… of Witness Times, until further notice. Thank you for touring along.
All I request of you, is to not ask why.
Peace. Om.
UPDATE 15.01.2010
Aaaaand Witness Times is back in business. For very many reasons, but the most powerful being -
Love required in Haiti. Now.
Humanity’s stupidity is quite overwhelming. I need a break.
I said to a soul-sharer “I’ll restart Witness Times only if something powerful happens, which makes me review my decision.”, and that soul replied “Something powerful has happened. I’m asking you to.”.
I’m sure that I’ll require lessons in humility, in future. I’ll have to force humility upon myself from time to time by feeling what kind of a person I was earlier.
Random deviation
If I was asked, like they do in talk shows and sleazy radio programmes “If you were Prime Minister… blah blah blah” “If you were allowed 3 wishes, blah blah”, what would I like to scream out if I was allowed one generalisation (in spite of my being against generalisations), I would love to scream out “Ammmerrricaaaaaaaa! You suck to the core!”
(read the inspiration for this wish on my later post “Stupid of the world unite“)
The butterfly whispered to the flower with her legs. Her wings created tremulous loops of wind around her. The sunlight fell on her radiant, nuanced wings. The gradients glowed with infinite power and energy. She could see the clouds part, the sun shine. Each time her wing clapped, the transient shadow fell lightly across the bright yellow petal. (a dew glistened, proudly reflecting the beautiful world around him, hanging lightly on the edge, quite close to his final seconds)
She felt the sun shine, the wind blow, the dew drop happy, the flower, ready, the world smiling, the universe loving.
She looked around. She waved her magic wands in the air. She waved a salute with her right front leg. She glanced, saw, and loved the world. She thought. Should she keep, or should she move on? The world is beautiful, but light awaits.
She made her choice. Lightly sighing, she settled deeper into the cozy flower. She bent her feet, closed her eyes, and in silent affection, hugged and loved the yellowness. She smiled. Her legs relaxed. Her face, her antennae, her wings… She kissed the flower..
In one fluid motion, she pushed away, eyes still closed, love reflecting in them through its blindness, the smile still on her face, heaving, effortlessly, into love, into light, into life.
She sighed into the air. The wind caught her. And world hugged her. The universe loved her. And on her way, she went.
A few years back, I began contemplating on the effect Internet could really have on the global population, if it was completely made available in local languages… Having a website in a language was one thing. But for a person speaking a language which follows a non-Latin text, the experience would either be absent, or quite unempowering. Because you needed the Latin script to do a lot of things, one of the main ones being typing in the URL of the web page.
There existed a space for inclusion. Inclusion of millions of people into the information revelation boom powered by the internet. And all that was required to harvest this space was an empowering experience – the expanding of domain name ranges to other languages and scripts. In simpler language, the possibility to type in a web page URL in a non-Latin-script language.
And today, I read via TechCrunch that ICANN (an international non-profit society which regulates the Internet) has decided to move ahead with Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), or domain names in different languages. *applause required here, and I contribute a standing ovation*
ICANN announced this on the last day of their conference in Seoul.
ICANN says that this is the most important decision by them, after eleven years of its inception. ICANN lauds this decision as biggest technical change to the Internet, in its forty years of existence.
This decision will now enable websites to have domain names in different languages. Thats an hundred thousand characters to chose from! As opposed to the existing 37 (A-Z, 0-9 and the hyphen). ICANN is introducing a fast track process to invite nations to apply for domain name extensions in their local language scripts. The first entries to the system would be introduced by mid-2010, said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN president, speaking to the media. How it will be played out, will be an interesting watch. Will domain names be bound to use one single language (Hindi, or Arabic, or English) or can it be a mix of two or more? We will have to wait and see…
The technology behind the different scripts being used will be a translation system, which converts the different languages into the right address. I’m not quite sure of what they mean by that, but I guess we’ll wait and see… But it is indeed, a lot of work. Reviewing each language application, researching into the language, building a translation system, and introducing the language, would be quite a task! I am now wondering how the applications will be processed, and if applications could get rejected…
But, this means a tremendous opening up of the internet… The web will now reach out to millions of people (estimated half the world’s population) who were earlier handicapped by the lack of local language domain names. With powerful translating tools, most of the information openly accessibly on the internet today can be accessed by any literate person now (literate in any language, that is).
What I did not know, then, and till today, is that ICANN has been working on it for the past nine years. Along with many others. And it was an idea from 1996… Long before I had even heard of computers… But I take a moment of silence to appreciate this huge move, and its possible tremendous impacts on our world.
I can imagine the impact this would have on my country. With over 3000 different languages, most of them not following the Latin script*, and most people not literate in English, the opportunity to use the local language to open a website is… quite something… And beautifully empowering.
Watch this video by ICANN, regarding the announcement… Its beautiful… Take my word for it!
* – I did not know that there were certain Indian languages which used the Latin script! Thanks M for the info! He says that certain Indian languages, like Konkani, Mizo, and a few Naga dialects, do use the Latin script.
I was excited. I was at it for almost an hour now. I’m glad that my parents are in the other room. I wouldn’t want them to know that I was online for almost an hour! Dial up is so expensive! I hope it won’t show too much on the phone bill..
But its ok… Right now, its this moment that matters. This moment. I might be caught in lust, momentary infatuations.. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing it. But never mind, I can’t stop… Anyway I had done so much.. Why not do a little more and reach the.. end.. or the beginning..
I was excited. Every time the 56k connection lagged, I sighed, I prayed deeply to all Gods introduced to me by people around me. I was so close… so close..
And yesss! I was there! Wow! Amazing! For the first time… wow.. This is what I had always wanted to do.
I was excited. I called my best friend and comrade-in-action…
I was 11 years old.
I remember that time, when I was so excited. When I had made my first public online presence. With a huge URL which no one would know, or remember. Something like http://www.geocities.yahoo.com/geocities/users/….. And I had some ridiculous id, which I, then, thought was cool. Something like bwmo….. or something. But all that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was there, up there, on that huge being which I thought was so cool, which I wanted to get to know better, and conquer, which had become my latest companion, and my best friend in a world where I had none.
And it had all started with this service called Yahoo! GeoCities.
It has been a run since then. For almost half a year, racing with my friend to make the better website. Adding bouncing hippos, and falling snow, mouse overs, and colourful text.. It didn’t matter that no one knew about our ‘websites’. Did not matter that no one, but we ourselves, used or visited those ’sites’. After two or three GeoCities websites, we moved on to other hosting firms, using software to make websites, as opposed to the web application, learning code, designing, making better websites, programming, making concept ideas for websites, designing and working on them, blogging..
But it all started with Yahoo! GeoCities. And I remember.
And my remembrance will it all be. Goodbye GeoCities. And thank you. For making my world for those many years. For making me live.
I wish, I wish, that there was more love in this world. Because, love then gives birth to respect. And respect to humanity, and more love.
But what is respect? Or Respect?
Is it spending a moment of silence because of the death of someone close? Or is it being silent for a moment, or more, because you have nothing to say or speak or sound? Is it restraining yourself from blogging because a friend passed away? Or is it you had nothing to write, because a friend passed away?
Is it calling your father by a respectful name because you are expected and used to doing so? Or is it putting in your entire heart and body and soul and love into calling that name, because it means so much?
Is it fearing the powers of nature? Or is it loving Her, and being humble, before Her who is so humble?
Is it being humble? Or is it humbled?
Is it setting aside something you so wanted to do for somebody else.. Or is it not feeling like doing something you so wanted to do, for somebody else?
More questions that I put before you, my Love.
And while you’re at it, please also try to explain through life, what is love? Is it like artificial intelligence where the program is programmed to behave in every possible imaginable event is termed as intelligence itself? Or is it like intelligence, that which is unexplained and infinite?
Start here..
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