Masjid Al Aqsa

This picture is one of the best aerial views of Masjid Al Aqsa that I have. With lots of detail about the people living there.

This picture alone tells a lot about this place. So I suggest you download and have a view of it too.

Fullsize picture is here

picture taken in 2013
resolution: 6500x4065
size: 23.8 MB

Privacy in Pakistan

I see lots of people worried about their privacy online. They use long passwords and stuff. Even people in Pakistan. But here's the thing. "There is no privacy in Pakistan". The government or anyone else doesn't care a bit about people's privacy.

The way it is going, every person, every citizen of Pakistan is a potential threat to the government. So, the police can stop a person anywhere they like, take anything they like from the car, put their hands in ones pockets and people can't resist. The only thing stopping the police from doing so are may be some ethics taught to them under the name of Islam in the kindergarten. Rest is all forgotten.

I have even seen homosexuals among the police invading people's pockets and stuff to satisfy their soul, and I'm sure there is no stopping them. People don't even mention them out of embarrassment. Once I saw a policeman taking stuff out of a rickshaw driver's trouser's pockets, though I don't like rickshaw drivers but that doesn't mean I'd accept that.

If you ask me about cyber privacy, the government or anyone else doesn't care a bit about privacy of it's people not even when they're physically present so how can someone expect that they care about privacy when they're not present. So, all the privacy that people have got is the https connection they make with the server they're talking to online. The rest of the content is intercepted on the ISPs, shared with intelligence agencies or anyone else they like regardless of what their consequences could be for the victim.

I have seen on facebook, some of this "police" come to facebook with fake IDs, they send friend requests to people they want to stalk and then once the victim accepts their request they're in. They see your friends, who can know your address, who knows you better etc. etc. and if they don't get the information from you, they connect to one of your friends and ask them.

This situation is full of SHIT. And if these people who do all the stalking and intrusion of privacy think that they're patriots, they're dead wrong. Neither are they patriots nor are they good Muslims.

Bitcoins

A Few days ago, I started to learn about bitcoins. They say we can "mine" bitcoins and then convert them to real money. So I got interested because money was kind of an issue for me.

So the thing is, money can't just come out of nowhere, so how does mining work? I tried to learn from various sources but couldn't understand. So I had to use my financial accounting skills to figure things out. So here is a bit of info if you too are confused like I was.

Bitcoins do not come from nowhere. The source of bitcoins is the pockets of people who buy it. But they are a commodity none-the-less.

So, it starts like this. A person puts money into the system in return for bitcoins. Now usually it happens that we give money to someone and nobody knows that our transaction ever happened except us. But in the bitcoin industry, everyone knows where the money came from and where did it go. This is against our anonymity and security, but to keep this virtual money have it's value, this is a must do.

When a transaction happens, every miner and bitcoin software is informed about that particular transaction. The bitcoin software creates a hash and that hash is synchronized. If that hash matches with other hashers, fine, but if it doesn't then that means some transaction has missed so that software must re-synchronize to keep the data correct.

The bitcoin software that creates the correct hash before the other software (which depends on hardware and network speed etc) that software wins the hashing commission (bitcoins) (this race for commission in form of bitcoins is called bitcoin mining)

At the moment this race for bitcoins (bitcoin mining) is ON! and people have already bought custom built hardware that can do upto 10THs (10 Tera hashes per second) to win this race. So our normal computers are nowhere near to with the fight. I'm sure they can't use those hashing computers for most of other tasks, but they don't intend to either.

When My Brother Said, I Need it Sometimes...

Two days ago, I was talking to my brother and he asked me what happened to pastefs.com? And I told him that I couldn't pay for it's expenses so I had to close it down. Also I wasn't getting any significant amount of traffic, and that I might relaunch it again but don't know for sure.

My brother, like me, is a programmer. He's running a firm. I'm a freelancer.

So, he told me, "I need that site sometimes. All the online sites sucks. Only 10KB data on pastebin.com"

That was one great thing I heard all day. Which encouraged me a lot to relaunch the site once again. It's here now and now it's called PasteFS (previously called "paste.eseaf.com")

Please use it to store code and stuff. You can keep things public as well as private. And it's all free. And I'm positive that this time it's here to stay InshaALLAH

pastefs.com (previously paste.eseaf.com) Relaunched

PasteFS which was previously known as paste.eseaf.com has been relaunched. It had been in testing mode till today evening. But now that testing thing is gone and it is live. I'm not creating my account at the moment. Shall see may be later.

Miss. Khan Baloch - Chapter 1

Wa, what an awesome Idea. let's write! So, Miss. Khan was one of my neighbors. Such a brilliant girl. But one thing that is hard to forget about her, is her piercing gaze.

The first time I saw her, it was a result day. I was in 7th class then, and she came with her niece and nephew who used to study in my school. I never remotely had an idea who she was, where she came from etc. etc. But I saw my other class fellow smiling after he saw her. So, I kind of got an idea that he knows her. Hassan Ali, don't know where he is, but where-ever he is, I hope everything is going great on his side.

We had two schools in our colony. One was Urdu-medium, and the other, mine, happened to be English-medium. Though I don't remember if I ever had a conversation, with anyone, in English. She belonged to the other one (btw, I'm positive that unlike us, they used to talk in Urdu often).

So our school and their school were in kind of a constant competition. That's the most fun part. Because as long as we were in the school, I saw my school winning only once.

I got 81% marks (in all of the subjects combined), my dear Hassan got... well I do remember, but I don't know if he'd like me disclose them or not.

So after the session ended, we all went home (on foot). And on the way, I asked my friend who the lady was. And he told me that she's a sister of one of the teachers there and aunt of the two kids with her.

"Oh! so she's also an aunty then", that's what I thought!

Feudal Age

the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

So, about 15 years ago, a traitor forcefully took the government of Pakistan in his hands (with is military power), then an year later, amreeka (America) was bombed (apparently by their own traitors) and that initiated a never-ending war.

In the past we used to think about educational institutes that spreading knowledge shouldn't be a business. It's a sacred duty. But in those days we never thought war would become a business too.

And apparently, everyone is benefitting from it. They're using a few people, loyal to their religion and countries, to work for their agenda in the name of Holy war or crusade and bla bla bla.

In the past, the kafirs used to kill Muslims in Palestine and Kashmir and Bosnia, but these days Muslims are killing Muslims.

This world (especially the Muslim world) is quite messed up!