Independence Day

On the eve of Pakistan’s 61st Independence Day, it rained thoroughly throughout the city — perhaps throughout the country. I walked out late in the morning over the wet asphalt on a road that was rebuilt a few months ago to the spot where one of our cars was parked. Dad is in [...]

Epilogue: How to terminate your PTCL Broadband DSL contract

After months of bearing mental torture, limited or no connectivity, and bandwidth and service charges apparently without having a usable service at hand, I have finally decided to throw in the towel and terminate the contract I have for PTCL Brandband DSL service. Now, since the monthly bill for the service comes augmented with [...]

So, yes, I still haven’t quite got over it!

Apparently, in what appears to be a decision that is beyond my comprehension, the almighty staff at Slashdot, in their infinite wisdom, thought it necessary to turn down my rather serious and (what appeared to me to be a) reasonably well-written, on-topic and coherent post on CRT Monitors causing headaches about a month ago, but [...]

Ask: Do CRT monitors cause headaches?

I posted this on slashdot.org two weeks ago, but the story got rejected. I am posting it here.
I have myopia (medium to high myopia). I wear corrective lenses (in the form of glasses) with negative six optical power, both eyes. The optical power had gradually been decreasing, but since over two years now, it [...]

Would you like to step out of the car, please?

Imagine having friends in the car driving to a far-off diner, finding a safe spot to park the car what may appear to be little more than five minutes walk away from the diner hoping to avoid the traffic police from subsequently towing the car away (otherwise eventually leaving you with no other option but [...]

Monday Morning Blues

Brakes failed (had to press really hard on the brake pedal all the way down three times in a row in order for the brakes to take effect). Drove awfully slowly. Didn’t find space at the usual parking lots. Had to park at an overly expensive parking lot. Got late on [...]

The irony of driving

I will honk most rudely. I will cut the dangerous of cuts mindlessly. I will work up a temper by not allowing myself to stay relaxed and vent the frustration by pressing harshly on the accelerator …
… only to make it to the next traffic jam earlier than others to start all over.

YouTube.com blocked?

This is a premature post. PIE routers are dropping packets destined to any of the various IPs youtube.com is living on. The following are two traceroute dumps that show packets destined to youtube.com abruptly disappearing after touching PIE routers.
From behind NTC link:

1 202-83-175-145.reverse.ntc.net.pk (202.83.175.145) 1.193 ms 1.172 ms 1.338 [...]

Ask: Persistent issues with PTCL Broadband DSL service.

I have been facing two slightly related issues with PTCL Broadband DSL connection consistently ever since I started using the service.
I am using the de facto SmartAX MT880 DSL modem PTCL ships out as CPE with their broadband package along with YCL CPF105C ADSL splitter device. The modem is set up in [...]

Blessed is I

… for I have an Internet connection at work that is so fast, so fast (and I can’t seem to be able to emphasize enough) it will blow your mind off. Some proof is in order:
ayaz@worklinux:$ ping www.google.com
PING google.navigation.opendns.com (208.67.217.231) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from google.navigation.opendns.com (208.67.217.231): icmp_seq=160 ttl=53 time=4228 ms
64 bytes from [...]