Moby Gratis

As usual, Moby kicks ass. He has released 44 of his instrumental tracks for use by independent, non-profit, and student film makers. These tracks, available for download from mobygratis.com, are free for non-commercial use and, should you want to use them for a commercial film, there's an "easy licence" that lets you do that as well. [Via TriggerStreet]

Oh, and in case you don't already know, his blog (which I've been reading for many, many years now) kicks ass too.

Too Many Movies

I have too many movies to watch and not enough time (or money!) to watch them all. Which is sad. My current list includes (in order, I think):

The list is in order of preference, but I might have to adjust it depending on which of those movies (like Stardust, for example) doesn't have much time left at the cinema we regularly go to. Yes, life is complicated.

Statement by Yale Law School

As statements go, the one made by Yale Law School regarding the rule of law in Pakistan (or lack thereof) kicks ass:
We, the undersigned lawyers, deans, professors, law students, and law school administration and staff denounce in the strongest terms General Pervez Musharraf's recent assault on the rule of law in Pakistan. By suspending the Constitution; dissolving the Supreme Court and the provincial High Courts and replacing them with judges of his own choosing; engaging in arbitrary and unprovoked arrests of thousands of opposition leaders, journalists, and other law-abiding citizens; and violently suppressing protests by hundreds of lawyers who were acting in the highest tradition of our profession, General Musharraf is trampling upon the very system of law that alone can justify a ruler’s power over his people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow lawyers and the democratic values that they represent, and we urge an early restoration of legality and legitimate authority in Pakistan.

And boy is that "undersigned" list a long one!

[Via the LUMSBlog]

Pining Away for a Tablet PC

Great. A month after I hypothetically decide to get the Fujitsu T4220 convertible tablet PC over the Lenovo X61T, Warner Crocker from GottaBeMobile goes and writes about his love affair with his X61.

To make matters worse, one my classmates at MBS, who sits right in front of me in one of my classes, has a gorgeous X61 (non-tablet) that is in my direct line of sight for three hours every week. *sigh*

So now I'm conflicted over my choice of tablet PC. And this is over a hypothetical purchase, dammit! Imagine what it'll be like when I actually buy a darned convertible tablet PC! :) I guess I need to see someone using or writing about the T4220 to restore my sense of balance!

In all seriousness, though, as my current study term heads for the home stretch (less than 4 weeks to go!) I think back sadly over all the productivity-increasing opportunities that I missed because I didn't have a tablet PC this term. And there were many of them.

The biggest issue, obviously, was with mobility. There were times when I had to be moving around all day -- between lecture theatres, syndicate rooms, the library, etc. -- with a heavy laptop on my shoulder. One that is also big and bulky and so doesn't easily fit into my locker either. Then there were times when I couldn't simply whip out my laptop, whenever and wherever I was, in order to get a little bit of work done. Instead, I was forced to adjust the rest of my life around appropriate laptop-using opportunities. That is, I would schedule all my laptop-related tasks in batches because I knew the settling down would only be worth it if I had at least a half hour's worth of stuff to do. And batching is never good if you need to get lots of little tasks done during the day. However, most modern laptops would have done well on the mobility part (covering most of my needs), which is why there's the other issue.

The other issue was with note-taking and, generally, living a paperless life. There were times, for example, when I had to take complex notes in class, frequently erasing, re-drawing, and squeezing words closer and closer to the edge of my sheet of notepaper. It was only the humble pencil and eraser that saved me there. Then there were times when I had so much reading material to go through that I had to carry my reading packs in a second bag. That too in the rain! A tablet PC and a high-speed scanner like the Fujitsu Scan Snap (to batch scan all of my reading pack material) would really have helped me then.

There were other issues, of course, but those two were the biggest. I guess I'll have to live with them for just a little longer. Oh well.

Perspective on the Pakistan Situation

Dr. Muqtedar Khan posted a really good article on the Pakistan situation on altmuslim yesterday. He makes a number of interesting points and gives a good overview of what's going on. Especially this bit (which relates to my earlier post on the situation):
Even some of the secular elite who have supported Musharraf's undemocratic ways are becoming wary of his high-handedness. They appreciated his enlightened approach to Islam and saw him as a force that while subverting democracy minimally (only at the top, since the rest of Pakistan's governments, local and national, were elected), nurtured a degree of secularity and religious freedom necessary against the rising tide of Taliban-style Islamism. But what they have finally ended up with is more Islamic militancy with extremist violence, and less and less democracy.

And he makes a good point that didn't occur to me:
[Pakistan's] ability to retain liberal political institutions even under military dictatorship is an important characteristic that we must keep in mind as we watch the current spiraling sequence of political disasters in Pakistan.

Let's see how his conclusion pans out, though:
Washington cannot and will not abandon Musharraf. Indeed his move, which brings Pakistan closer to collapse, basically forces Washington to stand behind him more firmly, albeit unhappily. In the end, the current crisis can be diffused if an early rapprochement between Musharraf and the Pakistani Supreme Court can be arranged. It is here that Benazir Bhutto can play a role and reestablish herself as a major player both at home and in the eyes of the US.

Here's hoping things work out sooner rather than later.

Rowling Talks Harry Potter

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago but I got busy. Rebecca Traister wrote a good article on Salon that discussed the pros and cons of J.K. Rowling continuing to talk about the characters and various subplots of her Harry Potter books even after the last one has been published:

I am a devoted reader and admirer of J.K. Rowling, and it honestly pains me a bit to say this, but from a literary perspective, she's out of control here. Her abundant generosity with information is surely a response to a vast, insatiable fan base that does not have a high tolerance for never-ending suspense, ambiguity or nuance. As she told the "Today" show's Meredith Vieira back in July, "I'm dealing with a level of obsession in some of my fans that will not rest until they know the middle names of Harry's great-great-grandparents."

She's not the first to do this either, explains Traister, since J.R.R. Tolkien did just that for years after he published The Lord of the Rings. At one level, it's downright hard for Rowling to stop telling her story, especially when it's already in her head and, really, there was no real need for her to have ended it where she did (except, of course, for the fact that her most major subplot, well, ended). 

Traister continues:

My brother, an adult reader who has been irritated by Rowling's loquaciousness and was sent over the edge by this latest round of fortune-telling, said to me this weekend, "If she wants to tell us what happens, I wish she would write it in a book, because until she does, then as far as I'm concerned, she's just describing what's showing on the teeny TV screen inside her head, and that's not playing fair."

The problem, of course, is that Rowling has announced that she won't write any more Harry Potter books. Except for an encyclopedia-type book that will catalogue the past, present, and future of her characters in more detail. Sort of like the appendices that Tolkien included with LoTR. In other words, it'll contain all the little tidbits that she is feeding her adoring fans during her US book tour.

What Traister's article boils down to, though, is the question of how much of a story you want to remain untold -- and up to your imagination -- at the end of a book. In this day and age of long-running book series and TV shows than span several seasons, ending your story at what appears to be a relatively arbitrary point -- that is, not when a network executive has canceled it or when you've gone on for eleven seasons and it's time to move on already -- only makes you want more from the author. On the other hand, you really have to stop sometime. In my opinion, then, while I like that Rowling is up for some more storytelling, I do hope she knows when to stop.

Bush Gives Musharraf Tips on Eliminating Democracy

Andy Borowitz wrote a really funny "news report" for the Huffington Post yesterday. In it he says:
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr. Bush said that while he commended General Musharraf's impulse to eliminate democratic institutions, he felt that the military strongman was going about it the wrong way: "When you're getting rid of democracy, the last thing you want to do is tell people you're doing it."

Mr. Bush said that eliminating such things as privacy, freedom of speech and the constitution had to be done "very quietly and stealthy-like."

It's good to be able to laugh at a time like this. Actually, it's good to be able to laugh at any time.

LUMS Professors Arrested

Two faculty members from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), from where I did my undergrad, were arrested as part of the government's crackdown on whoever "opposes" them. They were attending a meeting at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) when the police came a-knockin' an' arrestin'.

Here's a PDF of the press release issued by LUMS (482kB PDF). The arrests are also the main story on the HRCP's website today.

Science Abuse: The Difference Myth

Over the last few years a lot of "scientific" literature (or, at least, science-based literature) has claimed that boys are girls are different because their brains are different. As it turns out, that's not true. Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett write in the Boston Globe:

In the past decade, such claims have coalesced into an almost unshakable conventional wisdom: Boys and girls are different because their brains are different. This idea has driven bestsellers, parenting articles, and even - increasingly - American education.

The problem is, a hard look at the real data behind these claims suggests they are simply untrue. Some of them are baseless, using the language of science to cloak an absence of serious research; others are built on tenuous studies, with methodological flaws and narrow margins of significance. More and more, they are simply coating old-fashioned stereotypes with a veneer of scientific credibility.

It's a long-ish article but it makes a good read. The two authors are currently working on a book called "The Truth About Boys and Girls: How Gender Stereotypes Harm Our Children". That should also be good to read.

It's Martial Law All Over Again

Actions speak louder than words. That's why, for the last few years, I've been giving the benefit of the doubt to Pervez Musharraf and his military government.

In Support of Musharraf

Thus far, many of Musharraf's actions have been nothing short of revolutionary (in a good way), at least in the Pakistani context. For example:

  • The first thing he did when coming to power was, basically, declare that he alone didn't know how to fix the country. He then spent the next few years getting experts to work on the problem and, in the process, brought many of our valuable, brain-drained expatriates back in to Pakistan. That seems to have paid off. Things are going reasonably well for the country. Ultimately, though, it was his original act of humility that endeared him to most of us.

  • He tried to fix local government. People may argue that he could have worked with the system we already had in place but, in my opinion at least, if you want real change (i.e. you really want people to get out of their entrenched way of thinking, acting, and living) you sometimes do have to nuke the existing system and start all over.

  • He successfully weeded a great deal of corruption out of the system (specifically, the government system) and built a number of accountability measures into it as well.

  • He fixed up the economy. Well, at least, improved it significantly (I don't know if anyone can ever "fix" an economy). Again, he did this by getting the right people for the job. Privatization (well, most of it) helped, of course.

  • He tried to fix a lot of basic systems -- like education, transportation, utilities, and telecommunication -- that are crucial to a country's growth and prosperity.

  • He empowered people to think and act for themselves. He got everyone involved in a frank and open discussion on how we should fix the country's problems. And he supported all this by, for the first time in decades, letting the media actually be free.


Of course that's not the whole story. Many of his other actions were suspect. He played both the political game (using one side against the other, building political coalitions when he needed to get stuff done, etc.) and the power game (i.e. trying to consolidate his) and otherwise did a number of things that helped make his rule as absolute as possible. All of which, while needed in order to carry out a successful radical change implementation, are otherwise signs of danger.

However, because he didn't rob us blind like our previous two glorious leaders did and he wasn't an extremist (on either side), his military rule was easier to swallow. And though his being a military man brought with it lots of conflict of interest issues, at least we knew that he was doing things for the good of the country. The military already gets about half of the nation's annual budget. Letting them have that (and a few other perks, should they want them...it's not like we had a choice) was a small price to pay for security, overall political stability, and the economic prosperity we so desperately needed at the time.

The additional problem that Pakistan had -- i.e. maybe doesn't have all that much of anymore -- is a lack of broad-based education, genuine political awareness, and citizen empowerment. All of which are basic prerequisites for a democratic system of government to function properly. Our region of the world also has a long history of being led by dictatorial rulers. In other words, we're used to being ruled by dictators and no one has educated us enough to be ruled otherwise. Musharraf's basic actions -- education, openness, empowerment -- made it appear as if, for the first time in decades, someone one was actually trying to break the cycle (as it had once been broken back when India and Pakistan got their independence). We knew his intentions weren't all that noble, but it was a good compromise.

The final action that made it seems as if all was good was the Supreme Court's reversal of the Chief Justice's dismissal. The way we saw it: the government misguidedly tried to remove its biggest obstacle to absolute power (i.e. a critical Chief Justice) but the rule of law won in the end. Ergo, we finally have a government that, despite all the things it's done wrong, concedes to the rule of law. That, by the way, is a novel concept for Pakistan. Our previous governments have fired Chief Justices, bribed judges, dissolved parliaments, and, in Zia-ul-Haq's case, created a parallel judiciary that supercedes the Supreme Court -- all in order to circumvent the rule of law. Though initially "misguided", Musharraf came out of that fiasco looking pretty good.

Words of Warning from the Wise

Running parallel to all this were the constant warnings by various people -- notably, experts in law, history, government, and politics, many of whom had lived through Pakistan's two previous episodes of martial law -- that a military dictatorship, while bringing short-term stability, ultimately tends to undermine the long-term viability of a truly democratic system of government. That, despite all their positive actions, when push comes to shove, military dictatorships tend to act in surprisingly consistent ways. That is, they do everything they can to retain their absolute power, even if they do think they're doing it for the "good of the people". Naively -- and, really, because we didn't have a choice at the time and we were satisficing -- we didn't listen to these people. Things seemed to be going well, we were making great strides towards the future, and life seemed to be getting rosier.

Things Fall Apart

The last few months in Pakistan has, in many ways, been a big "I told you so" from all these people. Everything they said would happen, has happened. And again, it's the actions that are speaking louder than the words. That is, while at one level, I understand the need for the current declaration of emergency, the government's actions aren't consistent with what it is saying.

We need the emergency declaration because, after a long period of relative peace, the internal security of our country has genuinely been threatened. For example, till earlier this year, we've never had suicide bombers in Pakistan. As far as we were concerned, suicide bombers were either a Japanese or a Middle Eastern concept. Suicide is, literally, one of the worst crimes a Muslim can commit. It's one of the very few crimes that, according to Islamic teachings, has no chance of redemption in the afterlife. Since the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, however, Pakistan has been inundated with Middle Eastern terrorists seeking refuge within our borders. And while they've been here, they've been spreading the good word. In that respect, then, the declaration of emergency was called for. Heck, last week a suicide bomber walked up to a security check post in Rawalpindi and blew himself up! When the heck has that ever happened in Pakistan before? A few months ago there was the whole Lal Masjid fiasco. And then there's the whole military operation in the northern areas that hasn't been going all that well. Yup, that spelled declaration of emergency.

However, if that was all that the declaration of emergency was addressing, things would be okay. Needless to say, there is more. The government has executed a number of actions that undermine its words:

  • It's arrested the heads of all opposition political parties as well as the heads of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (think: Burma, but on a smaller scale).

  • It's dismissed seven (out of seventeen) Supreme Court judges -- including the Chief Justice -- because they refused to take oath under the Provincial Constitutional Order (PCO) that declared the state of emergency.

  • It's gagged the media, shutting down all but the government run television and radio stations. I'm not sure what it's done with the print newspapers. Their Internet sites are up and running, though (see links at the end of the post).

  • It brutally suppressed demonstrations against the PCO in Karachi and Lahore.


And so its words ring hollow in our ears.

I have a theory, though. I think the government knew this was coming. I think the people in power let the violence escalate. I think they planned, well in advance, a lot of what is now being carried out. The minute they were forced to bow down to the rule of law (or maybe even before that), they starting formulating contingency plans. And this is one of them.

All I know is that I've finally taken off my rose coloured glasses. And things don't look so good no more.

Want to Know More?

Take a look at Adil Najam's posting on All Things Pakistan on the Chronology of a Political Meltdown. It helps put things into perspective. Also check out the Watan Dost blog. Both those blogs are worth following, by the way.

The media might be gagged over the airwaves in Pakistan, but the Internet is still free:

  • Dawn, which includes a link to live Dawn News video as well as the configuration parameters for receiving that channel off the satellite

  • Geo TV, which includes a live audio feed and video news bulletins updated hourly

  • The News

Hehe...

I've been ignoring the whole Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week thing that's been going on in the US because...well, duh!, that's what you do to stupid, annoying people. Paying attention only encourages them by giving them the false impression that they are relevant [1]. However, when Bitch PhD wrote this article on SuicideGirls [site generally NSFW], I just had to link to it :)

[1] Unless, of course, they do more than just annoy and do actually become relevant to your life.

Phenomena of/Article on Microblogging

Jason Pontin has a good article in the November/December 2007 issue of the MIT Technology Review on the phenomena of microblogging.

I'm not much of a microblogger myself, at least in the strictest sense of the word, because I don't use Twitter or Jaiku or any of those specialist services. I do, however, update my "status" on Facebook every now and then. And by "every now and then" I mean whenever anything interesting happens in my life. I find it very hard -- and, in many ways -- pointless to be constantly updating some web service with what I am doing, feeling, or thinking at that time. People have better things to do with their lives than knowing, for example, that I am now at the market buying eggs. Or, of course, "watchin' the game, havin' a bud"...which, naturally, begs the question "what are you doing?"...which, in turn, happens to be Twitter's tagline.

My criteria for updating my status, then, is anything going on in my life that can lead to an interesting comment or discussion. Or, if not that, at least something that is funny, interesting, or unusual. Basically, anything that is not mundane, boring, or (blatantly) unoriginal. Unless, of course, that mundane, boring, or unoriginal thing that I'm doing is something I really want to share with my friends and family. In which case, that thing -- in my opinion, at least -- isn't mundane, boring, or unoriginal after all. You get my drift, right?

Start Aside: Blogging (Not of the Micro Kind)

In many ways, I apply the same logic to my blog. Though I do add one more criterion to what I blog about: I blog about things that I don't want to bookmark or don't want to remember to tell people in the future. This post is a case in point. I read a good article on the web that I found interesting. I thought other people would find it interesting too.

In the past, when this happened, my default action would have been to bookmark the site if the article was really interesting (otherwise bookmark volumes get out of hand really quickly), save a copy of the article on my computer (should I want to read it later), and compose an e-mail to friends and family members (who'd be interested in this) in which I'd include a link to the article and my comments. Nowadays, though, I just blog about the article instead. This provides automatic bookmarking (since the article is linked-to from my post), categorization (through tagging), and archival/storage (that too, online). It also makes it easier for my friends and family members since they don't get extra e-mails from me, they can read the article and my comments whenever they want to, and they can comment on my comments as well. Additionally, the group of people that I offer my comments to has also been expanded considerably. Yes, it's fun all around :)

End Aside: Back to Microblogging

That said, there are a lot people out there who love the mundane, the boring, and (really) the unoriginal...which maybe I should now abbreviate to MBO! Which brings me back to Pontin's article:
Sending microblogs broadcasts, "I am here!" Reading microblogs satisfies the craving of many people to know the smallest details of the lives of people in whom they are interested. Already, new-media intellectuals have coined a term to describe the new social behavior they say microblogging encourages: they talk of "presence," a shorthand for the idea that by using such tools, we can enjoy an "always on" virtual omnipresence.

Though what I should really be pointing you to is his conclusion:
I quickly realized that decrying the banality of microblogs missed their very point. As Evan Williams puts it, "It's understandable that you should look at someone's twitter that you don't know and wonder why it should be interesting." But the only people who might be interested in my microblogs--apart from 15 obsessive Pontin followers on Twitter--were precisely those who would be entertained and comforted by their triviality: my family and close friends. For my part, I found that the ease with which I could communicate with those I love encouraged a blithe chattiness that particularly alarmed my aged parents. They hadn't heard so much from me in years.

Which, of course, comes with the caveat:
On the other hand, I strongly disliked the radical self-exposure of Twitter. I wasn't sure it was good for my intimates to know so much about my smallest thoughts or movements, or healthy for me to tell them. A little secretiveness is a necessary lubricant in our social relations.

More from the Harry Potter World

J.K. Rowling, who is on her US book tour these days, revealed quite a bit about the Harry Potter world when she spoke at Carnegie Hall in New York earlier today. Some of the things she revealed were that:

  • Dumbledore was gay (which, naturally, is getting the most press)
  • Neville marries Hannah Abbott (who goes on to be the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron)
  • Draco doesn't owe Harry a life debt

There will be more once we get additional details on what exactly she said at the session. The Leaky Cauldron will upload the full transcript once they have it ready. It'll be best to head straight there.

Supreme Court Gives Gore's Nobel to Bush :)

Sometimes there's nothing funnier than political satire. Andy Borowitz writes in the Huffington Post:

Supreme Court Gives Gore's Nobel to Bush

Just days after former Vice President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on global warming, the United States Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Nobel and awarding it to President George W. Bush instead. [Source]