Breakfast

My breakfast from a couple days ago (on the weekend).

Categories: Photography    

Tags: Breakfast, Morning, Hashbrown, Eggs, Toast

Comments: 8 so far

Beautiful Day

So yesterday (Saturday) was an amazing day!

I woke up and checked my Mac's Dashboard, and saw this:

"Wow", I thought to myself. "This is going to be a beautiful day if it's already warmer than Irvine, California!" But that wasn't it though... it kept getting warmer and warmer as the day progressed, eventually being this around noon:

Now I was really excited. It's warmer than a real desert! (Irvine is a semi-arid desert, by the way). But this wasn't it either. Around 2PM, the sky suddenly turned dark and gloomy and thunderclouds quickly started collecting (I took a picture which I will upload soon). This is what the dashboard showed:

Feels like 31ºC! Not to worry though; seasonal temperatures (10 degrees) will be back by the end of this week.

Categories: News    Weather    

Tags: Hot, Warm, Weather, Mississauga, Canada

Comments: 0 so far

Tet Lett

What do you read ... while on the toilet?

In reply: Tetrahedron Letters, always useful if you run out of paper. After all, it is its only use.

Funny comment on a blog I just discovered.

Categories: Quotes and Jokes    

Tags: Quote, Blog, Joke, Tetrahedron Letters, Tet Lett, Crappy Journals

Comments: 0 so far

Solver (A Calculator)

My brother was looking for a calculator that would solve the equation y = x^x (y = x^x) for his calculus course. He wanted to solve for x, when given a y value. Unfortunately, he couldn't find either a solver or an analytical equation to solve this equation on the Internet (and you thought everything was available no the Internets. To solve this problem, he decided to write one in Java.

Incidentally our grandfather was interested in such a solver, as well, so I decided to port the calculator from Java to PHP. This way, the calculator becomes more universal, because it's accessible from any computer and any browser as long as it's connected to the Internets. Porting to PHP was simple, because Java and PHP are very similar in syntax and grammar.

In any case here is the calculator. It has been tested to work on IE5 through 8, Opera, Safari and Firefox.

Categories: Internet & Computers    

Tags: Solver, Maths, Mathematics, Equation, PHP, Programming, Computers, y=x^x, y = x ^ x, y = x^x, x^x

Comments: 0 so far

Relax, It's Just a Game

They play these ads especially during NHL hockey playoff time, in order to deter kids from being over-aggressive and from fighting while playing hockey in youth leagues.

They mock parents' egging on of young hockey players, whether it be regarding a bad call by a referee (as in this video), pressuring kids, not performing up to par, or most importantly fighting.

Don't get me wrong, as an average Canadian hockey fan, I am a huge advocate of fighting. Not only is fighting an exciting thing to watch, is also makes for a great ending to a super-tense or super-frustrating game (in either case, the fight is always very entertaining).

The problem I have with these ads is that they send dual messages to young hockey players (even though they are directed towards parents, and not kids). On the one hand, kids watch big professional players getting into fights and then getting cheered on by the whole arena, and on the other they watch these ads, which discourage them from fighting and call hockey 'just a game'.

Sure it's just a game; just don't air these ads during hockey time because it sends mixed messages.

Categories: Videos    Rants and Opinions    Sports    

Tags: Hockey, NHL, Playoffs, Ad, Video, Fighting, Minor League Hockey, Kids, Parents

Comments: 2 so far

Stupid Commercials

One inadvertent result of watching playoff hockey for nine hours a day is the forced consumption of stupid commercials. While the hockey itself is exciting enough, the commercials unfortunately get extremely repetitive. I will provide one example of these advertisements here.

Fallsview Casino
Fallsview Casino, located in Niagara Falls, ON usually has some interesting commercials. Like any ad, though, they get boring if I see them fifty times a day.

In this ad a fat guy is tattooing himself on his chest in front of a mirror, and screaming of pain. His wife walks in the front door, yelling "Honey... Honey... Honeybunny...", and then finds him in the bathroom. When she looks at his chest-tattoo, she points out that it looks backwards (proving that the guy is a complete moron). The ad ends when the guy looks at his tattoo in the mirror, and sees that it is not backwards.

Why It is Stupid
Before watching this commercial 150 times, I never knew how stupid the word Honeybunny was. It's just so retarded, I cannot comprehend why. Also, it amazes me how this fatass managed to score his wife in the first place. Last, but not least, it is amazing how this guy is such a dumbass.

Other Examples
Scotiabank - The credit card that gives 2% back.
Rogers LG Neon - The girl in the purple looks so mentally retarded. And who sits on a bench saying "Slides in ... Slides out..." over and over again?
Wrapman Commercial by McDonald's - grown men argue about who deserves to be called WRAPMAN and WRAPBOY
Fido - "Why worry about the economy, when Fido has plans starting from $15". Why? Because if just got fired from your job, you don't have those $15 to pay for a cellphone you dipshits. That's why you SHOULD worry about the economy.

Categories: Sports    

Tags: Ads, Commercials, NHL, Hockey, TV, Retardedness

Comments: 0 so far

Tallest Building

A picture of the world's tallest building (still under construction) in Dubai, UAE. Taken by mother on her most recent trip to the Motherland More importantly, it was taken by my new camera, the Olympus FE-300. More on that coming sometime in the future.

Categories: Photography    

Tags: Mom, Travel, UAE, Pakistan, Trip, Tallest Building, Extravagance, Dubai, Doobuy

Comments: 0 so far

Rosie DiManno on Hockey

The major problem with Rosie DiManno is that she bickers on about anything and everything, regardless of whether she has any knowledge in the subject.

As an example, take her most recent article about the 2009 NHL playoffs.

Pat Burns recalls a night in Beantown, during the 1989 playoffs, after his Canadiens had won Game 5 and were boarding their bus to the airport for a return flight to Montreal.

It is always special, and personal, when the Bruins and the Canadiens go mano-a-mano in the post-season. No other two NHL clubs have met up more often in the playoffs: Tonight's [last night's] opening-round launch will be the 32nd time for these Original Six franchises. Montreal has won 24 of them, including the past three – 2002, 2004, 2008.

"It's a great rivalry," said Burns, who's coached both clubs during his career, though his only Cup ring came with New Jersey in 2003.

The Canadiens are too small and overwhelmed in all game aspects to provide much of a challenge against the once-again mighty Bruins, with the league's second-best offence this season and seven 20-goal scorers.

The bolded is a common misconception among both hockey analysts and casual fans. Of course if it is a mistake analysts make, Rosie DiManno is bound to make it!

Here is a chart showing average weight (and its standard deviation), average height, and max and min weights.

Team	Average Height	STDEV	Average Weight	Max Weight	Min Weight
Boston	73.13	2.44	199.79	255.00	177.00
Montreal	72.70	2.13	206.89	253.00	182.00

As easily seen, Rosie DiManno is wrong again (which is honestly not even surprising at this time). Sure the Canadiens are slightly smaller in average height, but they blow the Bruins out of the water in average weight. And this is surprising, because everyone thinks Zdeno Chara makes the entire team huge.

Not that any of this means anything, but Rosie is wrong again.

All stats were calculated from the roster available on the Bruins and Canadiens website. For the spreadsheet, click here.

Categories: Sports    

Tags: Rosie, Dimanno, Hockey, Wrong Facts, Incorrect, Wrong, Toronto Star, The Star, Columnist

Comments: 0 so far

Shawn Thornton

Laraque causes a stir in Beantown

BOSTON – If Georges Laraque was trying to deflect attention from his Montreal Canadiens teammates in preparation for Thursday night's Game 1 of their first-round series against the Boston Bruins, it's safe to say he accomplished his mission.

The Habs enforcer was surrounded by a throng of reporters four rows deep Thursday morning who wanted to discuss comments he made to a Montreal radio station that Bruins tough guy Shawn Thornton was not in his league and that Thornton was trembling in the dressing room prior to an early-season match-up between the teams because he knew he would have to fight Laraque.

The Bruins laughed off the comments and didn't particularly want to discuss it, but Laraque was more than willing, distracting the media horde long enough to allow his teammates to slip out of the dressing room unnoticed.

[...]

- Via CBC.ca

So I am watching this game right now, and during the pregame the press said that Shawn Thornton, who is normally very outspoken and vocal, had been avoiding the media ever since Laraque made the above comments.

During the intermission between periods, however, Thornton was interviewed. Of course the first question asked was regarding his response to Laraques comments, to which he replied that he didn't even know what happened until today, and that he didn't take any offense to his comments.

Unfortunately for Shawn Thornton, though, it was so obvious that he was lying! All of his responses were clearly canned (this is how hockey players talk; most of the sentence should be composed of "uhh"s, "ummm"s, and "aaannndd"s) and he did not look at either the camera or the interviewer for even a split second. Instead, Thornton looked at his feet for the duration of the interview.

Regardless of the outcome of the playoff series itself, I would say that Laraque easily won the 'media battle' here.

Categories: Sports    

Tags: NHL, Playoffs, Stanley Cup, Hockey, Montreal, Boston

Comments: 0 so far

That Time of Year - Playoff Predictions

It's a little later than usual seeing that the playoffs start in 34 minutes, but my yearly tradition of predicting the results of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is back!

Let's get right into it:

EASTERN CONFERENCE
Boston Bruins (1) vs Montreal Canadiens (8) - Bos. in 6
Washington Capitals (2) vs NY Rangers (7) - Was. in 6
NJ Devils (3) vs Carolina Hurricanes (6) - Car. in 6
Pittsburgh Pens (4) vs Philadelphia Flyers (5) - Pit. in 7

WESTERN CONFERENCE
San Jose Sharks (1) vs Anaheim Ducks (8) - SJ in 5
Detroit Red Wings (2) vs Columbus Bluejackets (7) - Det. in 5
Vancouver Canucks (3) vs St Louis Blues (6) - Van. in 7
Chicago Hawks (4) vs Calgary Flames (5) - Chi in 5

Note: This is the third annual prediction; the first one was made as a post on Mac-Central

This is gonna be an amazing playoffs, again.

Categories: Sports    

Tags: NHL, Playoffs, Stanley Cup, Predictions, Hockey, 2009

Comments: 0 so far

Rogers Search

Unfortunately, since the summer of 2008, Rogers (our Internet service provider) hijacks browser search results, thereby rendering one of Firefox's most useful features completely worthless.

Normally, when you type an URL into the Firefox location bar that cannot be found, the browser automatically redirects you to Google search results. Alternatively, if you type a keyword into the search bar - like 'Facebook' - the browser redirects you to the first Google result, using the I'm Lucky feature.

The idea behind Rogers' service is to help users who mistype a URL. For example, if you type www.abifhasan.com, instead of www.abidhasan.com, Rogers directs you to a (supposedly) useful page which lists search results from Yahoo.

While the idea behind the page is good (for example it is useful on non-Firefox browsers where you would see an ugly 'Page Not Found' error if the URL is not found), there are many reasons why I abhor the service.

First, the search page is an eyesore to look at - it has no colors, no pictures, and terrible design. Secondly, it is filled with advertisements. Lastly, there is no easy way to turn the service off. This is what the search page looks like:

LARGER VERSION
The green stuff is all ADVERTISEMENTS and the blue stuff is CONTENT.
So without scrolling, the page is useless!

As I said above, it's an eyesore and is completely useless. Initially, I had tried to turn off this feature, and when that failed I proceeded to use adblocking software to make it more useful.

For the most part, though, it didn't bother me until this week, because I was living in Hamilton for the school year. Hamilton uses Cogeco, which is not affiliated with Rogers (that doesn't mean that Cogeco is without problems). However, when I moved back this week, this problem cropped up again.

Therefore, I wrote up a little Greasemonkey script to solve this problem!

Download the script called EFF ROGERS.

The script only runs when you enter an URL that leads to the Rogers page. So if you get to the Rogers search page, the script will kick in. If you entered a URL (like abifhasan.com), the script will redirect you to a Google search of abifhasan. If you enter a keyword (like abidhasan, it will redirect you to the first Google result (namely the Wikipedia article on Abid Hasan).

Note that the Greasemonkey Firefox extension is required to run it. Also note that Opera and Safari may be able to use this script also, though I haven't tried.

ENJOY!

Categories: Rants and Opinions    Omnoratus    Internet & Computers    

Tags: Rogers, Yahoo, Internet, Hijacking, Web Terrorism, Greasemonkey, Programming, Javascript

Comments: 0 so far

Atheism, Again

Check this one out...

If there were no God, there would be no atheists

-G.K. Chesterton

As cool as this quote is, it defies some philosophical 'law' and is therefore not really valid. Still, it's good for a slogan quote for all theists.

(The quote seems quite recursive to me; that is, it tries to prove what it's trying to prove by trying to prove itself.... if that sentence made any sense at all)

Also, the RSS feed is finally working (hopefully).

Categories: Omnoratus    Quotes and Jokes    

Tags: Atheism, Godlessness, God, Philosophy, RSS, Feed, Omnoratus

Comments: 0 so far

Father and Son

Must watch video. Very well made.

Categories: Videos    

Tags: Father, Son, Greek, Video, Patience, Kindess, Parents, Love

Comments: 0 so far

Obligatory April Snow

Why does this have to happen? Every year when March comes, it starts getting warmer and warmer and then BOOM! beginning of April and it gets cold again and starts to snow

Categories: Weather    

Tags: Cold, Weather, Snow, Canada, Hamilton, April, Obligatory Snowfall

Comments: 0 so far

Mom Yet Again

In a follow up to this post from FOUR years ago (god this blog is old), my mom is yet again out of the country. This time, like a deja vu of four years ago, she is in Pakistan again. Let's see what happens this time!

Also, I'll be in Buffalo on the weekend, so fun times will be had by all (and by 'all' I mean me). Pictures, maybe?

Categories: Omnoratus    Life    

Tags: Mom, Pakistan, Deja Vu, Blog, Omnoratus, Buffalo, Conference, Chemistry

Comments: 0 so far

April Fools!

See my April Fool's joke on the blog?

If not, it can be seen here!

Categories: Omnoratus    Quotes and Jokes    

Tags: April Fools, April 1, Joke, Fun

Comments: 0 so far