Kiva Rocks the World

Ever heard of Kiva before?

Ever heard of Micro Financing?

It's somewhat like charity, but where you get your money back.

Mohammad Yunus started the whole thing with Grameen bank and won the Nobel Prize for it.

The IDEA is simple:
You give a small loan to a poor person with a small idea (usual example: indian lady wanting to buy a sewing machine). That lady then repays the loan (without interest) using the income of the sewing machine, and can then support herself better. The lender keeps a database of the loan and repayment schedule, and if the lady doesn't pay back in time, she's not taken to the police, she's simply blacklisted to not receive any more money in the future.

The repayment rate is usually between 98-100%!!!!

These people take their loans seriously.



So what's Kiva? It's a website that takes this model to the next level, the INTERNET.

It lists thousands of loan seekers, and you can lend any of them using paypal! You get your money back over a certain time period.

Here's a video that tells the whole story:

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

A Mouse Trap That Doesn't Work..

I only recently noticed a comment by "The Wise One" under "My Friend The Atheist" in which he basically proclaims that he is an atheist himself and mentions a few issues which he thought were proofs that Islam is a lie and also mentions "Intelligent Design" and how our human bodies are not well designed.

I wish to respond. O' Mr. Wise One:

You mentioned how our blood vessels are all chaotic and tangled up. You prefer them all proper and straight and parallel for example? you don't like that there's way too many in there? more than what's efficiently needed? And what about redundancy and failure tolerance? You see chaos but when you get cut and start bleeding, you don't think how all a doctor really has to do is put the parts close together and wait for these veins to find their way to each other and mesh? How come you don't marvel at that? How do cells understand what they need to do as group? how is it that when the healing is sufficiently complete, that the cells actually STOP?? because you know that extra unwanted rampantly growing tissue is nothing but cancer. How is it that we don't get cancer after every cut?

Intelligent Design proponents usually bring the example of a simple Mouse Trap. I recommend this book I read a few years ago "Darwin's Black Box". We all know that the basis of the theory of evolution is "Survival of the Fittest". That random mutations occur throughout generations and which ever mutation is more "fit" (stronger, faster, smarter, more gorgeous) , is more likely to reproduce and survive, while the "unfit" (weaker, slower, dumber, uglier) is less likely to have offspring, and eventually die out of the population.

The problem is that some of our biological systems are so complicated and advanced in order to give the slightest bit of benefit, that slow and gradual mutation can NOT produce middle steps that are "partially beneficial" to the animal.

The book explains in heavy detail the process of blood coagulation, or clotting. If you get cut and your blood doesn't clot quickly, you'll bleed until you die. No one has yet been able to show how the modern clotting process could have had a simpler ancestral chain which would have worked, say with 50% or even 20% effectiveness.

To illustrate the idea more, the book uses the example of a mousetrap, which is many many times simpler than the chain of chemical reactions which clotting needs. To make a mouse trap to work and catch mice, you need about 4-5 parts to make it work. A base, a spring, a hammer, a holding bar and ofcourse the cheese. Those parts need to be aligned so carefully together in order to be ready to trap anything, (I remember that from my childhood qubbi trapping days). Now if any of the parts is missing, or not positioned correctly, the whole trap's effectiveness would not be reduced by a certain amount, the whole trap would STOP working. There's no "previous ancestor mutation" to it. Any previous random mutation to the mousetrap would have been a complete failure at catching mice.

And since we know that these mutations take 10's of thousands of generations to occur, I ask why would any organism that includes a bunch of parts of a system that does not really benefit the animal in any way, keep the system? wouldn't evolution theory dictate that a useless mousetrap be removed? to save the energy and cells required to make it atleast. The animal itself can not predict that the system of parts is useless now, but is HOPING to evolve it into a useful mousetrap 100's of yearsin the future, and thousands of generations later.

I agree that evolutionary mutation is correct when each step produces a benefit. But when each individual step does not produce a benefit, then why would the animal continue in that path? the more logical way for it is to mutate backwards and remove the part in later generations no?

Here's a link that the author of the book Behe talks about an evolutionary experiment where a kind of bacteria evolves to be able to benefit from cirtus Multiple Mutations Needed for E.Coli:

if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has little problem finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. “If two mutations have to occur before there is a net beneficial effect — if an intermediate state is harmful, or less fit than the starting state — then there is already a big evolutionary problem.” (4) And what if more than two are needed? The task quickly gets out of reach of random mutation.

Cable Cut and Great Morning Song

Update (27th Dec. 5:30AM):

One of the cables was supposed to get fixed last night, but it got cut again (on the ship, not somewhere else along the cable) and will need 2 more days for reparations. I know this sounds funny, but the fibers are very fragile.

We however are running at 75% as of last night.

=================================================================================
Update (23rd Dec. 7:50AM):

BBC published this update on the cable cut. They say the cut was probably caused by an anchor dropped by a ship somewhere between Sicily and Tunis. They arrived at the damage site on Sunday afternoon and said they'll have SEMEWE4 fixed by the 25th. and SEMEWE3 by the end of the year.

But FLAG (the 3rd cable) is owned by someone else and isn't being fixed by this ship. talk about bad service.
=================================================================================
Update (22nd Dec. 8:00AM):

Our total usage last night reached a maximum of 71% of its usual peak. And the repair ship is said to be expected to finish the repairs on the cable by the 26th. Alla y3een.

=================================================================================
Update on the Bandwidth (21st Dec. 1:00AM):

As promised, the 3rd provider gave us more bandwidth from South East Asia and now we're running at 54% of our usual peak usage.

=================================================================================

Original post:

Yesterday morning about 10:15 AM 3 of the 4 main internet cables linking our region with Europe and the US have been cut, so far they think it might be due to seismic activity near Malta. Here's the story on BBC.

At my ISP we use three international providers and 1 is completely down, the 2nd is running at about 30%, and the 3rd rerouted us toward the eastern side of the cables to Singapore and are giving us about 50%.

So on the whole, we're running at about 40% of our usual traffic. Congested to the gills :P

Our 50% provider is expected to give us more bandwidth very soon, also to the east. Which should make things better, albeit with higher latency than usual (like 600-700 millisec compared to the usual 200-300 millisec).

Twice in 1 year... :(

So here's a bandwidth consuming Video to cheer you up! my sister sent it to me and it's awesome in the morning.



Note: I guess the previous post is not relevant now. Thank you for your encouragement :)

Until further notice...

This blog is inactive starting today inshalla.

Thanks for reading :)

Regret is a Useful Emotion?

My friend used to tell me about a teacher he had in grade school. There was one kid who's habit was to do things in class that annoy the teacher and distract everybody, and as soon as she zooms her anger on him he immediately says "I'm sorry miss, I'm sorry." and sits still for not a very long time before the cycle begins again.

Through this cycle the teacher is being wound up toward an inevitable explosion. So one day the boy is whimpering as usual:

"Sorry miss, walla sorry." and sits. And then the Miss has had enough.....

"NO!!! You're NOT SORRY. STOP SAYING YOU'RE SORRY. YOU'RE LYING. IF YOU WERE REALLY SORRY YOU WOULD STOP DOING IT AGAIN."

The story is a bit funny and me and my friend laugh about it whenever someone says "sorry" quoting her last line as an inside joke. "YOU'RE NOT SORRY!"

But what's funny about it? usually things are funny because there's some profound truth hidden inside. And in this case I think what she says about him not really being sorry is very true.

Which brings me to Regret. Being "Sorry" and being "Regretful" are almost the same thing. And recently I was reading about Hajj and Tawba and came across the 3 conditions for Tawba:

1- Intention to not go back to the sin. Future
2- Stop doing the sin. Present
3- Regretting the sin. Past

And when you think about these 3 conditions for true repentance, you can see that if one of them is not available, then: "YOU'RE NOT REALLY SORRY!"

The boy for example only fulfilled the 2nd condition, but not the 1st or 3rd. He did not resolve to stop doing it in the future, nor did he regret doing it in the past.

Same goes with most people who have a certain vice which has become habit and a normal and accepted part of their life. Like the woman who knows il7ejab wajeb but doesn't wear it and says she feels sorry for that, o inna inshalla Allah yahdeha. (assuming she admits inna wajeb, if she argues inna mo wajeb that's a totally different post :P). Like the guy who uses usurous (Reba) banking to gain interest on his savings (those guys usually never even admit they're wrong, and just avoid the discussion). Or the guy who smokes knowing that there are pretty valid arguments supporting that smoking is 7aram based on its a slow form of killing yourself, and that it has no real benefit.

My point of this post is this:
Let's say you actually stop smoking, or that you start wearing 7ejab, or whatever thing you felt was wrong, and actually DO stop doing it in the future (1st and 2nd condition fulfilled), is it really necessary for you to also REGRET doing it in the past?

What if you stop doing it, but you remember the times in which you did with nothing but fondness and joy, almost wishing to go back to doing it all over again? certainly no regret there. Yes ofcourse you're not doing it now, but if you love the times when you did, is this really a true tawba? I mean, Allah doesn't only want you to stop doing the bad thing, because all the sins of the whole world don't affect Him negatively one bit. Allah wants you mainly to feel that what you did was to the contrary to His command, and therefor you did not place His command above your own human whim. And Allah wants you to repent from THAT. He wants you to be sorry from THAT. The sinful deed is nothing but a byproduct of an arrogant feeling really.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is:
Regret being a useless emotion is not only wrong (in my humble opinion), but actually a mandatory and necessary emotion. Required for all sinners who attempt to repent (and we're all sinners in one form or another).

حدثنا أحمد بن منيع قال : حدثنا زيد بن حباب قال : حدثنا علي بن مسعدة الباهلي قال : حدثنا قتادة ، عن أنس ، أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال : " " كل ابن آدم خطاء وخير الخطائين التوابون "
سنن الترمذي

Because if you don't regret it, you're NOT REALLY SORRY :P
If you don't resolve to never do it in the future, you're... NOT REALLY SORRY :P
and lastly... if you're still doing it, you're NOT REALLY SORRY :)

تقبل الله طاعتكم و عسى عيدكم مبارك

و على قولة جدي: أيامك عصيدة

Human Suffering Overload

A couple of weeks back I hear of this boy "Baby P" in England who died only 17 months old.

"After 17 months enduring abuse of an almost unimaginable cruelty, the boy had been reduced to a nervous wreck, his hair shaved to the scalp and his body covered in bruises and scabs. Physical injuries included eight broken ribs, a broken back and the missing top of a finger, while the emotional damage was almost incalculable. Despite it all, Baby P was said to have still attempted a smile."

And all of this was done to him by his own mother, and the two boyfriends she took after splitting with the boy's father.

And yesterday I went to this movie "TV's Promised Land" at the Film Week in KUniv in Khaldiya. And its filled with western depictions of Arabs/Muslims as demons, rats, snakes, mosquitoes and many other sub-human beings. And in the middle of that film, a pretty long scene of 4 Israeli soldiers who barbarically kick and torture 2 sitting palestinians. Midway through that scene one of the soldiers picks up a rock the size of 2 fists and starts hitting on of the men on the shoulders, ribs and head til he passes out. And then another soldier holds the arm of the 2nd palestinian and stretches it out so the other soldier holding the rock can hammer his arm to break it.

The whole auditorium were watching this horror on the verge of walking out... it was very literally "unbearable". After the scene mercifully stops we see the Israeli soldier being interviewed saying that "this" happens "everyday".

This morning I learn from a Palestinian colleague at work that the same two victims were actually born and raised in Kuwait and that he knows the video and knows the two men personally. He told me how they all visited them in the hospital when they arrived back in Kuwait. That just brought my anger and loathing of the soldiers' inhumanity to a much more personal level. These men survived thankfully, and I can go meet them if I wished. The injustice demanded retribution. Allah ilmusta3an. La qowata illa billah.

Then this afternoon I hear on the news about the 100+ victims of the terrorist attack in Mumbay. How the attackers unloaded automatic weapons into civilians indiscriminantly, men, women, children, it didn't make a difference. The buzzing bustling city is in crisis as I am typing away. By some group that calls itself "Mojahideen Decan", Decan being an area. And no one ever heard of the group before.

The whole world is in shock. Real, attention-demanding, bleeding throbbing shock and pain of completely senseless murder and killing.

I arrive to see a movie with my wife, "Taken", and I'm touched by the father's feelings for his daughter. Her guardian angel. Safety and protection guaranteed. Then by the end of the movie (I don't really care if I'm spoiling the movie, coz this bit has pissed me off) you see the ugly, old, bald arab holding the "virgin" daughter as a human shield with a "knife" at her throat. And guess what he's wearing... a bisht.

Where? on an oppulent yacht on the Siene river in Paris. With half a dozen world-class body guards with machine guns on board. And the pictures on the sides of his bedroom door are of hunting falcons and arabian horses.

Demonize me more if you please.

As I'm driving back home my radio's on BBC as usual. My mistake.

She starts talking about more dead people and more evil.

And I just flick it off in a reflex move of pure self-defense. I couldn't take any more.

My mind was filled to the brim with way too much human suffering and injustice and lying. I need a breather. Some time off from it. I need to stop listening to news for a few days at the least.

I gave like a 100kd to my dad because he was collecting aid to help some old expat who needed an operation. Just to try and relieve myself. And it worked a little.

And I thought that I should share this, and spill it out. And thought that, what use is it to listen and absorb sooooo much human tragedy and bad news?

Yes ofcourse it is necessary to be aware. otherwise you can't do any good. You can't help people you don't know are suffering.

But to what extent?? It just crystalized in my head that, I should just hang on to the first bit of bad news I hear, and if I can help with it, just do that and block other bad news until I do.