This is a blog post test from my new Nokia N800. This is only a test.
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Archive for October, 2007
Nokia n800 Test
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007Chavez: take Bush to madhouse
Friday, October 26th, 2007I love it! Regardless of what you think of Hugo Chavez, you have to admit that the man says what he means and means what he says.
“The US President (George W. Bush) made an atomic bomb threat,” Chevez said on Thursday, referring to Bush’s war rhetoric against Iran.“In other words, he’s threatening a third world war but now with atomic weapons.
It’s like he should be taken to the psychiatric hospital. I think he’s on the edge of the psychiatric hospital,” he added.
The Evil that is Israel
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007Israel is going ahead with plans to shut off electricity to Gaza.
Collective punishment. Sounds a bit like Nazi Germany doesn’t it? Their oppressors became their teachers.
Concerned about KDE4
Sunday, October 21st, 2007Let me be (perhaps) the first one to say that I am slightly concerned about the upcoming KDE release (4.0). The applications are running very well on Beta 3. I’m impressed with the amazing speed and response of applications, the new application launcher, the interface, etc.
Nevertheless, I am concerned about one thing: Plasma. It looks cool, no doubt, but here we are at Beta 3 and the thing is still broken. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I still can’t get a kmenu, and half of the time, the little applets, widgets, whatever you want to call them don’t work. They slide all over the place with no apparent way to lock them.
I don’t think the KDE developers will release it if it doesn’t work by the time December comes around. But the question is, if it’s not ready does KDE 4.0 ship without it, or do they delay it yet again? Am I overreacting? Is it all going to fall into place within the next month when the release candidates start rolling out? I don’t know. Maybe all of the problems I’m having are related to only a few bugs that need fixing. I really don’t know. I’m just concerned.
Meanwhile, KDE 3.5.8 was just released and is smoother and more stable than ever. So many questions, so little time.
Original Sin?
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007The concept is foreign to Islam.
It is reported that Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (peace be upon him) said:
Truthfulness is a light which radiates its reality in its own world: it is like the sun, from whose reality everything seeks light without any decrease occurring in this reality. A truthful person, in fact, is a man who believes every liar, due to the reality of his own truthfulness. It means that nothing which is opposed to truthfulness, nothing, even, which is not truthfulness, is permitted to coexist with it; just as happened with Adam, who believed Iblis when he lied because Iblis had sworn a false oath to him and there was no lying in Adam. Allah said,
We did not find in him any determination. (20:115)
because Iblis originated something previously unknown, both outwardly and inwardly. Iblis will be gathered with his lie, and he will never benefit from the truthfulness of Adam.
Yet it benefited Adam that he believed the lie of Iblis, as Allah testified for him when He said that he was not constant in what was contrary to his custom. This really means that his being chosen was not at all diminished by Satan’s lies.
– Lantern of the Path
Golden Scrolls Book 3
Sunday, October 14th, 2007I’ve started on the third book of The Golden Scrolls series. I know you’re probably thinking, “What happened to the second?” Well, it’s done, but I’ve vowed not to publish it until I get a big publisher for the series, insha`Allah. So, in the meantime, I’ll keep writing until the series is finished. The second book is called Sword of Kelterya, and I’m not going to reveal the title of the third. Taubah knows, but no one else does.
Oh yeah, and Eid Mubarak to you all.
There is no separation
Friday, October 12th, 2007There are those who wear pants but no shirts and those who wear shirts but not pants. Those who wear only pants, take Islam but reject sufism. And those who wear only shirts, take sufism but reject Islam. In reality, there is no separation between the two. Sufism is the heart of Islam.
Eid al-Fitr
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007No, don’t get excited. I’m not announcing it. I’m just thinking about the preparations. I never really thought of preparing for it when I was younger. Eid was just the prayer after Ramadan…and maybe a brunch. Other than that, I didn’t actually do much. Now, with a family of four, Eid is an event. The kids are getting presents, decorations will go up, and parties will be attended. Having a Muslim family really does mean something special. I thank Allah repeatedly for being blessed with a practicing wife and two amazing daughters.
My advice to any young brothers out there: when it comes time to choose a wife, think deeply about it. Certain physical and even personality traits will come and go, but a sister who is serious about the Deen, someone who has a connection with Allah that cannot be broken, that is priceless and timeless.
Considering Consequences
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007I just finished an article for OneUmmah.net on morality. It’s the first one I’ve finished in several months. Anyway, I am missing one reference, so I started searching my hadith books for it. In the process, I stumbled upon this hadith:
Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (peace be upon him) narrated that once a man came to the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him and his family peace) and asked him to give him a piece of advice. The Prophet asked him three times: “Will you make a point of following the advice if I advise you?”, to which the man responded each time, “Yes, O Prophet of Allah.”
So, the Prophet continued, “Then I advise you that when you intend to carry out an action, consider its consequences first. If they are sound, then go ahead with it, and if they are corrupt, then abandon it.”
– From Wasa’il-al-Shi’a by Shaykh al-Hurr al-Amili in the book “Jihad al-Nafs” #20516.
OLPC Preview Test
Monday, October 8th, 2007I decided to give the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) operating system and desktop environment (called Sugar) a test run. They have a live CD available on their site, and I used VirtualBox to run it. You can click on the image below to see the rest of my snapshots. Interestingly, the “window manager” is not similar to anything I’ve seen on any platform. They do have gnome running on the one I tested, so you can switch to that at anytime. I’m assuming that will be part of the actual OLPC. Nonetheless, despite being a weird and new environment, I found it pleasant. And it’s all free and open source software.
