Friday, April 25, 2008

Twenty20 taking over?

Sure, it was fun for a while but hasn't this Twenty20 thing gone too far? I mean it's great for entertainment and all, and sponsors love it on the evidence of the recent ICL and IPL series, but come on, it's not cricket!

BBC Sport published this story - Twenty20 'to conquer world sport' - on their website today. It is an interview with Allen Stanford, a billionaire who thinks that Twenty20 can turn out to be the most lucrative sport in the world!

I can understand why Mr. Stanford and several other businessmen and women are excited about this latest money-making prospect, but too much Twenty20 will take the excitement away in my opinion. With the way the interest in holding more tournaments is growing, it might end up seriously damaging the sport altogether. Your thoughts please.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Girl Power Surge in Pakistan

If you stay informed of the latest happenings in IT in Pakistan, then you must remember that little girl Afrah Shafquat, who became the youngest Sun-certified Java Programmer in the world at the tender age of 11 years in 2002. I remember seeing her at PDC 2005, the last one I attended and couldn't help but notice how small she was for doing computer programming, let alone completing certifications! Well, she's continued to make great strides culminating in the form of an MIT scholarship that she's just won. Congratulations to her and her family who must be very proud!

You can read the article on ArabNews website here:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=11&section=0&article=108734&d=8&m=4&y=2008

Previously, her elder sister Afsah had also won a scholarship from MIT last year. More on that on the same website:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=11&section=0&article=76009&d=8&m=8&y=2006

It is so refreshing to see something positive being reported about Pakistan for a change. With all the doom and gloom that's been surrounding the country of late, this couldn't have come at a better time.

I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.

Click here to read the full story at TimesOnline.co.uk

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A mix of Illiteracy and dogmatism

Read this entry:
Tamache Mullah goes on air

Courtesy: The Dawn Blog

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Cartoons about Bush




Artist: David Horsey. More at SeattlePi.com

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

April Fools' Day on the web

Barring the April Fool prank pulled on us by our own KMB guys (which was good btw), here are some other of the "believable" pranks witnessed around the web on April 1, 2008:

YouDigg - A new collaboration between YouTube and Digg where users can now digg videos to the frontpage.

BBC's Flying Penguins - Film maker and writer Terry Jones discovers a colony of penguins, which are unlike any other penguins in the world - they can fly!

ThePirateBay - They're moving to Egypt - in the middle of nowhere!

Google's Project Virgle - First human colony on Mars! Want to be part of it?

Gmail Custom Time - Apparently, you can now send emails with custom timestamps - in the past.

Google Docs' Paper Plane - They've added a "New Paper Airplane" option to the File menu for Google Docs' word processor, which produces a template for folding an official Google paper plane. This was genuinely funny!

Google Future Search aka Gday - Search into the future with Google's latest innovation.

InfoWorld - Microsoft and Yahoo agree on buyout price. Gotta admit, we half-expected this prank.

PostgreSQL Ends - They announeced they're going down for good (remind you of anything?)

I hope you were able to see the funny side, I know I did :). For a full listing of all pranks pulled on this date, check our this page. Some events were mistaken for a prank, due to the date, most notably the standardization of Office OpenXML format. I guess they forgot what the date was, like me when I found out KMB was no more and jotted down a post before checking the calendar :P

KMB Gone

Another shining example of the restive and quarrelsome populace of Karachi and our great country who can't manage to sit together and indulge in a goddamn civilized discourse. Karachi MetBlogs, which used to be an epicenter of all things Karachi, and one of the few places on the web I used to visit regularly, is closing down. The MetBlogs' admins in LA posted this entry a while ago announcing its closure.

Our belligerence knows no bounds apparently.

R.I.P KMB.

Update 1 [1 PM]: I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but the fact that this occurred on APRIL 1 cannot be discounted!

Update 2 [11 PM]: Damn! It is an April Fool Prank!