Another Mix-Up

Last Wednesday night, I and my dad went to my brother's prize distribution function in our beloved Pakistan International School Jeddah ... The invitation had come to my dad to attend this function and collect the prize ....

I didn't want to go as I would meet my former teachers ... I didnt want to confront any of them ... My dad gave me his piece of mind when I said that ... so I agreed to go ...

Here's what happened ... Dads of many of the students were there to collect their sons' prizes ... What those idiot volunteers should have done ... they should have conformed before the function, whose dads or brothers are present and whose are not ... If the dad wasnt there ... they were sending proxies instead ....

It was a hilarious situation when a dad went on the stage and the prize was already given to a proxy ... lol .... this happened thrice ... so to avoid this mishap I informed them beforehand that I will be collecting the prize for Muhammad Muzammil Mukhtar ....

I was sitting among aged persons ... some of them bald ... the rest grey haired ... and obviously I was uncomfortable ... Anyway .... after a long wait which included the Principal's lame speech and some boring Qaumi Naghmay ... my turn came ...

"For Overall 1st Position in 2nd Year Pre-Eng. .... Muhammad Muzammil Mukhtar .... His father Sheikh Mukhtar Hussain will come to collect the prize" ... U dumb MFs ... I got up the stage and the chief guest had a surprised look on his face ... I said in a low voice " I am his brother " and he was relieved.

What Bad Economy Deprives You Of?

Aren't these ladies gorgeous? indeed .... But their boyfriends and husbands are so hung up due to the economic crisis surrounding them ... that they have lost interest in them ...

Read the whole story

The Problem with my Name

Its a trend in India and Pakistan to name a kid with Mohammad in the beginning.... like mine Mohammad Mustafa ... I dont know the reasons behind it... and i dont want to get into them... but i have been through a lot of troubles due to this ...

When i applied for a driver's licence i thought it will be an easy process... first i had to get a letter from my sponsor ... my dad... who is under the sponsorship of his company. It took a week. Then attach a copy of your Passport, Iqama (Resident Permit) with this document... and if u have a license of any other country attach that too.

Ok upon reaching the department who deals with this stuff "Dallah" the first thing was to fill out a form IN ARABIC .... which was taken care of by some guys for a low price. The building is huge and the cabins are marked with numbers. So number 1 was for checking that all the documents are complete and put a stamp. Number 2 was for Translating Your License i.e. if its not in Arabic and the nice guy who thought he was Justin Timberlake cuz he could speak English took 100 Riyals for this job.

Number 3 was for Medical ... I got my eyesight checked and nothing else... Thank God.. and the so called doctor wrote Mafrood Addasa meaning Glasses Necessary. Number 4 was Registration and Fee .... for first timers the fee was around 350 ... that was done.... the last window was Number 5 behind which smartly clad Shurtas (Cops) were sitting ...

My turn came ... i submitted the documents ... and just after a few moments that bearded guy murmered something... what?... Ta'deel Ism ... Change your Name ... WTF!! ... why? .... the names on your passport and iqama dont match ... my name on my iqama was starting with Mustafa .... It was those crazy Saudis own fault .... deep sigh ..

I told my dad what the problem was ... and he knew right away there is no easy solution to this...there is a position in every company here for these sort of jobs... its called Mandoob ... Its his job to get exit and re-entry visas ... renew iqamas etc. Until not long ago ... i thought "Mnadoob" was the person's name ... silly me...

so this guy called me and took me to the Jawazat (Iqama Dept), then the Investigation Dept for my Fingerprints ... then after two months of waiting the papers arrived from Ministry of Interior in Riyadh ... still there was something left to be done .. we had to give an ad in a local newspaper that I have changed my name ... for 100 riyals again .... I know these are government rules but some of them are plain rubbish.

Anyway, the papers got accepted and I went for a first try ... it was a Camry... huh... piece a' cake .. i thought ... i did everything right .... but that AH gave be "B" .... which meant i had to take 5 days classes .... which is whole another story ... i passed the final test comfortably ... and I was given a date to come and collect my license.

I complied ... it was like surmounting an Everest ... and i was glad its over .... when i received my licence it read (read carefully):

Name: MUHAMMAD MUSTAF MUKHTAR HUSSAIN

The 44th Presidential Inauguration

Source

An Easy Way to Get $ 250,000 !!

All you have to do is find a prime number with 1 billion digits. Piece of cake isn't it...

The prime number mystery has had many scientists and mathematicians scratching their heads for a long time now. The largest known prime number today is 2^43,112,609-1 with nearly 13 million digits. Printing out all 13 million digits in 12-point type would create a number 30 miles long!! It makes the number of atoms in the known universe seem negligible, a mere 80 digits!!

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, a computing project that uses volunteers’ computers to hunt for primes, found the prime. It has claimed a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for being the first to find a prime number that has more than 10 million digits.

Its really weird no that till now the greatest minds in the world have not figured out a way how the prime numbers are distributed or an effective way to find the primality of any given number. The most obvious way to go about identifying any prime number is to try factoring it. First, try dividing by 3, then 5, then 7, etc., and if none of them work, you’ve got a prime. But the last time a new prime was identified this way was in 1588, because as the numbers get bigger, the division takes longer and longer. So mathematicians have developed clever tests for primeness that are simpler to compute. The best one of all, called the Lucas-Lehmer test, only works for Mersenne primes. Remarkably, the method requires no division at all, making it extremely quick. The reason being the simple expression of Mersenne numbers .... 2ⁿ-1.

One thing is for sure the efforts for finding the largest prime number is creating new prospects in the field of cooperative, distributed computing. The only way to find these humongous numbers is by linking multiple computers together and using their combined processing power. Just to get a hint of it .... testing a billion-digit number on a single desktop computer would take it more than 500 years.

Whats the point of these endeavors ... well the most obvious contribution can be in Cryptography... so this research is of great value to secret service agencies ..... " A Beautiful Mind" flashback

Just wiki "Prime Numbers"....

Click and Clack ...The Tappet Brothers

I have been trying to add a podcast on my blog for this great radio show... its called Cartalk and it airs on the american station National Public Radio... without any success yet.

The hosts are two brothers from Boston ... Tom and Ray Magliozzi ... they just crack me up ... its not always about laughs ... u learn a lot too but the problem is ...you can only listen to their weekly show ... check it out..

Enjoy.. and if someone can tell me how to add the podcast ... i'll be really grateful.

It says to copy and paste this URL into a podcasting tool: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208 .. do i need a widget or sumthin .. i dont know ... new to this stuff..

A Bright Idea