Meanderings

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Big business strikes again! I am too shocked to be angry and too agonized to be coherent.

Anita Roddick, has sold the Body Shop to cosmetics giant L'Oreal for £650 million. The Body Shop was the standard-bearer for ethics and values in business, and campaigned endlessly for an end to the testing of cosmetics on animals. The company's fundamental values of 'No Animal Testing', 'Support Community Trade', 'Protect the Environment', 'Protect Human Rights' will supposedly remain the same despite the takeover/sellout.

Meeting Anita Roddick two years ago at the Edinburgh Book Festival was a dream come true. What a woman! For years, she has provided hope and inspiration to small, alternative, non-mainstream businesses. She made us believe in the true power of one, gave us the strength to plug along, and fight for what we believe in. I think she was the only activist who truly "got it". A keen business sense, serious smarts, heart, soul, and no ordinary amount of passion - the lady is a legend. Hmmm, nothing like hyperbole to numb the senses. For a moment there, I forgot about the subject of this post.

Anita claims nothing will change. She says she is truly flattered that L'Oreal wants to alter the way they do business and wants Anita/ Body Shop to show them the way. In response to campaigners, employees, franchisees and all the millions who are horrified to hear the news, she says, "the campaigning, the being maverick, changing the rules of business, it's all there, protected. And it's not going to change. That's part of our DNA." And I think with all the franchisees and clients, they know me. They know I'm a maverick. They know I'm loud-mouthed on certain issues. They know I challenge The Body Shop in many ways. I am not and Gordon (her husband) is not going to do this relationship, this deal, if we didn't think and believe from our real heart that this was the best next stage for The Body Shop.

Anita, you're too smart to throw it all away but seriously, why couldn't you have taught L'Oreal about animal testing, fair trade, and ethics, without selling them the Body Shop? If they care that much about all this "stuff", why didn't they just hire you as a consultant? Why did it have to be an all or nothing deal?

I don't want to be a cynic or pass judgement without giving this deal a chance - but really, mega corporations do not give a flying fuck about anything other than Wall Street and winning. Will L'Oreal risk the "numbers" when Dame Anita tells them to stop testing on animals and to incorporate "fair trade" into their strategy? Companies don't become corporate giants by being nice and fair and just. This is just sickening.

Shattered :-(

UPDATE: A Day In The Life Of ... Dame Anita Roddick

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Reading an interview of Billy Bragg in the April issue of Utne, I came across the perfect word to describe 21st century society: POST-IDEOLOGICAL.

Now I can live/die in peace knowing that there exists a single, pithy word to describe the depraved wasteland we call life.

Utne is an independent media company and totally rocks. Their mission: We believe that personal evolution is the key to social change. Our mission is to seek out and illuminate the essential information, people, and trends that will inspire our audience to take action to make the world kinder and greener.

Peace Out!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Talk about language evolution! Just got this by e-mail ...
;-)

hey hru n hwos life
sorry for mailing u like that
i got ur id frm forwarded mail so thaught to mail u hp u dnt mind
im "name withheld by beanz" wt do u do?
i wont ask for frndship ur reply will gonna gimme da ans

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

In an unprecedented act of kindness, Google has released a Blogger widget for Mac OS X. This is a non-post to test whether this thing actually works!

Update: It works :-)

Monday, March 06, 2006

I am told that everyone does it and that there's nothing wrong with it. Apparently, "dropping" a CV in response to an ad or just for the heck of it is totally acceptable despite the fact that you are employed elsewhere. Hmmm - either you get it or you don't and I guess this is one of those things that I just don't or rather, won't get.

If CV dropping is acceptable, why is it always done on the sly? How come the people who will be most affected by someone's departure are always the last to know? Why can't people come clean and say, "I am looking around because I need more money, or I am bored here, or whatever? Because, they want to keep their options open!

I was informed recently, by a "trusted" employee, that he, like everyone else, has been sending his CV all over the place and has even gone to interviews, but NOT because he wanted to leave. Pray, why then? "Oh, just to see where I stand". Right! Self-esteem booster potion, at other people's expense. What crap. And what of the poor HR sod who has to sift through all these CVs, many belonging to people who are just checking out the scene and want to know what they are worth? Is his time and effort worth nothing? We all know how difficult it is to find the right people. So, when people who are happily employed go on these CV dropping trysts, just to gauge what someone else might pay them, an HR team is shortlisting candidates, conducting interviews, evaluating potential, discussing remuneration packages, etc. for losers who aren't even interested. And what about other potential candidates who may lose out? Is this decent, ethical behaviour?

Oh, and what of the "I respect you immensely and would never do anything to hurt you; you've always been like family" types? The ones who decide to move on (which is A-OK!), but don't tell you that they are planning some major changes until the day everything's done? Values, ethics, and business principles have been reduced to trite forms of nonsense that are found in annual reports and corporate corridors. Perhaps 1 in 6 million people "live" the values that they supposedly prescribe to. I guess I will be accused of being too sensitive and will be told "yay to hota hai". Haan, haan, of course hota hai bhai, I've been working since I was 15 and have encountered and dealt with every kind of wannabe, sleazeball, dumbass, and, it must be said, a bunch of absolutely stellar and wonderful people too. And I am in no way suggesting that people should not look for "better opportunities" but I do believe, with intensity, that there is a way to go about these activities. I guess this deceit-ridden world isn't for me, and like Microsoft Windows, I feel it should never have come out of beta testing.

Monday, January 30, 2006

In an earlier post, I had ranted about the horrendous "Rock Karachi Rock" non-event, but "hope springs eternal in the human breast" and I bought a ticket for the Bryan Adams concert, desperate to relive memories of the glorious 80s and 90s. So much was at stake for our city and I was nervous as hell. On the morning after the night before, I am now totally coherent, awake, and devoid of any hyperbole - Karachi has vindicated itself on all counts.

The first security checkpoint was just after the Steel Mill entrance and a polite fellow checked our tickets. The second point required all of us to get out of the car for it to be checked out. This was done quickly and efficiently and resulted in a "security cleared" sticker. A number of small but meaningful details had been taken into account, in total contrast to my previous experience at the Arabian Sea Country Club:

- The parking area was mercifully illuminated
- There was a seating area for folks who either weren't going inside or had to wait around
- The woman checking handbags was not power drunk and obnoxious
- The volunteers swiping cards were extremely polite and efficient
- Food and drinks were available inside the venue
- Clearly labelled restrooms were easily accessible
- There was no one bellowing on the mike saying, "once you're in, you can't get out"

What staggered me was the fact that the concert started at 8:00 pm. Nothing in Karachi starts at 8:00 pm, let alone a musical extravaganza of this scale. No amount of kudos are enough for whoever made this happen. Shehzad Roy kicked off the night with his infamous "Saali" number, followed by a cover of "It's Only Words". He sang another couple of songs and was done by about 8:30 pm. Sound checks and what not followed and by 9:00 pm, the decks were cleared for BRYAN.

He belted out one hit after another in his signature, non-confrontational style and the crowd loved him. I am not so fond of his newer, mushy tracks but was thrilled with Run to You, Cuts Like a Knife, It's Only Love, I Need Somebody, Heaven, Kids Wanna Rock, Straight from the Heart, and of course, Summer of 69. He came back 3 times, by popular demand, and behaved like a real star. We Love You, Bryan. At one point, he announced that he was going to sing the opening lines of one of his songs and whoever recognized it, should raise their hands. Thousands of people had their arms in the air and he called upon a lucky, young lady to come up on stage and sing with him. Hats off to her - she did a great job, earning herself a big hug from Mr. Adams, and massive cheers from the crowd. He asked her a few questions about herself and promised t-shirts to all her friends, who of course, went totally nuts.

Bryan Adams said wonderful things about Shehzad Roy and Karachi, reminding us that none of this would have been possible without the efforts of our own countrymen. He told us that we sing very well ;-) and that music really has the power to bring people together. He also said he had no idea why they hadn't come before and he hoped this concert would pave the way for many more. The crowd was very responsive and well-behaved and there were no phaddas and bayhoodgees. Thank you, 25,000 Karachivaalas, for not screwing this up. We have proved to the world that we can have a good time as well as behave ourselves and hopefully, more class acts will come to our city, if we continue to act like civilized folk.

It was a great, great show BUT, it was marred by poor sound quality. The concert just wasn't loud enough and the balance was out. Sound makes or breaks a rock concert - this is very elementary and hopefully, someone important noticed and will strive for higher standards next time.

A huge round of applause for Zindagi Trust, Shehzad Roy, Nokia, ARY Digital, and all the other sponsors and organizers. Bryan Adams, THANK YOU for coming to Karachi despite negative travel advisories and plenty of bad press. Cheesy as this may sound, it truly was "a night to remember" :-)

Friday, January 06, 2006

I had been waiting patiently for almost a year to go and see "Jewel in the Crown - Karachi Under the Raj" at the Mohatta Palace. This was because I wanted to go with my Mamoo, who was due to visit Pakistan in December. Today was the big day! The Museum opens at 11:00 am so we excitedly got there at 11:05 am. There was a Rangers van parked outside and the guard shooed us off saying there was a "guest" in there and that we should come back after "a while". I wanted to get off and wallop him. After demanding to know what "a while" meant, he said, "come back in 30 minutes". So, we wandered around aimlessly and returned after about 40 minutes. We were "allowed" to enter then but I was still livid and wanted to know who the VIP was. Learned that it was Master Musharraf - His Royal Bilalness.

It's absolutely ludicrous that visitors to the museum should have to find other things to do while the President's son checks out the exhibition. I realize that there are security concerns but then the Mohatta Palace staff should inconvenience itself not us, by opening an hour early or closing an hour late or asking the guy to visit on a Monday when they are officially closed.

I have heard that this guy Bilal is very humble and decent and shareef and tameezdar and all that crap. Does he know that people were turned away because of him? We planned our day really carefully, took time off from work, organized meetings accordingly and an hour's delay screwed things up. I would really be interested in hearing his views on this matter. We, the people, are supposed to be the beneficiaries of his father's enlightened policies. It's bad enough that each time a lowly bloody minister emerges from his house, traffic grinds to a halt and no one can budge until these misbegotten fools get to wherever they have to ... now, even the kids pull rank over the people. And this guy doesn't even live in Pakistan!!!!!!!!!!

This is so unacceptable. If I didn't have visitors with me, as well as my 81 year old grandmother, I would have created a scene. I think Nasreen Askari and the President's Son owe us an apology. If anyone who reads this blog has access to Bilal Musharraf, please forward this post to him and solicit his views. Am genuinely interested in knowing what makes these people tick.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Stevie J in a suit, on the cover of Macworld magazine's premier issue!!

My first computer was a Mac Plus with a single floppy drive, no hard disk, a black and white 9" screen, and 128 K of RAM. I used to have some kind of peculiar PC before I got my Mac in 1990 but it just sat there for a whole year as I could not get past the C:/ prompt. When the Mac Plus arrived, my entire life changed. I fell in love and discovered a whole new world.

For any Pakistani Apple groupies out there, Steve Jobs will address the faithful at Macworld San Francisco on January 10th 2006 at 9 pm Pakistan Standard Time. He shall not be wearing a suit. Hopefully there will be a live webcast, and in addition, several Apple-centric websites will be blogging the event as it happens. Stay tuned and keep the faith.

Peace and Love!

Friday, December 30, 2005

Espresso 2.0 has finally opened its doors. Located on Khayaban-e-Shahbaz (Defence, Karachi), Espresso's new branch has the same funky vibe as the Zamzama outlet but is much bigger. People of Karachi: Boycott Costa Coffee and help develop local enterprise.

Went to the Canvas Gallery yesterday - it's a truly wonderful space, featuring an eclectic mix of paintings and even some photographs by Arif Mahmood. If you haven't been yet, do check it out - it's in one of the Hasan Homes townhouses, opposite the Ganda Nala in Clifton.

To stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out.
Arundhati Roy

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

I was chatting with Zak today and was moaning about the fact that I have lost my blogging spontaneity. In 2003, there was no pressure. Blogs were not cool and no one knew I existed. I used to write for me. Now I worry all the time about whether I am making sense or not. WTF! As Zak pointed out, I have an Articles section and rants about competition and corporations and human rights can go in there.

OK, so I had a divine Almond Magnum last night. How's that for mundane fluff? Unilever Pakistan got sued last year by a local ice-cream company that claimed there is no cream in Wall's products so they can't be referred to as ice-cream! They won the case and all the Wall's products now carry the label of "Frozen Dessert".

My mamoo just arrived from London and brought me the Live 8 DVD set. Haven't had a chance to sit down and watch 10 hours of content at a stretch but have managed to check out Pink Floyd's rehearsal, Richard Ashcroft and Coldplay doing Bittersweet Symphony, U2 and Sir McCartney's Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, U2's Beautiful Day, Vertigo, and One, as well the backstage action at London's Hyde Park. So amazing to be able to relive those Live 8 moments without Nestle's orange juice ads. The DVD packaging is lovely.

Check out http://www.backingblair.co.uk/london_underground/ for a really funny and mean song about the London Underground.

Am totally and utterly impressed with the work of 26 year old Jonathan Harris. Do have a look: http://www.number27.org/index.html

Just saw a couple and a child go by on a motorbike. The child was the only one who had a helmet on. So, god (?) forbid, if they get into a nasty accident, the parents could potentially die owing to lack of head protection. The child might survive but he'll be a 5 year old orphan. Does that make any sense?

Sunday, December 11, 2005

It never pays to be macho and think that the elements can't get to you just because you're guzzling multi-vitamins. Us Karachi vaalas simply cannot deal with temperature change and so, have been fighting the flu for a week. To make matters worse, I was forced (I swear) into eating a big Mac and somehow, my stomach found out how my head and heart feels about McDonalds (basically, that it's amongst the nastiest corporations on earth and should be exterminated with immediate effect), and I threw up violently, after which my tummy has been dodgy for days.

Attended the Beaconhouse Conference in Karachi and was on one of the panels. Shireen Naqvi asked me about one of my favourite topics: Competition. I had about 2.5 minutes to talk and spoke about how competition creates angst and why cooperation is a far better approach, m.e.g.a. (mutually exclusive goal attainment), the role of parents in creating little monsters, the Karachi Grammar School -> Harvard -> Citibank cycle of life, the need for creating supportive environments where everyone succeeds, and the misguided notion that competition is an inherent, human condition. Pro-social behaviour is consistently observed in toddlers and infants, who share toys and take turns in the playground so that lays to rest the idea that human beings are born with a competitive streak. More on this later ...

I am a big fan of Six Apart, founded by the husband and wife team of Ben and Mena Trott. Their company develops the way-cool publishing platform, Movable Type and they also do TypePad and LiveJournal. Anyway, a while back, they had some server troubles and customers faced difficulties in publishing their blogs. Here is how Six Apart dealt with the problem:

Customer service on high-intensity steroids! Now if only Mobilink could learn from this and actually do something tangible about its core offering, i.e. providing cellular services to customers, instead of palming off last year's stock of Blackberrys to wannabe business folk, life would get a whole lot better.

I met someone last night who was admiring the Indian kurta I was wearing. I promptly started raving about one of my favorite Indian retail outlets, FabIndia, and she said, oh, the next time you send for things from there, get me a few blah blah whatevers. So I said, well, you should go yourself and check out the place. She said, array bhai, never. There are too many Hindus in India and I can't deal with them. There are a few living in my apartment block and I tell you, it's such a problem. What if they touch your clothes or come into direct contact with you? Naheen, naheen, I really can't cope with them. Ok, I know that there are people like this in the world. However, it is absolutely traumatic to come into contact with them. I moved away from her, frothing at the mouth, but uncharacteristically, said nothing. The least I should have done was to ask her how her ridiculous morality, or whatever it is that gets these people's groove on, permits her to consider using products produced by Hindus. Anyway, she is not welcome in my house, EVER.

AAAAAARGH. Am too livid to think coherently any more.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Testing the new version of Firefox (1.5 for Mac and Windows). Not blown away yet - was hoping it would look and feel more like a Cocoa app but it doesn't. There are a lot of under-the-hood improvements, apparently but I don't use it that much so can't really tell the difference.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

We got a new HP laser printer yesterday and I have fallen in love with the double-sided printing feature. The unit is neat, compact, and Ethernet enabled. Mac OS 10.4 comes with pre-installed drivers for almost all HP printers so no installation was necessary. The Windows folk needed to install all sorts of stuff off the CD. Hah! Would rather have spent the money on having the office painted but our previous printer just dropped dead. Well, there is pleasure and pain involved in being in perpetual bootstrap mode but give me this over complacency any day.

Abu Mohammad, Munshi Raziuddin's son, came over this afternoon to pick up a fax and to have a chat. They will be touring India soon and after that, will jet off to California to perform at Stanford and then New York. I think I should become their manager - will get to tour the world, listen to great music, and learn Farsi from Farid Ayaz.

In other mundane news, I hate the fact that Flash-powered sites totally kill a web browser's built-in functionality. Obviously, if you "right-click" on a Flash-based navigational object, you get the Flash menu which allows you to do a bunch of useless things like "Zoom In" and "Print". DUH. I don't hate Flash any more, but I wish its contextual menu would incorporate things like, "Open in New Tab", "Add Link to Bookmarks", and "Copy Link Location", etc. After Adobe and Macromedia merge, we'll probably be inundated with Flash-enabled PDFs and the World Wide Web will sink.

Apple's new product, Aperture, is now shipping. The screenshots look gorgeous. An Adobe employee (!!!) , John Nack, writes: "Aperture is a cool product, no question. Apple's designers have a great aesthetic, and their marketing is second-to-none." Was pretty impressed to read this kind of stuff on a corporate Adobe blog. Read the full reaction ...

Finally found a nifty product for downloading complete websites and viewing them offline. Site Sucker for the Mac is tiny, does what it says, and it's totally free. Oh, also found Broadband Optimizer ... maybe it's my imagination but my broadband connection is definitely more sprightly now. Even if nothing has actually changed, perception is truth, so I am pretty pleased. Oh, absolute favourite software discovery for this quarter: Flying Meat's VoodooPad. It's a must-have for anyone who misses Apple's original Notebook and Scrapbook and loves wikis. FlySketch, also written by Gus Mueller, Flying Meat's founder, is also awesome. Gotta love this new breed of Mac developers who write real-world Cocoa applications and keep the spirit alive. THANK YOU!

Am reading a whitepaper entitled (oh, how I hate that word) "Information Objects: Applying Cognitive Load Theory and Object-Oriented Thinking to Information Design". Feel like I am at school. At least I don't have to feel terribly guilty printing such stuff out now thanks to the new duplex printer.

Read an interesting article over on Wall Street Journal's Online Edition: Some Students Find Themselves In Principal's Office Over Blogs - "As parents wring their hands about Internet predators, many teens are worried about a different kind of online intruder: the school principal". The disruptive effects of social networking tools, portable media, file-swapping, instant messaging, are mind-boggling. The establishment is scrambling to figure out the new game in town and just can't churn out rules fast enough. WE ROCK!!! Check out another great article over at Slate: The Rules of Distraction.

"There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music".
Keats

Saturday, November 26, 2005

My mother, who works at the Teachers' Resource Centre, told me a peculiar story yesterday. TRC recently launched a certificate course on Early Childhood Education for in-service teachers and my mother has been going on evaluation visits to the schools of the course participants.

One of the private schools she went to yesterday has just taken in a fresh batch of three year olds and it was their second or third day at school. My mother was wandering around with a notebook and a pencil and each time one of the girls would see my mother and that pencil, she'd come up and stick her hand out and say "star". This happened three of four times!! This is no reflection on the school really, because the child has just joined. But what kind of reward-oriented, stick and carrot home does this poor kid come from? She's three for god's sake!!!!!! She's probably rewarded with "stars" in the form of material goods as well, each time she eats her food without fussing, goes to bed without howling, performs for guests by rattling off the alphabet in 30 seconds, or whatever it is that makes parents proud these days.

When my mother used to teach at the Karachi Grammar School's Kindergarten section, she rebelled against the system and never gave stars to any of the kids. Lest anyone think she was mean and cruel for not dishing out gold stars to three year old babies, all the children she taught still remember their Aunty Mimi fondly, as do their parents. What she did, in lieu of the artifical, destructive reward system, was to pique the natural curiousity of children, give them a chance to ask questions, express themselves, help them make decisions, listen to them and their ideas (something teachers never do), give them the confidence to explore unchartered territory, not brand them as "difficult" or "slow", not tower over them as adults tend to do, not sit behind a teacher's desk - the list is endless - and the children have not forgotten - even though most of them are over 25 years old now. Yes, yes, I am very proud of Aunty Mimi and wish she could spend most of her time with children rather than mean, power-hungry, agenda-toting adults.

"Rewards" are extremely dangerous when used thoughtlessly and indiscriminately. It's just that they're very convenient and people can't be bothered to think of less damaging ways to let someone know that they've done a great job. First! Second! Third ... and, oh, the remaining 27 kids: You can just go home and try harder next year, but remember, because you aren't very bright, we can't waste any time on you. We have to get our A-grade students into Harvard and Yale and that's going to keep us quite busy.

Please try and read Alfie Kohn's fantastic book: Punished by Rewards - The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes. It is an eye-opener and extremely relevant.

Friday, November 25, 2005

It's good to be back, and thank you all for the warm welcome :)

Off I go now on one of my random streaks ... btw, the reason my blog posts don't have titles is that I find it too constricting to talk about any one thing in a post. Occasionally I can focus but don't want to be tied down. Jakob, chill out and learn to relax for a change.

Zakintosh and I have been talking about earthquake donations and he raised the highly important issue about corporate accountability. Everyone is extremely concerned, rightly so, about government transparency, especially with reference to the President's Earthquake Relief Fund. What about all the corporations that claim they will match customer donations and do all sorts of noble things with the money we give them? How do we know where the money is going and whether they are actually doing what they have pledged to do? I am not a hopeless cynic, and hopefully, they are doing "the right thing". However, anyone who has donated has a right to know where their money ends up. Corporations and their marketing/PR departments have a warped sense of ethics so it is in everyone's best interests to demand corporate accountability. I now look forward to being flamed ;-)

There is a new movie out called Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Price. CEO, Lee Scot and top Wal-mart execs started getting frantic months before the movie's release. The company's voluntary response to Katrina earned them some brownie points and according to Geoffrey Colvin of Fortune, the "giant retailer isn’t evil - just caught up in the global economy". Hmmm... He goes on to say that the movie is a "ham-handed snore with none of the humor, craft, or story sense that made Moore’s film (anti-GM rant - Roger & Me) so engaging."

Is Wal-mart helplessly caught up in the "global economy"?

Countless large corporations, in collaboration with academia, governments, the military, the church, and the media, have created and tweaked the global economy to gain total control over the hearts and minds of "consumers". Yes, of course consumers have choices. They can switch off the TV, they can choose the corner grocery store over Wal-mart and they can say NO to McDonalds. But when there is a grand, synchronized plan, deployed and managed by faceless behemoths, consumers don't stand a chance. The rot sets in early, when children start going to school. That's when the "dumbing down" process begins and it's all downhill from there ...

Yes, I am in a bad mood.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

OH WOW. I can publish posts again :-)

Haven't blogged in ages because every time I'd try and publish a post, Blogger would say "Error: Broken Pipe". Things seem to be resolved now. OK, this is a selfish, just-for-me post.

Finished Tarun's book a few weeks ago. If you haven't read or heard of "Alchemy of Desire", go to http://taruntejpal.com for details. Have always loved T's political writings but MY GOD, his first piece of "fiction" just blew me away. It's a big, fat, arm breaking hard-back but it is totally un-put-downable. I was happily reading every comma, fullstop and semi colon, and was expecting to finish the book over the Eed holidays. Hmmm ... the book suddenly went into overdrive and inadvertently, helplessly, I went on an 8.5 hour marathon and finished the book a day before Eed, at 6:00 am. I felt so cheated - suddenly it was all about finding out what happens in the end. Will they, won't they and a hundred other questions. Will need to read at least a quarter of the book again and savour it properly. Tarun, you are a rockstar, boss, and I love you. "Sub theek ho jaey ga".

Am reading Thomas Paine's Age of Reason and a Stanford University piece on Game Theory (latest fascination).

Saad Haroon, a dear friend, who started Black Fish, has launched a new initiative called Open Mic Nite, designed to provide a platform for aspiring comedians, musicians, poets, etc - everyone gets 5 minutes at the mike. Great fun and lots of good stuff. Black Fish is also back in action and lots else is happening on the stand-up comedy scene in Karachi. Great! We all need to laugh.

More in a bit ...

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Earthquake updates, news, resources, initiatives, stories have been shifted to Earthquake 2005 - Get Involved.

Send messages about anything to do with the earthquake and relief efforts to sabeen@bitsonline.net

Please add this banner to your blog or website and spread the word.

It is amazing how Pakistanis all over the world have come together in an unprecedented manner in response to earthquake relief initiatives. It just shows that people can mobilize and act when there is direction. Karachi's citizens, especially, have outdone themselves.

While we have heard countless stories about transporters and cloth manufacturers exploiting the situation to make more money, as well as news about greedy looters, there are innumerable people, companies, associations, NGOs, etc. who are out there making a difference. Some people think the Government is not doing enough. I think they are doing the best they can. That may not amount to a lot because of inherent inefficiences but I don't think it's for lack of trying. President Musharraf cannot afford to drag his feet on this ... especially after his disastrous rape-related faux pas. Let's quit complaining and questioning agendas - well, other than KFC's - and do something for the victims.

To everyone who is raising funds, organizing relief supplies, conducting rescue efforts, and rehabilitating survivors: may the force be with you. Peace!

While I had made a conscious decision not to criticize anyone's earthquake relief efforts, KFC's advertisement in today's Dawn newspaper is abhorrent.

The quarter page ad says:

Let's make a difference - Join hands with KFC in supporting the Earthquake victims. As a small gesture, KFC Pakistan will donate Rs. 10 on every Combo sold in October, 2005 towards this cause.

It is absolutely pitiful. "small gesture" is spot on. In fact, they should have said, "miniscule, meaningless gesture". It's Ramzan. It's already the 12th of October. Only on Combos. How much money do they expect to raise with this disgraceful non-effort? WTF???

The ad agency, brand manager, and senior management should die of shame. I am so glad KFC is not my client.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Full marks for inappropriateness - this Dairy Queen sign was put up today!!

Have also just received a note from a friend who is apalled by the City FM 89 branding on the wristbands. I think they had already been produced for something else. Would anyone from the station care to comment?

Mobilink Earthquake Relief Fund

Contribute Rs. 10 + tax to the Mobilink Earthquake Relief Fund by sending a blank SMS to 180.

City FM 89 Wristbands

We just received our bands - they're pretty cool. Wasn't expecting them to be this decent. Send for your band today. They are available in red, white, and black. Rs. 100 only! Contact insiya.syed@cityfm89.com

Friday, September 30, 2005

s u b c o n s c i o u s

i feel surreal, trapped in a post gen X, geeked out haze. i want to be in london in a gap store. this doesn't imply desire for or dependence on the machine that churns out uniforms for misguided wretches stuck in a capitalistic world they helped create

linearity sucks. deadline this, client that.

transcendental
transatlantic
trance
transvestite
transnational
transcribe
translate
transaction
transmute
transsexual
translation (lost in)
transmit

seems like i am trying to make a statement but really, all i want is to be free

the jazz rendition of bolero is superb

the body doth protest

we are not the same, equality is a myth

i am totally inefficient today, and that, in a way, smacks of conformity to an established situation

what shall i drink? what can i drink at 11:27 in the morning

money, cars, penthouses, suits, bling bling - you know where to run, i've got a story like everyone

barbie dolls, pink walls - decay

does everyone have problems with apostrophes?

i know someone who spell checks instant messages

send me an SMS expands into "send me a short message service" - which is dead wrong

chaste
cannabis
delete
trivia
exalt
mindfuck
ideology
luther
clockwork orange
in transit
immortal

shehzad roy's saali number is a pr stunt to get attention. it's working baby - the nation has gone apoplectic ...

The most famous example of barter was peter minuit's swap in 1626 of $24 in beads and trinkets for the island of manhattan. its property value in 1993 was assessed at $50.4 billion

ufffff is a sub-continental expression that simply cannot be explained to those who don't get it

getting it is a complex thing. what is "it"?

caps lock
shift
control

tick tock tick tock tick tock - are we living in a box?

tech monoculture
wasteland
creaky bones
bollocks
grandiose
gosht ka lothra
mao
che
toynbee
dateline london
rocket seeds
feta cheese
widgets
the shit has missed the fan

Thursday, September 15, 2005

The President of Pakistan has a website through which you can send messages to him. The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) office reads the messages and routes them as they see fit. I beseech everyone who reads this blog to PLEASE go to the Write to the President section and express your views about the recent statements the General has been making about rape whilst on his grand trip to New York.

Also, please can we brainstorm ways to protest meaningfully? Standing outside the Press Club is going to achieve zilch. What can we, as a connected, articulate, media/net savvy community do to make our voices heard? We need a new movement. C'mon people! Let's move our backsides.

Here is what I have just sent in ...

This is with reference to the statement made by President Musharraf regarding rape:

"You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

Messages expressing shock and horror after reading this "gem" are pouring in from all over the world. However, for the most part, we feel utterly helpless. It's one thing to aim to project a "soft image" of Pakistan but making ruthless, inconsiderate, chauvinistic, and totally untrue statements like this doesn't help our cause.

Claiming that rape is an issue all over the world doesn't justify the actions of those who victimize and torture other human beings and nor does it eliminate the need for the Pakistani Government to repeal unjust laws or take action against those who commit heinous crimes in the name of religion and honour.

I want to know exactly what this statement means. Would whoever answers these letters please deconstruct it for me and "explain it to me like I am 5 years old". Does the President really believe this? Does he genuinely believe that women who get raped are "in it for the money"? Are people so desperate to go abroad that they'd willingly allow themselves to be violated in the most horrifying fashion? If this is what Pakistani society has come to, why are we bothering to try and change anything? The sheer obnoxiousness and crassness of this statement still hasn't sunk in and a lot of us hope that the General has been misquoted.

I live in a city beset by crime and violence - every women runs the risk of getting raped - now we know, of course, that no one stands a chance of recourse to the law. The highest authority has spoken - it's all about the Canadian visa. Mr. President, the least you can do now is to apologize and assure us that you didn't mean what you said. The damage has been done, but, please, tell us you're sorry and that you made a BIG, FAT mistake by making that hideous, shameful statement.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world that
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive ...

Ordinary World - Duran Duran

egalitarian |iˌgaləˈterēən| adjective of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

But - are people really equal? Morally, emotionally, intellectually? And if not, then why should everyone be treated equally? What happens when someone kicks you in the backside? What is "correct" and "appropriate" for one usually doesn't make sense to another. Do you continue to be a "chay" and go out of your way for them and treat them as equally as you would someone who hasn't YET kicked you in the backside? Vaisay, it's all merely a matter of time - sooner than later, everyone WILL kick you in the backside. It's all about timing and learning to sidestep the really brutal kicks.

Do your kids a favour ... don't teach them that honesty, goodness, patience, and hard work pay off. This is a fairytale. I am not suggesting that lies, nastiness, and slacking off are the way to go - however, if you plan to be decent and reside on the "stupid" side of the moral twilight zone, please don't expect life to work out for you - it just doesn't.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

"She drives me crazy ..."
(in a nice way)

Monday, September 05, 2005

Tarun Tejpal (Tehelka) has been to hell and back - in the name of the truth. These words help me get through the worst days ...

Friday, September 02, 2005

What say you?

A South African inventor, Ms. Sonette Ehlers, has created a device to snare rapists. South Africa has the world's worst sexual assault record and the former medical technician contends that the rape problem is so severe that women cannot wait for male attitudes to improve.

The 'rape trap', trademarked 'Rapex', is a condom-like device bristling with internal hooks and is concealed inside a woman's body. It hooks onto a rapist during penetration and must be surgically removed. The inventor claims that "the rape trap would be so painful for a rapist that it would disable him immediately, enabling his victim to escape; but would cause no long-term physical damage and could not injure the woman".

The device has caused considerable controversy in South Africa and some say that Ms. Sonette Ehlers deserves a medal, while others say that she needs help.

The complete article ...

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Ever since my ill-fated trip to Dhaka, I haven't had the energy to write and have been, perhaps, trying too hard to think of profound things to say. Attempts at intelligence have failed so am going to blab away for a bit just to break the silence.

Got infuriated at an article about the G8 Summit/Live 8/Bob Geldof in the Herald a couple of months ago. The writer "slammed" Bob Geldof and said something like, while Live Aid was very successful, Sir Geldof has made a fool of himself with Live 8. Raising money is a lot easier than raising consciousness and awareness. And besides, he did his bit, in the way that he knows best. What did we do?

Lovely little excerpt from Winnie the Pooh: "Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you." - Winnie

b.i.t.s. has a new, alternative website up that can be accessed by going to http://www.bitsonline.net and selecting "The Indulgence Website".

Bought a tub of Hico vanilla icecream the other day and the lid looked like this:

Lots of possibilities, depending on which way you look at the shape ...

Dhaka was very trying - it's a poor, filthy, hot, humid, over-crowded city and very different from how my mother remembers it. However, meeting Shahidul Alam again, as well as all the Drik people, was hugely inspiring.

Shahidul took us on a boat ride on the Boorhi Ganga river and encountering Haroun the Boatman was one of the few highlights of my trip.

Haroun is 40 and has been transporting people back and forth, across the river, for the last 25 years. He used to sell pots and pans but gave it up after he realized that the only way to survive in that business was by being corrupt. He wasn't willing to do so and switched careers after a 5 year struggle with the pots and pans mafia. Heard lots of other horror stories about how the poor are exploited - such as the ex-army officer who has "qabza karoed" a water pipe and sells dirty water to slum dwellers and makes Rs. 40,000 a month. Obviously, he has many other "enterprises".

A few weeks ago, a tiny bird got stuck inside my lounge. She was really cute but completely devoid of brain cells. It took her over 12 hours to get out.

Later ...

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

To those who haven't been to see War of the Worlds yet, DON'T!!!! The movie was a 116 minute special effect. Yes, the special effect was stunningly good but then, if a movie is being made in the 21st century, with Steven Spielberg directing it, would you expect anything less? After the initial "wow, how cool is that" - a feeling that lasted all of 15 seconds, the crowd at Nishat Cinema ended up being more entertaining.

On a much, much happier note, I have just discovered Coldplay. It feels like an eternity since a contemporary band produced a decent album. Almost all the songs in X & Y are listenable but particularly appealing are Fix You, Speed of Sound, and Swallowed in the Sea. YAY!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, half a billion songs have been sold and legally downloaded from the iTunes Music Store.

If you are an aspiring activist and are looking for inspiration and ideas for direct action, get hold of We Are Everywhere - The Irresistable Rise of Global Anticapitalism. "We Are Everywhere is a book of stories written by activists from the front lines of resistance against capitalism and economic globalization, tales of struggle and rebellion from participants in a movement of movments that is gaining ground on every continent. These stories, told with both words and pictures, have been collected over the past three years by a collective of activists, writers and artists, all of whom have deep connections to the movement."

“It is not only by shooting bullets in the battlefields that tyranny is overthrown, but also by hurling ideas of redemption, words of freedom and terrible anathemas against the hangmen that people bring down dictators and empires …” - Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary, 1914

Friday, July 15, 2005

Disclaimer: This is going to be a very "random", stream of consciousness post as I am feeling totally fragmented. It is also important to justify the lack of titles on this blog.

Green Day is a politically aware, in your face, musically correct band. They were part of Live 8's global concerts and performed in Berlin. Listen to American Idiot, Holiday, Time of Our Lives, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Anything I say about the London bombings and the arrests of Muslims of Pakistani origin will be trite. Some express outrage, others wonder why the world reacts so strongly when 50 people die in Europe, and overlapping groups question the motives of the fundamentalist, religious right. I am currently uncomfortably numb.

"Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life. Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die." The Verve

Spent three days in Dubai. Bigger, Better, Brighter, Taller, Longer - More is More!

Watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Don't attempt to analyze this movie. It's popcorn Hollywood at its best and totally rocks. It's all about chemistry and Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt make the screen sizzle. Damn that blasted PG13 brigade.

Apple's iTunes Music Store is counting down to 500 Million Songs. The lucky sod who downloads the 500 millionth song gets:

- 10 iPods
- A Gold 10,000-song Gift Card for the iTunes Music Store
- 10 additional 50-song gift cards to go with the iPods
- Four Coldplay Tickets with front-row seats
- Coldplay “Back-stage” Passes for a meet ’n’ greet with the band

WOW! I'd sell the iPods as I already have three and save the cash for Apple's first Intel-based Powerbook. I haven't commented on Apple's massively publicized, highly dramatic ditching of IBM for Intel - was too emotionally drained after following a live blog of Stevie J's keynote address to the faithful in San Francisco and then watching a webcast a few hours later. To all the sorry people out there who think Apple will suffer from the Osbourne effect, get your facts straight. It's a bold, risky move and that's the Macintosh Way. If Steve hadn't thrown out those hideous floppy drives when the first iMac was launched, (yes, I did hate him for a few days), there would be 3 and a half USB devices in the world today. More Power To Those Of Us Who Dare to Dream!

This post is being interrupted by the Bangladesh consulate - have applied for a business visa and they wish to interview me.

Peace!

Friday, July 08, 2005

The leaders of the world's eight richest nations have concluded their summit with the promise of a package of measures including a $50bn (£28.8bn) boost to aid, and debt-cancellation for the poorest nations. They also plan to forge fairer trade deals in the future, to increase access to Aids treatment and to provide a $3bn aid package to the Palestinian Authority.

Responds to G8 Communique

Make Poverty History has become an unprecedented movement of passion, energy and solidarity. Never before have so many people in the world come together, fully united in demanding action to end poverty, with a roar for justice that they felt was impossible to ignore.

Today the G8 have chosen not to do all that campaigners insist is necessary to free people trapped in the prison of poverty. Important steps have been taken - steps that will bring hope to millions. But more action is urgently needed if they are to play their role in bringing about real change for the world's poorest people and consigning extreme poverty to the history books. To secure a deserved place in history, the G8 must go a lot further and secure real change by working with other world leaders at the UN summit on the Millennium Development Goals and talks around the World Trade Organisation. The people of the world are already on the road to justice. They expect their leaders to be with them. Today's announcement has shown that the G8 need to run much faster to catch up.

Read more on the Make Poverty History website ...

Rock musicians Bob Geldof and Bono, who have spearheaded a global push to tackle African poverty, broadly welcomed a pledge on Friday by the Group of Eight (G8) nations to double aid to Africa.

"The people have roared but the G8 has whispered," said Kumi Naidoo, chair of the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

"To save lives is never a whisper.
People were screaming before, a whisper is not a bad thing.
Please, perspective!
Never before have so many people forced a change of policy onto a global agenda.
If anyone had said eight weeks ago: 'Will we get a doubling of aid? Will we get a deal on debt?' People would have said 'no'.
I would have said no.
Today is a great day for those ten million people (who will be saved)."

"Six hundred thousand people will be alive to remember this G8 in Gleneagles who would have lost their lives to a mosquito bite," Bono said, referring to the difference he thought the extra aid would make to fighting malaria.

Read more reactions on BBC's website ...

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Sir Bob Geldof: We salute you! May the force be with you, eternally.

2nd July 2005 was the day that LIVE 8 rocked the world in 9 countries across 4 continents. 20 years after Live Aid, Bob Geldof demonstrated, yet again, the true power of one. Around the world, an estimated 3 BILLION PEOPLE tuned in to watch LIVE 8, the greatest musical show ever. The concerts took place in London, Paris, Philadelphia, Berlin, Rome, Barrie (Canada), Tokyo, Johannesburg, and Moscow. The artists included U2, Annie Lennox, Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, Madonna, REM, The Who, Roxy Music, Andrea Bocelli, Cold Play, Bon Jovi, Dido, Bryan Adams, Green Day, Youssou N'Dour, Sheryl Crow, and, and, and ... PINK FLOYD.

Some words from Sir Bob Geldof:

"This is not Live Aid 2.

These concerts are the starting point for The Long Walk To Justice, the one way we can all make our voices heard in unison. This is without doubt a moment in history where ordinary people can grasp the chance to achieve something truly monumental and demand from the 8 world leaders at G8 an end to poverty.

The G8 leaders have it within their power to alter history. They will only have the will to do so if tens of thousands of people show them that enough is enough. By doubling aid, fully cancelling debt, and delivering trade justice for Africa, the G8 could change the future for millions of men, women and children."

We never, ever, thought this would happen but "pigs flew"! David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright reunited, after 20 years, for LIVE 8!!!!!! They performed Breathe, Money, Wish You Were Here, and Comfortably Numb - it felt as if they'd never been apart. I couldn't stop shivering the entire time. At the beginning of Wish You Were Here, Roger Waters said, "It's actually quite emotional, standing up here with these three guys after all these years, standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we're doing this for everyone's who's not here, particularly, of course, for Syd" [Barret]. When he started singing the second part of Wish You Were Here (... and did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, heartache for a cool breeze, cold comfort for change, did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?), I fell off my bean bag. Pink Floyd, without a doubt, is the best rock band in the world and even though they're old and grey, they are simply spectacular.

U2, Pink Floyd, Sting, Madonna, Elton John, Robbie Williams, Annie Lennox, Sir Paul McCartney, Dido, Green Day, and REM turned out magical performances. The superstars, the real rockstars of the day were the old folk, the icons. The pathetic, mindless creations of corporations, acts like Destiny's Child, were pitiful. However, apart from a few idiotic performances, including Mariah Carey, LIVE 8 was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most phenomenal experience imaginable. Fuck the cynics who question whether any of this will make a difference. "NOW IS THE TIME, THIS IS THE YEAR - OUR LEADERS HAVE THE POWER TO END POVERTY - BUT WE HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE THEM USE IT."

G8: THE WORLD IS WATCHING!
Sting sang a fantastic, reworded version of Every Breath You Take ... "Every single day, every word you say, every game you play, every night you stay, WE'LL be watching you. THIS TIME WE'LL SEE, IF OUR DEMOCRACY, IS JUST A GAME YOU PLAY, NO MATTER WHAT WE SAY!"

I want to say a very special thank you to ARY Digital and The Musik for broadcasting LIVE 8 absolutely live for 10 hours and 25 minutes. Of course, the advertising was extremely disruptive and ill-timed and could have been handled more sensitively, but that's a topic for another day. After 1:00 am, the advertising disappeared, so another round of applause for ARY.

Will any of this matter to the 8 chaps getting together at GlenEagles, Scotland? We'll find out soon enough but in the meanwhile, the least we can do is support the cause without cynicism. Visit live8live.com and BBC's detailed coverage of the LIVE 8 event for more information.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Shame Karachi Shame

According to all the advertising, The Bombay Rockers, Fakhir, and Atif were meant to Rock Karachi on the 3rd of July. The hugely publicized event was in the frickin' boondocks, way inside the Steel Mill, and we had been asked to come early to avoid long queues and inconvenience. The concert was to start at 8:30 and end by 11:30 pm. We got there at 8:00, always hopeful, that one day, someone would shock us and begin on time. We were greeted by Mr. Fakhr-e-Alam informing us to eat, drink and piss, before entering the gates as we wouldn't be allowed out, once in. The food hadn't arrived at the time and only some ridiculous energy drink brand was on display. The "gate" was a space that allowed a single individual to squeeze through at a time. After having our passes scanned by fancy bar code scanners and computers, we got through and parked our butts on the grass of the Arabian Sea Country Club.

From 8:00 to 9:30, we were treated to Sony Ericsson advertising pumped out of 50+ speakers. A few RJs from City FM 89 did their damndest to keep the crowd entertained but for fuck's sake, no one had paid 1500 bucks and driven for hours to listen to Talha and Masooma play pre-recorded noise. Meanwhile, the people of Karachi kept arriving in dribs and drabs and there were no signs of the show beginning. The crowd outside kept being assured that the concert wouldn't begin without them. CHARMING. The message here is, don't fucking bother to be punctual, we'll wait for you, even if you're two hours late.

By 11:00 pm, Mr. Junaid Mumtaz's "sufi techno music", (it wasn't music and it wasn't even vaguely spiritual) had numbed our brains to a pulp and we decided to leave. We were then treated to a spectacle at the "gate". The scanners had long been discarded, and there were hundreds of people outside, including families with little children, practically climbing on top of each other, trying to get in. There were no exits and we couldn't get out!!!!!!! It took shmoozing with an Intelligence Officer and 3 guards and 30 minutes to get the hell out of that nightmarish place. There were still hundreds of people pouring in and even more at the Steel Mill entrance about 5 km away from the venue. Thanks to them we left without having heard a single note of music from the performers of Rock Karachi Rock.

Live 8, a musical extravaganza that took place in 10 countries across 4 continents kicked off on the dot of 1:00 pm on the 2nd of July, as announced, in London's Hyde Park with Sir Paul McCartney and U2. Folks, we're just not ready ... for anything.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Went to get my Passport on Saturday 25th June. The Passport Office in Saddar Karachi is open from 9:00 am till 2:30 pm, all days except Friday, when they close at noon. I got there at 8:30 am so I could be amongst the first in line. If you are male, you should definitely go early. They ushered us in at 8:55 am. There are two lines for men, one for ladies, and one for senior citizens (60 and above).

I got my new Machine Readable, RDIF-enabled Passport at 9:27 am. The famed "religion column" is on the Annotations page along with the previous passport number. The passport also contains a letter, sans punctuation, from the Ministry of Interior:

You can collect a passport for an immediate family member as long as you have their original ID card and the all important TOKEN. Signatures at the back of the token are mandatory. The "brokers" outside charge Rs. 200 to retrieve passports. My poor mother has still not gotten her passport, even though it is ready. They have misplaced her datasheet (the printout with all her information and signature) and can't locate it anywhere. They have looked everywhere, including at Awami Markaz. Why can't they just print another copy?

Turned 31 (aaaaagh!!!) on the 20th of June. Had a Farid Ayaz and Abu Mohammad qavvali session to celebrate on the 19/20th and it rocked, despite the debilitating heat. My 4 requests were amazingly performed:

1. Ze Rahmat Kun Nazar
2. Teri Yaad Hai Mun Ka Chayn Piya
3. Khabar-e-Tahaiyyur-e-Ishq Sun
4. Aashiq Na Shuddi Jalva-e-Jaanan Che Shanaasi

Every year I give myself another year to make it to the cover of Fortune - somebody, PLEASE call them and tell them to come and interview me! I promise, I am a real entrepreneur, really!!

Friday, June 24, 2005

Good Morning Pakistan!!

LAHORE: GROOM LETS HIS FRIENDS RAPE BRIDE AS REVENGE ...

In an act of revenge, a woman was gang-raped with the consent of her in-laws by three people on her wedding night in Dera Ghazi Khan town in central Pakistan, police said. Ghulam Hussain, the father of the victim Kaneez Kubra, said his daughter was married to Mujahid Hussain on April 28, as ordered by a panchayat (local jury) under the wani custom since her brother Abdul Majid had sexual relations with Mujahid's sister Sumera.

After the wedding, Kaneez went to the groom's home. Her husband stayed with her in their room till 11 pm and then left. Afterwards, Mujahid's grandfather Shahroo Khan and his mother Mukhtar came in and told the bride that the wedding was just an excuse to exact revenge on Majid for outraging Sumera's modesty. Mujahid then invited his three friends Muhammad Rafiq, Shabbir Muhammad and Abdul Majid Almani, who gang-raped the bride. The next day, Mujahid took her to the house of his friend Ghulam Mustafa, who also assaulted her.

On April 30, when Ghulam and other relatives arrived to take Kaneez back as per tradition, she related the story to her father. Investigation Officer Zulfikar Ali Qureshi said the police were making raids to arrest the accused but they had left the area and gone into hiding after the case was registered against them.

Comments from colleagues ...

1. What concerns me most is it's becoming 'just another news' these days ... One of those that raises another what-are-we-becoming question ... and then we'll get back to work and will look for updates on what's happening with the lady and her family and what the police are doing and what not ... another lunch hour discussion topic.

Qs: What if the lunch hour discussion focused on what can be done?

Ans: Yes, but I get the strong feeling that the authorities are making sure whatever can be done is NOT done ... do we really have a say? Will we be heard at all?

2. Don't know what to say and feel; this is a barbarian act - what the hell is going on around us? Where is the humanity? Can we call ourselves "HUMAN"? I really doubt it. Can we do something about this? Can we set up a website to narrate these truths which don't even make it to the so-called daily newspapers?

3. Oh god, my head is spinning and am feeling like I am going to throw up :-(

My highly judgemental and possibly obnoxious responses

To Person 3: This is not about you.

To Person 2: Feel violated. Feel angry. Pissed off people change the world (Tom Peters). Those of us who are human can do our little bit. Yes, you CAN set up a website and although you have amazing programming capabilities, I'd suggest you expend your energies on research and awareness building rather than on building a site. Go to www.blogger.com and set up a new blog. It takes three steps. Speak up, write, say something. Document and archive news that does get published - at least it will serve as a resource for activists and journalists. Use the Internet and the momentum it can create for something more than helping corporations sell ice-cream and tea .

To Person 1: While I agree that the "authorities" ride rough shod over most things, do we actually say or do anything? To pre-determine that nothing can be said or done, or rather, that anything we say or do will have no impact is a total cop-out. What kind of impact are you expecting? Do you think that speaking out publically, or writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper, or marching for peace will put an end to global warfare? And if it won't, does it necessarily follow that we should not bother doing any of the above and more? It is this attitude that has contributed to Pakistan having no civil society. Meray kucch karnay ya bolnay say kiya farq paray ga? Chorro yaar, kucch naheen badlay ga, yay mulk hee baykar hai. Macro-level, seismic change will not be visible for decades but "if we don't change our direction NOW, we will land up exactly where we are headed". Margaret Mead's words, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has", are really cool to have as an e-mail signature, but it would help if people really believed in the power of one.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Iftikhar Arif - On Zia ul Haq's Death

Sunday, June 19, 2005

City FM 89 - how could you???????? It seems that cutting off content is all the rage these days. I can't believe what they just did. I was waiting for Cloud 89 to begin at noon - Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is going to be on the show today (SWOOOON). At about 11:55 am, Mary Lou and Leon (I think) put on Stairway to Heaven. I wondered how the track would end by 12:00. WELL, IT DIDN'T. Yaar, khudaa ka vaasta, why put on a l o n g Led Zeppelin song, which you claim you haven't played, ever, in the year that you've been doing your show, when you don't have enough time left? So, of course, the ultimate rock anthem, Stairway to Heaven, got chopped off by a Telenor Time Check.

The show began with the Red Baron ticking Talha off for wearing shorts in the presence of the Mirwaiz who, in addition to being the Chairman of the APHC, is a religious leader.

Najam Shiraz is now singing "Hum Dekhain Gay", after which a Kashmiri folk song will be aired, as a tribute to the mighty Mirwaiz. He has spoken 4 sentences so far compared to the Red Baron's 18 ;-)

"He is the man who CAN deliver" says Umar, about our General. What on earth is up with the General these days? Shooting his mouth off about Mukhtaran Mai in New Zealand, threatening to slap Asma Jahangir, and just generally "going berserk" in the words of the New York Times.

Excerpt from a News Editorial
"The truth is finally out. It was none other than President Pervez Musharraf who ordered the travel ban on Mukhtaran Mai, as he himself told members of the Auckland Foreign Correspondents Club. Wire services reported him as saying that he had placed Mukhtaran Mai's name on the Exit Control List to prevent her from proceeding abroad, in an effort to protect Pakistan's image. The President said that Mukhtaran Mai was being taken to the United States by foreign non-government organisations "to bad-mouth Pakistan" over the "terrible state" of the women in the country. In the same breath, he described the NGOs as "Westernised fringe elements" that "are as bad as Islamic extremists."

Who advises this man? And, even if he has retarded, dim-witted advisors, has he stuck his own brain and morality into cold storage?
Uffff, there's way too much Nokia advertising, mindless bantering, and bad remixes happening on the show. No tassalsul ... more talk, less music, fewer interruptions, pleeeeeeeeeeeze.

Just learned that when his father, the Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq, was murdered, Umar was 16, and had to deliver the Friday sermon to 200,000 people at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. He said he was a typical teenager, not in the least bit bothered about what was going on around him and suddenly had to take on the responsibility of being the 14th Mirwaiz (Head Preacher).

Friday, June 17, 2005

"Paul Rand's (1914-1996) stature as one of the world's leading graphic designers is incontestable. For half a century his pioneering work in the field of advertising design and typography has exerted a profound influence on the design profession; he almost single-handedly transformed "commercial art" from a practice that catered to the lowest common denominator of taste to one that could assert its place among the other fine arts. Among the numerous clients for whom he has been a consultant and/or designer are the American Broadcasting Company, IBM Corporation, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation."

John Maeda

Thoughts on Paul Rand by John Maeda

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Kiya baat hai ...

Listened to an old Lok Virsa interview of Munshi Raziuddin yesterday - he was his usual naughty, wonderful self - he recited the above piece at one point during the extensive interview and I just wanted to share it.

Aaj TV/Kashmir Update
Aaj TV had promised to let me know when they'd air the Kashmir show again - they SMS'd yesterday to say that it would be on from 4:00 to 5:00 - my response was that the working class works at that time. Khair, it was good of the chap to let me know. Wonder what got left out as it was a two hour show.

Monday, June 13, 2005

After being bowled over by Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Karachi, I was delighted to see an ad in Sunday's Dawn announcing that Aaj TV would run a live transmission of the Kashmir symposium being held in Islamabad. UGH! Apologies for that hideously long sentence.

I spent about 15 minutes in a solitary corner of the house considering whether I should fly to Islamabad for two hours in the hope of meeting Yasin and the Mirwaiz. Aaj TV's live transmission made me decide not to go. BAD MOVE. There are times in one's life when it is unhealthy for better sense to prevail.

The live transmission was meant to begin at 5:30 pm. Several of us parked ourselves in front of the TV in anticipation ... Until 6:30 pm, we were treated to the Sindh Budget Speech, mindless advertising, and YET ANOTHER SHOW ABOUT MEERA. I looked up Aaj TV's number online and got on the phone. While I was on hold, listening to bubblegum music, Hameed Haroon popped up on the screen, and I hung up the phone.

The programme was delayed by an hour but Aaj TV did not think it was necessary to inform its viewers that something was up. They have a persistent ticker running at the bottom of the screen and any idiot could have typed in one sentence informing viewers about the delay. This is way too much to ask for, as in Pakistan, the consumer is the advertiser, not the viewer. When the show finally got off the ground, Professor Abdul Ghani Bhat and Yasin Malik were interrupted, mid-sentence, every few minutes, by the following:

1. SunSip Timechecks
2. News Breaks with several headlines and earth-shatteringly important announcements about Pakistan's 18 member junior hockey squad (every single name was read out, s l o w l y), and something about PTCL's ongoing saga
3. An Aaj TV logo animation
4. An Aaj TV exclusive presentation animation
5. Advertisements

The show ended abruptly after exactly 58 minutes. Aaj TV did not even bother to announce that the "live transmission" had ended. We kept sitting there like idiots, thinking that the drama that was now on air was merely a trailer.

I called "Recorder House" again, consumed with rage and asked to speak with the Head of Programming at Aaj TV, who of course, wasn't in as it was a Sunday. Got connected to some juvenile character who said that he had orders from above, and that the satellite time had ended. Tough luck for all of us losers who tuned in to watch something meaningful and got nothing but grief. I ranted and raved until the guy finally handed over the cell phone number of the Director, Programming. Decided to wait till the morning to call him ...

Did so at 9:00 am today. The Director Programming was patient and listened quietly. He said that he agreed with most of what I said but I was still fed some nonsense about the trials and tribulations of running a TV channel. My bone of contention is that there are times when you HAVE to sacrifice commercial interests to do the right thing. And forget the ads, there weren't that many of them anyway ... who in $!&@'s name decided that the 18 member hockey squad was more relevant than Yasin Malik talking about the Kashmiri freedom struggle? Why couldn't the hockey news and the PTCL news have waited until later? THE KASHMIR TRANSMISSION WAS THE NEWS, DAMMIT. What better content could Aaj TV have hoped for? The Kashmiri leadership is in Pakistan on an historic visit - someone PLEASE explain to me, like I'm 5 years old, the logic behind Aaj TV's disruption of their speeches, mid-sentence, every few minutes to regale us with "news" that every other channel was broadcasting? Yes, I know that Pakistani media is financed through advertising and I also understand that a lot of stuff goes on at a TV channel, and I also know that there are infrastructure constraints, and blah, blah, blah. What prevented Aaj TV from updating their ticker to keep their viewers informed, and from putting a stop to the internal Aaj TV adverts, and mind-numbing news, in the light of the ongoing situation? It is alarming that a heavyweight media enterprise could not respond in a more appropriate manner. TV stations should not run live transmissions until they can learn to handle less than perfect circumstances.

UFFFFFFF! The answers, as usual, are blowing in the wind ...

Saturday, June 11, 2005

A couple of days ago, I received an invitation from the Dawn Group of Newspapers to attend a symposium on Kashmir. Leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) are on their first, "historic" visit to Pakistan and were to address Karachi's "intellectuals" within the confines of the Sheraton Hotel.

I used to be one of those "25 year olds" that Hameed Haroon, CEO of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, referred to yesterday. I looked at the invitation and thought "what a waste - why bother with this on a working day". References to our "Kashmiri brothers" and yearly holidays to celebrate "solidarity" with the disputed territory, have caused exasparation and I used to wonder why we expend so much energy on the Kashmir issue.

Yesterday, all that changed. I ended up going to the symposium and it was one of the better decisions I've made in my life. Kashmir, for the first time, became real. It was the same old story but it was told by the actual protagonists - the people who have watched Kashmir shed red hot blood for decades. Dr. Eqbal Ahmad's article, Kashmir - India's Nemesis, is a good 101 on the history of the conflict.

Yasin Malik was the hero of the day. A victim of years of brutality and torture, deaf in one ear, and barely able to walk, he stood proud, dignified and defiant. Yasin said, "when two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crumpled. When two elephants make love, it is still the grass that gets crumpled". He urged us, for once, to get off our intellectual high ground and be "stupid" for it is the stupid who go against the current.

Yasin began his freedom struggle in 1984 at the age of 18. Having been beaten mercilessly, intensely interrogated and thrown into every jail in the valley, he took up the gun. In his defense, he says, "I came to the conclusion that there was no space for a non-violent political movement." Yasin is now the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and an Executive Member of the APHC. The JKLF is a nonviolent movement struggling for the independence of Jammu & Kashmir and a just and sustainable peace in South Asia. In 2002, in a bid to silence the voice of Yasin, the government of India accused him of blatantly false charges and put in place a new draconian law - POTA. The law allowed the Indian government to hold Yasin Malik without trial or hearing. Over 100 Indian police officers used naked force to arrest Yasin Malik while he was addressing a press conference in Srinagar, Kashmir. Yasin Malik now suffers from chronic health conditions as a result of previous torture and imprisonment.

It's easy for us, who watch from the sidelines, to condemn Yasin Malik and his colleagues for losing faith in peaceful resistance. Nothing is so black and white and convenient.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Chairman of APHC's moderate faction is merely 28 years old and has a magical aura about him. WOW!! He said "we desire to be citizens of the United States of Kashmir and we want India and Pakistan to give a free hand to the Kashmiri leadership to come up with new proposals". It is the first time that the Indian government has allowed Kashmiri leaders to visit Pakistan. The Mirwaiz also stated that he did not want to take the bus 20 years down the line and wanted to fly to New Delhi, Islamabad or Tashkent, clearly hinting at the future status of Kashmir. Apparently, the Internet is his hobby and he wanted to become a software engineer but the assassination of his father threw him, prematurely, into politics and religious leadership.

An extract from a Rediff interview:

Coming back to your combined role as the Mirwaiz and the Hurriyat chairman, has there been any conflict between the two?

No, not at all. Our politics, like I said, is not the politics which extremists or other political parties practice. It is not a politics of vote. It is the politics of the destiny of a nation. And as such, my politics and religion are one and the same. What I preach as the Mirwaiz is what I practice as a politician. Our struggle is based on justice, we are on a righteous path. So there is no conflict.

There was one major problem with yesterday's symposium. There were very few young people there. Kashmir is inextricably linked with the history and future of the sub-continent and Yasin Malik's and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's appeals were addressed to an insignificant group. The jaded, "me-too" activists, politicians, and elite of our society don't give a rat's ass about the people of Kashmir, or about anything for that matter. All they are interested in is global acknowledgement that Pakistan has suffered along with the Kashmiris, that Pakistan has fought wars in the name of freedom for Kashmir, and that the collective Pakistani heart beats in the same rhythm as those nameless, faceless sufferers in the valley. Where were the students, the youth, the "20 somethings" who could have been inspired into action by Yasin and the Mirwaiz? We have no heroes to look up to and dusty volumes chronicling the exploits of Jinnah just don't cut it for us. Fiery speakers like Tariq Ali are not welcome or safe here and Dr. Eqbal Ahmad is dead. The organizers may have been concerned about safety - but how could a bunch of kids have posed a threat to people who have experienced nothing but oppression, violence and destruction from the time they were born?

Monday, June 06, 2005

In June 2003, the Economist published an article entitled Women - Be a Man. Someone sent me a copy of the article and I remember being disgusted by it. Was going through ancient e-mail, looking for something, and came across my response:

Why should we be like men? Economist, for all its good stuff is also a highly chauvanistic magazine. The outrageous title was followed by "Men compete harder than women. That is why they do better at work". OK!!!! Define "better". Who sets the benchmarks and the yardsticks? Men! Why should we accept them? I am not saying this just for the sake of being rebellious but look at the world we live in today - a world that has been shaped by men - it's a melting pot ruled by semi-evolved, macho bullies. The competitive streak that you strongly believe women should inherit, will lead to a fundamental change in what makes women, women. If the 21st century is the century of the woman, why must we play by your rules?

Any discussion about competition has to take into account Early Childhood Development (Age 0 - 8) and the gender biases that set in from the time a baby is born. Pink clothes and dolls for girls and blue clothes and guns for boys. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles start creating the mess when they often unknowingly/inadvertently set children up against one another, getting them to compete for all sorts of things ranging from love to lollipops. It's pretty frightening.

Competition has infiltrated every aspect of our lives; school, family, sports, business ... success is inevitably achieved at the expense of another's failure. Of course women should demand what is due to them but this can be done in many ways. Our institutions need to be restructured in a way that competition is replaced by cooperation. According to the American dream - competition is the only normal and desirable way of life but actually, it is counterproductive - poisons relationships, fosters anxiety and takes the fun and magic out of work and play. It does not build character and self-esteem and in fact makes people highly insecure.

Here is a link to an unpublished article I wrote a couple of years ago:
Competition - The New Fanaticism ...

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Spent Saturday morning at NADRA's offices at the Awami Markaz, in the hope of applying for a fancy RFID-powered, unencrypted, Machine Readable Passport with a religion column.

Here is a survival guide for anyone who has similar goals in life:

Ordinary Passports cost Rs. 2,100 and you can get yours within 12-15 days.

Urgent Passports cost Rs. 4,500 (I think) and can be collected within a week.

If you wish to save time and khwari, send someone to make the payment at least a day in advance.

The bank at Awami Markaz opens at 9:00 am. The person who goes to make the payment should carry your original Computerized ID Card and a photocopy, just to be safe. The bank will hand over a receipt/challan. Store it safely and take it with you whenever you decide to apply.

The following documents are required/recommended:

- Original Computerized ID Card
- Photocopy of Computerized ID Card
- Existing Passport
- Photocopy of Existing Passport
- Bank Receipt/Challan
- Copies of Educational Degrees
- Employer's Letter

Chances are that they won't ask for the last two items but just in case ...

If you were originally from India, carry proof of Pakistani citizenship. Your current passport will NOT be adequate proof. Take along old passports and registration documents, if your place of birth is India and is listed as such in your current passport. I regret that I have no idea about what students and under 18 kids require in terms of documentation.

On the designated day, wake up early and consume any form of caffeine-intensive starter fluid. Plan to get to Awami Markaz at around 7:30 am. Take along some biscuits or sweets for a shot of energy during your ordeal.

Getting there early will ensure a space in the free car parking area. Join the queue. The lines for ladies and men are separate. Your place in this line has no bearing on the token number that will eventually be issued to you. Avoid all eye contact and verbal interaction with "passport agents".

The doors to enter the Awami Markaz will open at 8:00 am. Brace yourself. Everyone will go mad - in true Pakistani style. Your running speed and jungliness level will determine your position in the next queue. If you have paid in advance, ensure that you join the right queue - i.e. the one where everyone has a valid bank receipt/challan. If I am not mistaken, there is a separate area for senior citizens (age 60 and up) but am not sure where that is. Do ask if you are 60 or older. Keep your challan and original ID card handy. You will be behind a steel jaali and the guards will let a few people in at a time.

This is the worst component of the process purely because of the behaviour of our fellow Pakistanis, who simply have not learnt how to behave in a civilized manner. The guards on duty were very efficient - they randomly checked people's documents to ensure they had the right things with them, got rid of non-compliant wasters, answered questions knowledgeably, and broke up fights as and when they ensued.

When you reach the front of the queue, you will be let in to a large, air-conditioned hall where all the high-tech action takes place. You will join another queue where you will be issued a token. The token issuance counter is Step 1 of the process. You will be asked to hand over your bank receipt/challan and original, computerized ID Card. The ID Card will be stuck into a reader and a printout will be generated with your token number. Hang on to this for dear life.

It was 8:30 am by this time. We had been shunted around by some burqa-clad ladies and lost our place in one of the lines - my number was 78 and my mother's was 75.

The token number you are given will be flashed on screens at every stage of the process so don't start reading a book.

Step 2 is Biometrics. Thumb and index finger impressions for your left and right hand will be taken here.

Step 3 is Photography. They have Canon A80 digital cameras mounted on tripods. When your number flashes on the screen, go and have your picture taken. If you wear glasses, they will make you take them off. Make sure you react quickly if you don't like your picture (I couldn't see without my glasses!) because the man will save it quickly and then won't entertain reviews.

Step 4 is Data Entry. Monitors are provided for you to verify your data as it is being entered by the operator. Ensure that all the information is correct and make the guy fix mistakes, if any. Once the data has been entered, a printout will be generated with all your information. Make sure everything is valid and sign it in two places.

My mother's place of birth was Calcutta so she got zapped at the Data Entry stage. We had to go home and bring back registration documents proving Pakistani citizenship, even though she came to Pakistan in 1956.

Step 5 is the BL Counter - no idea what BL stands for. Some security type folks will take the printout and might ask you a few questions about where you work. They will stamp the printout and you will now be ready for the last stage.

Step 6 is the interview. There are about 6 or 7 rooms occupied by officious men. When your token number flashes, for the last time, go into the appropriate room and hand over the printout, the bank receipt, all the photocopies, your passport, ID card, and anything else they may ask for. If your passport has no valid visas in it, it will be cancelled. So be sure you answer accurately when they ask if you have any valid visas in your current passport. They will then scribble something on the printout that has your token number on it and that shall serve as your receipt to collect your passport within 15 days from the Saddar passport office.

I was done at 9:30 am. However, we had to come back with my mother's additional documents. Rushed home, got the papers and went back to the Awami Markaz. By now, it was around 10:30 am. There was no parking in the parking lot. Charmed one of the guards into helping out.

As we already had a token number, we entered through a different door. By this time, the hall was a mad house. The numbers had entered the 250 range and one could barely breathe or talk or think. We had to go back to Step 1 and get Number 75 re-activated. It flashed on the Data Entry screens a few seconds later. Got done with the entire process within 30 minutes.

If you have all your documents in order and get there early, having paid in advance, you should be done in a couple of hours. NADRA was efficient and did not create hurdles at any stage. The core problem lies with the average Pakistani citizen who does not have an iota of decency, no desire to wait for his or her turn and zero respect for the rights of others.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Sharing the contents of an e-mail received by a colleague!

Subject: IstikharaAs

Salam Alikum.We Seek ISTIKHARA & Get rid you from any kid of KALAJADU....BANDISH....JINN....Marriage problums, Money, or any kind ofproblum you have, will be solve by QURAN-O-SUNNAH and Wazaif-o-Taweezat.

O U R S E R V I C E S Don't hesitate to contact us, if you are facing one or more of thefollowing problems. Within few minutes, we'll make your life cool andcalm, Insha-Allah. Bad-mannered Husband / WifeHurdles in Love MarriagesDemon's Effects ( Jinnat ka Saaya )Improper Love AffairsFamily DisputesBounded BusinessSexual DiseasesEffects of Evil Spirit ( Aasaib )InfertilityUnemploymentPsyche ProblemsAdversityStudy ProblemsVisa ProblemsProperty DisputesOther ProblemsAllah Tala says in the Noble Quran, 'In the Quran is (spiritual,physical)cure for people.'

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Don't let the bozos grind you down. Because the bozos will try to grind you down, they'll tell you that you can't do something, that something won't work, or that something isn't needed. The only thing worse than a bozo is a person who listens to a bozo.

Guy Kawasaki - the purest Macintosh evangelist!

Monday, May 30, 2005

Yipeeeeeee! Just got my copy of iCon - Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business.

Thank you, JA!

When Wiley and Sons, the publishers, sent the book to Apple for a pre-publication review, Steve got really pissed off with the iCon part of the title ... Apple asked the author to change the title but he refused. Apple has now removed all Wiley and Sons books from Apple Stores across the US. Marketing stunt?

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Visited Warid Telecom's site today (I hate their ad campaign and their agency doesn't know how to use apostrophes) and clicked on Privacy Policy ...

A lot has been written about long URLs by usability specialists ... please look at the URL for Home >> Privacy Policy:

http://www.waridtel.com/cgi-bin/warid/dev1/warid/program?BV_SessionID=@@@@1344277484.1117063603@@@@&BV_EngineID
=ccccaddejmfiilhcflgcefkdffhdffn.0&channelId=-14223&programId=
39900&menuChannel=-14223

What in %$*#'s name is being processed just to serve up a few paragraphs of text that tell you about cookies and stuff? Is it because of the silly news ticker that I just noticed right at the bottom of the page? Jeez!!!! Wouldn't http://www.waridtel.com/privacy_policy.html or php or aspx or whatever have been more appropriate?

UGH, I think it is definitely because of that "What's New" ticker!

Will wonders never cease? Mobilink has finally launched GPRS services for its "family". First reaction: the flat rate of Rs. 500 per month is ridiculous since not all users are created equal. However, to expect Mobilink to figure that out is ... I come in to the office at 9:00 or so every morning and get connected to an always on WiFi network until around 8:00 pm. Then I go home and get connected to another WiFi network. Why would I want to use the Internet off my phone which has a dinky little screen unless it is absolutely imperative? Why can't there be a per minute or per megabyte usage plan for people who will use this service occasionally but would like the security of knowing that they have access whenever they may need it?

Mucked about with Tiger's new Automator application yesterday. Have set up two really cool actions. One of them finds people in the Address Book with birthdays , creates a new Mail message with text that I specify, attaches a birthday image from a selection, and sends it off! Cool. The other one resizes a screenshot in PNG format (Tiger's default format for screenshots) to 480 pixels in width, saves it as a JPEG, and opens it in Preview. This is especially useful for images that I need to upload to my blog. This takes place at the OS level and no external applications are opened, other than Preview for viewing - which is something I set up as a non-essential option in the workflow.

Here's what the Send Birthday Greetings workflow looks like:

Automator workflows can be saved as plugins or as Applications. Have thrown mine into the Dock and now drop files over the icons to resize them or save them as JPEGs, etc. My favorite Project Management software, Merlin, will be "scriptable" by the end of the year and I'll hopefully I'll be able to make actions for all sorts of repetitive tasks, like fitting timelines to a single page, generating PDFs and sending them to specified clients, etc.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

So much for my decision to blog at least once a day! Am writing today only because I love my new Apple Wireless Keyboard and I can't keep my hands off it!

Upgraded seamlessly to Tiger (Mac OS X - 10.4.1) two days ago. Am a bit disappointed with the Widgets but anyway, this is what my Dashboard looks like ...

Spotlight is a marvel of software engineering and there are also a bunch of other Finder-level improvements and rewrites that are great! Am also evaluating Apple's Mail software and have until tomorrow to decide whether I will ditch Eudora or not. Eudora has announced that they are converting the application from Carbon to Cocoa and will deliver a new version in Fall 2005, featuring Spotlight integration, WebKit HTML display/authoring, and other cool stuff.

Finished reading Kamila Shamsie's "Broken Verses" a few weeks ago and am now in the middle of "The Turning Point" by Fritjof Capra, and "The Elephant and the Flea" by Charles Handy.

Was invited to a reading by Zehra Nigah a few weekends ago - just a handful of people at someone's house. Was phenomenal to sit at her feet and listen to her recitations as well as some great stories about Jon Elia and other poets. Had a blast. Then, a few days ago, had dinner with Ardeshir Cowasjee and discussed the curse of the Clifton Cross, urban planning, architecture, media, politics, etc. He's a real character and it was a pleasure spending a few hours with him.

NEVER FOLLOW THE HERD!

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Nike Releases Gloomy Labor Report ...

Nike Inc. has just done it.

Almost 10 years after allegations first surfaced that Nike's contractors were exploiting workers in Asian sweatshops, the world's biggest athletic-shoemaker has responded, and how.

In a 108-page report last week, the Beaverton, Oregon-based company presented a surprisingly frank audit of labor conditions at 569 of 830 factories worldwide where Nike-branded footwear, apparel and sports equipment are made.

Nike's "corporate responsibility'' report doesn't make for a pretty picture. From excessively long workweeks and wrong wage calculations to verbal abuse and curbs on toilet visits, the findings confirm a pervasive culture of exploitation.

At risk are as many as 650,000 workers in factories located from Australia and China to the U.S. and Vietnam. A majority of them are women between the ages of 19 and 25.

So has Nike scored a self-goal by publishing the report? Isn't Chairman Philip Knight running the risk of alienating at least some customers who might now want to buy their sneakers from niche competitors who wear their ethical credentials on their sleeves, such as Boston-based No Sweat Apparel, whose goods come with flyers stating the wages paid to the Indonesian workers who made them?

Knight's candor is probably backed by sound business acumen. An honest acknowledgement of lax labor standards is a much required first step to make labor-rights activists and the media appreciate the sweatshop problem for what it is: an industry-wide menace that was neither created by Nike nor can be solved by it in isolation.

Read the entire Bloomberg article

Sunday, April 17, 2005

The Mideast Hospital in Clifton has been sold to Mr. AKD. He shall tear it down and build a shopping centre in its place. Doctors have been served notice and have until the 15th of May to clear out. Just what this city needs - another mall! Mr. Dedhi, thank you!

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil has a huge problem to deal with.

The soon-to-retire CEO suddenly has a new anxiety: how to spend the windfall wrought by $55-a-barrel oil. By the end of April, Exxon will have a cash hoard of more than $25 billion.

Lee Raymond doesn't like splurging on one-time dividends and he isn't fond of mega acquisitions. So, the poor sods can't figure out how to spend all that money and are getting headaches.

Stunning logo!

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

... and people say that Macs are no good for serious stuff! Well, eat this!

Virginia Tech gained international honors for building the fastest supercomputer at any academic institution in the world. And they did it using Power Mac G5s. From that milestone, Virginia Tech has moved ahead again with System X, a new cluster using 1,100 Xserve G5s.

Ranking seventh in the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful computer systems, System X was built at a fifth of the cost of the second-least expensive system in the top 10.

"When we built the first supercomputer from Power Mac G5s, we proved that a radically-different communications technology could be used to create a large-scale computing platform," says Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan, director of the university's Terascale Computing Facility and the system's lead designer.

"We're recognized for knowing how to build these terascale computing machines and with very good price performance. But the measure of the facility is the kind of science it produces."

... and did someone say that Macs are only used for graphics and video???

Computational Science Applications at Virginia Tech

Molecular modeling
Numerical algorithms and software for mathematics
Quantum chemistry
Molecular static and dynamics
Computational geophysics
Biophysics
Computational fluid dynamics
Air quality simulations
Computational biology
Plasma and gas physics
Weather prediction

Read the whole article: http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/vatech2/

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Anonymous asks: "Vaisy what you think is the best way to keep your workers motivated and have a low employee turnover?... keeping in mind you are a struggling company with bright future but can't pay big money for the time being.... any bright idea?"

There is no formula answer for motivating workers. The first thing is to not view them as workers - rather as partners who are going to help you achieve that "bright future.

Ask yourself, everyday, if you still believe in the dream. Sell the vision to your team and push them to tap into the energy source that powers you and your passion.

Stretch your pennies. Look for young, excited, turned on kids who maybe aren't even through college yet - give them a chance to work with you and become part of something huge.

While growing up, the general refrain one heard was that in order to be successful, all you need to do is work hard and be honest. Well, luck and timing are also absolute essentials and are phenomena that you can't control. So, you have to be tough as nails and keep plugging away until you think you've got to where you wanted to be.

It's very important also, to define "success" and "failure". Our society has a very narrow view of failure and success is measured by your bank balance and the car you drive. This is the biggest crock of shit ever. Of course, money puts bread on the table and the car gets you from Point A to Point B but what really matters, is the clarity of your vision, the quality of your work, the integrity with which you conduct transactions, the chances that you give others to grow, how you respond to a crisis situation, etc. Doing all this costs money and if it diminishes your bank balance and sets you back another couple of years from being in the black, do it. Don't take the easy way out and just do something boring, dishonest, and BLAH, because you can't figure out where next month's salaries will come from. Entrepreneurship is not easy - nothing will be handed to you on a platter. But, the ecstacy you will feel when a client says, "WOW, that looks great" will make the pain worthwhile.

Your core values should drive everything you do and you have got to make Employee # 1 through 5 at least, believe in those values. Make them understand that you folks are in this together and that the going will get tough and everyone should be ready to face the highs and lows together. When you achieve something, share the credit with everyone. Make people feel valuable.

I hope this doesn't sound like esoteric bullshit - just sharing my own experiences.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Just testing e-mail2blog

Just testing the e-mail2blog facility. If this works, it's pretty neat-o!

It's 12:58 am. Want to go home. Will need to be back at work in a few hours anyway. Have started reading Nudist on the Late Shift again. Feel mono-syllabic. Realize I have said this before, many, many, many times, but really, Windows is truly awful. Practically got hypnotized watching a colleague install IIS on a laptop. Alert Sound, Error Message, Enter, Alert Sound, Error Message, Enter, Run, Alert Sound, Shit, Enter, Run, Error Message, Kiya Museebat Hai!, Alert Sound, Error Message, Run, Laanat Ho, Enter, Dialog Box, PING, TING, ZING, DUH, CAN YOU PLEASE HIT THE MUTE BUTTON!!!!!!!!

Wish we could get a Dual Apple Xserve G5. What a beauty!

And please don't miss what we are actually stuck with!

People who think Macs are expensive, which they aren't anymore, have not figured out how much peace of mind is worth. Am dreaming of strawberries and icecream. Need to renew my passport but can't figure out when I can waste an entire day at Awami Markaz. Moan, groan, bleah - nothing in this landscape is changing.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

A typically George Carlin(ish) takeoff on a famous Shaw quote:

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that crap!!

;-)

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Keith Haring, a 1980s New York based graffiti and visual artist, said, "The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint. I'd like to pretend that I've never seen anything, never read anything, never heard anything - and then make something."

Saturday, March 19, 2005

As part of a series to celebrate its 75th anniversary, Fortune magazine, in its latest issue, presents "The Best Advice I Ever Got" - 27 or so luminaries talk about the people who most influenced their business lives.

Here's what Peter Drucker had to say - he's 95!!!!!!!

Get good - or get out.

"The most important instruction I received was when I was just 20 and three weeks into my first real job as a foreign affairs and business editor of the large-circulation afternoon paper in Frankfurt. I brought my first two editorials to the editor-in-chief, a German. He took one look at them and threw them back at me saying, 'They are no good at all.' After I'd been on the job for three weeks, he called me in and said, 'Drucker, if you don't improve radically in the next three weeks, you'd better look for another job.'

For me, that was the right treatment. He did not try to mentor me. The idea would have been considered absurd. The idea of mentoring was post-World War II. In those days (before World War II), you were hired to do your job, and if you didn't do it, you were out. It was very simple."

Hmmmm. All this mentoring and nurturing that we do these days for kids who think it's their birth right to be molly-coddled ... wonder if it isn't time to go back to the basics and remind people that they get paid to do their jobs and the very least they can do is get it right.

Friday, March 18, 2005

One Hour To Madness And Joy
Excerpt from a poem by Walt Whitman

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts - with invitations!
To ascend - to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To be lost, if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

A few days ago, everything went right. We had a hat-trick of approvals all in one day and I was deliriously happy! Bought a tub of bubble mixture to celebrate. Bubble blowing is a low maintenance, high impact methodology to bring about instant pleasure and peace. All you need is Rs. 10 and a few minutes.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Switched the Squawkbox commenting system to Blogger's thinggy today. Pooey. Obviously lost all my old comments and am not altogether thrilled with this new deal. Squawkbox was definitely dodgy and creaky but, but, but, whatever ...

Google X pays homage to Mac OS X

Google software engineer Chikai Ohazama recently noted the launch of Google X. It's an alternate look and feel for Google's search engine technology that pays homage to Mac OS X's Dock application -- in place of the usual text descriptors "Web," "Images," Groups," "News" and so on are colorful icons that appear to magnify as your mouse passed over them. At the bottom of the search Window, it says "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X Rocks. Homage to you."

Google X is being made available through Google Labs, the popular Web site search company's self-described "technology playground" that showcases "favorite ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time." Ohazama said that Marissa Mayer, Google's Director of Consumer Products, liked Google X enough to make it publicly available. "So after some spit and polish from some enthusiastic Googlers and the keen eye of the UI team, Google X is here. I hope all of you enjoy it - especially Mac users, who I'm sure will appreciate its lineage," said Ohazama.

Update - 19 hours ago: Since this story was posted earlier today, Google has taken the page offline. There was no explanation from Google why the page was removed or if it would return.

Array bibi, yay to Kurracchee hai, Amreeka nahin hai! This is the standard line that Pakistanis use to legitimize illegal, idiotic, dangerous, mindless behaviour - from running a red light to polluting the streets, to turning right without any indication, to doing whatever they want to do that they shouldn't be doing.

The same people who look at you as if you're mad when you demand an explanation for irrational, reckless behaviour, in Pakistan, are transformed into meek, model citizens in other countries. What is this syndrome?

Aaaaah - to have a moment to breathe, think, write something other than a proposal, content for a website, bullet points for a presentation on contextual advertising ... WTF!!!!!!!!!!! As of now, I am envious of crows. What happy lives they lead. Anyhow, I will not be held hostage by myself for much longer - major changes needed and happen they will. SOON.

A few days ago, I did some design work for the Chair(wo)man of a big corporation. 9 screens = 9 JPEGs which were handed over to her secretary to incorporate into the piece of crap that passes of as software - i.e. Powerpoint. While I don't believe in expending energy on negativity, I can't help but despise Windows and most Microsoft software with a passion that I realize could easily be applied elsewhere.

Anyway, so the secretary didn't know what to do with the files so I opened up Powerpoint for her (on her Windows machine - aaaaaagh) and created a blank presentation, and inserted the first graphic (1024 x 768 - same as her monitor resolution). Did another one as well so she'd know exactly what to do with the other 7 graphics. Well, when the slideshow ran, the bottom right corner was cut off. Why?? No clue!! Told her to call in the IT guys to fix it and ran off because I can't take more than 5 minutes of exposure to Windows.

Next morning, she called up and said, the bottom right corner is still cut off. So, I said, lemme check on my Mac. Opened up Powerpoint (yes, unfortunately I have Microsoft Office polluting my hard drive) and went through the same drill. Well, the results of the slideshow were even worse on my Mac than on her PC. I am quite a geek but could not, for the life of me, figure out which menu in the hideousity that is Powerpoint, leads to a dialog box that simply allows you to choose your presentation size in pixels - i.e. 1024 x 768 or 800 x600 or whateverthefuck you want. If one is expected to do it in inches via Page Setup, that is ludicrous. OK, have to admit that I gave up in frustration. Fired up Keynote 2 (the Apple equivalent of Powerpoint - yes, it doesn't do everything and the kitchen sink - like you can't write Visual Basic code from inside your presentation - geewhiz), chose 1024 x 768 as the size (which is the first thing it asks you) and inserted all my graphics into 9 slides - went to the File Menu, chose Export, then chose Powerpoint and saved the file. The entire exercise, from start to finish took 30 seconds and the file opened in Powerpoint and played beautifully with all alignments intact. Why am I surprised?

Yesterday, I was forced to demo a database-driven website at a client's premises at extremely short notice, leaving no time to configure IIS, SQL Server, and a whole lot of other snotty bullshit, on the client's server. We NEVER give final site demos at a client's premises. They always come to our office. But not this client!! So, one option was to pick up our solitary development server and lug it to the client's office - which would have had the rest of the team up in arms. The other option was to say no. The final option was to say ok. We did whatever we had to do but then, the shit hit the fan. The demo laptop on which we copied all the files, database, applications, etc. lacked adequate VRAM to run some animations properly. BAH. Accessed the site off a better laptop and everything worked perfectly, even tho the slowpoke laptop was being used as a server. Fine. Got a hub to connect the two and it died. OK, both laptops were WiFi enabled so attempted to create a Peer2Peer network, didn't happen. We were already 15 minutes past our scheduled departure time. Yanked out an iBook, went to the Airport menu, selected Create Network, clicked OK and both Wintels were able to connect, one instantly, and one after a Restart (!!!!!) So, the Mac (never taken seriously as a business machine), saved the day by providing networking facilities to two idiotboxes. The demo went fine but NEVER AGAIN, will I agree to a something like this at such short notice, outside my own office.

At the end of this rather long, vitriolic post, all I really want to say, for the 845th time, is that Mac OS X just works. Developers who conform to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines create beautiful, clean, powerful software that gets stuff done. Examples include Ranchero's NetNewsWire, Panic's Transmit, Objective Development's Launchbar, Omni Group's OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner, Apple's own Keynote, iTunes, Safari, and a whole bunch of others that make life worth living. At the end of a hard day, when everything and everyone you've interacted with bites, hisses, and kicks, a WiFi enabled 12" Powerbook G4 is the only thing that makes sense.

Oh, and one other thing. Macs do not get hit by viruses, malware, spyware, and all the other evil stuff that brings Wintels down in the blink of an eye.

Monday, December 06, 2004

Dreadful to not have blogged for so long :(

Left for Hong Kong at 3:30 a.m. on the 6th. Have finally arrived at 7:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, after an excuciating 5 hour stop-over at Bangkok airport. YUCK.

Got beyond pissed off with customs at Jinnah Terminal, Karachi. Am attending the Asia Pacific ICT Awards here in Hong Kong and the Pakistani contingent also has a joint stall at some bigass convention. So, had about 200 CDs with me (b.i.t.s. Portfolio and PSO Educational Games). Entered the terminal and was interrogated about the CDs. They were refusing to let me through and kept saying that "how do we know you're going where you say you are going". They ripped the carton open and then sent my business card and 5 CDs to some senior officials sitting in a glass enclosure, smoking away and watching the tamasha. Some jackass then said, "barray ufsur kay paas chalay jaen". I told him that the burra ufsur could come to me. I finally lost it and said that it was ridiculous that I was being treated like a criminal in my own city. Was unable to get the carton back in the bag, and they watched me struggling with it for 5 minutes and then decided to help. Then, the security people stopped me and said open the bag. I said, you've just watched me being harrassed for 20 mins, wtf? She said, that was customs, we have to do our duty! So, I let her struggle with the carton, which was destroyed by this time. She said, nikaalein iss ko. I was like, lady - you do your duty, like you said. Then she struggled with it for 10 minutes. AAAAAAAARGH. It was so damn annoying.

Met Shoaib Siddiqui of National Foods with his wife - who turned out to be Saba Saleem, ex Unilever/Lux Style Awards. Most bizarre.

Anyway, Hong Kong, whatever I have seen of it in the last 2 hours, ROCKS. My hotel is slap bang in the middle of all this action and it's exhilerating to be surrounded by so much energy.

The hotel has WiFi, which is a relief. Having no luck connecting to Paki numbers through Skype. Called my mother in London, which was a snap. Such a shame cause no one from Khi is online.

My presentation is on the 9th of December. Still have to figure out how to deliver an hour's worth of content in 20 minutes. No point stressing about it, will just wing it and hope for the best.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Damnit! Can't sleep. It's 1:40 a.m. Got home early for a change and should have been relaxed enough to dose off at a decent hour. How I wish I had some laxotonils.

Have found a very cool application called AdiumX - an IM client for Mac OS X that totally rocks. Also delighted to be able to trash MSN Messenger - one less Microsoft application makes for a happier hard disk.

If only brains had an on/off switch. When will I learn to stop taking life so seriously? Why can't I be like 99.9% of the Paki population and not give a flying fuck about deadlines, committments, innovation, civil society and its responsibilities, making a difference, aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgh!

I really need to listen to Farid Ayaz and Abu Mohammad. If there is a qavvali this weekend, I will request Munnum Mehvay Jamal-e-Oo, Khabar-e-Tahaiyyur-e-Ishq, Naseema Janib-e-Bathaa, Laagi Najar Bharpoor, Qasida Burda Shareef, Tanum Farsooda Jaan Paara, and Sakhi Kaa Say Kahoon. Spiritual elevation needed BADLY.

If I didn't give a shit about consequences, I would do the following:

1. Remind a certain lady that slavery has been abolished and that people work much better when they are treated like human beings and not like pieces of shit

2. Tell a certain gentleman that it is truly sad for a behemoth of a corporation to haggle over piddling sums of money with tiny companies that are struggling to survive only because they believe in doing the right thing

3. Turn off my cell phone

4. Take a day off

I still can't sleep. This is awful. It's 2:00 a.m. I have work in the morning. Meetings, deadlines, decisions, conflicts, bills ... what is the fucking point of all of this?

Friday, October 22, 2004

UFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!

From an American School Lesson on Celebrating Cultural Diversity ...

Pakistan's Heritage and Culture

Islam was introduced in the 8th century and quickly spread throughout the region. The Turkish rulers of Afghanistan invaded Pakistan as they began their conquest of India. Pakistan then passed under the control of the Muslim sultans of Delhi.

Early in the 16th century, Pakistan became part of the Mughal Empire. Under the emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, art and architecture flourished. By the early 19th century, the Sikhs had consolidated their power and declared Lahore their capital. Within a few decades, however, the Sikhs were defeated in battle by the English, and Pakistan became part of the British Raj. When India prepared for independence from the British in the 1940s, Muslim Indians pushed for their own independent state, and the Republic of Pakistan came into being on August 14, 1947 as a Muslim homeland. Unfortunately, the birth of both Pakistan and India was marked by massive bloodshed, when violence broke out between Muslims and Hindus migrating from one country to the other. About 500,000 people are believed to have died.

Pakistan's population of 128 million is one of the fastest-growing in Asia. The two largest ethnic groups are the Punjabis, an Indo-Aryan people who dominate political and business life, and the Pashtuns, who work mainly as herders and farmers. The northern areas are home to many distinct ethnic groups, whose eclectic heritage is the result of intermarriage between local peoples and invaders from elsewhere in Europe and Asia. The official language is Urdu, and English is used extensively in business.

The Role of Women in Pakistan

Life in Pakistan is very different for women and men. Women are seen as being subordinate to men and have the duty of maintaining the honor of their family and/or husband's family. They are hidden away from society, either behind doors or behind veils, and rarely socialize with anyone of the opposite sex. Some women fully cover their bodies and heads with veils while others divert their eyes from anyone they come in contact with. The custom of covering oneself is called "purdah", Persian for "curtain". The amount of purdah that a woman follows, from covering the face to the extreme of never leaving the home, depends on her and her family's religious beliefs. Punishments for failing to observe the rules can be very harsh. Women are rarely educated and rarely work. The media teaches "proper" behavior and expectations for women and shows the evils of modernization in female television characters.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

What is it about IT Departments at corporations? Do they emerge from a generic mould of stupidity, insecurity, and incompetence? These characters are usually hangovers from the mainframe days, completely out of touch with reality, suffer from delusions of grandeur, and seem to get off on making "vendors" lives miserable. AAAAAAGH!

The other thing I just don't GET is clients who go to sleep for 7 months after receiving a proposal - then they wake up suddenly and expect you to drop everything and design their website for them in 3.5 days stating that it's a matter of life and death. Jee Surrr, of course, we've just been sitting around waiting for you to call. While we wait, we pray to Allah, and that takes care of the bills!

Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

Monday, October 18, 2004

Musharaf Hai, Chairman Unilever Pakistan, has made it to Fortune's Power 50! WoW, WoW, WoW! At the risk of being utterly hyperbolic, she's totally awesome ;-) After Meg Whitman, who has genuinely done wonders for eBay, Musharaf Hai is simply stellar. I would rather have her running the country than ... It's so bloody difficult for women to get ahead in this severely chauvanistic, intellect-challenged society, so her achievement is really special.

No one under 40 made it to that list - well, other than a couple of women who belong to ruling families, so am giving myself another 10 years!

Jo Rahee So Baykhabaree Rahee ...

Peace!

Monday, October 11, 2004

Superman is dead :-(

Rais Khan is overrated and arrogant.

I miss Munshi Raziuddin. Listened to Ba Har Soo Jalva-e-Dildar Deedum this morning and wept buckets. Munshi Jee, thank you for introducing us to Farsi and some of the finest inspirational music imaginable.

Work has gotten beyond manic. Have pretty much become a full-time graphic designer and have to do my COO stuff in between churning out one design after another.

My Spider article is overdue and Zunaira will be mad at me AGAIN.

Went to Lahore last weekend and was delighted to find that the Salt n Pepper Fried Chicken Breast Sandwich is as awesome as it used to be in 1994.

Just beat two boys at table tennis. Didn't know I had a competitive streak :-( It's not good for my knee but I really don't give a @#$! cause it's just so cool to be able to play again.

Am ODing on Talking Heads - And She Was, Psycho Killer, Burning Down the House! Brings back memories of school - the 80s were the best! Met Shamza Kazim, my Urdu teacher from Class 8 - KGS. We were such menaces that none of the prefects wanted to be responsible for our class - hehe ;-) we made Shamza Kazim's life hell. Poor woman. She was at the Rais Khan fund-raiser last night and I was extra "nice and sweet" to her - guilt syndrome, of course.

Can't think of anything to end with so "whatever" will just have to do!

Cheers!

Monday, September 20, 2004

Have had Worldcall for 2 months now and have to own up to the fact that the service has been phenomenal. No complaints so far.

There's an Ustad Rais Khan concert on the 10th of October, 2004. It's an APMC fundraiser and details can be found on the News & Events page of the APMC Website ...

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Airport Express with AirTunes and wireless USB printing. Aaaaaah!! Another phenomenal, beautifully designed masterpiece from Cupertino. Lost the shrinkwrap, plugged it in, and it worked - right out of the box. The geek in me was slightly disappointed, being entirely denied the pleasure of tweaking the gadget through the Airport Admin Utility. What sublime bliss - being untethered and able to read the latest headlines via NetNewsWire, in the loo!

Came to London last week and am now in Scotland. Had to suffer horrible dialup in London but have a rocking broadband connection in Glasgow. Went to the Design Museum in London - in a word: WOW! There was a Saul Bass (more on him below - as usual, I can't be bothered with effective hyperlinking) exhibition on and it was mind-boggling. All the Apple products were also on display, along with a commentary by Apple's wunderkid industrial designer, Jonathan Ive.

The Scots are wonderful - funny, warm, and really easy to get along with. Yes, yes, I have met exactly 15 Scots!! Am here for my uncle's wedding - it's a Scottish/Asian fusion wedding and fun beyond belief, so far. All the coolness of a desi shaadi sans the pretentious bullshit.

--------------------

SAUL BASS

One of the great graphic designers of the 20th century, Saul Bass is the undisputed master of film title design. The haunting elegance of the titles he created for Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder and Stanley Kubrick in the 1950s and 1960s and, later, for Martin Scorsese transformed a banal medium into an art form. Before Bass, titles were simple lists of the cast and crew projected on to cinema curtains which were only drawn when the film began. As this landmark exhibition will show, Saul Bass turned the film title into a visual spectacle. From his stark cut-out's for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, and the spiralling circles of Hitchcock's Vertigo, to the frenzied neons of Scorsese's Casino, Saul Bass created some of the most enduring images in design and cinema history.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Got broadband at home. What a rush. WiFi fantasies have now kicked in, full throttle and am plotting and scheming about how to get hold of an Airport Extreme base station before I lose my mind.

Limewire works like a dream but iTunes Radio chokes constantly. No idea why cause I don't choose stations with higher than 64K streams.

Am dreading Worldcall's customer service though. Have heard nothing but bad things - unfortunately, there's no other service provider to give them a run for their money - and corporates only improve when there is competition. I did experience considerable pain during their installation process. It's too tedious to recount but they tried to blame everything on my Mac. Finally, they realized that there was a physical cable fault. Duh! When they figured that out, it took 0.3 seconds to get online.

Sadruddin Hashwani organized a qavvali over the weekend in memory of Munshi Raziuddin. It's been a year since he passed away :-(

The qavvali was awesome except for Piya Ghar Aaya - which was performed well but have always found it too frivolous. Naseeruddin Saami also performed for about 40 minutes. Good!!

RSS rocks! I just LOVE NetNewsWire. Another killer MacOS X application is OmniOutliner. You can just tell how much developers like OmniGroup, Unsanity, and Panic love the Mac and how committed they are to the fundamental principles of interface design.

To date, I have only liked one Windows application - Setup Factory, produced by a company called Indigo Rose. By PC standards, it's revolutionary.

CityFM 89 has been playing some pretty good stuff ... heard Boys of Summer, Def Leppard, INXS, Buddha Bar, Ray Charles, James Brown ...

Saturday, July 03, 2004

All Pakistan Music Conference Event tonight (3rd July 2004) at Arts Council Karachi. Ustad Zafar Ali Khan and Tina Sani. Starts at 9:30 p.m. Tickets: Rs. 250

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Someone said, on the 21st of June 2004:

"Not exactly a marketing merchant of inspiration like Po, but Steven Levy may interest you..."

Very curious to know who you are, especially since it appears that you read Po Bronson AND Steven Levy. Steven Levy reports and writes quite a lot on Apple and the Macintosh, so have been reading his stuff for a long time. Haven't read Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" though. Will try to get hold of it. Am reading "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners Lee these days. Doug Coupland is fun also - coined the phrase "Generation X" way back in 1992 ...

Anyway, hope you'll come back again and talk about what you're reading.

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Hmmmmm ...

Monday, June 21, 2004

Turned 30
Watched Monster
Marvelled at Blast!
Wished Po Bronson would write another book
Thought about DeathRow, killing in self-defence, and "justice"
Slept, but not very peacefully

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

It's getting more and more like June 2003. Sitting at Unilever Dubai, in Jebel Ali. It's 10:30 p.m., everyone's gone home except the security guards - we're sustaining ourselves with Digestive biscuits and crunchy red apples.

Kudos to the folks who have developed eMessenger - it's a web-based hack of MSN Messenger and works without plug-ins and Java. The MSN port appears to be blocked at Unilever Arabia and this little gem, eMessenger has given us back our connectivity to the mothership. XTREME joy.

Had a divine Cafe Borgia at Barista two nights ago - gorgeous orange flavour and exotic whipped cream. Reminded me of all the trips to Barista espresso bars in Delhi. The Barista franchise has been sold to some Italian company :-(

Sunday, May 30, 2004

Another day in sandy, hot Dubai. Have come to terms with this place - it's rich, multi-cultural, and in the process of constructing 500 hotels over the next 3 years!

Am reading Bombardiers by Po Bronson. Edgy satire of Wall Street and the bonds trading world told through the lens of a manic group of salespeople forced to push peculiar financial products. Po is such a gifted writer - even though I cannot grasp the intricacies of investment banking, it is an easy read and great fun. Frantic pace!

Today's video conference with Jeddah is much clearer as we are hogging all the bandwidth. We're watching a demo of Uniflow and trying to figure out how to integrate it into our application.

Found a Barista cafe very close to the hotel last night. It sits right next to Starbucks. Hmmm. Will go in and compare prices today.

Saturday, May 29, 2004

Have not updated my blog in ages and feel terribly guilty for some inexplicable reason. I can't get Ejaz Asi's "not amused" look out of my mind.

Am sitting in Dubai at Unilever's office in Jebel Ali - feeling surreally like I did sitting in Unilever's Karachi office in May 2003 - discussing wireframes for the first time! I love it when the "lightbulb moment" occurs, when people actually figure out the magic of wireframes.

Anyway, it's fun to be blogging again. Yesterday, we went to City Centre - pretty close to the Sheraton. Our cab driver was Pathan and has been in Dubai for 7 years. The bill came to 11 dirhams and he didn't charge us a penny.

Had to change 2 pairs of shoes from Aldo for someone - did that. The mall is HUGE and as with all big places, the Floor Plan was absolutely useless. Kept going in circles.

Have never been into IKEA before, in my life. I was blown away completely. Even if I speak hyperbolically, I cannot express what that store did to me. Every single item, literally, was a marvel of beauty, simplicity, and value for money. By the end (the store was massive) I was experiencing heartburn. Wanted everything.

Video-conference with Jeddah about to begin - more later ...

Monday, March 15, 2004

Vilayat Khan died yesterday.
:-(

Following a discussion with a friend, I want to revise my opinion regarding PASHA's trip to India. I had said earlier that if people paid for the trip from their own resources, what difference does it make to anyone else? However, PASHA was representing Pakistan's software industry, rather than a bunch of individuals going there to check out the scene. So, perceptions and views do matter as they reflect on the industry and its goals and directions.

Anyhow, the central issue I was trying to raise about PASHA is that the association is very dodgy, lacks credibility and there is just no common vision. Certainly, there are some well-intentioned people who hold important positions but I seriously doubt whether they will be "allowed" to get very far.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

The PASHA forum is host, once again, to a dramatic battle of wits. Round 237 began with a trip to India, paid for by individuals, not the organisation or the government. While everyone has a viewpoint about whether this trip was useful or not, these discussions always degenerate into mud-slinging and a really peculiar brand of politics.

If people paid for the trip from their own resources, what difference does it make to anyone else? They came back and shared their experiences with PASHA members, across Pakistan and people are free to reach their own conclusions. Why politicize things to a point where everyone loses sight of the core issue.

Maybe people went to India for inspiration. ULTRA BORING call-centre and BPO businesses aside, India is vibrant and dynamic. People there have minds, they're excited about stuff, passionate about their work, not at all lazy, pretty darn down to earth ... qualities that most Pakistanis lack. Yes, yes, I know I am generalizing but since this is my space ...

From a work perspective, I wouldn't have gone with the PASHA delegation because whatever inspiration and resources I need from India, I can get by e-mail and other online sources. However, if I had spare cash lying around, I would have gone, on any other pretext. I sometimes feel like an Indian soul trapped in a Pakistani body and wish Partition had never happened. A simplistic view perhaps but I am shamelessly enamoured of the Indians. Tehelka is a case in point. More on this later ...

Monday, March 08, 2004

Mobilink recently flushed several million down the toilet with its new "Reshaping Communication" campaign. The brushed steel look has been shamelessly stolen from Apple Computer, dunno where the purple beveled thing has been appropriated from.

Cannot comprehend how a company that has caused endless financial, emotional, and mental trauma to its "loyal" customers can have the audacity to roll out such a massively meaningless campaign. Every day for the last several days, we've been waiting for a service/package/pricing/whatever announcement to back up the tall claims, but after 3 weeks, ZILCH.

What kind of bozos head up "marketing" in these companies? What, in their opinion, constitutes brand loyalty? WHEN WILL WE GET GPRS, YOU SCHMUCKS? At 17 bucks per minute + airtime, your so called data services are a NOT FUNNY joke.

Mobilink: your old logo was hideous but you know what, we weren't thinking about it. Your new logo is "different" from your old logo but then you already know that. Perhaps another thing you need to know is that we don't give a rat's ass about the new logo either. It seems that the obvious needs to be spelled out, so here's a quick list of what we expect from our "favorite" cellular operator:

1. The ability to speak to people using our Mobilink-enabled cell phones

2. We'd like our text messages to be delivered to intended recipients

3. GPRS - the Ufone way - or better

Wish you had spent the millions on us instead of reinventing your logo. Can't even refer to it as your brand because a brand is so much more than superficial packaging. But then, that's b-school 101 and you know all about that kind of stuff.

Friday, January 30, 2004

A comment from "alibhai" ...

Don't be very surprised as this is a text book PR stunt from the tobacco industry. They were doing all these things in the USA for a long time before the recent wave of lawsuits. Now they have taken the game to a new level. The industry is running two lines of ads. On the tele they run ads advising against juvenile smoking and warning about the cancerous effects of smoking. Going even as far as admiting that light smokes are just as bad as regular 100s. In print, they run ads in young adult publications depicting smoking as glamarous, sexy, and adventurous. Vile as it may seem to some it does work. Just a couple of days ago a female friend commented how some guys looked so sexy when smoking. Well go ahead and kiss the smoke stack ... well there is an ad for the anti smoking establishment.
But lets be rational just as lawyers have to protect their client and doctors have to save all bodies. You have to do your job. You can not make value judgements about your clients if you really want to be successful. Just spin it and sell.

My response ...

Rage is not a synonym for surprise and I don't walk around with blinkers on. After BigTobacco came BigFood and now, Walmart runs a parallel government. Of course all of this works. The American public has been a victim of the SuperBowl, Friends, and the local editions of CNN and Fox News for so long now that everything flies. Your female friend probably walks around in army fatigues cause they're "oh so cool".

Your understanding and vision of success is extremely limited ... profit and growth at any cost. If the world was made up only of people who toed the line, women all over the world would have still been in kitchens and African Americans would have still been sitting in the back of the bus. Caring about things other than success is not harmful for your health. Watch "In the Time of the Butterflies" for a powerful example of how a tiny group of rebels sacrificed everything to free the Dominican Republic from the grip of the tyrannical dictator, General Rafael Trujillo.

Today, people everywhere seem to have lost the will to make a difference. No one believes in the power of one. No one desires change so badly that they are willing to make a sacrifice. In Pakistan, our little elite group has access to US education, generators when there's no electricity, tankers when there's no water, corrupt officials when papers need to be signed, Pepsi when they want "more", gold sponsored by ARY, sushi at Fujiyama, Havana Cigars at Boat Basin ... A job at Citibank, lunch at Okra, beer at the Korean, Nike shoes for weekends at the Yacht Club ... Why give a damn about all that's wrong in the world? It's so much easier to consume, stay quiet and do one's job.

I'm no saint and am certainly not willing to give up my sexy Apple laptop. But taking a stand is as important as doing my job.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Ejaz Asks: and how comfortable do designers feel advocating such voices (while designing such ad-compaigns)? At least we can immediately address these questions, sabeen. Is the job of designers (traditional or new-media) only to solve visual problems? or some ethical paradigms exist and are adhered?

You've hit a raw nerve, Ejaz. In my completely not humble opinion, designers, programmers, teachers, students, ceo's, cto's, blah, blah, blah, basically EVERYONE, has a greater responsibility. Of course, every now and then, I enter the twilight zone of morality and have to make tough decisions about what's ethical and not. The twist that branding, especially lifestyle-oriented branding has taken over the last few years leaves me boggled! Cereal companies tell us to bond with our breakfast. Yeesh. How corny and altogether dumb. Anyway, one has to work to make ends meet and I have decided that I can either become a full-blown sufi or adapt ... I have decided to adapt and try and bring about change from within - i.e. try and influence corporates to do their bit.

There are certain things I know I will NEVER do, irrespective of how much money is offered. I will NEVER, EVER design/develop ANYTHING for tobacco companies, the armed forces, and militant religious groups.

Pakistan Tobacco Company has embarked on a brand new campaign to save the world. Please check out this statement from their latest advert: "Pakistan Tobacco Company believes in active community service". To show its committment to communities, PTC has begun planting trees and setting up mobile dispensary units. How can a company that produces a product designed to kill have the fucking audacity to project itself as a concerned corporation (that in itself is an oxymoron)? Oh, and they also conduct Free Diabetes Screenings and Eye Camps.

I guess one could argue that in a country like Pakistan, every inch of support is essential and shouldn't be scoffed at. Yeah, whatever ... BUT, this %^^#$%%!!!! company's balance sheet is dependent on people buying cancer sticks and now they want to wipe some blood off their hands. Kill a few people, plant a few trees, tell a couple of misguided village folk that their blood sugar level is high and that they should stop eating all those gulab jamuns - all in a day's work. Nice!!!!

FUCK YOU!!!!!!!! Do whatever 'good' you have to, you lame assholes, but don't flaunt it by printing full color ads in the newspaper and telling us how much you care. These ads are an insult to our intelligence. You dared to dream?? So did we! We dream of world peace, of getting children off the streets, of an end to poverty ... you dream of making money by selling DISEASE.

What a sick, twisted, pathetic, excuse of a world we inhabit - the civilized 21st century. Hah!

Thursday, December 11, 2003

My pride and joy, the love of my life, my sex bomb - slid off a desk and crashed onto the floor at 11:03 p.m. on the 10th of December, 2003. This sublime phenomenon, a.k.a. 12" Powerbook G4, now has a DENT. Its previously gorgeous right side is deformed and I am devastated.

While I have experienced deeper pain caused by innumerable crises over the years, I have never suffered through a more complex headache than the one I developed last night.

GAWD, I feel so damn sorry for myself. Anyhow, am now entering the acceptance phase - at least everything's intact and functioning correctly.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Got my first Panther Kernel Panic at 2:30 a.m. When I saw that blue screen of death, my heart nose-dived straight into my stomach and stayed there ... had a flight to Islamabad at 5:30 a.m. - so it wasn't pretty. Thanks to my non-functional CD drive (that's another story altogether), couldn't boot up with the System CD either to fiddle with the system. Tried verbose startup and diddled with some arcane Unix commands to no avail. Finally, jumped in the car, went to office, grabbed a Firewire cable, came home, mounted my laptop as an external hard disk on my mother's iBook and undid the foolishness that caused the kernel panic. If there are any Mac OS X users out there, DO NOT mess around with the damn dock. Was back in business within 10 minutes ... of course, being a Mac geek helps but much as I hate to admit it, luck was the main factor. Have had kernel panic once before, for no apparent reason ... and had to reinstall. This time, though, TransparentDock and Unsanity's APE Manager/ClearDock clashed very badly and screwed up my life.

Strangely, this evening, my Sony Ericsson phone suffered from what appeared to be kernel panic - also a blue screen of death. Am I missing something here? Is it the time of year for all gadgets to single-mindedly cause grief to their owners?

Anyway ... am in glorious! Islamabad - yayaya, the weather's 'nice'. Had a full day WSIS session (I know I am terrible, I don't hyperlink) ... World Summit on the Information Society ... it was very charged up most of the day but by 3:00 mostly everyone was zoning out. Tomorrow, we will work in groups ... I will be working on ICTs for Community Development.

Ejaz, did u ever get my response to your rant about the state of web design(ers) in Pakistan? Is it bad form to ask people questions on a public blog that refer to private e-mails? If so, I am sorry but too zonked to do anything about it. Won't ever do it again though.

Monday, November 17, 2003

Just installed Panther - Apple's latest upgrade to Mac OS X (V. 10.3 for the initiated) ... a few weeks ago, my SuperDrive died and when Panther was released, I couldn't install it. After suffering deep depression for a few days, I grabbed a friend's Powerbook, hooked mine up to it via Firewire and seamlessly installed Panther. Everything works like a faster dream ... love Expose, Preview's speed, and other refinements to the core OS. Thank you Steve, for giving us back Labels, something you shouldn't have ever taken away in the first place, make that 149 new features ... Unsanity's ClearDock died on me, even though I installed the new Pantherized version. Have now switched to TransparentDock - which has a bunch of other nifty features ... The other thing that died - major regrets, was PTHClock, a nifty piece of freeware, hugely superior to Apple's menubar clock. Anyway, am trying FuzzyClock which says 'fuzzy' things like "five past one", "nearly two", etc.

What else is up? Going to the city just outside Pakistan, a.k.a. Islamabad, for a workshop ... The World Summit on the Information Society ... hoping fervently for engaging dialog on the use of technology in education and for the development of civil society.

Am drowning in a sea of reading material ... can't remember the feeling one used to get after finishing a book. Anyway, in my bathroom and on my bedside table are the following ... (here comes the inevitable list)

1. Branded
2. The ClueTrain Manifesto
3. Fortune - last two issues
4. Understanding Comics - The Invisible Art
5. The Scientist in the Crib
6. Take It Personally - How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World
7. Polaroids from the Dead
8. Shampoo Planet

Have lived a lifetime over the last few weeks - my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and between doctors, hospitals, labs, and whatnot, each day has presented a never-ending stream of emotional, physical and mental challenges. The saga continues and life goes on ...

Monday, October 20, 2003

Hell really hath frozen over. Apple has released a Windows application. iTunes!!!!! Just used it on a Wintel box and it's IDENTICAL to the Mac version. There is a bit of discrepancy in the OS controls - I guess those that are iTunes specific are Aquafied and Mac-like and those that are dependent on the Windows Toolbox, for efficiencies I imagine, are, how should one say this, uhhh - butt ugly. As in, those bits look like other Windows apps. For example, the Preferences panel. The tabs and buttons and sliders are from the Windows Toolbox, whereas the Equalizer uses MacOS controls. At any rate, the Windows world finally gets to use an application that has been thoughtfully designed for human beings. And iPod owners finally get to throw away MusicMatch forever. Well, you can put it in the Recycle Bin (which means you plan to reprocess, reuse, etc). What were the folks at Microsoft thinking (or smoking) when they were copying the MacOS's Trash?

Ejaz suggested I write about this issue ...

-- Begin Ejaz --

Project Managers and Management

didn't find enough time to write some more? :$ alright, I was thinking that what is management got to do with project managers or other form of managerial posts? Coz over the couple of months, I have found them complaining about resource management, HR management and time management problems. Well if they can't MANAGE, what else have they got to do?
So this could be the preamble of sabeen's next blog entry? so here we go!

-- End Ejaz --

Hmmmm ...

Management is typically divided into a number of categories. Usually, the more hierarchy there is, the more mis-managed the business. b.i.t.s. is run like a pancake - totally flat. Structures, wherever they exist, do so only to facilitate teams, make quick decisions, respond to clients, and sign cheques ;-)

Managing financial/technical resources, time, and human beings is extremely complex. Adding more and more managers to meet deadlines or achieve success or whatever one is trying to do, is not the answer. IM(not so)HO, it's about building a culture of ownership, responsibility and respect. EXTREMELY hard to do but not impossible. Of course it helps if the company is small. A Project Manager or any kind of manager needs to have emotional intelligence, common sense, an understanding of the big picture, and a burning desire to get the damn job done.

Senior management often tends to micro-manage. Very dangerous. Taking risks is extremely important. People need to be given a chance to prove themselves and if they feel trusted, they often surprise everyone, including themselves. When we started b.i.t.s., we expressly decided not to hire a Project Manager. As a result, everyone learned how to manage tasks, provide feedback, work in teams, handle criticism, and face clients. Now that we've grown, we have a couple of people handling projects, but they wear other hats too so we still don't have a "whip" standing over people, forcing them to get things done. Everyone is "conscious" and "aware" of their responsibilities.

It has been hard and arduous - getting this far. We have "managed" to do so because we are a learning organisation. So-called senior management is not afraid to admit to follies, bad decisions, or that some potentially good idea back-fired and didn't quite work as expected. We constantly review our practises, processes, and methodologies and fine-tune them based on feedback. Another thing that helps is when management puts in the same kind of hours as the rest of the team. It is an amazing way to bond and to feel connected.

Ejaz, what you are talking about is a result of management not being self-aware (my favorite word these days). It's easy to blame and point fingers and find scapegoats. Obviously the job of managers is to handle all of the things you mentioned. If those areas remain issues, then management has failed. If it also fails to introspect, the hurdles become more and more insurmountable.

More later ... if you want ...

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Instead of hyperlinking references to the names of artists, as I said I would, here's a small selection of art in the form of a prev|next slideshow. Yes, there ought to be an index page with thumbnails, because blah, blah, yadda, yadda. OK, whatever ...

View Images

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

One little story about Pablo Picasso's "Mother and Child" that I wanted to share ... Picasso was a brutal editor of his own work and originally, the Mother and Child also had a Father!! However, for some inexplicable reason, he sliced the canvas and got rid of the dad.

A little bit about the painting: it represents a woman seated on the seashore holding a baby in her lap. The naked child leans backward, reaching his hand up toward the mother and she gazes down and into his eyes. The woman is dressed in a simple white gown reminiscent of the clothing of the ancient Romans or Greeks.

The painting, what was left of it after dad was eliminated, found its way into the Art Institute of Chicago, in whatever usual way art finds its way into galleries and museums. Some chap, a few years later, visited Picasso, I think in Paris, and took along a catalog of the Art Institute and said, hey look, your painting is up there, isn't that cool? And Picasso said, wait a minute, and pottered off to the back of his studio and emerged with the bit that he'd chopped off and said, here, you can give this to them to hang up as well!

So now, what visitors to the gallery see are three discrete pieces that comprise the Mother and Child ...

1. The mother and child
2. A description of what happened (not all of what's written above but some of it) and a proposed intersection - a line drawing, joining the two pieces with an additional prop in the form of a fish in the father's hand, which he is dangling playfully just above the child's hand.
3. The father

The Art Institute has some very insightful "liner notes" that make the experience more meaningful. Also, I was lucky to catch the tail end of a lecture that was being given to high-school students about this piece so managed to gain a little extra information.

Spent the day at the Art Institute of Chicago - obviously I am aging as I didn't RUN to the Contemporary/Modern galleries. Meandered very leisurely through European Painting ... and took in loads of Manet, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh ...

Bartolomeo Manfredi's "Cupid Chastised" was really awesome. Mars, the god of war, beats the crap out of Cupid for having caused his affair with Venus, which exposed him to the derision of the other gods.

Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" was spectacular. He is surely the ultimate pixel pusher.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge renditions were very bizarre and intriguing. Lucian Freud's "8 Legs" was a bit weird and disturbing. A naked figure poses awkwardly on a bed holding a dog. Another pair of legs protrudes from under the bed. The dog is asleep, but the man holding her is awake and staring away from the viewer. Huh?????

Got a super surrealism fix - Dali, Duchamp, Magritte - loved Dali's "A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano".

Marc Chagall has done a fantastically huge tribute to America in stained glass and celebrates the greatness of the United States and acclaims it as a country of freedom, liberty, culture and religious tolerance. Good thing for Chagall that he's dead and doesn't have to suffer through what America has now come to represent.

Quickly raced through an interesting exhibition - Intimate Encounters: Paul Gauguin and the South Pacific which marks the centenary of Paul Gauguin's (1848 -?1903) death by celebrating the Art Institute's recent gift from a Chicago collector of 40 drawings and prints by the great Post-Impressionist artist. Represented are works created during his first Tahitian sojourn (1891-93), the Paris interlude (1893-95), and his final years in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands (1895-1903). This body of work reveals the artist's search to put a face on the South Pacific culture he encountered during his last years.

Warhol's giant portrait of "Mao", nearly 15 feet in height was very powerful. Andy Warhol strove to examine every aspect of mass culture through silkscreened images of products, celebrities and political figures.

OK. The art in the museum is phenomenal. However, at no moment in time did I have a sense of where I was and where I could potentially go next. It was a totally disconcerting maze and I nearly missed the modern/contemporary galleries altogether. I could never decipher the Floor Plan and as a result was drifting from one space to the next like a lost soul. For years, we have, as creators of interactive virtual realities, striven to reproduce the museum experience. WELL, as an Information Architect, I was constantly conscious of the complete lack of Info Architecture in the Art Institute and longed for a navigational structure of some kind, breadcrumb trails, You Are Here, sensible cross-selling, contextual links ... I also really believe that sometimes less is more and the hugeness of all things American really boggles my brain.

Will hyperlink images to the above references at some point.

Cheers!!
:-)

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Feel a bit dreadful not posting for days on end. Can see Ejaz's finger wagging in contempt ;-)

Am in Chicago - just finished attending User Experience 2003. Met my heroes - died and went to heaven - and am just about heading back. Of the three gods, Jakob Nielsen was basic and boring. Donald Norman was extremely intellectually stimulating and stirred a number of brain cells and sent them running in all directions. The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design were great fun. It was refreshing to take a step back from sitemaps, wireframes, project plans, and deadlines, and think about the work we do a little tangentially - but certainly very relevant.

Ejaz, in case you are wondering ... Peter Morville's Information Architecture 1 was not bad - but nothing great that we don't already know.

Tog! Now, what can I say without sounding like an unabashed groupie. Meeting him made my entire trip worthwhile within 10 minutes. He was everything I had imagined and much much more. To him we owe everything that's human(e) about the Mac OS. He's so anally INTO interface design that it excited every pore of my being. Attended a full day class with him and was shattered when it ended. The last day was with Jakob but I was bored to tears and jumped ship and landed in Tog's Visioneering (Vision + Engineering) class and I felt whole again. He really made us work and think and work and think.

All in all - Tog and Donald Norman + meeting a whole bunch of other conference attendees was a blast and a half. Mac users ruled! We were everywhere! The hotel had WiFi hotspots so Airport cards were being tested to the hilt. Worked really well - seamless.

Post-conference - am just chilling ... it's great not to have to do anything in particular. Got a new Po Bronson and Doug Coupland books, in addition to a whole bunch of others. Should never go into Borders.

Peace!

Monday, September 08, 2003

Rumi sukhanay-e-kufr na guftast na goyed
Kas dar hama aalam
Kafir shavad aan kas ba inkaar baraamad
Mardood-e-jahaan shud

Rumi has spoken in denial,
And none in the wide world speaks or spoke thus,
Those who came out in denial are cast out,
And become rejects, world-wide.

Kudos to Sadruddin Hashwani for organizing a series of qavvalis in memory of Munshi Raziuddin. Recently attended the Karachi event which rocked! Farid and Abu were great and the troupe had obviously practised. The only minor issue was the lack of Farsi but anyway ... no big deal. Some chap in Islamabad had done a wonderful painting of Munshi Jee - captured the essence of the man - impish, inquiring, intense, intelligent ...

The Karachi Arts Council is hosting a memorial qavvali on the 9th of September at 9:00 p.m.

Today has been a roller-coaster: fun, irritating, exhilarating, stressful, uplifting, tiring ... yesterday, I listened to a tape from the KGS days - Age 13. Bon Jovi before they became lame, Electric Dreams, Candy's Room. Shed a couple of tears for those days and actually missed school for the first time since I left in a huff at 16.

Monday, September 01, 2003

I met this random dude and he was like, you know, whatever ...

Do we really sound like this?

hehe ...

Nothing is sacred.

It's one of those days when one sits around waiting for something to go wrong and nothing does and then you're like, why is everything going so well? Am beginning to realize that I thrive on a life fraught with chaos, stress, and tension. Anyway, let's not mock the peacefulness of this day and instead, use this time to stop and smell the flowers and not take ourselves so seriously.

Saturday, August 30, 2003

From the back-cover of Adbusters, a little message for Nike ...

JAM ON ...

As for those well-intentioned souls who believe that the Amazon's, eBay's and Nestle's even out the WorldCom's and Enron's; I have just two words: GROW UP. Enron, with a little help from its accountants, was just stupid enough to get caught. The foundation upon which corporations are built and the basis upon which they thrive, with a little help from the government and military forces, leaves little room for values and decency. Let's not be delusional ...

"In the councils of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
[ Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 ]

By no means should this imply that there is no hope or that nothing can be done about the terrifying power that corporations exert. Empires will topple, provided we confront them.

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Someone's been pestering me to switch to MT for days and finally I decide to get round to it ... Lo & Behold ...
Host name lookup for 'www.moveabletype.org' failed ...
Sorry Ejaz. Maybe another day ...

Can't fathom why Apple's Safari, which is such a killer browser (super-fast and cool tabbed windows), cannot handle https:// via a proxy server. Manages fine on dialup so whatthe$%%^!! Why don't they fix it? Dying for Version 2.0 - Was in such a daze this morning while booking a Chicago-Washington-Chicago ticket online that didn't think to do this in Internet Explorer. So, went 3/4 of the way through the process and of course, Safari freaked when payment time arrived. This sentence doesn't sound very coherent but what the hell ... Had to start over with IE. Then Southwest's form did not like the "/" I used in the address field so it growled and sent me back ... by this time the Session had expired!!! BONK!!! Hope the Southwest folk who built the site are coming to User Experience 2003. But actually, to be fair, the site's quite useable.

What else ... Our city continues to bleed and we continue to stand by and watch the potholes get deeper and our generals get fatter.

Wondering if I should get Seth Godin's Purple Cow ...

4 guys gang-raped a 10 year old child!
W H A T K I N D O F P E O P L E A R E T H E S E?
This is to be uttered dull, monotone style like Charlotte Corday in Marat/Sade [what a phenomenal film].

Windows XP has a real problem with multimedia projectors and MPEG movies. Windows 98 doesn't.

Latest inspiration: Anita Roddick. If 1 in 20 business leaders had hearts and minds, the world would be different. Still shattered about losing my military-industrial complex article. Have all the resources but lost the actual text file that I was writing in. BUMMED!

The oil continues to spill ...

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

en�vy
n. pl. en�vies

A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.

--------------------

There are only two phenomena that arouse this feeling in me.

1. Arundhati Roy's political writings
2. Mac OS Programmers (the really geeky but eccentric variety)

To recover from the incompetence and mediocrity that surrounded me this morning, spent 1 hour reading Unsanity's blog. Fun all the way ... love your haxies. Stuff that really should've been embedded in X but Apple decided to leave out just to shatter our already frayed nerves.

A little more about the Farid Ayazuddin Qavaal Group sans Munshi Raziuddin ... watched a video last night that we recorded in February 2003. Realised with startling poignancy, the role of musical conductors. He maintained discipline with subtlety, raised the benchmarks of the performance consistently, wasn't willing to accept any goofups, and just kept everything together ... what an institution. His trademark gestures just made me weep. I wonder if Farid will be able to make the transition gracefully. May just go overboard which would be tragic.