Just so refreshing
Part of what I do to seek pleasure is teaching some undergraduate students about the concepts of computer programming. While I try and explain the ideas which are in my mind, and pass them to the young developers out there in front of me, I often feel proud, so proud, that I am able to develop an interest level in them. I feel fascinated by the fact that the student is learning to program not because the student has to, but because the student wants to. That's something very important when you are starting to learn something, and it's always much more fun.
I've seen that the students like to ask questions that may have no logic in your world of things as a teacher - but extracting what they want from their questions and successfully delivering them back is a really rewarding exercise.
And every time I am the teaching assistant of a particular course, I end up finding some students who are really very promising - with great potential within them to lead the rest. I just love the way they approach things - the focus that they have when solving a problem. They're coding as if no one else is watching them, and I love it!
I don't know if it happens just with me, but I've noticed that I can tell by just looking at a person first time how good that person is, in any particular area they may be in. It's the charm of the personality such people have perhaps, that gives me such an impression straight away. Or I'm just lucky at making wild guesses.
It has happened a lot of times with me - that I have a look at a person - or just talk to that person once, and then in my mind I just get a certificate telling me that the person will make it big - will be a distinction or is already a distinction (even if i don't know). And after some time, I get to see that the person who I met has really excelled at all the things I thought s/he would excel at. And it's just so refreshing, and fun.
It's probably one great thing about great people: they won't tell you how great they are, but still you can't help but notice the charisma that they hold.
Thanks to God - it is one of the greatest of gifts to have from God - to be able to meet and know great people.
Falling Stars… Have you ever seen one?
A couple of days back, late in the night, I was on my apartment's rooftop with a friend of mine at about 12:30 AM. While we were talking about different things, I was looking at the stars in the sky and suddenly, I saw a falling star - that zooooom! kind of an effect! it was really cool I must admit, really got me excited for some reason. As soon as I saw it, I yelled at my friend "abey yar, i just saw a falling star!!" and guess what was his immediate reply: "make a wish - quick!" and then we had a laugh at his comment - but I still closed my eyes, looked upwards and made a few wishes - how superstitious of me.
It's the second or third time I've seen a falling star. Have you seen any? And if yes, what was the reaction?
On a positive note, I'm really really busy - yes, being busy is very positive i believe - so pray that I don't have too many lazy breaks during this busy time 
Some Philosophy…
When I say "I don't trust you", I don't mean you're a liar, I just mean you're a human
The Dark Knight is here
OMG OMG OMG I'm crazy to see this movie. I've been a BIG Batman Begins fan - the new batman series and I was expecting the sequel The Dark Knight to be the same as the Begins part BUT seems like it has surpassed all expectations as people are calling it way above the Begins part.
Oh Lord I'm just waiting for my chance to see this movie!!! Pakistan mei to abhi tak shayed kahin nahi lagii 
kisi ko pata ho to bataye!
Woah!
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.
Common Sense Trivia
Me and my elder brother (Ashfaq bhai) were discussing something regarding what is happening and what should be happening around us. In between that, the bro talked about whether the Hajj is an obligation in current times or not. Generally speaking, God tells us that it is much more important to try and prevent human suffering - more so than the prayers that we offer.
My bro gave a really good and simple example, that, if we are going to a Masjid to offer our prayers, and we see a person dying of some major injury or disease, the obligation of prayers is automatically lessened and the obligation of helping that person takes precedence.
Today, there are a lot who are suffering, and still we see many thousands of people go for Hajj, and it takes atleast Rs. 150,000 a person from Pakistan to perform a Hajj. Of course it was Hajj that my brother was talking about, which is a really big thing to talk about. Perhaps we have to consider this thing in each and everything (big or small) that we do in our daily lives, consider if we have a much more important thing to do than whatever we are doing right now? i know, that's not as easy as just writing it here, but maybe I'll just provoke a thought.
So my question to you is, do you think offering the Hajj is more important or helping those who need our help in the current times?
Rasmus Lerdorf on PHP: A note to language purists
Whenever I read Rasmus Lerdorf, I feel amazingly blessed for that particular time of the day. This man is a true gentleman. I would assume you'd be pretty amazed when I call a geek a gentleman but he truly is. Lerdorf's writings are so very different and better from all the other "php experts" in terms of pleasure that one avails when reading.
I, for one, had lately become a language purist complaining why PHP doesn't have a much more organized structure for some of the things. And in this article, Rusmus seems to have read my mind. He answers those questions beautifully and emphasizes that PHP was never meant to be the Goddes of beautiful code structure, it was just a mistress that solved the Web problem.
Here is an extract from article that would make the point clear:
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/php_experts/rasmus_php.html
The interesting thing to note is that he answered this very question of mine about the lack of formalized structure to some of the things in PHP quite a while ago (somewhere in 2004 to be precise). A genius isn't a genius for no reason and mashaAllah Rasmus is definitely one of them. Looking at the amount of stuff he has written, it seems to me that he is not much of a talker, which reminds me of the line I once read in the beautiful PHP Manual: Those who talk don't know and those who know don't talk!