In the past two months, the rank of this blog on Google search results has improved from #19 to #9 for Procrastination, #2 to #1 for Zack Ajmal, and from #56 to #11 for Zack. In other blog news, I should pass 6,000 unique visitors and 8,000 page views some time tomorrow. In addition to… Continue reading Blog Talk
Year: 2003
Muslim Philosophy
Surfing the web, I found this interesting site about Muslim/Islamic philosophy. It has a book “A History of Muslim Philosophy” edited by M.M. Sharif available online. I have just started reading it and would share the authors’ and my thoughts over time. It seems to cover Mutazlilism and Asharism and Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd… Continue reading Muslim Philosophy
Laptop Recommendations
I am thinking of buying a laptop PC. My requirements include maximum compute power, lots of RAM (at least 512MB), at least a 40GB hard disk, a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, 100-Base-T ethernet and wireless networking, 1 or more PCMCIA slots and a resonable display. I definitely want a Wintel machine. It should be reasonably portable… Continue reading Laptop Recommendations
Which Political Stereotype Are You?
Democrat – You believe that there should be a free market which is reigned in by a modest state beaurocracy. You think that capitalism has some good things, but that those it helps should be obliged to help out their fellow man a little. Your historical role model is Franklin Roosevelt. Which political sterotype are… Continue reading Which Political Stereotype Are You?
Language Ability
Looking at the Census data, I came across what languages people spoke in the US and how it correlated with their speaking ability in English. The following two tables give the percentage of people who cannot speak English well, divided based on their native language. The first table further divides the data into people born… Continue reading Language Ability
Cricket World Cup
When the World Cup started, I made some predictions, which have turned out to be very wrong. Of the six teams qualifying for the super six stage, I predicted only three. However, I should eat crow over my prediction of a South African win. They didn’t even qualify for super six. Right now, Australia and… Continue reading Cricket World Cup
Torture Again
Via Eve Tushnet, I read a very disturbing passage about the torture by right-wing squads in Latin America on Late Night Thoughts. You’ll have to follow the link to read that passage, but here is her conclusion: The human gene pool sometimes throws out monsters. There are psychiatric terms for them, but their common denominator… Continue reading Torture Again
Face Recognition
Here is a news item on CNN about face recognition using a 3-D scanner instead of a regular 2-D photo. For a fleeting moment, Mohamed Atta appeared on an airport security camera minutes before he boarded one of the planes which crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Was there any way… Continue reading Face Recognition
An Illegal Immigrant
From Dawn: US authorities kept a nephew of President Pervez Musharraf in detention for two weeks for a visa violation, US and Pakistani officials said on Saturday. Aamir Javed Musharraf was detained on Feb 19 and released on Friday on bail, they said. He will now have to appear before immigration judge who could order… Continue reading An Illegal Immigrant
Census Data
As CalPundit pointed out, there is a lot of info available about your neighborhood on the Census website. It appears though that he has made a mistake in reporting the data (122 people) for his census tract. According to the Census Bureau, Census tracts generally have between 1,500 and 8,000 people, with an optimum size… Continue reading Census Data