From jskohli at linux-delhi.org Mon Nov 25 20:28:55 2002 From: jskohli at linux-delhi.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 20:28:55 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A Cryptanalysis of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection System Message-ID: <3DE23AAF.867D6CB2@linux-delhi.org> A Cryptanalysis of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection System http://nunce.org/hdcp/hdcp111901.htm -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid progrX-Mozilla-Status: 0009 Nov 21 22:21:01 2001 X-Mozilla-Status: 0801 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 FCC: /C|/Program Files/Netscape/Users/jskohli123/mail/Sent Message-ID: <3BFBDB75.9BFF6F63 at linux-delhi.org> Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 22:21:01 +0530 From: Jaswinder Singh Kohli X-Mozilla-Draft-Info: internal/draft; vcard=0; receipt=0; uuencode=0; html=0; linewidth=0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: 2600 List <2600 at sarai.net>, Reader-list Subject: Bill to Linus: You Owe Me. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill to Linus: You Owe Me. Did Bill Gates Invent Open Source Software? No, But He'll Take Credit For It, Anyway By Robert X. Cringely Thanksgiving week is always difficult for me. PBS wants my column early, of course, but the real problem is that much of what I write is often lost to readers, obscured by the effects of whatever that chemical is in turkey meat that makes us fall asleep. People simply don't remember what I write that week, which is of course, this week. I have to work all the harder to shock them out of their holiday stupor. So the shocking questions for this week are 1) Is Bill Gates really the father of the Open Source software movement? and; 2) If Bill isn't the father of Open Source, did he violate a crucial IBM nondisclosure agreement and ought to pay billions in damages to Big Blue as a result? It is hard to imagine Bill Gates claiming to have started -- or even helped to start -- the Open Source movement, especially since he has been widely quoted as once describing it as communism. But claiming paternity he kinda, sorta did at Microsoft's recent annual meeting while answering questions from shareholders. Here is the fateful question: "It appears to me that the open source movement is gaining momentum, and as I understand it, the key to success of a software product involves efficiently building an ecosystem of developers and users, resellers, and so forth. Isn't the open source model a more efficient paradigm for building such a community around your products, and isn't perhaps Microsoft maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?" And here is the answer from Bill Gates, or at least the first part of it (the complete answer, which is quite long and circuitous, can be found under one of the "I Like It" links on this page): "Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the BIOS of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that..." I guess we can forget, then, about MITS giving to the world the S-100 bus, Gary Kildall inventing the ROM-BIOS for his CP/M operating system, and Steve Wozniak creating the Apple II as an open architecture with millions of users. Microsoft even made CP/M cards that could be installed in Apple IIs. And all this was years before the IBM PC and PC-DOS were introduced in 1981. The gist of Bill's argument is that Open Source requires a large pre-installed base of genetically identical computers, and that base was provided by DOS and Windows. Okay, maybe we can buy that. But then Bill goes on to claim that the BIOS -- the Basic Input-Output System that sits between the operating system and the computer hardware -- "should be open to everybody to use." Tell that one to IBM, which somehow thought the IBM PC BIOS was their property. They held a copyright on it, after all. Compaq Computer spent over $1 million reverse-engineering the IBM PC BIOS to create the first IBM PC clone. If Microsoft had been working so hard to open up that BIOS, Compaq could have saved their money. What WAS Microsoft's role in opening-up the PC BIOS? If they were, indeed, pioneers in this effort, then they were, as one of my canny readers suggested, violating an IBM non-disclosure agreement, and would have been subject to billions in penalties. That was long ago, and the statute of limitations has expired, so Bill might well be telling the truth, admitting that he had deliberately undermined his old partner, the company that made Microsoft what it is today. Or Bill could be bending the truth a bit, though I can't imagine why. Frankly, neither answer makes Microsoft look very good. I needed another source to help me converge on the truth, so I e-mailed Jack Sams in Florida. Jack was the guy from IBM who was sent to Seattle to meet with Microsoft back in 1980, and tell them about the still-secret IBM PC. Jack was also the guy who mistook Gates for an office boy at the start of that meeting. And Jack had a lot to say on this subject: "Bill responded like a true politician by switching the question from Open Source to Freeware (ugh), then to Open Architecture (read de facto standards), which he claims to have prompted IBM to adopt for the PC," said Sams. "Bill did, in fact, influence the IBM PC interface architecture, but our "open architecture" decision was ab initio. "Your (reader) challenged Gates' claim by noting that the (IBM BIOS CHIP) is highly proprietary. He didn't distinguish the copyrighted chip from the interface architecture it implements. The chip is indeed copyrighted and could be infringed. The open architecture it supports was extended by Paul Allen's DOS 2.1 to actually support dynamic addition of features and capabilities at run time. This (DOS +BIOS) open architecture has been public domain since it first shipped ( Byzantine, but open). "So, everyone is more or less right. Bill remains an artful dodger and a selective rememberer, but, aren't we all? "Here's the open architecture/BIOS history as I saw it during 1980. "IBM's (August 1980) product development plan for the PC assumed almost from day one that we would have to rely on a number of independent, third party hardware and software developers to respond to the demands of a mass market. (think programming languages, word processors, games, spreadsheets, joysticks and classroom drill, a million machines and a three year program)... We consciously intended to host other vendors independently developed software, and we were almost completely dependent on third party peripheral devices (color video, disk, tape, printer, communications) because our own available I/O was hardwired for EBCDIC date encoding. "The product strategy demanded a reliably defined interface that allowed other vendors' hardware to physically and logically attach to the PC bus and for other vendors' software to access all system services. The assembler source code that implemented this "BIOS" was written by David Bradley, of IBM, in Seattle, in consultation with Microsoft. Its design was limited by three givens: 1) Microsoft's 8086 version of ROM BASIC. 2) The 8 bit I/O bus and device control architecture inherited from the IBM Datamaster (a failed earlier attempt to build an IBM PC). 3) The existing 8088 motherboard design that was planned as an upgrade for the Datamaster. "These hardware "bootstraps" were never acknowledged in the "official histories" by IBM, and may well have been concealed from Bill Gates until early 1981... hence his claim to have persuaded us to use a 16-bit chip. Somebody nodded wisely and said "good idea", but the 8088 prototypes were already running in August with IBM 8-bit I/O. "The BIOS code was written very early (in September/October 1980), during the first (consulting) agreement we negotiated with Microsoft in August 1980. It established the infamous 640K memory boundary and other simplifying conventions to allow the system to be run entirely from ROM. IBM copyrighted the CHIP and published the interfaces at first customer shipment. (I'm sure there were arguments against publishing until the last minute, and Bill would certainly have had an input; but that's just my opinion, I was out of the loop after November 1980) "At this level, Bill Gates can certainly claim to have "influenced" the open architecture strategy. He was our consultant, he had practical experience interfacing BASIC to a succession of systems with a variety of ASCII I/O devices and device controllers, and he was the first, we expected, of many vendors whose products would become replaceable parts in PC systems. "However, the "open architecture" strategy was entirely deliberate on IBM's part. We expected to defend our own hardware market: 1) By being the lowest cost producer of the core system, and 2) By asserting copyright protection for the bios chip(s). 3) By quickly offering a series of cheaper, faster, better upward compatible systems and upgrades. 4) By staying out of the PC software development business. "All were relatively successful strategies through the PC, PC/XT, and PC/AT, although our reliance on overseas suppliers set the stage for the PC/AT clone takeover as soon as there was a reliable source of reverse engineered BIOS chips. "When the PC Division began to plan an 80386/AT in 1983, the IBM Corporate Management Committee took the business back from Don Estridge and directed its new management to redevelop the PC as a proprietary IBM product with "normal" profit margins and a full range of proprietary software and I/O. "So sad." Bill dodges another one. Those interested in slightly more recent computer history might want to know about next week's celebration of the first 10 years of QuickTime, Apple's extensible multimedia technology. The amazing thing about Quicktime is that there was nothing like it before, and everything has been like it since. Look at the guts of Real Player or Windows Media Player, and you'll see structural copies of QuickTime. It is very hard to be an original, to be the first, and to still survive a decade later, but Quicktime does all that. And it might even get the last laugh. Apple is rumored to be preparing an MPEG-4 player for Quicktime (the Quicktime file format is already used by MPEG-4), which ought to give the system perpetual legs and a real advantage against more proprietary solutions from Real and Microsoft. Back in 1990 when Apple first conceived of QuickTime, the world of "multimedia" was one of laserdiscs. A multimedia application was a Hypercard stack connected bya serial cable to a Macintosh. The stack let you navigate to a particular clip. The video was then played on a TV screen. In 1991, the big step forward was to display that video on the computer screen... but you still needed the laserdisc. And when Apple management announced QuickTime in 1990, the idea was very much about perpetuating and supporting that model. The QuickTime team subverted that whole system by saying that every PC (Mac!) should be able to play video on its own... no special hardware. So they developed software only video and audio that scaled itself to match the users machine. Constrast this to the PC industry which in 1992 was obsessed with multimedia PC, which was basically just a sound card plugged into a stock PC. Miles apart. The QuickTime work put in the foundation for ground breaking titles like MYST and Peter Gabriel's XPLORA 1, and set the model that was later followed for MPEG-4 and DVD. Work on QuickTime 1.0 was completed on December 2, 1991, with a product launch at the San Francisco MacWorld show in January 1992. There will be a party, of course, held on December 1st in San Francisco to celebrate the anniversary. Proceeds are earmarked to raise funds for a permanent QuickTime museum exhibit. And all this is because a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization called Friends of Time is determined to secure the place of QuickTime in technology history. Their web site is listed among the "I Like It" links. Now if only there was a similar group called Friends of X-Mozilla-Status: 0009gards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From supreet at sarai.net Fri Nov 1 01:30:44 2002 From: supreet at sarai.net (Supreet) Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 21:00:44 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] hindi support in linux In-Reply-To: <200210311023.33741.ravikant@sarai.net> References: <20021030205506.GA23810@mail.sarai.net> <200210311023.33741.ravikant@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20021031200044.GA4145@mail.sarai.net> If you are running RedHat 8.0, Debian 3.0 SuSE 8.1 or Mandrake 9.0 you don't need to do anything but the single line that is part of my earlier mail. Just type that out on console in you X Session and your keyboard and font parameter are set. If you also set LANG environment then you would also get the menu in hindi the to steps are: setxkbmap -layout dev -option grp:ctrl_shift_toggle export LANGI=hi_IN making a suppostion that you would be running bash as default shell Supreet On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 10:23:33AM +0530, Ravikant wrote: > > Dear Supreet, > > Great news! I checked the links you sent. But I'm too techno-deficient to make > sense of it. Have you tested it yet? I want to test it. Could you tell me > how? In the meanwhile I have downloaded Openoffice Hindi. It is working fine > on my office windows. It seems some German guy with a Sanskritoid Hindi has > done the translations of po files. And it is partial at the moment. Lot of > work left to be done. I'm going to work on it. > > I can't wait to run a linux hindi desktop. Would you have time to come and > install it for me? > > How is your preparation going? > > Cheers > ravikant > > > > > On Thursday 31 Oct 2002 2:25 am, Supreet wrote: > > Linux now has support for unicode indic support. For now the list includes > > devanagri (marathi and hindi) > > bengali > > gujrati > > and gurumukhi > > . > > ---------- > > > > any application based on pango 1 and gtk 2 which majorly includes almost > > all gnome applications can support hindi support. > > to switch keyboard > > setxkbmap -layout dev -option grp:ctrl_shift_toggle > > in case of devanagri > > keyboard interface is part of Xfree86 4.2.0. > > or it can be download from www.indlinux.org?? > > > > > > ------------- > > to use this facility switch to any distro which has gtk2 support. > > debian support URL: > > deb http://people.debian.org/~kov/debian woody gnome2 > > for gentoo URL: > > http://www.gentoo.org/~spider/ > > for redhat URL: > > http://www.ximian.com/products/redcarpet/download.html > > > > minimum requirement is RedHat 7.2 or higher > > > > > > > > RedHat 8.0 standard ships with both pango gtk2 and Xfree86 4.2.0 so it > > works in RedHAt 8.0 out of the box > > > > Mozilla also has support for language pack for hindi check mozilla site for > > it. > > www.mozilla.org > > _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion > > list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe > > in the subject header. List archive: > > From tripta at sarai.net Fri Nov 1 00:56:06 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 19:26:06 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Googlism In-Reply-To: <20021029170145.GO85992@r4k.net> References: <20021029170145.GO85992@r4k.net> Message-ID: <200210311926.06245.tripta@sarai.net> Interesting website (and concept) which opens up even further discourses and avenues of looking at the notions of navigating the cyber space and managing the plethora of information available. within the non-linear, random access structure of the Internet with the amount of information available made making sense of it is an issue. inspite of the potential of the medium to accomodate the aggregrative rather than the subordinative nature of the oral culture and the objectivity offered by the print to create `writing spaces', the physical and visual field defined by a particular technology where writing is a creative play of signs as david bolter puts it, the navigation within the internet is still very linear in some senses and the play of signs not being played very well. the search engines, GOOGle, provide centers / referntial points within the otherwise flat non-hierarchal structures-imposing a linear / hierarchial percpetions of it. and the fact that, hit-per-month on a website alleviate the level of the specific `website' on the google result page consolidate their position. does any one of us ever visit the 50th listing on the 20th result page of google? and if not why? why do we vest so much of confidence in the results generated by google? i use google and many other search engines and this is in no ways an attack on Google or what it does? do website and concepts like www.googlism.com have an answer? neither do i? but i am posing questions which are important for me to enhance my understanding and mobility within this space. are we trading the centers? and are we not distancing the websites on the 50th listing of the 20th page? and because it works in a loop...not going to that website ensures that `that' website will not ever come to us. till the time, it an accidental discovery of an enthusiastic surfer with a lot of time and patience. are we not then establishing our own centers and peripheries and illusioning ourselves to believe otherwise because of the inherent character of the structure. can we break away from practices of operating in a linear fashion? can we allow for the chaos to take over and not be intimidated or apprehensive about the notion the word conveys or what it is made to convey to instill order and allow it to evolve it's own language? we have the langauge(html). can we develop the grammar and syntax? and then think about the following. is googlism offering alternatives or is it reinforcing the ideas? the ones that got me really thinking twice about hitting the google button (which i did anyways?) are: google is my other memory google is probably archiving all of your images google is a part of my brain google is a careless custodian of private information google is best so there it is. a cool concept. google is that? google is three google is a user?s best friend google is tops for work time searches google is still spidering and caching my old server google is goood google is urged to go public google is the real winner in its own google is the world's favorite search engine google is your friend google is the most popular search google is faaasst google is one of the best search google is gong bezerk google is out of beta google is featuring the google google is $deity google is so cool google is here google is the best" google is dancing google is lief google is watching you" google is at it again google is first time our top referer google is microsoft ? google is #1 search google is a powerful weapon indeed google is thinking google is anti google is 'feeling lucky' google is excluding knife advertising google is having a programming contest google is the greatest? at news google is 'feeling lucky' the googleplex google is google is so popular google is that? om malik google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional search engines google is proud of their advantage google is three times bigger than the experts think google is a user?s best friend by john mccormick special to gcn every web user should know how to exploit the features of the powerful google google is your family google is not an anomaly google is tops for work time searches by abigail waraker google is my other memory google is still spidering and caching my old server 35 dayes and still counting google is goood positive things about google google is a harsh mistress google is in the black by kieren mccarthy posted google is urged to go public 12 google is urged to go public google is urged to go public google is now indexing this list google is the real winner in its own contest by paul festa special to zdnet news may 31 google is the world's favorite search engine by olaf jüptner google is more than an academic debate on copyright law google is not going to do anything as a result of it google is a dot google is replacing bookmarks google is the most popular search engine google is unique among search engines in that while it almost always shows you pages that have the exact keywords you are looking for google is faaasst just tried google google is one of the best search engines by tootough2be google is one of the best search engines i use google all the time to find everything google is gong bezerk it seems forums are flooded with complaints about google's new search algorithms google is gong bezerk post a comment name google is still choosing to take advantage of the safe harbor provision of the digital millennium copyright act google is featuring the google posted may 20 google is a target for any optimization campaign simply because it has managed to obtain the most attention from users on search google is $deity i finagled work into buying me a wireless google is the best" google is an internet search engine google is dancing expect the full update to appear within the next day or so google is the most popular search engine on the web according to onestat google is the only search engine google is a privately held company and does not divulge financial information google is oft google is just the juice google is watching you ever wondered how many pages google is keeping track of for your domain? submitting this form google is the point google is in fact a company google is probably archiving all of your images google is a part of my brain google is a careless custodian of private information google is best google is already mostly rest friendly google is increasing its infrastructure as fast as it can google is a powerful google is indirectly supporting their anti google is smart google is the real winner in its own contest google is the best search engine google is a sensitive thing google is the only dotcom to achieve the rare distinction of zero percent employee turnover google is your friend i knew when i wrote this google is surprisingly light google is the greatest? get the latest news and information at news google is now the search engine of choice for most of the web and it handles over 150 million queries a day From supreet at sarai.net Fri Nov 1 16:32:28 2002 From: supreet at sarai.net (Supreet) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 12:02:28 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Googlism In-Reply-To: <200210311926.06245.tripta@sarai.net> References: <20021029170145.GO85992@r4k.net> <200210311926.06245.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20021101110228.GC20456@mail.sarai.net> On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 07:26:06PM +0000, Tripta wrote: > Interesting website (and concept) which opens up even further discourses and > avenues of looking at the notions of navigating the cyber space and managing > the plethora of information available. > > within the non-linear, random access structure of the Internet with the amount > of information available made making sense of it is an issue. > > inspite of the potential of the medium to accomodate the aggregrative rather > than the subordinative nature of the oral culture and the objectivity offered > by the print to create `writing spaces', the physical and visual field > defined by a particular technology where writing is a creative play of signs > as david bolter puts it, the navigation within the internet is still very > linear in some senses and the play of signs not being played very well. First of all don't use www/http and internet interchangably. They are two differen things all together. In this case this is important because your or david bolter's statement refers more to http protocol flaws rather then internet infrastructure schema itself. Although I could and will disagree to that statement even because when you are requesting a page it is the user who is precieving the linearity but reality is something else. Distribution of task and source of information happens all the time on internet. If you are saying that interface that is your browser does not allow you to see that distributiveness, well change that interface and use something that does. the assimilation of information into linear form happens at your browser interface. > > the search engines, GOOGle, provide centers / referntial points within the > otherwise flat non-hierarchal structures-imposing a linear / hierarchial > percpetions of it. and the fact that, hit-per-month on a website alleviate > the level of the specific `website' on the google result page consolidate > their position. does any one of us ever visit the 50th listing on the 20th > result page of google? and if not why? why do we vest so much of confidence > in the results generated by google? In case you haven't noticed google is not based on simple hit rate algorithm at all. Google uses something called page rank algorithm which is not as simple as hit rate equals higher in google search. I can partly tell what happens inside google crawler. Crawler goes to a certain page and adds the keywords from that page. Then it checks in its database for pages and websites which point to that page or website. If there are more websites with high ratings pointing to that URL or several low rating websites pointing to a URL it would get high rating. So i think its very democratic. > > i use google and many other search engines and this is in no ways an attack on > Google or what it does? do website and concepts like www.googlism.com have an > answer? neither do i? but i am posing questions which are important for me to > enhance my understanding and mobility within this space. First of all google is not so good guy preception is without any basis as shown earlier and most probably googlism would based on google for doing what it is doing. > > are we trading the centers? and are we not distancing the websites on the 50th > listing of the 20th page? and because it works in a loop...not going to that > website ensures that `that' website will not ever come to us. till the time, > it an accidental discovery of an enthusiastic surfer with a lot of time and > patience. are we not then establishing our own centers and peripheries and > illusioning ourselves to believe otherwise because of the inherent character > of the structure. can we break away from practices of operating in a linear > fashion? can we allow for the chaos to take over and not be intimidated or > apprehensive about the notion the word conveys or what it is made to convey > to instill order and allow it to evolve it's own language? I have been testing this for quite a while now, having a customized crawler walking through first 20 to 100 pages pointed by google would yield more relevent results. Milage would differ depending from search string being provided. But still it would be better than going to "20th page for 50th result" There are several research papaers on this subject for details. the one I like most is Authoritative Source in a Hyperlinked Environment at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.ps > > we have the langauge(html). can we develop the grammar and syntax? > > and then think about the following. is googlism offering alternatives or is it > reinforcing the ideas? > the ones that got me really thinking twice about hitting the google button > (which i did anyways?) are: > google is my other memory > google is probably archiving all of your images > google is a part of my brain > google is a careless custodian of private information > google is best > so there it is. a cool concept. > google is that? > google is three > google is a user?s best friend > google is tops for work time searches > google is still spidering and caching my old server > google is goood > google is urged to go public > google is the real winner in its own > google is the world's favorite search engine > google is your friend > google is the most popular search > google is faaasst > google is one of the best search > google is gong bezerk > google is out of beta > google is featuring the google > google is $deity > google is so cool > google is here > google is the best" > google is dancing > google is lief > google is watching you" > google is at it again > google is first time our top referer > google is microsoft ? > google is #1 search > google is a powerful weapon indeed > google is thinking > google is anti > google is 'feeling lucky' > google is excluding knife advertising > google is having a programming contest > google is the greatest? at news > google is 'feeling lucky' the googleplex > google is > google is so popular > google is that? om malik > google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional > search engines > google is proud of their advantage > google is three times bigger than the experts think > google is a user?s best friend by john mccormick special to gcn every web > user should know how to exploit the features of the powerful google > google is your family > google is not an anomaly > google is tops for work time searches by abigail waraker > google is my other memory > google is still spidering and caching my old server 35 dayes and still > counting > google is goood positive things about google > google is a harsh mistress > google is in the black by kieren mccarthy posted > google is urged to go public 12 > google is urged to go public google is urged to go public > google is now indexing this list > google is the real winner in its own contest by paul festa special to zdnet > news may 31 > google is the world's favorite search engine by olaf j?ptner > google is more than an academic debate on copyright law > google is not going to do anything as a result of it > google is a dot > google is replacing bookmarks > google is the most popular search engine > google is unique among search engines in that while it almost always shows > you pages that have the exact keywords you are looking for > google is faaasst just tried google > google is one of the best search engines by tootough2be > google is one of the best search engines i use google all the time to find > everything > google is gong bezerk it seems forums are flooded with complaints about > google's new search algorithms > google is gong bezerk post a comment name > google is still choosing to take advantage of the safe harbor provision of > the digital millennium copyright act > google is featuring the google posted may 20 > google is a target for any optimization campaign simply because it has > managed to obtain the most attention from users on search > google is $deity i finagled work into buying me a wireless > google is the best" > google is an internet search engine > google is dancing expect the full update to appear within the next day or so > google is the most popular search engine on the web according to onestat > google is the only search engine > google is a privately held company and does not divulge financial information > google is oft > google is just the juice > google is watching you ever wondered how many pages google is keeping track > of for your domain? submitting this form > google is the point > google is in fact a company > google is probably archiving all of your images > google is a part of my brain > google is a careless custodian of private information > google is best > google is already mostly rest friendly > google is increasing its infrastructure as fast as it can > google is a powerful > google is indirectly supporting their anti > google is smart > google is the real winner in its own contest > google is the best search engine > google is a sensitive thing > google is the only dotcom to achieve the rare distinction of zero percent > employee turnover > google is your friend i knew when i wrote this > google is surprisingly light > google is the greatest? get the latest news and information at news > google is now the search engine of choice for most of the web and it handles > over 150 million queries a day > > _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: etc and supreet From announcements-request at sarai.net Fri Nov 1 11:17:58 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 06:47:58 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #113 - 1 msg Message-ID: <20021101054758.9398.53725.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Public Health and the City (PUKAR @ The Paperie) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 12:23:12 -0400 To: Recipient List Suppressed:; From: "PUKAR @ The Paperie" Subject: [Announcements] Public Health and the City Dear Friends: PUKAR cordially invites its Associates, Advisors, and friends to a discussion on "Public Health and the City", with presentations by: NEHA MADHIWALA PhD Candidate, Mumbai University Dept of Sociology Senior Research Officer, CEHAT, Mumbai SVATI SHAH PhD Candidate, Columbia University Depts of Anthropology and Public Health, U.S.A. NEHA MADHIWALA has been pursuing her PhD at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai since June 2000. She has worked as a senior research officer in the Centre for Enquiry in Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT), Mumbai between 1996 and 2000, and from 2001 onwards. She will share her experiences of working on health issues in Mumbai. Urban health issues in India fall between the cracks of public health policy. There is no clear model into which one can situate the existing reality of India's cities. To unravel the complexity of urban health, one must understand the paradox created by a medical sector which exists in a highly developed market -- which mesmerises professionals and lay-persons alike, but whose dynamic excludes the most vulnerable, and makes it impossible for larger community-based public health solutions to emerge. SVATI SHAH is a PhD candidate in Columbia University's joint programme in Public Health and Anthropology. Her dissertation work is on migration, sex work and gender in the Mumbai construction industry. This paper will provide a brief description of preliminary findings on sex work among women in the construction industry in Navi Mumbai. Intersections with health issues on the ground will be discussed in the context of the growing NGO market for HIV/AIDS related interventions among poor migrant labourers. The field research will also be connected with issues of sexuality, agency and broad categories such as "feminization of migrancy" being adopted by international funders and the Breton Woods organizations. Date: SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2002 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. At: The BOMBAY PAPERIE Mezzanine Floor, Soonawalla Building 59, Bombay Samachar Marg Opposite the Stock Exchange Fort, Bombay 400001 R.S.V.P. Phone Shekhar Krishnan or Rahul Srivastava at 2077779 E-Mail About PUKAR @ The Paperie: This discussion, and future gatherings focused on discussing issues of common interest and concern to the PUKAR Associates, is part of a monthly programme organised by PUKAR for invited friends and guests at The Bombay Paperie, Fort. These gatherings are usually held on the third or fourth Saturday of every month at 6.00 p.m. PUKAR thanks the Manager of The Bombay Paperie, Neeta Premchand, for hosting PUKAR @ The Bombay Paperie. We look forward to your attendance and participation, and suggesting names of people and organisations to add to our mailing list. Regards, Rahul Srivastava, Shekhar Krishnan and Vyjayanthi Rao Coordinators _____ PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) P.O. Box 5627 Dadar, Mumbai 400014, India E-Mail Phone +91 (022) 2077779, +91 98200.45529, +91 98204.04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From tripta at sarai.net Fri Nov 1 22:19:53 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 16:49:53 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] software-language Message-ID: <200211011649.53410.tripta@sarai.net> This is an interesting article raising issues and interactions with computer technologies and other discourses and practices. Microsoft has shown no or little interest in pursuing localization for Icelandic. and the case of using free software to do the same is pursued. The localization project within free software and it's utilities has really taken a boast in the last few years.(http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_status.html). http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_status.html The various many localizations projects attempt to involve, evoke and arouse participation within the technological realm of other discourses within the immediate context. And these within the free software domain intend to instil different sensibilites and approaches towards technology, information, right to information and the freedom(s) associated with it. It would be interesting to look at the experiences of these interactions and the understandings evolved from it. How has the relationship with technology changed? and how has this easy access to technology, after the language barrier being removed, enabled the participants to look at things differently? what are the sensibilities that have evolved of technology? what are the further developments undertaken by the participants, if any? how has the relationship changed in regards to the non-localized applications and software? do these localizations projects encourage participation in the larger free software development team (hurd/linux kernel)? it would be really great if discussions on the same could continue. cheers tripta_________________________________________________________________ http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-01-21-007-05-OP Linux and Ethnodiversity Jan 21, 1999, 00 :08 UTC (13 Talkback[s]) (1499 reads) by Martin Vermeer (Professor Vermeer argues eloquently and conclusively that putting software localization into the hands of a company like Microsoft would be very limiting and a detriment to human culture. -- Editor) Linus Torvalds is one of the six per cent or so of Finns who have Swedish as their mother tongue. One is tempted to ask if this is a coincidence; I want to argue that it is not. Throughout world history, contributions to the things that make our society worth being called civilization -- literature, science, art, music, social innovation -- seem to have come in a vastly disproportionate measure from people who were not at home in one national culture only, but in several, or that belonged to another culture than the mainstream one in their country. Think only of the contribution the Jews made to European art, science, architecture, and social innovation; or the influence of the African slaves and their descendants on North American -- and thus Western -- musical culture. An alien entity tuning in only to Earth's music radio stations could easily conclude that the dominant continent on this planet is Africa! There is ample real life proof for this, and considering multi-ethnicity a problem rather than a great opportunity is such a sad shortsightedness. (Consider this next time you go out eating Thai :-) Also, Finland is a case in point; ask people in the street what famous Finns they know and see what comes up. Sibelius, of course, and Mannerheim;Kekkonen will be mentioned and the runner Paavo Nurmi; and, of course, Torvalds.Few will mention the Nobel prize winning writer Sillanpää, and even fewer the chemist Gadolin; he lived before Finland had attained statehood. But did you notice that half of the "famous Finns" have Swedish family names? Not bad for a 6% minority...! Numbers don't mean that much. It is important to understand that a nation is more than a piece of real estate. Sure, the real estate is needed to anchor a nation's existence -- but nationhood is about language, culture, and way of life. And the language is the gateway into a nation's culture and way of life. Heck, it is even a gateway into a way of thinking! Knowing only one language -- English, let's say -- tends to impose certain patterns on one's ways of thinking. Knowing one more language inevitably widens one's perspective, especially if the language does not belong to the same family. I know from experience: When I moved from The Netherlands up North to Sunny Suomi, I was confronted with the need to learn this weird, alien, Finno-Ugrian tongue. Ah well, at least the alphabet was Latin, and the spelling phonetic and utterly predictable. I learned to read Finnish texts aloud so that my listeners understood them even if I didn't. Hard work it was, but well worth it. Finnish is so entirely different from Western languages -- no articles, for instance, and no real propositions -- the fourteen-odd cases fullfill that function -- and almost everythingis done with prefixes and suffixes: possession, negation, diminution, etcetera.And the "verb of negation": I not, you not, he/she not, ... weird! And the partitive case playing the role of the "partitive article" in French (and in fact in English, where it is represented by a missing article). Compared to learning Finnish, Swedish was easy, being so close to Dutch. Regularly reading the daily paper "Hufvudstadsbladet" was enough. But not as useful for shaping the brain as Finnish was. It's a bit like learning programming languages: after knowing Pascal, other procedural languages hold few secrets; but Lisp is a different cup of tea. Finnish is not a small language; world wide, it belongs to the 200 largest amongst a total of 5000 currently existing languages. Small languages -- those threatened with extinction -- count on average 6000 speakers. It is expected that 2000 such small languages will become extinct during the coming century. Such extinction represents an irretrievable loss of part of the common heritage of mankind, a loss not unlike that of a biological species. Extinction is forever. Finnish, and Finnish-Swedish, the variety of Swedish spoken in Finland, are established national languages with a firm legal status, so one would think that they are not under threat. Well, think again. According to an article appearing last summer (http://www.seattletimes.com/news/technology/html98/icel_063098.html) Microsoft is not prepared to translate, or localize, Windows into the Icelandic language. Too small a market. And all icelanders know English anyway. They are not prepared to let the icelanders do it, either; no way they are going to let some banana republic play with their precious source code! What makes this all the more painful is that Iceland is an exceptionally literate nation and Icelandic an established national language enjoying massive official support. If this can happen to Icelandic, how can one expect any support for even smaller languages such as Faerisk (the Faeroe islands' language), Saame (the Laplanders' language) and Greenlandic/Inuit? There exists a common term bank project of the Nordic countries, nordterm; one wonders why a corresponding initiative for software localization has not been talked about more, also in the European context; fear of technical complexity? It must be clear from this that no small nation can afford to be dependent on a large commercial software company for the preservation of its national heritage. Heck, Microsoft's turnover is bigger than Iceland's GNP! Literacy today means also computer or IT literacy and becomes an impossibilityif not even the operating system that runs all computers is available inlocalized form. The Icelandic minister of culture has tried, apparently without success, to turn Microsoft's corporate head, threatening to investigate "alternatives" in case they don't listen. Apropos, the KDE graphic desktop environment for Linux, has been partially "Icelandized" (www.kde.org/i18n.html). Perhaps Iceland should investigate this alternative anyway, even if Microsoft would chance to reluctantly give in to the pressure. It's way better to be master of one's own fate. Open source offers an easy and attractive way to localize all software, not least due to the foresight and lack of cultural prejudice of the Free Software Foundation providing such an excellent tool as gettext. Having myselfbeen involved in localization efforts for the LyX document processor, I believe this alternative to be a fully realistic one. Computer sovereignty? Talking about diversity in the context of free software, it's not just about ethnodiversity. The notion of diversity as freedom lives and prospers in Linux. Let a hundred desktops blossom! People are different, so whyshouldn't software be. Besides, freedom works. Funny to think ofLinux and freedom as manifest destiny, as illustrated by the emerging binary compatibility standard for Unix -- something the big vendors with their expensive consortia never achieved. Now, for the first time in history, it's being done, courtesy of a "bunch of hackers", thank you very much. Freedom works for hatching world-class software, but just as well forevolving mature, workable standards. If you're content to just have the trains run on time, you won't even achieve as much as that. Freedom is no luxury. And freedom breeds diversity, which is not a sign of weakness -- quite the opposite. That's just the same error that all dictators make, to mistake the rough-and-tumble of democratic discourse for a display of weakness. In conclusion, I want to quote the Finnish, ethnic Swedish computer linguistics professor Fred Karlsson, who was interviewed in Hufvudstadsbladet on the occasion of his election as "professor of the year" (and yes, you can finger him :-): "We have in fact started to use certain concepts analogous to those in biology -- we talk of linguistic habitats, diversity and so on. The small, indigenous peoples' languages are perfectly adapted to their needs, local environment, way of life. Reflecting upon the value of diversity, we should also realize that a language is a crystallization of many hundreds of generations of labor and of understanding the world around us. It is like asking whether the work and world view of our ancestors have any value. Of course, they have." Martin Vermeer is a research professor and department head at the Finnish Geodetic Institute, as well as "docent" (probably something like assistant prof.?) at Helsinki University, Department of Geophysics. He uses Linux both at work and at home. From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 1 22:54:02 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 12:24:02 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] software-language In-Reply-To: <200211011649.53410.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: On 11/1/02 11:49, "Tripta" wrote: > do these localizations projects encourage participation in the larger free > software development team (hurd/linux kernel)? > > it would be really great if discussions on the same could continue. Another question is: I have successfully been able to use and teach aspects of Word in Korean by using my knowledge of it in the English version. I do not read or write any Korean, but the menus and commands etc. are in the same places. (One could effectively translate most of these closed software packages by simply editing the resource forks, strings and images, in ResEdit or similar.) This is troubling on some level, as the logical operations of the program are perpetuated despite linguistic differences. Would Word in Hindi make it Indian software, or simply a wrap for relations essentially foreign to Indian culture? -af From sva2003 at columbia.edu Sat Nov 2 04:30:11 2002 From: sva2003 at columbia.edu (Siva Arumugam) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 18:00:11 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Googlism In-Reply-To: <20021101110228.GC20456@mail.sarai.net> References: <20021029170145.GO85992@r4k.net> <200210311926.06245.tripta@sarai.net> <20021101110228.GC20456@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <200211011800.11146.sva2003@columbia.edu> On Friday 01 November 2002 06:02, Supreet wrote: > On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 07:26:06PM +0000, Tripta wrote: > > within the non-linear, random access structure of the Internet with the > > amount of information available made making sense of it is an issue. > > > > inspite of the potential of the medium to accomodate the aggregrative > > rather than the subordinative nature of the oral culture and the > > objectivity offered by the print to create `writing spaces', the physical > > and visual field defined by a particular technology where writing is a > > creative play of signs as david bolter puts it, the navigation within the > > internet is still very linear in some senses and the play of signs not > > being played very well. > > Although I could and will disagree > to that statement even because when you are requesting a page it is the > user who is precieving the linearity but reality is something else. > Distribution of task and source of information happens all the time on > internet. If you are saying that interface that is your browser does not > allow you to see that distributiveness, well change that interface and use > something that does. the assimilation of information into linear form > happens at your browser interface. Surely the interesting point here is that the www is experienced linearly because almost all the documents on it are designed to be experienced that way. This is much more than a question of interface. It seems to me that questions of non-linearity strike at the heart of how we (want to) make sense of the world. Non-linear systems require feedback mechanisms, but most users of the web don't publish much on the web at all, which means that search engines are our (extremely) mediated ways of changing the structures and content of the web. > In case you haven't noticed google is not based on simple hit rate > algorithm at all. Google uses something called page rank algorithm which > is not as simple as hit rate equals higher in google search. Quite correct. However, its worth bearing in mind that the more popular a site is, the more likely it is that others will link to it (this is not a causal relationship, of course) thereby raising the site in Google's estimation. > I can partly tell what happens inside google crawler. Crawler goes to a > certain page and adds the keywords from that page. Then it checks in its > database for pages and websites which point to that page or website. If > there are more websites with high ratings pointing to that URL or several > low rating websites pointing to a URL it would get high rating. So i think > its very democratic. What do we mean by democratic here? How are our experiences shaped by google in ways that we don't understand (or do understand, for that matter)? It's certainly the case that there are plenty of people who try their best to 'trick' Google into rating their sites higher. And plenty of others who complain bitterly when their site slips down a google notch or two. Isn't this a strong indicator that, democratic or not, Google's disciplining practices are worth paying attention to? See, for instance: http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/googlebombs.htm > > can we break away from practices > > of operating in a linear fashion? can we allow for the chaos to take over > > and not be intimidated or apprehensive about the notion the word conveys > > or what it is made to convey to instill order and allow it to evolve it's > > own language? > > I have been testing this for quite a while now, having a customized crawler > walking through first 20 to 100 pages pointed by google would yield more > relevent results. Sounds interesting. You are, in effect, trying to improve upon Google's algorithm, right? The crucial question appears to be how to evaluate success here. How do we judge what makes a good search engine? If search engines currently bring order to the web, how could we go about consciously creating techniques of internet use that have other kinds of affects on us? > There are several research papaers on this subject for details. the one I > like most is > Authoritative Source in a Hyperlinked Environment at > http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.ps Great paper. The author is in search of methods of finding 'authoritative' documents on the web. My dictionary's first definition of 'authority' is 'power or right to enforce obedience.' > > we have the langauge(html). can we develop the grammar and syntax? > > and then think about the following. is googlism offering alternatives or > > is it reinforcing the ideas? > > the ones that got me really thinking twice about hitting the google > > button (which i did anyways?) are: > > google is my other memory > > google is probably archiving all of your images > > google is a part of my brain > > google is a careless custodian of private information I find googlism.com wonderful precisely because it opens up the possibilities that google.com is designed to carefully close down. I too use google.com all the time, but google surely does embody an ism. And googlism reminds me of that as it pours out alternative imaginings of the web. Siva. (I've been lurking on reader-list for a while. Apologies. This is a great list.) From joy at sarai.net Sat Nov 2 13:09:24 2002 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 13:09:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Windows in Linux Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021102130753.02a37f50@mail.sarai.net> New SuSE Linux OS to run Office 2000, other Windows apps http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2002/0,4814,75510,00.html From tripta at sarai.net Sat Nov 2 15:46:34 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 10:16:34 +0000 Subject: Fwd: Re: [Reader-list] software-language Message-ID: <200211021016.34419.tripta@sarai.net> > Would Word in Hindi make it Indian software, or simply a wrap for relations > essentially foreign to Indian culture? how do you categorize a software to be Indian? can a technology be defined or contained within the Nation;s identity? in that case, how are the software which come in other languages in India (bengali/kannada/tamil/telgu..etc) be described? it is very essential not to look at any technology as being the `whole' which is attempted to be represented as. and instead to understand the interactions with the technology within the specific materiality of the context as well the specific purposes for which the interactions take place and the relationships and the sensibilites that evolve from with it. and how the varying sensibilities that evolve communicate with each other, not to create a whole but to have simulataneous instances of that whole with their independent sessions. ------------------------------------------------------- From aiindex at mnet.fr Sat Nov 2 19:45:24 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 15:15:24 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Taslima's Pilgrimage by MEREDITH TAX Message-ID: The Nation (New York) November 18, 2002 Review http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021118&s=tax Taslima's Pilgrimage by MEREDITH TAX Meyebela, My Bengali Girlhood: A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim World by Taslima Nasrin; Gopa Majumdar, trans. "A war was about to start. Knots of wide-eyed people gathered in courtyards, in open fields, on street corners.... Others were running...clutching bundles under their arms and children on their shoulders. Running, they were running away from cities to villages.... The sound of bullets echoed against the restless fluttering of pigeons' wings." So begins Taslima Nasrin's memoir of her childhood. It is 1971 and Bangladesh is fighting for its independence from Pakistan. Nine-year-old Taslima is bundled into a carriage with her mother, grandmother and other children to hide out with relatives in the countryside. But soon terrified women refugees appear: The "Punjabis" are coming, and the family must flee further into the countryside to another relative, then another. Finally a truck rolls into the village full of young men with rifles, crying, "Joy Bangla!" Bangladesh is free! The family heads back to their home in Mymensingh, only to be greeted with fury by Baba, Taslima's father: "Why did you return? The war is not over!" But it is too late to go back that night, and then the soldiers come. Chhotku, as always, was fast asleep.... It was a good thing, for on that fateful night had he awakened and cried they would have shot not only him but also Yasmin and me, who were sleeping in the same bed. Not that I was asleep. I was simply pretending to be asleep, traveling the land of dreams, playing with fairies, swinging on a high swing, no longer a part of this world. Pretending that I did not know that men wearing heavy boots had entered the room and were walking about, a rifle dangling from every shoulder.... little girl, never mind what those heavy boots do in your room. You must continue to sleep. Make sure your eyelids do not flutter, your limbs do not move, your fingers remain still. Your heart must not tremble--if it does, hide that tremor from these men when they lift the mosquito net and look at you, lust and desire pouring from their eyes, flames shooting out of their mouths as they speak in a language you cannot understand. Keep absolutely still when they flash a light on your face, your chest, your thighs. They must see that you are not yet fully grown, you are not even an adolescent, your breasts have not yet appeared! Thus we are plunged into the drama of a large extended family living in close quarters, seen through the candid eyes of a little girl whose memory records everything, even if she can't make sense of it at the time. There is no adult consciousness in Meyebela; the voice is that of the child Taslima, and while we see what she sees, we know that her fears and imagination may be coloring events. Sometimes this is clear, as above, sometimes not. Since her household is in a constant state of turmoil, Taslima finds it hard to get her bearings, and the reader has the same problem: The narrative voice and time frame seem to tremble from time to time, like a lantern flickering in a room where a child is being beaten--for it soon becomes clear that soldiers will not be the main source of violence in this story. We see it all, every beating and injustice, every thwarted love and forced marriage, every hysterical fit and religious excess, in a household so dysfunctional no soap opera could do it justice, a household that is like a funhouse mirror, reflecting the features of society in a way that emphasizes the distortions: religious repression, female illiteracy, cruelty toward servants and the sexual abuse that descends without warning upon children, so that home is no refuge but a place of fear, and the ground is constantly shifting under their feet. And thus we begin to understand the anger that drives the author. I kept thinking, as I read the first few chapters of Meyebela, what does this book remind me of? Then I realized: In reading Maxim Gorky's My Childhood, or watching the movie version by Mark Donskoi, one experiences the same violence, the same illiteracy and emotional underdevelopment, the same brutality toward children, the same lack of solid ground under one's feet so that, because of the capricious actions of unreliable adults, a child can lose everything in a moment. I believe that like Gorky's memoirs, Meyebela will become a classic and a school text in many countries. This will enable discussion of important issues, because Nasrin's memoir is about the dark things that happen in families in every part of the world, like other disturbing texts now taught in US schools: The Bluest Eye, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Bastard Out of Carolina. But, because it is such a powerful child's-eye presentation of a particular, rural Bangladeshi variation of Islam, Meyebela will be problematic as an educational tool in the United States today, where people are constantly being told that Muslims are evil. In a society that knows little about any variety of Islam, the dark picture painted by Nasrin may be universalized, and welcomed all too eagerly. But if Taslima Nasrin had worried about such things, she would not have become a human rights case. She tried to knock down every taboo in her society, writing about religion, ethnic violence, sex, all at the same time, crash! And she is still doing it. Nasrin did not have to flee Bangladesh merely because she wrote a novel about the persecution of its Hindu minority or told an Indian reporter the Sharia (Islamic law) was outdated and should be left behind. Other Bangladeshi writers, male and female, have said such things; some have also been threatened by fundamentalists; but most are still there. Nasrin combined the violation of those taboos with an even more daring transgression: She opened the closet door on a whole world of subterranean sexual experience and feeling, much of it abusive, and none of it considered fit to be discussed. She wrote about sex and religion and state politics all together, and she did it at a bad time, when fundamentalism was on the rise. The combination did her in. Nasrin's problems began when her newspaper columns were brought out as a book, Nirbachitha, and won an important literary prize given by Ananda Bazaar Patrika, a newspaper published in Calcutta. In January 1993, when she tried to board a plane to Calcutta, she was denied an exit visa on the grounds that her occupation (she is both a physician and a writer) was listed incorrectly on her passport. As a result, the government confiscated her passport. The next month her novel Lajja (Shame) was published. Nasrin wrote Lajja in a white heat in 1992, after Hindu nationalists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) destroyed the ancient Babri mosque in Ayodhya. This act led to terrible communal riots in India, with many deaths on both sides. (The same BJP is now running the Indian government and trying to erect a temple on the site of the destroyed mosque, which they believe to have been the birthplace of the god Rama.) In response to this provocation by Hindu extremists in India, Muslims in Bangladesh attacked Hindu families and businesses, resulting in terror, destruction and confiscation of property. Lajja, which showed the sufferings of one Hindu family, was a sensation, selling 50,000 copies in Bangladesh in its first six months of publication. It was also widely promoted by the BJP in India, in pirated editions. The BJP's use of Nasrin's book to encourage anti-Muslim feeling in India angered many in Bangladesh, while its content enraged religious extremists, who pressured the government to withdraw it from circulation. The party in power at the time was the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which banned it in July 1993. The ban was publicly protested by writers and human rights activists, who saw it as a sign of the growing influence of the religious right. It was not the only sign. Ain O Salish Kendra, a Bangladeshi women's human rights organization, had been documenting a noticeable increase in crimes of violence against women in the countryside, as religious zealots had begun to take the law into their own hands, returning to punishments that were sanctioned by Sharia but outlawed under the Bangladeshi civil code. In January 1993 a newly married couple in Sylhet was buried chest-deep and stoned for zina (adultery) because the woman had previously been divorced; in May, a woman in Madhukhali was burned at the stake, also for zina. In response to such events, Nasrin's newspaper columns became more militant. On September 1, 1993, a tribunal in Kaligani, led by the superintendent of the local madrassah (religious school), condemned a 16-year-old girl to a public flaying with 101 lashes; she had been accused of having an affair with a Hindu boy. After the beating, the girl died, allegedly a suicide. Nasrin wrote a newspaper column about this incident, calling upon the government to indict the mullahs involved for premeditated murder. The backlash was swift. On September 16, 500 members of the Bangladesh Sahaba Sainik Parishad, or Council of Soldiers for Islam (CSI), a militant group based in a madrassah in Sylhet, held a rally calling for Nasrin to be executed for "blasphemy and conspiracy against Islam, the Holy Koran and its prophet." On September 23 they offered a bounty of $1,250 for her death within fifteen days. On October 2 they staged another march, this time threatening a general strike unless she was arrested by October 7. Though political strikes are common in Bangladesh, they are not normally aimed at individuals. September 11, 2001, shows these events in a new light. Wahhabism, the extremely strict form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, had not only penetrated the countryside in Pakistan and Afghanistan (where the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996) but was also gaining a foothold in Bangladesh, carried by migrant laborers and spread by modern communications. Sylhet had been a center of emigration since the 1950s; thousands of young men went abroad each year to settle and send money home to their families; increasingly, they went to the Middle East. The money they earned there enabled them to come back and become landowners and leaders in their villages, and to set up madrassahs that taught the Saudi variation of Islam. The fatwa put on Taslima Nasrin in 1993 must now be seen as an early warning signal that this globalized, politicized form of Islamic fundamentalism was growing more aggressive and looking for an opportunity to test its strength in Bangladesh. On October 21, 1993, leaders of the CSI held a press conference in Dhaka to announce they were spreading the campaign against Nasrin throughout the country. They demanded that she be executed and said that if the government did not oblige, they would try her themselves. They also announced the inauguration of a new campaign to institute the death penalty for blasphemy and other crimes against Islam, the Prophet Mohammed or the Koran. Members of the group had already brought charges against two of Nasrin's books in private legal suits, on the grounds that they questioned Islamic law and offended religious sentiments. A brief item on this press conference went out on an AP wire and was picked up in England, and the London office of International PEN notified me, as I was then chair of its Women Writers' Committee. I obtained Nasrin's contact information from Ain O Salish Kendra and began a regular correspondence with her by fax. International PEN and Amnesty International wrote the Bangladeshi government about returning her passport, which it did in April 1994. Nasrin left the country in May to speak in Paris. On her way home she passed through India and gave an interview to a reporter from the Calcutta Statesman, who asked provocatively if she would support changes in the Koran. Nasrin's affirmative reply, which she says was misquoted, created a great furor in Bangladesh, and she wrote the Statesman to clarify her views on May 11, 1994: I do not hold the view that "the Koran should be revised thoroughly," because I think it is impossible to revise the Koran.... Why should we try to change a religious text which is held as sacred by many? My view on this issue is clear and categorical. I hold the Koran, the Vedas, the Bible, and all such religious texts determining the lives of their followers as "out of place and out of time." We have crossed the sociohistorical contexts in which these were written and therefore we should not be guided by their precepts. The question of revision, thorough or otherwise, is irrelevant. We have to move beyond these ancient texts if we want to progress. In order to respond to our spiritual needs, let humanism be our new faith. A leading Bangladeshi cleric told the press that her retraction was worse than her original statement and more filthy than The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Another called Nasrin "an apostate appointed by imperialist forces to vilify Islam," put a price of $2,500 on her head and called for her immediate death by hanging. The following week, 5,000 members of the extremist Muslim party Jamaat-e-Islami staged a demonstration in Dhaka calling for Nasrin's execution. This was an alarming development; the campaign against her was no longer confined to an obscure rural sect but had reached the capital. And why did the government of Bangladesh not act against these extremists? Then as now, it was led by the BNP under Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, and Jamaat-e-Islami, which then held a number of seats in Parliament, was a member of its coalition. If the Prime Minister had moved against the Islamists in 1993, Jamaat might have withdrawn from the coalition and her government might have fallen. So Prime Minister Zia sacrificed democracy to party expediency and gave in to the fundamentalist agenda. On June 4, 1994, the police chief in central Dhaka filed a case against Nasrin under Section 295A of the Penal Code, which provides for two years' imprisonment for "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class of citizens by insulting its religion or religious beliefs." A warrant was issued for her arrest, and she and her family went into hiding. At that point Taslima Nasrin became an international press sensation, the "female Rushdie," a poster girl for the oppression of Muslim women. Such international press interest was unprecedented for a writer who had not even been translated into one of the "power languages"; of course it was a good story, with an appealing heroine who could be presented as a damsel in distress, but despite the fact that the Western press was sympathetic, I soon came to see their coverage as a double-edged sword. Many of the reporters I talked to seemed to want to use the story as a stick with which to beat Islam; I would talk about the rising tide of all kinds of religious extremism, Christian, Jewish and Muslim; but none of that ever got into a story. The Western press tended to portray her solely as a victim and symbol of the oppression of Muslim women, downplaying her courage and ignoring the work of the Bangladeshi women's movement. And, worst of all, every new Western article or broadcast about Nasrin seemed to create a more vigorous desire to kill her back home; her persecutors reveled in the publicity. Huge crowds of bearded men marched in the streets of Dhaka, holding up her picture and shaking nooses for the TV cameras. There were counterdemonstrations by feminists and human rights supporters, not only in Bangladesh but all over the world. Nasrin remained underground for six weeks, and the situation was very problematic. So many organizations were involved that coordination was difficult; the press was all over everything, and the cost of a mistake could be a person's life. There were also issues of conflict of interest, since some of the human rights people involved were also journalists writing about her case. In arguments over strategy, the journalists, most of whom happened to be men, increasingly lined up on one side, urging ever more heat from the international press, while the rest of us, mainly women, wanted to hold back. Two guys, one Swedish and one French, actually declared they would go into Bangladesh and rescue Nasrin personally, despite her lawyers' request that they do no such thing; one responded to my incredulous questions by saying, "Does a lawyer in Bangladesh know more than a European journalist?" Several of us concluded that there had to be a better way to do this kind of human rights work and, in the fall of 1994, founded the Women's World Organization for Rights, Literature and Development (Women's WORLD) to develop a more feminist approach to helping besieged women writers. Taslima Nasrin remained in hiding until August 1994, when her lawyers, Dr. Kamal Hossain and Sarah Hossain, with background pressure from several states, reached an agreement with the Bangladeshi government. She was offered a visa to attend a conference in Stockholm, made a brief court appearance, was given bail and left immediately for Sweden, where she received political asylum. Although she has moved around quite a bit since then, she is unable to return to her own country. She tried in 1998, when her mother was dying of cancer, and was immediately greeted by the same mob scene she had fled in 1994, somewhat reduced in size but still virulent. Her father is now old and she would like to see him, but the same thing would undoubtedly happen again. In fact, in mid-October of this year, she was tried in absentia by a rural court in Gopalganj, about sixty miles from the capital, in a case brought by a local extremist leader; the magistrate found her guilty of offending religious sentiments and sentenced her to a year in jail should she return to Bangladesh. In addition, three of her books, including Meyebela and its sequel, are still banned in Bangladesh. Meyebela, which has been excellently translated by Gopa Majumdar, is dedicated "to my mother, who suffered all her life," and much of the book centers on Ma, who loves learning but whose father pulled her out of school at a young age and married her off to a poor student from the countryside whom he picked up in the street. Most of the marriages in this book are that arbitrary. Baba, a handsome man who is always criticizing Ma for being too skinny and too black, is a philanderer; in one memorable scene, Ma takes her young son by the hand and they walk across town to the home of Razia Begum, whose love notes she has found while doing Baba's laundry. Razia Begum's ancient husband is standing guard, but Ma gets past him, finds the two lovers in bed and drags her husband home. But his womanizing is a constant theme; frequently she finds him in bed with servants, whom she immediately attacks and sends out into the streets crying, with no job and no money. Denied education and thwarted in love, Ma has nowhere left to turn but religion, and she does so with a vengeance, joining the cult of the holy man Amirullah, her sister's husband, whose female devotees are so obsessed with getting into heaven through his agency that they fight over who will wash his feet, who will massage his legs and who will lick up his spittle. Ma drags her young daughter Taslima with her so that she too will be saved by hearing Amirullah describe what will happen to those who go to hell, to be racked by unbearable heat, stung by snakes and scorpions, and fed boiling water and pus. The child Taslima's distaste for religion grows from such encounters: I sat silently behind Ma, the prayer beads still in my hand. I was sorry to see her cry. Her whole body was racked with sobs. It surprised me greatly to see so many people crying in fear of being burned by a fire. It was exactly like frightening a child. Perhaps I ought to cry, too, just like the others. I waited for tears to gush, but my eyes remained completely dry. Having heard how Allah might roast people alive, He began to strike me as someone cruel and heartless. Baba, a doctor, wants Taslima to study science, not religion. He wants all his children to study, setting them impossibly long hours with no time for play and beating them if they don't do well. His wrath at those who fail him is terrible. When his son Chhotda drops out of high school to marry a Hindu girl, Baba and an uncle kidnap the boy and shackle him in the living room with heavy chains. Baba proceeds to beat him half to death, then locks him in his room without food or water until the boy is a walking corpse. When Chhotda will still not agree to leave his wife and go to college, Baba disowns him and throws him out of the house. Then he locks up his daughters, determined not to let anything romantic happen to them. Baba and Ma fight like dogs over Taslima, one pushing study, the other religion. Terrified of her father, she loves her mother but is a born skeptic and has gone to school, where she learned the scientific method. She finds a Bengali adaptation of the Koran, meant for women, which says the sun moves around the earth. This was not what she learned in school. What the book says about women is even worse. "So, even Allah was not prepared to treat women equally? Was Allah no different from Getu's father? He used to beat Getu's mother because she did not obey his every command." One day, while everyone in the neighborhood watched and did nothing to intervene, Getu's father beat his wife nearly to death with a burning log because she didn't put enough salt in his food. Then he divorced her by saying he gave her talaq three times. That was all he had to do, and Getu's mother was left with nothing while he married a teenage girl the next week. Thus the thoughts of the child Taslima. In a culminating scene, she goes poking around in her mother's holy books and finds them riddled with termites, because the house is damp and the books are never aired. She is infuriated by what she reads about the position of women. Now that I knew, I did not wish to delve any deeper. I knew that it was useless to search for pearls or diamonds in a pot of shit.... I thought that the Koran was written by a greedy, selfish man like Uncle Sharaf, or the man who grabbed my breasts by the river. If the hadith was the words of Prophet Muhammad, then he was definitely like Getu's father: nasty, cruel, an abuser, insane.... Even after I had put the book back, millions of termites remained deep inside me, silently eating away all the letters and words in my head, and who knows what else. These words, are, of course, shocking and will be profoundly offensive to many. But Nasrin believes in being shocking, in throwing herself against the bars of culture rather than trying to dismantle them bit by bit. Her methods have been criticized by many people, including Muslim feminists who call her approach simplistic and say it is necessary to see Islam, and other religions, as historical and social constructs that have been modified in the past and can be again. They say she generalizes incorrectly about Islam from the variant she experienced in Bangladesh, and that anyway you can't change culture by attacking it head on. But Nasrin is not convinced. As she said in a 2000 interview: People often tell me it is a question of tactics...but I do not believe in tactics. I am not a diplomat or a politician, I just want to say whatever I believe in. That means abolishing religion.... Because religion and freedom of expression, religion and human rights, religion and women's rights, religion and democracy, religion and freedom cannot coexist.... Using tactics takes too long; it will take too much time to establish secularism this way.... What I want is a revolution--for women's freedom, for humanism, and to throw out unnecessary things like religion. Such fervent anticlericalism sounds strange to me, like something out of the eighteenth century. But of course I live in Multiculture Central, where vehement atheism is likely to be criticized more on the grounds of tactlessness than of blasphemy. Nasrin thinks attacking religion will bring about a world change in consciousness. I have my doubts; perhaps the anger in Meyebela distracts me from its message. I keep wondering how much of this story can be reduced to the unresolved furies of a mistreated child. And then, since I am American, I think of the blasphemy of Huckleberry Finn, who was taught that slavery is sanctioned by the Bible. Huck believes he is committing a deadly sin by helping his friend Jim, the runaway slave. He is actually writing a note to inform on Jim when he realizes that, even if it means he goes to hell, he can't betray his friend. "All right, then, I'll go to hell," he says, in words that still resonate through the American school system, where Huckleberry Finn is taught in countless English classes--and, over a hundred years after it was written, is one of the most frequently censored books in the United States. I believe Nasrin's Meyebela will, like Huckleberry Finn, become a classic of controversy, hated, loved, banned, made a school text, removed from the schools and fought over as long as people read. But there is an important difference between the two books. Huckleberry Finn is a novel, and, though it has a first-person narrator, there is a clear distance between Huck, the character, a believer who will do what's right even if it means he has to go to hell, and Twain, the secular-humanist author, who is using Huck to show the hypocrisy of religion. In Meyebela, there is no authorial stance distinct from that of the narrator; the voice is that of the young Taslima as she comes to hate religion and blame God for the cruelties of man. Because all the author's stories, and all her conclusions, are told in the voice of an angry, rebellious, imaginative child, some may feel they are simplistic. But even those who long for more distance must recognize that Meyebela's bravery, vividness and groundbreaking subject matter make it a remarkable achievement, and one that will live. From aiindex at mnet.fr Sun Nov 3 06:13:27 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 01:43:27 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] The Political Culture of Fascism (Jairus Banaji) Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Web | 3 November 2002 __________________________________ The Political Culture of Fascism Jairus Banaji http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/2002/BanajiSept02.html [Talk delivered at a Gujarat Seminar organised by the Vikas Adhyan Kendra in Bombay, September 2002] I called this talk the political culture of Fascism because I wanted to draw attention away from the conventional emphasis in left theories of fascism to aspects that are much less emphasised or not even seen, precisely because they are so widespread. I want to do this by starting with the most doctrinaire and, unfortunately, still the most widespread of the left¹s theories of fascism, which is the line the Comintern officially endorsed and repeated, endlessly, throughout the late twenties and 1930s, while the tragedy of fascism was being played out in Europe. This was the Comintern¹s conception of fascism as what it called the "open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital". This was the Comintern¹s official understanding. It further states that fascism "tries to secure a mass basis (I lay emphasis on the word Œtries¹) for monopolist capital among the petty bourgeoisie, appealing to the peasantry, artisans, office employees and civil servants who have been thrown out of their normal course of life, particularly to the declassed elements in the big cities, also trying to penetrate into the working class" (cited Roger Griffin, Fascism, p. 262). In short, in the Comintern¹s line, fascism is the dictatorship of the most reactionary elements of finance capital. Now, the Nazi party described itself, formally at least, as a "workers¹ party". The Nazis saw themselves, at some superficial level, in terms of rhetoric anyway, as appealing for the support of workers. This suggests that there is something slightly specious about trying to explain the rise of Nazism in the twenties simply in terms of the dictatorship of capital. Much of the Left still subscribes to the view that fascism is primarily a product of the manipulations of capital or big business. There are several things wrong with this view. It ignores the political culture of fascism and fails to explain how and why fascist movements attract a mass following. It embodies a crude instrumentalism that conflates the financing of fascist movements by sections of business with the dynamics of fascism itself. It also views fascism in overtly pathological terms, as abnormality, thus breaking the more interesting and challenging links between fascism and Œnormality¹. Finally, it contains a catastrophist vision: it sees fascism as a kind of cataclysm, like some volcanic eruption or earthquake, a seismic shift in the political landscape. So far as the situation in India is concerned, this has surely demonstrated that that is not how fascism grows. In India the growth of fascism has been a gradual, step by step process where the fascist elements penetrate all sectors of society and emerge having built up that groundwork. So, if we in India have anything to contribute to a theory of fascism, part of the contribution lies in disproving the catastrophist element. This still leaves the other two perspectives, which I called Œinstrumentalist¹ and Œpathological¹ respectively. Both are dangerously wrong and part of the reason why the left has failed to establish a culture of successful political resistance to fascism. Now in contrast to the Œofficial¹ view, there is another group of theories of fascism which also emanated from the left, although a more disorganized left, a left outside the Comintern, driven out of Germany by Nazism, and not collectively represented by any school. I have in mind two rather brilliant analyses that were developed in the 1930s against the background of German fascism; one by Wilhelm Reich who was a practising psychoanalyst. In his clinical work in Berlin in the early thirties, Reich would have come across literally hundreds of active supporters of Nazism. He was a committed socialist who fled Germany when it became impossible to live there, and died, ironically, in a US jail in 1957. Then there is Arthur Rosenberg, who is not very well known. He was a Communist deputy in the Reichstag in the mid twenties and would later become an important influence on Chomsky. He was a historian who wrote a brilliant essay on fascism in 1934, which we translated for the first time, in the seventies, in Bombay. That particular essay is called Fascism as a Mass Movement. Reich¹s book was called The Mass Psychology of Fascism and first published in 1933. Already the titles of these two works suggest to us a very different view of fascism. Earlier I had emphasised the term "tries to secure mass support" in the Comintern definition. This was said in 1933, after Hitler had come to power in Germany. Imagine the Comintern trying to tell the rest of the world that the fascists are "trying" to secure a mass base! There is a way of characterising this. It is called living in denial, bad faith, because if fascism has a mass base of any sort then we have to try and understand the issue in different terms. How is this mass base constructed? What allows for the construction of a mass base by radical right-wing parties? These are the questions that we need to confront, particularly if we want to confront our problems in India. To answer these questions it is not enough to have merely conjectural views on fascism, to say, Œfascism necessarily presupposes a worldwide economic crisis¹; or Œfascism is a product of economic crisis¹. This does not answer the question why people turn to fascism, because equally they could have turned to the left. Or why don¹t they become liberals instead? In short, why do they support fascism?  The second group of theories of fascism is unified by a common focus on the mass basis of fascism. ŒFascism differs from other reactionary parties inasmuch as it is borne and championed by masses of people¹, wrote Reich in the book I referred to. The difference between Reich and Rosenberg is that Reich is interested in the psychic structures that explain why individuals and particular classes of individuals (e.g., the lower middle class) gravitate to fascism, and explores the susceptiblity to fascism in terms of a cultural logic, whereas Arthur Rosenberg tries to explain the construction of a mass base in historical terms. These are complementary perspectives, they certainly do not contradict each other. Reich is interested in the cultural background/politics and Œcharacter structures¹ that sustain fascism, the repressions that fascism presupposes and draws upon, whereas Rosenberg looks at the broad sweep of European history against whose background right-wing ideologies flourished and conservative élites found it possible to mobilise mass support. These perspectives clearly support each other. Rosenberg classified fascism in the most general terms as a species of "anti-liberal mass movement". The emphasis here is on a secular political liberalism that asserted the rights of the individual against state authority and religious superstition, and on the defeat of that liberalism in the latter part of the 19th century. When I began to work on fascism in the 1970s, it became increasingly apparent that German fascism was not the creation of the Nazi Party. Rather, the Nazi party was, arguably, the creation of German fascism. The whole groundwork of German society prepared the way for the rise of the Nazi party. German society in large parts had been Œfascisized¹, if one can call it that; the preparatory groundwork was ready for some charismatic leader or party to come along and Œretotalise¹/incarnate those legacies to create the kind of political catastrophe that was created in the 1930s. The groundwork had been intensively prepared, though in an un-coordinated, non-centralised and dispersed fashion by, for instance, the völkisch ŒAction groups¹ that were active in the twenties, organising pogroms and spreading hatred against the Jews; by the numerous organisations of demobilized veterans who experienced Germany¹s defeat in the war as a terrible national humiliation, a blow to the pride of all Germans. There were within the top ranks of the German army which had suffered defeat many who were implacably opposed to democracy, to the November revolution and its overthrow of the monarchy. There were numerous radical right-wing organizations prior to the Nazi party that prepared the ground for the success of the Nazis. However, the strength of Rosenberg¹s essay was an analysis which showed that fascism largely reiterated ideas that were widespread in European society well before the first war. He saw the conservative élites of 19th cent. Europe adjusting to the era of parliamentary democracy and mass politics with an aggressive nationalism divested of its liberal overtones, canvassing active support for strong states wedded to expansion abroad and containment of the labour movement at home, and unashamedly willing to use anti-Semitism Œas a way of preventing middle-class voters from moving to the left¹ (Weiss, Conservatism in Europe 1770-1945, p. 89). The more traditionalist elements in Europe¹s ruling élites succeeded in defeating the liberalism of 1848 with a populist conservatism that could garner parliamentary majorities with xenophobic appeals and patriotic agendas. What replaced the discredited liberalism of the 19th cent. were new ideologies of the Right, and it is against the background of these ideologies (racism, militarism, imperialism, and the cult of authority) that we need to situate the emergence of fascism in Europe. I¹d like to suggest that fascism has to be deconstructed "culturally" at three levels. The first among these, the level that Rosenberg¹s work points to, is nationalism. The rational core of every fascist ideology is nationalism. Fascist movements deify the nation, so that fascism can even be seen as projecting itself as a sort of Œsecular religion¹, and does this all the more effectively insofar as the vocabulary (artefacts, myths, rituals, symbols) of that deification is borrowed from religion itself. So when people ask themselves how we fight fascism, one way of fighting it is by confronting nationalism and beginning to build an opposition to it. The second level of deconstructing fascism and offering elements of a framework is cultures of authoritarianism and repression, be it social repression, family repression, or sexual repression. For instance, the emergence of a feminist movement in the postwar era of the 1960s and 70s represented a significant advance, because for the first time sexual politics arrives on the center stage. The emergence of sexual politics in the shape of feminism does contribute to the fight against fascism as an ideology. I strongly believe that had feminism not been on the scene, neo-nazism would be much stronger in Europe than it is today. The third and final level has to do with the fascist use of what Sartre (following Riesman) calls Œother-direction¹, and with violence as common praxis, that is, organised action or the Œcommon action¹ of organised groups. Rosenberg himself saw the peculiarity of fascism not in its ideology, which he thought was widespread by the turn of the century, but in its use of the Œstormtrooper tactic¹. A form of genocide or ethnic cleansing is implicit in the programme of every fascist movement, as it is in that of the RSS, whose longest-serving sarsangch’lak even glorified ŒGerman race pride¹ and the extermination of the Jews. But the holocaust is only possible as the culmination of a permanent mobilisation Œof¹/Œfor¹ violence. Fascist violence works through serial reactions which are retotalised at the level of a common undertaking, that is to say, Œreshaped and forged like inorganic matter¹ (Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, 649-50). Thus fascism works best in a milieu of alterity (in our case, communalism), where the oppression of blacks or Jews or Muslims produces itself as a determination of the language of their oppressors in the form of racism, where the inert execration of oppressed minorities betrays countless symbolic murders (Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive, 58), and organised groups (criminal organisations) fabricate religious mythologies to spur campaigns of genocide. Mobilisation Œof¹ violence: in the savage campaigns of hate propaganda directed against Muslims in India, genocide becomes Œvirtual¹; "totalising" propaganda creates an enemy whose extermination it posits as possible, alludes to, suggests, justifies, or advocates openly. Hate propaganda clears the ground for physical attacks and mass killings by producing a "climate" of violence where communal Œriots¹ (i.e. pogroms) can Œflare up¹ (be organised) at any time. The "climate" is worked matter, the object of a concerted praxis. Scapegoating, racism, and virtual genocide thus form the third level: all of these require detailed, intricate, elaborate organisation, and point to fascism as the concerted action of organised groups working on serialities. Fascist spontaneity is manipulated spontaneity, organised spontaneity. No explosion of violence happens spontaneously. It presumes massive organizational inputs, as Gujarat clearly shows. At one extreme the organised group is the sovereign group itself, the state using the resources of its machinery to aid and abet the work of other organised groups. At the other extreme are the non-organised series ("masses") who are the permanent objects of Œother-direction¹. Between them lie the organised groups that make up the fascist movement itself and function as pressure groups on both the sovereign and the series, exerting powerful networks of control over both, and directing the violence. The reports filed by Teesta Setalvad in the worst phase of the violence suggest that the genocide was perpetrated by Œmobs¹ of 5000 to 15,000 that Œcollected swiftly¹ to execute the carnage Œwith precision¹. ŒIt is not easy to collect such large mobs even in a city like Mumbai, let alone Ahmedabad¹ (ŒA trained saffron militia at work?¹, 7/3/02). In other words, these ghastly mobs comprised both directing groups and directed serialities, bound together in dispersive acts of murder and destruction orchestrated by activists of the VHP and Bajrang Dal, who formed an organised element extracting organic actions from inert non-organised series. A democracy that cannot disarm these stormtoopers is a democracy well on the way to its own destruction by fascism.  Thus the framework that I want to suggest to you consists of these three levels. Nationalism as the rational core of fascist ideology, with the "Nation" conceived as some living entity afflicted by democracy, infected by minorities, in desperate need of renewal or "rebirth" (what Sartre calls Œhyperorganicism¹, that is, the simulation of organic individuality at the level of a constituted dialectic); the level of male violence and male authority, of repressive family cultures that indoctrinate women and youth in a Œpassive and servile attitude towards the führer figure¹ (Reich), and root out of children everything that contributes to their humanity, to a sense of who they are as individuals (the capacity to think critically, to resist domination, to have friendships of their choice). In India, of course, we not only have gender repression, we have caste repression at work, the oppression of minorities, the appalling indifference towards children, etc. Thus as a culture we are replete with examples of subterranean repressive cultures in our society. I call them Œsubterranean¹ because they are invisible in their commonness, subtend the whole of our existence, and only become visible in times of resistance. Finally, organised brutality or violence as (common) praxis ­ the fabrication of religious and racial mythologies and campaigns of genocide as concerted praxes of organised groups acting on/conditioning serialities, Œother-direction¹.  When all this is put together in terms of an agenda for opposing fascism, we need to ask, have we seriously been pursuing an agenda on any of these levels? Do we have an agenda for fighting fascism in India? And wouldn¹t such an agenda have to go to the heart of mainstream culture to break the stranglehold of an oppressive seriality where millions of people must feel helpless and confused by their inert complicity in the politics of a movement that perpetrates violence in the name of Œall¹ ŒHindus¹.  One way of addressing some of this is by breaking the culture of silence. By talking about these issues, by debating them publicly and at home. Whenever we get the chance, we must ensure that all these issues are not swept under the carpet. For instance, one of my friends wanted to discuss Gujarat with members of his union. They were journalists, yet some of them felt quite uncomfortable and asked, "why should Gujarat be raked up once again?" "What¹s happened is done and forgotten, so let¹s forget about it". This attitude of "let¹s forget about it" is precisely what the Sangh Parivar thrives on. The great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish was actually living in Beirut in August 1982 when it was intensively bombed by the Israeli airforce and navy. The bombardment was spread over two months, and almost every day about two to three hundred Lebanese and Palestinian civilians were killed. To come to terms with that experience, he wrote a diary which he called Dh’kirah li-l-nisy’n, ŒMemory for forgetfulness¹. It¹s worth reflecting on what this title might mean. Going back to a more specific characterisation of each of these levels, let me start with nationalism. As you know, nationalism constitutes a terrain which is common to both the Right and the Left in this country. This is partly the reason why the Left is forced to conclude that really the Right wing is not serious about ŒSwadeshi¹. Actually the left sees itself as the defender of Œnational¹ independence, which it interprets primarily in economic terms. The left¹s nationalism is isolationist, it views world economy as a collection of relatively autonomous national economies and is unwilling to accept that capitalism undermines national self-sufficiency for ever, so that any attempt to go back to it (rather than forward to further integration and rational collective management of the world¹s resources) is doomed to failure. The nationalism of the fascist right is also deeply isolationist and its rhetoric against Œinternational capital¹ even more xenophobic. But there is another aspect to its nationalism which is not apparent in other political currents. Fascist movements subscribe to a particular kind of nationalism based on a promise of renewal or Œpalingenesis¹, a term that comes from this book by Griffin, which is a collection of readings by fascist writers (Griffin, Fascism, Oxford 1995). ŒPalingenesis¹ means regeneration. The idea is that there is some living practical community, the ŒNation¹, which is in a terminal state of decline, suffering a kind of incurable disease, and fascism projects itself as the panacea that will cure the ŒNation¹ so that Œit¹ is healed and regenerated. This is a common thread that unites all the classical fascist and neo-nazi writings. Thus in We or Our Nationhood Defined Golwalkar speaks of Œrevitalising¹ the ŒHindu Nation¹ and of ŒNational Regeneration¹. The programme he defines for the RSS is one of transforming India into an ethnocratic state based on the utopia of a fantasised Hindu community that recovers its pristine identity. He also has a racial idea of the nation, since the entire nation is identified with a particular Œrace¹, similar to other Nazi race theories. So far as the cultures of authority and oppression are concerned, I think identification with authority is the crucial thing that we need to tackle. It is a matter of the school, the workplace, the family, communities, etc., all of which are factories of Œreactionary ideology¹, producing serial individuals (conformists) in staggering numbers, because in each of these sites of learning or socialisation Œeveryone learns to be the expression of all the Others¹, to Œfeel¹ like the Others, Œthink¹ like the Others, etc., so that what emerges is a total suppression of the human, an annihilation of organic individuality, and eventually the kind of externally unified, regimented mass that images of fascist Europe depict as emblematic of fascist power. But Reich¹s point is that the roots of authority lie deep within the institutionalised repression of sexuality and manipulation of desires which through the family, pedagogy, etc., create an Œartificial interest¹ which Œactively supports the authoritarian order¹.  But we still require a totalising conception of how authority operates in Indian society, and how that interlaces with political strategies, with the increasing strength of the Right wing in this country. Sexual politics is equally important because it is in the interests of conservative, right-wing establishment forces to mould individuals, to control and manipulate their desires, and make the young in particular feel guilty and repressed about their sexuality. This suppression of sexuality is a powerful factor in the reinforcement of authoritarianism and the rise of fascist movements, and there is no way we can respond to such movements without encouraging reciprocity (that is, a free relationship between individuals) and an active stake in freedom. These three levels are so closely interlaced with each other that it is difficult to separate them because violence and aggression run as the common thread though all of them. If you look at nationalism in its contemporary forms, for example in the Balkans, it is no longer separable from the most horrific violence. The Serb nationalism of Milosevic, as we all know, took the form of ethnic cleansing. At the second level, of cultures of authority and repression, there is always violence. The assertions of authority are petrified violence and we have to be able to challenge them in their institutionalised forms. At the third level - violence as praxis - the issue is, can the Œother-direction¹ of organised (fascist) groups be combatted by anything short of the political action of other organised groups? In which case, which groups are these, and where are they? A final point relates to the fascist use of the spectacle. Fascism is a politics of spectacles. The spectacle is a display of the power of the organised group over the series. As such, it belongs to the repertoire of forms of manipulation through which all authoritarian movements seek to reinforce their hold over the Œmasses¹, the serial impotence of the latter, and their conditioning through the hypnotic spell of symbols and images that resonate with serial meanings (the spectacle as a Mass of alterity). Mussolini¹s theatrical style was strongly influenced by the theories of Gustave Le Bon who believed in the intrinsic irrationalism of the Œcrowd¹ and whose prescriptions to politicians on how to control the crowd relied heavily Œon the French research on hypnotism of the late 1800s¹. Le Bon argued that the creation of myths would become the leader¹s means to excite and subordinate the Œmasses¹, and encouraged politicians to play on the power of representation and to adopt theatrical modes. (Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini¹s Italy, 20). Religious processions and the artefacts and iconographies of religion occupy a major place in the repertoire of Hindutva precisely because spectacles play such an important role in the political culture of fascism. To conclude, therefore, I would point out that at each of these levels we have to define our theatres of resistance. Spaces for intervention have to exist at all these levels, but that requires the articulation of a powerful, anti-authoritarian politics that encourages individuals to think critically, fosters relationships based on reciprocity, and promotes a social and political culture which values freedom sufficiently to resist and undermine the hypnotic spells of nationalism, hierarchy, and serial domination.   From reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net Mon Nov 4 00:06:27 2002 From: reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 00:06:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Riotous Sentimentalism:P.Pandey Message-ID: <002301c28367$ebe1a920$4b9909ca@P> > Dear reader, Ø Pratap Pandey’s grasp of Menippean technicalities is indeed impressive. Though I know for sure that for some of us on the readers list, entire comprehension of it rapidly rises to stratosphere level, despite the lecture being interspersed with basal ,organic expletives. Ø However my grouse is on the point when he objects about Farah Naqvi’s quasi-sentimental pre-occupation with the victims. Any bedtime murder story would tell you that to catch the listener or browser’s interest in the perpetrators, a detailed, sympathetic,and circumstantial account along with the background of the victims is imperative. Ø Hence to accuse her of precisely doing this in a very rational tone is hardly fair. What could have been done was ,a further suggestion to :supply a sequel to the information by amplifying the perpetrators or criminals curriculum vitaes. § Yours appelently, § R. Chaudhuri.To: reader-list at sarai.net ____________________________________________________________________ > Subject: [Reader-list] Riotous Sentimentalism >Dear All, >Sentimentalism is an ethic, a posture, a mode of representation, a > narrative style, a gargoylic closure that emerged in the foment leading > to the French Revolution. (I am regurgitating, with tears forming in my > eyes, my inability to possess or even read Peter Brooks' classic text > on this. I place a bucket under each eye.) > Every human being is equal. Why? Because they cry. > This is a re-statement of: Every human being is equal because they eat, > piss, and crap. > [Sentimentalism's relation to Menippean satire is extremely > interesting. In Menippean satire, everyone is equal because everyone > gorges, and pisses and craps by the litre and the tonne. In medieval, > and even early modern Europe, till the time the peasantry possesses the > ability to pamphleteer, Menippean satire is the mode in which the > excesses of the rich are represented. With the supersession of > mercantilism into primitive accumulation of capital, came a new regime > of representation that excluded such expressivities. In an enlightened > universe and emergent burgher culture, it was difficult to tell such > enteric truths. Refinement was everything. > In a time of the transformation of the peasantry into labour, > refinement relegated Menippean satire, and peasant celebration, to the > sphere of obscenity. Fathers had banned Rabelais; sons were told to > read the later Dryden, or Racine; grandsons, Shaftesbury's moral > philosophy. Of course, you could read "well-written" satire. It was > witty and intellectual; it never crossed boundaries, Voltaire > notwithstanding. > The appropriation of Menippean satire is then filled in in the form of > the emergence of sentimentalism. Repression, or the excess of it, finds > a new outlet. > There is a change here, in how "excess" is defined. There is an attempt > to shift from a fantasy of control to a fantasy of agency. > The latter fantasy, too, is appropriated. > And how. It is turned into a regime of absolute victimisation, an > invitation to recognise the absolute overtaking of the subject by > external forces not under control. This eminently suited the 19th > century European bourgeosie, which drew its strengths from a belief in > permanent victimisation. It suited, even more, the ever-in-flux petty > bourgeosie, which based its lifestyle on an ethic of humiliation] > From the French Revolution to commentary on Gujarat is really jumping > the gun (what does this idiom mean?). Yet I cannot but help see a > disjunction, and one continuity.The disjunction lies in the manner in which appropriated, distorted,unrevolutionary sentimentalism (it has travelled wherever there exists > a middle class; should we thank Charles Dickens for it?) is today > unleashed as sublimatory vehicle to Global Aeducated Indian invested > indifference to, and deliberate disinterest in, the fascisisation (ugh! > what a noun!) of the Indian polity. (Khaa! what a sentence!) The > forwarded Farah Naqvi article turns me into Nirupa Roy: everytime she > comes into the scene, buckets fill up with tears. Naqvi wants to touch > my sensitivities. In the process, she enjoins me to bring in 2 buckets, > one under each eye. Precisely because of its sensitivities, her article > is a perfect example of how to assuage false (comfortable) anxieties. > > [I can quote ad infinitum over here. If you want, readers, I'll do it] > > The continuity lies in always finding the Self as victim, and so > implicilty and explicitly not bothering about the shape, size, visage, > predilections, of the perpetrator. > > Please, please, please, please, please, please. Can I be informed about > the perpetrators? Ms Naqvi, others, tell us the truth about Gujarat? > > To talk incessantly, in sentimentalist fashion, about the victims of > the Gujarat unfolding-massacre, is to silkily aeducatedly masturbate. > > Who pissed on Muslims in gujarat? Who crapped on them, wilfully and > with full and guaranteed freedom? Who's gorged, and are still gorging, > on them? When will I read an ethnography of the Perpetrator, > beautifully written? > > Tell me. Please, please, please, tell me. I am already angst- and > guilt-ridden. Don't flog me. I don't need you to throw victim-shit on > me. I am doing that all the time myself. Throw perpetrator-crap at me. > I will revel in it. Investigate the criminals. Tell me about them. I > need to know about them. > > To hell with sentimentalist coverage and commentary on Gujarat. Get > real. > > Miley sewer meraa tumhara > > to sewer baney humaraa > > yours, > > pp From areflagan at artpanorama.com Mon Nov 4 02:15:05 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 15:45:05 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Software In-Reply-To: <200211021016.34419.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: Dear reader-list, Please excuse the opening remarks below; they serve to introduce this software project elsewhere (and gives those on this list some context for where newcomers may be coming from). Since this post both precedes and inaugurates the discussion, I would like say, in the margins, that the recent posts here from Tripta and Supreet point to some very interesting developments with regards to the software question rephrased below. Let's see what the next weeks will bring. -af + + + + + This is an open invitation to join and participate in a discussion around the social aspects of computer software held on the Sarai reader-list over the next three weeks. Contributions will be (re)threaded, compiled and edited for inclusion in the Sarai Reader 03. More information about the annual Sarai Reader publications can be found at: http://www.sarai.net List subscriptions are handled here: http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list We hope to open with some considerations of the cultural, social and economic hegemonies perpetuated through proprietary software, move on to what challenges may be posed through free or open source alternatives, and conclude with the prospects of other software economies in both the private and public sector, not least through the spread of the Linux kernel. The opening address below attempts to broadly set the scene for how software may be considered in order to approach questions about what it is and what it does. Hope you will join the discussion. -af + + + + + What is software? The mechanistic answer would be that it is assemblages of algorithms compiled to perform and automate specific tasks on a computer -- what we succinctly call a program or an application. If we resided on the circuit board, somewhere among its rigid corridors of conduction, such a reductive definition may surmise to understand software, but only within the dark limits of the black box. Let¹s look outside this box for a moment. During the 1980s, the American photographer Lee Friedlander produced a series of photographs that make for some interesting observations. In 1982, he published _Factory Valleys_, a look at the grim industrial rust belts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Five years later, a book chronicling the work of people assembling supercomputers, entitled _Cray at Chippewa Falls_, came out. The year after, in 1988, an exhibition of photographs depicting people working at computers was shown at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Over the span of a decade, Friedlander had charted and documented the gradual shift from an industrial toward an information society, with subtle commentary on how the two intertwine. There is a symbiosis of complementary forms, combining metal and flesh, in the factory photographs that turns each machine into an anthropomorphic mold. Controls are located according to the operator¹s physiognomy, and the joint actions they perform, along with the resulting outcome, are the sum of these opposed yet allied parts. Each machine is furthermore the summation of past labors: it replaces a set of skills and a set of relations on the production line to make the process more effective. The operator and the factory owner consequently embrace the machine as a valuable tool, because it allows these skills to be synthesized, mechanized and performed automatically. But the machine fundamentally speaks of the relations mandated by the conveyor belt where it converses. Its primary role and function, descriptive of its form and operation, is to serve as a cog in the wheel that keeps the factory churning. When people build supercomputers at Chippewa Falls, and later program them, they equally strive toward apotheosis in obsolescence. The inner sanctum of the silicon chip is clinical and sterile, devoid of human contamination. Bodies move around like dangerous pollutants, resembling proverbial ghosts in the machine. As the layers of production peel back, the wiring of connective tissue gets increasingly messy with soldering and screws. Programming follows a similar path, articulating itself from the instructions embedded in hardware via binary machine code to levels of conversant syntax and desktops littered with objects we recognize and languages we speak. At the heart of these related assemblies are principles isolated from touch, kept from us due to the danger of corrupting their impervious functionalities. If eyes are indeed considered to be mirrors of the soul, there appears to be something amiss with people staring at computer screens around MIT: their eyes are identically focused on some diffuse distance, all with lids wide apart and pupils strangely glazed over. For the analogy to hold, with the recognition it invites, the inner life on display must be one of a collective spirit, undivided among these individuals and realized through their common denominator, the computer. We are looking at machine that synthesizes and automates modalities of social, cultural and economic relations, removes most tinkering from its root, and installs a generalized operator to perpetuate a program of utility valued and developed by its owners. Now that the initial question has been rephrased, it should be asked again. What is software? + + + + + From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Mon Nov 4 05:03:44 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 23:33:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Residue Message-ID: <20021103233344.76825.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Residue-discussers, I need some semantic clarification here: by 'residue', do we mean 'detritus', or do we mean 'precipitate'? Are we talking 'left-overs' here or are we talking 'survivors'? Are we talking accident here or intention? Who, or what, is the motor of change? Including, in the capacity of being fully human? If we are talking about the fold of capitalism, then 'residue' does not fit. If we are talking about capitalism fold-ups, by which is meant a moment when capital is actually able to reflect upon its activity, then 'residue' does not fit. If we are talking capitalism fold-outs, by which is meant a moment when capital needn't reflect upon its activity, then 'residue' does not fit. If we are talking about capitalism fold-overs, by which is meant a moment when capital is able to ride over obstacles, then 'residue' doesn't fit. When we are talking about the 'residue' of capitalism, do we actually mean that we are talking about 'labour'? To speak about 'labour' in terms of the 'residue' of capitalism is intellectually such a horrendous task that I am sure none of us would like to do it. [Funnily, in the Third World context, this is a hot thing to talk about. Here, one goes into the whole question of unnamed agents, transported against will, combating contexts of accumulation. Narratives about such agents range from dread drudgery to sublimatory transformations (early Naipaul included here). What gets lost, in the sea of recrimination, or discovery, or even nostalgia, is the brute fact of accumulation. Its history. NOT ITS CULTURE. O no. The culture is always retrieved, never the context of accumulation.] What the discussion touches upon is nothing more than the history of labour, and nothing less than the history of the labour-figure. Perhaps we should turn our attention to the labour-figure, as opposed to the hysteric. pp Post your ad on Yahoo! India Autos.Check out the used Maruti, Fiat and Ford models on sale now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021103/38cfc1a7/attachment.html From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Nov 5 00:42:52 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 20:12:52 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?Q?Teesta=B9s?= Testimony on Genocide in Gujarat on the Occasion of the Second Anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security Message-ID: WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM 1325 PEACEWOMEN E-NEWS: 12th Edition, November 1st, 2002 A SPECIAL 1325 ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was passed on October 31st, 2000. http://www.peacewomen.org/resources/voices/speech/Teesta.html 4. STATEMENTS BY PEACEWOMEN FROM WAR-TORN COUNTRIES Teesta Setalvad, a senior journalist and women¹s rights activist from India, was not able to come to New York for the anniversary events, although her statement was included in a press kit. Vahida Nainar, of Bombay¹s Voice of Women, Women¹s Caucus for Gender Justice and the Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, came in her place to raise awareness about the violence in Gujarat. Testimony on Genocide in Gujarat on the Occasion of the Second Anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security October 23, 2002 By Teesta Setalvad* From Harwood at scotoma.org Tue Nov 5 02:17:57 2002 From: Harwood at scotoma.org (Harwood) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 20:47:57 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] redistribution.pl Message-ID: This appeared on a couple of lists a week or so ago. But might help open your debate. # Perl Routines for the redistribution of the worlds wealth # Takes the cash from the rich and turn it into clean drinking water wells. # w.blake at scotoma.org # v 0.0.1 # Copyright (c) 1792-2002 William Blake # Unpublished work reconstituted W.Blake at Scotoma.org. # Permission granted to use and modify and append this library so long as the # copyright above is maintained, modifications are documented, and # credit is given for any use of the library. # This code is distributed under the same conditions as perl itself # This code is distributed with no warrenty whatsoever. # Thanks are due to many people for reporting bugs and suggestions # For more information, see http://www.scotoma.org #Constants my $SKINT = 0; my $TO_MUCH = $SKINT + 1; #This is a anonymous hash record to be filled with the Name and Cash of the rich %{The_Rich} = { 0 =>{ Name => '???', Cash => '???', }, } #This is a anonymous hash record to be filled with the Price Of Clean Water #for any number of people without clean water %{The_Poor} = { 0 =>{ PlaceName => '???', #the place name were to build a well PriceOfCleanWater => '???', Cash => '???', }, } # for each of the rich, process them one at a time passing #them by reference to RedistributeCash. foreach my $RichBastardIndex (keys %{The_Rich}){ &ReDisdributeCash(\%{The_Rich->{$RichBastardIndex}}); } #This is the core subroutine designed to give away # cash as fast as possible. sub ReDisdributeCash { my $RichBasterd_REFERENCE = @_; #go through each on the poor list giving away Cash until each group # can afford clean drinking water while($RichBasterd_REFERENCE ->{CASH} >= $TO_MUCH ){ foreach my $Index (keys @{Poor}){ $RichBasterd_REFERENCE->{CASH}--; $Poor->{$Index}->{Cash}++; if( $Poor->{$Index}->{Cash} => $Poor->{$Index}->{PriceOfCleanWater}){ &BuildWell($Poor->{$Index}->{PlaceName} ); } } } } From chunnu_1 at rediffmail.com Tue Nov 5 09:23:36 2002 From: chunnu_1 at rediffmail.com (chunnu_1 at rediffmail.com) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 21:53:36 -0600 Subject: [Reader-list] Manoj Gupta Message-ID: Dear Friends May GOD shower you with all the love, happiness, success and prosperity in Life. We Wish you a very Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New Year. With Love Manoj Gupta & Manish Gupta and all from bhilaiinfoline.com http://www.bhilaiinfoline.com From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Nov 5 13:26:37 2002 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 23:56:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Residue In-Reply-To: <20021103233344.76825.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20021105075637.14108.qmail@web41111.mail.yahoo.com> hi pratap an initial engagement only with your mail, partly because i need to try and understand bits of it more fully. you are right to try and pin down what is meant by 'residue'. both of the meanings you put forward are close. i think we are talking about the 'necessary by-products of a process'. if we are to believe the dialogues in pulp fiction then there is a build-up of red meat in the gut of a burger-eater over time that can neither be absorbed into the body nor passed out. this 'residue' of the whole system of digestive processes is something that can be ignored for long enough that all the inputs and outputs of the system can be believed to be in perfect balance. it can however reach a stage where the system itself is thrown into crisis. the idea of speaking of the 'residue' with reference to the market is to try and call into question the idea that the system can exist in a state of perfect balance, and to bring a systemic understanding to many of the isolated incidents (refugee camps, jail populations etc) that have been mentioned in this discussion. there is a disgusting overtone to the word which is not unintended. but your criticism is well-founded and needs to be taken seriously. in actual fact we are talking about a global underclass and we do not need to find more ways of naming that class as 'detritus'. perhaps we should be talking, not about 'residue' but about the *process* by which residue is generated? R __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ From tripta at sarai.net Tue Nov 5 20:53:13 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 15:23:13 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] software-google/ism Message-ID: <200211051523.13067.tripta@sarai.net> dear all, the result of Googlism for: software. may lead to interesting insights and conversations about the same. cheers tripta __________________________________________________________________________________________ software is e software is the market leader for e software is here software is a political action software is a milwaukee wisconsin web software software is not enough software is a cost effective software is the cnc software is designed to assist in the software is sweet software is a cultural solvent software is software is good software is compatible software is in the doldrums software is not up to snuff software is on the rise software is currently available on software is new group's aim software is available to help with iso 9000 compliance? software is free software is defunct software is now patentable software is a shuck software is needed software is the best part of apple software is 35% software is available on the iuware cd? software is a key beneficiary of a pickup in it software is a packaging software is best for me? software is a multi zone software is best to send text messages? software is not available at this time software is most useful software is your ultimate gateway to the worlds of love & software is the fastest software is a social problem and free software is the solution software is so bad by charles c software is wrong for public libraries software is so bad software is insecure by josh ryder last updated january 30 software is our business software is also powerful software is too ambiguous software is an idea whose time has finally come software is used at rice university and how to obtain a copy software is racist software is a political action jj software is a national software development company skilled in efficiently building high software is not enough the urgent need for server software is difference software is popular now ? software is going software is the cnc imagine a computer numerical control software is ready for real use software is crafted with care to provide quality resources for education software is a small programming group dedicated to creating premier applications for mac os x software is updated / get a notification when this software is updated software is doomed 07 software is a company that creates top software is compatible with windows xp software is just the tip of the iceberg software is the best company at russian pda market software is in the doldrums by clint boulton admitting that gauging high software is not up to snuff by carol king when it comes to filtering software performance software is so much cooler software is on the rise startups that securely index multimedia files are starting to make vcs listen up software is it anyway? software is finding its way into the back offices of the the largest companies and is powering some of the software is currently available on the network software is secure software is new group's aim by wylie wong staff writer may 16 software is available to help with iso 9000 compliance? a software is different software is not free software is defunct ka software is a shuck by dennis fiery software is better software is needed reginaldo almeida software is the best part of apple sara berger software is one factor software is 35% faster the latest release of the cypress semiconductor warp design tools and environment expands support for software is available on the iuware cd? the iuware cd contains licensed software packages software is a key beneficiary of a pickup in it spending software is going to be a really significant factor in the international economy in the 21st century software is trusted proxy software is called "free" because it costs no money to download or use - but source code is not available software is all about objects software is right for you? compare features available in each program in order to determine which application is best suited to your needs software is near software is most useful? software is more akin to speech than a physical product to be sold From tripta at sarai.net Tue Nov 5 20:55:11 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 15:25:11 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] copyright: right copy Message-ID: <200211051525.11663.tripta@sarai.net> have been trying my hand at googlism to fugure out it's working and to see the mediation it provides to the mediated reality of google. and this seems very interesting to me. cheers tripta __________________________ copyright is important copyright is an impediment copyright is dead; long live copyright copyright is a form of protection under u copyright is good copyright is inherently anticapitalistic copyright is a criminal copyright is key copyright is essentially copyright is about copyright is monopoly" copyright is unregistered copyright is now 2001 copyright is a bundle of copyright is boos copyright is over copyright is so confusing topic in terms of internet? by copyright is held by the author/owner copyright is a way to earn your living copyright is based on recognition of the property of copyright is copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the copyright is often confusing and underscored by copyright is shared by educause and the author copyright is the fence copyright is dead 14 copyright is not infringed by setting the question copyright is to begin with copyright is an impediment to the free flow of ideas copyright is a form of protection provided by federal law copyright is a form of protection under us law granted to an author of original works copyright is good copyright is good 2002 copyright is a criminal offence copyright is the most screwed up about 5 years before steamboat willy is about to come out of copyright protection copyright is the best insurance you can buy copyright is monopoly copyright is a bundle of rights copyright is an exclusive right in relation to the work copyright is a property right which protects work produced on paper copyright is so confusing topic in terms of internet? by svetlna gavrilina copyright is clarified copyright is the legal right of an author or artist to decide who may and who may not copy and distribute their works of literature and art copyright is dead copyright is never perfectly simple copyright is legitimate? contents copyright is designed to protect an artist copyright is the very centre of our operations copyright is wrong copyright is indicated copyright is acknowledged "© efqm" copyright is waived in this material to encourage its widespread use for reference and onward dissemination to all with interests in these areas copyright is termed a "work" copyright is based on recognition of the property of authors in their creation and recognition of works as an extension of the author?s personality copyright is a form of intellectual property that protects a variety of literary copyright is a government enforced monopoly copyright is it copyright is copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the united states copyright is a discussion group that provides a forum for the analysis of topics such as copyright law and policy copyright is a legal device that provides the creator of a work of art or literature copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the united states copyright is commonly referred to as a property right copyright is intended copyright is often confusing and underscored by the greater need for copyright information copyright is a bundle of rights granted to the maker of a creative work copyright is now copyright is invalid so i can do anything with it that i want? no copyright is a complicated legal issue copyright is also managed by the agency but may be owned by another person copyright is essentially wrong copyright is effective from 2000 copyright is the branch of the law that protects creative works from unauthorised use by other people ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- From csszcodx at public.wh.hb.cn Wed Nov 6 02:02:58 2002 From: csszcodx at public.wh.hb.cn (csszcodx at public.wh.hb.cn) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 21:32:58 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] 12 main items ( SSS-5 ) Message-ID: THE GATOSON (HOLDINGS) LIMITED E-mail : csszcodx at public.wh.hb.cn Our Ref.: 12 main items (SSS-5) 5th Nov. 2002 Dear Sir, We can get the follow good quality products which made in China at the SPECIAL LOWEST PRICES. 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Alex Cheng General Manager A wearing and accouterment A01 man garment A02 lady garment A03 children garment A04 silk dress A05 leather/fur dress A06 knitting dress A07 full dress A08 sportswear and leisurewear A09 uniform A10 underwear and nightwear A11 accouterment and accessories A12 shoes A13 others B electricity & electronic product B01 electronic appliance for kitchen B02 telephone B03 computer B04 television set B05 air conditioning B06 audio and video facility B07 sanitary products B08 washing machine B09 water fountain B10 VCD/DVD player B11 refrigerator B12 water heater B13 mobile phone B14 digital products B15 others C machinery and equipment C01 food, beverage & tobacco machine C02 foodstuff machine C03 dyeing machine for textile C04 sewing machine for dress C05 leather/shoes machine C06 paper machine C07 paper products machine C08 press machine/equipment C09 Medical equipments C10 envir.pro.machinery/equipment C11 chemical machinery/equipment C12 construction machinery/equipment C13 engineering machinery C14 electronic/electrical machinery C15 others D vehicle D01 sanitation truck series D02 traveling bus D03 passenger car D04 agricultural vehicles D05 carring truck D06 saloon car D07 mini bus D08 bus D09 motorcycle D10 bicycle D11 fire truck series D12 cement tanker D13 concrete mixing truck D14 drumper D15 others E ship and spare parts E01 yacht and speed boat E02 oil tanker E03 cargo vessel E04 submarine vessel E05 passenger vessel E06 battery boat E07 rowing boat E08 treading boat E09 fishing boat E10 special vessel E11 others F sports products F01 ball F02 ski and skate shoes F03 gymnastic equipment F04 model F05 traveling products F06 swimming outfit F07 others G office equipment & stationery G01 office furniture G02 office stationery G03 office equipment G04 copier G05 fax machine G06 scraping machine G07 scanner G08 printer G09 blueprint machine G10 others H daily commodity H01 dishware and kitchenware H02 furniture H03 decoration H04 clock and watch H05 cleaning article H06 domestic textile H07 clothes rack and clothes pin H08 lighter and smoking set H09 knife and scissors H10 umbrella and raincoat H11 glasses H12 others J industrial control/automatization J01 automatic apparatus parts J02 robot and mechanical hands) J03 automatic system J04 automatic instrument J05 others K paper products K01 toilet paper K02 paper package K03 others L Oilfield equipments L01 Welhead equipment & X-mas tree blowout preventers L02 Drill-Stem testing tools new series perforating guns L03 Pumping units L04 F-series triplex mud pumps L05 Drilling & producting accessories L06 Drilling rigs L07 Others M aerospace products & aircrafts M01 Aircrafts M02 Aerospace equipment M03 Others From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Wed Nov 6 20:21:14 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 14:51:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] discussing residue In-Reply-To: <20021105075637.14108.qmail@web41111.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20021106145114.1763.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Rana, and all interested in discussing residue, What's interesting about this discussion on capitalism's residue/s is that we are probably trying to give a different name to a phenomenon that has been much-talked about. We are trying to systematically understand the logic whereby capitalism has consistently produced "left-overs" (disgusting term; but I think its all right to use disgusting terms for a fact that is disgusting. Who likes to be a by-product?). It seems clear that capital cannot function without selection, without productive heirarchies, without a vertical ladder of consumption that always clarifies who it is that will fulsomely consume (benefit). In short, there is no capitalism without the 'necessary' by-products. That is to say, by-products in neccesity. Of neccessity, somebody must bear the brunt of capital's transformations (in productive capacities, interactive relations, ways of defining reality). I think the question we are trying to ask is, not so much "who bears the brunt", but rather, "how is the brunt borne?" What is born, in that which must be borne? This is not merely a matter of "logging-in" into existent stratifications. Capital creates classes, which is to say it transforms productive relations in society -- we know this. The interesting question, I think, your posting raises is: how are we to conceive of "affected populations"? In other words, the concept of "relations of production" must now be opened out in order to explain a phenomenon that affects "populations" (what kind of social group is this?). Is it possible to consider that metaphor of transformation ("mode of production") in a way that sutures its contradictions to this, Other, transformation we are talking about? We seem to be talking about a determinate transformation in economic capacities that actually produces, not so much an structural Other (class society, or labour that of neccesity becomes politically conscious), but an structurated Other whose relations to "mode of production" are of a different order (of determination). (Its interesting to examine how Marx actually manages to make labour the Other of capital: if labour is the Other of capital, then it is always the produced [to that extent, 'naturally' or 'logically' produced] Other. The capacities of this Other are peculiarly determined by capital. Most importantly, what labour can ethically do is completely determined by what capital does, and can do. Labour must do what capital doesn't: this reflects a shift in Marx's own thinking on the presence of the human being in capital relations, even a confusion, for the alienated human in his early writing is the exact opposite of the naturally/logically transformation-driven labourer in his later writings) It is now known that it is not automatic for capital to produce its Other, labour that comes to possess (of neccessity) a transformative capacity that runs athwart the ambitions and manipulations (including State formation) of capital. But -- and this is where 'residue' raises its powerful and beautifully disgusting head -- is it automatic in the unfolding of capital to produce affected populations? That is to say, can we seriously conceive of "mode of production" without taking into consideration "modes of re-population"? [This places upon us the pressure to define the word "population" in such a way that it no longer carries the baggage of desperation and hopelessness it usually does in any discourse (official, sociological, economic, historical, anthropological; the life-style discourse, the "panacea" discourse, the discourse of differences betwen the First and Third Worlds) in which it figures. It places upon us the pleasure of grappling with the question: what does it mean to become more fully human? What does it mean to populate?] I think we are grappling with a startling question: exactly what is the Other of capital? Is it "labour" or is it "people"? What does it mean "to work", as opposed to what does it mean "to populate"? Wherein lies human agency? At issue here is the anthropological/metaphysical question of the very human desire to become more fully human. At issue here is whether this 'desire' must be understood in purely psychoanalytic terms, or in terms that searches after the connections between choice, world-making, and historical change. That is to say, we may be instituting a mode of analysis that derives its materiality from an ecological ontology that considers the human being as always-already inseparable from nature. It is certain that humans (even cruelly) like to transform. What happens, then, when you are unable to transform, but find yourself taking upon you transformations of which you do not possess complete knowledge (or even a theory, or a myth, or a narrative, to go by)? It can be suggested that capitalism's productive, and reproductive, tendencies are peculiarly determined by a relentless repetition-syndrome (a fold-over syndrome). At the heart of every working of capital, lies the desire to primitively accumulate. It is this primitive-accumulating motor that drives capital. It exists in every stage of capitalism. It exists wherever capitalism reaches, or breaches.No matter how sophisticated the working of capital is, it must be driven, at some level, by primitive accumulation. Primitive accumulation (re-conceptualised) is a population-imperative. That is to say, it is a survival-imperative. This is where capital and people clash, for good or for worse. Let's think on it (not primitive accumulation, but residue). pp Rana Dasgupta wrote:hi pratap an initial engagement only with your mail, partly because i need to try and understand bits of it more fully. you are right to try and pin down what is meant by 'residue'. both of the meanings you put forward are close. i think we are talking about the 'necessary by-products of a process'. if we are to believe the dialogues in pulp fiction then there is a build-up of red meat in the gut of a burger-eater over time that can neither be absorbed into the body nor passed out. this 'residue' of the whole system of digestive processes is something that can be ignored for long enough that all the inputs and outputs of the system can be believed to be in perfect balance. it can however reach a stage where the system itself is thrown into crisis. the idea of speaking of the 'residue' with reference to the market is to try and call into question the idea that the system can exist in a state of perfect balance, and to bring a systemic understanding to many of the isolated incidents (refugee camps, jail populations etc) that have been mentioned in this discussion. there is a disgusting overtone to the word which is not unintended. but your criticism is well-founded and needs to be taken seriously. in actual fact we are talking about a global underclass and we do not need to find more ways of naming that class as 'detritus'. perhaps we should be talking, not about 'residue' but about the *process* by which residue is generated? R __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: Post your ad on Yahoo! India Autos.Check out the used Maruti, Fiat and Ford models on sale now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021106/e43ba1ad/attachment.html From mimeticus at yahoo.com Wed Nov 6 21:11:52 2002 From: mimeticus at yahoo.com (Mimeticus) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 07:41:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] residues Message-ID: <20021106154152.94228.qmail@web41001.mail.yahoo.com> Allow me slightly to complicate the discussion on residues, if I may... We are accustomed to the idea of capitalism producing a residue, an Other, an excess that, in the fullness of the revolutionary moment, might turn around and insist upon its Hegelian destiny as master, not slave. Or, in a more post-Marxian vein, that might serve as a foundation for 'different' modes of thinking the political. But it seems to me that while this is not wrong, it also misses something absolutely crucial about capitalism which is that capitalism must at once affirm and deny the material from which it draws value. Once again, we are accustomed to thinking that this affirmation is a conditional one, that only those kinds of difference that are valorizable, commodifiable, are 'recognized' by capital. And on that basis, the 'excess' continues to haunt the process of valorization, continues to suggest the possibility of collapse. Let's push this idea a little bit further and think about what happens when we are not simply thinking in terms of the good old Marxian topos of the labour process as the source of exchange value, but also about the kind of collective imaginative work that goes into valorizing many of the commodities and images that we consume. Desiring, viewing, moving through the commodity spaces of the city - all these are a kind of labour, each of them crucial to the possibility of contemporary capital's reproduction, it's self-valorization. Where is the "residue" now? Does it exist as a repressed desire, waiting to unsettle the regimes of fantasy that we subscribe to, as readily interpellated consumer-subjects? Or has it become a crucial authorizing component of the valorization process, as the lacuna at the heart of the commodity form compels both desire and doubt? In that case, what would an "alternative" scenario look like? What structure of desire, of imagination would not involve such an ambivalence? Mimeticus --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021106/101072f9/attachment.html From mainakray at now-india.com Wed Nov 6 21:24:16 2002 From: mainakray at now-india.com (Mainak Ray) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 21:24:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Doctor claims he saw the Ansal incident Message-ID: <002701c285ac$ef42d980$e68cc3cb@mainak> http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&cat1=1&cat2=22&newsid=27105 Doctor claims he saw the Ansal incident - By Shiv Pujan Jha New Delhi, Nov. 5: A doctor who claims he was an eye-witness to the shootout between the Delhi police and the two terrorists killed in the basement of Ansal Plaza on Sunday night alleged that the "two men were unarmed and were shot dead by the police." Dr H. Krishna claimed no shootout took place between them. He said he was in the basement of the shopping complex along with his wife and son at the time of the incident. Talking to The Asian Age, Dr Krishna dismissed the reports appearing in the media that the terrorists were killed after an encounter with the Special Cell of the Delhi police. He said that while he was in the basement he saw two men in their early 20s, "barely able to walk," come out of a car. "Being a doctor I could easily make out that either they had not slept for several days or had taken a heavy dose of sleeping pills," said the doctor. He said that at the time of the incident there were about seven to eight other people in the basement. "The two boys were shot dead in front of us," Dr H. Krishna claimed and said the police version that "the terrorists opened fire on the police party" was false. He said, "They were empty-handed when they stepped out from the car" and pointed out: "Had there been a real encounter the other people in the basement would have been injured." He denied that the terrorists had two bags containing ammunition. He said the two boys were shot dead a few metres away from each other. Dr H. Krishna added: "The cops fired about 30 to 35 bullets. It lasted hardly for a minute. They were unarmed." Dr Krishna said he tried to refute the statement of a senior police officer while he was briefing some reporters but "was hushed up by his (the officer's) shadow." He said he left the place in exasperation when he saw more and more media persons converge and take down the statements of the senior police officers. "I went to the McDonald's restaurant along with my wife and son and stayed there, observing everything till late in the night," he said. After the telephonic conversation with the doctor, The Asian Age team reached his residence and found some men who appeared to be plainclothes policemen hovering around the house. The Asian Age team found the house locked from the outside. A man in his early 20s answered the doorbell and from behind the iron-grill door said the doctor had stepped out. By that time the plainclothes men had disappeared. Earlier, talking to The Asian Age, the doctor had expressed the fear that he may be "traced and silenced." Dr Krishna, however, said he would not be afraid "to speak out on the matter before the President of the country." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021106/7b6abb93/attachment.html From areflagan at artpanorama.com Thu Nov 7 00:09:59 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 13:39:59 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Profiling In-Reply-To: <200211051523.13067.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: The below moves on to a specific software angle after two paragraphs. Has anyone got similar experiences or thoughts? -af + + + + + Profiling software Profiling on racial or ethnic grounds has long been a contentious issue. After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, however, it appears that the practice of singling out a certain demographic for special treatment, with a strong negative prefix, has reentered as an unequivocally necessary and good practice. After all, the reasonable argument goes, the hijackers and the sponsoring terrorist cells were all Arabs, so surely it makes perfect, and legitimate, sense to take extra precautions when dealing with people of Middle Eastern descent, especially Muslims. And so it has come to pass that anyone named after the Prophet or with a golden complexion, not to mention a foreign passport from one of select countries, has been taken aside to have their individuality stripped in favor of a generalized figure associated with all evil, or any other expression of apocalyptic mayhem that you may care to fear. One size fits all when the profile matches. African Americans are of course no strangers to profiling in the name of security, justice and peace. Ever since the chains of slavery were revoked and civil rights were granted (by the white masters), they have been enslaved in a stereotype of criminal activity that law enforcement has pushed vigorously to enforce. True, the majority of the prison population in the US, some 2 million people, is non-white, but we are not encouraged to see this as the effect of poverty, legislation (like the 3-strikes law), and the targeting of specific communities. Instead it is considered a behavioral question of race and ethnicity, physiognomy and genes. Yes, let us completely ignore the obvious fact that incarceration is a social safety valve and that it primarily removes the elements likely to threaten the distribution of wealth and power through its precarious ideological balance. And this is why any black man in the US is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Or, as US Attorney General John Ashcroft kindly remarked about the profile macthes held at Camp X-Ray: they are, in his view, considered guilty even after proven innocent and are never to be released.* The profile has now become destiny and any intent prescribed by it has become synonymous with presupposed actions, even if a subject has not committed them and has no inclination or conviction to ever do so. So why was profiling considered controversial in the first place? One element is the social contexts alluded to already; profiles perpetuate larger injustices and can therefore never be considered legitimate causes, just symptoms of what they essentially cover up. As such, they are mechanisms of oppression that work contrary to the purposes they advocate, very literally protecting and serving, to invoke the policing motto, certain values at the expense of others. More importantly, however, is the historical legacy of profiling, which leads directly back to the discredited nineteenth century sciences of Eugenics and Phrenology. The normative argument constructed by these discourses anchored desirable as well as unwanted characteristics in averaged appearances. Hence questions of race were linked to the future of the species and smaller idiosyncrasies advertised criminal acts. If you happened to have a big nose, for example, you may be predisposed to take a life and should preferably be removed from society before your heinous act was committed. Eugenics, meaning ³good at birth,² accompanied this as a program of social engineering, accomplished through selective breeding. (You may insert the many current debates around The Human Genome Project here.) While these scientific attempts at inscribing behavior in physiognomy eventually succumbed to other paradigms, as they exclude individual differences, free will and even cultural influences in favor of a strict biological determinism, their agenda of presuppositions are essentially furthered in the current practice of profiling. I use profiles every day. Software profiles, that is. To make various devices and peripherals converse, I have spent many hours calibrating and profiling them to ensure appropriate translations of my perceptions. A program like Adobe Photoshop conveniently demands profiles for just about everything, and I consider this one of its greatest features. The first thing I do after application launch is to set the correct working space and profile assignments. When I open and save files, I am prompted with the question of what profile to attach, if there is none, or informed that it differs from the working space, in which case I may have to decide on a conversion or perhaps stick to the original. Basically, any image that will migrate beyond my desktop, and not end up on the Web, depends on an embedded profile to maintain its integrity, that is to say my intent. But first the monitor needs a profile to achieve that WYSIWYG match for the workflow. This is roughly done with another software utility, like the largely defunct Adobe Gamma, or any of the fancy devices that attach to the screen for automatic adjustment of each CRT ray gun and thereby replace my suspect eye with accurate measures. Next is the scanner, where IT 8 calibration reads the values off a colorful target, one for transparencies and one for reflective materials, and matches each exactly to a referenced text file of numeric data loaded into memory. The printer, to complete the entire process, is somewhat harder to profile. Some software, like Monaco EZ Color, does this by simply scanning a print, but the best and certainly the most expensive way, since the gadget involved costs thousands of dollars (I have held one once, carefully), is to acquire a dedicated densitometer and read individual values off a printed target at software prompts. For the printer, a profile for each type of paper and ink used is usually needed. Once all this is done and assigned correctly, an image or negative placed on the profiled scanner will be displayed correctly on the profiled monitor and print with the right density, contrast and color balance on the profiled printer. Profiles, in other words, essentially work as device dependent preference files for a corrected and adaptable vision. Photoshop consequently depends on profiles for the image workflow to make sense. Without profiles, I would scan until I got sick of it and then adjust the data, with a quality loss, until the monitor view came close. Should I be lucky enough to only work on one particular system, avoiding the WYSIWYG mismatch between what I saw and what someone else is seeing, I would most likely waste a lot of paper and ink to get the print right. After exhausting the canned profiles, shipped with the printer, that never match, the remaining option is to adjust the image itself, blindly bending color curves for an effect I have to visualize and then proof repeatedly. So I embrace profiles to manage my colors and keep the gamut within the range accepted as natural and normal. Without them, data would repeatedly lose its reference points with each appearance, in each device, and degenerate into the chaos that defies my recognition of what is proper. Profiles are my calibrated points of navigation that prevents this decline. The real beauty, although you can¹t see it, of applying various prefab profiles within Photoshop rests on the fact that they are invisible. 20% dot gain, to pick one setting, applied to an image objectively only results in a lighter image when the file rips to film, on the screen it looks exactly as it should. Profiles essentially do not really change anything, Photoshop asserts, they simply maintain your vision and translate it with 20/20 results (through 20% dot gain, for example) to the intended output. Now this is priceless of course. Who would not cherish profiles that work in the background to ensure that you get what you want, from what you see, without suffering any distortions in what you are looking at? Whatever changes are made, they only survive as a hidden addendum to the image file until they are called upon to preserve the integrity of the file, as you visualized it, and not as an imagesetter, for example, may wish to interpret it. Calibration coupled with the use of profiles consequently ensures that one point of view is preserved according to set standards, throughout various settings, in different contexts. Software tells me, then, that profiles are necessary and desirable; thanks to the way they help various devices to interpret data packets, according to intent. But when someone passes through a metal detector at a port of entry and is pulled aside for intimate screening, it is because he or she has just had a profile attached to them, assigned by the local ³device² that interprets their demographic this way. Sure, software profiles put the packets in circulation from a central command, like the Colorsync or Photoshop color settings, but these profiles where proofed on the relevant devices before they were distributed to ensure collaboration, much like any visa policy really. Profiling works in the background to facilitate decisions on entry when packets travel port to port across borders of difference. And profiles very explicitly invite many more such analogies, labored or not, precisely because they are instruments of conversion that always return to the currency they carry. This leads to the thought that persistently haunts me; that profiles explains why the world makes some sense at all, how evil divides itself from good, black from white, religions from each other, one country from the next and so on. They are the troublesome and comforting ideological supplements that I carry around as inevitable baggage in return for knowledge and perception, those largely cerebral turns toward understanding and recognition. Profiles hence allow my views to converse across divides by putting the general before the specific, ideology before the individual. Through them the calibrated and manufactured impressions that encourages me to see a criminal in every black man, a terrorist in every Arab and white as the holy source of light take root. Profiles are my hidden supplements to a point of view, and I honestly swear by them. Software profiles, that is. * (Four aid workers from Kuwait caught in the dragnet have, I believe, gone home, more than a year after they were ³captured.²) From areflagan at artpanorama.com Thu Nov 7 00:23:51 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 13:53:51 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] redistribution.pl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/4/02 15:47, "Harwood" wrote: > This appeared on a couple of lists a week or so ago. But might help open your > debate. > > # Perl Routines for the redistribution of the worlds wealth > # Takes the cash from the rich and turn it into clean drinking water wells. > # w.blake at scotoma.org > # v 0.0.1 > > # Copyright (c) 1792-2002 William Blake > # Unpublished work reconstituted W.Blake at Scotoma.org. > # Permission granted to use and modify and append this library so long as > the > # copyright above is maintained, modifications are documented, and > # credit is given for any use of the library. > # This code is distributed under the same conditions as perl itself > # This code is distributed with no warrenty whatsoever. > # Thanks are due to many people for reporting bugs and suggestions > > # For more information, see http://www.scotoma.org I noticed that the admirable Perl script contains hashes prepared for input but it does not contain an output mechanism, not even print and some HTML (admittedly my Perl is basic). A telling omission perhaps, with regards to software? -af From areflagan at artpanorama.com Thu Nov 7 00:40:35 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 14:10:35 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] software-google/ism In-Reply-To: <200211051523.13067.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: On 11/5/02 10:23, "Tripta" wrote: > dear all, > > the result of Googlism for: software. may lead to interesting insights and > conversations about the same. > > cheers > tripta In some respects, perhaps the way the answers were derived here is more to the point than the resulting aphorisms themselves. Natalie Bookchin did a net art piece a few years back that searched for _truth_ on all the main search engines at the time and compiled them, in a list, on a website as the vast numbers of the returned results. (These respectively linked to the searches for truth.) The serious effect was like some of the more absurd conclusions drawn by "software" on Googlism quite humorous, but it does indicate how we may conduct our existential quests these days -- through algorithmic processing with finite, programmed answers, that is to say software. How does, for instance, the omnipresent contact and calendar applications coupled with their handy accessory, the PDA, fit into how life itself organizes around data and specific software clusters? -af From human at electronetwork.org Thu Nov 7 09:27:59 2002 From: human at electronetwork.org (human being) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 21:57:59 -0600 Subject: [Reader-list] A Case for PDA Student Computing Message-ID: <1B32925A-F205-11D6-AA44-0003936C456C@electronetwork.org> // ironically, was illustrating an idea about PDA // computers and it may fit into the discussion // of software that Are has mentioned... so i've // written this draft essay in order to explain // the images, which will be put online as part of // the Electromagnetic Education Initiative (EEI). // comments and suggestions appreciated. brian -- A Case for PDA Student Computing -- this is a draft of an essay proposing the PDA as the basis for an affordable educational computer, and a foundation for creating digital classrooms. 1. A Few Basic Assumptions 2. PDA Student Computing (PSC) 3. PDA Student Computer Hardware 4. PDA Student Computer Software 5. The PSC Digital Classroom -- A Case for PDA Student Computing -- I had the pleasure of going to a multimedia school where the curriculum explored the multidisciplinary aspects of multimedia computing, such as the history of computers and its relations to developments in other disciplines- and stories of technology pioneers who sketched ideas of what the computer _might become. In another class a project explored technology trends and one assignment was to imagine what a computer may be like in the near future. That is the genesis of this current essay, which explores a cost-effective computing infrastructure that could help bridge the 'digital divide' through both economies-of-scale hardware purchases and custom software development, for primary and secondary student computing devices, and their integration into current classroom setups. 1. A Few Basic Assumptions Before detailing what is needed, it would help to dispel aspects of present day computing cultures which are not needed in classroom computing, for the most general utilities of computing in its widest sense, as a learning device, as a support tool, and not an education in itself. A full-scale Personal Computer (PC), costing hundreds to thousands of dollars is not required for grade school, junior high, and possibly even high-school student who may use it mostly for data entry, calculations, database lookups, scheduling, prebuilt software packages, and other basic (and some advanced) tasks. A school or student may have need for more computing power for Internet access, say, or as a dedicated art computer (audiovisual or painting) and therefore a computer lab may service these needs, or a particular classroom. Hundreds of dollars worth of standard business software is also not needed for the general student to perform basic computing tasks, and explore computing at the same time. Microsoft's Word software, by itself, would cost more than the software and hardware of one student PDA computer. As would software from most major software industry manufacturers. Therefore, for some specific applications, open-source software developed within local, national, and international school systems may be codeveloped and shared, instead. Paid for by sweat- equity and-or government research and development grants. This alone would bring the price-per-computer, and issues of constantly upgrading software to a low price-point, likely comparable with current textbooks and materials, possibly below current costs, over a period of years. Another aspect of traditional business computing that does not work in the educational sector towards its advantage is the form-factor, or the size, shape, and characteristics of a full-sized PC. They are big, bulky, noisy, create a lot of heat, need to be cooled, and this in itself takes a lot of resources, not least of which includes a monthly electric bill and needs for hiring computer experts to troubleshoot the simplest to most complex of problems. It is an avalanche scenario, where upon purchasing a regular PC system, especially for younger people, requires spending a lot of time keeping systems up and running, along with constant tech support, which as any computer user may know, can stop all activity should enough small things go wrong at once, making the focus of the classroom, the computer, and not education. With that out of the way, it is now appropriate to delve a bit further into the concept of a PDA Student Computer. 2. PDA Student Computing For those unfamiliar with the acronym, a PDA is also known as a personal digital assistant. They have been around for years, basically re-branding the electronic organizers with scheduling and organizer functions into miniature computing devices that are now capable of running custom programs, such as astronomy, drawing, language translation, and other programs. The proprietary operating systems of these PDAs include the Palm OS, Windows CE, and occasionally open-source Linux with some models. The PDA hardware is made by a diverse group of manufacturers, and a lower-end price- point is near $100 US, with color screens in the $200- $300 US range. Battery life is still an issue, but new models oftentimes come with rechargeable batteries, and most also include slots for removable digital storage cards, and wireless networking capabilities, for PDA-to-local-area-network and PDA-PDA connections. Most PDAs use a touch-screen with a writing stylus, which at times is the most efficient method of navigation or data-entry, and other times a keyboard is needed. In response to this need, a foldable keyboard industry has sprouted up in response, and is a vital accessory which can turn a PDA into a basic student computing system: IMAGE 1: PDA student computing (25 kilobytes) http://www.electronetwork.org/temp3/studentpda.gif * temporarily online, please download if archiving. All the issues inherent in traditional computer, from price to size to portability, to troubleshooting and tech support tend to a whole different approach to student computing that- it is proposed- PDA Student Computers are superior on most every level at which students are prepared to use them in a cost-effective way, in comparison with full-fledged computers whose resources may never get used before they are outdated. 3. PDA Student Computer Hardware As mentioned, with hardware available today, off-the- shelf technologies could be used, or specifications for an educational computer, designed to meet the specific needs & requirements of educational computing could be designed and mass manufactured on such a scale as to bring the price-point down from those of commercial models, through uniformity and bulk purchasing, and possible leasing of these handhelds until a major hardware revision is available to make an upgrade cost-effective. Else, in such a system a phased-in upgrade could happen in school districts, or specific test classrooms, in order to experiment with the PDA Student Computer as a model for digital classrooms, and to explore their full potential which today is being downgraded because the consumer market is tending towards mobile phones with PDA functionality. Yet, PDAs are unique as a small form-factor system which could be put into a young person's backpack, safely transported from school to home, and last for several years, as a basic supplementary computing system. The Hardware would not be designed for the Internet, WWW, text messaging, or audio and video. Instead, it would be like a notebook and textbook and calculator and class-schedule and gradebook, drawing pad, word processor, dictionary, translator, science experiment kit, programming tool, and general educational device, which young adults may begin to learn the basics of computing with, and expand upon this knowledge with larger and more powerful systems on their own time or in a different lab with Internet access, while the PDA computer could be stored away and setup quickly during any class, for support work in the service of learning, where it performs its tasks as an infrastructure for various daily lessons. And, as easily, this diminutive device can be ignored even as it sits on a desk, or be left to idle without having to worry about tech support or other issues that would require an expert to fix on the spot. The hardware could also be brought home, thus helping all students have access to the devices, and possibly to learning software, homework, and programs which they can learn at their own pace, and in interests which are particular to their learning interests, at a young age, without requiring that all students do the same. To do this would require a standardization of the PDA Student Computer, and a competitive market for various companies to develop better and better devices so that as more schools sign-on to affordable digital classrooms, they also benefit by technological advances, and by lower prices and higher performance in contracts. 4. PDA Student Computer Software PDA Student Computers need an operating system (OS) that can use both proprietary and open-source software programs. This is for two important reasons. One being that these computers need to connect to larger PCs, from time to time, and thus need an interface to do so which is cross-platform and stable. A proprietary OS might be preferred by certain commercial or pre-existing software companies who want to cross-market PDA educational software in existing markets. Whereas an open-source OS would enable custom programming by schools and universities to be used, at no- or low-cost, by thousands to millions of students in schools across the world, without the worry of paying for software and constant upgrades. The goal of the PDA Computer software is stability, and the OS would not be constantly upgraded so as to require upgrading all software, if at all possible. Only a major and planned upgrades would be allowed for PDA Student Computing hardware and software, to ensure longevity of systems, and their stability, and benefits of large scale deployments. It is possible that the US Military or other government R&D labs have developed some technologies for field use that may be beneficial to the software (and hardware) of PDA Student Computers, and these would also be explored, as a way to pool resources to do as much as possible with the least amount of wasted resources. An example of proprietary software that may be used in various grade schools might be a language program which helps translate meanings of certain words or sentences. The best vendor for such programs may be a commercial software maker who ports their program to the PDA as one of many platforms. In each grade, or class, one or two such programs may be critical, and could become 'leased' or 'purchased' software, under some mutually beneficial agreement which is cost-effective while getting the most out of a specific product. Its contents may be a history textbook, or mathematics training and learning programs. And a private company may produce a superior product to justify the investment, as part of a school's curriculum, which may be stored on a permanent digital card, or may be transferred to the PDA for a specific class, replacing textbooks, paper, and handouts for some (but not all) classes, and also allowing learners to bring their work, and questions, home with them, and work on them there. Collectively developed custom software would also be a critical application for PDA Student Computing, and it would be able to leverage millions of students and others in middle and upper educational systems to create software for younger students, as part of their education. So too, young students using the PDA Student Computer could begin to learn the basics of computer programming, along with other areas of discovery and development, through their own first steps in programming their own ideas in software. For example, if a Linux or other OS was used, open-source programmers could possibly develop programs that are both school- and student-specific, for class or individual projects, or science-fairs, say. Also, 'experiments' could be designed and conducted virtually in PDA software, such as with learning basic electronics, with an electronics laboratory complete with breadboard for creating circuits. Or, devices could be attached to the USB port on the PDA Student Computers to use for measurements or other goals in a lesson plan, in support of learning initiatives. Also, many of the best resources such as dictionaries and other devices exist in the open-source community which would be superior in price and comparable in functionality to a commercial product, and therefore, this open-design is essential in the social-economics of PDA Student Computers. 5. The PSC Digital Classroom The biggest challenge in bringing a PDA Student Computer (PSC) into the present-day classroom environment, in terms of technologically, would be finding a way to safely wire a room for rechargeable power plugs available at each desk. The form-factor of the PSC in creating a Digital Classroom would enable current furniture to be used, no additional hard wiring in existing building walls, and an ability to store the devices safely in protective cases when not in use. This means that, with today's technology, and a low- cost computing budget, most every school would be able to leverage whatever moneys are allocated for student computing to greatest effect, at least expenditure, and with greatest flexibility and utility versus a corporate PC or commercial computing vision, sold as an educational solution when almost all of its computing power will be wasted on all but the most intensive users. The Digital Classroom consists of a few basic features, and this model is applicable for most every classroom in most every grade in primary and secondary schools, assuming that those older with use the PSC devices to greater effect, and intensity, where full-scale labs may become necessary for Internet-related work and audiovisual and other study. Image 2: The Digital Classroom (94 kilobytes) http://www.electronetwork.org/temp3/classroom.gif * temporarily online, please download if archiving. The Digital Classroom consists of a few major components. One is each student having access to their own PDA Student Computer (PSC). Each PSC would have wireless capabilities, and each desk would be equipped for recharging the devices. The wireless network would be commanded from a wall-mounted wireless base station, which could send PSC signals to a wireless printer, or to the teacher's full-scale PC system, which could then be put up on a classroom digital projector, all in real-time, through local area network. Homework and other resources, like learning materials or programs, could be transferred onto digital storage disks and given to each student to open, use, and take home to work on the materials. In addition, the storage cards could be changed or updated by the teacher through a card reader. Students could also beam their work to the wireless printer for print outs and other assignments, and with programmed software automation such tasks could be done in an instant, through the touch of a button, instead of having to manually collect, collate, and store such information. More permanent works could be archived via CD or placed on USB keychain drives for PSC information to be transferred to home or lab computers. This functionality comes on top of basic PDA software which is either included in an OS or could be achieved with little or no cost through existing solutions, and that is the basic scheduling, to-do lists, word processing, calculator, alarms, and other built-in programs which in many ways could help a student acclimate to intensive information environments that are inherent with computer passwords, URLs, names, dates, notes, and other data which may be electronically organized. In all, to summarize the PSC Digital Classroom as described, it is an available, malleable, robust, affordable, open- ended, upgradeable, efficient and perfectly sufficient computer system for use in primary and secondary schools. It has most all the functionality that makes computers worthwhile in investing in, for student education, if the goal is to supplement the learning process, and open new horizons related to personal educational computing. Its costs are a fraction of what commercial and corporate computer systems cost, such as laptops, whose power a student is unlikely to need or use to justify the cost. So too, issues of software, hardware, and needed changes or PC systems are not an issue with PDA Student Computing systems, and the PSC Digital Classroom. With this approach, the computer is not the focus, the student is, and students have what they need to learn and explore, and if they need more they can use their own resources to go further in depth, but everyone would have access, versus only a few students in a few schools, with basically equipment re-branded and sold as educational computing rather than designed for it. Please consider this idea as one possibility in the future of basic educational computing, and one present-day way to bridge the gap existing between those with computer resources and those in need of gaining fundamental computer literacy. If the priorities are clear enough, and the needs are able to be standardized for group-bargaining, manufacturers and others may be able to work together for such a device that uses the best of public and private resources to benefit all. [end] Brian Thomas Carroll Architecture & Electromagnetism Research, Design, and Development Electromagnetic Education Initiative http://www.electronetwork.org/works/eei/ From sva2003 at columbia.edu Thu Nov 7 06:34:43 2002 From: sva2003 at columbia.edu (Siva Arumugam) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 20:04:43 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] software-google/ism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200211062004.43424.sva2003@columbia.edu> On Wednesday 06 November 2002 14:10, Are Flagan wrote: > On 11/5/02 10:23, "Tripta" wrote: > > dear all, > > > > the result of Googlism for: software. may lead to interesting insights > > and conversations about the same. > > > > cheers > > tripta > > The serious effect was like some of the more absurd > conclusions drawn by "software" on Googlism quite humorous, but it does > indicate how we may conduct our existential quests these days -- through > algorithmic processing with finite, programmed answers, that is to say > software. How does, for instance, the omnipresent contact and calendar > applications coupled with their handy accessory, the PDA, fit into how life > itself organizes around data and specific software clusters? > > -af Life does indeed appear to organize around particular programs and particular computational devices. Or that's what most technology advertising would like us to believe. I suppose I'd like to emphasize that the interplay between any commodity and production/consumption is difficult to the say the least, as the discussion on residue shows clearly (isn't "interplay" ridiculous here? could there be a marxist theory of the prosumer?). Where software is decidedly different is that it can be _changed_. That after all is meant to be the point of differentiating between soft and hard wares -- an always arbitrary division, of course. Siva. From snitch at paradise.net.nz Thu Nov 7 04:22:03 2002 From: snitch at paradise.net.nz (Mitch) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 11:52:03 +1300 Subject: [Reader-list] discussing residue References: <20021106145114.1763.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001b01c285e7$210c77c0$77674fcb@snitch> Very interesting discussion this... but may I ask that in the interests of clarity, we lighten the semantic (pedantic) load that is bogging down the analysis a little? Let's take a leaf out of Orwell's book (hur hur) and try to use the least words possible in order to create prose that is both elegant and to the point throughout... Mitch -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021107/f5b6832a/attachment.html From reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net Thu Nov 7 13:21:51 2002 From: reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 13:21:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Zachie:Writers wanted, readers needed References: <200210271310.g9RDADDO017382@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <001501c28632$89b013e0$e09809ca@P> Dear Reader, It may seem frivolous and irrelevant that when there is much mayhem and anarchy around the country, vocational teachers dabble in poetry workshops at the South Delhi Polytechnic for Women/Lajpat Nagar-IV. Plus one of them to describe it at length. .However I was told right in the beginning, that the Sarai is supposed to welcome all walks of wayfarers. We also do already know people soaked in misguided poetry do not always remain peace-loving ( eg: the quasi-patriotic) and have known to murder each other However maybe that is the sort of distraction that eventually works or contributes in some way to life.. . In spite of the above explanation if you still feel dear reader-list member that: this matter is trite & inconsequential, you can always just press the button to delete. Before I begin the above maybe I ought to give some background on what lead to the workshop.:- Every year on the directions of our dear Director the staff at the South Delhi Polytechnic for Women are given a book to read for the summer holidays. Our Director generally instructs us at the Literary cell:To choose a book that is as unrelated as possible to our specific vocational courses during term time. This is in order to (in her own words): "To promote lateral thinking and not vegetate or stagnate in our respective fields.." Then when we come back for the new term we have a workshop where we all proclaim our viewpoints, clarify our doubts and also deal with different individual reactions. Before this towards the end of the holidays, a set of question or 'H.W.' is given to ensure that we have all read the book and not been malingerers. In the past we have had Victorian novellas to portions of historic tracts (which later culminated into a very artistic exhibition and was subsequently acquired by the tourism department). Last year we had a thought provoking or ponderous tome (depending on the way you looked at it) on the new digital media. This year 2002 however we decided to be really adventurous and chose pieces of poetry from all over the world, as our summer assignment.It was titled: Put a bit of poetry in your Pallu. (The H.W this time included:- Q:2(b) that required at least one poem by a poet not already in the summer assignment, which the staff member felt was really an important poem in their life. Q:5 To write a poem on any subject/theme/topic and in any format/tone/language. It was also indicated that the poem need not posess conventional rhyme. (The above two answers were later compiled into a book in spiral bind.The pages on the left hand side were left blank with the idea that over the years the staff member could continue making additions interesting or important to them;) So here goes:-- REFLUXIVE REMENISCENCES FROM A POETRY WORKSHOP FOR ACADEMIC STAFF OTHERWISE OCCUPIED/IMMERSED IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Dear Poetic Colleagues, The Litt. Cell took great satisfaction in finding the workshop commenced, cantered and concluded successfully sans hurdles or hiccups. Unlike previous occasions in the past, this was not a simple lecture. A languorous lecture where we laboriously soaked in nuggets, took down notes and went away. Nor was it a seminar, where there is an additional interactive discussion with the Q & Ans. session. A workshop is where you learn new techniques and not merely listen to concepts. We have to demonstrate them in some way to ensure that they have been acquired. EG: A rural-surgery workshop ,(which this Litt. Cell member had the good fortune to attend) in Sewagram / Wardha, a few years ago. There we watched operative surgery or did it, consequently we talked and wrote a paper on it. There were actual in-house OR in-OT lessons and exercises; This time round too (to the satisfaction of our conscience) it seemed a 'real workshop' as we all ended up becoming poets for a brief (?!) point in time by writing a poem and also learning new literary techniques like translation. The larger benefit was of course the richer esoteric one. ON THE FIRST DAY we had Ashok Chakradhar inaugurate our workshop. He inaugurated it by pinning the summer assignment on a FD dept. mannequin (Kindly loaned by our principal Mrs.Saith,).The mannequin had prior to this been beautifully draped by Geetha Nayyar and Honey Sally. Mrs.Burman, our beloved Hostel Warden, mincing no words lent us a blue tangail sari for the honours.("Dekho, isko theek se lagaana.Main dhuli hui, istri wali, dey rahi hoon .haan;" The mannequin ,a symbol of the typical Poly teacher continued to stand beside us throughout the three days. Ashok Ji actually was a tremendous hit with everyone by being a rare raconteur. He swiftly swept everyone off their feet by his rhetoric, songs and recitations. The Litt. Cell however& Upasana Kapoor (who very kindly went to fetch and receive him) missed a heartbeat and thought for a moment that he may never make it , past our Dear Director's office. His tactile choice of words upon entering the campus were unexpected by any standards! Fortunately our Director let us off with a freezing look and deemed it as the guest poet's poetic license. He was hurriedly ushered into the auditorium by us, where the famished staff quickly began 'pet pooja'.. Vocational Education may not make you hungry but vocational teaching must make you famished; We have sound proof of that, as many staff members were ready to pounce on the food even before the Chief guest's arrival. In fact one teacher came up to us (much to our predicament!), to enquire if they could commence eating or was it necessary to wait for him! No innenduo intended, as a hearty appetite is often a sign of good health, so say the Holistic Health wallahs. As said before, his was a riveting overture of rapid verbosity that touched all the senses. He also sang a Baul song. Our Litt.Incharge who had done her H.W. (taking even him by surprise) prodded him to share the fact that he kept a 'Karwa chauth ka vrat". "Kya Sir,apke bhi husband hain kya?" Indeed quoting Bob Dylan,' the times are a 'changin' as later to our chagrin , some of the staff confided to us that, "Ma'am we thought it was going to be a declaration on homosexuality." Fortunately it was nothing of the sort and an explanation followed of far loftier ideals. His marriage being a true partnership, both the spouses often interchanged roles. Hence the need and equal desire arose of keeping the fast.. He also shared a lovely story with us on how he had worn a sari in the past.(This was when Geetha helped him to pin up the poetry upon the pallu. She explained he may need her assistance as he did not wear saris;.) He expostulated how happy it was to find that our logo was also in the shape of a 'chakradhar' He gave a vivid interpretation of what he discerned by it and what it symbolised according to him, for Vocational Education at the Poly.(Incidentally in answer to queries, the logo was designed single handed by Mrs. Ashima Chaudhuri in 1967.) The conclusion of the first day' is imprinted in our memory as the excited staff transformed into a swooning mass of stage-struck fans , who mobbed him for autographs. It must be mentioned his visit marked the perfect glimpse of a true working poet. As in the Director's office he was requested to sign on the Visitor's Book by Pratibha Kaul. The pages are in serial order and by some quirk of fate his page was a bit tousled. (The previous writer may have hastily shut the tome.) This could obviously not have been pre-rehearsed.Within minutes he scribbled a poem upon it. We are rewriting it below in order to share it with all of you. Amazing! Jaise kaagaz sikudh jaata hain,kabhie kabhie Aise hi waqt bhi. Waqt sikud kar ho jaata hain Saqt bhi Par yaha mili komal bhavnayein, Meri anant shubhkamnayein THE SECOND DAY: saw Guest Poets: Prayag Shukla and Shama Futehally sailing in. Murphy's law was working overtime because that day the guests arrived but the food had not been served on the 'Dawat-e- mez'.(As opposed to the first day when the piping hot eats were on the table but the guest was yet to come;)Three cheers for our Director as navrathri vrats were on. Many of our lovely colleagues could not sample the wares, as certain foods are forbidden in this particular fast. She however arranged thoughtfully for extra fruits and two luncheon dishes for the same. Finally however everyone was burped and sated to proceed to the stage lecture hall. This day may not have been as hilarious or in terms of entertainment value, our guests did not play to the gallery. However there was equal fervour and feeling in terms of depth and thought content. They both talked about the awesome task of translating poetry. Shama Futehally gave us an interesting illustration and the complication of translating a simple sentence: This is a table .In Hindustani could we really say:'Yeh mez hain'? As mez is associated with a mezban. It connotes a hospitable and genial host and may denote a table laden with cutlery and sumptuous foods fit for a feast. Hence in N.India we may have the word 'table' absorbed into our lingua franca, when we mean a work-table or 'mere kaam karne ka table'. She went onto elaborate, most translators therefore stress upon either of the two things. One either attempt to keep the lilt and rhythm of the stanza and the broader imagined or emanating connotations. Or to be technically reliable and attempt ad verbatim translation in the new language. She explained how the latter effort may not be always the most popular one. She gave the example of Fitzgerald's transl. of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He tried to keep while translating, the luxuriant tone and rhythm of the poetry. There were subsequently a lot of other poet translators (perhaps more adept in the Persian language) who objected that Fitzgerald in his try for rhythm and ambience had completely obliterated the original meaning of the verses. However the near-technical or literary translations even today are hardly read, while in the new millennium Fitzgerald's version is reread and reprinted; She then shared relevant vignettes from the very poem in our assignment. Gave an example of an American, A.J.Holstrom who had translated the same poem and compared it to hers. That was indeed a privilege. We seemed to be right inside her mind.The role of a complicated and responsible translator. No easy task that. The other important thought for the Litt.cell was her viewpoint on: Making the effort to imbibe other worlds into her own. Thereby enlarge her immediate orbit. She explained that Mirabai did not really belong to her world nor her childhood of anglicised upbringing. Where English or Urdu was spoken and the convent school gave her a bleak Hindi education. It was only when she heard much later, as a young adult Mirabai's songs sung by M.S.SubbaLakshmi, that something stirred within her. She was driven by a an inexplicable urge to make them a part of her world and also bring it to others. Incidentally for those who do not know, her translations /compilations have been published as :"Songs of Mira" by the eminent: Society of Religious Literature, based in London and are available in paperback. We shall also be putting a few copies in our library, as soon as possible. Do dip into them. This is especially for our younger staff. As all are not divine nature-study. Some are really romantic! Prayag Shukla, the grand old man was the absolute gentleman. It was evident to all us, by his soft voice, peaceful persona that we had the good fortune to have a poet and a deep literary one at that amid us. Mr.Bannerji (who was instrumental in arranging his visit) described him also as one of our senior most and beloved art critics. Interesting! We thought critics in any medium are rarely beloved. Their victims always eye them with a jaundiced look. Also how many art critics must there be in India who excel in both poetry and art critiques? Prayag Ji began by expressing his happiness upon opening our Summer assignment. As he saw we had begun with the poems of the Mexican poet: Octavio Paz. He informed us that he had done with great pleasure their 'Hindi Anuvad' .(We shall again be procuring copies of the same, for your perusal at our library.) He informed us that contrary to common belief there are now numerous translations available from the bhashas (regional languages) into our vernacular, He has often lost himself in other bhashas ,like Oriya, at the cost of his own new Hindi poetry. Gyanpith, NBT and Sahitya Academy have all done phenomenal effort in this respect within the last two decades. He also reminded us that we were one of the most poetic or poetry-loving nations in the world. People forget that all film songs are poems in the guise of lyrics. They are hummed and sung by Indians from all walks of like. He insisted none of us ought to shy out of creating poems. As some of the memorable poems in his mind have been of mundane tasks. EG: In Pandav lipi ,a simple housewife who wrote delicious poems on :'Vyanjan pakaney ki vidhiyan'. He then had Mr. Bannerji recite certain particular poems of Tagore from Gitanjali.(He has translated 103 poems from Bengali of R.Tagore.) He then explained his sincere attempts to keep the chand and chavi, without obliterating the essential meaning. The famous sonnet from Gitanajali and well known line: Into this freedom my Father let my country awake, Shukla Ji translates beautifully as: Usi swarga mein jaagey desh hamara He was actually the epitome of consideration. As he would pause every now and then to glance at the time, gently assuring us that he would not speak a second beyond the decided time. In fact one of the Litt.cell members had to finally reassure him that we were the Poly teachers and not the students. We did not scram as soon as the bell went. A minute here or there was immaterial to us as compared to the privilege of hearing him out. He also shared moments from his journeys around the world. How his misplaced choices of spending precious foreign exchange on books (that could have been obtained at a garage sale at a 3rd of the cost) rather than phoren gadgets, irked his friends. However the pleasure and transformation inside him more than compensated for the squander. At this stage in his life he may not have built a bungalow or acquired material success. However his heart told him he had lived life richly. We finally heard the proverbial poet as virtuoso in virtuality. Perhaps the most telling remark that he left us on poetry with, was: "Usko mere khayal se, Pallu mein na daaliye.Who phisal sakthey hain. Place them far deeper." We ended with an exercise issued to all the participants. They had to translate any poem (since all staff members are bilingual) in the assignment or in the spiral book distributed. They had to submit it by the end of the final day of the workshop viz:2:30. pm.,11th of Oct,2002.Certificates of Participation would only be strictly issued to those who attended all the three days and submitted this translation task, in time. The final line caused a lot of snickers and guffaws; THE THIRD DAY: We started on a ribald note with the Litt.Incharge explaining with graphic props the hazards of too much poetry. How it peeled off the layers of your skin. And then (with anatomical photographs)vivid explanations on how you would look sans skin. The possibility of even complete disintegration of the being, if it was made into a sole profession,. No, far safer to be a Polytechnic teacher who happens to read poetry only on the side. Some participants half pretended to leave, saying this workshop could be dangerous! They were pacified and reassured amid merriment. We then had: Amrita Pritam's son: Mr.Shaili Kwatra. Amrita Pritam has been and is a special favourite of a large number of staff, many of whom read her in original Punjabi .Her son explained that she had fractured her hip bone and hence was not mobile enough to travel yet. Mr .Kwatra himself looked none too fit with an apparent back problem. This made us all especially grateful for his guest appearance to our workshop. He seemed familiar to many of us having given visiting lectures in the Media deptt. Another staff member had been a classmate of his from his college days in Baroda. Meera Bedi with great fluency and feeling read a poem of Amrita Ji on childhood, from an 70 yr. old book belonging to her mother-in-law. Thank you Meera. She then on request tried to explain the lines. Most of the married female staff could relate to that and were deeply moved. This was followed by Monica's rendering of some other selections in Hindi and Kwatra Ji's interpretations. There were personal enquiries from the staff on when/where she wrote them. Did she approve of the translated versions? Mr. Shaili told us that his mother's poems were directly taken from 'life'. He confessed that perhaps that is why he did not like to recite them, being too close home for him. This was followed by a wonderful hour of poetry recitations by our senior staff. Mrs. Kshama Mehra recited her own poems including Poly express: Chalti ki naam gadhi and Saat Rang with great enthusiasm that seemed visibly infectious with the audience. Mr.Bannerji sprouted in his mother tongue two poems: The last poem of Tagore: Shesher Kobita and the other was a contemporary one on Computers. Meena Dutta Gupta in her elegant voice gently admonished us for our uncertainty towards 'poetry as a way of life'. She in fact yearned for all the ways to Delhi, to be named after: poets, artists and musicians and not mere politicians and city councillors. Our children should be soaked in culture so that it becomes a way of life... Anju Sharma was also given a chance despite the paucity of time to recite her poem : Ghotala. The Litt.Incharge explained Anju has been a special case,. It is not mandatory for the Adminstrative Staff to do the Assignment or submit the holiday H.W. She had however volunteered on her own wish and will. Plus submitted with great alacrity the H.W. Mrs.Krishna Gupta intervened that, ".But the Administrative Staff are very busy, they run everything. A Holistic Health staff member quipped, "No Madam, we run too. We are from the only really running department!" Mr. Battish our HOD from Commercial Art was coaxed to also come to the mic. Not because he & his team had done fantastic effort, over the illustrations of the poetry posters He was actually one of our few bearded staff members who resemble the stereotyped image of a poet. There was a lots of giggling and laughter by everyone during his recitation. He aped with great finesse the dishevelled, absentminded, lost poet. The compere underlined it by saying, "Sir the poem was good. However the drama and theatrics were even better." We ended finally with Mr.Kwatra regaling us with passages and the storyline of his latest comedy novel, out in Hindi. __________________________________________________________________________Te n TEN DAYS LATER another book was compiled ,which had everyone's workshop exercise.That is amazing translations done by everyone accompanied on the side with the poem that was translated.Some chose to do their own poems,others:their colleagues poems and some even bravely attempted famous published poets.Translations included regional languages like: Bengali, Marathi,Punjabi and Tamil....... The cover of Part:B had the same beautiful watercolour cum black ink drawing.(Most of our teachers handle art-based subjects after all) Plus the following quotation below:- Sad is his lot ; who One at least in his life, has not been a poet :Alphonse de Lamartine A special mention was also given:of appreciation and gratitude towards making the workshop possible and doing overtime/ over the precious weekend, towards this cause to:- Bhavana Chatterjee: Int. Des. for the Cover Design. Battish Sir & his team: Com .Art for Poetry posters Bela Bhambri,Neeru Bhandari & Anju Sharma: for their tremendous (though muddled) administrative effort.: Director: A.Chaudhuri: For sponsorship &resource allocation Faiyaz Hussain : Comp Sc. for index & format edging. Harpreet Kaur:Jew.Des, Jyotika Ahluwalia.:Fash.Des,,Kavita Chaudhry.:Dress Des & Shachi Dayal.:Tex.Des. for finishing touches. Jayant Gajera: for Photography Shilpa Soota: for Audio-tech management Khursheed Begum & Zeeshan Bano for their Urdu and Hindi skills. NB: Priya Nayyer (Fash.Des.) got an extra prize for prompt punctuality. She was the first staff member amongst us to submit her summer assignment at the Litt.Cell. The prize shall be a popular poetry book. ___________________________________________________________________: There was also an additional message inserted in each copy saying: Respected Colleague, We are indeed very happy to gift you for Diwali the Part:B of the workshop Assignment:2002.This shall mark an end to all the marvellous minutes concerned with our Workshop and Summer H.W. Regardless of whether your performance has been excellent or you have been branded as a 'defalcator',we hope this does not mark an end to yur active connection with the wondrous world of poetry. :Litt. Incharge. (Those who did not submit their exercise within the stipulated time were listed in the index as 'defalcators'. This was in replacement of the older terminology of 'Defaulters',earlier used. The Litt.cell Incharge thought Defalcator was a softer sounding word but equally offensive.) Yours-in-refluxion, R.Chaudhuri. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Zachie" To: Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2002 12:41 PM Subject: [Reader-list] Writers wanted, readers needed > > Students, teachers, readers, and writers alike, gather your paper, uncap > your pens, and dust off your reading glasses > because Poetrylist is back and bigger than ever. > > If you're a talented ambitious writer looking for a way to share your art > or simply someone who loves poetry in general read > on because Poetrylist will fit your needs. Poetrylist is an online > newsletter that tackles many aspects of the art. Writers are > able submit works and read and rate others. Readers are able to enjoy the > art form that they love so much. > > Email Zach back for more info. Please mention ID# 121 > > > ___________________________________________________________________________ > Spam Watch: > If you feel this email has come to you by error or is spam please contact > Bobby Whetzel with the ID# containted in the > email. poetrylist at aol.com > > Thank you > Bobby Whetzel > Chief Editor of Poetrylist online newsletter > > > _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: From amcgee at freeshell.org Thu Nov 7 15:05:25 2002 From: amcgee at freeshell.org (Art McGee) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 09:35:25 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Reader-list] Profiling In-Reply-To: <20021107144401.650.99474.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: > The below moves on to a specific software angle after two > paragraphs. Has anyone got similar experiences or > thoughts? > > Profiling software Who wrote this? Are? Where is the original article located? Art McGee Communications & Technology Consultant amcgee at freeshell.org (510) 967-9381 Circuit Riders International NPO/NGO Media & Technology Calendar From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Nov 7 17:05:46 2002 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 17:05:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] discussing residue In-Reply-To: <20021106145114.1763.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <20021106145114.1763.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <02110717054600.00705@pammi.sarai.kit> Dear Rana, Pratap etal., Lets take a few sites and see how we can elaborate on this concept `residue`. - If we look at the mega-sports industry (from cricket to football and everything above below and between) we hear about performances, glories and `loss of form`. But there is another story that keeps flowing underneath the `main story` which is of injuries, burn-outs, fatalities and "not good enough". This underneath i would consider as part of the `residue` of the system of the industry. - The feeling of being `thrown out` after being drained of all possible `potential energy` as a working body and mind - this is a very everyday feeling for many. "Chilka banake phek diya` (reduced to a husk and thrown) is a common refrain that you will hear in most intensive work zones. These days the phrase `early burn out` is also very common in many high intensity professions, including managerial ones. These feelings and utterances could hint towards an understanding of `residue`. - Thousands of non-capitalist commodity producers (simple commodity producers, primarily peasants & artisans) face survival threats from the larger commodity transcations that they enter on a daily basis. These transactions produce another kind of `residue`. Living labour not required within the logic of the `mode of production` always finds itself thrown away. This thrown away state can be called residue. best Jeebesh From supreet at sarai.net Fri Nov 8 01:20:38 2002 From: supreet at sarai.net (Supreet) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 20:50:38 +0100 Subject: [human@electronetwork.org: [Reader-list] A Case for PDA Student Computing] Message-ID: <20021107195038.GA3934@mail.sarai.net> From: human being To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] A Case for PDA Student Computing X-BeenThere: reader-list at sarai.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: A List on Media and the City List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: >> >>// ironically, was illustrating an idea about PDA >>// computers and it may fit into the discussion >>// of software that Are has mentioned... so i've >>// written this draft essay in order to explain >>// the images, which will be put online as part of >>// the Electromagnetic Education Initiative (EEI). >>// comments and suggestions appreciated. brian >> >> >> >>-- A Case for PDA Student Computing -- >> >>this is a draft of an essay proposing the PDA as >>the basis for an affordable educational computer, >>and a foundation for creating digital classrooms. >> >> 1. A Few Basic Assumptions >> 2. PDA Student Computing (PSC) >> 3. PDA Student Computer Hardware >> 4. PDA Student Computer Software >> 5. The PSC Digital Classroom >> >> >>-- A Case for PDA Student Computing -- >> >>I had the pleasure of going to a multimedia school >>where the curriculum explored the multidisciplinary >>aspects of multimedia computing, such as the history >>of computers and its relations to developments in >>other disciplines- and stories of technology pioneers >>who sketched ideas of what the computer _might become. >>In another class a project explored technology trends >>and one assignment was to imagine what a computer >>may be like in the near future. That is the genesis >>of this current essay, which explores a cost-effective >>computing infrastructure that could help bridge the >>'digital divide' through both economies-of-scale >>hardware purchases and custom software development, >>for primary and secondary student computing devices, >>and their integration into current classroom setups. >> >> >>1. A Few Basic Assumptions >> >>Before detailing what is needed, it would help to >>dispel aspects of present day computing cultures >>which are not needed in classroom computing, for >>the most general utilities of computing in its >>widest sense, as a learning device, as a support >>tool, and not an education in itself. A full-scale >>Personal Computer (PC), costing hundreds to thousands >>of dollars is not required for grade school, junior >>high, and possibly even high-school student who may >>use it mostly for data entry, calculations, database >>lookups, scheduling, prebuilt software packages, and >>other basic (and some advanced) tasks. A school or >>student may have need for more computing power for >>Internet access, say, or as a dedicated art computer >>(audiovisual or painting) and therefore a computer >>lab may service these needs, or a particular classroom. Having basic assumption that PC's are costly is wrong. A low-end or thinclient PC comes at around $200 (without monitor). Art computer is a new concept to me. Computer AFAIK has been made to be a general purpose machine. Specific software is written to program it to do certain task. It still has potential to be a general purpose machine. I don't think you need much of processing power to run a modem and a browser. I have been doing it for years on my 486 box and it was fast in enough. Hell people did it with 386's even. >> >>Hundreds of dollars worth of standard business software >>is also not needed for the general student to perform >>basic computing tasks, and explore computing at the >>same time. Microsoft's Word software, by itself, would >>cost more than the software and hardware of one student >>PDA computer. As would software from most major software People buy there software according to utility. If you need Word to do a task you will buy word. Anyway a standard addon called wordpad provides more functionality then a standard word processor on PDA would that too for free >>industry manufacturers. Therefore, for some specific >>applications, open-source software developed within >>local, national, and international school systems may >>be codeveloped and shared, instead. Paid for by sweat- >>equity and-or government research and development grants. >>This alone would bring the price-per-computer, and issues >>of constantly upgrading software to a low price-point, >>likely comparable with current textbooks and materials, >>possibly below current costs, over a period of years. Who said you would'nt need to upgrade or maintain your PDA and its well known components for non-standard machines like laptop and PDA's is costlier >> >>Another aspect of traditional business computing that >>does not work in the educational sector towards its >>advantage is the form-factor, or the size, shape, and >>characteristics of a full-sized PC. They are big, bulky, >>noisy, create a lot of heat, need to be cooled, and this >>in itself takes a lot of resources, not least of which >>includes a monthly electric bill and needs for hiring >>computer experts to troubleshoot the simplest to most >>complex of problems. It is an avalanche scenario, where >>upon purchasing a regular PC system, especially for >>younger people, requires spending a lot of time keeping >>systems up and running, along with constant tech support, >>which as any computer user may know, can stop all activity >>should enough small things go wrong at once, making the >>focus of the classroom, the computer, and not education. Most computer labs I have seen are run by students themselves. Then all this talk about heat dissaption is conserned. There are machines modelled to be low on noise. Examples are VIA c3 and crusoe processors are low voltage and low heat rocessors. >> >>With that out of the way, it is now appropriate to delve >>a bit further into the concept of a PDA Student Computer. To push further would be more appropriate. >> >> >>2. PDA Student Computing >> >>For those unfamiliar with the acronym, a PDA is also >>known as a personal digital assistant. They have been >>around for years, basically re-branding the electronic >>organizers with scheduling and organizer functions into >>miniature computing devices that are now capable of >>running custom programs, such as astronomy, drawing, >>language translation, and other programs. Those programs are still harder to get than a PC. Introducing another platform would be developers would have to support another 'minority' platform just like mac. These products would always be coslier then the PC line. >> >>The proprietary operating systems of these PDAs include >>the Palm OS, Windows CE, and occasionally open-source >>Linux with some models. The PDA hardware is made by a >>diverse group of manufacturers, and a lower-end price- >>point is near $100 US, with color screens in the $200- >>$300 US range. Battery life is still an issue, but new >>models oftentimes come with rechargeable batteries, >>and most also include slots for removable digital >>storage cards, and wireless networking capabilities, >>for PDA-to-local-area-network and PDA-PDA connections. Battery life is a big problem which would hamper the whole visiualization in real world. Then there are many security and privacy issues with wireless computing unless implemented carefully. Instead of all this cards etc etc, why not just get a PC a proven reliable platform. >> >>Most PDAs use a touch-screen with a writing stylus, >>which at times is the most efficient method of navigation >>or data-entry, and other times a keyboard is needed. In >>response to this need, a foldable keyboard industry has >>sprouted up in response, and is a vital accessory which >>can turn a PDA into a basic student computing system: A PDA stylus is not half as proven as a standard PS/2 keyboard. Plug any brand of cheap $3 keyboard and get going. Average PDA keyboard is around 20 times more costly. >> >>IMAGE 1: PDA student computing (25 kilobytes) >>http://www.electronetwork.org/temp3/studentpda.gif >>* temporarily online, please download if archiving. >> >>All the issues inherent in traditional computer, from >>price to size to portability, to troubleshooting and >>tech support tend to a whole different approach to >>student computing that- it is proposed- PDA Student >>Computers are superior on most every level at which >>students are prepared to use them in a cost-effective >>way, in comparison with full-fledged computers whose >>resources may never get used before they are outdated. If the interface is standardized you could easily provide support. In case the interface is standardized by the technology itself. Not to many programs, not too much memory and not to many interfaces to upload programs and data. On a PC platform which is very extensible, there are hundred different ways of changing the way you you compute. This becomes a problem in case of providing support. But the bright side is some PC's can do things which the manufacturer never thought it would be able to do. Cheap third party tools is best feature of a PC. >> >> >>3. PDA Student Computer Hardware >> >>As mentioned, with hardware available today, off-the- >>shelf technologies could be used, or specifications A PDA technology is anything but of the shelf. You can count on your fingures the PDA manufacturers. I don't think you are getting ARM or motorola dragon ball in any computer mart. >>for an educational computer, designed to meet the >>specific needs & requirements of educational computing >>could be designed and mass manufactured on such a >>scale as to bring the price-point down from those >>of commercial models, through uniformity and bulk >>purchasing, and possible leasing of these handhelds >>until a major hardware revision is available to make >>an upgrade cost-effective.Else, in such a system a >>phased-in upgrade could happen in school districts, >>or specific test classrooms, in order to experiment >>with the PDA Student Computer as a model for digital >>classrooms, and to explore their full potential which >>today is being downgraded because the consumer market >>is tending towards mobile phones with PDA functionality. Student computer etc etc would be used to purchase costly computers so that it becomes cheaper. wow thats a nice logic. I think it would more interesting seeing US army making bulk purchase. Which would make the mass production possible and PDA's would get to the point where they would priced according to there utility. I would prefer buying a PDA for schools if it comes at sub $50 price with a keyboard and a networking system. >> >>Yet, PDAs are unique as a small form-factor system >>which could be put into a young person's backpack, >>safely transported from school to home, and last for >>several years, as a basic supplementary computing >>system. The Hardware would not be designed for the >>Internet, WWW, text messaging, or audio and video. >>Instead, it would be like a notebook and textbook >>and calculator and class-schedule and gradebook, >>drawing pad, word processor, dictionary, translator, >>science experiment kit, programming tool, and general >>educational device, which young adults may begin to >>learn the basics of computing with, and expand upon >>this knowledge with larger and more powerful systems >>on their own time or in a different lab with Internet >>access, while the PDA computer could be stored away >>and setup quickly during any class, for support work >>in the service of learning, where it performs its >>tasks as an infrastructure for various daily lessons. Don't you it would be better if students carry a USB momory stick. Because whole reason for going mobile is to use computer while you are going from school to home or vise versa. >> >>And, as easily, this diminutive device can be ignored >>even as it sits on a desk, or be left to idle without >>having to worry about tech support or other issues >>that would require an expert to fix on the spot. The >>hardware could also be brought home, thus helping all >>students have access to the devices, and possibly to >>learning software, homework, and programs which they >>can learn at their own pace, and in interests which >>are particular to their learning interests, at a young >>age, without requiring that all students do the same. For any form of usage it would need to be synced with a PC at regular interval. Which means a computer at home is needed which means that you are pushing the purchase from school to home rather than not buying a computer scenerio. Then at school as well you would need a computer per 3 students for them to sync there work which they did hypothetically when they were mobile. I think 1 computer per 3 students is the ratio in schools anyway so you are not doing any major benefit by purchasing PDA's which are cost hit itself apart from the cost of maintenance of added computing equipment. Think of AMC's. Well somebody is going to make loads of money out of this. >> >>To do this would require a standardization of the >>PDA Student Computer, and a competitive market for >>various companies to develop better and better devices >>so that as more schools sign-on to affordable digital >>classrooms, they also benefit by technological advances, >>and by lower prices and higher performance in contracts. >> >> >>4. PDA Student Computer Software >> >>PDA Student Computers need an operating system (OS) that >>can use both proprietary and open-source software programs. >>This is for two important reasons. One being that these >>computers need to connect to larger PCs, from time to time, >>and thus need an interface to do so which is cross-platform >>and stable. A proprietary OS might be preferred by certain >>commercial or pre-existing software companies who want to >>cross-market PDA educational software in existing markets. USB and IEEE-1394 and serial port are three interfaces which are used for reliable syncing. I think there is nothing proprietry in them. Most open-source software I know support this. >>Whereas an open-source OS would enable custom programming >>by schools and universities to be used, at no- or low-cost, >>by thousands to millions of students in schools across the >>world, without the worry of paying for software and constant >>upgrades. Who said open-source is no or low-cost. It may not be the case >>The goal of the PDA Computer software is stability, >>and the OS would not be constantly upgraded so as to require >>upgrading all software, if at all possible. Only a major and >>planned upgrades would be allowed for PDA Student Computing >>hardware and software, to ensure longevity of systems, and >>their stability, and benefits of large scale deployments. Thus regimentizing students to use specific kind of software and nothing else. >> >>It is possible that the US Military or other government R&D >>labs have developed some technologies for field use that may >>be beneficial to the software (and hardware) of PDA Student >>Computers, and these would also be explored, as a way to >>pool resources to do as much as possible with the least >>amount of wasted resources. Maybe that would also benefit the PC market >> >>An example of proprietary software that may be used in >>various grade schools might be a language program which >>helps translate meanings of certain words or sentences. >>The best vendor for such programs may be a commercial >>software maker who ports their program to the PDA as one >>of many platforms. In each grade, or class, one or two >>such programs may be critical, and could become 'leased' >>or 'purchased' software, under some mutually beneficial >>agreement which is cost-effective while getting the most >>out of a specific product. Its contents may be a history >>textbook, or mathematics training and learning programs. >>And a private company may produce a superior product to >>justify the investment, as part of a school's curriculum, >>which may be stored on a permanent digital card, or may >>be transferred to the PDA for a specific class, replacing >>textbooks, paper, and handouts for some (but not all) >>classes, and also allowing learners to bring their work, >>and questions, home with them, and work on them there. Well this could be something US govt could finance. Research into language translation and grammer. >> >>Collectively developed custom software would also be a >>critical application for PDA Student Computing, and it >>would be able to leverage millions of students and others >>in middle and upper educational systems to create software >>for younger students, as part of their education. So too, >>young students using the PDA Student Computer could begin >>to learn the basics of computer programming, along with >>other areas of discovery and development, through their >>own first steps in programming their own ideas in software. >> >>For example, if a Linux or other OS was used, open-source >>programmers could possibly develop programs that are both >>school- and student-specific, for class or individual >>projects, or science-fairs, say. Also, 'experiments' could >>be designed and conducted virtually in PDA software, such >>as with learning basic electronics, with an electronics >>laboratory complete with breadboard for creating circuits. >>Or, devices could be attached to the USB port on the PDA >>Student Computers to use for measurements or other goals >>in a lesson plan, in support of learning initiatives. Also, >>many of the best resources such as dictionaries and other >>devices exist in the open-source community which would be >>superior in price and comparable in functionality to a >>commercial product, and therefore, this open-design is >>essential in the social-economics of PDA Student Computers. How does it relate to PDA anyway. Could do all this with any computing platform with USB. BTW most PDA's are not directly capable of using USB >> >> >>5. The PSC Digital Classroom >> >>The biggest challenge in bringing a PDA Student Computer >>(PSC) into the present-day classroom environment, in terms >>of technologically, would be finding a way to safely wire >>a room for rechargeable power plugs available at each desk. >>The form-factor of the PSC in creating a Digital Classroom >>would enable current furniture to be used, no additional >>hard wiring in existing building walls, and an ability to >>store the devices safely in protective cases when not in >>use. This means that, with today's technology, and a low- >>cost computing budget, most every school would be able to >>leverage whatever moneys are allocated for student computing >>to greatest effect, at least expenditure, and with greatest >>flexibility and utility versus a corporate PC or commercial >>computing vision, sold as an educational solution when >>almost all of its computing power will be wasted on all >>but the most intensive users. It would be biggest scam ever >> >>The Digital Classroom consists of a few basic features, >>and this model is applicable for most every classroom in >>most every grade in primary and secondary schools, assuming >>that those older with use the PSC devices to greater effect, >>and intensity, where full-scale labs may become necessary >>for Internet-related work and audiovisual and other study. >> >>Image 2: The Digital Classroom (94 kilobytes) >>http://www.electronetwork.org/temp3/classroom.gif >>* temporarily online, please download if archiving. >> >>The Digital Classroom consists of a few major components. >>One is each student having access to their own PDA Student >>Computer (PSC). Each PSC would have wireless capabilities, >>and each desk would be equipped for recharging the devices. >>The wireless network would be commanded from a wall-mounted >>wireless base station, which could send PSC signals to a >>wireless printer, or to the teacher's full-scale PC system, >>which could then be put up on a classroom digital projector, >>all in real-time, through local area network. Homework and >>other resources, like learning materials or programs, could >>be transferred onto digital storage disks and given to each >>student to open, use, and take home to work on the materials. Most marketing teams of major manufacturers sell this dream. In real world it does'nt work as smoothly >> >>In addition, the storage cards could be changed or updated >>by the teacher through a card reader. Students could also >>beam their work to the wireless printer for print outs and >>other assignments, and with programmed software automation >>such tasks could be done in an instant, through the touch >>of a button, instead of having to manually collect, collate, >>and store such information. More permanent works could be >>archived via CD or placed on USB keychain drives for PSC >>information to be transferred to home or lab computers. >> You never bothered to tell about all the other assesories requied like a USB keychain. >>This functionality comes on top of basic PDA software which >>is either included in an OS or could be achieved with little >>or no cost through existing solutions, and that is the basic >>scheduling, to-do lists, word processing, calculator, alarms, >>and other built-in programs which in many ways could help a >>student acclimate to intensive information environments that >>are inherent with computer passwords, URLs, names, dates, >>notes, and other data which may be electronically organized. >> >>In all, to summarize the PSC Digital Classroom as described, >>it is an available, malleable, robust, affordable, open- >>ended, upgradeable, efficient and perfectly sufficient >>computer system for use in primary and secondary schools. >>It has most all the functionality that makes computers >>worthwhile in investing in, for student education, if the >>goal is to supplement the learning process, and open new >>horizons related to personal educational computing. Its >>costs are a fraction of what commercial and corporate >>computer systems cost, such as laptops, whose power a >>student is unlikely to need or use to justify the cost. >>So too, issues of software, hardware, and needed changes >>or PC systems are not an issue with PDA Student Computing >>systems, and the PSC Digital Classroom. With this approach, >>the computer is not the focus, the student is, and students >>have what they need to learn and explore, and if they need >>more they can use their own resources to go further in depth, >>but everyone would have access, versus only a few students >>in a few schools, with basically equipment re-branded and >>sold as educational computing rather than designed for it. >> >>Please consider this idea as one possibility in the future >>of basic educational computing, and one present-day way to >>bridge the gap existing between those with computer resources >>and those in need of gaining fundamental computer literacy. >>If the priorities are clear enough, and the needs are able >>to be standardized for group-bargaining, manufacturers and >>others may be able to work together for such a device that >>uses the best of public and private resources to benefit all. >> >>[end] >> >>Brian Thomas Carroll >>Architecture & Electromagnetism >>Research, Design, and Development >>Electromagnetic Education Initiative >>http://www.electronetwork.org/works/eei/ >> >>_________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion >>list on media and the city. >>Critiques & Collaborations >>To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with >>subscribe in the subject header. >>List archive: >> Could you just post cost per student estimate for this kind of infrastructure. etc and supreet ------ From mv09 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Nov 7 21:47:20 2002 From: mv09 at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?mohit=20vohra?=) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 16:17:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #701 - 5 msgs In-Reply-To: <20021107183701.3347.62775.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20021107161720.56019.qmail@web40608.mail.yahoo.com> Hello Supreet Sir, I am Mohit Vohra, a Student of VIPS...BIS(H) IIIYr......i have been using LINUX Mandrake 8.1 for quite some time now...and i was wondering how do i update it to the latest version, i.e. Mandrake 9.0...... Apart from this, i have two more queries: I have had Onboard Souncard that was previously there in my motherboard when i upgraded my comp....then i installed Creative EnSoniq Soundcard....this soundcard worked in Windows...but not in LINUX.......in LINUX..it still takes Onboard as my default soundcard....now...my question is: How do i make Creative Souncard the default one....in place of Onboard...in order to listen to the songs from applications like XMMS?? 2. I have beem using Yahoo Messenger for LINUX for quite some time now.....but i have not been able to find any MSN Messenger that can run on LINUX too,,,, so can u please tell me if there is any site or place from where i can install MSN Messenger for LINUX? That would be all for now. Thank You, Mohit Vohra Post your ad on Yahoo! India Autos.Check out the used Maruti, Fiat and Ford models on sale now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021107/1a3c22e4/attachment.html From ragu at asianetonline.net Thu Nov 7 22:30:42 2002 From: ragu at asianetonline.net (Raghavendra Bhat) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:30:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [OT] GNU/Linux doubts In-Reply-To: <20021107161720.56019.qmail@web40608.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20021107183701.3347.62775.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> <20021107161720.56019.qmail@web40608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20021107170042.GA5897@gnuhead.dyndns.org> [off-topic on this List] mohit vohra posts: >> how do i update it to the latest version, Mandrake 9.0 I do not know whether Mandrake v8.1 can be smoothly upgraded to Mandrake v9.0. But there is this distribution called Debian GNU/Linux, the choice of the freedom lovers; with which you can upgrade the entire system, across releases. Under Debian GNU, you have this tool called as `apt-get' which helps you achieve this. >> How do i make Creative Souncard the default one....in place of >> Onboard ? You can do this by disabling `onboard sound' via your BIOS setup. >> have not been able to find any MSN Messenger that can run on LINUX ^^^^^ You mean the GNU system with Linux as its kernel ? You will never be able to find a MSN Messenger port for GNU/Linux. There is this utility called as `CenterICQ', read the description below CenterICQ is a text mode, menu and window-driven IM interface. ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN protocols are now supported. It allows you to send, receive and forward messages, URLs, SMSes and, contacts, mass message send, search for users.... Please try to keep away from *proprietary* clients like MSN Messenger because their very `non-free' nature keeps the user helpless and divided. `Non-free' software is evil and it leads its users' down a bottom-less tar pit. Please follow the link `Why we exist ?' and read http://www.gnu.org/ Best.... -- ragOO, VU2RGU :: Visit us at http://symonds.net/~fsug-kochi/ Helping to keep the Air-Waves FREE Amateur Radio Helping to keep your Software FREE the GNU Project Helping to keep the W W W FREE Debian GNU/${kernel} From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 8 00:32:03 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 14:02:03 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Profiling In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/7/02 4:35, "Art McGee" wrote: > Who wrote this? Are? Where is the original article located? It was written, roughly, yesterday for the reader-list. It would be very interesting to hear other thoughts on how the logics, interfaces, menus etc. of common, proprietary software packages have similar crossover and conditioning effects. These are the specifics of software that affect many users, partly due to the eroded distinction between professional and amateur tools. -af From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 8 04:51:55 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 18:21:55 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] A Case for PDA Student Computing In-Reply-To: <1B32925A-F205-11D6-AA44-0003936C456C@electronetwork.org> Message-ID: The PDA(ish) device you outline has been developed as a prototype by the Indian government. It is called the Simputer, estimated cost around $200, but it is not yet in production. Slashdot featured a discussion of many pros and cons. Link below: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/27/0118252 I have also read about recent cases in South Africa (tangentially related), where some schools turned down the usual Microsoft gifts and instead installed old 486 machines running Linux. The stated goal was to teach networking and programming, where a networked Linux setup is arguable better suited and capable, and forsake the task of simply training software operators. I think this dilemma resonates throughout your essay and the question returns to what sort of economy education sees its students participating in. The answer dictates the configuration of their systems, and what is argued here is, to me, more about the future of computing than bridging the digital divide. The question is also, as computers get increasingly bloated to become copyrighted and licensed entertainment terminals, if the upgrade curve is actually flatlining and has exhausted its usability. What happens to software when its bloated feature set grows increasingly absurd, when "application" actually becomes an expensive oxymoron? The surplus of unused power and useless features then emerge as development for the sake of economic growth, and deeper pockets, only. The back to basics approach may actually be a useful way forward, in more than one way. And who needs an entertainment terminal anyway, with DMCA, Palladium and other anti-circumvention warning shots preventing you from enjoying it, unless you pay the inflated price of admission to this multimedia monopoly? -af From human at electronetwork.org Fri Nov 8 06:12:38 2002 From: human at electronetwork.org (human being) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 18:42:38 -0600 Subject: [Reader-list] A Case for PDA Student Computing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: hi Are, yes, i've read of the Simputer and it is partly because of this that the idea became clearer to me, but i also have a lot of experience with earlier electronic organizers (sharps), a used-Psion, and now a Handspring that is unable to sync with my Mac OS X. i am not writing so much from how these devices, as they have evolved, are used today, but how they could be used and designed, and in this way i do think the software and OS' are a limit, and determines certain possibilities and user behaviors. this also relates to this week's news about the pending death of the PDA, and also trends in that industry which seems to have suffered more setbacks than other form factors (Apple Newtons, myriad hybrid devices). the aspect of the Simputer that surprised me was the price, as it seemed like a lot of money. yet, if it is customized for the uses intended, it may well be worth the cost. yet, to me, if such a device is to function somewhat autonomously, it has seemed that the cost of batteries would be critical to users being able to afford using current devices which are notorious for eating batteries, and without recharging the cost of the device could be had in batteries within its lifetime. therefore, i thought that the Simputer should be packaged with a hand-crank or solar-panel and adapter and charging station for rechargeable batteries, if cost is an issue, and use will be mostly done with batteries. Psion is an interesting company in the field of PDAs, even though their dominance or niche market has changed. they sell consumer-grade devices, but also retailing computers that look like those devices used in warehouses for scanning and inputting information into a database, either with a wand or some scanning code-reader for UPC symbols, etc. they are used for retailing, such as clothes, for grocers to document their inventory, and now traditional PDAs also have such wand attachments for turning a consumer-grade device, to specialize/customize it for such industry uses. the reason this is important for PDAs is that they can be customized in ways that scientists and other professional fields are doing it, with probes, measuring devices, etc, which could greatly help in issues of education and utility, where a science class, say, would need just the attachment probes to make a device, and not a customized piece of equipment to do basic science education work. so too, a PDA could (possibly, i'm guessing) become an oscillator, teach basic programming for young people to young adults, could help learn logic through basic (virtual) electronics, and other SIMulations programs, whether for biology or for economics. the other aspect is that some PDAs go into strange but unique areas that offer possibilities of the range of these (small) computers, and that is software can turn them into music-teaching devices (MIDI controllers, even, i think, and a theremin, too) and brain-wave bio- feedback setups (including this just for range). these are attachments, and software could do much by itself- if only it existed. and it could, if the platform were repurposed and became more valuable through development. this makes me wonder about developers, as i've known or intuited the potential of these devices yet am always underwhelmed when the reality of where PDA and computers are at, and my attempts at programming are stuck in trying to learn code still, so becoming a PDA developer is far from something everyone can do by themselves, unless it becomes part of basic education (or, at least its a hope). i've always wanted to have an etymology dictionary, say, on a PDA, yet such tools are not yet developed, and to find the relatively few developers for a platform that might find similar interest determines that possibility, then, also, if it is to be a commercial or free program. yet, there are a large range of wonderful programs (in miniature) for PDAs, including planetariums, star-viewing programs, music, drawing programs, databases, and other programs which could be refocused for education and beyond. and maybe this is why PDAs are stuck or may become extinct for awhile again, in that they have all the bells & whistles of a confused device which has no clear plan for development. they do succeed in certain areas, such as with the military where some devices become part of a whole battlespace network and diagnostics and logistics device, or at least some are proposed as being such, and probably today's working proto- types could bring fuel-cell batteries or some type of OS or some development that may be done through academic R&D networks or public funding that could help bring devices to another level of economy, reliability, and usefulness. maybe there are two devices in this model, an internet- hybrid device, and dedicated standard devices (for education where Internet/multimedia use is not mission-critical when a dedicated lab might be better suited for media-rich work). the hybrid devices may have bells & whistles, a bunch of features and devices built-in, such as internet-connectivity, audio recording, video playback, broadband wireless, GPS/ GIS, mp3, and the rest. all the things that would probably be going the opposite direction of what educators may need, or want to have kids exploring on their computers in class or at home. yet, the major aspect of PDAs for me has been that they are indeed very capable computers, and could be further developed in a way that expands ubiquitous computing so that the majority of functionality may not need to rely on a desktop or even laptop system but one may be able to fare rather well with a PDA-as-satellite-computer-system. current web-based applications such as downloading daily news to PDA is a killer application for regular devices, if the main computer OS has the software, but the industry is in a major fiasco with regards to issues of stability, reliability, and having a mission for the devices. one aspect of feature-rich applications and technology that could work with PDAs for education, for basic computing may be having a wireless phone modem for text messaging, to work as a pager. and there is a company that was a start- up that uses radio signals to broadcast news to PDAs. in this way, say even with the Simputer, the radio infrastructure could be coupled with the adpated-PDA to receive news and weather and information (one-way) without needing to have the power to transmit information back (batttery/cost) and thus to ramp-up some of the services available, from various levels of centrality (radio broadcast of information) and dispersal (local software crafted for specific needs). it is in this way that the PDA could be shaped/formed into a more useful device. and much of it relies on the way it is perceived, and the way it is developed, and by whom. and, while there are glimmers of hope with software on occasion, to take the full resources of a state-based education system, or some larger structure such as a community initiative, such devices could make 'community mapping' (visual database of local resources, for use by members of a community) a killer app that has little to do with typical large-scale commerce, and is into a type of micro-commerce, or intra-community commerce, which might share traits with open-development planning. i think Are also hit on a major aspect that could be beneficial in that, if control over the platform could be developed such that there could be some open-development for an education computer (my assumption of what is needed to make this happen, a PDA based on specification standards, and in large enough quantity to make manufacturers interested in Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) of devices through rebranding or modifying today's basic technology). if such a platform exists, it would allow a computer that is not controlled but controllable, which starts off open- and not closed- to independent possibilities, that current OS' and hardware seemed plagued with. and another aspect is that such a device need not even be nation-specific, and worldwide scales could be had, such that if someone in the USA won't develop it because of opposition, another place might, where private influence is not dictating what can and cannot happen with computing devices and their potential. it is almost an issue of 'free computing' as in, 'free speech', by not restricting free development versus one of a type of enslavement to corporate models of hardware and software development and the ideologies which place certain things at the top of the list, and others off-the-table or impossible, because of special- interests and potential loss-of-current-profit models. all of this is guesswork. regarding the first feedback on the list, most issues were dealt with in the text- about media-specific computing (art-computer) there could be used, dedicated computers with wacom-tablets (digital drawing tablets) that are donated/used and a computer with painting software, or a music computer with MIDI instruments and this could help bring arts to students that may not have supplies or teachers but people with knowledge of these devices could help revive the arts within schools by using computers in the way (it seems) they were intended to be used, for the betterment of people and as social devices, not as a replacement for these. brian From announcements-request at sarai.net Fri Nov 8 11:14:42 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 06:44:42 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #115 - 2 msgs Message-ID: <20021108054442.9816.96276.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Visiting Faculty in Computers Required at MCRPV,UTD,BHOPAL (Sagnik Chakravartty) 2. Edith Russ Scholarships for New Media Art (Monica Narula) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: 6 Nov 2002 18:48:06 -0000 From: "Sagnik Chakravartty" Reply-To: "Sagnik Chakravartty" To: announcements at sarai.net Cc: arpita_choudhuri at rediffmail.com Subject: [Announcements] Visiting Faculty in Computers Required at MCRPV,UTD,BHOPAL Required Visiting Faculty in Computers AT UTD, BHOPAL Visiting Faculty required for various computer-related subjects (List is given below) for PG/UG level, in University Teaching Department at Bhopal, on package basis for the semester starts on 12th August 2002. Qualification as per the UGC/AICTE norms. Interested persons may immediately contact to the HOD, Centre for Computer Science, MCRP University, 222-A, Zone I, M.P.Nagar, Bhopal 462 011 (Phone : 274822/ 294448 / 768274, e-mail : c_k_raju at mcu.ac.in ) with resume, subjects of interest, experience of prior teaching in that subject, dates of availability and expected remuneration. Package means --Remuneration will be paid for the entire course and not on a per lecture basis. Syllabus is expected to be completed approximately 45 lectures. Responsibility includes setting question papers for internals and end-of-term tests. The faculty concerned will also be expected to spend some time interacting with the students outside the class. Preference will be given to those candidates who are able to teach the subject through-out the term instead of in concentrated dose. Applications from candidates without requisite qualification and experience are liable to be summarily rejected. Remuneration is negotiable. Course & Subject List Master in Computer Applications (MCA) PROGRAMMING IN C PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT DESCRETE MATHEMATICS DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OPERATING SYSTEM COMPONENT ARCHITECTURE & PROGRAMMING (COM, DCOM) COMPUTER GRAPHICS HARDWARE MAINTENANCE MULTIMEDIA AND VIRTUAL REALITY DATA WAREHOUSING AND DATA MINING DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING Master in Science (Information technology) [MSc(IT)] CURRENT TRENDS & TECHNOLOGY NETWORKING GUI PROGRAMMING IN VISUAL BASIC Bachelor of Computer Applications(BCA) MANAGEMENT SKILLS MULTIMEDIA TOOLS & APPLICATION MATHEMATICS PRE-REQUISITE --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 14:06:06 +0530 To: announcements at sarai.net From: Monica Narula Subject: [Announcements] Edith Russ Scholarships for New Media Art The Edith Russ Site for Media Art will award three 6 month work stipends for June - December 2003. International artists who work with New Media may apply. Each stipend is endowed with 10.225,84 * (20.000 German Marks). There are no residency requirements. The stipends have been made possible through a grant by the Niedersachsen Foundation. Application and project description deadline (post date): 31st January 2003. The 2002 stipends were awarded to: Johan Grimonprez (B), Dagmar Keller/Martin Wittwer (D/CH) and Florian Zeyfang (D). Edith-Ru�Haus f�ienkunst Edith Russ Site for Media Art Peterstra� 23 26121 Oldenburg Germany t. +49 (0)441 235 32 08 f. +49 (0)441 235 21 61 info at edith-russ-haus.de http://www.edith-russ-haus.de -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From menso at r4k.net Fri Nov 8 14:47:03 2002 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 10:17:03 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] software is religion Message-ID: <20021108091703.GG80774@r4k.net> To take part in the 'what is software' discussion: Software is religion. The preachers seem to understand little of those to whom they preach and the ones visiting the church understand only vaguely what the preachers are all about. Software is also religion because the unbelievers'€™ question s are far too often answered by saying that software moves in mysterious ways. There are many churches scattered across the land. There is the Church of Windows, which looks nice but lots of the people visiting have trouble with the fact that bits and pieces of the ceiling tend to fall down and occasionally kill someone. There'€™s the church of Linux, which looks solid, yet once inse one discovers a 100 different priests all claiming to be the best and besides that, the place could do with a good cleaning too. There'€™s probably a church for every application or operating syste ever made and it'€™believers are as fanatic in most cases as those of everyday life religions. It has another thing in common with normal religions too, which is that it never seems to fully satisfies our needs. Software is religion because people expect miracles and the priests are unable to deliver (yet when it'€™s time to collect money to support th e church, the miracle gets sold quickly with lots of extras). Software is religion because there'€™s the promise that if we use it '€™l become a better person. Software is religion because it comes with Bibles that explain it all to us. Software is religion because it will always stay a mystery to the masses and there will always be questions it cannot answer. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image - Stephen Hawking -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From supreet at sarai.net Sat Nov 9 06:37:09 2002 From: supreet at sarai.net (Supreet) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 02:07:09 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] [OT] GNU/Linux doubts In-Reply-To: <20021107170042.GA5897@gnuhead.dyndns.org> References: <20021107183701.3347.62775.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> <20021107161720.56019.qmail@web40608.mail.yahoo.com> <20021107170042.GA5897@gnuhead.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20021109010709.GC19852@mail.sarai.net> On Thu, Nov 07, 2002 at 10:30:42PM +0530, Raghavendra Bhat wrote: > [off-topic on this List] > > mohit vohra posts: > > >> how do i update it to the latest version, Mandrake 9.0 > > I do not know whether Mandrake v8.1 can be smoothly upgraded to > Mandrake v9.0. But there is this distribution called Debian > GNU/Linux, the choice of the freedom lovers; with which you can > upgrade the entire system, across releases. Under Debian GNU, you > have this tool called as `apt-get' which helps you achieve this. For one I think though I am not sure Mandrake 8.1 could be upgraded to 9.0. Freedom is important.But shell we see some facts. First Debian 3.0 installer is not good enough, fantastic stuff is being done on debian installer. and some people may also be working on PGI. But still there are few steps from something I would call complete. Most people I know have done apt-get upgrade on net. Then 2.2 insaller does'nt support ext3fs AFAIK which I consider important. Its not fool-proof but it gives sufficient room to new user not having to messy stuff like fsck /blah blah Debian is something I want to see on desktop but I can't just because there is need to either document or make the support tools for simple things like installing a sound card with knowing which particular modules to install. I thin I have'nt seen many people who know which brand of sound card they use. Autodetection would be even better. There is something called magic conf which is interesting in this sceneraio but still is under development. > > > >> How do i make Creative Souncard the default one....in place of > >> Onboard ? > > You can do this by disabling `onboard sound' via your BIOS setup. > > > >> have not been able to find any MSN Messenger that can run on LINUX > ^^^^^ > You mean the GNU system with Linux as its kernel ? You will never be > able to find a MSN Messenger port for GNU/Linux. There is this utility > called as `CenterICQ', read the description below > MSN messenger is available for linux. But gatewaying through jabber for messnger service would be better. > CenterICQ is a text mode, menu and window-driven IM interface. ICQ, > Yahoo! and MSN protocols are now supported. It allows you to send, > receive and forward messages, URLs, SMSes and, contacts, mass message > send, search for users.... > > Please try to keep away from *proprietary* clients like MSN Messenger > because their very `non-free' nature keeps the user helpless and > divided. `Non-free' software is evil and it leads its users' down a > bottom-less tar pit. Please follow the link `Why we exist ?' and read > > http://www.gnu.org/ > > Best.... > -- > ragOO, VU2RGU :: Visit us at http://symonds.net/~fsug-kochi/ > Helping to keep the Air-Waves FREE Amateur Radio > Helping to keep your Software FREE the GNU Project > Helping to keep the W W W FREE Debian GNU/${kernel} > > _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 8 23:33:51 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 13:03:51 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] A Case for PDA Student Computing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Pardon the weaving, hope it serves a purpose: > hi Are, yes, i've read of the Simputer and it is partly > because of this that the idea became clearer to me, but > i also have a lot of experience with earlier electronic > organizers (sharps), a used-Psion, and now a Handspring > that is unable to sync with my Mac OS X. i am not writing > so much from how these devices, as they have evolved, are > used today, but how they could be used and designed, and > in this way i do think the software and OS' are a limit, > and determines certain possibilities and user behaviors. > this also relates to this week's news about the pending > death of the PDA, and also trends in that industry which > seems to have suffered more setbacks than other form factors > (Apple Newtons, myriad hybrid devices). This is the current catch 22 of the PDA. They are developing the OS to the point where it may actually need to boot, rather than being a simple on/off button launch. The development is also is reflected in hardware; laptops move toward PDAs and PDAs move toward laptops. It is almost hard to categorize certain models. That cellphone/PDA hybrid is the latest attempt at carving a niche for the palm-sized, mobile computing market. But why did the PDA die? The best reason I have heard is that most people put more into them than they get out; hence they waste rather than save time with the current datebook, memo pad, and address list configurations. I agree that this is very much a question of software development, although most functions of MS Office, for example, can be performed thanks to Documents To Go (but all that proprietary stuff costs additional money, and the installation procedures etc. also currently require a desktop, as well as conduits for synching etc., etc., etc.) > the aspect of the Simputer that surprised me was the price, > as it seemed like a lot of money. yet, if it is customized > for the uses intended, it may well be worth the cost. yet, > to me, if such a device is to function somewhat autonomously, > it has seemed that the cost of batteries would be critical > to users being able to afford using current devices which > are notorious for eating batteries, and without recharging > the cost of the device could be had in batteries within its > lifetime. therefore, i thought that the Simputer should be > packaged with a hand-crank or solar-panel and adapter and > charging station for rechargeable batteries, if cost is an > issue, and use will be mostly done with batteries. The problem with rechargeable batteries, unless they are of a common AA or AAA type mold, is that most manufacturers make them proprietary and device specific. When they die, you have to buy a designated new one, if available, or re-cell them, and this can be a costly affair (as evidenced by the sought after and discontinued Beaulieu Super 8mm cameras, for example). The real question is perhaps what kind of long term commitment such a platform may elicit to make it feasible in the first place and sustainable in the long run. I think we are obviously talking public rather than private support here, where the second follows the former for gain and not the other way around (the current US model where social security ends up as fodder for the volatile stock market). Sarai is from what I have read no stranger to an erratic power supply and keep plenty of battery backup to make computing less prone to disaster. Maybe someone has some first-hand experience with this, or suggestions? > Psion is an interesting company in the field of PDAs, even > though their dominance or niche market has changed. they > sell consumer-grade devices, but also retailing computers > that look like those devices used in warehouses for scanning > and inputting information into a database, either with a > wand or some scanning code-reader for UPC symbols, etc. > they are used for retailing, such as clothes, for grocers > to document their inventory, and now traditional PDAs also > have such wand attachments for turning a consumer-grade > device, to specialize/customize it for such industry uses. > > the reason this is important for PDAs is that they can be > customized in ways that scientists and other professional > fields are doing it, with probes, measuring devices, etc, > which could greatly help in issues of education and utility, > where a science class, say, would need just the attachment > probes to make a device, and not a customized piece of > equipment to do basic science education work. so too, a > PDA could (possibly, i'm guessing) become an oscillator, > teach basic programming for young people to young adults, > could help learn logic through basic (virtual) electronics, > and other SIMulations programs, whether for biology or > for economics. the other aspect is that some PDAs go into > strange but unique areas that offer possibilities of the > range of these (small) computers, and that is software > can turn them into music-teaching devices (MIDI controllers, > even, i think, and a theremin, too) and brain-wave bio- > feedback setups (including this just for range). these > are attachments, and software could do much by itself- > if only it existed. and it could, if the platform were > repurposed and became more valuable through development. > > this makes me wonder about developers, as i've known or > intuited the potential of these devices yet am always > underwhelmed when the reality of where PDA and computers > are at, and my attempts at programming are stuck in trying > to learn code still, so becoming a PDA developer is far > from something everyone can do by themselves, unless it > becomes part of basic education (or, at least its a hope). > i've always wanted to have an etymology dictionary, say, > on a PDA, yet such tools are not yet developed, and to > find the relatively few developers for a platform that > might find similar interest determines that possibility, > then, also, if it is to be a commercial or free program. > yet, there are a large range of wonderful programs (in > miniature) for PDAs, including planetariums, star-viewing > programs, music, drawing programs, databases, and other > programs which could be refocused for education and beyond. You are also highlighting the core problem with PDA computing. Once you have, in the current climate, purchased all the modules, accessories and software to make your PDA conversant with your needs, it has turned into an eclectic collection of paraphernalia that probably make you wish you had bought a laptop instead. In some ways, this is simply a repeat of the upgrade curve we have already gone through (although scaling is reversed, perhaps) -- from less to more, with various profitable and dead end avenues explored along the way. Breaking apart the desktop does not necessarily make it cheaper and better, just a pain to carry around. (It does however allow for better customization.) And protocols and compatibility once more become key concerns; we are back in the territories thoroughly enjoyed by monopolies. Will open source do better in this second round? (I guess you answer that it should below, perhaps due to an added awareness. If only we had the luxury of history repeating itself...oh, we actually do?) > and maybe this is why PDAs are stuck or may become extinct > for awhile again, in that they have all the bells & whistles > of a confused device which has no clear plan for development. > they do succeed in certain areas, such as with the military > where some devices become part of a whole battlespace network > and diagnostics and logistics device, or at least some are > proposed as being such, and probably today's working proto- > types could bring fuel-cell batteries or some type of OS > or some development that may be done through academic R&D > networks or public funding that could help bring devices > to another level of economy, reliability, and usefulness. > > maybe there are two devices in this model, an internet- > hybrid device, and dedicated standard devices (for education > where Internet/multimedia use is not mission-critical when > a dedicated lab might be better suited for media-rich work). > the hybrid devices may have bells & whistles, a bunch of > features and devices built-in, such as internet-connectivity, > audio recording, video playback, broadband wireless, GPS/ > GIS, mp3, and the rest. all the things that would probably > be going the opposite direction of what educators may need, > or want to have kids exploring on their computers in class > or at home. yet, the major aspect of PDAs for me has been > that they are indeed very capable computers, and could be > further developed in a way that expands ubiquitous computing > so that the majority of functionality may not need to rely > on a desktop or even laptop system but one may be able to > fare rather well with a PDA-as-satellite-computer-system. > current web-based applications such as downloading daily > news to PDA is a killer application for regular devices, > if the main computer OS has the software, but the industry > is in a major fiasco with regards to issues of stability, > reliability, and having a mission for the devices. > > one aspect of feature-rich applications and technology > that could work with PDAs for education, for basic computing > may be having a wireless phone modem for text messaging, > to work as a pager. and there is a company that was a start- > up that uses radio signals to broadcast news to PDAs. in > this way, say even with the Simputer, the radio infrastructure > could be coupled with the adpated-PDA to receive news and > weather and information (one-way) without needing to have > the power to transmit information back (batttery/cost) and > thus to ramp-up some of the services available, from various > levels of centrality (radio broadcast of information) and > dispersal (local software crafted for specific needs). it > is in this way that the PDA could be shaped/formed into > a more useful device. and much of it relies on the way it > is perceived, and the way it is developed, and by whom. > and, while there are glimmers of hope with software on > occasion, to take the full resources of a state-based > education system, or some larger structure such as a > community initiative, such devices could make 'community > mapping' (visual database of local resources, for use > by members of a community) a killer app that has little > to do with typical large-scale commerce, and is into a > type of micro-commerce, or intra-community commerce, > which might share traits with open-development planning. > > i think Are also hit on a major aspect that could be > beneficial in that, if control over the platform could > be developed such that there could be some open-development > for an education computer (my assumption of what is needed > to make this happen, a PDA based on specification standards, > and in large enough quantity to make manufacturers interested > in Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) of devices through > rebranding or modifying today's basic technology). if such > a platform exists, it would allow a computer that is not > controlled but controllable, which starts off open- and > not closed- to independent possibilities, that current OS' > and hardware seemed plagued with. and another aspect is > that such a device need not even be nation-specific, and > worldwide scales could be had, such that if someone in > the USA won't develop it because of opposition, another > place might, where private influence is not dictating > what can and cannot happen with computing devices and > their potential. it is almost an issue of 'free computing' > as in, 'free speech', by not restricting free development > versus one of a type of enslavement to corporate models > of hardware and software development and the ideologies > which place certain things at the top of the list, and > others off-the-table or impossible, because of special- > interests and potential loss-of-current-profit models. This is a really interesting area where I hope we can benefit from some of the insights and experiences garnered at Sarai. China embraced its modified Linux kernel for security reasons (I have a 160 page PDF report on the adoption of open source within the US Dept. of Defense if anyone is interested, just email) and it is fair to say that India and Pakistan move toward it in order to get a piece of the computing economy. With a projected install base (potentially add-on, third-party market share) for Linux rivaling Apple within a couple of years, this is a way in for those who have had their software engineers work for foreign companies and profits exported in the past. And think about it; with an installed and growing user base in the millions and millions, based on an open kernel, with possibly thousands of highly capable engineers making headway with all kinds of applications, the balance of power, along with some pretty big bucks, may actually shift as quickly as it takes you to say Microsoft. And what if some relatively cheap and decent hardware, like the Simputer model, came along with it? Something tells me that the Redmond and Cupertino crowds may be looking over their shoulders at India right now. This is also guesswork, of course. But what you propose seems to be taking shape on another continent -- currently going through its own _personal_ computer evolution. And all this is taking place while Microsoft is negotiating hefty discounts, up to 90%, to become the OS and supplier of choice in these countries. We are perhaps talking some serious "social aspects" of software here. > all of this is guesswork. regarding the first feedback > on the list, most issues were dealt with in the text- > about media-specific computing (art-computer) there > could be used, dedicated computers with wacom-tablets > (digital drawing tablets) that are donated/used and > a computer with painting software, or a music computer > with MIDI instruments and this could help bring arts > to students that may not have supplies or teachers > but people with knowledge of these devices could help > revive the arts within schools by using computers in > the way (it seems) they were intended to be used, for > the betterment of people and as social devices, not > as a replacement for these. brian > > > _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list > on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in > the subject header. > List archive: > From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 8 23:38:12 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 13:08:12 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] software is religion In-Reply-To: <20021108091703.GG80774@r4k.net> Message-ID: On 11/8/02 4:17, "Menso Heus" wrote: > Software is religion. The preachers seem to understand > little of those to whom they preach and the ones visiting > the church understand only vaguely what the preachers > are all about. Maybe these parallels can take this further: 1. The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the secular move to open source advocated by Eric Raymond in his seminal essay by that title. 2. The Adobe Evangelists (I kid you not), a group of specially trained salespeople that travel the world to share the miracles of their software. The demo as sermon. -af From ragu at asianetonline.net Sat Nov 9 09:41:42 2002 From: ragu at asianetonline.net (Raghavendra Bhat) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 09:41:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [OT] GNU/Linux doubts In-Reply-To: <20021109010709.GC19852@mail.sarai.net> References: <20021107183701.3347.62775.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> <20021107161720.56019.qmail@web40608.mail.yahoo.com> <20021107170042.GA5897@gnuhead.dyndns.org> <20021109010709.GC19852@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20021109041142.GA7329@gnuhead.dyndns.org> Supreet posts : >> Then 2.2 installer doesn't support ext3fs AFAIK which I consider >> important. Its not fool-proof but it gives sufficient room to new >> user not having to messy stuff like fsck It is possible to have the Debian Installer create an ext3fs partition for you. Do type `bf24' at the boot prompt after you insert the 1st Debian `woody' CD. You will then be dropped down to the newer 2.4.18 kernel with framebuffer support; now the installer will ask you whether you want an ext2/ext3/reiserfs partition (once the disk partitioning is over). Technical excellence is just a secondary issue when freedom is at stake. When the free flow of information is threatened, the convenience of a GUI installer or a jazzy desktop of a `non-free' system can well be done without. -- .-"".__."``". ragOO, Amateur Radio VU2RGU .-.--. _...' (/) (/) ``' Free Software for a Brave GNU World (O/ O) \-' ` -="""=. ', Computing as a Community Resource! ~`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From aiindex at mnet.fr Wed Nov 20 17:15:46 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 12:45:46 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Foreign Exchange of Hate: American Funds of Hindutva Message-ID: Sabrang Communications (India) and South Asia Citizens Web (France) announce the publication of a detailed investigative report on the use of American corporate funds by the US based the India Development and Relief Fund to promote the project of Hindu right groups in India. 'THE FOREIGN EXCHANGE OF HATE: IDRF AND THE AMERICAN FUNDING OF HINDUTVA'. The full report was made public on 20 November 2002 3:30 PM IST (India). The online report is available at: Sabrang Communications http://www.sabrang.com South Asia Citizens Web http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/ The report will also be made simultaneously available at a number of other web sites worldwide. A list will be made available soon. For all further information write to : From monica at sarai.net Wed Nov 20 18:41:26 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 18:41:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Book on Gujarat Message-ID: Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy Edited by Siddharth Varadarajan Penguin, 2002, pp 472, Rs 295/- The events at Godhra and the ensuing communal carnage in Gujarat, like the Babri Masjid demolition and the 1984 massacres, constitute an ugly chapter of our contemporary history. For the sheer brutality, persistence and widespread nature of the violence, especially against women and children, the complicity of the State, the ghettoization of communities, and the indifference of civil society, Gujarat has surpassed anything we have experienced in recent times. That this happened in one of India’s most ‘well off’ and ‘progressive’ states, the home of the Mahatma, is all the more alarming. This book is intended to be a permanent public archive of the tragedy that is Gujarat. Drawing upon eyewitness reports from the English, Hindi and regional media, citizens’ and official fact-finding commissions – and articles by leading public figures and intellectuals – it provides a chilling account of how and why the state was allowed to burn. With an overview by the editor, the reader covers the circumstances leading up to Godhra and the violence in Ahmedabad, Baroda and rural Gujarat. Separate sections deal with the role of the police, Sangh Parivar, media and the tribals, the international implications of the violence, the problems of relief and rehabilitation of the victims, and, above all, their quest for justice. The picture that emerges is deeply disturbing, for Gujarat has exposed the ease with which the rights of citizens, and especially minorities, can be violated with official sanction. The lessons of the violence ought to be heeded and acted upon by the public. For, in the absence of this, can another Gujarat be prevented from happening elsewhere? The royalties and a matching share of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go towards relief for Gujarat riot victims. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Chronicle of a Tragedy Foretold Siddharth Varadarajan The Violence: The Carnage at Godhra Jyoti Punwani * A License to Kill: Patterns of Violence in Gujarat Nandini Sundar * Narratives from the Killing Fields * When Guardians Betray: The Role of the Police Teesta Setalvad * An Open Letter to My Fellow Police Officers Vibhuti Narain Rai * ‘Nothing New?’: Women as Victims Barkha Dutt, Women’s Panel, PUCL-Vadodara and Shanti Abhiyan * Tribal Voice and Violence G.N. Devy * The Violence in Gujarat and the Dalits Mohandas Namishray * The Truth Hurts: Gujarat and the Role of the Media Siddharth Varadarajan, Rajdeep Sardesai, PUCL-Vadodara and Shanti Abhiyan, Anil Chamaria The Aftermath: Little Relief, No Rehabilitation People’s Union for Democratic Rights * Apart, Yet a Part: Ghettoisation, Trauma—and Some Rays of Hope * The Elusive Quest for Justice: Delhi 1984 to Gujarat 2002 Vrinda Grover * India’s Reaction to International Concern A.G. Noorani Essays and Analyses: The Dialogue of Vali Gujarati and Hanumanji Ranjana Argade * Genocide of the Idea of Gujarat Shail Mayaram * The Pathology of Gujarat Achyut Yagnik * Caste, Hindutva and the Making of Mob Culture Ghanshyam Shah * The VHP Needs to Hear the Condemnation of the Hindu Middle Ground Ramachandra Guha * Where Will it End? Mahasweta Devi * Modi and Kalinga? Thrice Impossible, Brother Gill Prakash N. Shah * Just Another Day in Ahmedabad Gurpal Singh * I Salute You Geetaben, From the Bottom of My Heart Siddharth Varadarajan Appendices: Prime Minister Vajpayee’s speech at Goa/A Brief Chronology of Events/Akshardham and After -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net Tue Nov 19 19:41:41 2002 From: reyhanchaudhuri at eth.net (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 19:41:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Syhlleti Marriage Documentation References: <1541.203.200.121.67.1036925728.squirrel@smtp.spectrum.in> Message-ID: <001601c28fd5$96ae3340$e39809ca@P> Dear Broadcaster, I would like to know why "marriage is an important, influential, far-reaching and holy institution" for the sylheti.org?.Should not 'education' be given that eminence?On second thoughts would not':a sound sewage and sanitation system" would be even more influential,far-reaching for the wellbeing of our civilisation, both in the country-side and the urban metropolis? It is commendable that dowry and sati were never prevalent among the tea gardens and their annual blossoms of camellia sinensis.However you go on to mention:- > " Marriage is one of the fundamental institutions we come across our lives and hold significance for our whole lives. " Many people could contradict that fact by pointing fingers at many members of our population(admittedly a minority and very often a self-conscious' minority)who never come across it in their lives as a personal experience .Many who do ,do not consider it 'significant' enough to complete it or take salient steps to see that it does not encompass their whole life. You also say:- "Like birth and death, this is also an event of individual like and needless to mention, in its fundamental essence, it is beyond caste, creed and religion." Would you not agree:birth and death are organic events.And so would be 'giving birth'. However marriage to many would be a chronological event or 'coming of age' like the that of passing out of school or to join a college or university.One that would mean to change your identity forever if not atleast transform it? It could more likely be grouped in: The commencement of a profession or a life-time employment /job placemement.It may often require careful weighing of pros&cons or priorities but unfortunately sometimes a no win,take it or leave it situation. Also in India is it really beyond caste and religion?Isn't that the exception rather than the norm?This is one phenomenon directly based upon caste and religion(and although there are many brave-hearted variants who produce hybrids like me), people have actually gone to extraordinary lengths to preserve this basis including the resort to violence and bloodshed. There is also mention of 'horoscope matching' and 'event management facilities'.Perhaps like many of the young people today all over the country,the bright young Sylhetis would be more concerned about a matching of 'economics' and 'attitude'.( I hope these important matters shall also be investigated and researched upon ,when you do the 'massive documentation'(as you call it) program. And do you really want to do event managememt?Let me tell you,you are depriving family members(read elderly /middle-aged/harrassed/overworked women )of their greatest moment in life , in terms of emotion and empowerment.I mean all the future mother-in-laws,brother-in-laws plus the ubiquitous Pishis.........who for a brief point in time shall find the world oscillating around them .The true meaning of control and self-control shall be unravelled to them....;This is probably a truer fundamental social institution than the one you talk of,do not be so heartless to moonlight upon them. Kindly enlighten me. I stand but also slouch to be corrected. Yours enquiringly, R.Chaudhuri. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: ; ; Cc: ; Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 4:25 PM Subject: Syhlleti Marriage Documentation > Like all ethnic communities, Sylhetis consider marriage an important, > influential, far-reaching and holy institution. We have Matrimonial > Services for different communities but we don't have anything exclusively > for Sylhetis as yet. As our commitment to our community, we are going to > start an exclusive Sylheti Matrimonial over the web as well as in the > conventional way. This Service Venture was not thought out by us > independently but was told by a number of our readers, well-wishers, > contributors and they gave us two striking historical facts regarding our > Cultural Life,one of them includes marriage. > > > Firstly, we are told that the custom of Dowry was never prevalent in > Sylheti society - past of present. Secondly, when a substantial part of > Greater Bengal had a prevalence of the ugly custom of Sati (i.e. burning of > widows, mostly of young at the funeral pyre of their husband) as late as > 1829, Sylhet and Greater Sylhet never practiced the custom. > > > As told before, we are going to start the Matrimonial Services through Web > as well as through Conventional way through mail, office set-up etc. In > addition, we are going to provide the following Services together, some > locally and some remotely: > > > 1. Horoscope Services. > > 2. Event Management Services. > > > Marriage is one of the fundamental institutions we come across our lives > and hold significance for our whole lives. Like birth and death, this is > also an event of individual like and needless of mention, in its > fundamental essence, it is beyond caste, creed and religion. Only in the > customs, it varies. > > > We are delighted to learn that Sylheti marriages are of very long duration > and some customs in the marriage a cosmic importance. We will be eager to > launch a massive documentation program on Sylheti Marriage. > > > We are getting ourselves ready. Our team is working in full swing to > provide you a comprehensive web interface. We are opening a office in > Silchar with partners in all cities/towns in Eastern India. And if > everything goes well, we will be formally launching the Matrimonial > Services on 10th November'2002 at Silchar. > > > We would be eager to know what you feel Please write to us at > contact at syhlleti.org > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > ---- > > > > From sgadihok at vsnl.com Wed Nov 20 19:52:50 2002 From: sgadihok at vsnl.com (sabeena gadihok) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:52:50 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] My Mother India by Safina Oberoi Message-ID: <000001c290a0$b0c89e20$06d2c5cb@o0r6g6> Special Screening of the acclaimed documentary MY MOTHER INDIA Introduced by director Safina Uberoi 7:00 pm, Monday 25th November Main Auditorium Habitat World INDIA HABITAT CENTRE New Delhi MY MOTHER INDIA " This marvellous film. took me on a journey I'd never been on before, worlds opened up." Margaret Pomeranz, SBS Movie Show 'My mother India' tells the story of Patricia, an Australian woman who married an Indian in the 60's and went to live with him in India. What begins as a quirky and humorous documentary about an eccentric, multicultural family unfolds into a complex commentary on the social, political and religious events of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 which tore this family apart. 'My Mother India' is a very timely film in the context of global politics, as well as the particular histories of both Australia and India. The film has been receiving great acclaim since its release earlier this year. Playing in festivals around the world 'My Mother India' has won ten major awards including the Rouben Mamoulian Award from the Sydney Film Festival 2002, Best Documentary from the Australian Film Critics' Circle and the Special Jury Prize from the Hawaii International Film Festival 2001. 'My Mother India' also received the Premiers Literary Award for it's script (the highest literary award in Australia) and was awarded a Special Commendation at the Mill Valley International Film Festival. Almost five years in the making, 'My Mother India' was supported in it's development stage by the Australia India Council and financed by the Australian Film Finance Corporation and SBS Independent. FURTHER DETAILS: Ms Uberoi will be available for interviews, either by phone from Australia or in person when in India. Press Kits for the film are also available. Please direct enquires to the email: divana at optusnet.com.au or call Delhi (11) 6864471 or (11) 6527105. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021120/f25d89ab/attachment.html From areflagan at artpanorama.com Wed Nov 20 22:59:28 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 12:29:28 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Simputer Message-ID: A review and response to the Simputer: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/19/234216 -af From aiindex at mnet.fr Thu Nov 21 07:40:17 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 03:10:17 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate Message-ID: 'THE FOREIGN EXCHANGE OF HATE: IDRF AND THE AMERICAN FUNDING OF HINDUTVA'. by Sabrang Communications (India) and South Asia Citizens Web (France) 20 November 2002 A detailed investigative report on the use of American corporate funds by the US based India Development and Relief Fund to promote the projects of Hindu supremacist groups in India. The online report is available at: Sabrang Communications (India) http://www.sabrang.com South Asia Citizens Web (France) http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/ The full report is also being hosted by a growing number of web sites worldwide. The current list is: Isis Creations (Australia): http://www.isis.aust.com/sacw/ Outlook (India): http://www.outlookindia.org India Committee of the the Netherlands: http://www.indianet.nl Z Mag South Asia (USA): http://www.zmag.org/southasia/southasia1.htm Alliance for Secular and Democratic South Asia (USA): http://www.alliancesouthasia.org/ __________________________ The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate P.O. Box 20136 Stanford CA 94309 http://www.stopfundinghate.org Press Advisory Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2002, 3:30 PM IST (India)/5 AM EST (USA). For More Information Contact:  Is US Corporate Philanthropy Funding Hate Groups In India? The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate Announces Project Saffron Dollar Are the charity dollars generously provided by American companies, including some of our leading corporate citizens of the high technology world, being used to fund violent, sectarian groups in India? The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (SFH) announces the launch of Project Saffron Dollar to bring an end to the electronic collection and transfer of funds from the US to organizations that spread sectarian hatred in India. The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (SFH) is a coalition of people‹professionals, students, workers, artists and intellectuals‹who share a common concern that sectarian hatreds in India are being fueled by money flowing from the United States. SFH is committed to an India that is open, tolerant and democratic. As the first step, SFH is determined to turn off the money flow from the United States to Hindutva hate groups responsible for recurring anti-minority violence in India. IDRF: THE SANGH¹S FUNDING BRANCH IN THE USA Project Saffron Dollar aims to put an end to the collection of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the most Œrespectable¹ of the US based funding arms of the violent and sectarian Hindutva movement‹the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF). In its communications and on its website, the IDRF claims to be a non-sectarian, non-political charity that funds development and relief work in India. However, a report ­ A Foreign Exchange of Hate ­ co-published today by the South Asia Citizens Web (SACW) based in France, and Sabrang Communications, Bombay, India, documents in rich detail the fundamental connections between the IDRF and the Sangh Parivar (or simply the Sangh, the name commonly used for the network of RSS-linked organizations that collectively define the Hindutva movement). Amongst other documents, the SACW/Sabrang report examines a tax document filed by IDRF (at its inception in 1989) with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the US Federal Government. The report offers the following: [F]orm 1023, duly filled by IDRF executives when it was created in 1989, identifies nine organizations as a representative sample of the types of organizations IDRF has been set up to support in IndiaŠ All nine are clearly marked Sangh organizations. The report concludes that the fact of money being sent to organizations linked to the RSS is not a Œmere¹ incidental to IDRF¹s larger operations, but rather that raising funds for the Sangh Parivar is, and continues to be, the primary reason for the existence of IDRF in the US. It is critical to underscore that IDRF¹s claim to being non-sectarian is entirely misleading. The SACW/Sabrang report indicates that a whopping 82% of the funds disbursed at the discretion of IDRF go to Sangh organizations. Of the remaining, the bulk goes to sectarian Hindu charities that may or may not have a direct Sangh affiliation. Less than five percent of their funds go to agencies that do not have a distinct Hindu-religious identification. Examining the IDRF fund disbursement from a Œactivity-funded¹ viewpoint, the SACW/Sabrang report documents that nearly 70% of the monies are used for "hinduization/tribal/education" work, largely with a view of spreading Hindutva ideology amongst Adivasi (tribal) communities. Less than 20% of the total sent by IDRF is used in what are commonly understood as Œdevelopment and relief¹ activities. However, the report also concludes that "the 15% funds that the IDRF disbursed for "relief" must also be seen as sectarian funds" because of the sectarian basis of how relief work is carried out by the organizations that IDRF funds. DOLLARS OF DECEPTION: IDRF FUND RAISING TECHNIQUES A substantial proportion of IDRF¹s fund-raising is done through electronic means: money transfer portals such as PayPal; company foundations and their electronic portals such as Cisco Foundation; other charity portals such as Givingstation.org; and credit card commissions through a NSC/MBNA Bank issued IDRF Master Card. SFH research indicates that in excess of half a million dollars may be going every year into the hate-lined coffers of IDRF through such transfers. As of 10AM PST (USA), November 19 2002, petitions seeking an immediate cessation of the transfer of funds to IDRF have been dispatched along with comprehensive back-up documentation, including A Foreign Exchange of Hate report, to ten of the leading corporations, portals and money exchange facilities. The SFH petition urges these corporations to immediately disallow IDRF from using their facilities for direct or indirect fund-raising. Many large US corporations such as CISCO, Sun, Oracle, HP and AOL Time Warner match employee contributions to US based non profits. "Annual Giving" programs normally happen once a year in late Fall‹timed to occur between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Unsuspecting corporations end up giving large amounts of money as matching funds to IDRF as employees of these firms direct funds to IDRF. For instance, in fiscal 1999, Cisco Foundation gave almost $70,000 to IDRF ­ placing IDRF among the top 5 of Cisco grantees. In comparison, a well-regarded mainstream institution like the Nobel Peace Prize winning Doctors Without Borders received only $2,560. Also, other Indian-American development organizations such as Asha ($1,417), CRY‹Child Relief and You ($4,427) or the Maharashtra Foundation ($2,000) all fared much worse than IDRF. Clearly, at least among Cisco employees, the IDRF has come to occupy much of the giving space. When you add Cisco¹s matching grants to the original amounts given by its employees, a total of at least $133,000 went through Cisco to IDRF in 1999-2000‹this is more than 5% of IDRF¹s total cash collections for the same time period. The dynamics of IDRF¹s corporate funding strategy are simple. As professional Indian migration to the US has boomed over the last decade, especially in the software sector, groups of Sangh operatives, in each of the large high-tech firms with liberal giving policies, have worked to put IDRF on the corporations¹ list of grantees. The swayamsevaks (Sangh Œvolunteers¹) within these corporations then push IDRF as the Œbest¹ and the Œonly¹ way to provide funding for Œdevelopment & relief¹ work in India, thus causing not only other unsuspecting employees, but also the corporation itself to fund the Sangh in India. Such activities of Sangh operatives, within firms such as Cisco, constitute a clear effort to mislead the corporation into funding organizations that spread sectarian hate: explicitly in contravention of company policy. For instance, a criterion for eligibility for donations that Cisco outlines is that the "organization/project being funded must have a nonreligious primary purpose"; and, equally explicit, is the criterion for an ineligible organization: "organizations whose primary mission is to promote or serve one culture, race, or religion.Š" Clearly IDRF falls outside of the purview of eligibility because of its Sangh connection and is also marked clearly as ineligible because of its single minded focus on Hindus and the creation of a Hindu Rashtra (a vision of an exclusivist Hindu Supremacist nation). The case of Charity portals such as Giving Station or Donation Depot is similar. Many US corporations use one or other of these donation portals to encourage annual giving by their employees. For instance, Hewlett Packard, the California based computer and peripherals giant, manages its annual giving plans through Giving Station. IDRF has also adopted an older Hindutva strategy. Between 1993 and 1995 the VHP of America had signed up with AT&T in its Associations Rewards Program, wherein a fixed percentage of any subscribers total telephone bill could be directed to a non profit of his/her choice, provided the non profit was registered with AT&T in its Association Rewards Program. Under consistent pressure from people appalled by this misuse of charitable giving, AT&T withdrew all support to VHP of America. IDRF has reproduced exactly the same method for funds collection, this time through a credit card issued by MBNA bank as part of a program managed by the National Scrip Center‹an organization founded primarily to simplify fund-raising by schools. The operation of this scheme is similar to what the VHP-A had tried with the AT&T Rewards program‹from one to fifteen percent of all transactions conducted on an MBNA-IDRF credit card goes to IDRF. What is perhaps morally more reprehensible than individuals directing money to IDRF knowing that most or all of it will be used for Sangh activities, is the subterfuge involved in misusing the generosity of well meaning individuals and organizations for the securing of hate money. Such deception does great harm to the Indo-American community by taking advantage of people (and corporations) who care, people who give money in the belief that they are helping non sectarian relief and development work in India. A CALL TO BE VIGILANT The diversity of the funds collection strategies employed by IDRF in the small sample outlined above indicates that it is very likely that there are many more such tactics employed by the Sangh that have yet to be uncovered. SFH is committed to following the last dollar. Although it is clear that a large amount of money does go from the US to fund Sangh operations in India‹what the exact amount is, is still an open question. The SACW/Sabrang report clearly locates "development" and "seva" work as the most potent Sangh cover in its spreading the ideology of hate. SFH sees its role as not just a campaign to stop such relatively Œover-ground¹ funding as done by IDRF, but also to promote an awareness of how even funds that are given to temples and cultural organizations may be ending up in the hands of the Sangh and similar organizations. A decade ago, people who funded development work in India could do so without being too vigilant on the specific usage of these funds. But in the wake of the growing levels of sectarian violence across the world, we all need to heighten the level of scrutiny regarding the funds being transferred to organizations overseas‹funds ostensibly collected for Œdevelopment & relief¹ work but being used to foment hatreds and spread violence. Corporations also have a responsibility in ensuring that their funds are not misused by agencies like IDRF. By inadvertently promoting such groups, corporations end up not only supporting violence in India but also importing the divisions and hatreds of Indian society into the Indo-American community and promoting extremism on American soil. For SFH our guiding light is well expressed by the apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, who when told that the RSS had done some excellent relief work in the wake of the 1946 communal riots, answered, "But don¹t forget, even so had Hitler¹s Nazis and the Fascists under Mussolini." He saw right through this façade of seva and characterized the RSS as a Œcommunal body with a totalitarian outlook.¹ He paid for this with his life. Our task is to ensure that his message of peace, love and tolerance does not die in India. ‹ end ‹ -- From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 22 06:17:06 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 19:47:06 -0500 Subject: [Reader-List] Human-Computer Oscillation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/16/02 7:35, "Harwood" wrote: > Q: What are the consequences for the appropriation of value within capitalist > systems if we interfere with this objectification process within interface > design? >> This objectification in interface allows the user to see software structures >> as part of a fixed, environment that is external from themselves. >> The production and exchange of value within capitalism requires such a process takes place. The process has also been cast, in the Marxist critique, as one of alienation. This, however, does not mean that the user is excluded from the process, but rather operates at an implicit remove, once more talking in Marxian terms, from a historical and material reality, without agency. I don't quite recognize the description that allows the user to "see" this structure as fixed and external: it would effectively mean a transcendence to this reality and also a recovery of agency. Software is arguably a process that will always "objectify" in favor of a certain remove. The only recourse may be in the symbolic, interface _design_, which you do not enter into. Hence the earlier attempts in this discussion to entertain what may be considered "readings" of features and interfaces to establish their allocation of value, as a comment of appropriation. Your question remains unanswered, however. > Q: Having established that the selective reading of the user's input data > through the mouse helps lead to objectification of content within interface, > what happens if we create software that acts on all possible variables within > mouse interaction? In other words, what happens when we integrate the movements not anticipated and logged by software into software? (Many people have attached a pen to their mouse and done very nice doodles on paper.) Isn't this what the totally immersive dream of VR seeks to accomplish (if only we could get past the goggles and the glove)? An integration of all senses into an environment where software is an extension of all the senses and the world succumbs entirely to logical-mathematical notation? The mouse is an archaic device with a growing number of programmable buttons to access structures not necessarily present, visually, in a particular interface or menu (but by necessity present in the software). Does this not indicate that the "objectification" is already taking place without the aid of a GUI, and that users converse more and more directly with algorithms. I think this returns to your question above: what are the consequences when software tracks and objectifies a user's input data and the interface, a symbolic order of difference, becomes translucent? Of course, we read about new micro chips and implants every day. -af From ragu at asianetonline.net Fri Nov 22 07:09:22 2002 From: ragu at asianetonline.net (Raghavendra Bhat) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 07:09:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] a memo and the IT@School Project Message-ID: <20021122013922.GA7905@gnuhead> List Members of FSUG-Kochi have submitted a memorandum to the Government of Kerala regarding the choice of software and syllabus prescribed for the IT at School project. Link up and read the full memo at http://www.symonds.net/~fsug-kochi/mass-memo.html -- .-"".__."``". ragOO, Amateur Radio VU2RGU .-.--. _...' (/) (/) ``' Free Software for a Brave GNU World (O/ O) \-' ` -="""=. ', Computing as a Community Resource! ~`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From monica at sarai.net Fri Nov 22 14:26:42 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:26:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Press Nugget Message-ID: American Chemical Society 19/11/02 Inaccurate arsenic test kits jeopardize water safety in Bangladesh and India http://www.cosmiverse.com/news/science/1102/science11190202.html -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From Harwood at scotoma.org Sat Nov 23 01:25:27 2002 From: Harwood at scotoma.org (Harwood) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 19:55:27 +0000 Subject: [Reader-List] Human-Computer Oscillation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Q: What are the consequences for the appropriation of value within capitalist > > systems if we interfere with this objectification process within interface > > design? > > >> This objectification in interface allows the user to see software structures > >> as part of a fixed, environment that is external from themselves. > >> The production and exchange of value within capitalism requires such a > process takes place. > > The process has also been cast, in the Marxist critique, as one of > alienation. This, however, does not mean that the user is excluded from the > process, but rather operates at an implicit remove, once more talking in > Marxian terms, from a historical and material reality, without agency. I > don't quite recognize the description that allows the user to "see" this > structure as fixed and external: >it would effectively mean a transcendence > to this reality and also a recovery of agency. Software is arguably a > process that will always "objectify" in favor of a certain remove. The only > recourse may be in the symbolic, interface _design_, which you do not enter > into. Hence the earlier attempts in this discussion to entertain what may be > considered "readings" of features and interfaces to establish their > allocation of value, as a comment of appropriation. Your question remains > unanswered, however. > The main focus of this question was to asert, or make aparent the road to perfect art inwhich the software will be no more then the concrete sum of it¹s parts. The art will also be devoid of all social/political/cultural/formal or economic value. Its intention will be to refuse all forms of meaning given to it, in any cultures, social or economic systems in existence now or at anytime in the past or future whatsoever. Perfect art has but one single aim and that is to re-produce the image of its innate uselessness to form a that disintegrates everything before it through irritation. Work should aim to disrupt as much sensible workings of society as possible through an invigorating tasteless, aimlessness, wasting of time and resources. The only use of computers allowed is that of a thoroughly aimless one. The only use of theoretical and material items and practises allowed is a useless one. The continuam of failure/success of perfect art should be calculated numerically by the following: how much ((time + money + other resources) it wastes from conception to its disremembered state: divided by the number of (creators + users + clients + viewers + funder's + curators) involved) divided by the number of CPU clock cycles it took to (build + maintain + forget) the perfect work. Expressed: x = ((t + m + r )/ (nc + nu + ncl + nv + nf + ncu )) / (CpuB + CpuB + CpuF) Where: t = time / the number of calories it takes an average human unit to function for 1 minute. m = money / the number of calories it takes an average human unit to earn $1. r = other resources / the number of calories it takes to create the resource. calculated according to the given above. nc = the caloric value of the average creator * number_of_creators nu = the caloric value of the average user * number_of_users ncl = the caloric value of the average client * number_of_clients nv = the caloric value of the average viewer * number_of_viewers nf = the caloric value of the average funder * number_of_funders ncu = the caloric value of the average curator * number_of_curators CpuB = CPU clock cycles to build the perfect art CpuM = CPU clock cycles to maintain the perfect art CpuF = CPU clock cycles to forget the perfect art > > Q: Having established that the selective reading of the user's input data > > through the mouse helps lead to objectification of content within interface, > > what happens if we create software that acts on all possible variables within > > mouse interaction? > > In other words, what happens when we integrate the movements not anticipated > and logged by software into software? No this is not what is meant. All mouse interaction creates varying amounts of electrical activity. This is either monitored or not. The choice is a cultural/ideological one. >(Many people have attached a pen to > their mouse and done very nice doodles on paper.) Isn't this what the > totally immersive dream of VR seeks to accomplish (if only we could get past > the goggles and the glove)? An integration of all senses into an environment > where software is an extension of all the senses and the world succumbs > entirely to logical-mathematical notation? The mouse is an archaic device > with a growing number of programmable buttons to access structures not > necessarily present, visually, in a particular interface or menu (but by > necessity present in the software). Does this not indicate that the > "objectification" is already taking place without the aid of a GUI, and that > users converse more and more directly with algorithms. I think this returns > to your question above: what are the consequences when software tracks and > objectifies a user's input data and the interface, a symbolic order of > difference, becomes translucent? Of course, we read about new micro chips > and implants every day. > I'm sorry, I can find no connection between this paragraph and the report. H > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: From lushinkk at yahoo.com Sun Nov 24 20:02:56 2002 From: lushinkk at yahoo.com (lush inkk) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 06:32:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. Message-ID: <20021124143256.83198.qmail@web14506.mail.yahoo.com> notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. I read Naukar ki Kameez . Read it very late. thought and rethought about it. felt discontented by the end. by the way the wife and baby to be give the all important respite, refuge and self affirmation. wondered at my discontent. perhaps it was with loading the wife with too much- correct emotion. keeping cynicism/ post modernity ( how the word rings for me) completely out of that relationship. the complete faith, the perfection of that reciprocated love made me uncomfotable. it seemed too much like a wrested ending. a novel is not reality. and this novel is definitely an artifice- a work of art- that small bit by painstaking bit, creates/ wrests a space for dignity in the face of ugly dehumanised/dehumanised power. what startled me about the novel was the ( created, i have to keep reminding myself) existence of a character who recognised the manipulations of power so clearly, and equally clearly , kept open a fierce place of dignity and life for himself. the novel brought in, in new permutations, spaces inhabited by some people i have known. lower middle class houses holding onto their dignity. not sunk into poverty but in a continuous struggle to stay afloat. Pratap Pandey's remark, many mails ago, about the need for an ethnography of fascism has stayed with me a long while. some people i have known from spaces like in naukar ki kameez- or at least spaces close to this- have veered into fascist thought- some kind of vocal support whenever they feel the need to do so. ( i do not know much about those that have not- though of course they must be there, they are there and i should renew my intimacies) this book is written in 1979, with what seems like a deep intimcay with a matrix, and the creative power to make/salvage from it, with love and pain, a dignity. i think of the people i know in the early 1980's, in similar contexts, and try to see if i can move in some small configuration about a ethnography of fascism. a lower middle class hindu family lives in a lower middle class neighbourhood in a town in western u.p. which has had a dominant muslim culture.the father of our hindu family works in a petty job in the bureaucracy. there is the strong consciousness of being a minority in the area, seeing the conservative ways of families around( not educated, finding their way by keeping cattle, doing some small business and building up their compound wall when there is some money. and keeping their women in). here in the hindu family, pride of education, gentility of poverty. and pride of caste which is not expressed vocally but somewhere it is there- i think. i feel the pride of the upper castes in their caste is so deepy ingrained..( although in naukar ki kameez, the realities of poverty bring are also accompanied by a sense of deep irony about religion, especially about a picture of laxmi dropping coins into the water that the protagonists wife has stuck into the inside lid of her trunk) back to the west u.p. city -elsewhere in the city, in a more mobile middle class area, a close relative of the hindu family is prospering slowly but surely. a better paid job, the wifes timely( 1970's -80's) insistence on an englsih elite education for the children, ( it was an education she always dreamed of for herself- herchildren will have it) easier promotion and movement in the job, in an organisation which is partly public sector but is opening up. family 1 wants to be proud of family 2. same family, there must be a shared sense of success. the 2 sets of parents must be trying, one lot to not let their children be bitter, another lot to not let them be supercilious. superciliousness is more easily warded off, but bitterness? the parent attempts to give the child dignity by salvaging for it: have a pride in language( good hindi)and a desire to work hard to better your situation. to keep your mind clean, to not feel bitter about the cousins(' their father grew in the same mud as your father- he struggled out, you must too' i imagine might be the underlying evident thought) the distance instead, is from the muslim neighbour, with the lack of education, a fear of what brews behind those high walls. the children will find it hard to struggle out as the 80's turn into the 90's. for reasons of the times. because they did not manage engineering or medical or a bank job in time- ( it is a time when public sector bank jobs are now not as good as they used to be?) because two of them are girls. also because they cannot be bitter. the struggle out is defeating, except for the providence of a good match for one of the girls. how is english implicated in this story? ( remembering a bit of something else pratap pandey addressed in one of his mails) the pride of hindi is a myth maintained among all the children to keep a certian real world at bay. the cousins have genuine affection also for each other- and in that space where bitterness/superciliousness is kept scruplously out of, a lot of the games are- about the pride of hindi- jokes about one's ignorance of hindi, sharing of things in hindi one has read. english cousin does not share much of her english world- it would not seem- correct, she might have felt(superciliously) will struggling out of the mud necessarily mean an increasingly clear road to conservatism? especially because they are brahmans? what are other struggles out of this situation like?) the one cousin who does not become bitter stays quietly in the class he was born into. he does not stretch out his legs too much, he struggles at a small job. he refuses favours from his uncle quietly .he is laughed at a bit and loved a lot from a distance for being a good man. this is where he salvages his togetherness from what he has. the english cousins will grow with a small sense of context to their privilige, some guilt and a certain lack of superciliousness. some of these qualities will wax and wane. maybe they will bear the possibility of being downwardly mobile? maybe. the uncle who came out of the morass- the father of the priviliged children, will work harder and harder. be - honest- in his work, and tough on many people like his job often demands.he will try and help relatives and friends of relatives. he will look around at others in his workplace who have had it easier- who were to the manor born. he will hold them in some- contempt. his children have known, not prosperity, but definitely privilige, oppurtunity, the ease that comes with an education in english. he will feel somewhat distanced from them, his children, who have lived their early lives more easily. this is the early 1990's. the distance will increase(waxing and waning- love affection a desire to love and comprehend will mitigate the process) he will slowly become in what he says- a supporter of the fascists. so will some( or many- or all?) of the relatives he has bailed out from lower middle class poverty. what are the threads running through this mans life that get tugged at in the 90's?? the awe struck wonder of the child when he saw nawabs and rich gentry come to patronise a famoussinger- cars and carriages. as part of the legacy of his city and his own rasik nature- he will always love the music too. his situation- he has friends from all communities, in his head those people will always remain his friends. he will tell his children about the worlds they have not known- the apples he wanted to eat as a kid but never could- his mom would tell him they are given to people when they are ill- he would long to be ill. does he always hold dear the dignity of being a poor brahmain- the adherence to that fiction of a superiority- of caste - that was needed to keep them afloat when they were badly off?? the contempt and anger towards the english speaking- those who had it easy. by the 1990's he labelelled them those who had easy secular politics- his own children too.. the girls of family one- denied oppurtunity. one discovered some kind of conservatism in her bitterness at being denied oppurtunity, at the failure of the pride of hindi to fulfil its promise, of the glory of school being very different from the situation outside. the conservatism probably increased with her good marriage into a reasonably well off family who was into private business. the other one maintained her love for hindi and would not be bitter about her own relatives. she maintained her love for a culture rooted in that hindi, engaged with the complexsities of married life as mirrored in that literature? to her vajpayee must be gentle articulate complex? advani a man of his word? what of the memory of those muslim neighbours- i do not know. hansa --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021124/d98ba6d3/attachment.html From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Sun Nov 24 21:30:04 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 24 Nov 2002 16:00:04 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. Message-ID: <20021124160004.10795.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> It is after a long time that we are on the threshold of a really interesting discussion. But what I want to know for now is where I can buy a copy of the novel in Hindi. Penguin India (the publishers of the English translation) had written to Shukla that if he didn’t buy the unsold copies of his own novel, the copies would be turned into pulp. Can some of us buy the remaining copies on the rate offered by Penguin to Shukla- Rs 30? It may also be a good idea to have a screening of Mani Kaul’s film on the novel at Sarai. I’ll try and post some of Mani Kaul’s own reflections on his film based on Naukar ki Kameez. Shukla had collaborated with Kaul on the screenplay for this film. Abir On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 lush inkk wrote : > > > > > >notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. > > > >I read Naukar ki Kameez . Read it very late. thought and rethought about it. felt discontented by the end. by the way the wife and baby to be give the all important respite, refuge and self affirmation. wondered at my discontent. perhaps it was with loading the wife with too much- correct emotion. keeping cynicism/ post modernity ( how the word rings for me) completely out of that relationship. the complete faith, the perfection of that reciprocated love made me uncomfotable. it seemed too much like a wrested ending. > > > >a novel is not reality. and this novel is definitely an artifice- a work of art- that small bit by painstaking bit, creates/ wrests a space for dignity in the face of ugly dehumanised/dehumanised power. what startled me about the novel was the ( created, i have to keep reminding myself) existence of a character who recognised the manipulations of power so clearly, and equally clearly , kept open a fierce place of dignity and life for himself. > > > >the novel brought in, in new permutations, spaces inhabited by some people i have known. lower middle class houses holding onto their dignity. not sunk into poverty but in a continuous struggle to stay afloat. > > > >Pratap Pandey's remark, many mails ago, about the need for an ethnography of fascism has stayed with me a long while. some people i have known from spaces like in naukar ki kameez- or at least spaces close to this- have veered into fascist thought- some kind of vocal support whenever they feel the need to do so. ( i do not know much about those that have not- though of course they must be there, they are there and i should renew my intimacies) > >this book is written in 1979, with what seems like a deep intimcay with a matrix, and the creative power to make/salvage from it, with love and pain, a dignity. > >i think of the people i know in the early 1980's, in similar contexts, and try to see if i can move in some small configuration about a ethnography of fascism. > >a lower middle class hindu family lives in a lower middle class neighbourhood in a town in western u.p. which has had a dominant muslim culture.the father of our hindu family works in a petty job in the bureaucracy. there is the strong consciousness of being a minority in the area, seeing the conservative ways of families around( not educated, finding their way by keeping cattle, doing some small business and building up their compound wall when there is some money. and keeping their women in). here in the hindu family, pride of education, gentility of poverty. and pride of caste which is not expressed vocally but somewhere it is there- i think. i feel the pride of the upper castes in their caste is so deepy ingrained..( although in naukar ki kameez, the realities of poverty bring are also accompanied by a sense of deep irony about religion, especially about a picture of laxmi dropping coins into the water that the protagonists wife has stuck into the inside lid of her trunk) > >back to the west u.p. city -elsewhere in the city, in a more mobile middle class area, a close relative of the hindu family is prospering slowly but surely. a better paid job, the wifes timely( 1970's -80's) insistence on an englsih elite education for the children, ( it was an education she always dreamed of for herself- herchildren will have it) easier promotion and movement in the job, in an organisation which is partly public sector but is opening up. > > > >family 1 wants to be proud of family 2. same family, there must be a shared sense of success. the 2 sets of parents must be trying, one lot to not let their children be bitter, another lot to not let them be supercilious. superciliousness is more easily warded off, but bitterness? > >the parent attempts to give the child dignity by salvaging for it: have a pride in language( good hindi)and a desire to work hard to better your situation. to keep your mind clean, to not feel bitter about the cousins(' their father grew in the same mud as your father- he struggled out, you must too' i imagine might be the underlying evident thought) > > > >the distance instead, is from the muslim neighbour, with the lack of education, a fear of what brews behind those high walls. > > > > the children will find it hard to struggle out as the 80's turn into the 90's. for reasons of the times. because they did not manage engineering or medical or a bank job in time- ( it is a time when public sector bank jobs are now not as good as they used to be?) > > because two of them are girls. > >also because they cannot be bitter. the struggle out is defeating, except for the providence of a good match for one of the girls. > > > >how is english implicated in this story? ( remembering a bit of something else pratap pandey addressed in one of his mails) > >the pride of hindi is a myth maintained among all the children to keep a certian real world at bay. the cousins have genuine affection also for each other- and in that space where bitterness/superciliousness is kept scruplously out of, a lot of the games are- about the pride of hindi- jokes about one's ignorance of hindi, sharing of things in hindi one has read. > >english cousin does not share much of her english world- it would not seem- correct, she might have felt(superciliously) > > > >will struggling out of the mud necessarily mean an increasingly clear road to conservatism? especially because they are brahmans? > > what are other struggles out of this situation like?) > > > >the one cousin who does not become bitter stays quietly in the class he was born into. he does not stretch out his legs too much, he struggles at a small job. he refuses favours from his uncle quietly .he is laughed at a bit and loved a lot from a distance for being a good man. > >this is where he salvages his togetherness from what he has. > > > >the english cousins will grow with a small sense of context to their privilige, some guilt and a certain lack of superciliousness. some of these qualities will wax and wane. > >maybe they will bear the possibility of being downwardly mobile? maybe. > > > >the uncle who came out of the morass- the father of the priviliged children, will work harder and harder. be - honest- in his work, and tough on many people like his job often demands.he will try and help relatives and friends of relatives. he will look around at others in his workplace who have had it easier- who were to the manor born. he will hold them in some- contempt. > > > >his children have known, not prosperity, but definitely privilige, oppurtunity, the ease that comes with an education in english. > >he will feel somewhat distanced from them, his children, who have lived their early lives more easily. this is the early 1990's. the distance will increase(waxing and waning- love affection a desire to love and comprehend will mitigate the process) > > > >he will slowly become in what he says- a supporter of the fascists. so will some( or many- or all?) of the relatives he has bailed out from lower middle class poverty. > > > >what are the threads running through this mans life that get tugged at in the 90's?? > >the awe struck wonder of the child when he saw nawabs and rich gentry come to patronise a famoussinger- cars and carriages. as part of the legacy of his city and his own rasik nature- he will always love the music too. his situation- he has friends from all communities, in his head those people will always remain his friends. > > he will tell his children about the worlds they have not known- the apples he wanted to eat as a kid but never could- his mom would tell him they are given to people when they are ill- he would long to be ill. > > >does he always hold dear the dignity of being a poor brahmain- the adherence to that fiction of a superiority- of caste - that was needed to keep them afloat when they were badly off?? > >the contempt and anger towards the english speaking- those who had it easy. by the 1990's he labelelled them those who had easy secular politics- his own children too.. > > > >the girls of family one- denied oppurtunity. > >one discovered some kind of conservatism in her bitterness at being denied oppurtunity, at the failure of the pride of hindi to fulfil its promise, of the glory of school being very different from the situation outside. the conservatism probably increased with her good marriage into a reasonably well off family who was into private business. > > > >the other one maintained her love for hindi and would not be bitter about her own relatives. she maintained her love for a culture rooted in that hindi, engaged with the complexsities of married life as mirrored in that literature? > >to her vajpayee must be gentle articulate complex? advani a man of his word? > >what of the memory of those muslim neighbours- i do not know. > > > > > > hansa > > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Sun Nov 24 21:30:05 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 24 Nov 2002 16:00:05 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. Message-ID: <20021124160005.16269.qmail@webmail10.rediffmail.com> It is after a long time that we are on the threshold of a really interesting discussion. But what I want to know for now is where I can buy a copy of the novel in Hindi. Penguin India (the publishers of the English translation) had written to Shukla that if he didn’t buy the unsold copies of his own novel, the copies would be turned into pulp. Can some of us buy the remaining copies on the rate offered by Penguin to Shukla- Rs 30? It may also be a good idea to have a screening of Mani Kaul’s film on the novel at Sarai. I’ll try and post some of Mani Kaul’s own reflections on his film based on Naukar ki Kameez. Shukla had collaborated with Kaul on the screenplay for this film. Abir On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 lush inkk wrote : > > > > > >notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. > > > >I read Naukar ki Kameez . Read it very late. thought and rethought about it. felt discontented by the end. by the way the wife and baby to be give the all important respite, refuge and self affirmation. wondered at my discontent. perhaps it was with loading the wife with too much- correct emotion. keeping cynicism/ post modernity ( how the word rings for me) completely out of that relationship. the complete faith, the perfection of that reciprocated love made me uncomfotable. it seemed too much like a wrested ending. > > > >a novel is not reality. and this novel is definitely an artifice- a work of art- that small bit by painstaking bit, creates/ wrests a space for dignity in the face of ugly dehumanised/dehumanised power. what startled me about the novel was the ( created, i have to keep reminding myself) existence of a character who recognised the manipulations of power so clearly, and equally clearly , kept open a fierce place of dignity and life for himself. > > > >the novel brought in, in new permutations, spaces inhabited by some people i have known. lower middle class houses holding onto their dignity. not sunk into poverty but in a continuous struggle to stay afloat. > > > >Pratap Pandey's remark, many mails ago, about the need for an ethnography of fascism has stayed with me a long while. some people i have known from spaces like in naukar ki kameez- or at least spaces close to this- have veered into fascist thought- some kind of vocal support whenever they feel the need to do so. ( i do not know much about those that have not- though of course they must be there, they are there and i should renew my intimacies) > >this book is written in 1979, with what seems like a deep intimcay with a matrix, and the creative power to make/salvage from it, with love and pain, a dignity. > >i think of the people i know in the early 1980's, in similar contexts, and try to see if i can move in some small configuration about a ethnography of fascism. > >a lower middle class hindu family lives in a lower middle class neighbourhood in a town in western u.p. which has had a dominant muslim culture.the father of our hindu family works in a petty job in the bureaucracy. there is the strong consciousness of being a minority in the area, seeing the conservative ways of families around( not educated, finding their way by keeping cattle, doing some small business and building up their compound wall when there is some money. and keeping their women in). here in the hindu family, pride of education, gentility of poverty. and pride of caste which is not expressed vocally but somewhere it is there- i think. i feel the pride of the upper castes in their caste is so deepy ingrained..( although in naukar ki kameez, the realities of poverty bring are also accompanied by a sense of deep irony about religion, especially about a picture of laxmi dropping coins into the water that the protagonists wife has stuck into the inside lid of her trunk) > >back to the west u.p. city -elsewhere in the city, in a more mobile middle class area, a close relative of the hindu family is prospering slowly but surely. a better paid job, the wifes timely( 1970's -80's) insistence on an englsih elite education for the children, ( it was an education she always dreamed of for herself- herchildren will have it) easier promotion and movement in the job, in an organisation which is partly public sector but is opening up. > > > >family 1 wants to be proud of family 2. same family, there must be a shared sense of success. the 2 sets of parents must be trying, one lot to not let their children be bitter, another lot to not let them be supercilious. superciliousness is more easily warded off, but bitterness? > >the parent attempts to give the child dignity by salvaging for it: have a pride in language( good hindi)and a desire to work hard to better your situation. to keep your mind clean, to not feel bitter about the cousins(' their father grew in the same mud as your father- he struggled out, you must too' i imagine might be the underlying evident thought) > > > >the distance instead, is from the muslim neighbour, with the lack of education, a fear of what brews behind those high walls. > > > > the children will find it hard to struggle out as the 80's turn into the 90's. for reasons of the times. because they did not manage engineering or medical or a bank job in time- ( it is a time when public sector bank jobs are now not as good as they used to be?) > > because two of them are girls. > >also because they cannot be bitter. the struggle out is defeating, except for the providence of a good match for one of the girls. > > > >how is english implicated in this story? ( remembering a bit of something else pratap pandey addressed in one of his mails) > >the pride of hindi is a myth maintained among all the children to keep a certian real world at bay. the cousins have genuine affection also for each other- and in that space where bitterness/superciliousness is kept scruplously out of, a lot of the games are- about the pride of hindi- jokes about one's ignorance of hindi, sharing of things in hindi one has read. > >english cousin does not share much of her english world- it would not seem- correct, she might have felt(superciliously) > > > >will struggling out of the mud necessarily mean an increasingly clear road to conservatism? especially because they are brahmans? > > what are other struggles out of this situation like?) > > > >the one cousin who does not become bitter stays quietly in the class he was born into. he does not stretch out his legs too much, he struggles at a small job. he refuses favours from his uncle quietly .he is laughed at a bit and loved a lot from a distance for being a good man. > >this is where he salvages his togetherness from what he has. > > > >the english cousins will grow with a small sense of context to their privilige, some guilt and a certain lack of superciliousness. some of these qualities will wax and wane. > >maybe they will bear the possibility of being downwardly mobile? maybe. > > > >the uncle who came out of the morass- the father of the priviliged children, will work harder and harder. be - honest- in his work, and tough on many people like his job often demands.he will try and help relatives and friends of relatives. he will look around at others in his workplace who have had it easier- who were to the manor born. he will hold them in some- contempt. > > > >his children have known, not prosperity, but definitely privilige, oppurtunity, the ease that comes with an education in english. > >he will feel somewhat distanced from them, his children, who have lived their early lives more easily. this is the early 1990's. the distance will increase(waxing and waning- love affection a desire to love and comprehend will mitigate the process) > > > >he will slowly become in what he says- a supporter of the fascists. so will some( or many- or all?) of the relatives he has bailed out from lower middle class poverty. > > > >what are the threads running through this mans life that get tugged at in the 90's?? > >the awe struck wonder of the child when he saw nawabs and rich gentry come to patronise a famoussinger- cars and carriages. as part of the legacy of his city and his own rasik nature- he will always love the music too. his situation- he has friends from all communities, in his head those people will always remain his friends. > > he will tell his children about the worlds they have not known- the apples he wanted to eat as a kid but never could- his mom would tell him they are given to people when they are ill- he would long to be ill. > > >does he always hold dear the dignity of being a poor brahmain- the adherence to that fiction of a superiority- of caste - that was needed to keep them afloat when they were badly off?? > >the contempt and anger towards the english speaking- those who had it easy. by the 1990's he labelelled them those who had easy secular politics- his own children too.. > > > >the girls of family one- denied oppurtunity. > >one discovered some kind of conservatism in her bitterness at being denied oppurtunity, at the failure of the pride of hindi to fulfil its promise, of the glory of school being very different from the situation outside. the conservatism probably increased with her good marriage into a reasonably well off family who was into private business. > > > >the other one maintained her love for hindi and would not be bitter about her own relatives. she maintained her love for a culture rooted in that hindi, engaged with the complexsities of married life as mirrored in that literature? > >to her vajpayee must be gentle articulate complex? advani a man of his word? > >what of the memory of those muslim neighbours- i do not know. > > > > > > hansa > > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now From fred at bytesforall.org Sun Nov 24 14:55:10 2002 From: fred at bytesforall.org (Frederick Noronha) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 14:55:10 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] LINK: Special issue... Andolan Message-ID: Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 4:52 PM Subject: Special Issue Special Diwali issue of ANDOLAN Marathi Newsmagazine of people's movements, alternative development. October-November 2002 An in depth analysis of the Culture of Humanity in its various dimensions By senior academicians, activists, artists and representatives of young generation. o Medha Patkar sets the theme of the culture and the efforts for an alternative development o Kishan Patnaik writes on the basics of the Culture, its development, globalisation and its commercial degeneration. o Ram Bapat explores the idea of flow of Indian culture and our responsibility.He goes the basic ingredient of culture in a dialectical way and reflects on the culture, popular culture in the age of globalisation. o Renowned archaeologist, Dr. M.K. Dhavalikar gives new insights about Environment and Culture from a historical and archaeological perspective. o Vasant Palshikar explains the idea of 'Swadeshi Samaj' by Rabindranath Tagore. o Prof. Yashwant Sumant gives a new perspective on the concept of equality in Mahatma Gandhi's thought. o Prof. B.L. Bhole delineates the ill-effects of and questions the cynicism on the part of secular people regarding culture and religion. o Senior journalist V.D. Ranade points out some of the parameters of New humanitarian culture. Alongwith: o Adivasi activist-teacher Kevalsingh Vasave explains the tribal culture embedded in the Nature. o Shelly Anderson from USA, writes about the Women and peace. o Prof Shivaji Gaikwad graphically describes the degeneration in the rural social-economy and culture. o Senior journalist Sujata Deshmukh cautions about growing commercialization and vulgarization of media, and its bias, arrogance. She questions the agenda of the 'agenda setter' English-capitalist-metropolitan media. o Razia Patel on how to combat the growing culture of communal intolerance. o Sanjay Mangala Gopal on culture of the activists. o Renowned classical singer Neela Bhagwat on presenting the progressive values through her art. o Senior stage artist Atul Pethe describes the work and life of Dr. Mohan Deshpande, as a mark of a wonderful cultured person working for health literacy. o Poetry by Mahavir Jondhale, Anil Sonar, Sahshikant Shinde, Sandip Kale. o Report of discussion specially held on Culture. And perceptive articles Renu Gavaskar, Sadhana Dadhich, Indumati Jondhale, Sanjay Sangvai,Uma Kulkarni, alongwith young activists Tanuja Yelale, Ojas. Pages 146. Price Rs. 40. Do read, spread the word and order the copies. It will help a great to sustain the effort. We will have to evolve alternative circulation movement for the alternative magazines like Andolan. Suniti S.R. Executive Editor Vinay R.R, Deepak Nagnath Circulation activists. Contact for copies: Andolan Suniti S.R. 6, Shree Raghuraj Society, 118-A, Vitthalwadi Road, Pune- 411030 Phone 020-4251404 andolan at eth.net Andolan Most of the important discourses through 'national' newspapers, magazines,serious or semi-serious journals are either carried out in Metropolitan-mostly English speaking circles, or the 'local', 'vernacular' discourses are margnalized. This results in a paradox, projecting - unwarrantedly and without any basis- the opinion of only the elite as the opinion of 'Indian' people. We in 'Andolan' and National Alliance of People's Movements are trying to reclaim the territory of the 'national discourse', where the discourses of the people and organic intellectuals/experts and journalists related with the ground situation and the people become the opinion of India. Andolan has been focusing on the reporting, analysis and debate on such important issues of alternative development and politics in national and international arena every month. From political-social philosophy, ideology, movements, development politics, economy, arts, books and other vignettes of life- Andolan is interested in all these aspects. Along with articles, we specialize in reporting and news analysis of the important happenings, issues of people's movements all over India. We appeal the comrades to send such important reporting and analysis to us. Photographs and graphics with the write-up will be all the more welcome. We wish that you and other people should contribute in such an endeavour -through your reporting, writing short articles, analysis, reviews, interviews and photos, graphics, cartoons etc. It will be nice if you can send the write-ups in Marathi; in case it is not possible, you may send it in English or Hindi also. The editorial board will convey you after selection and inclusion of the matter. From shammi_nanda at yahoo.com Mon Nov 25 09:55:14 2002 From: shammi_nanda at yahoo.com (Shammi Nanda) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 20:25:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] mumbai film festival Message-ID: <20021125042514.5204.qmail@web10507.mail.yahoo.com> Saw the screening of 'My Mother India' by Safina Uberoi at the film festival in Mumbai. I found its concerns genuine and honest but it�s sad that majority of film makers in India are not interested in exploring the form. It's a slightly more creative �activist genre� film which has its origin in cinema verite. This form itslef is not so great even form the times of Jean Rouch, over and above that it has been vulgarised by television, be it National Geographic or Doordarhan and the activist genre of film making. Watching the films at the festival I was reminded of something that Susan Sontag has written about cinema. �Cinema's 100 years seem to have the shape of a life cycle: an inevitable birth, the steady accumulation of glories and the onset in the last decade of an ignominious, irreversible decline. It's not that you can't look forward anymore to new films that you can admire. But such films not only have to be exceptions -- that's true of great achievements in any art. They have to be actual violations of the norms and practices that now govern movie making everywhere in the capitalist and would-be capitalist world -- which is to say, everywhere�. Also saw �Swaraj� by Anwar Jamal and Sehjo Singh, after seeing so many posters of it all around the venue I had felt some great film is coming from the �cottage industry of film making� (as said by the director). I think if Balaji Telefilms were asked to make this film they would have done a better job!! To be honest I Couldn�t sit through for more than half an hour. It looked like a �Delhi Doordarshan Ki Prastuti�. In case any one has found it great it would be nice to hear their views. Its sad that films like this are being shown all over the world as Indian Cinema. Shammi __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus � Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From vidyashah at hotmail.com Mon Nov 25 11:22:32 2002 From: vidyashah at hotmail.com (vidya shah) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 05:52:32 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] about Gujarat Message-ID: From: "shabnam hashmi" To: shabhashmi at hotmail.com Dear Friends, I think quite a lot of us have been restless and wanting to do something for the coming Gujarat elections . I have also been trying to workout the possibilities of how I could utilise my time effectively if I go to Gujarat . I have ,to some extent, worked out a campaign, which I am very hopeful, would not collapse before it takes off. 1. Leaflets: From 26th or 27th November each day till December 10 a new leaflet would be printed . These would have a print order of about 7-10 lakh each. The leaflets would tackle one topic each day . They would be in Gujarati, will have some hard facts and visuals. To be designed by a professional designer. They would each day be sent all over Gujarat to the nodal points in each district from where the local teams would pick them up for distribution. For this about 15 cars would leave Ahmedabad everyday on different routes with volunteers. For this a team of 7-10 people would meet every alternate day to work on the content. Then it would be translated into Gujarati and designed. I have got a very positive response from three diferrent networks to help in the distribution once the leaflets reach the nodal points. Where you can help? a. Content: if you have any suggestions about issues to be raised and have good data please send it to me. If you are very good at writing, ready to slog for 15 days and are in Ahmedabad let me know. b. Design- already a designer has taken 20 days off is coming to Gujarat-it is taken care off. c. Distribution network- So far there are four people including me -who will be in Ahmedabad from November 22-till December 15. --We are looking for one or two very good organisers, who can again slog for 16-18 hours. --Looking for about 25 volunteers. 15 to go with the taxis every morning to deliver the leaflets.It will mean travelling a lot everyday. It will also mean some risk. 10 volunteers to look after insertion of the leaflets in the newspapers. It will also mean some travelling out of Ahmedabad. Also the newspaper insertions are done between 2am and 4 am. Volunteers -who can sustain themselves preferably. ( We will try and work out with local organisations if they can look after the stay and food etc of the volunteers). ---Looking for volunteers for the village level distribution. They will need to travel on their own to reach the district/ village and then they will go with the teams of the Sarvodaya volunteers. d. Printing- I have got some firm committments from local individuals to look after the printing costs but the cost is huge . Any organisation/ individual who can take the responsibility of printing one or more leaflets would be very welcome. It looks like that most of the printing would be taken care off, but we need money for the distribution network. The total amount required from Novembr 27-December would be approx 3 lakhs. Anyone willing to contribute towards it is most welcome. 2. We also plan to work on a series of posters for only a few constituencies provided again if some firm committments come to take care of the printing. 3. I feel there is a need in many constituencies to do door to door campaign too. Any volunteers wanting to do that can also contact me and we can then coordinate with local groups. I also feel it is important to go to a large number of the Muslim population for door to door campaign and to hold small/ big meetings with them. 4. There would also be efforts to organise constant cultural programmes for Peace. Local groups in Ahmedabad are already doing a festival from December 3-6. Another festival is being organised in Baroda in the first week of December. Depending on who is ready to come we can help organise programmes/ press conferences etc. These are individual efforts and many friends are coming together to make it work. Father Cedric Prakash/ Director Prashant has offered full cooperation. Any one wanting to donate money can send the drafts to Gujarat Education Society/ Prashant or contact me. I will be in Gujarat from 22nd till December 15th. My numbers are 9810633765- this should in principle work in Gujarat too.The Gujarat number is- 9824377162 This is a small effort and may and may not have a great impact but your support can help in expanding the campaign. I would be available from 22nd onwards on both the numbers. For anyone wanting to join in, come and campaign do contact. Please do remember that there is no organisation involved in it and so you should be ready to support yourself. BJP will not come back to power in Gujarat. Shabnam _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From siddharthaluther at rediffmail.com Mon Nov 25 15:49:10 2002 From: siddharthaluther at rediffmail.com (sid luther) Date: 25 Nov 2002 10:19:10 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] mumbai film festival Message-ID: <20021125101910.22946.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> i havent seen 'My Mother India' by Safina Uberoi yet but hope to catch it at the screening in delhi on the 25th but to catch another strain that your posting had I think that the problem with documentaries in India today is that the film makers invariably sit back complacently if they can communicate the content to the audience. the exploration of the content through the form is something that is still an alien concept in the tottering Indian film/video ‘industry’. having said which it is important to see that cinema today is curtailed to a medium of communication instead of a medium of expression. and I will qualify that dichotomy because it involves an interpretation of the terms. most film makers would rather that their content gets communicated than attempt to explore a depiction of the content in a form that reinforces their stake. most film making is from without rather than from with in an impressionistic technique rather than an expressionistic rendition is the norm when it comes to the choice of subjects or the technique of communication. the easiest entry point into a visual narrative is the text/dialogue. if we were to take that away from the communication the esoterism of the narrative would sky rocket purely because the audiences over the years have been taught painstakingly in a school of film making that asks them to understand the visual through the dialogue/commentary. that’s one reason why any documentary made today falls back on the much required reinforcement of a voiceover, forcing an interpretation upon the audience irrespective of what the visual language has to say. but should we presume that the audiences are daft and cannot pickup nuances without being spoon-fed the story? besides in such a case the command required over the craft of the medium by the film maker or the communicator would be greater. we have perfected the art of the laid back hammock film making. there is no attempt to challenge the bored audiences or the diversity possible in the medium of film/video. we have created the short attention span societies by our conservative, aged and impaired style of film making. owing maybe to mainstream popular cinema we have entered into complacency in the visual representation of symbolic language. we have tended to fix in our heads a structure of representation, a graph of emotions and communication which we fall back on and expect the audiences to fall back on when we attempt visual communication in the moving image. much as we might criticize mainstream fictional narratives for their plain stupidity we continue to handle subjects in non fiction works in similar ways trying to make both ends meet in the process. no denying that the cost of the medium demands that the respective distribution networks absorb the software generated and justify the costs incurred. But is that excuse enough for film makers not to challenge the boundaries of the existing demand and feed happily into a supply channel for which there already exists a well nurtured market? anwar and sehjo’s ‘Swaraj’ is a typical example of a narrative feeding onto an extant discourse and attempting to find audiences that agree with it. it’s more akin to preaching to the converted. It tells its viewers that things that are ‘ok’ things, it reinforces normalcy. re-instills our belief in the status quo. it feeds into our self congratulatory egoistical belief and our need to go home feeling that we can understand. it allows us to go home sad that we live in fascist times and the individual cannot win so that we can be angry in parts sad in parts but do nothing on the whole. its like an inverted radicalism. a resolution for a complication that never existed. based in a desert the cinematography captures the starkness of the landscape. the plot and colours are a persistent hang over of earlier films of a couple of decades ago which then were forging new grounds by creating a brush stroke and a palette of colours alongwith a new discourse if not a consciousness of the content as well as style. even the narrative doesn’t have a story to tell that can make you turn and look at it again. it’s an oft repeated a eulogy full of platitude of the main protagonists struggle against the family, society, state. only in this case the protagonist is a woman and therefore our heart is expected to bleed more. this is not to challenge that for a woman in a male dominated society it is that much more difficult to pursue the self and its goals but in this case i am not starting a feminist debate but making another very different point. Cliché has now become a subject category, a genre... a noun that labels a genre of prevalent ideology that goes on reiterating ‘politically correct’ (even the term has become a cliché) thoughts in visual narratives of the moving image to further narratives which stagnate more than inform let alone lead or forge thought. s On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 Shammi Nanda wrote : > >Saw the screening of 'My Mother India' by Safina >Uberoi at the film festival in Mumbai. I found its >concerns genuine and honest but it’s sad that majority >of film makers in India are not interested in >exploring the form. It's a slightly more creative >‘activist genre’ film which has its origin in cinema >verite. This form itslef is not so great even form the >times of Jean Rouch, over and above that it has been >vulgarised by television, be it National Geographic or >Doordarhan and the activist genre of film making. >Watching the films at the festival I was reminded of >something that Susan Sontag has written about cinema. >“Cinema's 100 years seem to have the shape of a life >cycle: an inevitable birth, the steady accumulation of >glories and the onset in the last decade of an >ignominious, irreversible decline. It's not that you >can't look forward anymore to new films that you can >admire. But such films not only have to be exceptions >-- that's true of great achievements in any art. They >have to be actual violations of the norms and >practices that now govern movie making everywhere in >the capitalist and would-be capitalist world -- which >is to say, everywhere”. > >Also saw ‘Swaraj’ by Anwar Jamal and Sehjo Singh, >after seeing so many posters of it all around the >venue I had felt some great film is coming from the >“cottage industry of film making” (as said by the >director). I think if Balaji Telefilms were asked to >make this film they would have done a better job!! To >be honest I Couldn’t sit through for more than half an >hour. It looked like a ‘Delhi Doordarshan Ki >Prastuti’. In case any one has found it great it would >be nice to hear their views. Its sad that films like >this are being shown all over the world as Indian >Cinema. >Shammi > > >__________________________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus – Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. >http://mailplus.yahoo.com >_________________________________________ >reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. >Critiques & Collaborations >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. >List archive: From slumbug at rediffmail.com Tue Nov 26 01:02:55 2002 From: slumbug at rediffmail.com (slumbug) Date: 25 Nov 2002 19:32:55 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] My Mother India Message-ID: <20021125193255.13137.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021125/4d4f6a66/attachment.pl From slumbug at rediffmail.com Tue Nov 26 01:09:33 2002 From: slumbug at rediffmail.com (slumbug) Date: 25 Nov 2002 19:39:33 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] On My Mother India Message-ID: <20021125193933.14394.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021125/d43d9655/attachment.pl From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Nov 26 07:06:26 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 02:36:26 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Necrocam : Webcam in a coffin Message-ID: The New York Times November 25, 2002   ARTS ONLINE Mourning Becomes Electronic: A Final Webcast Place By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL Toward the end of "This Is Our Youth," Kenneth Lonergan's play about disaffected New Yorkers set in 1982, the characters learn of an acquaintance's death. The news spooks the motor-mouthed Dennis into pondering the benefits of religion when confronting the afterlife. "How much better would it be," he asks, "to think you're gonna be somewhere, you know? Instead of absolutely nowhere. Like gone, forever." Fast forward to 2001, when the Internet has given the youths in "Necrocam," a 50-minute film made for Dutch television, a less conventional way to cope with death's mysteries. Christine, a teenager with cancer, tells her friends that upon her death she wants a digital camera with an Internet connection installed in her coffin. Images of her decaying remains will then be transmitted to a Web page for all to see, making her virtually immortal. The friends pledge to install a Webcam in the coffin of the first one to die, and they seal their pact with an oath to the computing world's highest power: "This we swear on Bill Gates's grave." "Necrocam" was shown in September by VARA, a public-broadcasting network in the Netherlands. Now, the entertaining and ‹ given its grotesque premise ‹ unexpectedly moving film will have an opportunity to find its natural audience of online viewers. Last week the network put a version of the film with English subtitles on its Web site, at vara.nl/necrocam. When one of the teenagers dies, the survivors must decide whether to fulfill their high-tech pledge and if so, how. One stipulation moves the story into the gothic realm of Edgar Allan Poe. The coffin is to contain a heating element that will speed or reduce the body's rate of decomposition. The temperature will then be controlled by online visitors, who can adjust an interactive thermostat on the tell-tale Web site. Yet the film's central and rather macabre conceit may be its least interesting element. Suffused with grief, "Necrocam" is closer to an Ingmar Bergman psychodrama than a Wes Craven fright flick. Dana Nechustan, the film's director, bathes her actors in a pale blue light that deepens the sad tone. Jan Rutger Achterberg, a VARA executive who produced the film, said it was "about people who remember their loved ones in new times, in a new era, with new media." The movie's accomplishment is to capture the way technology, including the Internet, has permeated contemporary culture. This is our youth's daily existence. The film's young people communicate through online messages, play computer games and record their pledge with a video camera instead of a quill dipped in blood. For them technology is an extension of life. So it is only logical that cyberspace would play a role in death. This comfort with the Internet stands in contrast to how technology is typically depicted in Hollywood films, where it is glorified or, more often, demonized. Thus for every "You've Got Mail," in which Tom Hanks cutely woos Meg Ryan over the Internet, there are a dozen clones of "Birthday Girl," in which Nicole Kidman is a devious Net-order bride. The James Bond films take both approaches, so that a technological threat endangers the world until it can be defeated by 007 and his gadgetry. Although "Necrocam" may seem futuristic, it is grounded in the present. The Internet has become the home of countless memorials to the dead. A few funeral homes have started to transmit memorial services over the Internet so that those who are unable to attend can participate from afar. And Webcams that have been perpetually focused on everything from a tarantula to artists' studios dot the Net. The notion of a Webcam in a coffin still sounds implausible, but nonetheless it almost came to pass. At the birth of the idea in 1998, Ine Poppe, an Amsterdam artist, was reading when Zoro, her tech-obsessed 15-year-old son, sat down next her and said, "Mom, when I die, I want a Webcam in my coffin, and I'm serious about it." A week later Ms. Poppe saw a newspaper ad soliciting screenplay ideas. With Zoro's approval she drafted a two-page proposal for "Necrocam," a word coined by her son. Mr. Achterberg was on the jury and liked her idea enough to want to produce the film for VARA. As part of her research process for the script, Ms. Poppe received a grant from the Amsterdam Art Foundation to study the feasibility of installing a Webcam in a coffin. After talking to a technical expert and an undertaker, she concluded that it would be possible, as well as legal in the Netherlands. She finished the script, and the film went into production in late 2000. During that time Ms. Poppe learned that Zoro's father, her ex-husband, the Austrian artist Franz Feigl, had received a diagnosis of cancer and was given less than two years to live. Death imitates art. Ms. Poppe said, "Franz said to me, `If you want to do a real Webcam, you can use my body.' '` Ms. Poppe seriously considered the idea but resisted, she said, "because it would put such a strain on the family emotionally." But the final decision was not made until Mr. Achterberg invited them to a private screening of the completed film, which ends with a vivid, horrendous shot of a decomposing face. Mr. Feigl continued to volunteer his services, even though there were tears all around him as the lights came up. Ultimately, his family declined his offer. Mr. Achterberg said, "Ine told me, `With this film, I have shown what I want to show, so why should I do it in reality?' " (Mr. Feigl died last year.) For the record, installing a Webcam in a coffin in the United States is not likely to occur. Robert Fells, general counsel for the International Cemetery and Funeral Association in Reston, Va., said that next of kin, not the deceased, are responsible for the final disposition of a family member's remains and that most people would probably balk at such a scheme. Mr. Fells added: "People have always had strange ideas ‹ either for laughs, or morbid humor or just bizarre thinking ‹ of how they would like the ultimate final disposition of their remains, only to be overruled either by family members or legal authorities. This just sounds like a high-tech version of that." Still, there are people untroubled by total exposure of their lives, and one would think they'd be fair game for such a morbid experiment. But that is not true for Jennifer K. Ringley, a 26-year-old in Citrus Heights, Calif. Ms. Ringley has spent almost seven years broadcasting her life over the Internet, at JenniCam.com, through a series of Webcams installed in her home. Ms. Ringley isn't interested in allowing viewers into her coffin. "I find that watching a person who's not performing to have a low enough threshold of interest," she said. "Watching a person who's not even moving might be pushing it a bit too far." From siddharthaluther at rediffmail.com Tue Nov 26 13:08:03 2002 From: siddharthaluther at rediffmail.com (sid luther) Date: 26 Nov 2002 07:38:03 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] My Mother India Message-ID: <20021126073803.24616.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> i frankly don’t care whether safina is australian or indian. it seems like a small insignificant detail. what troubles more is why the film was made. what is it that she wanted to communicate? we know of the 84 riots. we know of the gujarat riots. safina claims that what was happening in gujarat and kashmir kept her going back to the edit room reinforcing her need and commitment to finish her narrative. But her narrative never explores the actual hatred of the 84 riots, the violence that scarred a community. except for scratching the surface and reopening what could be wounds that were healing 'my mother india' fails at most things. 'my mother india' looks at india with a voyeur camera. the shots of shimla where mr. and mrs. uberoi always disappeared look like romanticised shots looking at a india which has kitsch exotic value. the motif might have changed from the snake charmer and the serpent to the kitsch voluptuous calendars but the romanticism cannot be hidden. social violence peppered with personal memory equals to pity seems to be a formula quite a few recent narratives have been adopting. s On Tue, 26 Nov 2002 slumbug wrote : >I watched Safina Uberoi's movie here in Delhi today. An entertaining movie bringing to the fore some important issues. And, as the director seemed to imply, she used her own personal story to talk about issues close to her heart and issues which should matter to us all. > >What bugs me is that just because you consider an issue to be important you do not have to find your-self in that issue all the time. Many of the audience seemed to react rather sentimentally to the film and saw the past constantly replayed. So, you had sentimental comments from individuals about how exactly Safina has exemplified the pain in their hearts - about migration, about partition, about the '84 anti-Sikh riots. > >I do not trivialize their pain, in fact I am in no position to do so, I cannot, having never known suffering of that kind. However, I suggest that such empathy somehow seems to put the discussion of the issues under the carpet. Instead, what we talk about are JPS Uberoi's turning Sikh post - '84 or whether Patricia Uberoi felt embarrassed by parading the family's personal life in public. And, yes, why had Safina decided to take Australian citizenship. I would say, something that does not really matter, nothing to do with the narrative in hand. > >For example, one never got down to discuss the patterns of state violence, communal mentalities that seems to be staple to this country and its people, something that was amply clear about the movie. One never got to talk of the brother or the sister whose voices seem rather brutalised to me. And, as somebody did bring it up - the fact that Patricia did tremendous violence to herself to keep the family knitted together was probably one of the most important facets of the movie. > >And, lastly, I just do not seem to understand why our very incestuous Delhi intellectuals screw up their eyes, get rather serious and spew all that jargon which is difficult to get by. What a crisp, exciting celluloid adventure, and here we go mystifying it. > >Must say that the words of JPS and Dilip Simeon were still very nice ways to round off the evening. As JPS said, maybe the third generation could ask the questions which the earlier one could not. And Dilip said it all when he says Jit Singh Uberoi is Jit Singh Uberoi whether he became Sikh or not. > >It is possible that it is important who you are, but it is far more important how you are with others. > >Neel > > >_________________________________________ >reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. >Critiques & Collaborations >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. >List archive: From ravikant at sarai.net Tue Nov 26 12:47:53 2002 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 12:47:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. In-Reply-To: <20021124160004.10795.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> References: <20021124160004.10795.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <200211261247.53448.ravikant@sarai.net> Abir, I think Rajkamal prakashan published the novel in the original. Finding the Hindi version is not a problem. You can go to Hindi book centre on Aruna Asaf Ali Road, near delite cinema or to their own showroom at 1-B Netaji Subhash Marg, Daryaganj in Delhi. I will certainly buy a couple of copies but I need to know who translator is. Penguin does not have a great track record with translations. They slashed eighty pages in Shrilal Shukla's fabulous satire Rag Darbari's English version! Ravikant On Sunday 24 Nov 2002 9:30 pm, abir bazaz wrote: > It is after a long time that we are on the threshold of a really > interesting discussion. But what I want to know for now is where I can buy > a copy of the novel in Hindi. Penguin India (the publishers of the English > translation) had written to Shukla that if he didn’t buy the unsold copies > of his own novel, the copies would be turned into pulp. Can some of us buy > the remaining copies on the rate offered by Penguin to Shukla- Rs 30? > > It may also be a good idea to have a screening of Mani Kaul’s film on the > novel at Sarai. I’ll try and post some of Mani Kaul’s own reflections on > his film based on Naukar ki Kameez. Shukla had collaborated with Kaul on > the screenplay for this film. > > Abir > > On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 lush inkk wrote : > >notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism.. > > > > > > > >I read Naukar ki Kameez . Read it very late. thought and rethought about > > it. felt discontented by the end. by the way the wife and baby to be > > give the all important respite, refuge and self affirmation. wondered at > > my discontent. perhaps it was with loading the wife with too much- > > correct emotion. keeping cynicism/ post modernity ( how the word rings > > for me) completely out of that relationship. the complete faith, the > > perfection of that reciprocated love made me uncomfotable. it seemed too > > much like a wrested ending. > > > > > > > >a novel is not reality. and this novel is definitely an artifice- a work > > of art- that small bit by painstaking bit, creates/ wrests a space for > > dignity in the face of ugly dehumanised/dehumanised power. what startled > > me about the novel was the ( created, i have to keep reminding myself) > > existence of a character who recognised the manipulations of power so > > clearly, and equally clearly , kept open a fierce place of dignity and > > life for himself. > > > > > > > >the novel brought in, in new permutations, spaces inhabited by some people > > i have known. lower middle class houses holding onto their dignity. not > > sunk into poverty but in a continuous struggle to stay afloat. > > > > > > > >Pratap Pandey's remark, many mails ago, about the need for an ethnography > > of fascism has stayed with me a long while. some people i have known from > > spaces like in naukar ki kameez- or at least spaces close to this- have > > veered into fascist thought- some kind of vocal support whenever they > > feel the need to do so. ( i do not know much about those that have not- > > though of course they must be there, they are there and i should renew my > > intimacies) > > > >this book is written in 1979, with what seems like a deep intimcay with a > > matrix, and the creative power to make/salvage from it, with love and > > pain, a dignity. > > > >i think of the people i know in the early 1980's, in similar contexts, and > > try to see if i can move in some small configuration about a ethnography > > of fascism. > > > >a lower middle class hindu family lives in a lower middle class > > neighbourhood in a town in western u.p. which has had a dominant muslim > > culture.the father of our hindu family works in a petty job in the > > bureaucracy. there is the strong consciousness of being a minority in the > > area, seeing the conservative ways of families around( not educated, > > finding their way by keeping cattle, doing some small business and > > building up their compound wall when there is some money. and keeping > > their women in). here in the hindu family, pride of education, gentility > > of poverty. and pride of caste which is not expressed vocally but > > somewhere it is there- i think. i feel the pride of the upper castes in > > their caste is so deepy ingrained..( although in naukar ki kameez, the > > realities of poverty bring are also accompanied by a sense of deep irony > > about religion, especially about a picture of laxmi dropping coins into > > the water that the protagonists wife has stuck into the inside lid of her > > trunk) > > > >back to the west u.p. city -elsewhere in the city, in a more mobile middle > > class area, a close relative of the hindu family is prospering slowly but > > surely. a better paid job, the wifes timely( 1970's -80's) insistence on > > an englsih elite education for the children, ( it was an education she > > always dreamed of for herself- herchildren will have it) easier promotion > > and movement in the job, in an organisation which is partly public sector > > but is opening up. > > > > > > > >family 1 wants to be proud of family 2. same family, there must be a > > shared sense of success. the 2 sets of parents must be trying, one lot to > > not let their children be bitter, another lot to not let them be > > supercilious. superciliousness is more easily warded off, but bitterness? > > > >the parent attempts to give the child dignity by salvaging for it: have a > > pride in language( good hindi)and a desire to work hard to better your > > situation. to keep your mind clean, to not feel bitter about the > > cousins(' their father grew in the same mud as your father- he struggled > > out, you must too' i imagine might be the underlying evident thought) > > > > > > > >the distance instead, is from the muslim neighbour, with the lack of > > education, a fear of what brews behind those high walls. > > > > > > > > the children will find it hard to struggle out as the 80's turn into > > the 90's. for reasons of the times. because they did not manage > > engineering or medical or a bank job in time- ( it is a time when public > > sector bank jobs are now not as good as they used to be?) > > > > because two of them are girls. > > > >also because they cannot be bitter. the struggle out is defeating, except > > for the providence of a good match for one of the girls. > > > > > > > >how is english implicated in this story? ( remembering a bit of something > > else pratap pandey addressed in one of his mails) > > > >the pride of hindi is a myth maintained among all the children to keep a > > certian real world at bay. the cousins have genuine affection also for > > each other- and in that space where bitterness/superciliousness is kept > > scruplously out of, a lot of the games are- about the pride of hindi- > > jokes about one's ignorance of hindi, sharing of things in hindi one has > > read. > > > >english cousin does not share much of her english world- it would not > > seem- correct, she might have felt(superciliously) > > > > > > > >will struggling out of the mud necessarily mean an increasingly clear > > road to conservatism? especially because they are brahmans? > > > > what are other struggles out of this situation like?) > > > > > > > >the one cousin who does not become bitter stays quietly in the class he > > was born into. he does not stretch out his legs too much, he struggles at > > a small job. he refuses favours from his uncle quietly .he is laughed at > > a bit and loved a lot from a distance for being a good man. > > > >this is where he salvages his togetherness from what he has. > > > > > > > >the english cousins will grow with a small sense of context to their > > privilige, some guilt and a certain lack of superciliousness. some of > > these qualities will wax and wane. > > > >maybe they will bear the possibility of being downwardly mobile? maybe. > > > > > > > >the uncle who came out of the morass- the father of the priviliged > > children, will work harder and harder. be - honest- in his work, and > > tough on many people like his job often demands.he will try and help > > relatives and friends of relatives. he will look around at others in his > > workplace who have had it easier- who were to the manor born. he will > > hold them in some- contempt. > > > > > > > >his children have known, not prosperity, but definitely privilige, > > oppurtunity, the ease that comes with an education in english. > > > >he will feel somewhat distanced from them, his children, who have lived > > their early lives more easily. this is the early 1990's. the distance > > will increase(waxing and waning- love affection a desire to love and > > comprehend will mitigate the process) > > > > > > > >he will slowly become in what he says- a supporter of the fascists. so > > will some( or many- or all?) of the relatives he has bailed out from > > lower middle class poverty. > > > > > > > >what are the threads running through this mans life that get tugged at in > > the 90's?? > > > >the awe struck wonder of the child when he saw nawabs and rich gentry come > > to patronise a famoussinger- cars and carriages. as part of the legacy of > > his city and his own rasik nature- he will always love the music too. his > > situation- he has friends from all communities, in his head those people > > will always remain his friends. > > > > he will tell his children about the worlds they have not known- the > > apples he wanted to eat as a kid but never could- his mom would tell him > > they are given to people when they are ill- he would long to be ill. > > > > > >does he always hold dear the dignity of being a poor brahmain- the > > adherence to that fiction of a superiority- of caste - that was needed to > > keep them afloat when they were badly off?? > > > >the contempt and anger towards the english speaking- those who had it > > easy. by the 1990's he labelelled them those who had easy secular > > politics- his own children too.. > > > > > > > >the girls of family one- denied oppurtunity. > > > >one discovered some kind of conservatism in her bitterness at being denied > > oppurtunity, at the failure of the pride of hindi to fulfil its promise, > > of the glory of school being very different from the situation outside. > > the conservatism probably increased with her good marriage into a > > reasonably well off family who was into private business. > > > > > > > >the other one maintained her love for hindi and would not be bitter about > > her own relatives. she maintained her love for a culture rooted in that > > hindi, engaged with the complexsities of married life as mirrored in that > > literature? > > > >to her vajpayee must be gentle articulate complex? advani a man of his > > word? > > > >what of the memory of those muslim neighbours- i do not know. > > > > > > > > > > > > hansa > > > > > > > >--------------------------------- > >Do you Yahoo!? > >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe > in the subject header. List archive: > From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Tue Nov 26 21:32:09 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 26 Nov 2002 16:02:09 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Badiou Message-ID: <20021126160209.14247.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy* Alain Badiou translated by Jorge Jauregui The word "democracy" is today the main organizer of consensus. What the word is assumed to embrace is the downfall of Eastern Socialists States, the supposed well being of our countries as well as Western humanitarian crusades. Actually the word "democracy" is inferred from what I term "authoritarian opinion." It is somehow prohibited not to be a democrat. Accordingly, it furthers that the human kind longs for democracy, and all subjectivity suspected of not being democratic is deemed pathological. At its best it infers a forbearing reeducation, at its worst the right of meddling democratic marines and paratroopers. Democracy thus inscribing itself in polls and consensus necessarily arouses the philosopher’s critical suspicions. For philosophy, since Plato, means breaking with opinion polls. Philosophy is supposed to scrutinize everything that is spontaneously considered as "normal." If democracy designates a normal state of collective organization, or political will, then the philosopher will ask for the norm of this normality to be examined. He will not allow for the word to function within the frame of an authoritarian opinion. For the philosopher everything consensual becomes suspicious. To confront the visibility of the democratic idea with the singularity of a particular politics, especially revolutionary politics, is an old practice. It was already employed against Bolsheviks well before the October Revolution. In fact, the critique addressed to Lenin – his political postulate viewed as nondemocratic – is original. However it’s still interesting today to peruse his riposte. Lenin’s counter-argument is twofold. On the one hand he distinguishes, according to the logic of class analysis, between two types of democracy: proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. He then asserts the supremacy, in extension and intensity, of the former over the latter. Yet his second structure of response seems to me more appropriate to the present state of affairs. Lenin insists in this that with "democracy," verily, you should always read "a form of State." Form means a particular configuration of the separate character of the State and the formal exercise of sovereignty. Positing democracy as a form of State, Lenin subscribes to the classical political thinking filiation, including Greek philosophy, which contends that "democracy" must ultimately be conceived as a sovereignty or power trope. Power of the "demos" or people, the capability of "demos" to exert coercion by itself. If democracy is a form of State, what preordained philosophical use proper can this category have? With Lenin the aim – or idea – of politics is the withering of any form of State, democracy included. And this could be termed generic Communism as basically expressed by Marx in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Generic Communism designates a free associative egalitarian society where the activity of polymorph workers is not governed by regulations and technical or social articulations but is managed by the collective power of needs. In such a society, the State is dissolved as a separate instance from public coercion. Politics – much as it voices the interests of social groups and covets at the conquest of power – is de facto dissolved. Thus, the purpose of Communist politics aims at its own disappearance in the modality of the end of the form separated from the State in general, even if it concerns a State that declares itself democratic. If philosophy is predicated as what identifies, legitimizes or categorizes politics’ ultimate goals, much as the regulating ideas acting as its representation, and if this aim is acknowledged as the withering of the State – which is Lenin’s proposition – and what can be termed pure presentation, free association; or again if politics’ final goal is posited as authority in-separated from infinity or the advent of the collective as such, then, with regard to this supposed end, which is the end assigned to generic Communism, democracy is not, cannot be a category as regards philosophy. Why? Because democracy is a form of the State; let philosophy assess politics’ final goals; and let this end be as well the end of the State, thus the end of all relevance to the word "democracy." The "philosophical" word suitable to evaluate politics could be, in this hypothetical frame, the word "equality," or the word "Communism," but not the word "democracy." For this word is traditionally attached to the State, to the form of the State. From rafael at csi.com Wed Nov 27 13:20:40 2002 From: rafael at csi.com (Rafael Lozano-Hemmer) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 08:50:40 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Life 5.0, Jury Statement Message-ID: The jury for the Life 5.0 competition in Madrid ­ Daniel Canogar, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Machiko Kusahara, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Sally Jane Norman and Nell Tenhaaf ­ reviewed 33 artworks that utilise artificial life concepts and techniques. These pieces were pre-selected from a group of 57 submissions received from 18 countries. The Telefonica Foundation will give out the following awards: FIRST PRIZE (5,000 Euros) Erwin Driessens / Maria Verstappen Tickle Salon Netherlands Tickle Salon combines a remarkable technical achievement with an elegant concept, a touching interface, and edgy irony ­ but most importantly, anyone would want the device in their bedroom. The device is reminiscent of the tattooing torture machine in Kafka¹s "Penal Colony", but its function is pleasure rather than pain. A "user" experiences the piece by stripping and lying on a massage table. A light metal ball, which can move in three dimensions, probes and traces the contours of the reclining human¹s nude body. The pressure of metal on skin is always light, thanks to a simple reactive sensor. At the same time, this mechanism builds a 3D model of the user, allowing it to achieve subtle caresses, lingering strokes, and tickles. This two-way feedback gives a convincing sense that the machine feels the person while the person feels the machine. The process of watching a body¹s image being synthesized ­ curve by curve ­ is only slightly less pleasurable than being prodded by the machine. The artists jokingly posit that the problem with human stroking is that we eventually tire; certainly, the 100-year history of vibrator technologies validates their hypothesis. And while fully functional, the work is both preposterous and quixotic ­ intimacy without empathy, unsleeping affection on demand. SHARED SECOND & THIRD PRIZE (2,500 Euros each) Mariela Cádiz / Kent Clelland Levántate Spain / USA Levántate is an intimate installation that invites the visitor to a metaphyisical meditation. As the visitor enters the dark room, he is encountered with a ghostly view of a human body being projected horizontally from the ceiling. A white sculpture in the shape of a coffin operates as a screen where the winkling image of a reclining body in a continuos process of digital rotting is reflected. The iconography of the visualized woman body refers to those technological methods of diagnosis used to allow a scientific vision of the human body or to the images obtained from thermodynamic energy fields. The audio component of the installation is an algorythm musical composition under constant transformation consisting of voices digitally decomposed. A microphone placed in the room records the whispers and sounds generated by the visitors contemplating the installation. These verbal resonances are recycled through an interactive system of accoustic feedback, being in this way incorporated both into the musical composition of the installation and into the projected image. All technologies seem to hold inside a secret desire for inmortality. Clonation, genetical engineering and life assisted medical technologies are good examples of how the precise limits between life and death are being blurred. With "Levántate", Mariela Cádiz and Kent Clelland have created a suggestive reflection on the vanishing of these limits. While watching the installation, the public surround the coffin like participants in a ritual. The name of the installation, "Levántate", obviously refers to the biblical episode of Lazar¹s ressurrection, only that this time it is a technological miracle. This work receives also the PUBLIC CHOICE award, as it was the most voted piece in the presentation of the nomminees. Paul Vanouse The Relative Velocity Inscription Device USA In 1929, social scientist Charles B. Davenport published "Race Crossing in Jamaica", a three-year research project examining the "problem of race crossing". It was the period when the new science of human genetics was strongly biologically determined to develop into eugenics. Today, this new science enables us to map every gene in human DNA. An individual can be identified by a set of DNA, a non-materialistic set of information, rather than by one¹s physical body, thanks to contemporary DNA separation technologies. Based on the above-mentioned history and using the latest technologies, artist Paul Vanouse presents the "race of race" with his Relative Velocity Inscription Device. Genes responsible for skin color are extracted from a Jamaican descended "biracial" family (Vanouse¹s own family!), and run a race in genetic separation gel. Whose gene will win: his "brown" mom, his "white" dad, his quadroon sister, or himself? Here, the gene becomes each person¹s avatar, represented by an image of a runner racing on the screen. Viewers can observe progress made by the runners (i.e. the genes) in real time as they are separated in the gel. The combination of a serious-looking scientific experiment and game-like interface, and of historical context combined with a personal approach, visualizes the absurdity of eugenics and reminds us of the social issues subtending genetic engineering technologies in an ironic and critical way. HONORARY MENTIONS (alphabetical order) Laura Beloff / Erich Berger Spinne Finland / Austria Spinne is a networked audio installation where four sculptures shaped like giant spiders, built of transparent plastic spheres, loudspeakers, and metallic legs, are connected to one another and to the World Wide Web server via prominent cables. The virtual counterparts to these embodied spiders are four "web spiders", whose predatory hunt for key words on the internet is manifest in the exhibition space as shaking of the cables, triggered by a motor which responds to web search activity. The physical installation assumes further dramatic force as subwoofer and cable vibrations impart movement to tiny spider replicas made of glass beads and false eyelashes, placed on top of each loudspeaker membrane. The spinning dance performed by these beady little creatures weaves into a constantly evolving soundscape. All installation components are deliberately made visible ­ computer, network connections, amplifiers, etc ­, and key words prompting web spider activity can be modified by visitors, to enhance their engagement in the underlying processes. This piece, which belongs to a line of art works exploiting links between real and virtual networked space, builds a strong poetic mesh through the use of recursive symbols centred on the image of the web-spinning spider. Marnix de Nijs / Edwin Van der Heide Spatial Sounds (100db at 100km/H) Netherlands Spatial Sounds is a device than combines both atracction and rejection. A loudspeaker placed on a rotating arm holds a number of sensors constantly scanning the presence of the public in the room like a radar. This information is processed by a computer that sends sound effects back to the loudspeaker, and in turn these sound effects react in real time to the presence and movements of the public in the room. Some sort of flirtation is established this way between machine and public: the more they play with the installation, the more active the installation becomes. But if the public interacts in excess with the system, the system goes wild and as an overexcited child it begins to rotate at a maddening speed that can reach 100 km/h. A deafening sound and the airflow created by the centrifugal movement of the loudspeaker make the public step away. The public look absolutely scared yet fascinated at a device that seems to be out of control and that could seriosuly harm any one that would dare come too close to it. In "Spatial Sounds" the overload of the system is used aesthetically because of its dramatic quality, as opposed to our need to control the risks of the technological systems we use. This reminds us of the engaging attraction we feel towards our technologies and how physically and emotionally vulnerable we are to those powerful devices that are everywhere and have been created by us. Eduardo Fuentesal Escudero, Pedro Diaz del Arco (Sculptor Zeta Cluster) Dadatron Spain John Conway's Game of Life algorithm is used as both the user interface and the generator for an evolving soundscape in Dadatron. A 32 X 32 cellular automata (CA) array can be manipulated by the viewer, which then launches the evolution of this virtual musical ecosystem according to programmed rules. It is a transparent, easy to use and fun encounter with time and chance. As in all CA's, the rules concern the behaviour of an individual cell in relation to its nearest neighbours. Here, viewer input in the form of clicking on cells initiates the CA's emergent activity. Subsequently, each changing array of 4 X 4 cells calls up a sequence from a predetermined database of sounds so that the overall array at any given moment generates a composition of randomly combined audio elements. Dadatron is an engaging interactive installation, as well as an instrument for musical composition in the spirit of Dadaist anti-logic. Rather than inventing a new driving concept, the merit of the work resides in the way that it combines existing tools to build a system. Victor Liu Turn All Things Taiwan / USA Turn All Things is an exploration into creating films with computer. But while many commercial systems exist which allow a person to edit quickly on the computer, Liu¹s system allows the computer to actually do the editing itself, based on a simple automatic vision system. After filming a variety of landscape settings, Liu puts the video into the computer as a regular series of contiguous frames. Then, rather than play one frame after another, the computer uses algorithms and image processing, searching for its own ideas of continuity. For example, it may scan the entire database of footage taken over the coastline of Nova Scotia, and find two images of seagulls in mid-flap, facing left. Noting the similarity ­ even if they are different seagulls filmed hours apart, one over land and the other over water ­ the algorithm will then put these frames together. The resulting effects can be surprising and rich. A viewer is left with a documentary of a world filmed by an alien eye, a film made by something that clearly sees nature, time, and composition differently than we do. Perhaps it is our fault that the resulting films are not necessarily beautiful: but rather than malign the system one immediately wants access to it, to enter a dialog with this uncanny editor and try making films with it. Antoine Schmitt Avec Détermination France What makes us feel that something we see on the screen is "alive"? What are the moments when we see signs of emotions in artificial creatures? Is a sense of life-likeness derived from a visually realistic representation, or from something else? Avec Détermination is a series of pieces one can interact with on the Internet. Figure and behaviour of these artificial creatures are algorithmically determined. Simple looking creatures struggle to achieve their goals given by the program, such as standing, while users may interfere with the cause of their movements. The creatures are determined to pursue their goal of life ­ but are they determined by the algorithm, or determined by their own will? The title of the piece has a double meaning; so does the interaction we have with this piece as we drag the creatures around in their small world, almost empathizing with them, yet driven by curiosity. According to the artist, the creatures represent his feelings when depressed. Knowing they are entirely algorithmic, their forms and behaviour still trigger strange "human" reactions in the viewers, as we project our own experience and feelings onto them. In this way, abstract and simple forms trigger rich imaginative and interpretative response. Alife art often helps us to rediscover ourselves: this piece makes us reflect on our own life. Smart Studio, Interactive Institute / Servo The Responsive Field of Lattice Archipelogics Sweden / USA This installation is designed to activate and express relationships linking subjects to a responsive environment, using sensor technologies and light and sound output devices. Visitors explore a plastic lattice embedded with various sensors and sonic and lighting equipment, which react to their movements to generate constantly changing scenarios in "sentient space". Architecture is designed to evolve as a responsive entity endowed with life of its own, an ability to interact but also to act autonomously: the installation develops a kind of memory by storing experienced movement patterns, and this memory or dream state continues to animate it, triggering sound and lighting events in the absence of visitors. The algorithms used to drive this activity are based on positive feedback processes, leading to sedimentation and crystallisation of data patterns, and on negative feedback processes leading to the erosion or disappearance of other patterns. Lattice Archipelogics counts among current research undertakings which aim to integrate artificial life principles into "intelligent environments", where hybridised physical and digital spaces trigger new kinds of engagement and more vivid relationships to technology implemented as an active, responsive force to its human makers. Reva Stone Carnevale 3.0 Canada The idea conveyed by this robotic work is of a fleshless phantom body that haunts the viewer who approaches it. Carnevale (without flesh) detects the presence of a person near it and starts to move toward her/him, which is not an aggressive gesture per se, but one that seems somewhat ominous because a video camera visible inside the structure is pointed at the viewer. Along with a small video projector, the camera is sandwiched between metal cut-out shapes of a young girl that suggest an illustration from an old-fashioned school primer. This image represents the artist as a young girl. In parallel, Carnevale stores "life experience" through machinic devices for seeing and remembering. But it is a lifeless machine in the end, and so inevitably its attempts at conveying the power of memory can only seem frail, ephemeral and rather distant. The camera captures the viewer in the space at random intervals, combines this information with previously stored images, and projects the result on the wall as Carnevale moves around. The image may be stored in memory or not, so that a random accumulating database of encounters is experienced by the string of viewers who interact with the piece. INCENTIVE FOR NEW PRODUCTIONS (5,000 Euros each) Mario Aguirre Arvizu Mosqueado Mexico Mosqueado is a piece consisting of a big screen that receives the image of a swarm of flies having a landscape at the background. As the viewers walk through the projection scope, the image they make on the screen is invaded by the swarm. All attempts of the viewer to get rid of the flies are in vain, as the flies follow every movement of the viewer. From the internet virtual visitors can help the viewers on site to drive the flies away or even to kill them, and each of these actions changes the background landscape. If the flies are driven away, they fly towards the landscape and if they die there, images of plants and trees start to crop up. If, on the contrary, the virtual visitors decide to kill them, there is no change in the landscape, if it was already arid, or it becomes arid, if there was any existing vegetation. Each fly is an artificial life creature that can reproduce itself and develop behaviours as it contacts the projected image of the visitors, and similarly the vegetation at the background grows when it contacts the flies. mmmmŠ Banco de Ideas Muerte Artificial (Virus Amazonas) Spain Muerte Artificial is an activist project that draws attention to the flipside of our epoch¹s devotion to technology ­ its simultaneous plunder of the natural world. The artists, mmmmŠ, who have staged a variety of performative interventions, now take their politics to the Internet, where they hope to create a virus that quickly infects your computer, erodes the image on your screen, and then disappears. The erosion of your beloved desktop is based on a recorded deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest, with pixels on your system falling like trees to the axe. In this end, the virus leaves no mark, and many users will simply blink and continue their accounting while, as they say, Rome burns. This technological extension of street theater seems like a powerful antidote to the ubiquitous ads that plaster the Internet: one could easily imagine the meme of the virus spreading, with users trying to find out what the pattern signifies, and pausing to think about their global complicity in this local problem. The use of a virus reminds us both of Ebola (the result of overpopulation and deforestation in Africa), and the fact that the biodiversity of the Amazon might yield countless new medicines and compounds, if we don¹t destroy it first. A videotape of the ten winners will be produced and distributed to non-profit art centers, libraries and academic institutions. For this, please contact Ana Parga . For more information, pictures, and videos on the Vida-Life Art and A-life awards, please visit http://www.vidalife.org From fred at bytesforall.org Wed Nov 27 14:28:46 2002 From: fred at bytesforall.org (FREDERICK NORONHA) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:28:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] LINK: Andolan, marathi newsmag of people's movements, alt development Message-ID: <02112714284608.00789@news.goa.bytesforall.org> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 4:52 PM Subject: Special Issue Special Diwali issue of ANDOLAN Marathi Newsmagazine of people's movements, alternative development. October-November 2002 An in depth analysis of the Culture of Humanity in its various dimensions By senior academicians, activists, artists and representatives of young generation. o Medha Patkar sets the theme of the culture and the efforts for an alternative development o Kishan Patnaik writes on the basics of the Culture, its development, globalisation and its commercial degeneration. o Ram Bapat explores the idea of flow of Indian culture and our responsibility.He goes the basic ingredient of culture in a dialectical way and reflects on the culture, popular culture in the age of globalisation. o Renowned archaeologist, Dr. M.K. Dhavalikar gives new insights about Environment and Culture from a historical and archaeological perspective. o Vasant Palshikar explains the idea of 'Swadeshi Samaj' by Rabindranath Tagore. o Prof. Yashwant Sumant gives a new perspective on the concept of equality in Mahatma Gandhi's thought. o Prof. B.L. Bhole delineates the ill-effects of and questions the cynicism on the part of secular people regarding culture and religion. o Senior journalist V.D. Ranade points out some of the parameters of New humanitarian culture. Alongwith: o Adivasi activist-teacher Kevalsingh Vasave explains the tribal culture embedded in the Nature. o Shelly Anderson from USA, writes about the Women and peace. o Prof Shivaji Gaikwad graphically describes the degeneration in the rural social-economy and culture. o Senior journalist Sujata Deshmukh cautions about growing commercialization and vulgarization of media, and its bias, arrogance. She questions the agenda of the 'agenda setter' English-capitalist-metropolitan media. o Razia Patel on how to combat the growing culture of communal intolerance. o Sanjay Mangala Gopal on culture of the activists. o Renowned classical singer Neela Bhagwat on presenting the progressive values through her art. o Senior stage artist Atul Pethe describes the work and life of Dr. Mohan Deshpande, as a mark of a wonderful cultured person working for health literacy. o Poetry by Mahavir Jondhale, Anil Sonar, Sahshikant Shinde, Sandip Kale. o Report of discussion specially held on Culture. And perceptive articles Renu Gavaskar, Sadhana Dadhich, Indumati Jondhale, Sanjay Sangvai,Uma Kulkarni, alongwith young activists Tanuja Yelale, Ojas. Pages 146. Price Rs. 40. Do read, spread the word and order the copies. It will help a great to sustain the effort. We will have to evolve alternative circulation movement for the alternative magazines like Andolan. Suniti S.R. Executive Editor Vinay R.R, Deepak Nagnath Circulation activists. Contact for copies: Andolan Suniti S.R. 6, Shree Raghuraj Society, 118-A, Vitthalwadi Road, Pune- 411030 Phone 020-4251404 andolan at eth.net Andolan Most of the important discourses through 'national' newspapers, magazines,serious or semi-serious journals are either carried out in Metropolitan-mostly English speaking circles, or the 'local', 'vernacular' discourses are margnalized. This results in a paradox, projecting - unwarrantedly and without any basis- the opinion of only the elite as the opinion of 'Indian' people. We in 'Andolan' and National Alliance of People's Movements are trying to reclaim the territory of the 'national discourse', where the discourses of the people and organic intellectuals/experts and journalists related with the ground situation and the people become the opinion of India. Andolan has been focusing on the reporting, analysis and debate on such important issues of alternative development and politics in national and international arena every month. From political-social philosophy, ideology, movements, development politics, economy, arts, books and other vignettes of life- Andolan is interested in all these aspects. Along with articles, we specialize in reporting and news analysis of the important happenings, issues of people's movements all over India. We appeal the comrades to send such important reporting and analysis to us. Photographs and graphics with the write-up will be all the more welcome. We wish that you and other people should contribute in such an endeavour -through your reporting, writing short articles, analysis, reviews, interviews and photos, graphics, cartoons etc. It will be nice if you can send the write-ups in Marathi; in case it is not possible, you may send it in English or Hindi also. The editorial board will convey you after selection and inclusion of the matter. From areflagan at artpanorama.com Wed Nov 27 21:30:56 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:00:56 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Comments on memo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Comments on the open source memo recently posted to the Reader-List: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/26/0230258 From aiindex at mnet.fr Thu Nov 28 05:47:16 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 01:17:16 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Pakistan: Watch Out Internet Users, Big Brother is Watching! Message-ID: South Asia Tribune Nov.25 - December 1, 2002 Watch Out Internet Users, Big Brother is Watching! Special SAT Report ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is now a dangerous place for internet users, as the Big Brother is officially watching you, whether you log on at home or in an obscure cyber café somewhere in the middle of no where. It has been officially confirmed now, with documents, that all Cyber cafes and Internet providers have been asked to keep a log of every person who logs on, for surfing the Net or even to send an E-Mail. ³It has been decided that all ISPs will keep log files of their customers for a period of one month,² says an official Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Letter, signed by Colonel Nayyar Hassan Regional Director, License Enforcement, on July 5, 2002. Click to View Letter: http://www.satribune.com/archives/nov25_dec1_02/cyber-1.jpg ³The Log will contain the following information of all their customers for the period: a) long on/out time, b) Caller Line Identification (CLI), c) Dynamic IP Address. This means that for one month any one who logs on to the internet, remains on the records and if any thing happens during that period, the Big Brother will come after you in no time. A similar letter was also issued on the same date for all Cyber Cafes. ³With the spread of Internet a lot of Cyber cafes have started operation throughout the country,² the letter says. ³Although it is very useful facility for Internet users who cannot afford a personal computer, it has given rise to crime through use of such cafes by the criminals for exchanging E-Mails etc. Daniel Pearl case is one unique example.² ³All ISPs will therefore keep a record of Internet cafes operating through their services. ISPs must pursue Internet Café owners to keep a register where the name of every customer should be noted along with his identity card number and the time he used the facility. The café should also keep a record of all the activities conducted on their personal computers for a period of 15 days t help Intelligence Agencies to trace the criminal in case a crime is reported and investigated,² the letter said. Click to View Letter : http://www.satribune.com/archives/nov25_dec1_02/cyber-2.jpg Not much happened after these letters issued by the PTA as following the instructions meant that Cyber cafes would lose bulk of their business since no one will be ready to provide his ID card number to surf the internet. Several reminders were issued but to no effective success. The last such reminder was issued on August 3, 2002 in which the desperate Colonel Nayyar observed that no cooperation had been forthcoming from ISPAK, the umbrella organization of Internet providers. Click to View Reminder: http://www.satribune.com/archives/nov25_dec1_02/cyber-3.jpg But this does not mean no monitoring is being done. All major ISP providers have regular visits from intelligence officials who keep a tab on prominent users and sensitive addresses. In some companies one intelligence officer is always present to check out who is doing what. The civil rights and liberties of Pakistanis are being blatantly violated by these ISPs and intelligence agencies, without any check. -- From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Nov 28 05:26:41 2002 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 05:26:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Comments on memo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20021128140006.29E24519F@mail.sarai.kit> This is the letter i think refered in the slashdot comments. The petition/letter has got lots of interesting points. best jeebesh -------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:34:41 +0530 (IST) From: lawrenceliang at vsnl.net To: commons-law at sarai.net This is a memorandum submitted by members of the free software user group in Kerala, very interesting lawrence Memorandum Submitted by Members of the Free Software Users' Group, Kochi, Maruti Vilas Lodge, Canon Shed Road, Cochin - 682011. Sirs, Ref:- IT at School Project - choice of software and syllabus - We, the undersigned, have recently come across what the government calls the IT at SCHOOL project. We are extremely happy and fully endorse the objectives and intention behind the scheme, in so far as the government has made it possible to bring IT education to even very poor students in our State, at a nominal cost. We are very much proud of our government in that our government is one of the few governments in the world which has made it possible to bring IT education to the masses at a very nominal cost as envisaged in the IT at SCHOOL scheme. However, we submit that implementation of the scheme as it is would harm the long term interests of our State, the general public and the Country. There would be very serious violation of our citizens' basic legal and constitutional rights. We understand that the government has made a few changes within the past few weeks to the syllabus and textbooks. But, we submit that the changes do not go far enough to redress the real issues involved in the matter. We wish, by this letter, to bring to your kind attention, the following issues and request you to remedy them without further delay. 1. Choice of Software and Commercial Fairness 1.1 We find the manner in which the software to be used at the schools is chosen, and manner in which it is chosen, to be disturbing. The syllabus has prescribed software by brand. It is regrettable that the government has not framed or adopted any guidelines or standards to be followed for choosing the software. The IT at SCHOOL project patronises and prefers one brand over other products; and in making this choice, the government has not followed due procedure laid down by law. We submit that this is not fair to creators and vendors of other software. 1.2 We gather that there are nearly 2600 high schools in Kera1a. The scheme envisages that each school should have 10 computers within next three years. Cost of prescribed operating system is approximately Rs. 3500/- per computer. The application software specified in the syllabus costs another Rs. 25,000/- per computer. At the prescribed ratio of 10 computers per school, by the year 2004, this will cost the schools an astounding Rs. 74,10,00,000/- (rupees seventy four crores and ten lakhs)- (Rs. 3,500 + Rs. 25,000 = Rs. 28,500 x 10 computers per school x 2600 schools). 1.3 Even if the said corporation whose software is chosen provides software free of cost, we submit that the government should not include it in the syllabus. Providing schools or other educational institutions software at little or no cost, while the same software is sold at very high prices in the open market is a marketing trick. The corporation resorts to such tactics in order to reap benefits of having a pool of people who are familiar with their software packages and thus form an assured customer base, either as users themselves or as potential skilled employees. We are aware that equipping our students and teachers with skills in computer usage is the primary aim of the project. 1.4 But, by confining students' training to a particular brand of software, the government would be giving undue preference to a particular vendor and their software thus discriminating against vendors of other software. Thus, even by providing software free of cost to the schools, the said company will make immense profits, to the detriment of public welfare and without any corresponding gain to the public, state or institutions. You will recognise that this policy discriminates against vendors of other software and in favour of a particular corporation. You would be aware that this is discrimination and unconstitutional. 1.5 The Supreme Court has laid down in several cases that the government shall be fair and equitable in choosing beneficiaries of government activities. The IT at SCHOOL project involves expenses from funds; created with authorization from government and in pursuance of and compliance with guidelines and rules issued by the State government or other statutory authorities in exercise of statutory power vested in them by the Kerala Education Act. Hence, the government has an obligation to act fairly and equitably while choosing software for school curriculum. But, regrettably, we find that there is not even an attempt to act fairly in the matter of prescribing syllabus and curriculum for the IT at SCHOOL project. 1.6 We also would like to point out that Government's approach would result in compelling not only schools, but also the general public to purchase software from this particular vendor in the future, because people have been denied access to software from other vendors. This would create a monopoly in favour of that corporation and expose the public, the State and the nation to the mercy of a single company. It may be recalled that this particular corporation has been found guilty of unfair, monopolistic and restrictive trade practices in its own country. 1.7 We note that in G.O. (MS) No.297/2001/G. Edn. dated 29.09.2001 the government has specified that 'Volume licensing terms of necessary software will be negotiated with software manufacturers'. This is a very regrettable approach on part of the government. Negotiations can be only between persons or bodies having equal bargaining power. A prerequisite of equal bargaining power is that that both parties have the freedom of choice. But, when schools are compelled to purchase a particular brand because it is prescribed in the syllabus, the schools have no real choice and hence, no real negotiating power. Thus the concept of negotiation looses relevance. 2. Government Should Specify Standards Rather Than Products or Brands 2.1 The computer and the software which drives it are the communication media of the future. Even today, digital media has replaced traditional forms of communication in several situations. Digital communication interposes machine language (language of the computer) between humans. Human language, whether it be the spoken word, the written verse, or visual symbols all are converted to machine language by the computer which originates communication and are converted back to human understandable form by the computer which receives the communication. It is therefore a prerequisite of free and unhindered computerised communication between humans that computers understand languages 'spoken' by each other. Language used by one machine need not be the same as the language used by another. But, different machines/computers can understand each other using internationally accepted standards. Such standards need to be openly available and accessible to the public. While prescribing software for schools, the government has an important role of ensuring that software prescribed or selected conforms to such standards. 2.2 The corporation whose brands and products are prescribed does not publish standards used in their software. Even in respect of standards recognized by the entire industry, this particular corporation is known to create its own variations outside the scope of such universal standards. Such extensions to the standards are not published by this corporation and information/files/ programs using such extensions cannot be accessed except with applications or programs available exclusively from that particular corporation. This practice compels not only users of products from that vendor, but also other people who are forced to interact with users of that vendor's products (like the government and schools, in this case) to purchase software from this particular vendor alone. This situation is known as 'vendor lock-in' or 'vendor dependence'. This is contrary to public interest and harmful to the society in the long run. The government should not create an atmosphere which facilitates such dependence. It is essential that the government and schools insist on using software which uses and conforms to freely available standards so that people who interact with them are not forced to use software from the same vendor as the government or the schools. 2.3 It should be realised that vendor dependence is extremely expensive for the government in the long term. We will elaborate on this issue below. 2.4 We wish to bring to the attention of the Government that several software packages, both applications as well as operating systems, which conform to industry-wide standards, adopted and maintained by independent vendors - both non profit organizations and for profit commercial bodies (individuals and corporations) are available. A list of vendors who sell such products for a price is available at web sites like, http://www.gnu.org/directory/ and http:// forum.gnu.org.in/bizdir and, probably, there are other vendors who have not been listed on such sites. 2.5 In these circumstances, by prescribing that software of a particular brand alone shall be used, the Government is cutting off access to a wider choice for itself and the citizens of Kerala and also cutting off the possibility of tremendous savings of money for itself and the citizens of Kerala. In the long run, such restrictions on the ability to choose would ultimately restrict ability of computers and people to interact with each other through computers. 3. The Issue of Copyright 3.1 We notice that the government has been very meticulous in prescribing the hardware to be used along with indicative prices. However, there is no provision for software costsin the estimates and accounting guidelines published as part of the IT at SCHOOL scheme. 3.2 This approach will encourage schools to make unauthorized copies of software. The law as it stands now prohibits copying of software by schools without permission. Therefore, the government has a duty to ensure that rules / regulations / guidelines framed by it facilitates compliance with law by the persons or bodies targeted by such rules or guidelines. We submit that the government's approach of not providing sufficient funds for purchase of software will bring the schools into conflict with the law relating to Copyrights and the harsh license enforcement programs by the software corporations. Ultimately, this will expose school managements, (including government run schools) to litigation, including criminal action by copyright holders of software prescribed. Hence, it is essential that software to be used in schools are made available under a license which incorporates freedom of use. 3.3 Management of software licenses is a complex task, requiring constant legal supervision. Large corporations vending proprietary software enforce their license restr-ictions harshly - even claiming that the visual appearance of the screen is copyrighted. Thus, even use of 'screen shots' in textbooks without appropriate permissions will invite action from the copyright owners against the gover-nment and its agencies responsible for preparing text books. 3.4 We understand that the government has not received any consent from the copyright holders to use screen shots in the text books. We would like to point out that certain corporations have initiated litigation in other foreign countries, claiming copyright over screen appearance. We do not want our government to be put in such embarrassing situations by uninformed use of inappropriate software and technology. We hope and trust that the government will see reason and exclude proprietary software from the school curriculum. 3.5 We also would like to point out that due to inappropriate handling of licensing issues, several schools in the United States of America have, in recent past, found that they are unable to answer Microsoft Corporation's request for an account of licenses for the number of computers used by them. For example, in 1994-95, some schools in Los Angeles have had to pay fines of up to $300,000 (equivalent of Rupees 1,44,00,000/- or One crores and forty four lakhs) in fines and to further spend an identical amount for purchasing actual licenses. This was in addition to the legal expenses and the embarrassment of facing public humiliation. 3.6 In this context, we request the government to recall the recent problems faced by the highly successful and popular 'FRIENDS' project. If the concerned agencies were adequately aware of issues relating to copyright and licensing, the unfortunate incidents of executives and officers of quasi-governmental organizations being arrested by the police and detained in custody, like petty thieves could have been avoided. We would like to point out that unless the government is careful, teachers in our schools too might be faced with a similar situation. 3.7 The government or the schools should not have to constantly worry about licensing issues and should be free to teach. Imposing proprietary software on the schools means pushing the school administrations and managements into the difficult and tricky area of license management. The schools should be free to choose software of their choice; but if the government wishes to impose its own choice on the schools, the government has an obligation to ensure that no present or future burden, economic, social or technological, is imposed on the school managements. 4. The Prescription Stifles Development of Software Skills 4.1 If our students are to really understand and learn programming and develop software skills, they should learn not only to use computers, but also understand why they function the way they do. This involves learning programing skills. To learn programing, students should have access to source code of the software they use. We trust that you have studied and understood the terms under which the corporation, whose software is currently prescribed for study, licenses its software. It should be emphasised that they do not provide access to source code, which is a a closely guarded secret. By insisting on programs from a particular company, the government is denying our students an opportunity to learn about programs and software development skills. We need not repeat that this policy would not help our community in the long run. 4.2 We do appreciate that the IT at SCHOOL project may not involve teaching programing skills to the students; but at a young age, the students are curious, and are apt to explore and examine the systems they are using. This is an excellent opportunity to introduce students to software programing. Providing access to source code to the students who display curiosity about understanding software programing would channelise their creativity into development of useful skills. On the contrary, denying access to source code might result in such students being frustrated, and turning to unproductive activities. 5. Proprietary Software Is More Expensive Over Long Term 5.1 It goes without saying that all software packages, including those prescribed in the syllabus are covered by copyright. The corporation which provides the prescribed packages charges license fees for each computer on which their software is used. Moreover, the Operating system and the application software packages (MS Word, as per the syllabus) has to be purchased separately, and separate licenses have to be obtained for each machine / computer. It should be recalled that the government is aiming to have computers in all the schools in Kerala by the year 2004 at the rate of between 6 and 15 computers per school, in all the more than 2600 schools in Kerala. 5.2 We have already pointed out that this would cost the state over 74 crore rupees in terms of license fees alone at the modest rate of 10 computers per school. The government has actually prescribed use of up to 15 computers per school. Thus, there would be more than 41,600 computers in schools alone by the year 2004, and either the schools, or the government, stands to lose, and the corporation actually stands to gain, not merely rupees 74 crores, but sums far in excess of Rs. 118,56,00,000/- (Rupees one hundred and eighteen crores, fifty six lakhs) on license fees alone. 5.3 Apart from initial license costs, the government / schools would have to incur recurring expenditure on software maintenance and upgrades. This happens because however well developed a software package is, it is always prone to defects known as bugs. Since source code for the software prescribed in the syllabus is not available, the schools will be dependent on the same vendor for upgrades and 'bug fixes' and also have to periodically pay them for such services. The vendor would therefore be in a position to extract more money from the government or the schools in the long run. However, when source code for software is made available, with universal permission to modify and redistribute, it is possible for anybody with the necessary skills to provide after sales services, thus resulting in competition and consequent cost savings. 5.4 On the other hand, creators of free software have explicitly permitted modification and redistribution of their programs, without any royalties. Therefore, the schools would not be tied down to after sales service from vendors who created the software alone. When software is available with support from several vendors, this would naturally keep the prices low. Yet another difficulty with frequent upgrades is that the government / schools would be compelled to replace hardware too, (like processors, hard disks, memory modules, etc.) thus further adding to total costs. 5.5 In these circumstances, the government's insistence on the schools purchasing proprietary, non-standard, and expensive software cannot be justified on any account, and makes no commercial sense. 6. Obsolescence 6.1 It is very surprising to notice that the documents relating to the IT at SCHOOL project mandates usage of Windows 98 operating system pre-installed on all computers purchased by the schools. Windows 98 is a very much outdated product. Several newer versions of that operating system have been issued and are currently in market. Very fact that you are insisting on outdated products shows that the government has acted in a very arbitrary and capricious manner in prescribing the syllabus and choosing the topics to be studied. 6.2 Software is subject to very rapid changes. Average life cycle of software packages is between six to eighteen months. However, syllabi in Kerala are reviewed only once in four to five years. This would result in our students having to study obsolete software packages for a long time in between syllabus reviews. In view of such rapidly changing product versions it is most inappropriate for the government to prescribe software by brands or versions in school syllabus. We hope that the government will desist from insisting on branded software on this grounds alone. 7. Manpower 7.1 It is seen from one of the documents issued in connection with the project that government is of the opinion that no trained manpower is available for software other than what is prescribed in the syllabus. If that be so, we fail to understand why several thousands of teachers were trained over a long time, spending several lakhs of rupees. They could have been equally well trained in free software packages. 7.2 We wish to assure you that ample trained manpower capable of handling free software and also training school teachers and trainers to teach in the IT at SCHOOL project is available in Kerala itself. Lists of businesses, companies or individuals willing to provide support for free software is available at web sites like http://forum.gnu.org.in/ bizdir and http://www.gnu.org/directory. 7.3 We would also like to point out that free software is neither 'freeware' nor 'alternative software' as sought to be made out in the 'IT at SCHOOL Project - an Approach Paper'. 'Freeware' is software available at no monetary cost. 'Free software' on the other hand, is about freedom, not cost. 'Alternatives' are required when we are compelled to use one particular thing or product. We are not aware of any compulsion on the government to use any particular software. This being so, we fail to understand such terminology used by the government. 7.4 We wish to clarify that by the term 'Free Software' used above, we are referring to 'freedom', as in 'swatantryam'- not 'soujanyam'. By freedom, we mean: (1) freedom to runthe program, for any purpose; (2) freedom to studyhow the program works, and adaptit to the user's needs; (3) The freedom to redistributecopiesso you can help your neighbour; (4) The freedom to modifythe program,and release improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. It may be appreciated that access to the source code is a precondition for enjoying freedoms 2 and 4. 7.5 We trust that the government will not be misled by wrong terminology and misconceptions. We wish to point out that governments of several developed countries have successfully adopted free software for various purposes and have openly acknowledged advantages of using free software. We may also point in this context, the experience of the Kerala Bureau of Industrial Promotion, which, in association with the Free Software Foundation of India, is developing software in Malayalam. This is possible only because they are using free software- software created by others and made available to the general public with the 'swatantryam' to legally use, modify and redistribute the same for the greater common good. 7.6 In case the government has any doubts about free software, we and other persons sharing our views on this issue, or our representatives will be most happy to meet and show the government how to go about preparing the necessary framework and guidelines, including preparation of course material, syllabus, hardware and software specifications, etc. 7.7 We trust that the government would view the issue not merely as one of cost or preferring one software or company over other. The basic question is one of freedom of choice for each individual and an entire community. What is at stake is not merely commercial rights or expenses of a few rupees. It is the question of liberty and independence for the public. We request you to consider all these issues and review the syllabus and other various notifications issued in pursuance of the IT at SCHOOL scheme, and hereby request the government to:- A. discontinue references to brand names and proprietary software in the syllabus, guidelines, notifications and other requirements under the IT at SCHOOL project. B. frame rules requiring the use of software which does not require payment of any kind of royalties and implements open, industry wide standards in the schools and educational institutions in the state. C. frame rules requiring that source code for all software and operating systems, applications and programs used in the school curriculum be published or otherwise made available to the public, students, schools and government. D. frame rules requiring that only such software which is permitted to be modified and maintained by third parties shall be used in schools and educational institutions. Dated this the 16thday of November, 2002. Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software User Group - Kochi. Maruti Vilas Lodge, Canon Shed Road, Kochi - 682011, Kerala, India. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. _______________________________________________ To 1. The Principal Secretary, General Education Department, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram. 2. The Director of Public Instruction, Poojapura, Thiruvananthapuram. 3. State Council of Education Research and Training, SCERT Buildings, Poojapura. P. O., Thiruvananthapuram -12 4. Executive Director, IT@ School Project, State Project Office, Ground Floor, SCERT Buildings, Poojapura. P. O., Thiruvananthapuram -12. 5. The Secretary to the Government of Kerala, Information Technology Department, Thiruvananthapuram. From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Fri Nov 29 03:09:57 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 21:39:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] English and fascism Message-ID: <20021128213957.26698.qmail@web8207.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear all, Like Aabir, I'd like to know where to get a copy of Naukar ki Kameez. Don't try too hard to tell me where to get it. If I really want to get a copy, I'll find it. Meanwhile, let's get together and watch the movie, and after the movie (whether we've read the novel or not) have a chat. An extempore one. This said, let's get into the english-fascism question. There exist two kinds of people in India today... (the academician in me incites me to say: across class, race and gender; the non-academician in me incites me to respond: bugger the stratifications. This is an other kind of stratification we are talking about. Its moorings intersect class race and gender [thankfully, not 'sex'!]and 'pass through' the manner in which these categories are talked about in the Indian context. Its intersections with race class and gender are necessary, but not sufficient. Why? Because the question of suffiency involves the everyday lifeworld. We are touching here upon 'felt' stratification, 'experienced' difference/ indifference, and the effects thereof. We are trying to catch that untheorisable 'thereof') There exist two kinds of people today in India. Only two. Engcans and Engcants. Engcans are those who can in english. That is to say, they can articulate in english. Imagine. Render a world-picture. Push a world-view. Engcants are those who can't -- can not -- in english. That is to say, they cannot articulate in english. They imagine. They can render a world-picture (but not in english, which is the desire in them, which becomes the desire in them). They can push, or pull at, a world-view (but not in english; this is also their desire, a desire precisely because it is inexpressible). Engcants are neither naturally nor via socialisation primed to be fascists (in fact their ambition is to be the exact opposite). Once an engcant finds that -- thanks to the educational structure the s/he has been through -- s/he has already lost out on the good jobs and the respect and status that comes with these good jobs, s/he chooses to open him/her/self to what can be be called a 'discourse of re/active-becoming'. Seeking respect -- because if you have respect you belong, because to be respected is to always already belong -- the engcant must propel him/her/it self on a path of re/active-becoming, a path where becoming means always to be reacting to the desire of being, which gets inflected onto the need or demand of reactive-becoming, being-in-spite-of. Hence the readiness towards spite. The ability to spit, or spit at; not because you ever thought of doing so (or becoming a person who would do so) but because it is strangely fashionable and attractive and sedcutive and gives power to you and so propels you will and the forms of action you take. To be-in-spite-of is a very thermodynamic form of being (not necessarily negative). To become-in-spite-of is the reduction of thermodynamicity into adrenalism (necessarily negative). The heat becomes the blood. The blood likes to rush. The brain likes a blood-rush. Addiction, necessarily so. The uncertain excitement of becoming becomes the certain revenge of reactive-being. And all this because of the presence of english -- not so much as a language, or a mode of expression, or an aesthetic, or a politics of colonial policy, but certainly as a presence in post-colonial education in India -- as that element in the symbolic order that sutures (offers, even, the fantasy or should I say the paranoia, of suturing) existence to desire. That offers the pain of a suturing (your skin is being sewed even as you watch) as well as the pleasure of sublimation (once sewed, you are whole, indestructible). Think about the engcan. Who is s/he? I have my thoughts; let's think together. The engcant seems the desirable subject of fascism -- reactive-being and all that shit. What about the engcan? Let us accept that english is the name of a desire, a geo-political desire. If so, what is the desire of the engcan? The engcan, as I said, can in english. So there is no need, no demand. So, no gap from which the desire will emerge. Wow. I'd like to be there! Perhaps there is only education. To that extent, socialisation. To that extent, entitlement and opportunity. To that extent, a welcome into the symbolic order. To that extent, a beckoning from the Real. Oof! (can the Real beckon?) pratap Catch all the cricket action. Download Yahoo! Score tracker -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021128/0b3ca752/attachment.html From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Nov 29 08:22:54 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 21:52:54 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The below is a short, original essay intended for the reader-list discussion on software. It implicitly makes the claim that software can never truly be alternative, as it is simply a lifeform sustained by and within the universality of hardware. The essay argues this view through the life and works of Alan Turing. The questions that immediately follow would pertain to how, or if, software can at all be considered alternative, in the sense that it offers a critique of the universal principles laid down by hardware. And, secondly, if the normative and disciplining aspects of software alluded to in the essay can in any way be countered (by alternative software) to create another common subject, another experience of the public. Things unfortunately got a little derailed by the usual perils of computing (that we are all too familiar with), so I hope there will be enough pensive flamebait in this essay/post for someone to bite ;-) -af + + + + + This is a work in progress. Please ask before/if distributing it beyond this list. Thanks. + + + + + The Forbidden Fruits of Computing It is frequently argued in the annals of computing that software was conceived along with hardware. Commenting on the pioneering Analytical Engine assembled by Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace remarked that it "weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves." [1] The industrial loom she referred to had arrived a few decades earlier, around 1800. It took weaving instructions from linked stacks of punch cards and wove them into an image or a pattern--in one instance even an exquisite portrait of its namesake and inventor. Due to input methods that bypassed the use of a machine operator, the Jacquard loom is widely considered an early step toward the kind of automation associated with computers. What Lovelace loosely suggested, however, appears to be of an entirely different order. She offered a burgeoning thread where the machine would take to weave it's own programs and not only serve as a processing unit for input through to output, from punch cards to flowers, culture to nature, and mind to matter. The machine would by some measure inhabit an intelligence and weave its expressive algebraic patterns within the structure provided by the machine. [2] As the later history of computing has shown, this insight was latent for almost a century while Boolean algebra and further research into the mechanization of logic continued to evolve. It was not until 1936, the pivotal year Lev Manovich, among others, has embraced as the birth of modern computing, that this early realization was philosophically restated by Alan Turing in his essay "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entsheidungsproblem." [3] The tongue-twister problem referred to posed a succinct question of decidability: could there, at least in principle, exist a method or process whereby all mathematical questions could be decided? To arrive at a definitive method of decidability, in the form of an actual answer, Turing proceeded to propose a machine, named after him, which under the premise that all its operations reach a finite number, reflecting all possible states, would indeed be able to operate within the limits of an absolute decidability. In the paper, Turing immediately goes one step further and introduces the concept of an omniscient Universal Turing Machine that accommodates and interprets the algorithms of a myriad Turing Machines. This is of course the enduring yet hazy distinction between hardware and software: the universal is embodied in hardware, while a number of smaller machines, basically virtual computers, are embodied within this as software. They all adhere to the same universalized principles of an absolute decidability. Turing's interest in the topic of computing rested with larger and, in fact, distinctly personal questions related to intelligence and consciousness. After the premature and deeply mourned death of a friend, Christopher Morcom in 1930, he got obsessed with how the human mind, thinking of Morcom's wits in particular, was embodied in matter and how consciousness may be preserved after death. To this end, he first embarked on a study of quantum mechanics, but a subsequent shift toward probability theory and eventually the Turing Machine leads to the absolving solution found in computers. Life evolves, and as such it can never be contained inside a finite horizon; it cannot be preserved within a distinct singularity of presence. By letting mind operate with a set limit, it could simulate itself without overstepping these boundaries and disastrously escape the parameters of its decidability. Mind could similarly evolve without limitations in this matter, processing any combination of algorithms, but only against the ground of the Universal. It would thereby obey the exact principles outlined in his treatise on computable numbers and the Entsheidungsproblem: many Turing Machines within a Universal Turing machine, software within hardware. What can immediately be deduced from this (in radical shorthand and against a philosophical backdrop) is that software emulates a finite mind with infinite possibilities when controlled by the universal principles that enables it in the first place. Software, then, is a coexistent simulation of mind and machine. This dual realization effectively introduces and describes the work continued by Turing after the war. In 1947, Turing wrote a paper (it remained unpublished in his lifetime) where he suggested that complex mechanical systems could exhibit learning abilities--what we now call neural nets. He published another seminal work in 1950, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," [4] which introduced the renowned Turing Test, where a machine seeks to imitate a human with the purpose of determining if the machine possesses artificial intelligence. His actual proposal interestingly involved a blind question and answer session where the determination of a binary choice ultimately hinged on the interrogator's allocation of the two test-subject's sex (one of which could be a digital computer), conjuring a somatic rather than cognitive limit of difference. This difference was furthermore based on a rulebook that allowed for evasive answers and encouraged attempts at deceit when the imitation game was played. Following this trajectory, along with the parallel hardware developments of electronic switches and transistors, we have essentially retraced the birth of modern computing and the speculative exams to see if it could sustain itself, as life in death, and flourish without support, as mind in matter. In the same 1950 paper, and with considerable foresight into the melodramatic detection of cyborgs acted out in the film Blade Runner, he boldly predicts that by the year 2000 technology would be advanced enough to fool an interrogator for about 5 minutes, 70 percent of the time. But before mentally playing the part of Harrison Ford here, consider that Turing is in actual fact talking about software within hardware, not emotive cybernetic organisms seamlessly embodied in skin to fool us on the surface. [5] His test of intelligence, conceived as a meeting of minds and the duplicity of a gendered consciousness indistinguishable from that of a highly acculturated machine capable of lying, is the programmed persuasion of software to integrate itself into our own psychology and respond in kin. If we use Blade Runner's seductive exam, which set up an apparatus monitoring the eye to see if the body lied about its origins, we are well short of Turing's predictions, but if we instead consider how software, our conversing counterpart in the Turing Test, currently reflects and infiltrates our own way of thinking and acting the time and percentages mentioned appear rather conservative. [6] Within this ultimate limit of decidability, important questions of propriety and determination loom. Reiterating the thoughts conjured thus far: all software is realized against the ground of a universal system as operative incarnations of mind. The troubling conclusion must be that it subsists, virtually if you like, under the umbrella of a mastermind, which defines the very outer limits of its expression and offers infinite permutations of interminable life in return. Questions of machine intelligence, importantly entered as both the recognition and deception of the human in an either/or scenario, appears only against the ground of purposefully ignoring the universal mastermind, taking software at face value, and immediately entering into the loop of its algorithms upon first considering the query. What the Turing Test ultimately proposes for software to pass as intelligent is that it answers all questions according to the universalized norm of a normality, representing a common denominative being that does not depart from the average but rather adheres to it in every aspect and defines the nodal point of presence through these very standards. This is why any leap from software to ideology is imperceptible. Software seeks to imitate the collective, and therefore primarily ideological, principles that make "us" and it renders itself intelligent in this image. What follows is of course that proprietary software mirrors this normative state closest, being representative of seamlessly programming a common human form of ideological proportions into the universal machine, a dominant mind into a subservient embodiment of operators and users. But what happens to alternative forms and lifestyles, to the aberrant thought and the mutated body, in a software culture explicitly designed to preserve one powerful mindset above all others? Turing indirectly also provided a less scientific, but equally telling, answer to this question. He was homosexual, and after a casual affair at the liberal King's College in Cambridge, he lived the closeted life required by puritan Britain. During World War II, he worked for the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, where he famously broke the Nazi Enigma code. At this time, he also proposed to marry a colleague, eventually calling it off with a private admission of his sexual orientation. In 1952, following his election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1951, he was arrested upon allegations of sexual relations with a younger man (Turing was 40 at the time) and taken to court. To avoid prison, while pointedly emphasizing that his actions should not be considered criminal, he agreed to undergo a series of estrogen injections to tame his libido, a chemical castration diagnosed by a cause and effect scenario prevalent at the time. And after losing security clearance because of his, now public, homosexuality, he was summarily dismissed from his longstanding job in the Government code unit. A year later, on June 7, 1954, he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. His final act was a poetic revenge on the life's work that ultimately ostracized and betrayed him. The man who provided important breakthroughs in the development of modern computing and broke the code that helped the allies win the war was killed by a paltry logic he could not defeat. Recall that his interest in the embodiment and preservation of mind in matter that led to the pioneering work on Turing Machines stemmed from a lost and deeply mourned companionship with another man. The relations Turing desired in computing were at their inception directed at one missed individual, rather than a generalized and disciplined body. They also spoke of a sexual difference--subtly restated in his choice of sex to determine human intelligence in the Turing Test--that cautiously countered the machine's universality. Once such pensive constructs enter the very definitions garnered here--those of our relations formed with the machine through hardware and our proof of its intelligent humanity in software--their universality as modes of knowledge about the life they perpetuate is called into question. When Turing took a bite of the cyanide-laced apple, he chewed a chunk of that encounter in the Garden of Eden, which punished curiosity when it interfered with commands; he tarnished the purity of Snow White and the gravity of Newton's eureka that found enlightenment through reason. In computing, there should always be a lingering aftertaste--a protracted mortality--that recalls the tang of sweet and bitter juices Turing must have savored as he pondered the fruits of his work, in that final system failure. [7] NOTES [1] Ada Lovelace, from the annotated notes to her translation of Luigi Federico Menabrea, Notions sur la machine analytique de Charles Babbage, 1842. See, for example: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Lovelace.html. [2] Alan Turing interestingly brings up Ada Lovelace in his essay "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Under subheading six in the sixth chapter of the treatise, entitled "Contrary Views on the Main Question," he refers specifically to Lady Lovelace's objection: "Our most detailed information of Babbage's Analytical Engine comes from a memoir by Lady Lovelace. In it she states, 'The Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform' (her italics)." [3] Alan Turing, "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem." Available online at: http://www.abelard.org/turpap2/turpap2.htm. [4] Alan Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Available online at: http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.htm. [5] As Turing himself notes in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence:" "No engineer or chemist claims to be able to produce a material which is indistinguishable from the human skin. It is possible that at some time this might be done, but even supposing this invention available we should feel there was little point in trying to make a 'thinking machine' more human by dressing it up in such artificial flesh." [6] A visit to MIT will show that the sensory and emotional aspects of the "human" intellect are under serious development in various, still rather crude, anthropomorphous devices. The Blade Runner test and the Turing Test combined may be passed one day, but one may already seriously ask to what avail. [7] Turing biographer Andrew Hodges's excellent web site, http://www.turing.org.uk, contains extensive information about Alan Turing and his archives. From yazadjal at vsnl.net Fri Nov 29 11:30:28 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 11:30:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Electoral democracies .... Message-ID: <018001c2976c$e4ddd2c0$811241db@vsnl.net.in> Austria's general election: The revival of the mainstream right http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1469609 "Mr Schüssel's party jumped into first place for the first time since 1966, with 42% of the vote. But with 79 of parliament's 183 seats, his People's Party still needs a coalition partner. " The above fragment caught my eye. No party in any general elections in India has ever got 42% of the vote. The closest was Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 with 41%. But Rajiv swept 80% of the seats in parliament with his 41% vote. Schlussel in Austria gets only 43% of the seats and has to look for a coalition partner! -yazad From menso at r4k.net Fri Nov 29 15:57:33 2002 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 11:27:33 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Bin Laden tape 'not genuine' Message-ID: <20021129102733.GG16413@r4k.net> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2526309.stm Quote: "A team from the Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, Idiap, said it was 95% certain the tape does not feature the voice of the al-Qaeda leader. US intelligence officials have said they believe the recording - broadcast on the Arabic al-Jazeera television channel earlier this month - was almost certainly that of Osama Bin Laden. If verified, it would provide the first evidence in a year that Bin Laden survived the American-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan." Guess we'll never know who's right and who's wrong, still thought it to be quite interesting, draw your own conclusions. Menso -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your eyes are weary from staring at the screen. You feel sleepy. Notice how restful it is to watch the cursor blink. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From vidyashah at hotmail.com Fri Nov 29 17:45:07 2002 From: vidyashah at hotmail.com (vidya shah) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 12:15:07 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: How about death for Gujarat's rapists, Mr.Advani? Message-ID: >Lehar sethi zaidi wrote: > >-- > >PETITION: >We, the citizens of India, find the Home Minister LK Advanis statement that >�rape should be punished by death� misleading, shocking and insincere, in >view of the following: > >1. His party�s consistent refusal to provide even preliminary justice to >thousands of gang rape victims in Gujarat, crimes which were organized and >perpetrated by his party workers/ people he supports including Chief >Minister Modi( provided a clean chit by Mr Advani himself) > >2. The statement of the head of the National Commission for Women, Smt >Purnima Advani, appointed by his party, that �rapes are commonplace� and >therefore even preliminary justice and filing of FIRs was not �allowed� by >his government and its representatives the Gujarat state government. > >3. The statement of his NDA government�s convenor and then Defence minister >George Fernandes: that �rape has been happening for 50 years� and Shri >Advani�s steady support of it. > >4. Please find attached the petition signed over the last 6 months, which >has been seeking justice for the sexual violence victims of Gujrat - >justice >which has been completely denied with not a single rapist�s arrest and >prosecution. The three basic demands for justice made by the country wide >appeals of Indian women have still NOT BEEN MET. > >This therefore proves Mr.Advani�s statement as insincere, insulting and >demeaning to the dignity of Indian women. >List of 4000+ Singnatures available upon request. > >--- >ORIGINAL PETITION TO MR ADVANI'S GOVT: SEEKING JUSTICE FOR THE LAST 6 >MONTHS FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN GUJARAT > >Who is India's Defence Minister really defending? >As citizens of India and especially women citizens of India, the Defense >Minister George Fernandes�s shocking statement in parliament and the NDA >government�s support of it has outraged and agonized us. His statement >(Hindustan Times, May 5th 2002.): > >Television cameras captured the moment when the Defence Minister of India >spoke as the Defence Minister of criminals who had perpetrated grotesque >acts of violence against women and children in Gujarat. He said in his >speech in Parliament during the debate on Gujarat under Rule 184, "A woman >with her womb cut open and her foetus torn out, women raped, we have heard >these stories for 50 years" >We as Indian women and citizens are amazed at this callous denial of >humanity and life to hundreds of women victims of brutal sexual and >physical >violence. In a situation where hundreds of women victims are not even able >to file FIRs and bring perpetrators to justice, the Defense Minister�s >statement comes as a body blow to the dignity and hope for justice for >Indian women. His dismissive and contemptuous attitude and utterances >directed at the victims and activists seeking justice exemplifies the >non-condemnation of the brutalities committed upon the women, which >characterizes the insensitivity that prevails in the hallways of national >and state power. These actions and utterances becomes an endorsement of >these crimes against humanity and should be treated as his accepting these >horrendous assaults as non-criminal. It violates every tenet in the UN >declaration of Human rights and the National Policy on Women. >We the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain and all other women of all the >faiths that call India home demand an immediate apology from the Defense >Minister. Failing which we demand his ouster from the government. We cannot >trust such a regressive and insensitive individual with our personal and >national security. > >And as part of a wider struggle for the restoration of the rule of law and >Constitution in Gujarat we stand in camaraderie with women�s organisations >throughout India, who will be observing May 13 as a day of solidarity with >the women victims of Gujarat. We support their three demands which are: >- Immediate filing of FIRs in cases of sexual assault and violence against >women and arrest of all those named; >- The institution of special courts with a time-bound mandate in all such >cases; >- Rehabilitation measures specifically designed for families rendered >female >headed because male members were killed. >We urge all citizens and especially our women citizens to join in raising >this voice for those weeping women of Gujarat who lost so much more than >words can ever convey. Let rhetoric give way to humanity. > > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From vidyashah at hotmail.com Fri Nov 29 17:47:37 2002 From: vidyashah at hotmail.com (vidya shah) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 12:17:37 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: How about death for Gujarat's rapists, Mr.Advani? Message-ID: >From: Yousuf > > >Lehar sethi zaidi wrote: > >-- > >PETITION: >We, the citizens of India, find the Home Minister LK Advanis statement that >�rape should be punished by death� misleading, shocking and insincere, in >view of the following: > >1. His party�s consistent refusal to provide even preliminary justice to >thousands of gang rape victims in Gujarat, crimes which were organized and >perpetrated by his party workers/ people he supports including Chief >Minister Modi( provided a clean chit by Mr Advani himself) > >2. The statement of the head of the National Commission for Women, Smt >Purnima Advani, appointed by his party, that �rapes are commonplace� and >therefore even preliminary justice and filing of FIRs was not �allowed� by >his government and its representatives the Gujarat state government. > >3. The statement of his NDA government�s convenor and then Defence minister >George Fernandes: that �rape has been happening for 50 years� and Shri >Advani�s steady support of it. > >4. Please find attached the petition signed over the last 6 months, which >has been seeking justice for the sexual violence victims of Gujrat - >justice >which has been completely denied with not a single rapist�s arrest and >prosecution. The three basic demands for justice made by the country wide >appeals of Indian women have still NOT BEEN MET. > >This therefore proves Mr.Advani�s statement as insincere, insulting and >demeaning to the dignity of Indian women. >List of 4000+ Singnatures available upon request. > >--- >ORIGINAL PETITION TO MR ADVANI'S GOVT: SEEKING JUSTICE FOR THE LAST 6 >MONTHS FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN GUJARAT > >Who is India's Defence Minister really defending? >As citizens of India and especially women citizens of India, the Defense >Minister George Fernandes�s shocking statement in parliament and the NDA >government�s support of it has outraged and agonized us. His statement >(Hindustan Times, May 5th 2002.): > >Television cameras captured the moment when the Defence Minister of India >spoke as the Defence Minister of criminals who had perpetrated grotesque >acts of violence against women and children in Gujarat. He said in his >speech in Parliament during the debate on Gujarat under Rule 184, "A woman >with her womb cut open and her foetus torn out, women raped, we have heard >these stories for 50 years" >We as Indian women and citizens are amazed at this callous denial of >humanity and life to hundreds of women victims of brutal sexual and >physical >violence. In a situation where hundreds of women victims are not even able >to file FIRs and bring perpetrators to justice, the Defense Minister�s >statement comes as a body blow to the dignity and hope for justice for >Indian women. His dismissive and contemptuous attitude and utterances >directed at the victims and activists seeking justice exemplifies the >non-condemnation of the brutalities committed upon the women, which >characterizes the insensitivity that prevails in the hallways of national >and state power. These actions and utterances becomes an endorsement of >these crimes against humanity and should be treated as his accepting these >horrendous assaults as non-criminal. It violates every tenet in the UN >declaration of Human rights and the National Policy on Women. >We the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain and all other women of all the >faiths that call India home demand an immediate apology from the Defense >Minister. Failing which we demand his ouster from the government. We cannot >trust such a regressive and insensitive individual with our personal and >national security. > >And as part of a wider struggle for the restoration of the rule of law and >Constitution in Gujarat we stand in camaraderie with women�s organisations >throughout India, who will be observing May 13 as a day of solidarity with >the women victims of Gujarat. We support their three demands which are: >- Immediate filing of FIRs in cases of sexual assault and violence against >women and arrest of all those named; >- The institution of special courts with a time-bound mandate in all such >cases; >- Rehabilitation measures specifically designed for families rendered >female >headed because male members were killed. >We urge all citizens and especially our women citizens to join in raising >this voice for those weeping women of Gujarat who lost so much more than >words can ever convey. Let rhetoric give way to humanity. > > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Fri Nov 29 23:20:39 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 09:50:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] What is My religion..? Message-ID: <20021129175039.68813.qmail@web20901.mail.yahoo.com> What is My religion..? My Islam is the Islam of the roses.. Which bloom in al Andalus and Blend into the itrs of whirling dervishes.. My Islam is the Islam of the rose and the nightingale which burns itself out each night before the dawn.. Waiting for the beloved.. My Islam is the Islam of the cry of the qawwal Sitting in an ancient mazar amidst the trees.. Praying for a glimpse Of the Beloved.. My Hinduism is the sound of a conchshell Ringing above the temple bells.. Awakening the sleepers before dawn� My Hinduism is the cloudburst of red Scattered from the goddess�s bowl.. Red smeared goddess and the smell of Sivalingas tulsi/basil and milk My Hinduism is the burning light/fire of the havans Which burns all that�s not Light.. My Sikhism is the pure water of the amrit bani Sprinkled into the believers palms.. and hearts.. Pure as the casteless one.. My Sikhisism is the EK Omkar of the Truth Cutting all caste threads and creed marks In one blazing declaration of the Sight.. My Judaism is the voice of the Hanukkah.. and the day the Light of God�descends.. When all is Become..in the voice of God.. My Judaism is devout sages walking with their head bowed.. Muttering prayers as ancient as the stone tablets.. Seeking the spirit when they were still not gone..(from Bahisht..) Beautiful black eyed men chiselled like cheekbones.. searching for way back..to the Garden.. My Christianity is the voice of Christ.. Asking forgiveness for those who crucified him.. While he bleeds upon the cross. My Christianity is the face of a Jew.. Becoming a heretic for feeding lepers And turning men of desire Into men of God. My Buddhism is the Enlightened One.. Walking barefoot in the forest.. Begging bowl and bhikshsus in line.. Sleeping under the open sky.. My Buddhism is the handsome prince.. Walking out in the middle of the night From kalakamra at vsnl.net Sat Nov 30 14:12:12 2002 From: kalakamra at vsnl.net (shaina) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 14:12:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] DIYwireless:radioshow References: <20021128213957.26698.qmail@web8207.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003001c2984c$6303b900$4f8644ca@susheelanand> those interested in being in the loop about wireless...check out http://www.ambienttv.net/wireless/project/020716radio/radio.html also check out the site www.ambeinttv.net artists working in media art initiatives in east london. shaina -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021130/bc2fedb2/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Sat Nov 30 02:36:48 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 21:06:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Residue and english/facsism Part 1 Message-ID: <20021129210648.50245.qmail@web8204.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Do permit me to bring together two strands of current sarai reader-list discussion. (1) the currently silent, but still alive, one on 'residue', and (2) the currently begun one on english/fascism (the more crucial question of the novel Naukar Ki Kameez's translation/publication/availability notwithstanding). In this posting, I take up (1). It opens up the ground for (2), which comes later. [Please don't fall in] In his posting on 'residue', Mimeticus sought to "complicate" the discussion by positing an/other context within which the notion of 'residue' possessed some (a different kind of, perhaps emancipatory in a different way) explanatory power, a context outside of the "good old Marxist topos of labour". Think about, Mimeticus urges us, "the kind of collective imaginative work that goes into valorizing many of the commodities and images that we consume. Desiring, viewing, moving through the commodity spaces of the city - all these are a kind of labour, each of them crucial to the possibility of contemporary capital's reproduction, it's self-valorization. Where is the "residue" now?" Indeed, where is the 'residue' now, now that we are 'beyond the social', have witnessed/are witnessing the 'fall of the political'? Where is the residue, in the time/space of simulacra? Perhaps, as Baudrillard puts it, "what is at stake in the masses lies elsewhere". The age of simulations/simulacra is also the age where nobody is, any longer, "in danger of paying the price", where the ethical charge of "paying the price" can itself be dismissed as precisely a retroactive fantasy despondently re/searching for the "spongy referent" called "the mass". Baudrillard, by invoking simulations/simulacra, seeks to consistently dilute the rigid opposition between nihilism and tragedy that Nietzsche had insisted upon. That is why he never cares to define that "elsewhere" where lies "what is at stake in the masses". [It lies in the end of the social, in a form of knowledge that will never ever refer to itself as truth, will never ever "naturalise" itself, but will always sado-masochistically play upon its foundationalist ambitions; in a method that transforms bewilderment (in the face of image-bombardment, the simulation-army, the self-war) into an ontological (always already facetious) 'fact'. The idea is to re/invoke — re/re/re/re/re: — the tragedy of the reduction of agon to the insistent deferral of what may be called 'the agon question'. Agon, of its very nature, is immune to dispersal (Nietzsche implies). Is the dispersal of agon its very nature? (Baudrillard, in pain, proposes) To what extent, then, is 'residue' a condensate of ever-dispersing agon? To what extent is 'residue' metonymic of an absent condensate? Mimeticus asks, pertinently: Does it exist as a repressed desire, waiting to unsettle the regimes of fantasy that we subscribe to, as readily interpellated consumer-subjects? Or has it become a crucial authorizing component of the valorization process, as the lacuna at the heart of the commodity form compels both desire and doubt? In that case, what would an "alternative" scenario look like? What structure of desire, of imagination would not involve such an ambivalence? [Better to talk about Agon. Ambivalence is a reductive experience. It is ultimately an intellectual response to the problematic of 'civility'. 'Civility' itself is an anthropo-historically determined notion: the problem here is that 'civility' always must be pre-determined by a theory of action (praxis, if you will).] How to de-valorise "masses"? Or 'residue', for that matter? The answer lies, perhaps, in Jeebesh's response to the discussion on 'residue'. 'Residue' is itself the name of a de-valorisation [whether or not 'caused' by the primitive accumulation of capital, that some say was Marx's way of talking about a (reified) moment of the separation of humans from their means of production, while others say was Marx's metaphor for the gap that capital opens out — keeps opening out in each moment of its (re)production, in affirmation-denial, projectively-retroactively — between 'thingness' and the experience of being fully human]. The process it corresponds to exists neither in full-blown modernity nor the simulacral time/space, but partakes of both/either. 'Residue' is the name of a systematic de-valorisation that blossoms in the tectonic unevenness caused by the over/layering of one master-process upon another. It is difficult to define precisely because its discursive status is interstitial to both "master-narratives" and "grand theory" (and, incidentally, the children Lady Macbeth never had). Pile up: capitalism/modernity/globalisation/tradition Pile up: liberalism/socialism/fascism/environmentalism Pile up: demography/genocide/human rights Pile up: Smith/Keynes/Amartya Sen/Kant/Hegel/Saint-Simon/Mill (the son)/Marx/Comte/Weber/Adorno/Lenin/Benjamin/Lulu (who's this?)/Whorf/Nehru/Kenyatta/Goffman/Chodu (who's that?)/Giddens/Gramcsi/Polanyi/Dr Google Where is 'residue' now? Wrong question. It is there, neither as 'precipitate' nor as 'debris'. How to find it? Right question. In what terms? Very good question. Do you have scissors (so I can cut up curtains)? Irrelevant question. Perhaps we could understand the nature of 'residue' if we ask, along with Jeebesh, the question: what about the footballer nursing a foot ligament injury in the Second Division? 'Residue', therefore, can only be a 'hidden injury'. It is also the name for a 'technology of everyday life'. Let's break this technology into its parts, for, like nuts bolts cogs gears and crankshafts, it is put together. Let us unfold this technology, which justifies itself by always displaying how it is not folded. Let us unravel this technology: that is any storyteller's primordial fantasy. 'Residue' is: Intimately linked to 'confidence', 'self-esteem', 'self-worth', the 'prejudiced' image, 'badge of ability', 'special merit'. Intimately linked to 'freedom of choice and self-development', 'authoritarianism', 'class morality', 'limbo of non-ability', 'making an expectation become reality'. Inseparable from 'fair skin', 'hirsute face', 'angled cheekbones', 'muscled limbs', 'terse torso', 'defined abdominals' and 'pert breasts'; 'perfumed armpits', 'gelled hair', 'hands akimbo', 'legs splayed'. Inseparable from 'who's ordinary and who's a suck-up', 'counter/culture of dignity and freedom', 'solidarity'. Inclusive of 'you're there only to get what you want for yourself', 'internalisation of conflict between individual and fraternity', 'inner class warfare'. Inclusive of 'basic dilemma', 'meaning of integration', 'sacrifice as a contract', 'status by usurpation', 'shame is harder to pass off than guilt', 'doing poorly', Existent in 'family', 'provider', 'intermediary', 'pseudo-mutual af/filiation', 'dealing with shaming', 'self-denial', 'shouldering work', 'bill-paying', 'I can do all these things', 'hopelessly contradictory', 'glamour girl', sexy in bed', 'behanchod', Existent in 'shaming expunged', moral necessity', 'parental attitude', 'imposing unendingly', 'ascription of weakness', 'parents' life is not a model but a warning', 'exchange relationships', expectations of obligations', 'conflicting codes of love and social competence', 'being seductive', 'good wife', coping with life', Insisting upon 'images of betrayal', 'apply yourself and study', 'shielded from the influence of the street', pride in accomplishments', 'reflected glory', 'edge on my neighbour', 'Call on me', 'replace society', 'Isn't betrayal the inevitable result when you try to endow your life with a moral purpose greater than your own survival?' Insisting upon 'superior to other families on the street', 'I always let them fear me', 'great events of my life', 'can love survive in contract?', 'those who are pushed to feel grateful cannot', 'sacrifice is manipulation', 'I work for my money', 'my job is to work for my family', 'I've done some drifting on my own', 'that's what burns me', 'possible chiselers', 'the meaning of acts of self-abnegation'. 'stay respectable', 'is there any escape from my own privations?', 'denial of anything a decent person does', 'destroyer of her own power to believe and hope', 'rebels at any interpretation', 'empty of meaning', 'hack around'. 'the anger many feel springs in part from the same root', 'such people as co-workers', 'personal insult; travesty of the social order', 'like you are part of the woodwork', 'like they have got no self-respect', 'in rags almost', 'living it up', sacrifice is the last resource for individualism', 'sacrifice is the last demonstration of competence'. XX: 'social genesis of feeling', 'every bigot asks that question', 'but what would you do yourself?', 'I would die!', 'Society is ignorant, okay?', 'next door to them', 'venture tentatively', 'What thing?', 'a hidden silent authority had a kind of magnetic pull', 'announce yourself as a bigot', 'putting something on', 'eagerness with which', 'pattern of a lifetime experience of proving oneself', 'silly uneducated way', 'contest for dignity'. XX: 'developed their minds think that', 'in both cases', 'only wanted to win the approval of an outside authority', 'became blind to feelings in the process', 'I am praised; subterranean fears of betrayal and shaming are set in motion', 'you assert a common humanity?', 'higher social positions to admit the worthiness', 's/he now feels the right to condemn individuals', 'operate along the same lines', 'the class-system of authority and judgement-making goes into hiding by itself'. XXX: 'true consciousness', 'personal dignity', 'validation of the self', 'react or act', 'first become legitimate', 'ability to fight against limits', 'it is palpable', 'before you just do it, feel it', 'what is the purpose of demonstrating one's ability?', 'respect others', 'someday no longer having to work', 'open to anyone of talent', 'claim of careers, scarcity of rewards', 'feel inadequate', 'love cannot be earned', 'transpose that self-defeat', 'final reasons', 'good, solid workers', 'the productive activity'. XXX: 'which we shall try to show', 'we do not mean', 'we cannot prove it directly', 'we do not mean we encountered', 'Rather ', 'this dilemma embodies a classic contradiction', 'the issue here obviously transcends', 'any number of vital matters', 'Yet beneath all these complaints'. 'Idea of destructive replacement'. 'What is stimulating the ordinary person to play?' finis To this list [for 'residue' can only be listed, it cannot be explained, just as its construction cannot be explained {and the social construction of the semantic attitudes listed above, and some excess (residue)}] I want to add just one more word. It is the word that joins 'residue' to english/fascism. This word is: 'disarticulation'. yours, pp Catch all the cricket action. Download Yahoo! Score tracker -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021129/d422fb43/attachment.html From pankaj at sarai.net Sat Nov 30 05:23:50 2002 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 05:23:50 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20021129235350.GB568@localhost> ***Sorry fellow earthlings I give in to the troll*** Dear Are, Sorry for the interruption but as a student of Theory of computation, I am sorry to say neither I or Turing will agree to the first paragraph of your mail On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 09:52:54PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: Are Flagan> The below is a short, original essay intended for the reader-list discussion Are Flagan> on software. It implicitly makes the claim that software can never truly be Are Flagan> alternative, as it is simply a lifeform sustained by and within the Are Flagan> universality of hardware. The essay argues this view through the life and Are Flagan> works of Alan Turing. First of all the question is not about either hardware or software or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent software or hardware independent but software dependent software. There are certain problems which considered undecidable thus, unsolvable by computers for example the problem that the set of all functions f:N->N is unsolvable by turing machine. Are Flagan> The questions that immediately follow would pertain to how, or if, software Are Flagan> can at all be considered alternative, in the sense that it offers a critique Are Flagan> of the universal principles laid down by hardware. Again it is foolish to assume that software is dependent on hardware or that the universal principles of computation are laid down by hardware, hardware design or limitaitons of hardware components. Are Flagan> Within this ultimate limit of decidability, important questions of propriety Are Flagan> and determination loom. Reiterating the thoughts conjured thus far: all Are Flagan> software is realized against the ground of a universal system as operative Are Flagan> incarnations of mind. The troubling conclusion must be that it subsists, Are Flagan> virtually if you like, under the umbrella of a mastermind, which defines the Are Flagan> very outer limits of its expression and offers infinite permutations of Are Flagan> interminable life in return. Questions of machine intelligence, importantly Are Flagan> entered as both the recognition and deception of the human in an either/or Are Flagan> scenario, appears only against the ground of purposefully ignoring the Are Flagan> universal mastermind, taking software at face value, and immediately Are Flagan> entering into the loop of its algorithms upon first considering the query. Are Flagan> What the Turing Test ultimately proposes for software to pass as intelligent Are Flagan> is that it answers all questions according to the universalized norm of a Are Flagan> normality, There is a concept called nondeterministic turing machine just as finite automata is allowed to act nondeterministcally. a nondeterministic turing machin can produce two different outputs to the same input. Are Flagan> His final act was a poetic revenge on the life's work that ultimately Are Flagan> ostracized and betrayed him. The man who provided important breakthroughs in Are Flagan> the development of modern computing and broke the code that helped the Are Flagan> allies win the war was killed by a paltry logic he could not defeat. Recall Are Flagan> that his interest in the embodiment and preservation of mind in matter that Are Flagan> led to the pioneering work on Turing Machines stemmed from a lost and deeply Are Flagan> mourned companionship with another man. The relations Turing desired in Are Flagan> computing were at their inception directed at one missed individual, rather Are Flagan> than a generalized and disciplined body. They also spoke of a sexual Are Flagan> difference--subtly restated in his choice of sex to determine human Are Flagan> intelligence in the Turing Test--that cautiously countered the machine's Are Flagan> universality. Once such pensive constructs enter the very definitions Are Flagan> garnered here--those of our relations formed with the machine through Are Flagan> hardware and our proof of its intelligent humanity in software--their Are Flagan> universality as modes of knowledge about the life they perpetuate is called Are Flagan> into question. When Turing took a bite of the cyanide-laced apple, he chewed Are Flagan> a chunk of that encounter in the Garden of Eden, which punished curiosity Are Flagan> when it interfered with commands; he tarnished the purity of Snow White and Are Flagan> the gravity of Newton's eureka that found enlightenment through reason. In Are Flagan> computing, there should always be a lingering aftertaste--a protracted Are Flagan> mortality--that recalls the tang of sweet and bitter juices Turing must have Are Flagan> savored as he pondered the fruits of his work, in that final system failure. Are Flagan> [7] do you have any clue to what you are writing interpreting imssinterprating. -- $you = new YOU; honk() if $you->love(perl);