Who is Farhan Lalji?

I’ve been using Firefox for more then 5 years. It’s a phenomenal browser. And it’s gotten better with every version. Five years ago tabbed browsing was a revelation, four years ago I discovered the web developer toolbar, three years ago it was the delicious extension, two years ago the IE tab, and this year the world clock plug-in have made my browsing experience soooo much better, not to mention making more efficient. There are a ton of extensions I use and enjoy using. But nowhere on that list is ad blocking. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the pop-up blocking. Heck I work for a company that makes money from advertising. I understand the importance for publishers to make money from advertising. But if something is harmful to the user experience people will create a work around. I believe that pop-up blocking technology is probably why we see so few pop-ups online today.

So I was really annoyed to come across a site called, whyfirefoxisblocked. Personally, I think ads online should try and add value. They should be targeted and as unobtrusive as possible. If they’re not then users have a right to make their experience better.

I hate to break it to the geniuses who developed whyfirefoxisblocked, but people who have full on ad blocking software on their machines are probably less likely to click on ads anyway! So by blocking these users you’re most likely just hurting usage numbers not bottom lines.

Blocking a browser that MAY be used to block ads is like Petrol/Gas companies blocking the use of electric cars from driving through malls. Eventually the mall loses footfall. And that’s what I believe is going to happen here. Instead of people linking or digging or talking about the content on whatever site, and thereby increasing the total number of users and potential add clickers, users will just avoid the site.

Mumbai

Originally uploaded by farhanlalji

The Tate Modern has a fantastic exhibit right now, called Global Cites. I finally got a chance to go and see it this weekend. If you’re in London and you’re looking for something to do this week/next weekend, I can’t recommend this exhibit enough.

From the Tate’s website:
“Global Cities looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.”

Slightly surreal moment for me when - after I read how Mumbai had 34,000 people per kilometer squared (compared to London which has 4,500 people per kilometer squared), and I used some basic math to deduce that this means about 34 people per m squared in Mumbai - the lady next to me said “there are way too many people at this exhibit”. The density in the exhibit was about 2 people per m squared… maybe.

India celebrations in trafalgar square

Originally uploaded by farhanlalji

On my way home yesterday I passed by trafalgar square and was surprised to see a DJ, this big Indian movie like poster and a ton of people just hanging out, chilling, enjoying the music.

It was part of the Mayor’s Trafalgar Square Festival.

Only in London. Gotta love it.

One thing that annoys me about using facebook is that I have to go into facebook to use it.  I hate the fact that you get emailed when someone sends you a message, and the message isn’t shown in the email.  I hate that the site makes you login to see what peeps are doing and who’s interacting with whom.

So I was surprised and happy to see that facebook had started to use RSS feeds to allow you to manage some of the information from the site (both Fred Wilson and Dave Winer have written about this already).

It will be interesting to see if people build widgets for other applications based on this now.  Similar to how we’re seeing widget’s being built incorporating twitter.

Twice in the last three days I’ve read about how legalising drugs may solve some of the world’s problems.

According to William Buiter, a professor of economics at LSE wrote in a column in the FT on Friday that:

“It surely makes more sense for the government to tax the poppy harvest than for the Taliban to do so.

So legalise, regulate, tax, educate and rehabilitate. Stop a losing war, get the government off our backs, beat the Taliban and deal a blow to al-Qaeda in the process. Not a bad deal!”

And Matthew Engal, a columnist with the FT believes that as bad as the Iraq War, the settler based empire that followed the 1967 war in Israel and global warming all are, none of these have,

“Caused as much death, destruction and misery as the laws that have barred legitimate business from the recreational drugs industry and handed a worldwide monopoly of distribution to the Mafia and its imitators.”

After giving examples involving the US, UK and Afghanistan Engal concludes that:

“It is clear that drugs policy would be infinitely better conducted if governments actually had some influence on the business. Legalisation would enable them to tax the drugs, ensure quality control, cut out the most dangerous strains, help genuine addicts, try to prevent the sale to minors, de-glamorise the habit and, above all, deny the gangs and the terrorists their financial lifeblood. “

That makes a lot of sense to me, but I can’t see any government, party or individual taking the first step to making this a reality.

man_u_teddies

Originally uploaded by farhanlalji

While having lunch today with the wife. These three ladies and their Man United teddy bears joined us. All of a sudden a photo shoot broke out. I resisted the urge to kick one of the teddies into the Thames.

Imperialism, migration, travelling and life have been on my mind a fair bit this past week.

Having watched The Last King of Scotland over the weekend, I revisited the plight of Asians (and Africans) in East Africa during the rule of Idi Amin.  I’ve been fascinated with this period of history for some time now.  As my parents moved from East Africa – Tanzania – to England (my dad) and Canada (my mom), I’ve always felt a connection to East Africa.  In fact as part of my MBA entrance exam I said the three people I would like to invite to my fantasy dinner would be Idi Amin, Pierre Trudeau and my dad.

We also watched Empire’s Children on 4OD this evening, covering the story of Adrian Lester’s travels to Jamaica to trace the steps of his grandfather from St Mary’s to Birmingham.

If that wasn’t enough, the wife is doing an essay for her masters on post colonialism and science fiction.

All of these things make me wonder about our own future travels.  Moving from Canada to England was a bit fluky.  But the future is in our hands now, where do we go from here?  Where is our future?  Is it in England, Canada, the US wherever, or try and make our future by stepping into our past.  Taking a risk and moving to East Africa or even India at some point.  It would be cool to be able to take my family history full circle, from my great grand parents, to my grand parents, to my parents to me, from India to East Africa to England to Canada, and then from Canada to England to Africa and back to India.

In addition, as the wife pointed out, our parents benefited greatly from life in East Africa.  From access to education and the ability to build businesses, our situation would be much different had our ancestors chosen to stay in India.  So it would be pretty cool to go back to Africa and give a little back to the continent.

But then so too would staying in London, enjoying four seasons in one day and British TV be cool.  It’s just a different type of cool.

The wife and I often get into a heated debate about how to solve the world’s problems.

One such problem is war and violence.  My take is that things like sport and business play a vital part in progress, and that politicking and government intervention isn’t enough.

I was reminded about this as I read a posting on nba.com that talked about the Seeds of Peace basketball clinic.  The clinic invites kids from Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and America to learn more about the game and play the game together.  By cooperating on the basketball court kids have to learn more about each other and hopefully form a bond.  The theory behind camps like this is that when these kids grow up they’ll take these experiences and be less likely to resort to violence against other cultures.

But waiting for kids to grow up can take time that we don’t really have.  So companies like New Generation Technology can also provide a helping hand to peace through enterprise.  Getting Israeli money to flow into Palestine links the two regions and, hopefully, means that by destroying one another they actually destroy themselves.  I love this idea.  And it seems like Sir Ronald Cohen is catching the invest in peace fever as well.

I totally think there is a place for governments and peace discussions and whatever else Tony Blair et al are trying to do; I just think roadmaps and peace plans work politically but enterprise and sport actually can work socially.