Mobilink's GPS in Pakistan

Mobilink has recently launched MobiTrack which provides GPS services in Pakistan. If you have a GPS enabled cellular phone, you can easily use MobiTrack to find locations and get directions to those locations. I found it very useful as it has the latest data of GPS in Pakistan.

The support is limited to particular handsets only e.g. Blackberry curve 8310 is supported but Blackberry curve 8520 is not supported. You can check for handsets compatibility here. And for more detailed information, you can checkout the Trakker NAV website for MobiTrack.

The GPS services include finding a location, the search is pretty good and it has good coverage of areas at least in Karachi. I tested it to find "China Town", Clifton and it even has the blockade information near Bilawal house. The directions are voice enabled and very accurate. You can also view the maps of different areas of Pakistan and you can search for a location by typing it in search box or locating it on the maps.

I'd like to see other GPS services in Pakistan with latest data, especially during these times during which one cannot find many things which doesn't disappoint us Pakistanis.

Furniture shops in Karachi – Part 2

Almost a year back, I was searching for furniture shops in Karachi to build my kitchen, get furniture for drawing, dining, living and bed rooms. I had a budget and I managed to maintain it with the desired quality. One year down the road and I am satisfied with my choices. Below are my suggestions to help you out, if you have an above-average budget and require good quality, giving you some ideas on furniture shops in Karachi:

• Kitchen
• You have a choice to hire a carpenter to construct cabinets. This will be less costly but requires a lot of your time. But, if the carpenter is good enough, you can control the quality and I found this the most suitable within my budget. You’ll also have to manage polishing. If you like to be very selective in terms of best wood and design, plus other apparels, this is the best option for you.
• Order kitchen from Ashary’s, Clifton (expensive), Interwood, Tuaheed Commercial (expensive), Italian Kitchen, Shaheed-e-Millat (moderate), Habitt (moderate) etc.
• If you go for a carpenter, appliances such as Built-in Oven or normal Oven, hob (stove), hood (chimney) and microwave will be managed by you; plus electrician and plumber for respective sockets.

• Bed room
• Well, you have a lot of choices here. As per my limited knowledge, the best bedroom furniture in Karachi market is available at International (Tipu Sultan) and Victoria (near Abdullah Haroon road). International’s quality and service is excellent. They provide life time support at your doorstep and have a very skilled team. Though furniture is very expensive, but when you see it, you’ll know the worth, especially if you want to own it for over 20 years!
• Wellcome furnishers (near old sabzi mandi) has a lot of variety as well and they also provide good support, but again it’s expensive. You can also have a look at Habitt (Nipa, Tipu Sultan, etc.) which is less expensive and ready-made.
• The furniture market in Nursery, Karachi is the cheapest of all I’ve mentioned

• Drawing room
• Wellcome Furnishers is the best value for this kind of furniture. The price is moderate as compared to the expensive ones and obviously you’d not like to spend a lot on drawing room where you don’t spend your time that much. They have the right variety to satisfy one with a above-average budget. If you have a higher budget, you can visit International and Vicrtoria.
• Kalamkaar (Clifton) is another option, I found their way of showing the catalog great. The price is above-average, but they have good choices. They even hand over a CD to you for your brief reviewSam Abbas (Tuaheed Commercial) is another choice, but I didn’t find a lot of variety there.

• Dining
• Again, Wellcome is the best value in terms of quality and price. Kalamkaar has good choices as well
• Nursery is another option which is less expensive

• Living room
• Nursery. Why? Because I’d like to have my living room furniture replaced after 3-5 years. Habitt is another good choice balancing the price and comfort. But, I’d go for cheaper furniture because living room is very roughly used. Just ensure that you get the right material keeping in mind Karachi gets pretty hot during summers.
• If you like to go for higher value choices, International, Wellcome and KalamKaar might be worth looking.

In addition to this, you will need to buy curtains, manage lighting, doors and other appliances. I’ll be writing on the same in the near future.

Small Tutorial on Torrents

Torrent (or BitTorrent) technology is arguably the best; if you need anything ranging from games to movies to songs, you can download through very easy and simple steps. If you are new to it, here's how easy it is:

• Download a torrent downloader software. I find uTorrent quite easy and feature rich
• Goto a torrent site. I usually access isohunt
• Search for anything you want to download, click on download and it'll open up uTorrent automatically
• Save it to your desired destination path

Just ensure you get the torrent with right language version from the website.

As for uTorrent, it also has features like controlling bandwidth (upload and download both) plus scheduler mode as well, using which you can easily turn it off during various timings, if you require more bandwidth for web browsing or other applications.

Chatroulette

Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website randomly begin an online chat (video, audio and text) with another visitor. At any point, either user may leave the current chat by initiating another random connection.

The Chatroulette website was created by a 17-year-old high school student in Moscow.

The website uses Adobe Flash to display video and access the user's webcam. Flash's peer-to-peer network capabilities (via RTMFP) allow almost all video and audio streams to travel directly between user computers, without using server bandwidth. However, certain combinations of routers will not allow UDP traffic to flow between them, and then it is necessary to fall back to RTMP.

However, one has to be beware of controversial content while accessing the site, as there're multiple possibilities of the same.

Trip to Malaysia

It was June 2009 and I was wondering which place to plan for our honeymoon. I could name a score of people who recommended Malaysia as the ideal place for the trip, especially within the budget.

I started off with visiting the websites hosting the places to visit in Malaysia and finding out the hotel rates. Finally, I was able to create a list of billable items and to define my budget and then finalizing the package with my travel agent. We decided to visit Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi & Genting Highlands, whereas dropped Penang and Borneo from our list.

We set off towards the airport during early August for the flight at 11:59 pm for Malaysian Airlines which travels on Thursdays and Mondays only (Karachi-KL or vice versa). From Karachi to Kuala Lumpur is a 6 hour flight and we had our connecting flight towards Langkawi after a short stay at the KL airport.

Once we reached the KL airport we observed a lot of greenery outside the airport, which reminded me of the greenery which Islamabad has, where greenery just needs a reason to grow. After a short stay, we got onto the 1-hour flight for Langkawi. As soon as we reached above Langkawi we noticed the exciting landscape and the shores.

As soon as we landed, we headed towards the taxi stand and reached our hotel in the Pantai Tengah area. Apart from the sandy beaches in Langkawi, which is a nice relaxing way to spend your time, there are a few places worth visiting:

• Underwater World (Aquarium)
  
• Crocodile Farm (Lots of crocodiles)
  
• Eagle Square (a monument representing Langkawi)
  
• Mangroove Forest (resembling Amazon river)
  
• Cable Car (reaches a good height with a suspension bridge between two mountains)
  
• Seven-Wells Waterfalls (very refreshing)
  

After Langkawi, we headed towards the heights of Genting Highlands, which is approx. one and half hour drive from KL. It's a good place with indoor and outdoor theme parks. The indoor theme park is located inside the First World Hotel, the ground floor of which is a city in itself. The outdoor theme park has medium scale thrill rides along with children rides. The overall atmosphere has an aesthetic value as the clouds cover the park almost all of the time, with rains after irregular intervals.

After spending a couple of days, we headed back towards Kuala Lumpur. It's a highly developed city with good transport infrastructure such as hop-on/hop-off tourist bus service, monorail, KL Express (train service to and from airport), etc. The hop-on/hop-off bus service is a good way to visit all the tourist places with a pass for full day. One can hop off the bus to a tourist destination, spend and enjoy some time and get hop back on the next bus. Few of the places we visited or intended to visit are:

• KL tower ( is one of the tallest communicatons tower in the world) with binoculars on the top
  
• Petronas Twin Tower (skywalking on the bridge between the twin towers). There's a science section inside plus an Aquarium as well
  
• Zoo Negara
• Bird Park & Butterfly Park
• Shopping Malls

The information is readily available on different websites as well as the brochures in the hotels and at the airports which help you to plan your trip. Malaysia has all the aspects of a tourism place within the budget and is surely a place which is highly recommended. Although, Thailand has much better entertainment options, but the overall environment of Malaysia is best suited for honeymooners.

Furniture in Karachi

Whether you're going to build up a new home or you need to upgrade your current one, you'll find it hard to get great furniture. People like us who work throughout the week and find time only on the weekends during the daytime, find it hard to know where to go and have very little time for exploration. I have been trying to search for good furniture shops on the internet, the locations and the quality for each vendor, but one way or the other have hard time in locating one and finding quality within budget.

While the quality of furniture in the famous Furniture Markets (Nursery & near Garden) is controversial :), established brands seem a better choice if your budget is above average.

I, for one, didn't even know the names of the places where we can buy good furniture. While the search is still on, here goes my evaluation so far:

• International Interior Designers & Furniture (Tipu Sultan Road)
  Bedroom Furniture. Is very expensive but Teak wood variety is present which is termite-proof). Takes around 2-3 months to delivery based on the quantity.
  Sofa sets and other furniture is also available, not too sure about Kitchen.
  
• Sam Abbas Design Studio (Tuaheed Commercial, DHA, near Gelato Affair/Biryani Center)
  Mainly Sofa sets, is expensive but affordable to people who desire better furniture. Mostly Sheesham
  
• Interwood (Tuaheed Commerical, DHA, besides Mosaajees)
  Kitchens are great but very expensive. Other furniture also available in good ranges
  
• KalamKaar (near Schon Circle, Clifton)
  Bedroom, Sofa Sets & other furniture is available, but again not cheap, but affordable prices. They dealt with us in a very nice manner and the catalogue is very rich.
  
• Habitt (Tipu Sultan & somewhere in Gulshan as well)
  Generally everything is available on less expensive side as compared to the branding. I was not comfortable about the quality of some of the items e.g. the wood being used is not that durable.

I am still short of all the furniture except for the bedroom and looking for options, mainly for affordable Kitchen building and will be visiting Ashrays, ST (or Estee?) and Dreams in DHA area. There's one other shop by the name of Prestige Kitchens which I plan to explore as well.

Once I am over with the whole deal, I'll write on the summarized analysis of the same so that buyers have consolidated knowledge in one place.

Efficient or Impatient?

“Pomp, Pomp”, a sound which is usually heard from behind while I am sitting in my car waiting for the signal to turn green. This is pretty common in Karachi, the mass-operative city; though very rare in Islamabad, the so-called dead city. This is not the only noise which is disturbing; one can see many vehicles breaking signals; coming from wrong side of the road; and changing lanes quite drastically.

One can easily say that this trend of traffic is due to the fact that people don’t have enough time and they value it too much that they can even risk their own lives for it. But, quite interestingly the trend is almost 180 degrees when you enter a shop, office, governmental department or any other operational place where time actually matters. There, one can clearly observe wastage of time in gossiping, slowness of activity and simply sleeping; though these are not limited as you can find lots of other time-wasting activities and discussions going on which are simply useless and which is not what our country needs.

Most commonly discussed areas are cricket, politics and religion; which can be termed as healthy discussions if you see it from a higher level. But, my experience after being parts of such discussions (for the sake of knowledge) , was disappointing as I found these as just blames and complaints to those who are simply not hearing us. In addition, nothing can be done about it, as opposed to the workplace where one has some authority and can do something constructive.

Some people might believe that these are past-times for people and can be treated equivalent to sports or any other leisure activity; as for some people things like gossiping are recreational. To some extent, this can be agreed upon, but not wholly as people sacrifice their work for the sake of such activities whereas they’re not ready to sacrifice their time for the sake of safety for travelers.

What good is the impatience normally taken as efficiency which saves you just 2 minutes with lots of risk and tension; as compared to the hours of time-wastage coming under inefficiency but assumed as pride by many?

Comments are welcome related to the usage of semicolon

Life is what it's meant to be..

There's this uncomfortable feeling since a very long time now. No it's not that I am not busy in things, infact I am very very busy lately. But somehow, everything seems like nonsense. No, it's not that I'm depressed, just that life doesn't seem to make sense. Maybe I am not good at accepting limits.

Let's talk about depression for a moment and move ahead. I think it cannot be stopped, but can be dealt with, and the best way to deal with it is to expect nothing out of anything. For me, the definition of depression is that things are not going along the lines as expected and you are helpless and this results in depression, hence it can be termed as a symptom that something is wrong and you are unable to fix it, hence helplessness.

After all life has its own turns and tricks and one can only accept these and understand why things happen. I have lost all the interest in life almost 5 years back, maybe because something happened and that unveiled life altogether and since then things have been revealed for me gradually. At this point in time, I think I have understood some of the basics and to cut a long story short it's nothing but observation. You observe life and understand it. But then, I think you can change it to some extent, but again everything could be pre-written and you're just discovering it.

I think I have found how to remain calm, just by accepting that it's just learning and by the end of it, you'd have learnt everything required. We might think that we can change everything, but how can one tell that the change you brought in wasn't written? Once you understand what life is, it doesn't matter how much challenges come to you or how much you are tested, it's just a matter of time and will pass by. For many, life can be wonderful and operational things matter, but really the concept seems to be different and then there's no interest in it and then it doesn't matter what happens and you feel nothing.

Life is as it's meant to be and for me somehow it doesn't make sense at all. Maybe my standards are very high and that's why I have kept aside my feelings altogether and I want nothing for myself and just prioritize what others want and try to achieve those. Some might call this foolishness that I'm not selfish at all, but I have developed into this gradually.

After all, are there any other options?

Praying for alternate paths?

Often times a situation comes into somebody's life where prayers are the only hope towards achieving something important in the world. When nothing else seems to work, praying seems to be the last resort.

The concept of praying becomes very ambiguous at times, specially when you have strong belief that things will go on as written in fate or if one believes the saying "what is written will happen". To me, this is somewhat conflicting at times: What'll happen is already written, then why pray? Will prayers lead to alternate paths in life? e.g. if I had to attain a degree and this is written as my fate then whether I work hard and get it with flying colours or I don't work hard and get it for the sake of just getting it, I'll get it.

If I were to do something and its quality depends upon my effort and concentration, then what role does prayer play? Or to be exact of the conflict I am in right now, what if I am not certain of getting something I really want, do the prayers play any role?

It's not certain that: "If you pray for something it's just a matter of time that you'll get it" because of the reason that it might be good for you but not for everyone. Again this is logic and my question still remains the same: What do prayers do?

If we limit this discussion to the result of the prayers as: "I will get it or not" rather than "I will surely get it, but I pray that I get it with lesser obstacles", etc. If we are to think upon whether prayers really make it happen or not, we can come up with the following combinations, after praying:

• You get it IF you pray, not otherwise
• You get it regardless of praying
• You don't get it regardless of praying

The last two combinations are solely based upon logic and prayers don't work. Let's talk about the first one, can this be true? If yes, then this statement: "Whatever happens, happens for the best" becomes false. And if this becomes false, then the alternate path which occurs after human praying is better than the original path. This implies that human path construction is better and leads to a weird state of mind.

Coming back to the last 2 points above and assuming that our last paragraph is just false, then we arrive to a conclusion that praying does nothing. Again, a weird state of mind.

All these questions can be answered if we think of this:

• This world and its events are based upon humans, but God's intervention is there whenever required. Requirement is posted through praying.
• There's no such thing as fate, everything is done by humans, except for maybe a few things such as birth & death? Maybe a few more?

The Software World..

Software Engineering, a term commonly used nowadays and easily comprehended by most of the people in this world, is a world in itself. Just for the sake of mentioning, it means to develop software or a program which models a subset of reality onto a machine. The skills required for developing software are not only the analytical ones but logic plays a major role as well. On the other hand, creativity is required as well as the empathetic sense relating to the user. Hence we can easily say that Software Engineers are one of the most skillful people around, in this world.

When I say “Software Engineering is a world in itself”, it means that it’s a virtual world and not a real one like Earth. The mapping of the real world onto this one is what Software Engineers do. Let’s limit ourselves to the design & coding phases of Software before we move ahead, generally termed as programming. The difference between the task of a software engineer and other engineers is the presence of this virtual world. If one is good in this virtual world, this means that he’s doing his job well.

Coming from a different direction, I would like to highlight that when a person indulges into some environment, he develops some familiarity initially, moving forward he becomes smooth and then he gets used to it. One gets so much used to it that sometimes it feels like it’s the only world (or sub-world) and he’s not able to comprehend the situation (or environment) outside it. For example, I used play Unreal a lot (sometimes more than 5 hours a day) and it happened many times that I dreamed about it during sleep.

Now, if a software developer works for many hours a day, spends a few hours in sleep and spends the rest of the time in the actual world, there seems to be a high probability that most of the developers would confuse these 3 different environments.

Putting all of this on the plate of our discussion, is Software development changing the lives of the Software engineers by making them used to this virtual world? After working for more than 10 years in this arena, can the developers manage to segregate the virtual & the real world? One extreme example of this world is the game development line, supported by the statement that game is a modeled virtual world which is derived from reality or illusions, and is closer to being called a world than any other software.

Some updates..

Ah, finally passing time in Karachi for 2 weeks, 1 week to go. The weather is pleasant and as usual I have got used to the atmosphere in a week, now I am starting to enjoy. I'll return to Isb on 21st, InshaAllah. It's good to see a lot of roads being constructed in Karachi, but at the same time the ever-increasing traffic remains a problem. Though I've been to some areas within Karachi in the mean time, I haven't seen any relief camps here as yet, wonder whether the relief work is carried out as required or not. Meanwhile, LMKR is still into the relief work, may Allah bless them for their work.

If you are interested in the stock market business, have a look at BlogShares. It's a virtual stock market, but on a very initial stage. A tip for making quick money right at startup (once you have registered and are playing) is to get chips by answering the survey questions on the right side of the home page. Once you have some amount of chips, register on the forum and goto the Chip Auction House and auction your chips or sell them to some willing buyer. You can easily get 50 million per chip, at least :). A neat site for business minded people and also for those who like to understand the stock business.

I'm gathering my thoughts to write about something which might derail the thoughts of some of the readers, just waiting for the time to come and being patient, thoughtful and observative. It'll be a post which'll try to unveil some things which are covered by our society carelessly, related with Islamic teachings. If you can, have a look at Tanzeem-e-Islami headed by Dr. Israr Ahmed. I hope to write it soon..

Show The Objective..

Often times you tend to be aggressive or get into bad mood, get into difficult conversations at the company or in the family, can't get over something you really miss, are confused or into any other state of mind in which you really don't want to be, but due to human nature, you find it difficult to control your emotions.

Keeping the objective in mind is the key. No matter what you do, you have to know what you are getting from it. You might think that this seems materialistic and only applies to materialistic actions e.g. by helping someone you are not getting anything. But, you are getting something and that is the internal satisfaction, the happiness which comes when you make someone else happy. This is by no means materialistic, and if it's then everything is.

Aggressiveness is one of the wide spread negative habit which most of the humans have, at least most of the people I have seen. Aggressive nature, esp. at work is quite harmful to none other than the aggressor himself. Not only at work, but in family dealings as well, this may result in disruptions in family relationships mainly due to both parties being aggressive. What can keep you from getting aggressive? It's the objective!

Nonetheless, being cool-minded all the times is not that easy, but it's not that hard too and it's necessary for one to be successful and this applies to every aspect of life i.e. there are lot of advantages. After all, who likes a person who offends and charges other people every now and then?

Whenever you are in a bad mood, you need to remember the objective..What’s the use of being into such a mood? You are just wasting time and energy, which could've been utilized in something more important to you. Controlling your emotions is one of the main elements of leading a leader's life and realizing the fact that others don't like to be taken up by someone, an element of respect has to appear in everything you say or anything you perform.

Everyone is unique or at least wants to be, distinction attracts every human. So, realizing the fact that you are in a state of uselessness is the first step towards realizing that you need not be in that state most of the time. Don't you think everyone does the same when he's in a bad mood or when he loses his temper? So, you either want to be the same as others or you indulge into something which makes you distinct.

You might want to read about EQ (Emotional Quotient), plus there's a book which you might have heard about "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and the sequels to it as well.

Something off-topic, a 3D First Person Shooter named Commando 4 has been developed by some FAST Karachi students.

Imagine..

Imagine a 10 year old girl with two pony-tails, with lots of oil on her hair, a lolly pop in her mouth goes jumping, hopping along a street carrying a megaphone and calling out the table of 2, 3 & 4 in a loop, at 6 pm.

Unconventional uses of Sack

Sack (known as "bori" in Urdu) is one of the most commonly used containers for multiple things, at least in Pakistan. It's commonly used for grains, coal, wood, metal utensils, etc. It can also be used to cover slippery floors and is also used in sack racing where a team of two people put their legs in it and run towards the finish line, a sport usually for kids. A sack full of sand is somewhat bullet proof, so it can be used in that way as well e.g at smaller posts.

But, there can be other unconventional ways to utilize it as well, some of which can be:

• You can cut a sack into pieces and use instead of tissue papers in case you catch cold
• You can make an umbrella out of it, which won’t last long though
• Since there’s an increase of population of pick-pockets, you can create internal pockets out of a sack; at least it’s difficult to cut
• A mobile pouch
• A hat or a bed sheet or a rug, which can be useful in winters
• Can be used for cleaning glass
• Clothes for yourself or your pets or for a scare crow
• You can punish your kid by keeping him into it for an hour or so, do make sure that there are enough holes to breathe though
• Car cover, seat cover, or any other cover
• One can try constructing a bridge all made with sacks

It’s upto your own imagination what other uses of a sack you come up with.

Business business

I've always wanted to be a businessman and have tried a few things on a pretty small scale, and have been extremely successful. After a few months on job right after graduation, I've been thinking hard to setup my own business in parallel, but haven't tried at all.

This urge is getting to the point where I think I'll just start something on a very small scale (this time the time-scale won't be small). According to my analysis and imagination on an initial level, I have arrived on a few tips for a person to start a new business, specifically speaking of those who are on a paycheck and don't have much finances to invest. I am the rookie of rookies in business, so it's pre-mature to list down the points now, but here I go, hoping to get some comments:

• You have to have a very vague starter vision
• Try a smooth transition from job to business. Setup the business in parallel to your job, don't quit your current job to start it
• Try to cover finances with knowledge & talent, try starting from something which doesn't need much financing
• Consider starting something from a very small scale, but which can be scaled lower or higher as the need arises e.g. service provider business
• Find references among your family, relatives, friends, colleagues, etc. who can guide you towards anything, ranging from advice to clientele to suppliers

Plus, you need to have the following positives to start something:

• Motivation
• Time Management
• You should have a thing about numbers
• Effective Communication Skills
• Thinking in terms of customers & finances
• Long term planning skills, yet having short term planning skills for bonus seasons/events

Have a look at Life without a paycheck, I've read it, so I assume anyone can read it :)

Is everything Balanced?

How many times have you experienced that you don't do anything wrong and still something wrong happens with you? Now imagine how many times have good happened to you, even if you don't deserve it? If consequences were dependent on actions, then logic implies 180 degrees from what happens, sometimes.

This leads to a question: Whether everything that happens is the consequence of what you do or it's just discovery of what's already been decided and written down as your fate?

Too complex, but hints are everywhere. Relating to my post Luck vs. Details, is it just the lack of detail that we call it or we put it into the category of luck? As I move ahead in the dimension of time, this fate thing is making more sense to me and it feels like the action/consequence thing is just there acting as a decoy. But it might be the state of mind which also comes into play e.g. a batsman might be in some good form one year and in a really bad form in the next year.

In any case, what I have conceptualized since 10 or so years back and still believe is that everything is balanced instantly or some time later. A small example is that I cheated in one of the exams during my studies and I got away with it. Some time later, I was caught by an invigilator for something I didn't do, and I was speechless. At that time, I thought something wrong which I did earlier, was balanced.

Time after time things happen, opportunities come and are availed, bad times come and pass by e.g. you might be having conflicts with your family, but you might have a good reputation at work. You might be physically weak, but mentally tough. You might be financially poor, but religiously rich, etc.

Summary is that if you sum up all of your negatives & compare with the sum of your positives (after assigning weightages), everything might just come out to be balanced!

Words and inside..

So, long time no post. I finally got some time out from work and got some motivation as well. It's been over a month since I have been managing this new simulation project, handling a team of around 14 people including programmers, graphics designers, testers, etc. The team is very good, mashaAllah, alhamdulillah. It's gonna take some intelligent hard work for 3 more months or so. Here's another piece of abstract theory which I would like to share related to comprehending and understanding what other people say to you..

At times, you are being fooled by someone and you regret it after you have been manipulated. Instead of finding out afterwards, you can be proactive. There's something you can do about it and that is to judge whether what's said to you is the truth or a lie. For that you need to know the driver behind the person's words.

Whatever you comprehend about something that other person says, depends on how you interpret and process the information. If it doesn't make sense to you, it doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to the person saying it. This means that you are missing something which that other person is thinking about.

So, you have to find a reason as to why that other person can think or not think about something. You might want to use your own head as well along with the other person's words, because it can be true and it can be false or it can be somewhere in between. Why he might lie is something which you have to think about e.g. he might lie because he might have superiority or inferiority complex or he might be a status conscious person or simply a psycho. Psychos are abnormal about something, but otherwise normal, so you can't really tell. But, it's not necessary that a negative reason is behind it, always.

Suppose a person is over conscious about his intelligence. He would always try to prove himself to others and hence sometimes he might lie about something. You can't simply go on believing what he says, you have to process the information correctly. Why he does that? Because he wants other people to recognize him as an intelligent person.

The question now comes that whether this judging matters for you or not. When you want to judge the other person and when you simply ignore whatever he says? I suppose you'll know when to do it and when not.

You might not be able to fully understand the rationale behind this post, and I don't expect it either. You might find it helpful when the need actually arises.

Busy bee..

Not been able to write anything for the past few weeks, have been pretty busy at office. Working on this new gaming project, which will be built upon C++/OpenGL, seems like a dream coming true, inshaAllah. Might be the team lead for this project which is right now in its initial phases such as requirements analysis, resource hiring, technical research, etc. While hunting for resources I have found that it's pretty hard to get "all-in-one" resources, but fortunately we've found a few bright people matching almost the criteria set by us. Let's see how things work out.

Also went to Karachi last week, enjoyed every bit of it and stayed for 3 days, again seeing how time flies. Have been playing snooker and table tennis and that's all the activity after office apart from sleeping and relaxing.

A friend recommended this link http://del.icio.us Have a look.

I am aiming to write a lot of technical stuff on the technical blog, but still finding hard to get some time out. As far as general posts are concerned, I am looking forward to write the next part about Spiders plus something about dealing with people.

Controlled Outlaw

It's time to become an outlaw, to do whatever you like, not constrained by anything, not even laws or policies. The pleasure in breaking all the laws and nonconformity to the policies of the surroundings is awesome. Liberty, strength & control are the necessary ingredients. If you have these, why not do it? Yes, just do it..do it!

Man, it sure feels good to stand out completely for yourself and do what feels right to you and ignoring what others have to say about right and wrong. It's fun when you look at the astonished faces of other people, the expressions out of disbelief, surprise and somewhat envy. Just come out of the phase of dependency on others and being weak, invert the thoughts by becoming strong and making others dependent on you, you'll surely enjoy the benefits.

The people won't like you for that, but only those people who are the victims of you becoming an outlaw, but again it's for your ownself, you have to become a bit selfish for this, and you have to be mentally tough and need to have backup to take such an amount of risk. Once you have the entire skills and resources, then there's no harm in taking this risk and experiencing this phase, but in a controlled manner. Of course, somethings are wrong and shouldn't be targetted, here's where maturity comes into play.

This is what's going on in my mind these days, I am breaking many policies within the company I am working at and am really enjoying this phase, but I have set the limits first!

-Gunda Gard v3.0 ;-)

As architectural as a spider

There are a lot of things in this world, which can be interesting for people who like to give a thought on these and are in search of inspiration. Set aside the universe, an almost infinite number of God’s creations exist in this world only. One such creation is Spider, which is one of the most fascinating creatures of this world, simply because of its uniqueness of actions and the way it’s designed.

Spider is called Araneae in scientific terms. There are around 38,834 species of this excellent creation categorized into 110 families. A few categories of spiders are Tarantulas, Hunting Spiders, biting spiders, jumping spiders & web-spinning spiders.

I’ll be focusing on the web spinners and the discussion spans across two parts. This part covers the web construction, the material and its quality, and the 2^nd part covers how they hunt their prey and how they defend themselves, which will be posted soon.

Silk & Web
The silk is made of protein, which does not decompose by fungi and bacteria like all other proteins. The reason is that this silk contains three substances that are important for its durability: Pyrolidin, Potassium Hydrogen Phosphate and Potassium Nitrate. We conserve protein by cooking, salting, drying or adding acid so that it remains intact.

The construction of web is one of the most sophisticated natural mechanisms that exist in this world. Although all spiders produce silk but only certain types of spiders build webs. The style of web varies from one species to another. Interestingly, there’s also a connection between eyesight & web construction capabilities of different spiders, which will be discussed in the next part.

This is the internal process, which goes through in a spider while producing silk:

• Spiders have ducts for producing liquid silk, which solidifies on contact with outside air.
• The secretion is drawn into fine threads by structures called spinnerets on the lower side of spider’s abdomen. The spinnerets, which spin the silk, work like the fingers of a hand. A spider can stretch out each spinneret, pull it back in, and even squeeze them all together.

This is the everlastingly interesting high-level view of how the construction is done:

• The most difficult part seems to be the first thread, for which the spider releases a sticky thread that is blown away with the wind, of course if she’s lucky. Simple!
• If the breeze carries the silken line to a spot where it sticks, the first bridge is formed.
• The spider cautiously crosses along the thin line, reinforcing it with a second line.
• She enforces the line until it is strong enough.
• After this she hangs a thread in the form of a Y below the primary thread.
• These are the first three radial of the web. More radials are constructed taking care that the distance between the radial is small enough to cross.
• Then the adhesive spiral thread is placed and the web is ready to be used.

Re-engineering the Web
After a night of hunting the web becomes worn out (destroyed by bad weather and by the flying prey). The spider removes the silk in the morning only leaving the first bridge line. After daytime’s rest the spider constructs a new web in the evening. If the catch was low and the web is not heavily damaged the web may stay during the day and be reused after minor repairing.

A lot of orb weaving spiders even recycle their webs. The weaving of a web takes up a lot of the spider's resources. Since they need to renew their web regularly, they eat the silk. Only the main thread of the web is left intact. The cutting and the digesting of the web are done by special digestive juices that contain enzymes rather than by any mechanical cutting. These juices are also used to connect the strands of silk together. They usually weave a new web in the morning.

Material & Quality of Silk
Some spiders comb their silk to a wooly structure. To do this they have a comb like structure near the fourth legs and an extra silk producing organ just in front of the spinners, which appears as a transparent plate. There is no glue on the threads but the insect gets stuck with the hairs on their body in the silk. The thicker threads in the silk prevent the insect from tearing the silk.

Quite interestingly, the quality of the silk which she produces is an extremely strong material and is on weight basis, stronger than steel. This thread is not only strong but also very elastic. The thread of one of the orb web spider type is very elastic and can be stretched 30 - 40% before it breaks. Steel can be stretched only 8% and nylon around 20%. It has been suggested that a pencil thick strand of silk could stop a Boeing 747 in flight at full speed. Amazing! According to a study, we are still unable to reproduce such a material with all our technological know-how.

Applications of Spider Silk
The silk is utilized by the spider for a lot of different uses, which include constructing their webs, the production of egg sacs, wrapping in their prey, as a life line when jumping (just like spider-man), or dropping to escape, for transferring semen from the abdomen to the male palp, as a shelter in which it can retreat, etc. This silk has been utilized by humans as well e.g. for producing fishing lines, nets for the transportation of arrow points, tobacco and dried poison for the arrow points, cross hair in instruments, etc.

With this, I would like to add another perspective to all this information, that all this is done by a single spider and even much more. A normal human being with some intelligence can easily comprehend what type of intelligence is needed to come up with a design of such level. It’s even hard for a human being to come up with such a perfect design. Hence obviously a spider hasn’t invented itself or induced these capabilities with evolution. It’s simply the perfection of God; the perfect working system advocates that, an inch here and there in a spider can really mess things up.