PostMan's Law of Stirring

The spoon will clang against the walls of the glass when you stir liquid in it.

PostMan's Law of Public Profile Picture - II

A woman's profile picture would be more presentable and thought out over than a man's.

And You Think You've Seen It All - III

PostMan's Law of Child's Instincts

While accessing archives of photos and videos on the electronic device, a child will always find the delete function.

Family Planning in Pakistan

Forget contraceptives, forget pills, forget One Child Policy - the most potent tool to promote family planning in Pakistan ? The School Fee. Current exorbitant Fee requirements for a child in a good private school will render any couple to think a thousand times about extending their family. Take note doctors.

Gul Makai in Timbaktu

Yesterday was a very bad day. Nothing happened to me but you never know. God forbid. Two reports that came out yesterday really hammered in hard the fact that Islam today is being eaten by a cancer and that it requires therapy on urgent basis.

Who, Where & Why - I

A 14 year old girl, Malala Yousafzai, was shot in Swat yesterday. Her shooters? Messers Taliban and Co. Why? because '"She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her ideal leader... She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas." Ehsanullah Ehsan, Taliban Spokesman, said by telephone from an undisclosed location. And people actually praise the Taliban? They shot an unarmed 'teen girl' just to settle the scores? That is an insult to religion, chivalry, Pushtun culture and humanity and everything in between. Malala used to write a personal blog on BBC under the name of Gul Makai in which she described Taliban atrocities and lamented the lack of education facilities for girls under their rule.

She did that when she was only 11 years old and Taliban ruled the valley of Swat terrorizing its people and inflicting misery upon them through their strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. In recognition of her courage, she was awarded the First National Peace Award by the Pakistani Govt. She was also nominated for International Children's Peace Prize in 2011. 

Who, Where & Why - II

The place is called Timbaktu. Its a city in the west african nation of Mali. Do you know it holds a special place in muslim civilization? Timbaktu became the London of Africa in 12th century when it was the trade route of salt, gold, ivory and slaves. It had the Sankore Madrassa which was the largest library of its time containing precious books. It could house 25,000 students. Timbaktu was the centre of knowledge and still has treasure trove of books dating back to 12th century which contain amongst others Arabic manuscripts, books ranging on topics from Islam, Philosophy, Maths and Astronomy.

Now Timbaktu is in the news because a local Islamic militia 'Ansar Dine' is exerting influence in Mali. They too have a strict interpretation of islamic shariah. They have recently been busy smashing the ancient tombs of Mali calling them idolatry. Deja Vu eh? Correct. Taliban did the same to the famous Bamiyan Buddha statue of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The tombs are part of International Heritage.

The Who, Why and what the hell?

See the link? Malala Yousafzai and city of Timbaktu are threatened by whom? The same set of ideology. Call them Ansar Dine (Mali), Boko Haram (Nigeria), Shehab (Somalia) or Taliban - they all are of the same creed. They all believe in strict implementation of Islamic sharia law - and that too forcefully. For them, every other person, who does not conform to their point of view, is a non-muslim and hence 'deserves' to be punished. Women are the target of most scorn and education (western that is) will be eradicated as it is a handy work of satan. They will use all the legitimate grievances (lawlessness, crime, poverty, political instability etc) to further their vested interest of gaining power under the name of Islam. They are bunch of criminals and thugs and not the 'pure muslims' they portray themselves to be.

Call me bigoted, but I think the root cause of all them is Salafism. Salafists believe that the teachings at the time of Prophet, people associated with him and society of that time was the best model to be followed.  Every other thing is just heresy. People might argue that salafism is not the problem but Wahhabism is. Call it whatever, this brand of islam does not let the 'other' opinion and has gained militant form.  Let me rephrase - the ideology of salafism, though pure in nature, is currently being held hostage by people whose aim is just to gain power in the garb of Islamic shariah law. This is a cancer which needs to be treated. Islamic societies in general and especially of Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan and Mali need to reign in this strand of sunni islam.  Maldives is currently being threatened as well but they have not yet taken hold of it.

People of Pakistan have to rise up to this form of extremism that is creeping up and eating inside out the society of Pakistan. Today it was Malala Yousafzai, someone else's daughter,  Tomorrow it might be yours. Let Malala be the rallying cause for ordinary Pakistanis who want peace and nothing else. She is a special soul, may she be the guiding light of future generations of Pakistanis. May she be the force that changes the mindset of clergy and people who condone acts of Taliban unknowingly and totally being oblivious to the fact that they are committing murder.

Peace.

Related Post
- Why Do I Hate The Taliban

The Most Tortured Fan

Yes there is one. No kidding. Seriously. A Pakistani Cricket fan is the most tortured soul in this world - the tormentors being the Pakistani Cricket Team itself who offer the most nerve wrecking play of all cricket playing countries.

My sympathies with them. The fans I mean.

Q & A - Pakistan For Sunni Men

Question: 'Our population is one that heavily dictates their life through religion... Pakistan could slowly become a country strictly for Muslims, then strictly for Sunni Muslims and then strictly for Sunni Muslim men and who knows what else after?'

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/13359/pakistan-is-not-only-for-muslims/

Answer: Looking at the brighter conclusion of this scenario... homosexuality will be allowed for Sunni men at least.


Related Post:
- Question For a Mullah

Pakistani Cellular Companies and Scam

Umm. No. I do not mean that they indulge in scam (the way the use hidden charges might tempt people to call it so though). I am more concerned with how they condone those acts which come under the category of scam. Consider this.

The other day I received a message from 'Coke' in my inbox that my number has been chosen to be a winner and that I will get GBP500,000! My joy knew no limits...

'Your Mobile number have won 500,000 GBP on 2012 Coca-Cola Intl Mobile Draw UK. To claim your prize send your name, No, email and address to cokelive5@live.com'

The dumbnut in me urged me to check anyways on net whether it was a scam because the logical one in me was telling me it could not be wrong! It was from a pre-identified number having 'Coke' as ID - surely my cellphone provider must have done the homework, it cannot be that careless. Turns out, the dumbnut in me won. It indeed was a scam and I was left ruing my GBP 500k.

Sigh.

But this begs a question. Why did my cellphone operator provide an ID to this number? (provided my assumption is true that they are provided by them). I get transaction report SMSs on my number from the bank whose financial services I avail and they too are with the Bank's ID. I did not create a contact. So a message is sent by a number which basically is a scam having ID of a reputed company which my cellphone operator provided? That does not sound right. Right? My cellphone company might not be part of this scam but they surely provided some legitimacy to it. 

I contacted my cellphone operator and surprise surprise... they did exactly as they were supposed to. They did not reply me back. I don't know how many people woul have sent in their particulrs and then be told to submit xxx amount of fee for processing of the case and then left them dry.

Poor us.

Data Privacy & Pictures with Geo Tagging

There is this news of a very weird fellow in US who did not act nice to someone else's food and then had the gall to take picture of it and then post it online. Good thing was that the perpetrator of this act was located and report suggests that the management intends to fire him. It is not the news that interesting but how the users located this guy. As it turns out, there is this thing called Geo Tagging.


Digital cameras have long been in the process of being ditched in favour of Phones with good cameras. They are handy and are much readily available when you need to capture 'that' particular moment. In today's world of smart phones, camera usage, its quality and functionality is increasing day by day. One of the feature is Geo Tagging.


With this feature, whenever you take a picture, the software applies the Latitude and Longitude information obtained from your smart phone's repository of GPS coordinates  which is gathered by various apps for example Google Maps, Google Sky, Navigation etc. When you upload these photos on a picture portal like Picasa, this information is maintained in Exif area of the image file. Exif also maintains information regarding the camera, lens settings, ISO etc as Meta Data of that particular image.


The thing about Exif area of the image is that it can be utilized. Digital cameras have been maintaining this information for a quite a while now. Most of the data in Exif is informational material and is really helpful. Some of it might be useful in a way not really intended, The guy in the above referred news was located by GPS location maintained in Exif.


So why am I telling you this? Because we live in Pakistan and its a very interesting country :p We all take pictures and post them on online social sites like FaceBook and Twitter etc. The males in our society are a touch more interested in female info. So if you are at your home and you took a very beautiful picture of a bee sitting on a flower and shared it with your friends and the 'whole god damn world' (assuming you are not aware/ concerned with privacy) then someone can extract the information from that picture and can actually locate your home. Totally fine with me if you are comfortable with that scenario and the perverts that lurk out there.


So what can be done?


1 - Disable the Geo Tagging feature of your smart camera. This will ensure that no GPS location is fed in Exif area of the file.
2 - You can dig out the Exif area through editors in which case you might be compromising on the data quality.
3 - Use Exif software to edit out information. A good read and tool is here to remove Exif info.
4 - Use security settings of your social site to maintain privacy.


Any other idea? Please share.
Regards

PostMan's Law of Lifts - IV

More people will stand in front portion of the lift closer to the door than the back.



Related Post
- PostMan's Law of Lifts
- PostMan's Law of Lifts - II
- PostMan's Law of Lifts - III

PostMan's Law of Car Wallpapers

There will be a Ferrari and a Porsche in collection.

And You Think You've Seen It All - II

Yup. that's right. These are fan blades hanging by wire to let them dry.
Never had seen that for sure.
Thanks to 'someone' for forwarding.




Related Post


'And You Think You Have Seen It All - I'

PostMan's Law of Women's Clothes

Every woman is cursed. They just cannot find new clothes in their wardrobe.

Coke Studio 5: 'Ishq App Bhi Awalla'

Ok I am totally floored by the song. It is so melodious. I keep swinging to it. 


Meehsa Shafi looks absolutely smashing in that dress. Really gorgeous.


The Chakwalis felt some what out of sync but this could be due to 'occasion fright' probably. Misha's voice provided the necessary calmness to it. Back up vocals of Zoe and Rachael Viccajis was excellent.


Where was Farhad Humayun on drums? He missed something phenomenal I tell you.


Too bad for the rest of the artists appearing in this episode after this song. No matter how good, they just could not match the finesse of this one.


A delightful treat from Coke Studio. The Chakwalis are in big time.


Thanks

'Larr sha Pekhawar Ta'

Cracker of a song on Coke Studio Season 5's first episode. Excellent stuff on guitar and rubab in this Humayoon Khan's song. But there is one thing I totally hate and that was visible in the BTS of his song as well. When Humayoon enters in the studio, he raises his hand for salam and that is basically his palm in a vertical position near his chest facing the intended recipient. Totally like 'dude.. stay away'. I totally hate this form form salam gesture as it is getting very common in Peshawar. I am from that place too. Similarly, the gesture of hug when one meets someone, now its just resting of the hand on the shoulder of other person and not the hearty hug that is one supposed to do.


Perhaps I am just being silly here but some gestures are meant to be filled with emotions. Don't do it.

Totka To Make Children Walk

"You daughter is afraid of walking. You will have to do a totka", our maid's mother stated.


A totka is a household creative solution for variety of issues based on folklore and old wives tales.


My daughter started to walk at the age of 1. She had couple of incidents in which she fell while trying to walk and got afraid of this activity. So much so that she started to cry whenever we would let her stand independently. She would readily move around the house holding a hand but not independently. We tried every trick in our books but to no avail. Watching our dilemma, our maid's mother stated that she had a proven totka to make children walk, that they employ this totka on every child in their social circle. Hearing the solution, my wife and I just laughed. Who the hell does that we said. Illiterate people! And so 3 months passed further.


Now we really were in a quandary as to what the solution could be to take the fear out of her of walking. One day, we both laughingly agreed to use the totka as the last option available and see what happens. We were laughing when we were using the totka, we even feigned the same accent that our maid's mother uses and in their language. It was not going to work so what the heck, let it be fun.


And the totka. According to her, we were to tie a rope around the legs of our daughter - not tightening it but a symbolic gesture of legs being tied. Three twirls around the legs with that rope. Then we were to take a knife, my elder daughter was to be asked 'Shall I cut the rope?' and she was to reply 'Yes, cut the rope' and the first twirl would be cut. Three times this activity of question-answer and cutting the 3 twirls of rope. 'She will start running after this you will see', the maid's mother had claimed.


An hour passes...


My daughter gets up and starts to walk. She walks and walks all by herself so much so that she did not want to go to sleep that night out of excitement. We laughed before the application of this totka and laughed when we saw the result. This is totally bizarre. Had I heard it from someone else, I might have doubted it but I did it  myself and I saw the results.


Truly unbelievable.

PostMan's Law of Lifts - III

People in an elevator will stand facing the door.


Related Post
- PostMan's Law of Lifts
- PostMan's Law of Lifts - II

PostMan's Law of Junk Paper

It will accumulate by itself.


Corollary to PostMan's Law of Junk Paper
You will be shredding the paper yourself after sometime.

PostMan's Commandment on Morality

Thou shall not link morality with the length of garment.