Time Crisis is So Real

In September 2010, Microsoft's first-person shooter game "HALO: Reach" was launched and its 1st day sales in the United States alone recorded a whopping USD 200 million. while the developer of that game celebrates its success, the rest of the gaming industry is facing a huge concern.

the problem with such blockbuster game is that, gamers really enjoy playing that one game, they tend to stick to that game for quite some time to the point of not needing to purchase another game for months. this will create a drop in sales of the other game titles launched after that.

this problem can be related to the economic term ‘opportunity cost’. a simple definition of opportunity cost is; the cost of passing up the next best choice when making a decision. any gamer only has a certain amount hours each day to spend on playing games. he will have to decide which game that will give him the most enjoyment and satisfaction. after the decision is made, he plays that game at the expense of not playing the other games in that period. in the case of a really awesome game, people really enjoy the benefit (read: fun) of playing that game, that they do not mind sacrificing the experience of playing another game.

Like any other activity (or inactivity) that we do everyday, we are doing it at the cost of the the next best alternative activity (and its benefits).

Dawn Sky (a haiku)

Cloudless dawn sky
I saw massive white dots
Praise be to Allah

Allah: The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful, The Most Just

The Islamic calendar, or Hijri calendar is a purely lunar calendar.

For some obvious reasons, it differs from the Gregorian calendar; the internationally accepted civil calendar.

Hijri calendar concurs with the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. A complete Hijri year is the period of 12 orbits of the Moon around the Earth.

On the other hand, Gregorian calendar concurs with the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. A complete Greagorian year is the period of an orbit of the Earth around the Sun (more specifically, the time between vernal equinoxes).

Due to this difference, a Hijri calendar is not synchronised with the four seasons, unlike the Gregorian calendar. Every year, a Hijri date drifts 10 to 12 days from the Gregorian calendar. Seasonal relation to Hijri calendar repeats about every 33 years.

Muslims are commanded to fast (the 4th pillar of Islam) in the month of Ramadhan (the 9th month).

A simple description of a fast is to abstain from food, drink and sinful deeds from dawn to sunset.

This also means that, in a given year, if Ramadhan falls in winter or summer, people in the northern hemisphere observe a different fasting period from those in the southern hemisphere, due to the difference in the total hours of daytime.




For example, in a given year, if Ramadhan falls in June, it is summer in the United Kingdom, but winter in New Zealand. People living in the UK will experience a longer daily fasting period than those living in New Zealand. Unfair? Not really.

Remember that each year, a Hijri date drifts 10 to 12 days in relation to Earth's seasons. In the long run, there will be a year when Ramadhan falls during winter in the UK, and summer in the New Zealand!




Truly, Allah is The Most Just.






source:

http://saifulislam.com/?p=8421

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar

Letter to A Friend

"

Heya..


Dear friend,

I have sumthing to say and i think a letter is d best medium that i can convey it. You're my friend and i feel responsible to say whatever i'll b saying here. This has got sumthing to do with ur reaction to the news report of the stoning of the adulterous afghan couple. The reason im writing this to u right now is that i dun want u - my fren - to hav a misled view on my faith, Islam. I wont force u to read tis to the end, but it wld be awesome if u can do so. oh, i do have to say tat im not an expert in d knowledge of Islam, so i can only explain just as far as i can, so that hopefully u can understand just a liiiiitle better about my faith.

Firstly, i did not read the report you were reading on tat paper. i js googled the news and tis is the link tat i found http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10983494 . i'll just assume tat the report of that paper is quite d same (but i do think that different media do report in different voice, of course). so, according to the report on that link, the taliban was witnessed responsible for that. now, i do have to say that i dunno how they run the law in afghanistan. but it is stated that what the taliban did was not in line wit afghan's judiciary system. im just gonna quote another line, "Even in Islam this [stoning] has to be done through proper judicial systems". i do think tat d stoning part was not done accordingly s well.

One thing about taliban, is that they can b extreme in doing stuff. for example, they make it wajib (compulsory) for men to grow beard when it is only a sunnah (recommended/encouraged deeds). it is so much easier for me (and for u too if you're reading this) if i can just blame taliban and end this letter here. the problem is, along with the name 'Taliban', they affect the image of Islam potrayed to the world. so, that's wats im concerned about.

If u ask me, surely i wouldn't wanna witness any human being (in fact, any being) being stoned to death. any human with the capacity to reason wloudn't wanna see tat. here, im js gonna explain, in my understanding n view (of d concept of laws in Islam) about d law n d relevance of it even in this modern world. the word Islam can b translated into = peace, purity, submission and obedience. before i can accept tat definition, i would wanna question how can ever sumthing so gory as stoning people to death can b related to peace? i have to explain this in a more general context (i can't explain it like im explaining tis to another muslim).

A lot of scholars explain tat the benefit of having these laws correctly implemented is that it forms a form of protection for people from bad things. if we can try to think, were criminals readily bad people when they were born into this world as babies? i would answer no, dont think so. it is only that later in life, they grew up and become bad ppl. so, logically ther cant be people that's originally bad/evil. a theory tat i can come out with on how ppl grow up and become bad is that probably they didn't get enuff love from the family. and when they've bcome bad, they can influence other people and it can be contagious. and why was ther not enuff love? a simple logical guess would be cuz the family is broken family.

So, back to d law. the law is there to protect families from being broken. of course, ther's no guarantee that all families that's not broken are happy all d time, life's not a fairy tale. but can we imagine living a life not knowing who our father (or parents) is cuz we were abandoned just a few hours after birth (or probably at the moment of conception)? imagine not having (or knowing) one or both parents during a wedding or convocation, etc when most ppl have both of their parents there. tats not awesome at all. and back to the punishment of stoning, the stoning of a convict is only done towards married ppl (that's somone's husband/wife/dad/mum screwing somebody else). for the unmarried ones, the punishment is caning. and both of that punishment are to be done after they've been proven guilty. just to imagine (let alone witnessing) a person being stoned to death, no one (even the strongest man on earth or any pornstar) would wanna go through that. hence, lessening (or preventing) people from fornicating or being adulterous, which can lead to the breaking of families.

Just like the universe and its contents, if really it is meant to be so random and coincidental, y does it persistently abide the many laws of physics?

I think i've explaind just enuff. thanx 4 ur time =)

-friend

"

Wallahu a'lam (God knows best)

Pendirian Lalang

baru-baru ni, aku tulis sesuatu, berbaur sindiran:





aku lalang,

angin tiup, huyung-hayang,

ikut saja; senang,



ayuh minum,

aku minum,

ayuh main,

aku main,

ayuh hisap,

aku hisap,


hidup aku susah,

kau tak faham,



gaya,

aku tenang,


aku hebat,

aku hebat,

aku hebat, bukan?



selang beberapa hari, aku terbaca artikel di majalah Solusi isu 21 yang berkait dengan lalang, sebab lalang tu tanaman.
ada satu hadis dalam artikel tu mengaitkan mukmin dan tanaman.



Daripada Abu Hurairah r.a. bahawa Rasulullah s.a.w. bersabda yang bermaksud:

"Perumpamaan orang mukmin adalah seperti tanaman yang selalu digoncang angin. (begitu juga) orang mukmin selalu diduga dengan pelbagai dugaan dan cubaan"

(hadis riwayat al-Tirmizi)




Hadis ini menggambarkan bagaimana teguhnya keimanan orang mukmin yang sentiasa sabar dalam menghadapi dugaan dan cabaran dalam kehidupan ini.
Hadis ini juga menunjukkan bahawa orang mukmin yang sebenar sentiasa diuji dengan pelbagai ujian yang berat.



secara hakiki, lalang tetap lalang.

tanaman tetap tanaman.

lemah atau kuat, terpulang cara kau pandang.

seperti juga pendirian, kuat atau lemah,

betul atau neutral atau salah.





لاَ يُكَلِّفُ اللّهُ نَفْسًا إِلاَّ وُسْعَهَا

"Allah tidak memberati seseorang melainkan apa yang terdaya olehnya. ..."

(Al-Baqarah 2:286)




jangan mengalah,
jangan pernah mengalah.

Lima Satu : Lima Enam

kenapa kita di sini,
kenapa kita tercipta.


"Dan (ingatlah) Aku tidak menciptakan jin dan manusia melainkan untuk mereka menyembah dan beribadat kepadaKu" (Az-Zariya 51:56)

Paradox

Despite its impossibility, for some reasons, sometimes we wish that we could turn back time. Probably to set sumthing right or to go through the good old days once more. We know this is impossible, but we enjoy the idea of it in fictions like Doraemon or Back to The Future. It would be great if one day, a time travelling machine like the ones in those fictions become a reality. But even if there will be a time travelling machine, travelling into past is still impossible (logically, at least).

This is explained by the Grandfather Paradox. Stephen Hawking has a simpler version which is called the Mad Scientist Paradox.

This is how it goes. Say there's a scientist named Bill. After going through a very difficult research and development, he has constructed the first ever time machine in history, untested. The furthest that he can travel back into time is 5 minutes in the past. Since he is labelled a mad scientist, his experiment had to be a mad one, to defend his reputation. So, with a sword, Bill travel through time and met his 5-minutes-ago-self in the same room. Quickly, he stabbed his past-self with the sword through the chest. After a few moment of agony, past-Bill dies.

Now, the question is: Is that possible? If past-Bill was murdered before the future-Bill commit the murder, then who did the kill? So, logically (at least), this is not allowed. Therefore, travelling back into time is not quite possible.




Now, we can appreciate that everything that happens to anything physical abides a certain rule which doesn't allow them to go backwards in time, insyaAllah (if God wills it). Everything physical - us included - abides the rule of cause and effect, action and reaction, insyaAllah.



Do nothing, we are still travelling into the future. The present is the result of the happennings in the past. What happens now will have an effect to what's coming in the future; and we go through present only once. InsyaAllah...



By the time,

Verily Man is in loss,


Except such as have Faith,

and do righteous deeds,

and (join together)

in the mutual teaching of

Truth,

and of Patience

and Constancy.




(Al-'Asr 103:1-3)


.