Karim R. Lakhani’s Infrequent Musings

I am very pleased to announce that the fine folks at MIT Press (Bob Prior rocks as an editor!) have now made a “free” version of my coedited volume Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software available online. All the articles are now available for download as PDF. Enjoy. This “best selling” book will be out in paperback as of March 2007. In the meantime I encourage you to buy a copy for yourself and one for everyone of your dear and close friends and relatives

On September 30 2005 I defended (and passed) my doctoral dissertation oral exams. It is such a great feeling to be done with much of the formal parts of my “higher” education. At the same time I have a feeling that this is just the beginning…..

Aga Shahid Ali’s wonderfull book of poetry Rooms Are Never Finished provides an apt title to my post and captures my view that scholarship is a journey.

See you here soon…

At long last! A book I have been co-editing on open source has come out:

All of you need to buy a few copies for your selves, your families and your friends! Oh yeah don’t forget your co-workers!

Ok now back to my vow of silence as I try to slay the beasts of dissertatia!

Finally some brave Muslims are taking a stand against patriarchy in religous service. For the first time in a really long while - a woman will lead the traditional friday (Jummah) services. Also women and men will be in the same prayer hall - praying together side by side. In traditional Muslim circles this is near hersey. Seems strange to me as Ismaili Muslims have always (at least since I have been alive) had both practices. Its strange for me to go to a Sunni Mosque and not see women praying with men.

I fully support the efforts of these brave souls and wish them well in their efforts for reform.

To my dearest Petal,

My love for you as strong as it was the first time I saw you.
You are the amazing grace in my life.
I love you.

Usually I am swamped with loose change. Shaheen and I have g0tten into the habit of just dumping them in containers and then going to one of those automated machines that convert coins to cash for a hefty 7.5% fee. Typically we go to the local Coinstar machine at Shaws Market and get back something like $30-50. However - I just read in BoingBoing that Coinstar can convert the change into a direct donation to a charity of your choice including American Red Cross and the UNICEF fund for America. So by now we have one whole cannister of baby formula and five coffee cups filled with loose change. Don’t know how much it is - but I think we will donate to UNICEF. You might consider doing the same.

I still have not gotten over this disaster yet….

Heard with much sadness the devestation from the December 26th, 2004 Sumatra 9.0 eartquake and the resulting Tsunmai. Thoughts and prayers are with all of those suffering. This picture captures my grief.

Well its nice to have artistic friends. Sinan was kind enough to send us these two interpretations of our baby. I can’t wait for his remix CD!

In case you were wondering Sitarah means “Star” and Noor means “Divine Light”

Here is what the consensus estimate for Sitarah Noor looks like:

Average based on 21 friends and family: 23 March 2004 - 7.75 Pounds
(more…)

ETA is in19 days - but mom-to-be is feeling cramps already!

We are eagerly awaiting her arrival. As they said in our pre-natal classes: ” I look forward to MEETING the baby>”

Picture taken at 32 weeks thanks to GE Medical’s 4D ultrasound technology

You go girl!.

Show those Mullahs who is the real Boss

Who is this mystrey man? The Net wants to know - NOW

Well the ultrasound looked really good. And she. Yes she! was quite fiesty. We expect Sitara to arrive sometime in late March. WooooHooooo!

Woohoo! I too have now joined the Blogerati in the 21st Century. Many thanks to Ben Hyde for setting me up with MT and most importantly server space. Its nice to have someone from the The Apache Group be your chum and digital guide. Well now I have to think about “smart” things to say to the rest of the world.