seas meet. Did you know it’s south-er than Anuradhapura, almost parallel to Dambulla?

Mandapam Camp: My Grandpa, Refugees & Tea Workers [India 2022]

August 10, 2022

In 1917, the British set up a quarantine center at the edge of India. Indians, who were being brought to Sri Lanka to work in tea estates...

The Ghost Town of Dhanushkodi [India 2022]

August 9, 2022

In the 1950s, from Colombo Fort Railway Station, you could take a train ticket to Dhanushkodi (India). The train would take you to Thalai...

My speech at Chinthana & Sunimali's wedding

June 10, 2022

Before I begin, here is an advertisement you cannot skip. I’ve decided to do these wedding speeches as a business. The first two, includi...

Jaffna Trip - 3 Day Plan

June 8, 2022

Buddha was shot dead - An impactful poem

June 1, 2022

I read this as a kid in Grade 6 or so, and its impact has stuck with me. The following is a short explanation for anyone who might get tr...

Bhanuka and Lashini's Wedding - My speech

May 29, 2022

I don’t know how some people find their soulmates within a few months of joining the university. It took me a year to find the examinatio...

#GoHomeRajapaksas - An Unprecedented Revolution

April 11, 2022

CocoTB: FPGA/ASIC Testbenches in Python + Automated Testing in GitHub

April 4, 2022

Upper Gartmore Camping [2022]

February 27, 2022

How does the Webb Telescope orbit nothing (L2)?

February 3, 2022

Vision-Based Adaptive Traffic Control on an MPSoC [ARM+FPGA]

January 28, 2022

2021

Sri Lanka & Lazarus Heist

September 8, 2021

In 2016, Lazarus Group, a North Korean cybercrime group robbed 1 billion from the account of Bangladesh’s Central Bank in the Federal Ban...

Afghanistan: A Sad Story

August 7, 2021

How safe are our compilers?

August 5, 2021

The Snowflake Generation: A Defense

June 27, 2021

Tamil 101: For Non-Tamils

June 9, 2021

Webinars: Modern C++ & Embedded

May 18, 2021

A Jaffna Marriage Story, Jam-Fruit-Tree-style

April 27, 2021

Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics

January 2, 2021

I Designed a Formal Course: EN3350 Software Design

January 1, 2021

2020

A Visual Guide to DSP - Teaching Assistance

December 16, 2020

Linear Algebra in our Education: A Rant

November 3, 2020

Grade 8: Here is a matrix, just a few numbers in a box. You can add, subtract boxes. And you can multiply two boxes in this very complica...

India

September 1, 2020

It is not a country, but a continent. There is no other place on earth as rich in diversity. Every state, often every city within a state...

Taste of India

August 15, 2020

Lockdown, Return & Quarantine [India 2020]

August 1, 2020

Meta-hypocrisy: War Crimes, Sunil Ratnayaka and George Floyd

June 4, 2020

TLDR: We need to compare apples to apples, Sri Lankan people to US people and SL govt to US govt. I have a unique (not really) stance on ...

The Jam Fruit Tree - Book Review

May 30, 2020

One of the best novels I’ve read in English!

Police Story - Aba and the Punjab Police

April 27, 2020

TLDR: A doctor “tested” me for COVID-19, I fought with policemen, they took me on a bike and got stopped by traffic police for a traffic ...

Mahabharata - Book Review

April 26, 2020

Finished reading Mahabharata (Rajaji edition)

Easter Attacks - Documentary

April 20, 2020

Terror in Paradise: A must-watch for all Sri Lankans.

Myth of the Chocolate Skin

April 18, 2020

Fun fact, foreigners: Europeans and Chinese have a difficult time wrapping their heads around the concept of our skin colours. They assum...

Story of the "Joy Plant" and Heroin

April 17, 2020

“Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you’re still nowhere near it.”

Jodhpur & Udaipur [India 2020]

March 18, 2020

Camel Safari into the Thar Desert [India 2020]

March 17, 2020

Khuri: Authentic Rajasthani Village [India 2020]

March 16, 2020

Jaisalmer [India 2020]

March 14, 2020

Driving in India

March 12, 2020

I might be the first guy to use indicators in India. Most motorbikes and autos don’t even have side mirrors! They remove it, some bikes e...

Jaipur [India 2020]

March 11, 2020

Monkey Thieves

March 10, 2020

Both my glasses were broken by monkeys last week.

Holi [India 2020]

March 10, 2020

Sex Temples of Khajuraho - Art (18+) [India 2020]

March 7, 2020

Delhi [India 2020]

March 5, 2020

Taj Mahal - Architecture [India 2020]

March 4, 2020

Agra [India 2020]

March 4, 2020

Tourists visit Agra, primarily for the Taj Mahal, arguably the most beautiful mausoleum in the world and a fine example of Mughal archite...

Lucknow [India 2020]

March 2, 2020

Ganja Lassi - Experience

February 29, 2020

Varanasi [India 2020]

February 28, 2020

Bodh Gaya [India 2020]

February 27, 2020

Kolkata [India 2020]

February 26, 2020

2019

Solar Eclipse FAQ & Fun Facts

December 26, 2019

Why is it harmful to look at it with naked eyes?

Northeast India [2019]

November 15, 2019

1 week, 2 people, 5 states, 7 flights, 8 languages, 1000 km (by road) Went for a week-long workshop on SOC design, took an extra week to...

To see in Rajarata - Maps

September 12, 2019

My boarding aunty (Neela Desilva) made me two booklets (PDF links are given), on the great cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. She ha...

Serial System Bus + Protocol

May 18, 2019

Jaffna & Delft Camping with Sodium Scientists

April 12, 2019

Rohana Wijeweera - An Unbiased Story of JVP (1971-1989)

March 5, 2019

When watching ‘Ginnen Upan Seethala’, I felt it was quite one sided. I wanted to know both sides of history and their justifications. Rec...

The End of Eternity (Asimov): Book Review

March 4, 2019

The best time travel story of all time, from the grand master of hard sci-fi.

The Pillars of the Earth: Book Review

March 3, 2019

Pillars is arguably the best fiction I have ever read and a book that I keep recommending to my fellow bookworms. Set in a historic backg...

Ponniyin Selvan: Book Review (English)

February 28, 2019

Emperor Rajaraja (985-1014 AD) was one of the most notable kings of India. Cholas are considered the villains in Mahawamsa, rightfully so...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Book Review

February 24, 2019

This is a 700 page novel. And on the 30th page, the galactic hyper-way council destroys the earth to build an intergalactic highway.

Sapiens: Book Review

February 23, 2019

We are the product of our history. Like them or not, religions, empires, ideologies and money have shaped our history to make us what we ...

Solving Schrödinger's Equation in 1,2,3-D with MATLAB

February 19, 2019

In my junior year, I picked an elective on Quantum Mechanics: Electronic Devices. The project that was worth 50% was to solve the time-in...

Namunukula Camping

January 9, 2019

2018

Aba's 2018

December 31, 2018

Asked out a girl for the first time and got respectfully rejected. Started the year in a tent sandwiched between a graveyard and the mo...

CSIRO: End-to-End Machine Learning Pipeline

December 17, 2018

In May 2018, I was chosen for a 6 month paid internship program at DATA61 CSIRO (The national science agency of Australia), in Brisbane, ...

Singapore [2018]

December 12, 2018

Brisbane [Australia 2018]

December 10, 2018

Skydive @ Sunshine Coast

November 7, 2018

Fraser Island 4WD [Australia 2018]

October 28, 2018

Straddie Camping (North Stradbroke Island) [Australia 2018]

October 21, 2018

Mt. Greville Hike [Australia 2018]

October 1, 2018

Springbrook Camping [Australia 2018]

September 15, 2018

Lamington Hike [Australia 2018]

September 8, 2018

Gold Coast [Australia 2018]

August 27, 2018

Ekka Festival [Australia 2018]

August 15, 2018

Byron Bay [Australia 2018]

August 11, 2018

Smart Lock: Assembly Programming, Product Realization, Marketing

July 18, 2018

The objective of this project is to gain experience in designing and launching a brand new product into a market. Our product is the ‘Sma...

Custom Processor (Verilog), ISA, Compiler & Simulator (Python)

June 17, 2018

The first architecture I designed

Kavigai Foundation (Non-profit)

March 17, 2018

Kavigai Foundation was co-founded in August 2017 by three of my friends and myself with the goals of full financial & functional tran...

2017

Jaffna & Delft Camping with Bhanuka & Co

December 31, 2017

Aba's 2017

December 31, 2017

★ Walked into Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel with sweaty T-shirt + bottom + muddy slippers at midnight and then into Pettah police station at 2 ...

DonateLK: Web Based Donation Platform

November 18, 2017

DonateLK was developed as a semester project for the module: ‘Modular Software Development’. It is a web-based marketplace that is design...

Feel Lanka - Tourism Development

September 17, 2017

Focused on tourism development in unexplored parts of Sri Lanka, it was a six-week project with a team of foreign and local volunteers co...

Gollum - Ring Finding Robot: [GPS, obstacle avoiding, wall following, color detection, parallel alignment]

August 27, 2017

Through this project we built Gollum, an outdoor mobile robot to perform GPS following, obstacle avoiding, wall following, color detectio...

Best Summer 2017

August 19, 2017

(7,000 km of motorbike, boat, train, bus, ferry, jeep, rosa, bicycle… in sixty days)

Basic Robotics Workshops for Students of Over 20 schools

August 18, 2017

As with all developing countries, students of Sri Lanka are not exposed to the latest technologies. Students are usually exposed to progr...

Adam's Peak: Why the Rib?

April 23, 2017

Jo - ‘Hmm?’ Me - ‘Well, god created Eve from Adam’s rib right?’ Jo - ‘Yes?’ Me - ‘Why the rib, in particular? What’s special about it?’

A Road from Elephant Pass - Book Review

March 25, 2017

An LTTE (Tamil) girl turns herself into the camp at Elephant pass, minutes before LTTE starts their Operation Ceaseless Waves -3 (ஓயாத அல...

Switch Off - Energy Awareness & Wiring Rural Houses

March 18, 2017

My Experience

2016

Aba's 2016

December 31, 2016

*Fighting in Goda Uda Vietnam teaching to wear condoms being someone’s crush eating crocodile “husband” of ...

When the World Burns Around You

November 14, 2016

This is a speech I wrote in 2016, about my mom, for the module: Communication Skills.

A Tale of Three Cities

October 11, 2016

This was a speech I prepared for a course in undergrad, where we were supposed to reflect on our personal journeys.

Vietnam [2016]

August 31, 2016

Dobbybot: A Battlebot under $32

July 18, 2016

For a battlebot competition, we decided to build a bot for under 30$. Clad in stainless steel plates for armour and a flipper arm powered...

Islandwide Mora Exams

June 30, 2016

This year, the 7th annual islandwide model examinations for GCE A/L is being conducted in 20 districts entirely by the students of E15, E...

மாட்டிறைச்சியும் இந்துமதமும்

June 26, 2016

விவேகானந்தர் அமெரிக்காவில் தங்கியிருந்த போது மாட்டிறைச்சி தின்றார். இராமாயணத்தில், கொழுத்த கன்றை அடித்து உணவாக்கி இராமனுக்குப் பரத்வாஜ ...

Nightfall (Asimov Novelette) : Review

June 25, 2016

What if people experience darkness and witness the heavenly sight of the starry night only once in a millennium?

Childhood's End (Arthur C Clarke) - Book Review

June 25, 2016

Vietnam: Sex Education & Awareness

June 17, 2016

Support-Educate-Prepare (SEP) was a six-week-long project in summer 2016, focused on raising awareness against sexual harassment and huma...

இனங்களும் இனவாதமும்

February 20, 2016

This is my essay from 2016 (first year at university) that won second place at the all-level essay competition. I’d like to thank Mr. Bas...

Knuckles Mountain Range

February 6, 2016

Do Horses Bite?

February 6, 2016

This is the story of one of my weirdest experiences: being bitten by a horse (yup, seriously!), and its consequences.

2015

Aba's 2015

December 31, 2015

★ Lost 16 kg by riding 2500 km, exploring entire Jaffna peninsula in bicycle.

Merry Christmas with Arthur C Clarke: Book Review

December 24, 2015

Amazed once again by the rich imagination of Arthur C Clarke as an idea-driven sci-fi writer. Just read the second paragraph below (only ...

Tamil Nadu [India 2015]

September 15, 2015

Known for ancient temples with impeccable Dravidian architecture, Tamil Nadu is twice bigger in the area and has thrice the population of...

2014

AutoCAD 3D: 3 Story House

December 18, 2014

After high school, I took a short course in draughtsmanship. This is what I built for my final project

Poster Series: Chemistry Reactions (High School)

November 18, 2014

I created these charts to prepare for my GCE A/L Examinations. When I graduated from school, I redesigned them in Powerpoint and printed ...

Thondamanaru Lagoon: Baseline Analysis

July 18, 2014

In 2014, I volunteered to help my mom’s team of professors and research assistants on a project to analyze biological and socio-economic ...

2012

Alexandria: Integrated Library System

November 18, 2012

This is one of my first large scale projects. I learnt C#, SQL…etc to do it after middle school. I didn’t know OOP back then, so I ended ...

கன்னிமாடம் - Book Review

August 8, 2012

கடல்புறாவின் முதற் சில பக்கங்களிலேயே சாண்டில்யனின் நீண்ண்ண்ட வர்ணனைகளைப் பார்த்துப் பயந்து ஓடிவிட்ட நான், ‘கன்னிமாட’த்தை படிக்க எடுத்ததற்...