BhaiLog Nama

Going to Pakistan

2008-09-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

Guyz

Do check this out

www.flytopakistan.blogspot.com

Interesting

2008-02-24T21:51:00.000-08:00

Jo thori see pee kar bahak jai
Usai mai khanai say bahir nikaal go

Muhabat zindigi ka hadsa hai
so kismat walai kai saath paish aata hai

Home for another few months

2008-01-08T23:25:00.000-08:00

Taking notes

2007-12-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

"Surround yourself with people better than you. That's what I did. Know your own limitations. Don't think you know everything, and know that you need help in certain areas. Even if you are the best in the world, you have to build a team. In building this team, make sure to attract the best talent imaginable, but also make sure that you get people with personalities that work well together"

Wm. Polk Carey

Classic Silliness

2007-11-20T01:43:00.000-08:00

So on this Friday night four of us friends went to watch the movie No Country for Old Men (http://www.nocountryforoldmen.com/). The movie was suppose to start at 10:15. We got there by 10:25. One of my friends wanted pop-corn with butter ( rather butter with pop-corn i should say;), another friend said yeah sure they should be running trailers, the movie should start in a bit. So 3 minutes (and added butter later) we enter the theater to find it jam packed. There was not a single empty seat in sight...so we walked to the absolute front. We did find seats there but it was impossible to enjoy the movie from that perspective... We had to look up to see the screen...and it was way too close. So after straining my neck for the next few minutes and trying all sorts of funny ways to make myself comfortable on that seat I got up and left for the back of the room. There on the floor in the corner i found a nice comfortable spot. Finally I started enjoying the movie.

The movie seemed very interesting...rather confusing...lots seemed to be happening but i was lost...maybe they will introduce these characters later in the movie.

20 minutes later i see all three of my friends walking to the back of the room towards me. Finally their necks must hurt too i thought. But no, the issue was that the movie had started at 9!

Strange isn't it. What's wrong with this place. We came outside, looked at our tickets and it said movie starts 10:15. And the staff had left the place now. Just then one of us figured we were in hte wrong theater...there were two of them! Tsk tsk tsk :)

So we went to the one we should have gone to originally!

And oh btw...the movie was interesting. Though it was one i would have seen in fast play back home :P

Rehan's little observation

2007-11-09T01:14:00.000-08:00

So I asked Rehan why a popular tv shows website was not working to which he gave me the following long answer which was worth every word i read :D

Rehan: I generally use youtube/veoh for more anime

One of the world's most-used pirate film websites has been closed after providing links to illegal versions of major Hollywood hits and TV shows.

The first closure of a major UK-based pirate site was also accompanied by raids and an arrest, the anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) said today.

A 26-year-old man from Cheltenham was arrested on Thursday in connection with offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet, Fact said.

The arrest and the closure of the site - www.tv-links.co.uk - came during an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council trading standards in conjunction with investigators from Fact and Gloucestershire Police.

We should use PaS has a forum to protest about this

My favorite of Faiz Ahmad Faiz

2007-10-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

Meri jan aaj ka ghum na kar kai na janai katib e waqt nai
kisi apnai kal mai bhe bhool kar, kahin likh rakhai hoon musaratain

Beautiful

2007-10-05T00:25:00.000-07:00

Mera rang bhi nahin
Mera roop bhi nahin
Mera ishq wi Rumi wargha nahin
Tai menu Madni (pbuh) manawan da dhang wi nahin
Par mai qasm Khuda di khana waan
Menu terai jia koi hor wi nahin

The Lahori is back

2007-09-27T03:31:00.000-07:00

Bhai log is back in California...might i say the coolest state of this country :)

Back where the air is cool and fresh ( and this was my reaction to the air on the freeway from SFO to the farm!)

Back where if you are standing by the road cars will stop...and I start wondering if I have pissed them off for some reason!!

Back where there is a definite need for more spices in food, seriously whats up with such bland food? Last year this time I had someone tell me not to add salt to my food as it was already too spicy!!!

Back where a can of coke costs 5 times more than what it would cost in Lahore. Back where a nan would cost 20 times more than it would cost in Lahore.

Back in the land of bhai log's beloved d.school (bhai log is d.fool!), and IDEO, and IKEA. Bhai log LOVES Lahore. But I missed this place a lot too.

Nice to be blogged about

2007-06-02T03:57:00.000-07:00

And that too on Bob Sutton's blog (the famous author of "The No Asshole Rule")

http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/the_movie_the_s.html

check out the video here

And by MD too...check it out here

New website by Amazon

2007-05-23T03:37:00.001-07:00

Endless.com

This is really nicely made. Check it out.

Google

2007-05-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

Can do anything as long as its not evil...hmm...this sounded wittier when i first said it!

Another Great One

2007-05-18T04:57:00.000-07:00

The World of the Illogical

2007-05-14T02:53:00.001-07:00

This one goes out to Rehan Akbar, and to his statement "What's the point to that?"

This world is not completely logical. And assumption in econonomics that we are all rational beings is exactly that, i.e. an assumption. Why is it then that we don't have a book on the way illogic works. Why don't we have illogic 101?

(more on this later, right now i'm going to procrastinate on writing about this, and do some homework for a change)

BTW Rehan if you happen to be reading this please feel free, in fact please do comment on this and add to our knowledge about how illogic frustrates you.

Interesting Stuff

2007-05-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading "Made to Stick" by the Heath brothers. Also, just finished the "Laws of Simplicity" by John Maeda. Started reading "Designing Interactions" by Bill Moggridge. All quite good. Seemingly quite simple and obvious stuff...but great frameworks. Now i've discoverd www.maedastudio.com ... you must check this website out!

My idea of an office space

2007-05-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

I like this Poem a Lot :)

2007-05-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

"The Internet is our hard disk", Danyaal Afzal

2007-05-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

In Danyaal's room as we discuss how we've been spoiled by the super fast internet speed here...and how soon when i'm back in Lahore i'll be waiting for Google home page to open :P

Creative Seriously Needs Help

2007-05-06T03:22:00.000-07:00

My greatest tech guru tells me that zen is far superior to ipod. Apple just has its marketing better. But GOOD GOD!!! Apple has the HCI figured not just for the machines but for the websites too. It's incredible. I spent more than 15 mins going through the creative website, googling stuff, etc...just looking for the refurbished products by creative. God know how many links i went through!

I tried apple...and i was there in 3 links.

Creative's product may be superior but they seriously need to work on the customer's purchase experience.

More later.

Just did this silly little test

2007-05-06T02:22:00.000-07:00

You Are 20% Left Brained, 80% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.

Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.

If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.

Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.

Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.

If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.

Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

The Story Starts

2007-05-04T03:04:00.000-07:00

Dennis. Mari. World Bank. A billion dollars fund for a country. Success!

Dennis. Mari. World Bank. 5 million dollars to give away. Competition. World Bank Lobby looking up at 13 floors. Sitting on the floor are two old Ugandan women, first time out of their home town, with hand drawn charts. Across them is a guy from NASA with digitized maps and fancy printouts. Next to him are two Canadian Judges with their big plan. And many more. All there to pitch their idea in fifteen minutes to the President of the World Bank.

The judges secure funding. So do the Ugandan women. A woman from an African village doesn't secure anything. But does she give up? No, she's going to wait for the secondary markets! She inspires Dennis and Mari to create these secondary markets.

GlobalGiving is born. The vision is to give an opportunity to all those living for less than $2 a day -- for less than what I spend on my morning cup of coffee--towards a better life. The vision is to give you and me a chance to not just talk about but actually make a difference.

www.globalgiving.com ... my new mission. Together with you lets take this story back to one billion dollars ;)

Caterpillars Quarter

2007-04-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

This is the Caterpillars quarter here at the farm. Since the start they've been everywhere. And they've learnt how to make spider web type robes, and are now seen hanging from tree branches. And since all the footpaths have tree branches above them...tsk tsk tsk.

Meanwhile, they seem to have fallen in love with me. I got on the bus the other day only to have the guy sitting in front of me give a very amused smile and tell me i've got a caterpillar on my shoulder. I got that off. But he was still smiling, "Another one on your head!"...and so on there were 5 more another ones! Amusement for the whole bus i tell you. Even the driver stopped the bus for me to get all of them off.

Two hours later i found one under my shirt!

And a week later...i.e. today...i just had a few more on me and had to go back of the class to get them off.

Fun isn't it. NO!

(tuning back to my lecture) Watch out for caterpillars ;)

General Tip

2007-04-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

Not a good idea to cut your hair with a long blade scissor. Could possibly snip your ear ka end off :P

Secondly being a lahori in silicon valley i still LOVE food. Of course the best way to go is to take smallest bites possible. The fact is that there is only so much food that can be layered on the tongue to enjoy the taste ...thus one can enjoy more with smaller bites. And what a wonderful way to lose weight. Of course if you figure out how to do this one...do lemme know how!

Gotta rethink my life

2007-04-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

I love the start of this preview of Pixar's new movie Ratatouille (Rat a too ee)

http://www.pixar.com/theater/trailers/rat/rat_t1_640.html

If only i could learn to rethink my life, or at least eating habits...if only!

This is a test

2007-04-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

d(me)/dt

2007-04-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

I turned twenty seven today. Yet I hardly feel any different from seventeen. Okay, i didn't have a license at seventeen so lets make it eighteen. Or maybe i do feel a little different. Strange...what i do feel is that if my d(me)/dt ( a great way to put it by Shams) was plotted then it would be nearly flat over the last few years.

Or maybe i'm wrong. In some ways i hope i'm wrong. I love the idea of continuous improvement in oneself. Challo, i'll be a better guy tomorrow :)

Good night for now!

OpenFloodGate.com

2007-04-12T02:40:00.000-07:00

Check it out
Its a neat website
And especially if you like to blog various sorts of creative stuff
And if you do join it...do drop me an email

Missing in Action

2007-04-11T02:44:00.000-07:00

Wow
I really haven't blogged in a loong time now, have i?

Here's an interesting little fact. Did you know that wikipedia is dominated by males! 80% contributions are by men. Perhaps its because mostly men are geeks and the data addition interface is rather intimidating for someone who doesn't know tags/coding languages etc.

I was shocked to learn the above. Its interesting, I believe they get a lot of readers because of the credibility that a very intelligent name fetches them - Encyclopedia = Wikipedia...gives it an immediate sense of authority, in my mind at least, which would not have been there had the name been something else say wikiInformation.

Furthermore, i learned about wikichix -- a website opened in reaction to the male domination of wikipedia. This i find really strange!!!

Khair i will learn more about this and report soon enough :)

Insomnia

2007-04-06T03:57:00.000-07:00

Bhai log ko insomnia ho gaya hai. Could it be the two cups of ice coffee i had today. Is ice coffee stronger than normal coffee. I usually have two cafe au laits in a day. Aur aaj tu work out plus fat burn cycling bhe ki thi. Phir why?

Ooper say Mashallah say spring allergies ko bhi mujhai abhi yaad karna tha :(

Wow I think i had taken falling asleep for granted for quite some time now. Its 4am again. Which is appropriate for this blog...but i really want to sleep. What can one do to make oneself sleepy. I just ate bread and jam. I've tossed and turned around enough too. Even writing to this page isn't helping.

Sesame Street yaad aa raha hai. One sheep. (wait isn't sheep a plural) Two sheep. Or was it lambs? Three sheep. Wait where is the wolf disguised as sheep?

Hey maybe there is a reason that i am being kept awake. Divine Desire. Does anyone need my help. Well if you do...call me or msg me man...the night isn't getting any younger. And please whatever you do, Kindly do not wake me if i have slept.

The uses of water

2007-04-06T02:36:00.000-07:00

Sting thinks he's cool with his song "English man in NY" crying about "i dont drink coffee i drink tea my dear." Well on that note i love tea too, and not the punch-free one we get here but thats another story.

"I'm a Lahori in California! I take it everywhere i go." And God forbids the need arises away from the home call center (if you know what this is a euphemism for! ) i get to spend $2 on my royal self. Which i did today.

Lovely isn't it. Crispy Nice Spring Clean feeling!

Google Smarts

2007-04-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

-A large variety of Free Food
-An even larger variety of Free Drinks
-Games
-(Free !)Work
-Laundry
-Great Salary
-Brilliant Work Place
-Washrooms with heated (plus functions added) seats (Truly Amazing!)
-Art work
-Gym
-Sleeping Bean Bags
-Pick/Drop Service
-...okay what'd i miss? Please add to list

Heavy expenses!? Naah...Google is very very People Smart.

p.s. Today's D.Coke count = 4
Coffee = 2

A Philosophy of life

2007-04-02T01:51:00.000-07:00

Life is just so easy if you take yourself as a fool and then say "okay now what :P"
(Anonymous)

Strongly Recommended

2007-03-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

Their software updates nice desktops automatically. And the stuff is pretty neat!

http://vladstudio.com/home/

The picture below was taken from their files

BTW all credit for introducing this to me goes to the man who is going back to india to join amazon.

Coca Cola to Diet Coke to Water. Possible!?

2007-03-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

I'm addicted to coca cola. I love it. I was having about 2 liters a day back in Lahore. Thanks to it i have quite a double chin and a pot belly :)

Not exactly a smiling matter is it, right?!!!

So last quarter i decided to strictly shift to diet coke. Not that previously i strictly had coke only, but last quarter it was only and only diet. Okay, except for 2 cans, but 2 cans only. So that's about 3 to 4 cans of diet coke on average.

But now i just want to get rid of this addiction. Yes, I know its a big loss for the cola company but kiaa karain yaar, must hai.

So from now on i will make an effort to say water will be fine, thank you. Lets see how i do this quarter. Do wish me luck!

Eating Places on University Avenue

2007-03-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

Starting this quarter bhai log decided he will eat at least once at all the places on university avenue. Then of course i completely forgot about it. Today i happen to be on university avenue with a camera and so started taking pictures. I got all the places till Sehbali...so i'm sharing them here. Pictures of the rest of the places will be put up soon.

The Polygon of Success

2007-03-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

I feel we usually judge success unidimensionally. There should be a way to take the whole picture into account. I propose the Poloygon of Success. The idea is simple, pick 5 plus/minus 2 general categories of life that are important to you. Place these equidistantly on a circle. The center of the circle is the Zero point. Success in each dimension is measured on a 1 to 10 scale and then plotted as shown in (the badly made) image here. Connect the final scores to get your success polygon, i.e the greater the area inside the polygon the more successful you have been. The polygon made by the points on the circle represents your maximum possible success of course.

Moscow had an interesting idea: let this be a cascaded success polygon. Which means that each dimension can be broken down into its own polgyon to measure the amount of success in it and so on.

Eid Milad ul Nabi

2007-03-24T03:44:00.000-07:00

It is the 4th of Rabi-ul-Awwal in Pakistan today. Which means there are 8 days left to what i believe is the biggest day for us...the birthday of our Prophet(pbuh). Must say maximum darud shareef in this month.

Khurram Siddique: Man of the Year on BhaiLog Nama

2007-03-19T00:55:00.000-07:00

Khurram urf Sapuri
Thanks for driving us to the dish area, and SF yesterday.
And thanks for the Palm-Market-GoldenGate-OtherViewOFGoldenGate-Bunkers-MuirRoad-StarSearch-Blackwelder drive today. Aur fit music tha :)

Had a great time my lahori buddy.

Thankz

Shamsuddin

2007-03-17T00:59:00.000-07:00

Went to Shams' place today. Strange how i have been at Stanford for so many months now, but there is a very small set of places i have been too...the curse of eventually falling into a routine. Khair, it was nice to visit a new road and my first 'house'. I really liked the fact that they had pictures, of everyone who had ever lived in that house, on the living room walls. Shams can come back and see his picture somewhere there too one day :)

Anyway the motivation for this post came from an idea that Shams had for his photography class...but i can't share that till his project is submitted...so coming soon...a really cool idea!

The Best Perfume/Cologne

2007-03-17T00:54:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, Bhai log asks you to please post the name of the ONE you think is the best.

IBM laptops

2007-03-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

I think they are the best.
They have the best keyboard feel, screen size...these wide screen types i have just can't compete with the text size an IBM screen offers(wide screens have a rosolution limit that messes text sizes up!), screen type, the whole look...i just love them. I really wonder if they are priced right, in other words i think if the price was decreased a little then perhaps the increase in quantity sales would over all increase revenues. I can't remember what concept this translates to in economics...maybe the fact that price is above the unit elasticity point...hehe. I would also wonder if they are priced higher because they are charging a premium or because their actual development costs are higher? I'll keep wondering?

Khair, fit machines hain. If there is anything that looks cooler than an apple machine, its an IBM.

This blog is surely becoming my last thing to do before finally giving in to sleep. I bet there are so many erros in it...but just pardon them ...this is a 4am thoughts blog after all

What have you learnt

2007-03-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

Grant has done a great job with this video. A must watch!

Basically our team has to make a 2 mins presentation tomorrow on what we've learnt in the Global Entrepreneurial Marketing class

Well done Grant :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMAjOl0gzz8

(and what am i doing blogging...i have a final paper to compelete!!!!!)

This must be blogged

2007-03-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

So there is the polygon measure of success that is bhai log's personal theory and must be written about.

There is also the discussion that we all have with one friend or another, and i lately had with Zahid about the guilt about having tried enough to succeed in something?

But the above two blogs must be written sometime before 3am. Or perhaps on a non-exam week night.

Tonight blog is dedicated to the picture shared by Nazia which is linked as followes:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070310.html

A lighthouse for the seas and a lighthouse for the skies.

Enjoy :)

I am guilty of name bias and I believe you are too

2007-03-11T04:10:00.000-07:00

I think one of the main reasons i pick out a website of a few offering a similar service is its name. In fact it is the main reason. And i believe a majority of us are guilty of this; we don't really see which website is offering better services. I find this to be soo true. Think about it

Yahoo! compared to altavista, excite, lycos, webcrawler etc
Hotmail over excite mail, yahoo mail
Then came along Google...and it wasn't really any different for me as far as search was concerned...it won over because it was less clutter and i liked the "google it" idea
Amazon over barnesandnoble
YouTube
ebay
Paypal
Facebook
blogger or blogspot
chowk

I'm not saying that the service these companies offer isn't great ...just that the major reason for
their fast huge success is a great sticky name. And i will venture far enough to say that their competitors might even offer better services but lose out because of a lack of a catchy sticky name.

1:31am

2007-03-10T01:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday 3rd March 2007.
1:33 am.

I've spent two minutes above selecting the font. Khair. My blog is now finally born. I've thought about starting this for quite some time now. And thought ... i'd like to think i've thought a lot about an appropriate name but i haven't really. I thought of bhai log, but hey that was taken. And then Nazia recommended Bhai log nama as in khabarnama. I was thinking sleepy orange wind. But naah. Bhai Log Nama it is.

So what will this blog have. Well as my friend Danish likes to put it i have a weirdness quota for everyday. I'm not at peace till i've completed my quota. So now part of my quota fulfilling will be recorded on this blog. I'm weird. I'm quixotic. I never see the glass half empty. For that matter i never see it half full either. I just drink it.

:)
This blog should be a lot of fun. I've always been insecure about writing and then sharing it. But bhai log is not like me. Behind him I can say whatever I please. Bhai log is never boring.

Where did the title bhai log come from? No it did not come from an Indian movie. Credit goes to this cousin of mine, Faisal Bhai, who calls himself Bhai Log for fun. And I just adopted the term one evening at aftari in tressider(at stanford) while talking to a few desi-s trying to break ice. Khair that was for then. But next day I came into tressider at aftari time and this guy shouts out "Bhai Log...Kia haal hai". And well bhai log came into permanent existence.

BTW my close friends on the east coast right now, hated the term. But thats another story. Will share :)

Its nice to have a blog of my own ... one outside facebook!.