Skyward Fire

This one is based off what my bestie came up with on Twitter. Full credits to her for the idea.

1. Parents are always right. They say what they say for your own good, and they do what they do for your own good.

2. Life is an adventure. Treat it like one.

3. Never expect anyone to return your feelings. Just because you feel your world revolves around them doesn’t mean they feel the same way about you.

4. To err is human. People make mistakes. To forgive, is the best thing to do.

5. “Just because I don’t talk to you often, or don’t see you often doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

6. Karma is a bitch, and it works in a cycle. You will always get what you deserve.

7. As hard as it might be for some people, don’t change how you feel about a person if you really love them and want in your life. They will come around.

8. Shut up when needed. You might think someone close to you needs to know everything about you, but they don’t.

9. Listen to your doctor. If he has an advise for you, compile.

10. Do what is to be done on time. Wasting it has never done anyone any good.

11. Career comes first. Everything else comes eventually. And contradictory to the fact that some people think you need to be emotionless to make sure you succeed career-wise, it’s wrong. Everything has a place of it’s own.

12. Brace yourself for a lot of No’s in life, specially from people you love the most.

13. Insecurity is not a bad thing, unless in high dosage. It just shows how much you love someone despite of what they might think.

14. Family first. Always, family first.

15. Cold water showers >> Hot water showers

16. Avoid eating at fast food chains. Go for restaurants that use local ingredients.

17. If you really like someone, forgive and forget. Apologize even when not needed, you don’t want them out of your life.

18. Give other people space. Not so much that they feel you’re not around, and not too much that they feel you’re forcing yourself upon them.

19. Compromise for your besties. Change the rules, go off the road, do things you wouldn’t do otherwise. For them. You know who you are, all 4 of you. And specially, the one who inspired me to write this post.

20. Don’t believe something just because it’s word-of-mouth.

21. Stay off people who think highly of themselves, who think they are in command, who hog the limelight, who’re self-centered and expect good behavior from you despite how otherwise they treat you.

22. If you say something, mean it. If you promise something, honor it.

23. Coffee and Red Bull don’t always work. Indian classical music to rule them all.

24. Thank God for what you have. He has given you sufficient to lead a proper life.

25. If you feel something about someone, let them know.

That’s it for tonight. I will post more eventually.

Today, I complete my 6 exact months here in UAE. And truly so it has been an adventure, one of it’s kind. Things unfurled in ways I did not expect them to, but it had truly been a journey full of shock and awe, good and bad.

Honestly speaking, despite all the bad press that Dubai usually gets, I love it here. And there’s scores of reasons why. We’re all people, none of us are perfect. But the media has a thing for inflated bad publicity and that’s what Dubai has always got, specially from Western media. But I shall speak unbiased, unprejudiced. I’m no fan of monarchy, and a lot of things that UAE advocates. But I love Dubai. Every place, every person, every entity has it’s own flaws, and we’re all flawed in our special ways. But that is what makes it even more fun.

I’ve had the pleasure of roaming around the city plenty of times, but it has never seemed enough. This one time not along ago in the first week of February, I was with my girlfriend there. Every single new trip is an experience of it’s own. Here’s to exactly what makes Dubai so special (with quite a few contributions from my friends on Twitter).

• Contrary to what the RTA has to say and everyone else’s traffic vows, owning your own car is more convenient in every single way that public transport. Cabs are expensive, and buses will confuse you. Metros are a good initiative but they’re not widespread right now. Eventually, may be. But the city will be difficult for you to measure if you don’t have you own car
• Karak chai. Two words. That’s it. There are a lot of places in Dubai, and in the other Emirates where you’ll find the most refreshing karak ever
• The Shawarma, preferably at Beirut Restaurant & Grill or Wildpeeta
• Leaving your car unlocked and not worrying about not finding it the next day except in Deira & Bur Dubai
• You can go to the beaches what ever time of the year you wish to (just don’t get too kinky)
• The map of the city changes every week. If you think what is where, you have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into
• You can roam around Bastakiya even when its the middle of the summer and walk into the galleries and cafes
• You can wear flip-flops and sandals all year round. Though I don’t prefer this one since a lot of premier places have dress-codes that only allow closed formal wear, plus, all the outdoorsy elements wont do your feet any good
• The locals are really nice and pleasant people
• Carrot Cake at Lime Tree Cafe, Jumeirah
• Thanks to Burj Khalifa, you can climb the highest man-made structure ever built
• You don’t have to speak neither Arabic nor English to live here
• Nothing beats the 8:00 PM view from Burj Al Arab while you slip in some good wine at Skyview Bar
• The banks will increase your credit limit just when you’re thinking of buying that fancy new flat-screen
• It is easier to get a new credit card than it is to get your bank account statement
• The sea food at Saffron, Atlantis The Palm
• Fly Dubai!
• You can reach most of the worlds destinations within 5 to 7 hours. Europe, Africa and most of Asia. Where ever you may need to go
• Thai food at Lemongrass, Lamcy Plaza
• There is no fixed time for having sheesha. 3 AM, 6 AM, 2 PM ..
• Cops will stop you just to check out your ‘cool ride’

The new Apple iPad is the newest addition amongst Apple’s window of products. At 0.5” thick with a 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed chip, this certainly stands out as one of the signature Apple products. But ever since the launch, it has been a victim of Apple-bashing from people who like to judge things even before trying it out, and jumping to conclusions about certain things and features. And one of the many things that got bashed up include even the nomenclature of the product. No one bitches about a letter pad sounding anything like a tampon, so what’s so intriguing about making fun of this product anyway?

The specifications of the Apple iPad are nothing exciting, true that. But it’s too early to speak considering how, like the iPhone, even this might eventually evolve into a really handy gadget. One can’t live up to everyone’s expectations these days. It has no USB port, no flash support, it can’t multi-task (expecting much from a 1GHz ARM core is a joke), it can’t make phone calls (unless you’re using VOIP over 3G), and it has no card reader. These drawbacks and upset a lot of people. But I’m sure Apple will eventually resolve at least some of these issues with firmware updates (flash support) and other hardware upgrades, like it did with the iPhone.

In a profit-driven market, it’s easy to guess what restrictions AT&T might have implemented on the deal they have with Apple for the iPad so as to make sure that people use the data bandwidth, and Apple’s App Store as much as possible. So, the iPad has been dubbed as an iPhone on steroids. It has no front camera, which I was personally expecting to see. But the fact that it weighs a little over 700 grams and marks about 10 hours battery life (actual usage statistics may come down to 6-7 hours) still makes it worth a consideration. It’s a shame it’s being compared to the iPhone, and some are comparing it to netbooks. It must be understood that this is a new product category. It’s too early to say if the iPad pleases or disappoints. Justin Williams has a nice article on why he does not want an iPad.

Considering the fact that 3G data charges in India, and here in UAE, and in a lot of countries around the world is still pretty high, the iPad will take time to pan out. Those who have been thinking of the iPad as a potential gaming machine might reconsider, since the lack of hardware keys and only multi-touch makes it kind of difficult to imagine how one would play anything on something so big while chilling out. And $500 isn’t cheap for what Apple has to offer even for a starting range. What you’re getting for that is a closed system that can’t run any standard apps or games, can’t run any standard operating systems, can’t do most of the stuff you’d want it to do, you’re forced upon some of that Apple DRM love, and if you want more, you have to pay more. Classic Apple!

Chrome OS based future products based on Dual core Atom/Dual Core Cortex A9 Nvidia Tegra2 will blow this thing away if Apple doesn’t satisfy it’s users soon, since that would be a cheaper and a more productive alternative. The Apple iPad has a very simplistic approach, and is not for a heavy user. You use a toaster to toast and you use a juicer to juice. Apple’s R&D is innovative, and thinks out of the box. But when it comes to implementing their finds on to their products, they are never in a rush to do so. They took 2 years to bring copy-paste to the iPhone, and that says a lot about how Apple thinks. No matter what, their products sell. And no matter what, people wait. So we’ll have to give it time and see how the Apple iPad actually unfurls. If not, we’ll always have HP Slate!