Another pair of newly weds!

Many congratulations to Ali and Maleeha on their marriage!

May Allah and put love and mercy between them and bless their marriage.

The brain and sleep

Interesting article on Scientific American about how beneficial sleep is to the brain. Amongst the examples cited in the article is the story of Friedrich August Kekulé whose dream about a snake eating its tail helped him discover the ring structure of Benzene.

Sleep on It: How Snoozing Makes You Smarter Via Scientific American

Beautiful

Came across this beautiful post today. Very touching.

Via SeekersPath

I cooked chicken!

I’ve been doing some cooking lately. Of course, I’ve cooked before (read rice) but never the likes of meat. I was advised by my mom to start with chicken and it was great advice. Last week I bought like 7 pounds of chicken and started out on the road to becoming a chicken tikka expert.

I’ve seen my mom make it and it always looked easy. That was the same feeling I got when my mom told me the recipe too. So, I tried it out. The key to making chicken tikka is to allow the chicken to marinate in the masala-yougurt-mix for at least a day. The first time I made the dish, I separated the chicken into two portions. One I wanted to make right away and the other I wanted to make the next day. Needless to say, the first batch of chicken didn’t taste as good as the second since it didn’t have enough time to soak in all the masala-goodness. Not that it was bad, in fact, it was pretty good for my first time but the second batch was superb.

I cooked the remaining chicken this evening after coating it with marinate this morning. The first time I cooked it, I felt like I put on too much masala so this time I held back. I think I put in a little less than I should have but I guess it turned out fine.

So, this was the third time I cooked chicken all-by-myself. I have yet to top the second time I cooked it but I think the more I cook the better I’ll get.

Chicken Tikka Recipe:

• Chicken legs / thighs
• Yogurt
• Kissan brand Tandoori Masala
• Cooking oil

81.5 percent spam?!

According to an article on Ars Technica,

Spam accounted for 81.5 percent of all the e-mails sent in June, according to MessageLabs. In the US, Illinois was the most-spammed state, with 92.1 percent of all e-mails considered spam.

That’s a crazy amounts of spam. Catch the full article here.

Remarkable match at Wimbledon

Last year, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (a.k.a Rafa) met in the final round of the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament, Wimbledon. It was Roger that won that match, making him only second player in tournament history to win five Wimbledon finals in a row. What an amazing run for Roger.

Fast forward to this year’s French Open where the two met yet again. That match was decidedly won by Rafa where he not only proved that he has what it takes to beat the world’s top ranked player but do so in such an overwhelming fashion.

With so much leading to Wimbledon, it was amazing to see the two meet in the Wimbledon final. Not only because they’re the top two players in the world and have established a beautiful rivalry, but also due to the historical significance of either’s win this year.

With a win, Rafa would become the first player in 28 years to win both the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year. If Federer were to win, he’d be the first player in the history of professional tennis to win six Wimbledon titles in a row. Interestingly enough, both would be touching on Bjorn Bork’s record.

In the early part of the final, Rafa seemed to be on the road to victory with the first two sets in hand, but Roger held on to win the third set on a tie-breaker. The fourth set also saw a tie-breaker with Federer on the winning end again after Rafa had two chances to put the game away. That tie-breaker brought out some of the best tennis I’ve ever seen. Then came the fifth set, which like the others, trumped the set before it. Already the longest match in Wimbledon history, Federer was trying to become the first player in 81 years to be down two sets and come back to win the final with the score 7-6 in his favour but Rafa mustered up whatever he had to push the match to 7-7 and later 7-8. It was in that game that Rafael Nadal won the match, making him the first player in 28 years to win both the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year and the first Spanish tennis player in 42 years to win a Wimbledon Championship.

It was a history-making match and was by far the best tennis I’ve ever seen. What a remarkable show.

Well done men, well done.

Extra description?

Hm, where’s the extra description?

getBundle.png

Got this in TextMate when choosing ‘Show Bundles on Repository’ in the GetBundle bundle.

LinkedIn Engineer perks

Wow, I’m soo browsing the LinkedIn job board:

A new engineer that comes in gets a new MacPro with dual quad-core CPUs and 12GB of ram and a MacBook Pro. The down side of the whole deal is that you have to choose between two 23″ or one 30″ Apple Cinema display.

Via the LinkedIn blog

Rogers Voice & Data Packages for iPhone

Rogers announces its voice and data packages for the hugely anticipated Apple iPhone available July 11th in Canada. Prices start at $60 per month and include a 400Mb data limit. Even the most expensive package at $115 per month doesn’t include unlimited data.

Rogers.com – iPhone 3G Voice & Data Packages

(Via Daring Fireball)

Most lucrative college major? Computer Engineering

According to an article on Yahoo! Canada Personal Finance:

The most lucrative college major today: computer engineering

It’s interesting that the term Computer Engineering means different things to different people. Some people think it’s some kind of new area of study whereas others simply dismiss it as a fancy term for Computer Science graduates.

Having studied Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto (arguably the best place to study the subject in Canada), I know Computer Engineering to be a mixture of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Computer Engineers not only know how to design and develop software but also the machines used by the software.

If you’re looking for a big paycheque straight out of school, think about an engineering degree. The four highest paid majors for people with less than five years experience were all engineering-based, with computer engineering leading the way.

Check out the full article here