Google Maps current location is weird after moving office

See where my "Work" place is showing. And see where my phone's current location is showing.

Our office has moved this week. I am sitting at my desk in our new office location now. But Google Maps in my phone shows that my current location is still at my old office location.

However, when I restart my phone with WiFi turned off and with only 3G data enabled, then Google Maps shows my current location correctly in the new location.

TM Unifi - Speed Promises Failed

Here is the speed that I have subscribed with TM Unifi that I am paying for - 500 Mbps

Here is the result of SpeedTests via TM Unifi official SpeedTest links:

Link to Result 1  |  Link to Result 2

Here is the result of SpeedTests via Ookla SpeedTest:

Link to Result

Summary:

Speed commitment by TM Unifi is 500 Mbps
Real download speed ~ 36 Mbps - only ~7% of commitment - just 7% ??????

Real upload speed ~ 100 Mbps - only 20% of commitment

All SpeedTests were conducted during the afternoon of 12th May 2019 Sunday

Connected to 5GHz TP-Link Wifi-Router provided by TM Unifi - only a meter away

Raising REAL awareness on the fight against breast cancer

It has been absolutely useless to run awareness campaigns using contents that do not really raise any ACTUAL awareness. Thankfully, this is one post which tries to avoid such ineffective practices.



Courtesy:

1. Erin Smith Chieze - for boosting the idea through her social media post
2. Worldwide Breast Cancer Organization - website
3. Corrine Ellsworth Beaumont - the original designer of the campaign

Epic Marketing - HD Style

How to #market an ever existing thing and turn people's perceptions about it into a super duper uber revolutionary hype that people will go all GAGA about it and they will race for it for the rest of their life?

#HD (#HighDefinition) is such a clever way to create a hype out of the number of pixels on a display screen which was always there and was always ever increasing since the first of its days with every passing year anyways.

Remember 320 pixels during the times of Windows 95?
Remember 640 pixels during the times of Windows 98?
Remember 728 pixels during the times of Windows 2000?
Remember 1024 pixels during the times of Windows XP?

Everybody used them. Most of us configured them ourselves from that little "Screen Resolution" tab after right-clicking on the desktop wallpaper and choosing "Properties". We have all done that. We have all gone through those revolutionary progressions of PPI (the number of Pixels Per Inch) that can be packed into the same 15 inch monitor screen every passing year..

But there was no public excitement about it. It never struck the G-Spot of the human brain which makes you wanna go for it and makes you wanna race for it and makes you wanna have more of it. None of that was there. Until the marketing guys came up with a fine dandy fancy new term called HD = HighDefinition.

Yeah. Now those 1080 pixels are suddenly starting to sound so new and so fresh and so exciting and so unworldly and so sci-fi and what not. I mean, was there any way you could've possibly gotten 1080p after you already had 1024p after having come all the way from 320p in the previous years? Nope. You could've never had it. But HD brought it. Yeah. Life was never as awesome before.

People were so proud to tell friends and families that they got HD - that they jumped (1080-1024=74) 74 pixels of holy grail in their life. But was never as excited to tell their friends and family about jumping (640-320=320) 320 pixels during a much older history. Can't blame them. What could they have possible said? Being all proud and excited to call friends and family and say "You know what? We got a 640!" That just sounds so off. "HD" sounds so much cleaner and easier to get the message of excitement across. Yeah. HD!

And that just started it. The home electronics consumer market was never as excited about the number of pixels in their screen before. Now they are. Because of a nice new terminology that got introduced and got marketed so well.

HD is so old school now. Now there is UHD (UltraHD). Get ready for SHD (SuperHD), XHD (ExtremeHD), HHD/2HD (HyperHD), WhatNotHD. So many newer terms can be coined up for the ever growing number of pixels on your screens.

And once they run out of marketing terms with HD, they will invent a new term. I don't know. Maybe. CEV (for Crystal Eye Vision). HD sucks now. CEV is the new in-thing now. You will have UCEV, SCEV, XCEV, WhatNotCEV. And the race will keep going wilder & wilder. It's all about the term and the buzz.

That's "EPIC" marketing. Nothing revolutionary. The number of these pixels would have increased anyways like they have always increased since the beginning. But that element of excitement over a fanciable term was missing and that's what has sold the displays much faster.

By the way, I am not telling you to stop buying HD products now - today you can't find any TV in the market below HD anyways. But try not to get carried away with unnecessary marketing hypes. Corporates & companies feed on our consumerism attitude to make their own money while we are thinking it is something exceptionally great. In fact, it is not actually so great. They just know the exact cords to pull to make us wanna pay for their, well, "TYPICALLY" advancing products.

Riding safely with Uber in Dhaka

I am a big fan of Uber and it's business model. It's a really useful service for cities like Dhaka where most individuals don't have cars of their own but occasionally have the need to commute by a car - yet affordably.

However, please be aware of the possible risks involved. Recently there were several rape and hijacking/robbery incidents carried out by Uber drivers across India and several countries in Europe. Google for "Uber incidents" - you will find many results. Particularly check out this website. http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents

With every great revolutionary service, we have to take sufficient precautions to avoid its potential risks. For example, i can share what i do when i take an Uber ride.

1. I usually avail Uber only when i am in a group - for example traveling with the family somewhere. Being alone has some obvious risks.
2. Whenever i avail Uber, i make sure i share my Ride info with 2-3 other friends or relatives. It's very easy to share your live real-time point of location along with the driver's full name, driver's photo, car brand, car registration number etc from the Uber mobile app.
3. I also make sure that i call up my friends and relatives from the car and i pronounce it loudly & clearly on the phone (making sure that the driver hears it) that I have shared this live info with them and they can keep a track of the car if they want. This keeps the driver aware that his and his car's info have already been shared and are currently being watched by others.

If you have more safety tips you can share them in the comments section. I would love to hear them from you and could include them into this article as an update. May Allah protect us all from the fitnah that are involved.

However, with proper precautions and with the business model that Uber brings on, i think it is a fantastic service altogether and i can only pray for it to improve & get better over the years.

Ride safe. Stay safe.

Initializing a bare git repository for a remote server

# Creating a bare repository
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
$ mkdir myproject
$ cd myproject/
$ mkdir gitdir.git
$ mkdir workingtree
$ cd gitdir.git/
$ git init --bare
Initialized empty Git repository in /absolute/path/to/myproject/gitdir.git/
$ touch hooks/post-receive
$ echo "git --git-dir=/absolute/path/to/myproject/gitdir.git --work-tree=/absolute/path/to/myproject/workingtree checkout -f" > hooks/post-receive 



# Pushing to a bare repository
# -------------------------------
# inside local machine
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject
$ git remote add remoteserver username@ipaddress:/absolute/path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
$ git push remoteserver master



# Looking at git branches and working tree files in bare repository
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
$ git branch
$ cd ../workingtree
$ ls



# Pushing multiple branches to a bare repository
# -------------------------------
# inside local machine
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject
$ git push remoteserver staging
$ git push remoteserver nightly
# etc
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
cd /path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
git branch



# Checking out a different branch in bare repository
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
$ git checkout staging
fatal: This operation must be run in a work tree
$ cd ../workingtree
$ git checkout staging
fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git



# So what do we do here?
# We shall edit the bare git repository's configuration file slightly
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
$ nano config 
# add a new entry 'worktree' inside core group
# set its value to 'absolute/path/to/myproject/workingtree' inside double-quotes
# like this:
    [core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = true
        worktree = "/absolute/path/to/myproject/workingtree"
# refer to this stackoverflow discussion here 



# Unfortunately, even setting the worktree explicitly didn't solve the problem.
# This time, I got a new fatal error
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
$ git checkout staging
fatal: core.bare and core.worktree do not make sense
# Hence, I edited the git repository's configuration file once again 
# There I changed the value of core.bare to False



# Checking out a different branch in bare repository
# -------------------------------
# inside remote server
# -------------------------------
$ cd /path/to/myproject/gitdir.git
$ git checkout staging
Switched to branch 'staging'
# I am not convinced this is a completely correct solution. 
# Maybe this is a hack approach. 
# But it worked for my case.



# Comments / criticisms / suggestions / improvements welcome below

Cannot sympathize with her because she killed herself

I am left wondering why all the people are commenting "Allah apnake jannat nazil koruk (May Allah grant you paradise)" etc under a Facebook video of a Bangladeshi model attempting to commit suicide in her room. [P.S. It's a video of a model's failed attempt at committing suicide which she happened to publish on her own Facebook profile later on - she blamed her ex boyfriend for trying to commit suicide]

[BTW, soon afterwards, she took another attempt at taking her own life and she succeeded - there is no published video of that, duh!].

Is this how we think by default about death and about our lives? That after death it's all about just white clouds, skies, pearls and paradise?

Asymmetric encryption in Python using RSA from PyCrypto library

Symmetric encryption in python using AES from PyCrypto library

Christmas and Eid-e-Milaad-un-Nabi - some celebrations don't need any basis to it

A rare case when Christians are celebrating Christmas [25th December claimed to be the birthday of prophet Jesus (PBUH)] and Muslims are celebrating Eid-e-Milaad-un-Nabi [12th Rabi-al-Awwal claimed to be the birthday of prophet Muhammad (PBUH)] on the same day - Gregorian calendar meets Lunar calendar. Turns out, none of these celebrations have any real basis in the history of their respective religions - sorry to hurt you if I have done so by saying this.

RESTful API Design - Webinar - by APIGee

A fantastic webinar by #APIGee on making Pragmatic #REST #API design. It contains: 
- things to include, 
- things to avoid, 
- things to watch out for. 

The full webinar is on #youtube at https://youtu.be/R8SIxZVaai4 . 

But if you want to only skim through the contents, I have prepared a 58 slide photo album on #GooglePhotos. You can visit and share https://goo.gl/photos/ZZmhV1dBtRVcb4Kb6 .

Google Maps... why you on drugs?

So google maps is supposed to be great at giving you directions to your destination. Well it surely does a great job at that [apparently much better than the maps made by the half-eaten fruit company], but recently it really struggles in actually giving you the right directions.

For example: take a look at this screenshot which I captured while asking the G-boy for directions.

Point 1: i asked for WALKING directions, not even CAR directions.

Point 2: i refetched the directions SEVERAL times

Point 3: how could google show me SUCH a long 16 min route [the solid blue line] whereas i was ONLY about 40-60 seconds away from the destination by walk?

Point 4: in fact, the alternative route which google had calculated [the solid grey line] was an EVEN worse route for my given current location and destination

Conclusion: really hope that google doesn't become over-confident about their growth, so much so that it becomes heedless at delivering quality... [like some of the other companies that have risen and fallen in the past]

[UPDATE: Jon Evans on TechCrunch has recently published an appealing article titled "Dear Google, what's wrong with you?" You might wanna check that out too.]

treating the women as a commodity

Originally shared on facebook:

I fail to understand what the visuals of a huge BATEXPO-2013 billboard is actually trying to grab attention to. It is one thing to promote an exhibition of clothing apparels & textiles, and it is another thing to promote that with a lack of clothing. Sub-'han-Allah, using a woman's charms as a materialistic commodity to attract stakeholders to a business has become the definition of modernism today. And our so-called "modern" generation doesn't look at it as offensive to respect-for-women.

source: https://www.facebook.com/syed.rakib/posts/10151871268543559 

Bad guys in movies

I noticed, almost every indian movie shows that the bad guys are the ones who does the most pooja paath and all. The good guys do that occasionally [meh] but the bad guys would have their own temple, would stay in their temple, would bring over pandit and do pooja paath, would give prasad among people - and also cut other people's throats once they are out of the temple and are the most feared person in the area.

Not that i am advocating any one religion over any other religion [that's a totally different topic], but this mass display of the bad guys being the most active in acts of worship has a natural effect on the general public - that religion doesn't necessarily guide anyone towards good; that its only a practice followed by our forefathers and that's why we also follow it without analyzing what exactly this religion thing is.

As a result [with this being one of the MANY other reasons], there is an increased loss of faith and belief among the growing generations year by year. And we think mass media isn't strong enough to manipulate our perceptions.

with the crutch

"De , tor ekta chhobi tule dei", said my mom 

a twisted start of ramadan

sub-'han-Allah.... it's great to see everyone so pleased with their iftar on the first day of ramadan..... after all, it's summer and the days are long and hot. May Allah SWT accept all our fasting through ease and comfort.

My ramadan, however, started off a little differently... today in the morning, while getting down the stairs of my house to head out for office, i misplaced my left foot at one point and, hence, i twisted my left ankle. My doctor said i have torn off a few ligaments and i have been prescribed total bed rest for at least the next 1-2 weeks for the healing to take place properly.

Sub'-han-Allah.... looks like Allah (SWT) has made different plans for my ramadan fasting to go easy on me - by staying indoors at complete bed rest while avoiding the long hot summer days outside. May Allah SWT accept all our fasting through ease and comfort.
Take care every one. Ramadan Mubarak.

A little more harmony and a little less wits

We tend to see something, then perceive something and then make a conclusion about it. We say "You are dumb"... "You are stupid"... "That is so baseless"... "How can she ever think of something like this"... "What on earth was he thinking?"... "Are you out of your minds?" We often forget that context matters. 

I am going to share an email with you that landed in my inbox from a website subscription. It talks about history - certain ways of how the society behaved back then. And the kind of history it talks about shows that these things were perfectly normally perceived in those times, whereas today they are perceived in a very disgusting way at current times.

The objective for sharing this is to remind ourselves that not everything we perceive to be normal is necessarily normal for others; and not everything we perceive to be abnormal is necessarily abnormal for others. Context matters, time matters, background matters.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Purity is Half of Faith

The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Purity (cleanliness) is half the faith.” [Muslim]

For the most important and fundamental pillar of Islam, five daily prayers, Allah has prescribed cleanliness of the body, cleanliness of the dress and cleanliness of the place of worship as preconditions.

Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) has ordained in the Quran that the purpose of the commands to acquire cleanliness or purity before every prayer by taking a bath or performing Wudhu is Allah’s desire to keep us clean and pure for which we should be grateful to Him. “Allah (by giving the commands in respect of Ghusl and Wudhu) does not wish to place you in difficulty, but to make you clean and complete His favour upon you, so that you may be grateful.” [Quran: Surah Al-Maida, Ayat 6]

It was because of these Islamic injunctions that to care for cleanliness was associated with Islam and Muslims.

To take a bath was considered by Christians to be such a sinful act that when Pope Innocent IV passed the verdict in 1250 AD against Frederick II, King of Sicily and Germany, of being a heathen, the first on his list of accusations was that he took a bath daily like Muslims.

Bathing was considered both sinful and dangerous for one’s health for many centuries in Europe. People either forwent bathing altogether or restricted their hygienic arrangements to washing hands, parts of the face, and rinsing their mouths. Washing one’s entire face was believed to cause catarrh and weaken the eyesight.

Member of the upper classes took full body baths a few times a year, however, King Louis XIV of France and Queen Isabel I of Spain are reported to have bathed only twice in their entire lives. As one Russian ambassador to France noted “His Majesty [King Louis XIV] stunk like a wild animal.”  Russians were not so finicky about bathing and tended to bathe once a month.  Because of this, they were considered perverts by many Europeans.

King Louis XIV stench came from the fact that his physicians advised him to bathe as infrequently as possible to maintain good health.  He also stated that he found the act of bathing disturbing. Queen Isabel I of Spain confessed that she had taken a bath only twice in her lifetime, when she was first born and when she got married.

A daughter of one of the French kings died of lice. Dysentery and scab caused fatal terminations to Popes Clement V and Clement VII correspondingly. Duke Norfolk neglected bathing for religious reasons. As a result of such disregard numerous abscesses dotted his body.

Pope Sixtus IV considered every Christian who took a bath daily to be a heathen (Muslim). To punish the heathens, the Pope established a religious court in 1478 AD that executed 2000 people in the first year alone by burning them alive and convicted and sentenced 17,000 to imprisonment and fines. [History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, by John William Draper]

When the Islamic State came to an end in Spain, King Philip II in 1598 closed down all public baths as they revived memories of Islam. He also removed the Governor of Isabel on the ground that he washed his face and hands daily. [Favours of Islam on Europe]

This hadith has been sent to you by dailyhadith.adaptivesolutionsinc.com

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Just look at how what is considered a basic hygiene today was considered a disgraceful sin back then  - so much so that he should be burned alive if he took shower. 

The objective for sharing this is to remind ourselves that not everything we perceive to be normal is necessarily normal for others; and not everything we perceive to be abnormal is necessarily abnormal for others. Context matters, time matters, background matters. We must refrain from making judgements when we come across something which we are not generally used to experiencing. What we must do instead as a society requires a little more harmony and a little less wits.

Rakib

Tooth erupted

Following my last post on my dental makeover series, here is where my erupted tooth stands today. Follow the timeline to see the progress over the last 3 months.

February 3rd 2013

December 21st 2012

November 19th 2012

It was like repeated climbing of the archwire up the erupting tooth

Disclaimer: If anyone is disgusted by these pictures, please press Ctrl+W (or Command+W on Mac)

brackets on the erupting tooth

If you have been following my blog posts on my dental makeover that has been going on for about eight months now, nearly about 4 months ago i mentioned that my hidden permanent tooth has been attached to the archwires and are now in the process of being pulled down. A noticeable progress have been made so far and the tooth almost more than a quarter portion down already.

In the post about my hidden tooth being pulled down, i mentioned some rubbery-band was put on it instead of the typical dental brackets due to lack of visible space on the hidden tooth. Well now the tooth has come down a fair amount of length for which the brackets can now be tried on.

see that little guy coming down from the upper jaw?

BEFORE

photo taken: 3rd July 2012

AFTER

photo taken: 19th November 2012

Disclaimer: If anyone is disgusted by these pictures, please press Ctrl+W (or Command+W on Mac)

Blind faith? Or educated disbelief?

 I have seen people who say to live happily and peacefully we need a college degree from a good reputed university that can publish this many researches and this many books. They say having a college degree from such an intellectually sound institution will give you peace because, then, you will be able to take EDUCATED decisions.... you don't need theistic beliefs to achieve peace.... you don't need to blindly follow the rules stated by God (someone whom you have never even seen).

Do they realize that the intellect of even the ENTIRE human race (living or dead) would not be a match against Allah's wisdom? I am not saying this blindly to say that Allah is more knowledgeable than anyone or anything. I am saying this because there are FACTS to backup my belief.

There are SEVERAL extra-ordinary things which are being discovered today. But they were already declared hundreds of years ago......... by who? By someone who researched and wrote and published an intellectually curated book? Or by someone who ACTUALLY knows about EVERYTHING till the end of the world? There were no microscopes back then. There were no microchips back then. And today, we can't do a single research without any of this.

EVEN AFTER that kind of far fetched wisdom, if people STILL question Allah's wisdom (not to learn about it but to challenge his wisdom), I can only pray for Allah to guide them.

--------

I, in no way, mean anything against education.