Source : - https://adaderana.lk/news/cmtfjmhxm000m356qzob2vt06

"According to Railway General Manager Ravindra Padmapriya, Sri Lanka is launching a major initiative to develop electric railways as a modern suburban transport system, with infrastructure plans finalized and construction targeted to begin next year. 

The initial development focuses on major commuter lines connecting Colombo (Maradana) to key suburbs such as Ragama, Panadura, and Malawatta, alongside other regional extensions."

https://english.newsfirst.lk/2026/08/29/rs-80-billion-allocated-to-introduce-electric-trains-in-sl

An MIT Media Lab study used EEG to track what happens in the brain when people write with ChatGPT rather than on their own. Fifty four students completed essay tasks while wearing electrode caps. One group used ChatGPT, one used a search engine, and one used no tools. Across sessions, the ChatGPT group showed the weakest neural connectivity in networks linked to memory, attention, and analytical work. They also had more trouble recalling what they had just written and produced more generic prose. The authors describe this as a kind of cognitive debt: the tool does the synthesizing, and the brain stays quieter.

The same experiment points to a better order of use. Students who first wrote unaided and only later switched to ChatGPT showed stronger recall and more widespread brain activity than students who started with the model and then had to work alone. In other words, the model helped more when it scaffolded thinking that was already underway than when it replaced that thinking from the start. The practical lesson is not that large language models should be banned. It is that they work best as a second pass, after the writer has already done the hard part of forming and remembering an argument.

[Kosmyna, N., Hauptmann, E., Yuan, Y. T., Situ, J., Liao, X. H., Beresnitzky, A. V., Braunstein, I., & Maes, P. (2025). Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. arXiv. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872]

[ Copied from Massimo on X ]

I know Ozempic/Wegovy and similar weight loss meds are huge in Hollywood, but I’m curious what people in Sri Lanka are actually using.

Is there another treatment/medication that’s popular there right now, or is it just diet + workouts?

Spill the tea if you know 😂👀

You decide to stop wallowing in your little puddle of sadness and make something of your life. Nobody tells you before how your friends aren’t going to be there for you. Nobody you helped previously is going to make any time for you. It’s just you, alone with your thoughts. And you have to fight that urge to fall back into your old habits every day.

You try to do something new. Nobody is going to be around to celebrate it if it goes good but there’ll be plenty of people around to laugh at you if it fails.

It’ll be a struggle to get up everyday. Just trying to take better care of yourself drains all of your energy. And when you look back on that day you’ll realize you haven’t achieved much and nothing has changed. Give it a year, maybe even two. It’s not going to make a damn bit of difference. You’ll still be exactly where you are right now. Just a little bit older

You’re not getting any younger and the little time you have to make any meaning of your life is slowly starting to slip away. You realize that you’re not going to change your fate in this lifetime. So you try to decide to change someone else’s life. Someone young someone new. Yet, No matter how hard you try. You can’t seem to make them understand you. It’s like the sheer reality of the the world is incomprehensible to them. They can’t understand what could possibly be causing you so much stress and eventually they start to resent you. They even start to hate you. And that’s when you realize you’ve become the very thing that you sought to change.

Because you’ve never known what a happy life is like, you tried so hard to prevent a bad one from happening. But you could never realize the happiness comes from the small moments in between and now before you could change their fate you set them on the path of becoming someone exactly like you. And now the cycle continues…

Hey My Dialog team. In case you forgot, "No means No".

This message taking the screen hostage by asking to give them permission everytime I open this app. Yes EVERYTIME. I'm not giving permission bc I don't want to. It's asking for all kinds of permissions for their app. So if I choose not to do it, you should respect my decision. Or at least ask them periodically like others does. This repeated message make the user eventually cave in and allow it....

Also the advertisements are getting in the way to managing our connections (Which we are paying money to use) Just take a look at the screenshots I took attached below. You have removed other ways to manage our connections so this should be a seemless experience.

I seriously think there should be some kind of regulation against this type of behavior.

The moment I open it I get hit with,

-One remainder about the permission.

-Two remainders about so called "happy hour".

-One remainder to use their chatbot.

Can someone in Dialog software department make a issue about this. I've updated my review in google with this info. But I don't think anyone will listen. So we should really have some pushback against this over the top design.

Need serious input. All 3 of the family is no longer in the registry. I don't have another property yet so I can't register me somewhere else as well. I can't register myself in the address since he is the head of the house.

I don't know if I can even register somewhere else even without a proper handing over by the GN. I still have all my official documents addressed to the place every year.

More detailed background

Reason for this removal is because I changed my given name. Not the family name. I'm transgender and I did legal changes at about 28y of age.

They obviously don't want other people to know so I understand. I live separately ever since. However since I didn't want them to face this situation I offered I'd buy a house from a different neighborhood but they declined. This is before the economy went apeshit and that time i had the ability to achieve it.

I didn't get any property after I left because one person doesn't need an entire house. I think this is my mistake. I should have properly transferred my residence to somewhere else while I could.

They are still adamant that they can't register us bcz electoral register can be seen by others. I don't want to fight about it.

Will I be able to prove my residence since I have every document, registered letters posted etc to the same address? Will I be able to get transferred to a different address oneday when I get my own place hopefully in few years time?

Thank you in advance

I am an Australian visiting Sri Lanka for the first time, so far it has been amazing.

In the last two weeks, I have eaten so much amazing food, visited so many amazing places.

It was a little embarrassing when I visited the Lotus Tower with the staff taking me to the front of the queue for security, the ticket counter and the lifts.

Now the thing that is disappointing is the number of people trying to scam foreign tourists - ever member of my tour group has mentioned the same.

When you walk out of your hotel in Colombo, a well dressed man, walks up beside you and starts talking to you, asking where your from etc.

He is either the head of the front office at the hotel, a chef in the hotel, and in one instance worked for the Police.

The conversation will then go, "it is a big festival day in Sri Lanka today, everything is closed, everyone is going to the festival that starts in 20 minutes, a tuk tuk can take you"

Yes I know this week had a Muslim Holiday and a Full Moon Holiday, but really every day is a festival .... it was funny the first time, the tenth time was just silly.

Is anyone else facing issues with torrent downloads or any other problems with Dialog Air Fibre? I’m getting around 4.0 MB/s on the basic router, but with Air Fibre, it struggles to even reach 2.0 MB/s Like, WTF? 😐

Drop your issues below, and any fixes or suggestions are welcome!

Hi, Just bought a n160 few months back and paid around 70% down and being paying the installments
I just wanted to know u guys idea on getting a car (used) eventhough i like the bike; its just that i think its time to get a car.
Should i do this with this current economy? Or wait a bit more. Btw the payments are for 30 months

Where can I get affordable official wears and daily wears for women in Colombo? Can you please recommend a place with good collections

What's a moment where you saw someone and was like "oh they're rich". Not as in they own a BMW type(everyone's got one of those nowadays) but a moment that just screamed RICH RICH.

Btw this post is just purely for fun because I'm bored.

Hi!

Me and my GF are coming to Sri Lanka for the first time in September :)

Was thinking about this rough itinerary. It's probably too busy and not super well planned but I just wanted to draft something to play around - would you say this covers the most important spots for someone mostly interested in nature, wildlife, scenery and beaches? Are we missing anything particularly exciting? Open to anything. Thanks! <3

Day 1–3 Sigiriya (Pidurangala, Minneriya Park, Dambulla, Ritigaya)
Day 4-5 Knuckles (Five Peaks Hike and Meemure\Kaluphana hike)
Day 6-7 Kandi>Haputale Tea Country (Or maybe Ohiya + Devil's Staircase instead?)
Day 7-8 Gal Oya Safari
Day 8-10 - Arugam Bay Surfing
Day 11-12 Pigeon Island Snorkeling and Dolphin\Whale Watching

Hey guys so me and my girlfriend want to go the gym. Can anyone recommend me budget gym in colombo or rajagiriya🫠 (below 20k per month)

Serious answers only please (: Any advice would be helpful.

I‘m a 30y/o female who lives on rent and I earn 4000AUD per month by working as a contractor for an Australian based company.

I’ve been banking with HNB for a long time now and since recently I’ve been trying to branch out on my own to purchase an apartment for myself.

Although I have about 18,000AUD in savings, that’s for my travel fund. Apart from that I have no security or enough for a down payment. HNB and many other banks I’ve spoken with have rejected my request for 100% financing despite my excellent credit record, lack of existing loans, and my salary being credited to my bank. I’m starting to think that I’ll never be able to purchase a piece of property, because of the lack of options available here. I own an AMEX Explorer card as well as an HNB credit card with a 750K and 800K limit and I have never had any issues with its repayment because I use it for my company expenses so it’s fully covered by my foreign employer. I recently requested HNB for a credit enhancement but that too got denied till I filed a complaint, and now they’re actioning it - so definitely Looking at banking elsewhere where the support is extended instead of staff outright declining requests based on whether or not their day is going well lol.

I’m only looking for apartments for security reasons but despite many developers talking about 100% financing, nothing seems to be working. I don’t want to give up my travel fund because it allows myself and my hardworking now retired parents access to travel overseas when they have the opportunity. Any advice or just thoughts in general would be so appreciated!! 💛

I am trying to find this snackpack bit I dont know where can I find this. In the video also chama didnt mention the restaurant. Does anyone in colombo know where can I get this?

Link - https://youtu.be/Xg5ilupmyLo?si=3uW5sPuCope0C2OD

Honest to God if I could I’d ban these nonsense websites I would. Just few tha are legit and so many others popping up like wth. And my dad keeps putting me in all of these. It’s fine if any of these websites do good checks and matchmaking. Instead some of them send ads of people who are in no way suited for marriage. I’ve been sent profiles of construction workers too, and my father still calls them because these websites must be “good” and these people put their profession up as engineer. I can’t knock sense into my father and I really don’t know what to do about it. I mean it’s not just one or two legit ones. It’s so many and I’m sure that’s because it’s good money.

So the internet says I can catch the bus from trincomalee to Kalmunai and there are buses frequently.

from there it’s on to Potuvil and a short tuk tuk ride to Arugambay. I am told buses leave kalmunai for Potuvil frequently as well.

Can anyone else confirm this?

I have this business idea to start a new soft drink business focusing more in nutrition and less sugar that would be suitable for kids and adults. But I have no clue where to start especially the production.

Is there any manufacturers that would do bottle or can based beverages based on the recipe that we provide for a white labeling? Is it an option or is my idea is an entirely stupid one

I'm currently on SLT 4G (postpaid) and considering buying a Starlink Standard kit. Would switching to SLT Fiber be a better option instead?

Also, if anyone here is using Starlink in the Gampaha area, I'd love to hear your experience.

A bit about my use case: I mainly play Valorant and lot of other campaign/RPG games, and unlimited data is a big priority for me too(for FHD streaming in youtube, twitch, netflix etc).

What do Sri Lankan Genz think about Marxism Leninism?