I have started to dislike Yahoo!, and it is only a matter of time before this disliking turns into hate. Here’s why…
Interview at PakSpectator
The Pakistani Spectator interviewed me last week, you can find the interview here [link]. Though I repeatedly denied being a blogger of the interviewable sort, they wouldn’t listen. Thanks for interviewing me TPS and Ghazala, you made me actually think about things – my brain can use whatever exercise it can get.
The word ‘spectator’ reminds me, I am spectacularly spectacled again. I kept hoping the headaches and blurred vision was somehow Microsoft’s fault (the Visual Studio default font does suck, and the Microsoft Reader font isn’t much better either, ClearType and all) but the ‘bug’ was at my end. I and got myself a new pair of eyeglasses today. Unlike Seth Godin, I just went out and bought the first frame that looked half-decent to me.
Happy Birthday LOGO
It was LOGO’s 40th birthday a couple of days ago. Interestingly, last week, I installed the free version from Microsoft on my laptop and played for a few hours with my son (who is four, has his own computer and prefers playing games to watching TV). We made lines, triangles and squares with turtle graphics, and he grasped the idea of turning and moving the turtle quicker than I expected – I hope its in his genes.
Can we bury the politicians?
<RANDOM_THOUGHT>
I am neither a linguist, nor do I care much for politics, but when ever I think about the events scheduled for this nation in January, the term 'selection' rather than 'election' comes to my mind. Infact, I don't get democracy (as practiced in Pakistan) at all. Whoever devised the whole democracy/voting process probably wasn't an internet user (umm.. yea… hmmm).
As far as I'm concerned, if I am provided with a set of choices, and have to select the one I hate the least, I'd rather opt out of the whole fiasco by NOT voting for anyone. That's a 0 vote… for each such 0 vote, there will probably be two +1 votes. So if 90% of the nation doesn't like any of the candidates, the worst that they can do (besides turning into a candidate) is to NOT vote.
I wish the concept of 'democracy' had a negative vote, so I had the option of a +1 vote to 'dig' or a -1 vote to 'bury' whichever 'candidate' I disliked the least/most respectively. It would have been a big motivation for a lazy person like me (and others as well, I hope) to go out and (un)vote the most likely winner. It would have been fun to learn that the MNA in my area was selected by getting -5 votes.
</RANDOM_THOUGHT>
Pakistani Leader or Pakistani Ruler?
A leader leads, serves and guides, while a ruler governs and rules – people follow a leader, they are dragged and ruled by a ruler.
It never ceases to amaze me when the media refers to our ruler as a 'leader'. Do a google search for 'pakisani ruler' (557 results today) and another one for 'pakistani leader' (124,000 results today). While its true that there have been many real Pakistani leaders that those thousands of websites refer to, why do only 557 (Five hundred and fifty seven only) websites exist that acknowledge that some such thing as a "Pakistani ruler" actually exists?
Pakistani bloggers, please be a bit honest and at least use the correct term in your posts – unless, of course, you think you are being 'led'.
I just changed the wikipedia entry text from 'leader of Pakistan' to 'ruler of Pakistan' in the text:
"After the coup of Pervez Musharraf in 1999, Musharraf assumed the role of Chief Executive, and was the sole ruler of Pakistan."
on the page Prime_Minister_of_Pakistan as the first step. Lets see if it stays that way. Maybe one of you can edit Musharraf's page now.