Author: ReallyVirtual

Desktop Tower Defense – An Inspiration to Young Entrepreneurs

ReallyVirtual

DTD turned one week old recently. I used to play a lot of Desktop Tower Defense (or DTD as it is more commonly known) when it was launched and went crazily viral, thanks to a bunch of popular blogs that covered it.

Paul and Dave, the two guys behind DTD, shared the figures (100,000$) that they have earned in the first year of this small but addictive game on their blog. They also shared the story of the creation of DTD. It is a must read for the young web entrepreneurs of Pakistan (and elsewhere). This one small flash game enabled them to quit their day jobs and start their own casual game firm by the name of Casual Collective. So go read it!

How to Bring Peace to Pakistan

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The Pakistani Flag is Unislamic!

Before I can explain why, I must mention that our Government of Pakistan thinks that the flag was designed by Jinnah, while other sources say it was Syed Amir-uddin Kedwaii. We need to get our facts right so that we can blame whoever designed it.

According to Wikipedia:

In the centre is a white crescent moon, representing progress, and a white five-pointed star, representing light and knowledge. The flag symbolizes Pakistan’s commitment to Islam, the Islamic world and the rights of religious minorities.

But, it looks like the flag of our “Islamic Republic of Pakistan” is not really Islamic! The star and crescent symbols that are normally associated with Islam are really the remnants of sun/moon/sky worshippers, as this about.com page explains (and I completely agree with it). They say:

The crescent moon and star symbol actually pre-dates Islam by several thousand years. Information on the origins of the symbol are difficult to ascertain, but most sources agree that these ancient celestial symbols were in use by the peoples of Central Asia and Siberia in their worship of sun, moon, and sky gods. There are also reports that the crescent moon and star were used to represent the Carthaginian goddess Tanit or the Greek goddess Diana.

So even though a lot of Muslims worshipped Diana too (and a couple of them wanted to create demi-gods with her), that is no excuse to adopt this symbol to represent Islam. So how did it begin? The page explains:

It wasn’t until the Ottoman Empire that the crescent moon and star became affiliated with the Muslim world. When the Turks conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, they adopted the city’s existing flag and symbol. Legend holds that the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman, had a dream in which the crescent moon stretched from one end of the earth to the other. Taking this as a good omen, he chose to keep the crescent and make it the symbol of his dynasty.

So not only are we using unislamic symbols that used to represent false gods, we adopted this symbol on the whim of an emperor who took a dream as a good omen. I think our flag was copied from Turkey too, and even though the Turks are ‘recovering’ from Islam and are embracing ‘enlightenment’ in the form of skirts, bars and other hedonistic pursuits, we are still stuck with the legacy of the Ottoman Empire. Its time we changed that. In fact, a lot of Muslims reject this pagan icon on this very basis. I never knew that!

Based on this history, many Muslims reject using the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam. The faith of Islam has historically had no symbol, and many refuse to accept what is essentially an ancient pagan icon. It is certainly not in uniform use among Muslims.

So what can we do about it? Let us go back to basics like the true ‘fundamentalists’ we really are. Here’s the Sunnah:

The early Muslim community did not really have a symbol. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Islamic armies and caravans flew simple solid-colored flags (generally black, green, or white) for identification purposes. In later generations, the Muslim leaders continued to use a simple black, white, or green flag with no markings, writing, or symbolism on it.

So before we use this new-found knowledge to fix a few flags, here is the link to the original page that I have stolen the quotes from [link].

Redesigning the Flag of Pakistan

We all know that the “progress, light and knowledge” talk is BS, so, let us attempt to fix the blunder made by our ancestors, and see what our flag should have looked like. Here is the flag as we have right now:

pakistan

Let us remove these pagan symbols from the flag first of all:

pakistan-flag-redesign

This already looks much better. Now if we decide to go one step further, we can also try to see if separating religion from state can really bring peace. Green is universally though of as the color of Islam. Since we don’t really follow Islam as we should (or at least, I don’t), so like our hearts, let us remove that symbol from our flag too. This is what we end up with:

pakistan-flag-re-redesign

Instant peace!!

This is not just the universally accepted flag of peace, it is also one of the original flags of the Prophet. Islam, as we know, is supposed to be the religion of peace, so the white flag (derived above) is a better option for Pakistan on more than one levels.

In the next section, we will help out our other Muslim brothers.

Removing Pagan Icons

Here are a few ‘before and after’ flags of the Muslim(ish) nations – namely Algeria, Azerbaijan, Comoros, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan (already done), Tunisia, Turkey, Turkemenistan and Uzbekistan, minus the star and crescent:

redesigned-flags

A few countries end up with identical flags, and will probably need to redesign them, but that is somebody else’s problem, not mine.

Credits: About.com for this invaluable information, and my neighbor’s wireless signal that allowed me to spend “the dark hour” on this ‘research’.

Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

ReallyVirtual

quarkI used to hate Ferengis when I was a kid, but after watching two seasons of Deep Space Nine on Youtube, my opinion has changed as I have rediscovered the very useful Ferengi Rules of Acquisition and actually started liking the quirky Quark. When you stop laughing/smirking after listening to a rule (from Quark’s mouth), you will probably realize that a lot of these rules actually give sound business advice. I think they increase in validity if you replace Ferengi with ‘Pakistani Politician’… so here is the (almost) complete list of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:

1. Once you have their money, you never give it back.
3. Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to.
6. Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.
7. Keep your ears open.
8. Small print leads to large risk.
9. Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.
10. Greed is eternal.
13. Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
16. A deal is a deal…until a better one comes along.
17. A contract is a contract is a contract…but only between Ferengi.
18. A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all.
19. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
21. Never place friendship above profit.
22. A wise man can hear profit in the wind.
27. There’s nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman.
28. Whisper your way to success.
31. Never insult of a Ferengi’s mother…insult something he cares about instead.
33. It never hurts to suck up to the boss.
34. War is good for business.
35. Peace is good for business.
40. She can touch your lobes, but never your latinum.
41. Profit is its own reward.
44. Never confuse wisdom with luck.
47. Never trust a man wearing a better suit than your own.
48. The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife.
52. Never ask when you can take.
57. Good customers are as rare as latinum–treasure them.
58. There is no substitute for success.
59. Free advice is seldom cheap.
60. Keep your lies consistent.
62. The riskier the road, the greater the profit.
65. Win or lose, there’s always Hupyrian beetle snuff.
75. Home is where the heart is…but the stars are made of latinum.
76. Every once in a while, declare peace….it confuses the hell out of your enemies.
79. Beware of the Vulcan greed for knowledge.
82. The flimsier the product, the higher the price.
85. Never let the competition know what you’re thinking.
89. Ask not what your profits can do for you, but what you can do for your profits.
94. Females and finances don’t mix.
95. Expand…or die.
97. Enough…is never enough.
98. Every man has his price.
99. Trust is the biggest liability of all.
102. Nature decays, but latinum is forever.
103. Sleep can interfere…. [cut off]
104. Faith moves mountains…of inventory.
106. There is no honor in poverty.
109. Dignity and an empty sack…is worth the sack.
111. Treat people in your debt like family…exploit them.
112. Never have sex with the boss’s sister.
113. Always have sex with the boss.
121. Everything is for sale, even friendship.
123. Even a blind man can recognize the glow of latinum.
139. Wives serve, brothers inherit.
141. Only fools pay retail.
144. There’s nothing wrong with charity…as long as it winds up in your pocket.
162. Even in the worst of times, someone makes a profit.
177. Know your enemies…but do business with them always.
181. Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit.
189. Let others keep their reputation…you keep their latinum.
190. Hear all, trust nothing.
192. Never cheat a Klingon…unless you can get away with it.
194. It’s always good business to know your customers before they walk in the door.
202. The justification for profit is profit.
203. New customers are like razor-toothed greeworms. They can be succulent, but sometimes they bite back.
208. Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer.
211. Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them.
214. Never begin a business negotiation on an empty stomach.
217. You can’t free a fish from water.
218. Always know what you’re buying.
223. Beware the man who doesn’t make time for oo-mox.
229. Latinum lasts longer than lust.
236. You can’t buy fate.
239. Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
242. More is good…all is better.
255. A wife is a luxury…a smart accountant a necessity.
261. A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.
263. Never allow doubt to tarnish your lust for latinum.
266. When in doubt, lie.
284. Deep down, everyone’s a Ferengi.
285. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

If you have more time to waste in trivial pursuit, here’s the wikipedia link.

Bomb Blasts in Lahore – Again

ReallyVirtual2 Comments

blow me downLast month, my son told us, “There was a bomb in our class”. There wasn’t, of course, just some kids in his class (who probably watch too much TV) acting out what they saw using their imaginations. I certainly didn’t want him to know what a fucked up world we live in so soon in his life.

I went to sleep at 6 in the morning and just woke up at 10. Three (perhaps 4) bombs have exploded in Lahore so far today – the TV says more are expected (I wonder how they knew that). Thanks for the wake-up call my terrorist brothers. Who needs peaceful sleep anyway.