Recently in Pakistan Category

Happy Independence Day - Good things and bad things are always part of everything, but I love my country Pakistan

I came across this. Marvi Memon is one of the brightest young politicians in Pakistan - too bad she supports the dictator - and is in the party of chaudry brothren (PML-Q) - you may then question how I am calling her among the  'brightest' - but still she seems to have a personality that may change things. I've seen her style of talking and I enjoy it - and her background is indeed attractive.

Anyways, this post is not about if i like Marvi or not, it's about she having a blog - which is cool i think, and she asks for the opinions of the readers! I think it would be cool if other members of the parliament can follow suit and have a blog of their own - would prove useful in the end - as the blogosphere in a way connects the members of the parliament to the educated/intellectual lot of the society and as a result we can grow better ;)

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.

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?

Talking about how technology affects human lives, well, here is a great example. I was talking to Munir some time back and suddenly he started giggling as if somebody finally gave him a "chocolate" after 2 years' gap. Once he felt he can settle down and type something else than just 'hahaha' or 'lol' or 'hehehe', he told me that his boss at his previous workplace is getting engaged this Sunday - but the twist? he is in Bahrain - and the rest of the necessary people to be involved are in Pakistan. So, it's going to be a "Remote Mangni" - nice buzz word after "web 2.0". We've been hearing about such stories of "online nikah" and all that - but we find it inconvenient for some reason. But is it really inconvenient? or just unconventional?

I'm sharing (with Munir's permission, of course) this chat transcript between him and his boss:

Boss says:
arranged hae

Munir says:
nice

Munir says:
buhat buhat mubarak ho

Boss says:
yes ..but I am in bahrain

Munir says:
phir?

Boss says:
remote ho gi..mairi taraf say ammi pehnayen geen ring

Munir says:
really

Munir says:
lush

Howz that!? =)

 

I went to the Capri cinema a few days back to see this movie with a fair bit of excitement as this is "Indiana Jones"... BUT I was utterly disappointed, and not just me but everyone around! This time the move makers try to be 'oh so cute' rather than focusing on something that makes sense.

One reviewer on IMDB got it right when he said:

When you come out of the cinema screen, turn around and look at the expressions of the people walking out behind you. I did, and it was a collective 'Has someone just farted?'

I went with Ahmed, Adeel and Hamid, and we had good fun together but we all were dissapointed with the movie.

OK, let's face it: Indiana Jones survives a nuclear blast just by hiding himself inside a fridge! and that fridge was inside the house where the nuclear explosion took place. Everything in that house literally melted of that massive nuclear explosion but here we go, our indi jones is well and alive and the fridge is just fine left after everything just vanished.

Here's another one: The enemies are an army of their own with advanced weaponry in their hands all the time and they're shown having machine guns firing with full flow onto the indi jones and crew, yet none of the indi jones members are hit by even a single bullet.. i'm pretty much sure those enemies weren't blind.. and they were soldiers so shouldn't miss a shot from 6 to 8 feet distance.

Now this one: In the end, out of no where does this UFO come into place and flies away.. i kinda laughed a lot at it.

There are so many other moments during the movie that you just literally get shocked to see: surviving three consecutive deadly waterfall jumps and landing safe in a boat in two of them and just safely in the water in the third (and most disasterous) one. That was so lame honestly.

well, i was so wrong when i felt that ppl like Lucas and Spielberg can't make stupid things.. actually they're humans and they just proved that! I'd still give it a 3 out of 10 for some eye candy/stunts and some funny moments...

Well, We just got done with our projects submission and exhibition on the 29th of May. I got 2nd prize for the computer graphics project I did. It's not too cool if an art student looks at it but for a computer science department, it was good enough to get 2nd prize. The group that came 1st did some software for Network Programming. I was just 0.75 marks behind the group who came 1st but well, whatever happens, it happens for good I guess.

I had to do all of it in a hurry, I had so many plans for this animation, but all went in vain as I just ignored those plans in order to get the animation done in time along with other course projects such as Network Programming and IS Audit (I hate you). But again, everybody has their bit of stories and reasons for most things all the time.

 

Here is the link for downloading the animation (size is 5.5 MB):

http://www.thesocialgeek.com/Kamran_CG_Project.zip 

Make sure you see the animation with your speakers turned on, otherwise it's no fun.

* also, the animation might show up too dark on some monitors. So please adjust the brightness accordingly.