Drop everything...

and go see Children of Men. I was flipping through cable channels when I stumbled upon this movie. Lucky for me it was just starting so I didn't miss a thing, a rare event indeed. The cinematography is great. It really pulls you in making you feel part of the action. It reminded me of the action scenes from Saving Private Ryan.

Aside from the special effects the most compelling aspect I found was the story. It forced you to take notice, as it touched upon many sensitive issues of our day and age. Furthermore I applaud the creators for creating a believable future based upon an improbable event. The Human race is plagued by mass infertility, spelling the end of the species. The world has plunged into chaos as major cities become ravaged by war. The British are stilling functioning, however they use ruthless methods for keeping immigrants out.

A group of concerned citizens lead a resistance to counter the Government's Draconian rule. Members of the resistance are ordinary people who take extreme risks to achieve their objectives. Some of them don't make it. Which is how resistances in the real world are played out. There aren't any superheroes, advance weaponary or higher lifeforms to save the day. It's real people in the streets fighting for what they believe in. All of this was protrayed beautifully in the movie.

This film is set in the future. Many of the gadgets we crave for today are a reality in this future. However they take a backseat to the human drama. As it should be. Simply having TOLEDS in your windsheild or smart homes will not cure the world of its ills. They will still be there and will have to be dealt with.

I can't talk enough about this movie there were several scenes in which I felt like crying (I admit this with no shame, I know I am a manly man) . At other times I felt anger. At any rate I thought about the issues raised by the movie long after it was over. To make a long story short I really really really liked it and I think you will too.

Also I haven't heard about this movie till now it was released in 2006. Did the PR people do a crummy job?

UPDATE: I added my two cents to Scalzi's list of new SciFi classics. Guess who made the cut? (my comment is number 89)

little tikes

My nephews are visiting. One is a six month old the other is three years old. The little one is easy to handle, mainly because he can't run around screaming his head off. His older brother on the other hand is a different story. I burn up a lot of calories chasing after this one. He wants to get into everything and winds up messing up things. That's why we hid all of our precious belongings in our rooms and the basement. He can't get to them there. Of course he tries to get in banging on the door begging to be let in. We ignore him and hope he loses interest, eventually he does.

But he's not that bad. He more than makes up for his whirlwind behavior by being exceptionally cute. There was this one time when we were watching Terminator 3. He didn't take any interest until the chase scenes came on. He was mesmerized by the explosion and the wanton destruction. Afterwards I hear the words "I wanna break car" uh-oh I thought what have I done. He ran around screaming "I wanna burn and break car!"

I only had myself to blame. I remember wanting to imitate everything I saw on TV. We still do that to a certain extent. If Will Smith is sporting a new pair of Ray Bans we must have them too. Anyway I just couldn't abandon the kid after getting him all riled up. So I taught him how to release his energy in a creative manner. I took his building blocks and made a wall. Then I smashed some of his toy cars through the wall. "I wanna do it!" he takes the car from me and smashes it into a real wall. He laughs with glee. "I break car" and he did a bang up job. The tires were pushed in plus the plastic lights were cracked up. Which is why we don't by him expensive toys.

I wonder what will happen when the other one grows up and the two of them team up...

It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood…

Won’t you be my…
Won’t you be my…
Won’t you be my neighbor?

I’ve been planning to give you a tour of my neighborhood for quite sometime. First I had to decide what I wanted to show you. Then I had to go out and actually take the pictures. Then I had to process them to make sure they were small enough to fit on the blog. Finally I had to put all that together in one blog post. Prep work, go figure. So finally I’ve made it at last. Come let me show you the sites.

Introducing the Motorway Police. These guys are responsible for the nation’s highways (motorways, if you want to get technical). They’re the counterparts in the US would be state troopers. For the most part people would say that local law enforcement pretty much sucks. However these guys are different they get paid well so are not as likely to fall into the trap of corruption. This is one area where the government is spending wisely. Just check out their cop cars they’ve got SUVs and a corolla, sweet. Plus I’ve seen some of the officers touting assault rifles.

This particular station is just a stone throw from my house. For the most part they’re relatively quiet neighbors. On occasion they might sound their sirens, probably want to make sure their working. Also when any of their superior officers come down from Islamabad to pay them a visit there is a general air of activity around the station. That’s when they like to march around to the sound of bugles. Marching also requires screaming and hollering (abouuuut, face!) otherwise you won’t get it right. Sometimes they like to throw a party for the neighbors to make up for all that hollering. Yay free food!

A little further down the road you’ll come across a Masjid. The town in which I live has a standard template for the architecture of Mosques. All mosques built by the town follow that template. This Masjid does not. That’s because it’s been built by donations from the community. There was a need for additional space for worshipping, this Masjid fulfills that need. There are other Mosques that are also not following the template. Those mosques were not built due to a lack of space but because of ideological differences. Shiites and ultra orthodox Muslims have also built their own mosques. Which is a good thing everyone should have their own personal space.

A personal note on Shiite Sunni relations. I am a Sunni. And I could care less if the guy in front of me is a Shiite. To me the most important thing that matters, is how decent a person is. Needless to say some of my best friends are from that community.

Nothing like fresh air to calm the nerves. My town also hosts some of the best parks in Karachi. This is just a sample. Some of them have artificial lakes and waterfalls in them! Too bad I don’t have time to go visit them. And besides when I do have time I rather stay in and read a book because I am such a geeky whimp.

So who’s managing all this? The town hall of course. This municipality was originally established by a senator. This was a rare instance in which a government official faithfully served the people. He was the original architect of the town and brought together a wonderful group of people to pull it off. Sadly he has passed away. A corporation has bought ownership of the town (I don’t quite understand how that works) They’re doing a fine job and continue the work of the senator.

This noble public servant also had a love of education and was responsible for establishing the Karachi Institute of Information Technology, my alma mater.

I’ve spent the best four years of my life in this place. The people I met here are some of my closest and dearest friends. I was voted vice president of the student body twice in a row. So the love was mutual. We still keep in touch, mostly online. Some of them are working in software houses in or around the city. Most of them left the country heading for Dubai, the UK and of course the US.

Fresh out of High School I was packing my bags to move to Pakistan with my family. People told me that I could get a better education in the US and should stay. That may be true. But here’s a fact to consider. Half of Silicon Valley is populated with Chinese, Indians, and Pakistani migrant tech workers. Now that person most likely got an H1 visa while he was still in his native country. Meaning the US needed his assistance based on the education and experience he received while still in Pakistan.

That means I could get a good job after college no matter if I studied in the US or Pakistan. After all that’s what I wanted from my education. And on top of that I get to get in touch with my heritage something I was unable to do. And what’s more that insight into Asian and Western culture is a huge asset to companies wanting to outsource their work overseas. So yeah all these years later I still believe I made the right choice.

So that’s that. I took you on a tour of my neighborhood. Stirred up some controversy. All before bedtime, ain’t blogging grand? So what’s your hood like?

P.S. A hundred points to anyone who can guess the name of the town I live in!

ring...ring...ring!!!

What's the optimal time for ringing someone else's telephone? I am thinking 45 seconds is a good time. This gives the other guy enough time to answer the phone if he wants to or leave it the hell alone if they don't want to answer it. Of course this doesn't matter if you have an answering machine or voice mail.

how did it go? part II

read part one

Juarez groaned awake. A mental fog kept him disoriented. It took awhile for him to realize where he was and what he was doing. Memories from the recent battle slowly trickled to the surface. He chastised himself for barely making out of the arena alive. He wondered what the judges thought. Hopefully they wouldn’t penalize him for his sloppy performance. Undoing his armor’s restraints lightened the load, making it easier to get up.

He winced as he placed pressure on his injured leg. But the hardened warrior didn’t mind he was glad to be alive. “I am alive…” he thought “that counts for something.” He dragged himself towards the judgment door. If the judges found him worthy they would unlock the heavyset door and allow him to move forward. Which was something Juarez desperately wanted to do.

Placing his bare palm on the door’s scanner he awaited his fate. After a few harrowing seconds the scan was complete and the door unlocked itself. Juarez was delighted by the results and eagerly stepped through the door.

rain clouds cometh

The past couple of weeks were spent battling the heat. The kind of heat that saps your energy, leaves you feeling sticky and uncomfortable morning, noon and night. The kind of heat that scorches your skin if you stay out in the sun too long. Yes the kinda heat that the tropics are famous for. That kinda heat.

Which is why when I woke up this morning and saw dark gray clouds in the sky I was actually happy. A cool breaze swept in from my balcony letting me know that for at least this day the batttle was over. I could relax and go about my business with ease. It'll be nice getting cooled air from the window rather then a stuffy airconditioner. My nephews are visiting maybe I'll take them out for a ride.

When I first moved to Pakistan the rainy season was just starting up. My first instinct told me to find some shelter and stay put until it was over. But the other people would have none of that. They actually got up and started walking around in the rain. I found that to be very strange and told them they could get sick. But they were enjoying themselves too much to care.

Rain is a very rare event in these parts and it something that people cherish. I couldn't wrap my brain around this concept until now. This morning rain clouds have brought on a 180 degree change. It's like you were baking in an oven and someone suddenly turned off the gas. The sudden onset of relief is the very definition of bliss.

I was right!

A computer malfunction did bring down the stealth bomber. Read my near accurate prediction here.

The “How’s Your Thesis Going?” Post

It’s going good thank you very much. As most of you know I have temporarily given up work to complete my masters. I publicly mull over this decision in this post. It’s nice to see that people support me. My second to last semester is over thank you very much (oh! I still owe you the exciting conclusion to the Emilio Juarez story). Now I can fully concentrate on my thesis. Yay! I love making my ideas a reality. So what am I doing? Read on to find out…

I had to ask myself what interests me enough to take on such a challenge? The answer lies in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Currently the boundary that separates us from our computers is the User Interface (UI). The most popular example of a UI is Window’s start button. It allows us to access our programs quickly and easily (most of the time). Otherwise we would have run them using a command prompt, yummy!

So what could I do in this area? Help out HCI designers of course! They have to follow a set of heuristics when designing an Interface. They may not be aware that their design may be violating this set of guidelines. That’s where I come in; I’ll be creating a tool that analyzes end user behavior when using a UI. After the analysis is complete the tool will generate a report stating which guidelines were violated. As any marketing expert will tell you a good product is only as good as its name. So I am asking you the “I Don’t Know” reader to help me think of an exciting and relevant name for this tool. Because frankly speaking, I can’t think of one.

As always this post will be updated and reposted when new information is available about this project, so here’s the low down:


May 28: The netbeans IDE is mostly cool. I like how the code editor’s side bar highlights errors and warnings. Clicking on them takes you directly to the error, saving you from having to scroll all the way down. However it does like going nuts every so often. I can’t tell what sets it off but all of a sudden it starts to seize up. Controls become inoperable I get stack overflow messages left and right. If I manage to get through that the GUI editor starts acting up. It starts to fix components to their default size disallowing any resizing. I just keep going and somehow the problem gets fixed.

The core of Netbeans is fairly versatile but sometimes it lacks features. I suppose this is acceptable since the creators couldn’t anticipate every single need of the java programming community. However they were forward thinking enough to allow for the additions of plugins. Community members have come up with some pretty nifty plugins. One of them lets you convert VB.net forms to java GUI specifications, it’s called NET2Java. I was only able to get the source code and not the design view after the conversion. Another plugin gave you a Datetimepicker controls which comes in handy when you want to set the date using a calendar view.

Again very cool very shiny. But I must say that I had trouble with the installation. I am the kinda guy who needs to be led by the nose in these matters. The documentation the programmers had given was sparse at best. And on top of that they constantly referred to an old version of netbeans. I had to spend a lot of time figuring out the new locations and names of the various managers (e.g. plugin, library etc.).


May 15: I had another mind numbing programming session. I was wrestling with two Jlists. I wanted to generate an event based on what the user selected from one list. I used the isFocusOwner() method but the damn thing kept freaking out every time two selections were made. So I had to make a design decision do I stay Jlist hell or do I change tactics. I decided to change tactics and opted for radio buttons. The Jlists were yanked off the interface in their place was a neat row of radio buttons. I added them to a button group to ensure mutually exclusive selection. Now I just needed a way to generate the event based on the button selected. I went with actionlisteners, they’re the best, plus I used some of the button group’s method to chalk out code that would act the way I wanted to act. After going nearly insane I got what I wanted…and I am just getting started!

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Weekend assingment #219

Most often then not I find myself traveling by car. At times this can get a bit tedious. Traffic jams, careless pedestrians and the occasional pothole eventually stress you out. At times like these it's nice to get away from it all on a train. There's nothing like climbing aboard a sleek air conditioned carriage. You can sit back and relax, let someone else do the driving. No need to worry about traffic jams, the cars will stop for you (it's for their own good). All that relaxing let's you arrive at your destination well rested and ready for anything!


Trains can also be thrilling. I remember standing on a station platform when an entire train screamed past me. All I could see was a swirling mass of steel. The winds kicked up by the vehicle were enough to give me a good tug. I had to look down at the platform to make sure I wasn't being sucked away!


I once rode a camel. These animals are pretty tall. And have to get down on their knees so that you can climb aboard. If you get to rambocious it turns and looks at you wondering why in the world you can't get on to its lumpy back. When it gets up it uses its hind legs. That pushes you forward and you gotta hold on for dear life until it can straighten itself up. Camels are also pretty laid back its big bushy eyes wonder off as it leisurely strolls around. It's gait is smooth and rhythmic. That is until it kneels down again to let you get off!

Where were you?

I haven't been putting up blog posts regulary for the past couple of days. That's because I was hit by a triple wammy of a busted computer, a cranky internet connection and tons of stuff to do at work. All this ensured that I was fully grounded in the meat world. I am doing every thing that I can to get back into the blogosphere, because seriously where else would you want to be?

Congratulation Mr. Obama!

You did it. You overcame the odds, outwitted a clever opponent and secured the Democratic nomination. You have my wishes and my vote. May you steer the country towards economic stability and peace and prosperity for all.

The Best posts of May ‘08

Wow it’s June already? That sort of snuck up on me. Here’s a list of the best posts from May 2008. I am thinking I’ll use the goodness of Google analytics to make this process more objective.

A show of hands

Release your inner headbanger

A metamorphic tale about test taking

My trip to the exchange

Welcome to the outskirts

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Spock, Analyze!

I have to credit AJ for pointing out google analytics to me. I added IDK and presto I got back detailed reports on site traffic, viewed content and visitors. I found the visitor map most enganging:

Look! Some one from Venezuela visited me! "Como estas, amigo?". And I didn't know I was getting hits from Canada and the UK. "How's the weather in those parts?"

Of course I am pretty sure the hits I got from Pakistan was just me updating the site.

Last but not least most hits came from the US. That's due to UCFers and other community ring members. You guys rock!

SIDE NOTE: Blogspot and Blogger were suffering from high page load times. At first I thought that it was just me since I recently added tracking code to the blog. I was worried that somehow the code was messing around with the load times. Then I noticed the same thing on other blogs and decided against that.

Blogroll update

Just wanted to point out a new addition to the blog roll. Behold! "The Tech Biz" section. I know most of you guys are interested in technology. So why not hop on over and check these blogs, they make for some interesting reading.