Musings on the Human Condition

The White House recently switched its content management (CMS) platform to Drupal, the leading open-source CMS. This development puts a major damper on the most frequently cited reason why companies say they prefer commercial software -- SECURITY! Tim O'Reilly provides useful commentary here .

Well-known Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir expounds on the dire situation in Pakistan. As Mir explains (sorry this is in Urdu, not English), the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have completely and thoroughly occupied a large region of Pakistan that is on the border with Afghanistan. He claims that the armies of Pakistan and the US are fraudulently claiming to be fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. In fact, Mir asserts, the armies are active in the fringe areas and do not dare enter the actual strongholds. He challenges politicians to enter the Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds by road and travel even a portion of the 500 km stretch that constitutes the region of Pakistan that Mir claims has been irreversibly occupied by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

The "Highlights" panel on the right is gone. It has been merged into the "News Feed" (see below). This is where Facebook used to display the most interesting posts (photo albums, videos, links, etc) from the last several days. "News Feed" contains posts from the last day or so deemed by Facebook to be most interesting to you. They tend to be either posts that are receiving the most comments/likes, posts that tend to generate the most interest (photos, videos), or posts from friends with whom you interact the most. This is the best option for those who visit Facebook infrequently. "Live Feed" contains posts in chronological order from all your friends, with most recent first. So typically you're only seeing what has been posted in the last hour or two. This is the best option for those who visit Facebook frequently. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that you can hide the newly reintroduced "X and Y are now friends" items in the ...

An abridged version of the song Ranaji , from the movie Gulaal , delivered by one of my favorite singers -- Rekha Bhardwaj. Don't miss the references to 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan!

An excellent review of the intriguing soundtrack for the film Couples Retreat, the latest offering from Mr Rahman.