Shadowlessness

In my humble opinion, “dunmanifestin” is the second most funny word in the world, based on amount of humor per letter (I just started re-re-rereading “Colour of Magic”!)
Of course, I’m pretty sure that no other word can contest the hilarity content of “Ni“.
What?! You don’t know what that is? Get your head out of your…the gutter and go see “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Seriously!

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Top-posting is, in short, the practice of putting the reply above the original message in electronic communication. Many of my friends top-post, and I believe most of them are a victim of Google’s otherwise close-to-splendid email application “Gmail”.
This is not a criticism you guys. It’s just a joke at your expense!
For more information, guidance and general wisdom, you can read RFC 1855.

This is the first post I write from my brand new PSP, which I’ve decided to call “Eris“.
Thanks for this great birthday present goes out to Amir Hossein, Azadeh, Ehsan, Farzam, Golnaz, Parastoo and Siamac (who am I forgeting?)

A friend of mine had a nostalgic sentence as her Y!M status message a few days ago:

Raise your drinking glasses; here’s to yesterday.

So, here’s to yesterdays. Cheers.

I’ve heard rumors that IAUM-CCC is going to be held again this summer, which will be the fifth such event. For the uninitiated, IAUM-CCC is an annual computer programming competition among Iranian (~)students, held in Azad University of Mashhad.
The first round will be online, supposedly before the end of Tir (around mid-July) and the final rounds are scheduled for the end of Mordad (around mid-August.)

Fortunately for my schoolmates and friends over there in Mashhad, I don’t think I have enough time and energy to contribute in any major way this year. This is fortunate because the weakest points in past years’ contests were my contributions (mostly in the form of incomprehensible and/or wrong problem statements and flawed solutions.) I will however try to make it there as a judge, if the executive committee would want me.

Now, to whomever who reads this blog (all the 2-3 people) I invite you and your friends to participate (if you are an Iranian-resident and are or have recently been a student.) More importantly, if you think you can manage it, I invite you (implore would be a better word) to help us devise the problems for the event. Some items that might be of interest.

• We need more than 30 problems for the tournament.
• If you contribute any problems and they are accepted for the CCC, you won’t be able to qualify for or participate in the on-site rounds. You can take part in the online contests, though.
• If any of your problems are included in the CCC, you will be an Honorary Judge and will receive the certificate stating that. Depending on the number of contributors, you may be invited to help us as a judge in the on-site rounds.
• If you contribute any problems to the CCC, we ask you to consider yourself bound by your conscience not to discuss or share your contributions with anyone other than the other CCC judges.
• You are free to use problems from existing sources as “inspiration” for the ones you want to contribute to the CCC, but verbatim copying is unacceptable. You should share the source of your inspiration with us anyway.
• The printed problem sets during the contest and the published material on the website will carry the name of the problem setter, unless she requests otherwise.
• The problems should be designed in the spirit of ACM/ICPC problems, with the same conventions.
• The difficulty range of the problems will be wide, from easiest of programming tasks to difficult ICPC-grade, but the problems in the CCC are on the easy side of the scales, such that our most difficult problems can be considered around the same difficulty level as medium or medium-hard problems in the ICPC world finals.
• It would be better if the problem designers supply their own solution and even I/O data if they can, but even if you don’t want to (or don’t have the time to) do so, give us your idea or problem statement.
• Anyone interested should contact me through my email address, which is the single letter y at the domain name of this site: yaserzt.com.

As always, we hope to see all of you in Mashhad (or at least during the online contest.)

P.S. If anyone has more concrete information regarding CCC 5, please let me know!

What would you answer if I asked you what the most useless, pointless, mind-numbingly stupid three letters that people utter left and right were, what would you answer? (No, I don’t mean ‘g’, ‘o’, ‘d’!)
Of course it’s “www”. Do those people that still put these letters in front of every web address (and non-web addresses too!) they give out have any idea what they represent? Do they know that there’s nothing special or magical about the “www”? How many of them actually have different server machines on their domains that they need to specify the sub-domain name as well? Heck, even different server types on different machines does not completely justify a sub-domain specification; they have to have different web servers with different content (or the same content but with no automatic load balancing mechanism) to warrant their use of “www”. In my book, the only group of people that are as stupid as these indiscriminate users of the “www” prefix are those claustrophobic cretins that rush the airplane aisles and doorways as soon as it touches the tarmac.
Please people. Use your heads. Most of the time, it takes more time to pronounce the “www” than to say the actual address. Drop the “www”.

Besides, each time you say or write “www”, you use energy, which more accurately means you are converting energy from a more usable, less chaotic form to a less usable one with more entropy (usually heat.) Therefore, you are irreversibly increasing the entropy of the whole universe and making “the end” jump forward. Don’t do that.
(The only understandable reason for wanting the end of the universe closer would be for a chance to dine at Milliway’s, which I don’t recommend myself.)

Yesterday was a sad day. Not only because it was the day I was born (and not at all because it was also the day Bill Gates was born!) but because I was moving yet again.
I have lived in Tehran the past 13 months. The move originally was an escape from a dead-end job and a much required change in the climate of my life. What I hoped to find in Tehran was obliviousness instead, I found an interesting life-style, a good job and a few great friends.
I’m not a gregarious person by nature. I generally (not always) prefer my own room (or any room with my computer in it,) to a crowded and lively party. I prefer to write and answer email rather than going out with friends for dinner. But in Tehran, I didn’t have a computer for myself at my place of residence for most of my time there and therefor, all the advantages of an anti-social life evaporated. I become used to going out, partying much more often, crashing at a friends’ place, even going to places were you couldn’t get Internet connection or even AC power for many kilometers (i.e. hiking and road trips!) This new lifestyle was interesting and it proved that the right company can make many things not only bearable but enjoyable and memorable!
I went to Tehran for a job. A guy named “Farzam“, whom I had only met twice for a few hours about six months before, called me in the Summer of 85 and ask me whether I would be interested in a programming job developing a 3D simulator for educational purposes. The only catch was that I had to move to Tehran. For several reasons, the least important of which was the job itself, I accepted. The job proved to be interesting enough (rather harder than I’d have liked) and I learned a lot. Most importantly, I learned a lot about what not to do when working as part of a serious team on a serious project. And I’m absolutely confident now that I should never be given the controlling role in a project that has a schedule and/or a budget! I realized this because I wasn’t the lead in this project and it worked surprisingly well for everyone (except for poor Farzam, the lead designer/architect!) There’s way too much pressure there for me!
Anyway, the greatest thing I found in the past 13 months was new friendships. I’ve even found two sisters (I’m not going to talk about the second one though.) Most of this past year I’ve been living at my aunt’s (my mom’s sister) and my cousin Mona is now like a sister to me, more than ever. We’ve become close and she’s helped me in some social issues I’ve have little experience in.
I found great friends in Tehran. Friends that I wouldn’t even know existed if I hadn’t moved there. Even if I don’t consider anything else, they alone make this past year of my life worthwhile. I cannot thank (in chronological order) Farzam, Siamac and Azadeh enough.
Many of those who know me believe that I’m fluent in working with computers. While most of my knowledge is useless and/or inaccurate, I have to admit that I do find my way around computers. Many of my friends are power users and very knowledgeable when it comes to computers themselves, but I have known (in person, and for a considerable period of time) only two people that have had skills clearly superior to my own. The second and the more fluent one is Siamac. I’ve learned many many many tidbits from him that I wouldn’t have found anywhere else, and I’ve shared with him many memories of the “good ol’ days” that I wouldn’t find another soul to have them in common with us.
The smallest thing I learned from Farzam was that I cannot manage a project and he can, almost on schedule and healthy enough. He also stimulated my interest in the finest art and introduced me to much good music. I feel like stabbing (specially) him in the back by leaving at this time, and I feel torn because I cannot not leave.
I also left a few of my older friends in Tehran. Three “Ehsan”s (yes, three! One of them my brother) and one Mahdi. Adios friends.
But being back in Mashhad is not all pangs and regrets. I’m here at my own home, in my own room, with my own computer Mike (although my other computer, Rincewind, was with my these past months.) I’m here nearer to my brother Omid (although I left Ehsan in Tehran.) Most important of all, I’m nearer to my mother, the person I love the most in the world. That alone makes coming back to Mashhad into coming “home.”

Merely for testing purposes.

--  "Programming is an art that fights back!" 

For reasons that many of you (if the number of people that read my blog can indeed be counted as many) know already, I’ll be moving back to Mashhad in a month. The month is for me to tie some loose ends over here at work and help the project I’m involved in as much as I can, so when I return home, my (almost non-existent) conscience doesn’t bother me unbearably.
On the other hand, I have made my decision and will return to Mashhad to pursue and finish my studies no matter what happens and small things like a guilty conscience and leaving dear friends between a rock and a hard place in a pick won’t deter me!
Anyway, since I’ll be leaving for Mashhad in a month (that’s the minimum period my contract requires of me) and the project won’t be finished until then (the plan is for another 3 month, with a 6-person team,) my friend and project lead - Farzam - suggested that we (him and myself) put off all life for a month and finish the project by ourselves! It’s 18 man-months, shrunken into two! I don’t know if we can, but with the overhead from all the unnecessary work (like generating documentation!) and communication and endless meetings gone, I think we just might be able to pull this off!
But for that to happen, I really need to cut off from the world. I think I’ll check my emails from time to time, but instant messengers, browsing, probably posting to my worthy and popular blog (NOT!) will have to go into the cellar for the time being. So “¡Adiós Amigos!” Keep in touch, if at all possible!