Software Development

Suppport imprisoned Egyptian blog evanglelist and netactivist Alaa Abd El-Fatah

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During the time I was researching burqas, islamic traditions and feminism in the Middle East for Don't hate her because she's beautiful ... and wears a burqa, I had stumbled upon Alaa Abd El-Fatah through the Drupal developer's e-list and had a peek at his incredible labor of love, Manalaaa.net, a community site dedicated to civil rights, free culture, citizen journalism and open source technology.

Alaa was arrested with 49 other people during a demonstration in support for an independent Egyptian judiciary and against the extension of the Emergency Law that has turned Egypt into a police state.

[via Egyptians in the states protest demanding release of jailed egyptians | Manal and Alaa's bit bucket]:

Dozens of opponents of Egypt's authoritarian government were assaulted and arrested after riot police attacked a demonstration in support of reformist judges who are challenging election fraud. Journalists covering the protests have been attacked and threatened by police, and in a separate incident, the chief of the Al Jazeera TV bureau has also been arrested.

The largest protests took place April 27 as two judges, Hesham al-Bastawissi and Mahmoud Mekky, were due to be brought before a disciplinary panel after they accused the government of fraud in parliamentary elections late last yearï¿½and charged fellow judges with complicity. President Hosni Mubarak's government put a massive number of cops on the street in Cairoï¿½estimated at 10,000 by the New York Times, much larger than the force deployed in the Sinai after three bombing attacks earlier in the week.

One of the judges' supporters, Mohammed Sayed Said, told Al Jazeera, "This display of force is a return to the policies of oppression and to a police state. But all this will not succeed in reimposing a culture of fear. The people have already defeated it and they are ready to pay with their blood for democratic change," At least 50 activists were jailed and are expected to be held for 15 days, according to reports.

» read more | liza's blog | 1 comment | email this blog | 2555 reads

To look back in silence, lightness and love

Something amazing happened last night. I was going to sit down and write this post. The working title was, "Look Back In Anger", and homage to John Osborne's 1956 play. Then, I did some yoga. More exactly, I did the Ali MacGraw - Yoga Mind & Body exercises.

I've been studying yoga on and off for 15 years. I don't do yoga in the sense of a scheduled daily practice; but I do yoga everyday throughout the day as I stand, as I walk, as I breathe. But I did do yoga on a a weekly basis, up until I had Thing #2. There was a time I used to be able to do the exercises in video sequence without batting an eye. I can't these days.

My body, my mind and my soul are living parallel busy lives and have very little time to commune. Mind is cluttered with the cacophony of ideas, anxieties, dreams. Soul has been bettered and bruised with the pain and misery around her but also with the reality of growing old and the heaviness of not knowing if everything she wants is everything she needs. And that has encumbered Body, putting weight and pain and stiffness all around it.

Girl needs quiet, lightness, flexibility. She needs to learn how to move into serenity.

[This is your cue to scream, serenity now.]

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This is the funniest anti-Microsoft campaign ever

Via BoingBoing.

This is one very funny and smart viral marketing campaign. SEE PEOPLE HOW IT'S DONE? I like this so much that I can't decide which of the 13 reasons to switch is the best. Still, I think that #4 takes the prize for most 'truth in tongue'

4. Mozilla doesn't inflate prices and use the money to vaccinate children in Africa.
Uhh... wait a second. Maybe Microsoft's monopoly hasn't been all bad. Better donate to Oxfam. Seriously, you should.

while #5 is just plain funny.

5. If we knew web designers would hurl themselves off it, we wouldn't have put the Golden Gate bridge so close to San Francisco.

Every year, hundreds of web designers take their own lives rather than continue the hopeless struggle of making their websites IE compatible. Is that what you really want?? Dead web designers????? Cause that's what you're going to get!!!!!! See if I care!!!!!!!!!!

For all you little younglings, there was a time when putting browser sniffers on your web pages was a big web standards no-no with Zeldman's of the world frowning down on mere web design mortals who could not slap that bitch into non-tabled CSS validation.

Well, we are at war in more ways than one in this country. Open-source vs. Proprietary is turning into a huge war waged not only in technology but in politics and more so government. Look at the indictments and the impending call for impeachment of Cheney and then Bush.

Transparency, cooperation and open development are going to be huge in 2008. And people will ask the same transparency and democratic reliability with their software.

ps : You can tell I've been dealing with browser hell, can you?
ps2 : I am definitely joining in the Explorer Destroyer campaign.