Monday, December 31, 2012

Goodbye 2012

hamaaraa kyaa hai ke ham to chiraagh-e-shab kii tarah
agar jale bhii to bas itanii raushanii hogii
ke jaise tund andheron kii raah mein juganuu
zaraa sii der ko chamake chamak ke kho jaaye
phir is ke baad kisii ko na kuchh sujhaaii dey
na shab kaTe na suraagh-e-sahar dikhaaii de
hamaaraa kyaa hai ke ham to pas-e-Gubaar-e-safar
agar chale bhii to bas itanii raah tay hogii
ke tez havaao.n kii zard maail naqsh-e-qadam
zaraa sii der ko ubhare ubhar ke mit jaaye
phir us ke baad na raastaa na rah_guzar mile
hadd-e-nigaah talak dasht-e-bekinar mile
hamaarii simt na dekho ke koii der mein ham
qabiilaa-e-dil-o-jaan judaa hone vaale hai.n
base basaaye huye shahar apanii aa.Nkho.n ke
misal-e-khaanaa-e-viiraan ujarne vaale hain
havaa kaa shor ye hii hai to dekhate rahanaa
hamaarii umar ke Khemein ukharaney vaale hain 


-- Mohsin Naqvi

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

December :(

Tumhari zulfe'n.
Tumhari palke'n.
Tumhari aankhe'n.
Tumhara chehra.
Tumharey shaanay.
Suraahi gardan.

Kalaayyon main khanaktay kangan.
Hinai haathon ki ungliyon ki haseen poore'n.
K jin main sandal mehek rai hai.
Ye narm saa'nsoo'n ki gungunahat.
Qadam uthao tu dhardkane'n.
Sath chordti hain.
Badan ka hr zaawiya qayamat.
Nahi tumhari misaal Jana'n.
Kamaal ho tum kamaal Jana'n.
Tumhara sb kuch haseen hai, laa-jawaab hai pr.
Mera nahi hai.
Tumhara kuch bhi mra nahi hai........!


Syed Wassi Shah - Mujhey Sandal ker do . ..
 

Monday, December 24, 2012

Thursday, December 6, 2012

John: Dance? 
Diana: I should go. 
John: I remember once when I was young, and I was coming back from some place, a movie or something. I was on the subway and there was a girl sitting across from me and she was wearing this dress that was bottoned queer up right to here, she was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And I was shy then, so when she would look at me I would look away, then afterwards when I would look back she would look away. Then I got to where I was gonna get off, and got off, the doors closed, and as the train was pulling away she looked right at me and gave me the most incredible smile. It was awful, I wanted to tear the doors open. And I went back every night, same time, for two weeks, but she never showed up. That was 30 years ago and I don't think that theres a day that goes by that I don't think about her, I don't want that to happen again. Just one dance? 
 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Rickshaw Message

Rickshaw advertisement

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Management: The Bozo Definition

from peopleware, Tom DeMarco:

Management is a complex enough thing to defy simple definition, but that nuance was lost on one senior manager we encountered at a professional society meeting in London. He summed up his entire view of the subject with this statement: "Management is kicking ass."

This equates to the view that managers provide all the thinking and the people underneath them just carry out their bidding. Again, that might be workable for cheeseburger production, but not for any effort for which people do the work with their heads rather than their hands. Everyone in such an environment has got to have the brain in gear. You may be able to kick people to make them active, but not to make them creative, inventive, and thoughtful.

Even if kicking people in the backside did boost their short-term productivity, it might not be useful in the long run: There is nothing more discouraging to any worker than the sense that his own motivation is inadequate and has to be "supplemented" by that of the boss.

The saddest thing about this management approach is that it's almost always superfluous. You seldom need to take Draconian measures to keep your people working; most of them love their work. You may even have to take steps sometimes to make them work less, and thus get more meaningful work done.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Half Drawn Arrow ...


Na ganvao navak-e-neem kash, dil-e-reza reza ganva dia
Jo bachay hain sang samet lo, tan-e-dagh dagh luta dia
Mere charagar ko naveed ho, saf-e-dushmana ko khabar karo
Woh jo qarz rakhtay thay jaan par, woh hisab aaj chuka dia
Karo kaj jabeen pe sar-e-kafan, mere qatilon ko guman na ho
Ke ghuroor-e-ishq ka baankpan, pas-e-marg hum ne bhula dia
Udhar aik harf ki kushtni, yahan laakh uzr thaa guftni
Jo kaha toh sun ke ura dia, jo likha toh parh ke mita dia
Jo rukay toh koh-e-garan thay hum, jo chalay toh jan se guzar gaye
Rah-e-yaar hum ne qadam qadam, tujhay yadgaar bana dia

Translation

Do not waste (your) half drawn arrow, (I have already) lost (broken pieces of my) heart.
Collect and save the left-over stones, (my) injured or wounded body is (already) wasted

Let my health giver know, let the procession of foes know
He whose soul was indebted, has settled his dues today

Keep the burial shroud atilt on (my) forehead, lest my assassin may have misgivings
(that) Pride of self-importance or arrogance of love, I forgot after death.

On that side there was one word ˜killâ, on my side there were hundred thousand reasons (to explain why I behaved the way I did)
What (I) said (you) heard, not paid attention ; what (I) wrote (you) you read and erased

(I am) mountain when I stop; (I am) beyond life when I walk
I have, (turned) every step on the path of the beloved into a memorial

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

source

Monday, January 30, 2012

Thursday, January 26, 2012

a quote on Perception

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Friday, January 20, 2012

SOPA & PIPA explained.

What is SOPA & PIPA?
At its core, the Stop Online Piracy Act is an anit-piracy bill making its way throughout Congress. Introduced by Republican House Judiciary Committee Chair Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011, the bill calls for intellectual property (IP) owners (movie studios, record labels) to have the ability to shut down any foreign site that violates their intellectual property and copyrights. The Protect IP Act, SOPA's Senate equivalent, is meant to give the same power to companies that make physical goods that are being counterfeited and sold over the Internet. The bill's supporters claim that both bills are aimed at foreign companies that are illegally making money using U.S.-made goods.

How will this affect me?

If passed, SOPA and PIPA will give corporations the power to censor the Internet as they see fit. If Sony Pictures discovers that a certain website is allowing users to download The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it can demand that the site's ISP block access to users, that Google remove the site's links from its search results, and that companies stop running their ads on the site. Or, if Sony realizes that a certain website is allowing users to download music from one of its artists illegally, it can have that site shut down.

But can't they already do that? Look at what happened to OnSmash.

True. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), there are laws on the books to that make it a crime to pirate copyrighted material. We've recently seen the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) go after a number of websites it believed was pirating copyrighted material or selling counterfeit goods in the name of the DMCA. However, many of the seizures conducted by ICE were of dubious legality and are currently under investigation. With, SOPA and PIPA, there will be no need for legal recourse because it will all be legal. What's more, the copyright holders will only need to have it on "good faith" that certain websites are violating their rights. All of which could lead to an Internet Black List: A list of websites created by IP owners that are believed to be breaking the law. 

Damn, that's crazy. People will figure out a way around it, though, right?

It is crazy. And you're right, we're sure the legions of hackers will figure out a way to circumvent whatever happens, just as The Pirate Bay has been able to do time and time again. However there's a provision in SOPA that will allow the government to shut down any site that gives users a way to go around the blocks and censorships. Also, as Gizmodo points out, if you were to send out a tweet or email that links to a torrent site with illegal content , Twitter and your email provider will be legally obligated to delete the tweet. And that will go for any social media outlet. Free speech will grind to a halt.

What can I do?

The bills are scheduled to stand for vote on January 24th. You can contact your congressman or congresswoman and let 'em know that you oppose the bill. There are a number of websites, like American Censorship and SOPA Strike, that make it easy for you to do so.

The term SOPA may have meant absolutely nothing to you until Wednesday, Jan. 19, when you attempted to use Wikipedia to figure out what exactly the Cuban Missile Crisis was or who won the 1959 World Series.

So what is SOPA? Other than the reason some of your favorite websites were blacked out for a day, SOPA, is the Stop Online Piracy Act, and its partner in crime is the Protect IP (Intellectual Property) Act, or PIPA. The two are bills, except SOPA is in the House and PIPA is in the Senate. PIPA was approved in May by a senate committee and is now pending before the whole senate, CNN reported. Their purpose is simple: stop foreign-based websites from selling pirated movies, music and other products, the Wall Street Journal reported.

With these bills, the federal government would have the authority to shut down US based websites that offer pirated content, although they won’t be able to do that to foreign sites. The bills will attempt to stop piracy simply from preventing US companies from providing funding, advertising, links or other assistance to foreign sites, the WSJ reported.

While the new rules seem simple enough, many argue that this form of censorship is actually harming Americans’ right to free speech. Internet companies feel the bills will not only promote censorship of the world wide web, it will take away their ability to innovate, as well as the web’s natural infrastructure, the Washington Post reported.

Plus, the legislation is so broad in the House bill SOPA it could allow content owners to target US websites that don’t even know they are hosting pirated content, such as Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia, the WSJ reported.

The bill’s main backer is the Motion Picture Association of America, which estimates 13 percent of adults in the United States have watched some form of illegal copies of movies or television shows on the Internet, which costs media companies billions of dollars.

Motion Picture Association of America, the legislation's main backer, estimates 13% of American adults have watched illegal copies of movies or TV shows online, and it says the practice has cost media companies billions of dollars.

In response to the bill possibly being passed, Internet hot sports such as Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing blacked out their sites yesterday in protest of SOPA and PIPA. The blackout and public outcry that followed did seem to change the mind of some lawmakers, CNN reported.
"We can find a solution that will protect lawful content. But this bill is flawed & that's why I'm withdrawing my support. #SOPA #PIPA," Republican Sen. Roy Blunt tweeted, CNN reported.

One of PIPA’s cosponsors, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also yanked his support of the bill after the blackout.

"I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet," Rubio wrote on a Facebook post, CNN reported.

In total eight US lawmakers withdrew their support from the bill, and 8 million people followed the instructions of their favorite websites by contacting their local politicians, BBC reported.