Archive for November, 2005

Eid Mubarak! Pass the mic!

Sunday, November 6th, 2005

I don’t know if this is universal, but at the few masajid that I’ve visited on Eid, a select group of 4 or 5 brothers always play “pass the mic.” Someone has to lead the takbir chant, (i.e. “Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar, La ilaha il-Allah…” to the end of that thikr. It is truly one of the most beautiful sounds to hear the entire masjid recite it in unison (especially if your local masjid is one that is anti-group thikr).

Well, it WOULD be beautiful if the guy on the mic wasn’t SO loud that you can’t even hear yourself! Ugh! And then they pass the microphone between themselves messing up the rhythm and changing the tone. I understand that they’re hyped, but what is it really about? Ego (nafs)? They think the women can’t hear? (since they lock the women away in some closet). No, I think they just believe that’s what they should do. No particular reason to it. I personally think it ruins the whole experience. I tire from reciting the takbir when I can’t even hear myself or the beautiful voices of my brothers and sisters.

Next year, leave the mic on, but step away from it.

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More General Matters

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005

X.org (http://www.x.org) release has been pushed back to December 7th, which is after the release of KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.5 (not that it necessarily matters).

The new “planet” affectionately referred to as “Xena” (with a moon named Gabrielle), by its discoverers, might not be a planet afterall. It seems there has always been some dispute about what actually constitutes a planet. It would seem logical to me that any body in our solar system that revolves around our sun and has satellites revolving around it, should be a planet. I say all of this as if my logic is at all noteworthy.

I’m trying out Kat (http://kat.mandriva.com/) again. So, far it’s pretty cool. It searches documents, pictures, emails, and more. *Sigh* I don’t know. I just can’t get excited about any of these search tools: Beagle, for Gnome (http://www.gnome.org), Spotlight, for Mac OS X, or the infamous Google Desktop Search. I think the problem is that I don’t have a problem finding anything as it is. Maybe it’s because I’m a librarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarian) and I spend most of my life finding things for people. The real question that should be asked is, why don’t any of these tools have names like Google Desktop Librarian?

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