Missing Mary Road

so my namesake and i have come up with the idea that kids today don’t know much about anything anymore. so we’ve decided to try and educate them about it one step at a time. read all about it at http://abbasbytwo.wordpress.com

rss might be broken. actually it is broken. please bear with me while i try and repair and see why it’s broken.

UPDATE: Issue is resolved now. Thanks.

since i’m bored, a bunch of keywords that brought people to my site recently.

leftbrain rightbrain function
abbas halai
nietzsche?s ?god is dead? and bergman?s seventh seal
shanghai express public domain
www.abbashalai.com thundercats
sunaina quetta
humanitarian crisis blog
statistics about object permanence
juggs close
battle star gallactica 1984 youtube
tsa and artificial knee
rob bailey shrewsbury
collecting los angeles produce mart spoilage
lord of ring boing arrow
jean piaget
asif zardari shake hand with saira live video
amazing human race – life of mammals with david attenborough download
god particle
free download hollywood movie the french connection 1971
buying embroidered pashmina shawl online
farhat hashmi deported
the reluctant fundamentalist court case
geneva convention on disappearances mass graves angana chatterji
2008 may june past papers of physics
contact mr. geoffrey harris subcommittee on human rights in the european parliament
object permanence monty python
star trek episode that has i just can’t do it captain, i don’t have the power
varma, saiba
fill-a-pix
cabeiri robinson
reluctant fundamentalist
osman ali khan daily life after the kingdom gone
facebook mridu rai
the natural (1984) pt 1 movie stream
rai face book english
muhammad aurangzeb ahmad age

one of the few websites that i actually sit and read rants from is a website by a unique individual who speaks of Homer and relates it to the current political construct across the globe. at the same time, he does so with a comedic tone unlike any other. it’s wonderful. similarly, speaking of manfredd mann and cold stone ice cream in the same paragraph is not easy to do, but the satire behind this young writer makes it wonderful to read. so when he left a note around here and said that this was one of his favourite blogs, i was much obliged. i wouldn’t think too much of being tagged or linked to, but coming from him it’s quite fun to note that i’ve been given the brilliante blog award.

now the rules of the game are as follows:

1. the purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogosphere (quad erat demonstradum).
2. when you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back.
3. choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in their content or design.
4. show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘brilliante weblog.’
5. show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).
6. and then we pass it on!

so here goes nothing…

seems like the desi blogosphere is primarily comprised of people just linking to other desi blogs which really defeats the purpose of this exercise. so i suppose i might as well expand a bit further to some other sites that i read but i doubt they really know that i read them.

1. vleeptronz – for being an inquisitive planet where bob the new englander is only trying to learn more about planet earth with wiggly gif’s and molly ringwald
2. phd comics – for students everywhere, piled higher and deeper
3. the big picture – for helping me rediscover the joy of photography again
4. the google operating system – for reminding us that google has been developing an operating system since they formed ten years ago
5. what would tyler durden do – for keeping me in the loop
6. whedonesque – for browncoats everywhere
7. wwdn in exile – for being a geek and a fun writer and staying cool after being a part of one of the best television series ever

so there you go, 7 more sites to peruse and enjoy. have fun.

okay so i’ve had some good and bad reviews about this new user interface. here’s a few issues that i wanted to address.

firstly, i found this via jason’s site. it’s essentially a command line interface emulator for wordpress and primarily bears resemblance to a classic vt terminal.

secondly, it’s not meant to render images. when it does, it does so in 8 bit. if you wish to see the images, please change the theme using the sidebar.

thirdly, i know the site breaks when using Opera and IE8. haven’t heard about any other browsers in which it breaks yet. do let me know if your browser does not work. in these browsers though, you should be able to switch the theme and get it to render with a GUI.

i’ve removed the ls command as it was going through the entire archive of posts.

i appreciate all the feedback. i really do. i know a lot of it pretty broken, but i’m working on it as i get time. credit goes to jason for getting me more involved into this. when you get a moment, go check out his Linux Log as well. jay, i’m taking partial credit for converting you over entirely from windows to linux. i know you were mostly there on your own anyway.

Update: Okay this is more headache than not so I’ve gone back to this GUI.

so one of my favourite blogs is da vinci automata, as listed in my links celebrating all that is steampunk and clockpunk. along similar lines comes a  new blog by a buddy, which looks rather promising and i hope to be reading up on it regularly. just wanted to give you guys a headsup about it.

“Till Malfunctions Do us Part” promises to be a rewarding read if you’re into science, technology and the way humans interact with their alternate counterparts in these genre’s, the robots. it’s about human relations and how we are influenced and the way we interact with machines ever more so in the world today.

a little geek humour here. hap tip to hugh. click to biggie.

“Nothing of value is free. It is very easy, Mr. Chairman, to convince people that it is in their best interest to give away somebody else’s property for nothing, but even the most guileless among us know that this is a cave of illusion where commonsense is lured and then quietly strangled.”

- Jack Valenti, MPAA

“If you design your own machine, you can’t fuss at people, because you’re one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?”

- Jack Valenti, MPAA

hmm recent comment issues should be gone. if you’re still having a problem, please let me know.

thanks.

lemme know if you like this new look. or not.

for those who have been keeping up with the election and state of affairs in pakistan via online means, in specific dawn.com, should consider browsing the dawn blog. and give them some feedback on what you think of the blog and whether it’s a worthwhile feature or not.

CONGRATULATIONS ON SELECTING SEAT 21C! This manual is intended to familiarize you with the many options available to you.Before BUCKLING in, please note that the man standing in the aisle next to you is about to make a request. He wonders if it would be okay for you to switch seats with his wife, who is in the middle seat three rows ahead. She is the one seated between the former linebacker and the canola oil salesman, and is peering over the seatbacks at you with wide and imploring eyes.The man will ask this in a voice sufficiently loud that all passengers seated within several rows will look up from their sudoku puzzles and await your answer. If you say no, the passengers will all wonder: Why do you hate married people? You must be a bitter and lonely person. Note also that there is no overhead luggage space three rows ahead, so you will have to wait for the entire plane to empty to come back and retrieve your bags. Have a good flight up at 18E!

Once permanently seated, grasp both ends of SEAT BELT and press firmly together. If you hear only a dull metallic clanking sound rather than a smart “click,” extend half of the seat belt to your seatmate and awkwardly suggest that he must be sitting on your half.

If you would like a small and insubstantial PILLOW and cannot locate one, ring the flight attendant call button located directly overhead. If the flight attendant does not appear within five seconds, press the button repeatedly and with increasing urgency. If the flightattendant tells you no more are available, wait five minutes and repeat process.

here’s a countdown of the top 20 coolest comic book weapons. who do you think they’ve missed?

5 – Wolverine’s claws – Wolverine and X-men

While we originally thought that these razor sharp Adamantium claws were added on to Wolvie during his Weapon X days, relatively recent comics have revealed that he always had claws, they just used to be made of bone. Whether made from bone or Adamantium (the hardest metal in the Marvel U, unbreakable and indestructable) these claws have most likely killed more people than the Black Plague, and don’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.

While searching for invisible images,

A Dali-like painting of an invisible elephant by Nguyen Dinh Dang, and a cat who definitely thinks he’s invisible

Beware of the invisible cows of Mauna Kea. Beware of the invisible snowmobiler

“One of the most astonishing sensations in the desert is to walk in the middle of nowhere. Hours, with no mark…

Joe Bagley’s photo of two men in lounge chairs and a self-portrait of an invisible photographer taking a tea break

HG Wells Penguin Mug

This invisible globe is a hollow glass sphere with a spinning LED light ring to create different projections. (Other unique globes by the same globe makers)

An invisible lizard

An optical illusion with six invisible triangles. Can you spot them?

Vanishing Point puzzles

Invisible Suits are interactive suits made from special blue screen fabric (material used for work with video blue screen technique). The intended effect is the virtual “disappearance” of the persons wearing the suits: their bodies merge with the visual environment they inhabit.
The artist Willem Oorebeek prints black ink on black surfaces, and his invisible “Blackout” images can be seen only from a particular angle

The Do’s and Don’t's of Attending a Mime’s Birthday Party

The lost secret of invisibility by artist Howard Kistler

An invisible painting.

via GOB

the week that you missed via sciam.

* Geeks who have been in the game long enough to remember the original flying toaster screensaver, rejoice! It’s back, and it’s free.

* Worldwide, consumers throw away between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year. (Think about that the next time you pick up a drink at the corner store and they hand you a disposable cup, straw, napkins, and paper bag.) The solution is devilishly simple–bring your own.

* The World Champion of Chess may be a cheater–word is his coach has been texting his moves to a remote location, where the entire game is played out on a computer–later the moves are telegraphed back to the cheater in question, Veselin Topalov, via some kind of as-yet-unknown signaling system.

* Inbreeding isn’t always a bad thing.

* That old bogeyman is back: Turns out it doesn’t take a planet-ending war to get the nuclear winter ball rolling–even a limited nuclear exchange between, say, India and Pakistan could do the trick.

* This man loves colonoscopies. “i’ll be having my 16th colonoscopy in march, 2006. i’m looking forward to it because i love telling colon cancer to get lost.”

* Every bottle of Fiji water requires 7 bottles’ worth of water to produce.

* Attention All Scientists Who Could Use $10,000 Exxon-supported think-tank would like to pay you to say bad things about the IPCC’s latest report on climate change (you know, the one that says it’s definitely happening). (Update: for the full debate over the Guardian’s partly-botched attempt to uncover this, see the comment thread on this post; looks like there was no bribery involved, just the usual attempts to throw sand in the face of the best science we have on the subject.)

* Digital sundial described in 1991 issue of Scientific American has been built–it’s entirely mechanical!

* Vintage: Watch as The Amazing Randi exposes fraudstulent “I bend spoons with my mind” Uri Geller for the charlatan he is (on the Johnny Carson show, no less).

* If you like to bandy about the phrase “Web 2.0″ but have never actually seen Joi Ito speak, here’s your chance to see one of the most inspiring talks on new media, the internet, the future of capitalism and the nature of copyright you’ll ever encounter.

* prez says, Our economy was built on the back of Windows piracy.

* Rent-a-womb in India fuels surrogate motherhood debate

* The U.S. government is going to start assembling a database of every felon it gets its hands on. Mostly illegal immigrants.

the bullshit generator v 2.0. via adnan