Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago at 3:30 am. 10 comments
Hello …
Am watching
Naked Science on
National Geographic Channel …
Its a good show … putting forth interesting questions …
And trying to find answers using modern technology …
Last night I was watching the episode called
Roman Tech …
In which they showed how the Romans had lived …
I was amazed at the similarity of their lifestyle to ours …
They brought down water from the mountains to their cities …
They had heat … running water and sewerage systems in homes …
Hell … they even had double panned glass windows …
And much like us … lived in multi-storey apartment buildings …
They paved roads with cobblestone to link their cities …
These may seem all very ordinray for us now …
Except that the Romans had these a few thousand years ago …
There’s no question that Romans were an advanced civilization …
Though nobody knows how the Romans discovered everything …
Everybody knows how they had put together their knowledge …
To conquer and rule half the world for many hundreds of years …
There are several unanswered questions about the Romans …
The biggest and the most debated question being what lead …
To the downfall of a vast and powerful empire like the Roman’s ???
When the episode ended … I had a few questions of my own …
I thought… if such a powerful empire like the Roman’s …
Can suddenly loose their glory to get buried in sand and time …
What will happen to our civilization a few centuries down ???
If our ways of life or life itself be threatened …
And we inevitably loose at the hand of a more powerful enemy …
Or if nature decided Maldives be an underwater attraction …
How will we be remembered … what will we leave behind ???
What will a future civilization learn about us ???
Would they know our foods/shelter/lifestyles/recreations ???
About our attempts at survival and deliberate failures ???
Will we leave behind skeletons of the wars fought ???
Or will leave them remnants of a diseases that killed us all ???
We Maldivians… how will we be perceived centuries/eons later ???
Thinking about it sure gives me the creeps … hehe …
Laterx …
Posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago at 8:31 am. 9 comments
Hello …
So… oh-seven has left… time just flies eh ???
But thats okay… coz I’ve been waiting …
I’ve some good things planned out for oh-eight …
And I was kinda waiting for it to come …
Here it is already (kinda fast and without fireworks) …
So lets see how the stars align for me this year …
If half the things I planned for the year works out …
This is gonna be a good year… a really good year …
This years resolution… do i hear you ask … ???
Well… someone told me this the other day …
And it kinda stuck with me … so here it is …
“Dream like you’ll live for ever …
Live like you’ll die today …”
It sounds kewl… but i dunno if i can do it… hehe …
But hey… who sticks by their resolutions… eh ??? hehe …
I wish you all a happy new year and all things good …
Laterx …
Posted 11 months ago at 10:16 pm. 5 comments
Hello …
Just finished reading “
A Prison Diary” by FF8282 …
Its the first part of a three part book …
By renowned British writer/author
Jeffrey Archer …
The book is very different to all his other books …
This book was written inside a jail cell …
Jeffrey Archer, a charismatic national leader and novelist …
Probably on his way to become the Prime Minister of Britain …
Gets sentenced to 4 years in prison … accused of perjury …
So … instead of 10 downing street … he ends up in jail …
Her Majesty’s Prison at Belmarsh … a double A-cat prison …
This book is an hour-by-hour day by day account …
of the first 21 days of his 4 year sentence …
He starts by telling us how he was strip searched …
How he was on the medical wing on suicide watch …
And how he was banged up for 18 hours a day in a small cell …
Along with some of the worst criminals in Britain …
With his trademark writing style he narrates his experiences …
It makes an interesting and thought-provoking read …
The importance of prison reform … the effectivesness of the system …
How a first time offender rather than a first time prisoner …
Struggles to face life behind bars …
Its about solitary confinement … retribution and redemption …
A very good book … looking forward to reading the sequels …
Laterx …
Posted 11 months, 1 week ago at 4:07 am. 13 comments
Hello …
Male’ is one of the most densely populated cities …
And due to the scarcity of available land to develop …
The only logical direction of expansion is sky wards …
And we are building at an alarmingly rapid rate …
So rapid… each block has a few buildings under construction …
That may be a sign of economic boom and good news for some …
But for people who live on highrises and on multiple floors …
That is far from good news … infact its bad news …
Here is what annoys me… and what frustrates me …
I live on the top floor of a 6-storey building …
That may sound kewl… but let me tell you… it really is not …
My building doesn’t have the luxury of an elevator system …
So each time I come home… I have to climb up the stairs …
Thats 75 boring/tiring steps… and I do it 3-4 times everyday …
And to add to the frustration and annoyance …
Everyone who I care to visit … be it family or friends …
Doesn’t live anywhere even close to the ground floor …
So every time I have to visit of them for any given reason …
I have to be ready to climb a few flights of stairs …
The places of my work are on 2nd floor of different buildings …
So gotta run up and down these stairs a few times everyday …
Thats not all … what actually infuriates me is that …
Most places I go on work related stuff are never on ground …
Most places I go to get a service like banking and bills …
Are not on the ground … so I gotta do more climbing …
Have you started to see a pattern here … get my drift ???
Say you are going to meet someone or pick someone up …
When you are nearing his/her place … you let ‘em know …
It used to be like… you call and ask him/her to come out …
Nowadays… you call up and always ask him/her to come down …
I know there is not much anyone can do about this …
But all this climbing is really starting to get to me …
I know climbing can be considered a form of exercise …
It can even be good for urbanites who doesn’t get much of it …
But only an expert like our
personal trainer can tell us …
If we should be happy we are forced to do this all the time …
Or will it just get us to bust our knees at a young age …
Laterx …
Posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:56 pm. 9 comments
Hello …
Got an email with an interesting PDF attached …
It had the list of the top 200 Universities for 2007 …
You can download a copy of this
here …
As you may expect … I immediately scanned the list …
To see if my University was there somewhere …
It was not … bummer …
Then I noticed something interesting …
There were no Malaysian Universities on the list …
As many Maldivians go to Malaysia for their studies …
I wanted to share this with you guys …
Laterx …
Update::
Some are finding it difficult to download the file …
So I’ve put a direct link to the PDF ..
Just right click… and save …
Posted 1 year ago at 12:03 am. 12 comments
Hello …
I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a tech wish …
But if there is such a thing … here is mine …
I wish for
podcasts … podcasts by Maldivians …
I know some bloggers have talked about it …
I’ve been told that a few even tried it …
But I have yet to know of a regular Maldivian podcast …
I enjoy listening to podcasts … I listen to many a week …
There are lotsa podcasts out there for you to download …
An insane number of them on all topics you can think of …
And I think it would be a good idea … a great idea …
If a Maldivian started to take up podcasting …
To talk about local stuff … to cover local issues …
Several months ago … or was it a year … I’m not sure …
I tried to put out a podcast with
simon as a guest …
We even recorded a few takes … it was fun …
Then I got busy with other stuff … lost my focus …
But when I did manage sit down and learn
Garageband …
And figured out how to edit and add intro/outro/jingles …
The moment had passed and the things we talked about …
Had become pretty out dated … bummer …
So I didn’t manage to put out that podcast …
But I seriously wish that someone else would …
We are here to download … to listen … to comment …
To compliment … and of coz … to constructively criticize …
So all you guys out there … if you have something to say …
Say it with a podcast … or better yet … a video podcast …
Or is that wishing for too much too soon … ???
Also … I was thinking that it would be kinda kewl …
If some radio shows were made available as podcasts …
So we could listen to them at our convenience …
Laterx …
Posted 1 year ago at 3:24 pm. 11 comments
Hello …
So imagine this scenario …
You are traveling or something …
Aand you loose your cell phone …
With all your contacts and calendar events and all …
That would be like a real bummer right … ???
Nope … not anymore … not when you are on
zyb …
I just got to know this website …
zyb …
It lets you backup/sync your cell phone …
Contacts … calendar events … even text messages …
This is like really good … very convenient …
Weather you loose your phone …or get a new phone…
You can just sync over the air wherever you are …
And get all your data right back on your cell …
I sync’d my cell … with a few hundred contacts …
And found out 6 people already using zyb …
Including
murad and
jaa … to name a few bloggers …
So I guess … it’s a good service to check out …
Especially coz it doesn’t cost you anything … hehe …
Lemme know what you think of it …
Laterx …
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 5:24 am. 12 comments
As a kid … I was fascinated with science fiction novels …
I read stories set in fictional future worlds …
About near-impossible human achievements …
And huge technological advances … time travel and stuff …
Not that I understood much then … but it sure was intriguing …
But I never actually thought I’d live to see this day …
Fox has reported that
Craig Venter … a genetics specialist …
Has created artificial life … yes artificial life !!!
With synthetics chromosomes from laboratory chemicals …
This is like huge … I mean really huge …
I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the impact …
This discovery would have on our world as we know it …
On life as we know it … or on propagation of human kind …
I’m sure there is gonna be like heated debates over this …
I’m sure there will be like more than a few opinions …
Especially between scientists and religious people …
Life is supposed to be a gift from God himself …
And if we human learn the ability to give life …
Someone somewhere is gonna have serious problems with it …
I dunno how far or where this would take human kind to …
I dunno how far down this road we should venture …
I dunno who would control this … or who wouldn’t wanna control …
But I do know … that there might come a day in the future …
When an unborn fetus will have the right to be born perfect …
Laterx …
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 2:53 pm. 12 comments
Male’ is like one of the most dense cities in the world …
Old buildings and structures are being leveled almost daily …
To make way for for offices and apartment buildings …
And as these new buildings pack in closer and closer …
Male’ is taking the shape of one huge concrete building …
With narrow roads and lanes as access ways and path ways …
And in the midst of all that … its very refreshing to see …
Some people working hard and exploring the possibilities …
Where they can fit a few plants … and grow small gardens …
Be it balconies … flat roof tops … or external stairs …
We should be happy … as it has been a long time since …
A healthy environmentally friendly trend took off in the city …
These small gardens are like patches of green in the city …
And people tend to spend a lot of time in these areas …
While some people like to sit and relax in these gardens …
Others go there to think … contemplate … and cogitate …
While looking down into the city and vehicles zipping past …
I’m seriously thinking about starting my own small garden …
Given the area … my garden can’t be bigger than 3ft by 3ft …
May be a few potten plants first … but its a start … eh ???
Laterx …
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 12:27 pm. 12 comments
A coupla months go … i wrote a
blog post …
It was about prevalent spelling mistakes of signage …
They say blogs have the power to sway public opinion …
I don’t think thats true … and I’m not sure I wanna do that …
Some even say blogs can make you rich and famous …
Haven’t seen a single buck my way yet … hehe ..
But may be … just may be … I might have made myself heard …
Cos they actually have corrected a spelling mistake …
I guess may be i could think of thisas a small victory … ???
And i guess my blog hasn’t been totally useless after all eh … ???
Laterx …
