Thinnest Notebook

I went to Kyoto, Japan in 2005 for the APRICOT conference. Had to visit one of the electronics shops in Osaka. I was shocked to see this notebook by Sony. Its soo thin and light I felt like I was holding a thin book.

I think notebooks should be always like this. Unfortunately, due to cost minimization, they are not. Maybe one day, we all will be using thin notebooks like this. I mean it would be affordable for all of us. Just hang in there for those days to come. :) 

Golden Pillow Chicken!

Ok, this right here is called Golden Pillow Chicken. This is another invention of these innovative chinese people. Nice curry chicken wrapped with soft bread. The chicken is cooked earlier and put in a cooking paper and then I guess they wrapp the chicken with dough and bake the whole thing. The bread is tender and sweet. Not too sweet though. Just right to go with the curry.

The chicken curry has a distictive taste in it. I could not compare it with the traditional chicken curry that are sold in the South Indian restaurants around Singapore. I kinda don't like South Indian cooking, I prefer the north indian ones. Anyways, so this golden pillow chicken has a nicer taste. And, you don't get bored dipping the bread into the curry gravy and eating. I must admit, to cook both the bread and the chicken to this optimum level there must have been a lot of experiment while this was invented. But, kudos to those who came up with the idea.

Best part is, this Golden Pillow Chicken can be ordered to home delivered.
Price is also cheap for the amount. With this one, 4 person can easily call it a lunch. But, for dinner I think it will be a little short for 4 person. But, if you have the "gluttony" for food like me, you yourself can call it your own treat. :)


You can order this at the Golden Pillow website.

Square Watermelon

All my life I knew that watermelons are round. Now, when I saw this squre ones for the first time, I was kinda amused. The first thing that cme in my mind was, "hmmm.. now thats what you call making a difference..." Square Waltermelon. Now who would have thought about it. Definitely Japanese! Yes Japanese it is.

So, these Japanse watermelons are imported all the way from Japan. That is why they are so expensive. I mean 50 singapore dollars (around USD 31) a piece! That's ridiculous. Square or octagonal. I am not paying that much for a watermelon! Would you? (Unless of course, if you earn millions a month...)
 

The True Gentleman

The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe. --John Walter Wayland

Now, thats too much to ask for. :p

Airbus A380

Airbus A380 has successfully completed her first take off. Here is a picture of that:




But, I am more interested about the First Class:

Emirates First Class

Do you know anyone who has had the privilege to fly by Emirates First Class?

I will add this luxury to the "100 things I want to do before I die" (rey's words). :)

Why? They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Here you go:

Google Serach History

Google has come up with a new tool. Google Serach History.

I just used it. I like what I see. But, its a bit inconvinient to go to the search history page and login and add my searches everytime I want to search. Sure, I can always keep the google window open. Maybe that was their main intention. So that users are on the google pages more.

Lets see how this Google(R) LabRat (TM) works out.

Now they are looking upward instead of downward.

On Paul Van Riper's first tour in Southeast Asia, when he was out in the bush, serving as an advisor to the South Vietnamese, he would often hear gunfire in the distance. He was then a young lieutenant new to combat, and his first thought was always to get on the radio and ask the troops in the field what was happening. After several weeks of this, however, he realized that the people he was calling on the radio had no more idea than he did about what the gunfire meant. It was just gunfire. It was the begining of something - but what that something was, was not yet clear. So Van Riper stopped asking. On his second tour of Vietnam, whenever he heard gunfire, he would wait. "I would look at my watch," Van Riper says, "and the reason I looked was that I wasn't going to do a thing for five minutes. If they needed help, they were going to holler. And after five minutes, if things had settled down, I still wouldn't do anything. You've got to let people work out the situation and work out what's happening. The danger in calling is that they'll tell you anything to get you off their backs, and if you act on that and take it at face value, you could make a mistake. Plus you are diverting them. Now they are looking upward instead of downward. You're preventing them from resolving the situation."

-- page 117 (3. The Perils of Introspection), Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

The reason I painstakingly typed out this excerpt from this book (Blink) that I am reading now is that it reminded me of someone I see everyday. Yes, those who are my colleagues, they will immediately know who is it. :) I wish the person that I am refering to reads this and understands the meaning of "Now they are looking upward instead of downward.".



(The above excerpt and the book Blink is copyrighted by Malcom Gladwell. My intention of publishing this excerpt here is entirely non-commercial.)

 
Hmmm... Interesting! That's what my reaction was when I got to know that if I had an "active" blogger then I would get a Gmail account. My last post was on October. Maybe that does not make me an active blogger. I see no nvitation on my blogger page for Gmail. Its is a nice way of making people use Google's other services.
 
Anyways, I like both Blogger and Gmail. I love Google. Google rocks. :)

"Imagine, for example, a substance with 100 times the strength of steel, yet only 1/6 the weight; materials that instantly heal themselves when punctured; surfaces that can "feel" the forces pressing on them; wires and electronics as tiny as molecules; structural materials that also generate and store electricity; and liquids that can instantly switch to solid and back again at will. All of these materials exist today ... and more are on the way." -- Nasa website published this on 16th Sep 2002 (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/16sep_rightstuff.htm)

Wondering how little we know. :) Yes, thats fascinating, isnt it?

Take a look at the world's fastest Supercomputer's statistics here.

This is not a single computer. Instead, its a "super cluster". But, unlike other clustered computers, this one has "two independent 1 Tbyte disk systems". :)

Take a look at the full article: http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/q11998/articles/art_1.htm

Oh, almost forgot, the Super Computer takes a space of 1,600 square feet. :)

How numbers can be amaziing:

1. Date of attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
2. Place of attack 1: WTC Building = 11 letters
3. City of attack: New York City = 11 letters
4. Place of attack 2: The Pentagon = 11 letters
5. Who attacked: Afganistan = 11 letters
6. The first plane that hit: Flight number 11
7. Number of people in Flight 11: 92 - 9 + 2 = 11
8. Sept. 11 is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
9. 2nd city of attack: Washington DC = 11 letters
10. 119 is Iraq's internal area code: 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
11. The twin tower looks like 11.

Now, this everyone has seen a lot of times. But, here is a weird one by me, see if you can anticipate:

The number 11 has two digits, 1 and 1. These two digits are the vital numbers of Fibonacci Numbers. We all know how powerfull Fibonacci Numbers are. Nature can be difined in a weird way with this Fibonacci Numbers. Check: http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html.

You can call it a "Organised Chaos". That's exactly what nature is.

Now, if I say that you can start with this September 11 incident and daw an entire spiral of history to get the reason why this has happened, then would you believe me? If I say, this can very well be proven with maths, with Fibinacci Numbers, then would you believe me?

Isnt it funny how life changes before your eyes, what you think you know or whom you seem to know all of a sudden is totally new to you.... I guess you can call it a phase or whatever but sometimes I wish we would be the same and never change but then I guess our lives would be monotonous...But always a question rises up before us and thats a BIG FAT..... WHY?????? WHY THIS? WHY THAT? WHY COULDNT? WHY SHOUDLNT?and blah blah...

I hope that maybe one day we could come up with the answer to all thoses WHY's so that life wouldnt be so GOD damn complicated all the time.... what you say ;)....

Today the personal trainer at my gym calculated the FAT in my body. And, I was shocked to know the statistics. I have 32% FAT in my body. And, that comes upto 26.5 kgs of FAT!!! I am so busted.

Gotta workout hard. Its the result of sitting down on my butt for the past 4 years.

I remember, I used to run in the morning or do some sort of excercise or even cycle rugularly. All stopped. I dunno why, but stopped.

Maybe its time the old Zia comes back....

Have you ever been flooded with selfless love towards you from your friends and family? Have you?

I realised something today. If love comes knocking your door, please don't neglect and throw it away. Its rare to have people's love coming to you uninvited.

I am talking about small and simple caring from your friends and families. Sometimes we are so preoccupied with life and work that we hardly can notice what we are missing.

What is it about to keep on breathing in this mysterious world? What is the goal for each and every human being? Is it just to earn enough money so that you can buy luxury and enjoy(??) life? Is it because you are just doing things 'cause you have been told to? What is it all about? I know, I know... you probably will come up with lotsa theory, like the way everyone sees life is relative and it depends on each and everyone's views... blah blah blah... But, hey if I ask you to give me an answer that satisfies everyone, would you be able to come up with that answer? Probably not. Neither can I.

That's why this little question to all of you from me: "what is it about that we are breathing and living here for?"

I know I ask stupid questions. But, they are questions. I ask questions that I can't find answers to.

I thought I would answrr this question with "love". But, later realised that love vanishes from a hungry human being's eyes... There are thousands and thousands of people in this world who doesn't get to eat properly, they surely don't have that part of their brain working which make us afford to think about love. These people goes to sleep thinking what he/she is going to do to get some food for the next day. And, by the time they get the food and feed their children and themselves, they are too tired to think of love. But, yet when they are not hungry, do they think of love? I don't know. Do you?

Sometimes, I think, sitting here thinking about all these makes me one those who really isn't doing anything about it. I know there are people who are on their foot to do something about it. I am surely inferior to them. I acknowledge that boldly. I am just guy who is too afraid to come out my cosy shell and face the world, I am too scared to take the risk of loosing everything in exchange of others happiness. Yet, I am here rambling about it. That makes me a perfect useless piece-o-sh$t.

Thumbs up to those who were able to come out of their shell to help others.

I was just listening to a song which opened my mind. Yes. It did open my mind completely.

I don't know how, but my views were getting polluted by some filthy ideology. If I didn't listen to this song then I would be choosing the wrong way in my life and I would be making a BIG mistake in my life.

Thank you God (if you exist). I will follow what just came to me all of a sudden and opened my mind wide open.

Lately, I was just wondering that how much does it take to prepare for a perfect "life" that does not suck.

As always, I am ambitious. But, sometimes I just get frustrated thinking how others achieve it How they start toward the journey? How do they prepare themselves? Is there a secret recipe for it?

I don't know. Anybody knows.

If you have successfull "Life", then how did you get there?

"here's my 10 cents my 2 cents is free
A nuisance, who sent, you sent for me?"

Yeah, thats like it. From now on "my 2 cents" will evolve into "my 10 cents". 'Cause, "my 2 cents" always goes free now a days.

Stupid me!!! Always fall for the most common traps that people prepare for me. I thought I was wanted, I thought I was welcomed cause they really meant it. But, as usual its not that. "Selfish reason" is always a factor if someone calls you and invites you.

Maybe, I am paranoid. But, if you get to realise that people want something from you and thats the reason they are welcoming you then what do you do? Do you just be honest and slap the truth on their face or you tactically prove it to him/her that "it aint't right to use people"? You don't have to give me an answer.

But, think about it. How many of your friends are real friends? How many of your real friends are doing something for you thinking of nothing in return? I mean the thought of getting something in return did not even cross their mind when they want you around. I find a few, in fact I can't count after 2/3.

Maybe I was expecting from the wrong kinda friends. Or, maybe I am unlucky to get aquinted with these kinda friends. Maybe, I don't see the bright side of it. Maybe, I am too passimistic to judge the good side of it.

Call me anything you like, but I still would prefer those friends who give themselves for you 'cause they feel it in their heart that they are your frineds. If the number of these kinda friend is "One", I don't mind living my whole life having this one friend only.

If you have been given two options below, which one would you choose:

1. Nice work environment, mediocre room and lotsa normal technology but less challenges. At one point the job gets a bit boring. Boss hardly understands what you are talking about. But, you can have your own world ruled out by yourself. Have a flexibility in your working style. You are the boss in your department cause there is no one else to compete. The pay is mediocre.

2. Not so nice work environment, no room to yourself. But, lots and lots of new technology coming to you to play. The job has full of challenges and surprises. You got a competitor. Boss is also technical. At least he understands when you say "there was a tcp timeout". You have all the oppurtunities to play with whetever you like. I.E., you rule out your own projects, sometimes some projects are assigned to you which are not so difficult for you to do. Sometimes, there are challenges that runs the butterflies in your stomach and your heart pounds of excitment. The pay is mediocre.

"You have to take the world as you face it, you cannot have the world as you wish it" - this epigram should be written in BIG letters and pasted on my wall. Even then, maybe, I won't have the sanity in me.

(The epigram is by CEO of GE. Not sure, whether its his own or not, but heard it in his interview)

"Superficial Congeniality" - is the notion of having "false kindness" toward a loosing company. This means, if a company is loosing and the owners say "ehhh lets keep it" - thats where "superficial congeniality" comes in. Instead of keeping a loosing company, its better to merge it or to abundone it and use whatever capital to start fresh.

These words that I wrote here just came in my head after listening to the CEO of GE. Its amazing how intelligent these guys are. There's so much to learn from them.

I don't know whether its good or bad, but sometimes I do let my emotions and imaginations take over my brains. Maybe, because I am almost 99.99% of my time using my brain. Brain is a really complicated area of science. I get amazed by its capabilities, variations and mostly the way it works. Science still could not figure out completely how this small 'body part' of human being work.

If anybody is wondering by now, how does this brain do all these things in all these different ways, and wondering how does the mechanism work, then you can visit: http://www.vh.org/adult/provider/anatomy/BrainAnatomy/Ch1Text/Section02.html. <== if you have a soft heart (well, less tolerability) on visual images of anatomical human body, then please don't go there.

I have always had this huge interest on human brain, how it really works and all. I vaguely know its all eletromegnatic pulses. In simple english, electromagnetic pulses roaming through neuron cells in the brain causes us to do what we do. So simple, yet so hard to understand and believe. But, amazingly these electromagnetic pulses cannot work solo, they have to work in a team to do something sensible. So, the concept of "neuron union" can be implied here. If you are really keen to know, go here to get an overview: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Social/Original/s00001d.html and http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Social/Original/s00012d.html.

While I was talking to my buddy Saif today, he made me realise something. Something that I would never really want to think about. That, "I am old". I am getting old. I am almost there to say "sayonara". While it seemed to me that he is just trying to ignite a good start for himself, I felt like I have already been there, done those. Back when I was in the university with him, when he was busy discovering the "wonders" of life, I was then thinking about how to become like those who zooooms on the road with their cars. Not that my father didn't have any car, or I was living a poor life, but, I had this "anger", this "passion" in me of doing something, of being someone, for owning something by myself... Maybe, I pushed myself toward the edge too much, and I never cared what was happening around me, because, I had to just reach there. But, now at this point of my life, I realise, I didn't do anything wrong, that was what I supposed to do. Maybe, I could have taken the easiest possible way that came to me and get there the easiest and quickest possible way. I didn't take those path (not that those path never came to me). I chose the hard path. I am in that path now. Maybe, in about 10 years of time, it might seem that I haven't achieved anything and proven useless. But, thats not what it would look like. As it says, everything is relative.

Now sitting here, looking at this small screen of my latptop (which is kinda cute), feeling the cool air all around me, in this fine apartment (fine enough for me) with all these latest gadgets around me, with all the surrounding people who respects me when they talk to me and seeing myself standing at a land that does not belong to my forefather I can say that "I achieved it". 'Cause, in this path of achievement I never accepted a single gesture of help from anyone. Yes, I am gratefull to my parents. If you compare that gratefullness against the responsibilities of every parents' toward their children, then I should call myself lucky. If they were not there, I wouldn't be here. But, thats my parents. They cannot be compared with "ANYONE". I think by now, you know what I am talking about. So I will call it a night and say the ultimate epigram that I am going to digitally engrave here:

I HAVE ACCOMPLISHED IT ALL WITH MY SKILLS AND ONLY MY SKILLS. HAVE YOU? ANALYSE THAT.

(Did that sound too vain, or I am just angry with those who gets it easily and pretends nothing happened?)

Yeah I agree... Life is like music... Sometimes its sad, sometimes happy, sometimes moody, sometimes indifferent (just a song), sometimes it doesn't make any sense at all (for me "livina la loca" - I have no idea what heck is he singing about).

How amazing it is when just a few notes of music can sooth your mind..I love music... you give me music 24 hrs a day and i am the most happiest person around..I believe that what ever kind of mood you're in theres a music for it.. i guess life is like that too we all follow a pattern of music..dont you think so to ? ;)

Hmmmm.. Just now installed MovableType. Blogger rocks. The only thing is for Blogger I have no control over the editing interface. In MT, I have. I will start with MT slowly. Decided to create a dumping place for whatever interesting I come accross. Lets see where it goes. Will be doing some customization in MT if I see my mood is permitting me. Did I just say "permitting me"? Oh god, does that mean I allow my mood to rule my actions. Damnnnn... I am doomed.... Oh well, then let it be... BTW, my MT is at: http://movable.mzrahman.com

Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza and pizza.... :) How many PIZZAs make a happy man?

Quote of the moment from me:

He/she who has lost the drive to want more or get more from life, has lost the "life" in him/her. ;)

Quote of the day by ME!!

He who is not grateful & Happy for the good things he has, would not be happy with what he wishes he had......... SO TRUE ;)

Vanity... is it really alarming or inspiring?

Sometimes I just amaze myself with what I can do with colors.... hehehe... am I blowing my own trumpet.. Maybe. But, I like what I can do with colors. I just desinged a theme for the new Horde/IMP webmail interface. My favourite color is lavender. So, I worked on lavender. There are some limitations on what I can do with the interface. The limitations are actually the reasons whether the Horde Authors will accept the theme or not. What I mean is, I could do many things and completely change the look of the webmail, but that would violate the standard to follow while desinging the theme. Anyways, the snapshot of the theme can be found here: http://mzrahman.com/snaps/lavender-snapshot.jpg

Oh man... Some people are always lucky... Everyday, I learn something new about people... the people around me, they teach me so much. Today, I got to learn that no matter how much we sulk, no matter how much we scream saying "nottttt fairrrrrr", no matter how much we become extremist because life was always unfair to us, there are some people who are living a life of easy-go-lucky man. But, the question is why don't they feel the same way we feel? Why don't they get to realise that the reason they are lucky because their parents have worked hard? Maybe, they do realise. And, even after realising that they just pretend not to realise it. Who wants to leave that "Free T-shirt" deal when they are getting it easily? :)

I was trying to create a public wishlist for me :), but unfortunately it seems like that the Genie is stopping me to publish my wishes in public. Hehehe... Actually, I just finished configuring the new Horde Frame Work, where I found that the fabulous Horde developers have kindly added a new module called Wishlist (Genie). I was trying to make it public, but was getting some unusual errors. Also, marked one small bug in the process. I think I will report the bug. Just yesterday, I submitted one bug to Horde on their Comic module with a quickly written patch. But, Chuck (main author of Horde) did not accept it :(. Hehehe... actually, I realised later that I was in a hurry to write the patch (or maybe was wicked to get a '15 mins fame') so I didn't bother to check our the whole Driver and write the code by following the Horde Coding Standard. Anyways, this time I am not even trying to write a patch. I will just report the bug. Or, on the other hand.... ehhhh... I might dig into the code a bit. Its fun to see how the Gurus of PHP are coding. :)

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks. Sooo true...:)

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat & drink beer all day. <--- hahahahah.... oh man... this guy is gooodd....

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. <-- definitely a good one. ;)

To err is human.. to blame your computer for your mistake is even more human; in fact it is downright natural. Hahahaha... how true...

These are simply good (given by Sanjay):

1) Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

2) Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

3) Coca-Cola was originally green.

4) It is impossible to lick your elbow.

5) 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

6) If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you
would find the letter "A"? (just try to find out what is the number)

I enjoyed.... :)

Just got to know a shocking fact: "Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined." Damnnnn.. wish my monthly salary was near his daily, maybe hourly income..... I also found out searching that "Nike paying workers in countries such as Malaysia $1.60 a day for making shoes, while selling the newest Air Jordan's for $150 a pair"... so that just adds it..... Boy we are still in the same age of slavery... just sophisticated slave....:)