Author: Brian Carnell

Conversant Released

Macrobyte Resources has formally released Conversant. I have been using Conversant to manage my web sites for two years now (through a hosted solution with Macrobyte) and the software is nothing short of phenomenal. Why?

1. Seamless integration with the web browsing, e-mail, and news clients.

With Conversant, all interaction with my site can be done through the web browser, but I can also use my e-mail client and my newsreader to read and post to the web site. This site, for example, is also an e-mail list — everything posted to the web site is mirrored on the e-mail list and vice-versa. Same thing with NNTP readers.

2. Powerful data manipulation tools.

Every post to a Conversant site is stored in a database, which is not uncommon, but the sorts of tools that Conversant offers to manipulate that data are uncommon. Conversant’s tools to categorize and organize information are powerful and easy to use so even a non-programmer like myself can use. For example, setting up this page that collects my various musings about computer storage, is a cinch. If you want to see how these features can really be exploited, see my Animal Rights FAQ which seamlessly categorizes and sorts over a thousand articles into a few hundred topical pages.

3. Conditional logic tools for customizing web site appearance.

Conversant includes a powerful conditional macro system that makes it possible to offer very different versions of a site based on a number of criteria.

For example, I use a conditional macro that shows a very different version of this site to search engines than human visitors receive. Users can be assigned to groups, with different groups shown or not shown features.

Conditional macros also be used to show different features depending on what type of pages is being served up. For example, I show different information on articles pages than I do on FAQ pages. Using conditional macros makes this simple to set up in templates.

For example, this is why you’ll see a Related Topics box on my PETA page, but not on the Voices for Animals page.

4. Summary

The main problem I was trying to solve two years ago was this: I had thousands of articles on a static web site that I wanted to be able to categorize and present logically on topical pages. As you can tell from my Animal Rights FAQ, Conversant more than delivered on that count.

But I also quickly learned that Conversant had the tools to a) shorten the amount of time I spent managing my web site vs. writing for it, while b) expanding the sort of things I could do and what I could offer to visitors.

Conversant has been a real life saver.

New York Times on Pakistan’s Application of Islamic Law

A few weeks ago I wrote about Zafran Bibi who was convicted of adultery by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death by stoning. The New York Times‘ Seth Mydans recently wrote an in-depth look at Zafran’s fate as well as the status of the sharia law in Pakistan.

Zafran claims that while her husband was serving a jail term for murder, her brother-in-law repeatedly raped her, eventually resulting in a pregnancy. When Zafran reported the rape, she was charged with adultery. All charges against her alleged rapist were dropped due to insufficient evidence, whereas Zafran was tried and convicted of adultery.

Mydans offers a relatively thorough look at Pakistan’s hudood laws that resulted in this result. For example, under the 23-year old set of laws, whether or not Zafran was raped is irrelevant to her own adultery charge. Mydans reports that the laws formally ban “all forms of adultery, whether the offense is committed with or without the consent of the parties.”

So a woman who claims she was raped is by definition admitting that she is guilty of adultery, with the lack of consent being a mere side issue.

Under those same hudood laws, however, it is almost impossible for Zafran or any other woman to make a rape charge against a man stick. The law only allows a charge of rape to proceed against a man if four Muslim men testify to having witnessed the rape. Mydans quotes Rukhshanda Naz who heads up a branch of a women’s rights group known as Aurat as saying,

The proof is totally impossible. If a woman brings a charge of rape, she puts herself in grave danger.

Mydans reports that as many as half of women who report rapes are later charged with committing adultery. As a result, few women make rape accusations. In addition, the laws about rape kick in as soon as a woman hits puberty, leading to girls as young as 12 or 13 being imprisoned for reporting being raped.

Earlier this month a Pakistani court ordered a review of Zafran’s case, but even if her death sentence is eventually vacated, she will still likely spend 10 to 15 years in prison according to Naz.

Commentators can try to paper over it all they like, but there is cultural and political chasm between Western liberal democracies and these illiberal Islamic states.

Source:

In Pakistan, Rape Victims Are the ‘Criminals’. Seth Mydans, The New York Times, May 17, 2002.

The Controversy Over Neverwinter Night’s EULA

The beta toolset for Neverwinter Nights was released over the weekend and it looked pretty impressive until a raging debate was started on Slashdot over the phrasing of the toolset’s EULA. Section 4(b) of the license says,

By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available.

Now the first part — that Infogrames and Bioware would have an “irrevocable” right to redistribute publicly available mods is pretty standard in the EULA’s for these sorts games. Which doesn’t mean that they are right. As people on Slashdot noted, this is like someone who makes a compiler asserting a property interest in programs compiled using that software. Or, Microsoft claiming a property interest in documents created with Word (well, give them a few years there).

What is unusual is Infogrames and Bioware’s assertion that they have a right to revoke the ability of an individual to make his or her modules for the game publicly available. People are always going to want to make content and mods that somebody finds objectionable. For these companies to assert this right is a bit like Microsoft asserting that it has the right to force people it disagrees with to stop using Word.

Software tools are obviously used by individuals who most of us find despicable. I was reading a story the other day about white supremacists using commonly available audio compression schemes available from Real, Microsoft and others to distribute their hateful message. Should those companies include clauses that bar people with certain viewpoints from using their software? That would be an enormous mistake.

Part of the problem here with Neverwinter Nights, though, is the additional intersection of copyright and trademark issues, with Bioware and Infogrames probably relying on lawyers concerned that the companies do not dilute their intellectual property through dilution of same over the Internet.

The controversy did have on positive effect — Bioware said that it would have its lawyers reexamine the EULA and respond sometime later this week.

Saudi Arabia Defends Torture

The New York Times reported this weekend that Saudi Arabian delegates were not at all happy when the United Nations Committee Against Torture pointed out that its legal system is in direct violation of the 1987 Convention Against Torture.

Specifically, the United Nations committee pointed out that flogging and the amputation of limbs are outlawed by that treat. Saudi Arabia, of course, continues to actively engage in both of these practices and Saudi Arabian diplomat Turki al-Madi defended his country’s legal system by saying,

This law has existed for 1,400 years. And the committee wants to change it. I’m sorry, you cannot.

Is there any more succinct expression of what separates Western and Arab governments and cultures? It is a shame that a fundamental misunderstanding of oil has led to such a close relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

By the way, the amputations are punishment for theft, whereas flogging is generally applied to those who drink alcohol or commit sexual transgressions (such as adultery or premarital sex).

Source:

Fair Penalties Or Torture? U.N. at Odds With Saudis Elizabeth Olson, New York Times, May 18, 2002.

Famine in Malawi

The African nation of Malawi is headed toward a famine disaster created almost entirely by corruption and mismanagement at the highest level of its government. Malawi, sadly, presents a paradigmatic case of how governments in the developing world all too frequently condemn their citizens to hunger and starvation.

The government of Malawi had warnings and indications as early as August 2001 that there would be enormous shortages of food. Back then the country of 11 million people knew it was short at least 400,000 tons of maize that it would need to feed everyone.

But due to internal politics and corruption, the government refused to declare any sort of aid emergency. In fact, even though it knew of the shortfall it actually sold part of its maize reserves to Kenya.

With its failure to declare an emergency and with it openly selling food to other countries, international aid agencies did not have much of a chance at convincing potential donor nations to give money and food to feed people in Malawi.

In February 2002, with most of the country on the verge of starvation and hunger deaths increasing, Malawi President Bakili Muluzi finally declared a state of national disaster.

But by then it was too late. Although it needs an estimate $21.6 million to avoid widespread deaths from famine, as of May 2002 it had only managed to raise $5 million. The government had apparently been counting on the International Monetary Fund to release $47 million in aid, but the IMF late last week denied the funds, saying that corruption and mismanagement in Malawi would make any aid at this time pointless.

Unfortunately, it appears that Malawi’s extremely poor men, women and children will likely pay the price for their government’s corruption and mismanagement.

Sources:

Malawi declares famine emergency. Raphael Tenthani, The BBC, February 27, 2002.

Hope fades for Malawi aid. The BBC, May 16, 2002.

Malawi bishops deplore famine chaos. Raphael Tenthani, The BBC, March 31, 2002.

Malawi famine set to continue. Raphael Tenthani, The BBC, May 14, 2002.

Researchers Turn Stem Cells Into Lung Cells in Mice

British researchers announced this month that they managed to take stem cells from mice embryos and change them into a type of lung cell — the first time such a transformation has been accomplished.

Researchers at the Imperial College Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Centre took the stem cells from the mice embryos and placed them in a growth factor solution which caused the cells to transform into cells that typically line the lungs. Dr. Anne Bishop, who participated in the research, told the BBC,

This research will make it possible eventually to repair lungs that have been damaged by disease, by implanting fully functioning lung cells to repopulate damaged areas. Also, unlike transplantation from a donor, the cells can be developed in such a way that the body will not reject them.

That sort of procedure is at least a decade off, but this research is an important first step to making such procedures possible.

Source:

‘Growing human lungs’ a step closer. The BBC, May 16, 2002.