I know a curious little boy,
Who is always asking “Why?”
Why this, why that, why then, why now?
Why not, why by-the-by?

He wants to know why wood should swim,
Why lead and marble sink,
Why sun should shine and wind should blow
And why we eat and drink.

He wants to know what makes the clouds
And why they cross the sky,
Why sinks the sun behind the hills
And why the flowers die.

Some of these why’s are not too hard
To answer if you’ll try;
Others no one ever yet
Has found the reason why

* I read this poem when I was in one of my earliest school days (probably class 1 or something), it was part of our english curriculum and I really loved it back then. Now fast forward to 2009, I just kinda recalled this poem and searched the web. All I found was the poem itself with no mention of the poet. But all in all, a very well written piece!

I am studying Object Oriented Analysis and Design right now. I have to appear in an exam tomorrow evening. I have gone through all these exams with a lot of pain. I mean, when did I ever study that hard last time? It was really kinda tough work, but it has paid well so far. I am thankful to the friends who were great company during this ride. It still ain’t over and I am waiting for tomorrow evening before I can jump 4 feet high in excitement. But those long nights of stay at Irfan’s place and the ever delicious stay at Adeel’s place, as he lives around Burns Road, where the yummiest of food is available till atleast 2 AM, are times I had a lot of fun and learned a lot! Well, learned just about the courses we were studying! I knew web programming and databases enough to teach those pals and they knew Automata enough to teach me and we knew each other enough to have loads of fun during that!

And hey, it’s new year that just started, so happy new year to those who have nothing to worry about, and all the best to those who do!

Charlie Chaplin acted as ‘Adenoid Hynkel’ in the movie The Great Dictator, which was released in 1940. In that movie, there was a speech which was shared to me by Anoop Bakhtani from India. The YouTube video for the actual scene in the film can be found here. The script is presented here for the interested readers below:

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an Emperor - that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible — Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers, Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers, Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, “the kingdom of God is within man” — not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!

Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality.

Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow — into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up.

Now this is damn funny! I came across this on Sami’s blog, and I couldn’t wait but post it here for those of you who do not happen to visit Sami’s blog or if for some reason Sami’s blog is also banned by Pakistani government for disclosing this shoe connection to the whole world!

So here goes:

The pair of shoes which was thrown at Mr. Bush in Iraq has links to Pakistan, said a statement from Pentagon. They have the following proofs:

i) The journalist had visited Pakistan earlier this year. There he was inspired by the shoe throwing at former CM Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Sher Afghan Niazi.

ii) He received his training of throwing shoes by a Pakistan based Jihadi organization.

iii) The DNA sample of leather has revealed that the animal whose skin was used for manufacturing the shoe had traces of grass which is grown in North of Pakistan and this skin was collected by a Jihadi organization on Eid-ul-Adha this month.

Hearing this, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani have decided to ban the Jihadi organization and launched a country wide crackdown against all the cobblers in Pakistan!

With so much to do and so less to live is what it often sounds to me. I have been realizing the benefits of moving to wordpress - it’s simpler. I was in the PAF-KIET city campus and in the labs, I was working with one of my friends on some project of mine. He showed me BuzzWord - I had looked at it at it’s earlier times but now it’s been bought by Adobe and my word it’s one hell of an application! In the same lab, on the next seat I notice an stranger handling his Wordpress posts in the Wordpress Admin area. I ask him what his blog is about, he tells me it’s about ‘Afghan Jobs’ and I say ‘you serious?’, ‘yes’, says he. I asked him how much he has already earned since I didn’t see much interest of that guy in afghan jobs than earning off Google Adsense. He told me $ 450 already. I say ’sweeet’ and he says ‘yar meine apko kaheen dekha hai (man i’ve seen you somewhere)’ and follows ‘probably on the internet’ and I spread my ugly teeth all over him feeling proud that someone knows me off the web

At the other side of things, I have my web programming project submission tomorrow and I hope to get a good grade atleast in that subject

Cya laterz!

I was in a kash ma kash trying to decide if I should migrate to wordpress or stick to MT! but hey, as it turns out, MT is still on and alive! I did move to wordpress! and well, I love it too. One thing that was stopping me to migrate was the fear of losing my old URLs that were in the search engines. But wordpress is smart enough to allow me the way I want the URLs to look like - and I mapped them exactly the same way they did in MovableType! Thanks WordPress!

I’ve been amazingly slow to post new stuff on my blog even though a lot is going on around. I think I will. I have my final exams from the 23rd of December and I hope to do good with them.

I might come up with a new theme for my blog anytime soon, let’s hope (again) I do it sooner than later =)

Excellent pay, comfortable environment, excellent bonuses and ‘i-am-my-own-boss’ environment. All that is needed from you is your time from 9 AM to 5 PM for five days in a week. Of course you have to know the following to apply:

- HTML / XHTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- PHP
- SQL / MySQL
- Object Oriented Programming ( a must )

Added bonus if you have worked on things like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento or any open source products.

This job is full-time. People interested should contact me at kamran.usman [at] gmail [dot] com and get to know about the company and the projects and the people you’ll be working with.

Remember, we do not believe in putting much stress on you, so this is strictly a 9-to-5 job with 2 days off every week.

Professional experience is desired but not a must! Fresh graduates or others who have personal projects of their own, whatever they built for their personal learning, are welcome. We need to see what you built, even if you built it for your own self, so you don’t necessarily have to have a list of clients whom you’ve worked for, just simple projects demonstrating your ability to do something along with squashing bugs is much appreciated.

Referral Program: If you know somebody and can get that person working for me for 3 months, I’d pay you Rs. 5000 cash as a reward for referring me the talent.

Further Note: This post is NOT temporary, so even if you’ve seen this post after 6 years of it being posted, you should still contact me, better opportunity awaits you!

or OOAD as it’s commonly known as is a nice subject to know about. I am really having a rocking time in the OOAD course I’ve taken this semester at PAF-KIET’s City Campus. Our teacher is Sir Ayub Latif, and wow! what a teacher he is! amazing! just brilliant, so co-operative and whenever I thought I knew enough of analysis and design, he was there with something better - though I’m still one of his most-liked students with nice numbers in the hourly exams and a decent level of class participation

I did some UML in my design patterns course, but this time it’s a ride! so many examples of so many scenarios! I am getting better and better at that. Furthermore, I am developing great interest in desktop application development - it’s not that I wasn’t interested in that earlier, but it’s becoming more and more intense. I usually LOVE to create web applications and designs, and maybe animations but I was for no known reason only doing this desktop app development for the purpose of my university courses and assignments, but now I’m like thinking of going for some kind of cool desktop application, blah blah!

Furthermore, I am getting to know, yes finally, getting to know the importance of time. The quicker you solve all your problems, the lesser the pain overall! I did’nt realize that in my years for some reason! :S My friend gave me that tip: “Lalay jo kaam aye nimta do, latka ke mat rakho, galey par jayga!” - quite a simple advice isn’t it, but I never actually implemented his idea until now, and believe me, it works like charm! you really have to put yourself in 4th gear and keep yourself awake half of your nights, but getting your responsibilities done within time is an awesome feeling! I am no good at time but getting better!