ch ch (tsk tsk)

The website of FAST NU, an university based in Islamabad was hacked and a not-too-rude message left - this is what the site looked like at 1200 GMT on 28 Mar '06





 

a kiss on the cheek

"A Kiss on the Cheek" was penned by a fellow giki alumnus

"I was no different. Having despised arranged marriages with all my body and soul, I was now all set to go home and get married to this I-know-nothing-about girl. Is this where it all ends?"

"'Hey, my wife-to-be is beautiful. OK!!. So is Catherine Zeta Jones and so is that lady who reads the financial news on CNN. Does this mean that now I have to spend the rest of my life with one of them? A big emphatic NO!!!!'"
link

On a related note... (the guy on the left is Asok, an Indian programmer living in USA)

sweet victory

I am a huge fan of spongebob squarepants, the fantastic "sponge who lives under the sea"

This is my fave moment from the show. It is the last scene from the episode "Band Geeks"

"Squidward gets a call from his high school classmate, Squilliam Fancyson. He's very successful and succeeded in everything that Squidward failed in. He says that Squidward's band has to play instead of his own at the Bubble Bowl, but Squidward doesn't have a band. So he makes one! On the first day of practice, a fight breaks out. On day two, the flag corps twirl the flags around so fast that they propell themselves into the air and crash into a blimp, which explodes. A trumpeter then plays "Taps." On the day of the concert, Squilliam insults the band. Squidward turns his head away from the band before they begin, assuming that the performance will be a disaster, but the band is successful. Amazingly, both Mr. Krabs and Plankton play in the same band during the course of this episode."

they fight crime

Auto-crime-fighter-duo-punchline generator

"He's a war-weary drug-addicted barbarian on a mission from God. She's a violent kleptomaniac politician in the wrong place at the wrong time. They fight crime!"

"He's an impetuous crooked cat burglar for the 21st century. She's a plucky belly-dancing femme fatale from Mars. They fight crime!"

He's an obese flyboy cyborg on the hunt for the last specimen of a great and near-mythical creature. She's an enchanted motormouth queen of the dead from out of town. They fight crime!

a first

The rest of the world is constructing tall buildings, Pakistan has decided that it would rather destroy the heavens....
click the image to see the enterprise behind such this ignobile scheme

muslim scientists

The science textbooks in Pakistan always start off with a chapter on science in Islam and the contribution of Muslim scientists to our understanding of the world and the universe. But like all government approved textbooks, the information is presented in such a droll and boring manner that you don't feel like reading the next paragraph.

The Independent has run a very interesting article on the contribution of Muslim to science. The article is supplements an exhibition, "1001 Inventions" about science in the ancient Muslim world in Manchester, UK.

"The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139." The image is of Al-Idrisi's world map from 1154. Note that south is at the top of the map




"In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers Abbas ibn Firnas tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes". One of the craters on the moon is named after Abbas Ibn Firnas The image is from a US navy site of the Ibn Firnas Crater... yeah, I have no idea either what the Navy has to do with the moon


 

dubya in pk

Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, which also runs on CNN, joked about Bush's visit to India and Pakistan - link to video

Many of Stewart's shows can be seen on youtube, which seems to be the first serious video publishing & boradcasting site. I wonder how long will it take for yahoo to acquire it.....

A must watch is Stewart's bashing of CNN's Cross Fire show who pride themselves on running a tough, in-your-face kind of program. He talks about how programs like Cross Fire actually help politicians run away with falsehoods due to the hosts's flip-flop interviewing methadology

Jon Stewart gave a commencement speach at his alma-mater in May, 2004 - a transcript is available here which is again a must read

Stewart regularly lampoons the atrocious Bill O' Reilly. The latter was brave enough to come on his show once leading to a very funny interview. Bill O' Reilly once said that the viewers of the Daily Show were "stoned slackers", so someone did some research and guessed what they came up with? Daily Show viewers were the better educated than O' Reilly watchers and knew more about world politics than people who did not watch Daily Show at all

what is a remix

It's pretty difficult to explain the difference between a good remix and a lame attempt to make a song that sounds similar to the original.

Lame remix attempt:

Jal's original Lamhey and Atif's Bheegi Yadein

True Remix:

Jal's original Aadat and Jal's Bikhra Hoon Main

(a free subscription at sangeetradio is required to download the wma files)

Jal became super-famous for their song "Aadat" in Pakistan in 2002. The lead singer of the band, Atif Aslam, went solo after a highly publicised breakup with half the fans siding with Atif and the other half supporting the writer of the song "Aadat", Goher Mumtaz. Trust a Pakistani not to look at the bigger picture and break off to do their own thing as soon a couple of bucks start pouring in

Atif ripped off quite a few songs and decided to release them as his own, receiving a lot of flak as a result. Most of his songs were badly composed and only his strong, though poorly executed vocals supported the songs

crop circle on ggl

Came across this on Google's API/Code Blog. Click the image to go to the maps page.

Crop circles are a matter of interest for many people who believe they are either messages by extra-terrestials or the result of unknown atmospheric phenomena - a very good article on crop circles can be seen at wikipedia





 

the servile indian

Kipling's take on Clash of the Civilizations.

Its not good for the Christian health to hustle the Asian Brown;
for the Christian riles,
and the Asian smiles
and he weareth the Christian down;
and the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
with the name of the late deceased,
and the epitaph drear,
"A fool lies here, who tried to hustle the east"

Rudyard Kipling

Kipling lived and worked for a long time in what is now Pakistan at the Mayo School of Arts, now called the National College of Arts. At that time, South Asians were supposed to be servile, back-stapping, cheating, lying people. In 1962, an American diplomat, JK Galbraith wrote that an “Indian would kick if you lick (him) and will lick (you) if you kick”.

Remembering the government approved text books which used to teach (read brainwash) us about the "ideology" of Pakistan (muslims are good, hindus evil etc., Pakistan has always been stabbed in the back by India /Afghanistan /Iran /USA etc.), the message that used to come across was that Pakistanis, being Muslims, have always been very brave and confident, whereas the Indians have always been a conniving, cheating people. A chapter in my 9th grade history book told the true story of Shiva Ji who convinced Afzal Khan, the leader of an attacking Muslim army to meet him unarmed and the repeatedly stabbed him, thus rendering all Indians/Hindus back-stabbers for life in the eyes of all Pakistanis/Muslims

This kind of thinking led Shaan, a top Pakistani actor to make a film called Moosa Khan (now banned). The film is set "in some time warp suggesting a pseudo colonial subcontinent... Beautiful white doves of peace flutter about in the foreground in idyllic slow motion while an all male choir of angels kicks up a heavenly tune as the audience is introduced to the local Mosque and its saintly Maulvi Mufti.... Meanwhile we are shown that across the way there is a temple where instead of doves of peace, there is a menacing looking python at large along with a group of snarling, drooling old men draped in orange robes, with funky hairstyles who are cringing at the sound of the azaan from the nearby Maulvi." You can read the rest of the excellent review at theHotSpot

This is all fine and dandy but it forced me to think twice when I since I read the story of an officer who fought in the war against India in 1965. He describes about how the Pakistani Army attacked and decimated an Indian platoon and while he was walking about the Indian corpses, a fallen Indian soldier suddenly held his leg and shouted out, "Mubarik ho Sir! Aap ne Hindustan kee behtareen paltan tabah kar dee hai" (Congratulations Sir! You have just managed to destroy only the best platoon in all of India). The officer says he was amazed by the bravery of this young man, who was half-dead and defeated but still talked with such courage. Hopefully, I will come across this anecdote again and mention the reference. If any reader knows about it, please do let me know

gmail rss feed

If you cannot access gmail from your machine (due to corporate/ISP policy etc.) you can atleast read your mailbox by subscribing to gmail's RSS feed

Subscribe to https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom using an RSS reader, I use bloglines and you can read all those important messages you are missing

no blogs in PK

*.blogspot.com was blocked in Pakistan immediately before and during Bush's visit to Pakistan on 4-5 March.

What the n00bs who executed the dumb ban did not know was that you still publish and update your blog since blogger.com is used to write/edit your blog and myName.blogspot.com is used to view it, so you could still rant/rave/abuse all you wanted to, only you could not see it with your own eyes

News reports have stated that the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered the block because a couple of blogs on blogspot.com were hosting the blasphemous caricatures.

"Attorney General for Pakistan, Makhdoom Ali Khan was directed by the apex court to consult technical experts for internet laws as to how the order of the court may be implemented and come up on the next date of hearing."

I am pretty sure the "technical experts" were doofuses with post-grad degrees in some coversion MIT (Masters in IT) degree from some alleyway in downtown Cyprus. Here in Pakistan, a "foreign kee degree" with zilch knowledge is worth much more than a local degree with good IT/CS know-how, specially for a "gore-mant" job

The ban has been lifted, now that Bush has left. This leaves a big question mark as to the real reason of the ban. Maybe in their super-conspiratorial frame of mind, the government imagined that a "fundo" would get his motivation for an attack from ABC.blogspot.com.... unbelievable!!