Rahmanm [dot] com BLOG

New Art Lebedev gadget...

2008-11-27T04:04:00--02:00

http://gizmodo.com/5098802/art-lebedev-verbarius-word-clock-lightning-review?skyline=true&s=i

Eh.

Pics on Ian Axel Website

2008-11-15T20:23:00--02:00

My pictures were used for Ian Axel website - feels good to see your pics in websites other than your own - although would be nice if they mentioned it to me and gave a byline/credit or something....

The sets are here:

http://www.rahmanm.com/view.cfm?categoryID=62&begin=1
http://www.rahmanm.com/view.cfm?categoryID=63&begin=1

Back from the dead...

2008-09-22T05:29:00--02:00

No, despite the title, I haven't died and I haven't let this site die either. I'm finally out from the onslaught of work and actually found something worthy of post - the PC reply to Apple's "I'm a mac - I'm a PC" ad series... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZdkHylJ3w I love it :) Not because I'm a pc fan or anything - hats off to Apple for making the stuff that they do, but I can't stand the elitist attitude in any facet of life. Those comparison ads not only promote this attitude among mac users, but at the same time tries to belittle any other choice made that is not a mac (well, in this case its only one more - a pc)... The pc ad, in my opinion, is in better taste. The mac commercials are just way too snide. People can use any array of tools they want to create their vision - that can include a pc or a mac, or both or anything else that deem neccessary. The tools used doesn't make anybody more of less 'cooler'. Implying otherwise is just childish marketing and doesn't garner any new fans or 'switch' users from anywhere....

Army Government Theatrics

2007-08-27T10:48:00--02:00

For those following the news in Dhaka, Bangladesh, this will be hilarious. For the rest of you who care - read the news :)

Pictures Elsewhere...

2007-08-17T19:51:00--02:00

My pictures published - pretty kewl :)

http://www.garrisonmusic.com/photos.html

Off to Boston - more pics to follow....

New Stuff

2007-03-14T23:02:00--02:00

Anybody who knows me knows how much I value creative talent - of any medium. So, after I headed to a bar in the city, I was amazed at the talent that plays there... and now I'm addicted to their music... check the music out - I guarantee you'll love'em.... Also - pictures are on the left... http://www.myspace.com/courtneycriswell http://www.myspace.com/christopherhartman http://www.myspace.com/ianaxel

MR Foto Works Launches...

2007-02-10T01:15:00--02:00

Finally - my other photo identity site is now up and running... check it out here.

National Geographic Allroads 2006

2006-11-05T22:02:00--02:00

A friend of mine recently told me about a movie about a small village in Bangladesh, where the people had had enough of the corruption dealt to them by the government and the effect it was having on their lives, and decided to lead a movement to remedy these problems. But their movement was met with very powerful oppostion and it eventually lead to a pretty bloody ending. The name of the movie is "Arek Kansat", and one of the organizers of the movie was Saiful Haq, who was awarded the National Geographic Allroads 2006 Photography grant.

I went to check out the pictures at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/allroads/photographers2006.html. Powerful is all I can say. I'm actually really proud that an artsy profession in Bangladesh, a country where poverty reigns supreme and the primary concern is survival, is getting more and more recognition (as it should :).

More info about the movie - http://kansat.wordpress.com/

Bangladeshi economist wins Nobel Peace Prize

2006-10-13T15:13:00--02:00

Excerpt from Yahoo News... Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, the so-called "Banker to the Poor", and the Grameen Bank he founded three decades ago were the surprise winners of the award for pioneering a system of small-scale loans that has helped 6.6 million people escape the grind of poverty.

As the head of the Nobel Committee, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, said: "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty." I couldn't agree more... http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061013/bs_afp/nobelpeace_061013160046

Rough Edges

2006-07-29T03:01:00--02:00

Yay - I'm officially linked with a famous person - my friend Saba has published a book, Rough Edges. Its a collection of poems that she put together. As long as I know Saba, she has been writing, so I know it has to be good. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy yet (thanks Sabu :-)... but I'll have one very soon...

Few links that have more in-depth coverage of her book.

http://www.newagebd.com/2006/jul/07/liti.html
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/07/16/d607161407125.htm

I went to see the Bodies Exhibition the other day with Elvi. It generated a lot of controversy for obvious reasons, but I didn't really find it that ground breaking honestly. I've seen a lot of models of bodies at my dad's place of work (he was a doctor) and these didn't look any different just because they were made from real human cadavers. In fact, the muscle fibers looked like beef jerky (sorry). Basically, the perservation process made it look really fake and since you're not allowed to touch them, you wouldn't know otherwise. The other controversy is the fact that 99% of the bodies they used in the New York exhibit were Asian, and not enough information is given as to how the bodies were acuired. Although - it IS a good learning experience, so in the end, I would recommend it.

After that was a photo day all around South Seaport - which has got a very cool view of brooklyn. Pictures here.

In the market for a steadier tripod, and more....

2006-07-06T00:50:00--02:00

Tuesday was the first time I went to watch the 4th of July in my 10 years of being here in the US - quite an accomplishment I would say :)... Most things worked out perfectly. Francesco came to watch the Italy vs. Germany game, which Italy won. Then, it rained right after the game and we heard on the news that Jones Beach was closing - kicking all the people out - but then they announced it is going to open again. So, most conveniently, they managed to kick all the people out and we arrived just in time to grab a good spot right in front of the water. My tripod is kinda cheap, so as you can see in the pictures, there is plenty of camera shake - but all in all, I'm kinda oke with it for my first time shooting fireworks. So everything went good, and so the law of averages caught up with us and I went and dropped a whole load of gyro sauce on Francesco's camera :-/.... but the camera is ok, so all's well that ends well I hope :)

Went to Captree Island for a bunch of sunsets shots the other day. Pictures here.

My motorbike is back in commission again ! - after 8 months stored away, I finally got to take it for a long ride. Put some tunes on the iPod and took it for a good 6 hour ride to Orient Point and back... next week - Montauk.

On a different note, my labor certification got approved.... those of you in the process know what a landmark that is... hell, it took almost 4 years ... lets see where it goes from here ;)

Announcing PhotoStream

2006-06-01T23:19:00--02:00

I didn't really have much foresight when I built this site - all I knew was I wanted to post photos and occassionally write a word or two. I've been mainly posting 'sets' or common themed pictures, but over the years, I've accumulated a bunch of pictures that really don't belong to a set or I couldn't group into a common theme, so they really never went anywhere other than my desktop - until now :)

If you notice on the left, there is a new section called "PhotoStream", which is now going to house all the random images that I have. It shows the last 5 posts at a time on the home page, but it shows all of them once you click on the title to go to the PhotoStream main page. I've only posted the ones from my cell phone, but I will be adding older ones as I keep going...

PS: To all people from the legal profession reading this for a purpose, I really did think of the word "PhotoStream" on my own, and if it existed somewhere else before, I apologise and I wish to point out that I'm making absolutely no money off this. Neither is anybody else that I'm affiliated with. So. Leave me alone.

Month of babies...

2006-05-29T23:40:00--02:00

So, with my friend visiting with her son and us going over to Baqar's place and visiting with his new son and visiting all the houses that are filled with babies, I guess it wouldn't be right if I didn't finish this month off with another baby. We went to visit our friend/co-worker Yinjwu, who also had a baby recently - Lyvia Santos was awake and ready to greet us with her mitten gloved hands.... After that we went to play a little a tennis. I tried to play a little bit (if you could call it that).

Pictures here...

PS. So the photographer in Yinjwu has appeared - 90% of shots on the tennis court are taken by Yinjwu...

In PA...

2006-05-15T01:04:00--02:00

Today was Mother's Day and we got invited to Choppy's sister, Stephanie's place for brunch/dinner. Shahaar got to play in the hot tub, got to pull Vito's ears and got to swing. We all got to eat lots of great food - and I personally got to lose 5 bucks at poker. All in all, good fun was had by all...

Pictures here...

This & That...

2006-05-09T00:48:00--02:00

Samia came last week :) - Ammu left this week :( - going to PA next week :) - eventually coming back :(

Anyways - Shahaar is an absolute joy - Ammu couldn't stop talking about him - and I took as many pictures as I could - here they are. More next week when I go to PA...

Road Trip - Homeward Bound

2006-04-24T23:22:00--02:00

Tomorrow I leave for NY - I'm trying to make the GPS take a different route, but the route this thing picks puts me in NY on April 28 :-/...

Didn't get to take as much pictures (never do when family gets together) - too busy catching up on old stories and jokes. My uncle and my mom had a blast looking at old pictures of me and making fun of them :(. Btw, I spent hours scanning the old pics that they were looking at so they will be up soon on the site, and maybe more people can participate in the same jokes :)

Road Trip - Second Leg

2006-04-23T00:08:00--02:00

I am in St, Paul, Minneapolis. Today was a very nice ride - the weather was nice and warm and no more rain (well, almost no rain).

Today was mostly Wisconsin, with a little bit of Indiana and Illnois. We passed by Wrigley field in Chicago and had Deep Dish Pizza for lunch.

It rained a little bit in Wisconsin and right after the rain, the sky became really bright blue and the clouds were really defined white and fluffy. We were driving downhill along a winding road and there were two green hills on each side of the road, with red farm houses on them and sun was setting in front of us - the music was playing (Hooverphonic, I think) - and the moment was perfect. All I could do was just stare at the horizon - absolutely speechless, just soaking the moment in. Can't really describe what I felt - 'Peace' or 'Serenity' maybe the closest word that I can come up with, not being so eloquent (Sorry Miss Seema).

Totally worth 20 hours of driving...

PS. For those of you that don't know, Miss Seema was my english teacher in high school back in Dhaka :)

Road Trip - First Leg

2006-04-22T00:29:00--02:00

I am in Fremont, Indiana. First part of this road trip was pretty uneventful - except for a s*** load of rain and the occasional lighting.

So far, I've covered New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio - Pennsylvania being the nicest drive of all of them.

Had some really weird pizza in Pennsylvania. I mean, it was cheese and bread and tomato sauce - but not sure you could call it pizza.

Road Trip

2006-04-21T00:34:00--02:00

So tomorrow, I start on my second road trip to Minnesota. All is set. Its funny, the entire trip is done on borrowed stuff - borrowed (rented) car, borrowed GPS system, borrowed lens and borrowed iPod hookup :)

Bangladesh batsmen shock Aussies

2006-04-09T13:38:00--02:00

Shahriar Nafees hit his maiden century as Test minnows Bangladesh battered Australia's bowling attack in Fatullah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/4890418.stm

.....

2006-03-24T23:28:00--02:00

President Bush has requested more money from Congress to build more bases in Iraq - so far - Camp Taji is one of the biggest bases, which include a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a Car Dealership :-/. Maybe the new one will have a roller coaster ?

http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/al-taji.htm

Art trumps right-to-privacy laws

2006-03-19T13:06:00--02:00

Taking pictures in public has long been a very controversial issue - especially in the post 9/11 era. Many a times I've been stopped in New York City by cops asking to see ID and asked questions about what the pictures are for, etc. Security is one aspect of it - some times, people just complain that they don't want their pictures taken and that you need permission to take their photgraphs - but - as written in this interesting article - if you are reproducing likeness of someone in public, whether it be in photographs or any other medium, and if you profit from it commercially or financially, THEN you need permission. But, if you do it for the sake of art, then you DO NOT need permission :)

In this article, it states that once the person being photographed saw his picture in a gallery, he sued the photographer - for a lot of money. The case was eventually thrown out by a judge, but many say the fact that it even went this far is ridiculous. :-/ More here....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/arts/design/19phot.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Hmm... I take offense

2006-03-18T21:53:00--02:00

The top 10 rock movies review has neglected to include Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in its list. Inexcusable.

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=105323&GT1=7701

Tokyo Eyes Photo Party

2006-03-12T04:57:00--02:00

Finally - gotten the pictures out and gotten them processed and everything. The party was great and we all had a great time. The girls modeling for us were all great as always and the place was very cool. A tad bit small, but nicely equipped.

So - the pictures: I posted my pictures here. Francesco's pictures are here. Kamil's first batch is here. Geforce's pictures are here.

View From Elvi's Place

2006-03-04T05:12:00--02:00

Met up with Elvi - as she states, she has graduated from 'chemo' so Syrap and I visited to have dinner and hang out for a bit... the view is pretty nice from her place...

Tomorrow is the photo shoot party... have to sleep now....look for pictures from the party soon..

Facelift

2006-02-27T01:27:00--02:00

Work has been keeping me really busy, but I wanted to change the look of this site - got really tired of the old look. So here it is - with some Flash Jammys and stuff... So far the flash only works in IE, but I'm working on making it work in Firefox... all comments and critiques are welcome.

Four

2006-01-27T00:28:00--02:00

I don't usually fall for the chain letter gimmicks - in fact they annoy me - even when it was a novelty - so its a little out of character for me to do this - but it looked interesting. I saw it here. What they started is a series of questions of that are answered in four's. It is a nice insight into the person that writes them, and then at the end you tag (nominate) four other people to do the same. I figured since I don't know any of them, they probably won't tag me - so I started my own. Now, don't worry, your luck is not going to abandon you if you don't do it - and neither are you going to win fortunes if you do, but it would be nice if you played along :) (you know who you are :)

Four jobs I've had:

Library Circulation Desk Attendee
Developer at UNDP
Connequot Rowing Club Dock Hand
Math Lab Lackey

Four movies I can watch over and over:

Lock, Stock and Two smoking barrels
The Apu Trilogy (ok, so its three movies - but its still one story, so there :P)
The Last of the Mohicans
The Shawshank Redemption

Four places I have lived:

Tokyo, Japan
Penang, Malaysia
Bali, Indonesia
Oakdale, New York, USA (changed due to inconsistency complaints)

Four television shows I love to watch:

Friends
Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Shield
Monster Garage

Four places I have been on vacation:

Nepal
Bangkok, Thailand
London, England
Singapore

Four of my favourite dishes:

Daal & Rice
Lasagna
Biryani & Kabab
Churasco

Four websites I visit daily:

Four places I would rather be right now:

Asleep in bed (wonder how many people said that - besides, its 1:27 am)
In Dhaka, going to Samia's wedding
In Nepal, somewhere in the mountains
Behind a camera

Four people I am tagging:

Nothing will ever change , if you dont change it

2006-01-14T01:40:00--02:00

http://www.explodingdog.com/january2/nothingwilleverchangeifyoud.html
Damn right :)

Interesting...

2006-01-07T21:29:00--02:00

Interesting thought process - what's scary is that I can identify :-.

http://www.powazek.com/2005/11/000550.html

Lots of messages....

2006-01-04T23:13:00--02:00

OK, ok - so this is really not really a blog entry - more of a reflective moment. In Oct 2001, one of my very best friends passed away - very untimely. She was not only my best friend, but she was the type of person who was everybody's best friend. She was one of those people who basically keeps the entire group together.... so - this got us thinking and we thought the perfect legacy for her would be for us to stick together and so we started a group email list that we would use to keep in touch with each other - no matter where we are, we would know what we are upto. Well - today, Jan 4, 2006 - Its been almost 5 years and I happened to check the message history and I'm pretty proud to say we have kept it up (see above - those are number of messages per month since 2001)... You'd be proud, Sham :P

Baby ! Part Deux...

2005-12-09T11:22:00--02:00

Saba had her baby !!!! His name is Zaraar :) - A little early I think - but mommy and baby are doing good.

More Update to follow...

Thanksgiving 2005

2005-11-28T23:24:00--02:00

Ahhh... turkey. :)

The yearly tradition of thanksgiving dinner at Baqar and Seema's place continues.... This year, like every other year, the food was fabulous and company was great. Thanks again goes out to Baqar and Seema and Sarika for cooking all the food. Pictures are here.

PS: I hate queen & 5....

U2 = Awesome !!!

2005-11-23T02:14:00--02:00

No explanations needed :)

Oopsy...

2005-11-17T23:33:00--02:00

So - I thought it was my friend Baqar's birthday - (I was wrong, by the way) - so, I called his house up and his dad ansewered the phone. They sound somewhat alike, so I thought it was him - this is what transpired...

Baqar's Dad: "Hello"

Me: "WHUDDUP BIATCH !!"

Baqar's Dad: "ummm...."

Me: "So today you're a 28 year old biatch !"

Click.

I called back and Seema explained the rest. Uncle, if you're reading this, I apologise - it was meant for Baqar :) PS. Btw, Baqar's b'day is Nov 20th....

Studio 69 Photo Shoot

2005-11-15T00:48:00--02:00

So - I tried my hand at something new this weekend - my friend Francesco had a great idea - Him, his friend Willow and Tao decided to rent a studio in Chelsea and included me in. I rarely shoot pictures indoors, but I wanted to give it a try - and here are the results. I'm not too impressed myself. Francesco's pictures on the other hand are pretty damn good.. All in all, it was a nice little party and a good time was had by all, so thats what counts :) PS. I picked what I thought were the better ones out of the lot - but I will post all of them at another location. Coming soon...

Finally Done..

2005-11-11T22:34:00--02:00

Phew - moving is a bitch... and I only moved downstairs :-/. Well, to make a long story short, The house I live in got sold and the new owner wanted to charge a lot more rent for the upstairs in a split level house - so I moved downstairs. I remember when I moved into my first apartment - in 1997 - I moved with 2 big boxes, 2 suitcases and one car trip. If I have to move today, I need at least the 17' truck... and its a pain. Funny how the stuff you own ends up owning you :-/

Bah Humbug...

2005-11-02T22:06:00--02:00

I hate halloween :-/

Some links...

2005-10-26T22:47:00--02:00

Results of recent browsing - found some interesting sites... School orders students to remove blogs
http://www.travelpod.com
http://www.sportsshooter.com

Cool Hand..

2005-10-24T21:42:00--02:00

It is soooo awesome to win a hand by beating a full house with a higher full house on the river :) On another note, my 45 Day letter finally came - don't know if it is any indication of anything, good, but I'm hopeful. PS. If you know what the 45 day letter is, then you know how I feel - if you don't know what the 45 day letter is, then it probably doesn't matter :)

Shahaar growing biiiiig....

2005-10-13T00:54:00--02:00

Shahaar, my very good friends son is 3 months old ! Can you imagine, it was only yesterday that he was born. He is too damn cute. He is developing into a person and I'm missing it :-/....hey Samu, miss ya, and miss Shahaar's growing up days. For the record, I'm jealous of anybody and everybody that gets to spend more time with him than me :)

Day with Elvi..

2005-10-09T23:36:00--02:00

So after like 50 billion times making plans, I finally convinced my friend Elvi to come down to LI. It involved a lot of yelling and pursuading, but eventually it worked. It was a nice relaxing day just chilling out. She got to see my place and play some Halo - (she's the one running into the walls and looking up at the sky :) - even managed to catch an episode of Mind your language, which had her laughing hysterically. After that, we went for a ride on my motorbike, but it was too cold so we only went around the corner - but I think judging by all the jumping around she did afterwards, she enjoyed it :) Later we went to Port Jeff. by Saurabh and had dinner at Pasta Pasta - which was awesome after a day of not eating... Elvi was recently diagnosed with breast cancer - she had her operation about 2/3 weeks ago - but lemme tell ya - this girl is strong and stubborn as ever and is fighting a very strong fight. To me, its fucking amazing that she is out and about, let alone be able to take a ride on a motorbike. I think her jest for life is a real treat. Enjoyed my day immensely :)

Mind Your Language

2005-10-06T22:38:00--02:00

Mind your language is a show all the way back from the 70s - its about the misadventures of a group of foreign students trying to learn English at Night school. Its a brit comedy, so its very dry and sarcastic with no regards for PC humor, exploiting all stereotypes as it goes. They finally released it on DVD, so I HAD to get them. I saw this show over and over while growing up - you can say I'm a bit 'attached' :) So, not to digress, in the show there is a character named 'Sid' - who is a 'cockney' - a cockney by definition is those born within earshot (generally taken to be three miles) of the Bow bells, in other words the bells of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside. Cockney people usually speak in a form on english slang which very intriguing. Its called "rhyming slang" - basically they use word that rhymes with the words they really want to use. e.g.

- Pigs ear - beer
- China plate - my old mate
- Jack Tar - bar
- Rabbit and pork - talk

To illustrate:

"Allo me old china - wot say we pop round the Jack. I'll stand you a pig and you can rabbit on about your teapots. We can 'ave some loop and tommy and be off before the dickory hits twelve." translates to:

"Hello my old mate (china plate) - what do you say we pop around to the bar (Jack Tar). I'll buy you a beer (pig's ear) and you can talk (rabbit and pork) about your kids (teapot lids). We can have some soup (loop de loop) and supper (Tommy Tucker) and be gone before the clock (hickory dickory dock) strikes twelve."

Isn't that so cool ? Imagine having a conversation like that :)

More slangs here...

Back from hiatus - again..

2005-10-05T01:04:00--02:00

So - I've been really lazy about updating this site - which I figured I would do - because I'm lazy. But on a better note, I did a lot of travelling this year which I really wanted to do. Went to Miami twice, the second of which time was awesome. Went to Atlanta, New Orleans (before the flood) and Philli for the Live 8 Concert. All the trips were very enjoyable - the only thing I regret is not taking more pictures. A co-worker, Francesco recently showed me his blog, and he updates it almost everyday - I'm hoping this will motivate me to update my site more... Francesco has some very cool photoblogs on his site - he's got a very good creative eye and it shows... So he recently got the Canon 5D, and I looked through the viewfinder - its BIG !.. it does add a little "something" to the composition, you can see more of the subject, and the LCD screen is bigger too... AND its 13 MP !!! I'm jealous :-/

Back from Hiatus

2005-08-08T00:31:00--02:00

It was pretty damn busy at work the last few days/weeks - so really haven't had a chance to upload the pictures from the Live 8 concert. Also went to Miami for 5 days - the first day of which I will omit. The rest of it was fun. Anyway - live 8 pictures here.

UPS Tracking

2005-06-24T00:50:00--02:00

Ha ha ha ha... there IS a whole bunch of people (here) other than me who are addicted to UPS tracking. Thank God ! I tend to check every free moment to see where my package is - so I'm distressed to see that my laptop is late :-/ and the reason stated is:

LATE TRAILER. GROUND MOVEMENT CAUSED THIS DELIVERY DELAY

Ground movement ??? what gives ??? Just finished watching the NBA finals - Spurs won - tough loss - I was rooting for the Pistons :-/

Baby !

2005-06-23T00:33:00--02:00

Samia had her baby !! I think he's about a week late, but he is here. Btw... 'he' is Shahaar :) More updates to follow... as soon as I can get them... Fishing trip pictures are up. I got very very VERY seasick unfortunately - my first time ever...:(... I'm feeling very nostalgic, so I'm gonna go dig up some old b&ws from my stash and put on a flashback section. Probably some pictures from Greenherald as well...

Some old, some new

2005-06-10T00:34:00--02:00

Updated some pictures... added the fishing trip pictures from over a year ago. It reminded me because we are going fishing next weekend :).

Baqar and Seema came over two weekends ago - pity - we only saw them for one, but they were determined enough to drive all the way to my place to hang out for half-an-hour. PS. The pictures added here can be found in the Misc Pics album as well. Will be adding more oldies in the coming weeks.

ZZZZzzzzz.....

2005-06-03T16:45:00--02:00

I am soooo sleeeeeppppppyyyy right now....

Narrow escape

2005-06-03T01:05:00--02:00

I got rear-ended on the LIE going about 60mph :(... the good news is that absolutely nothing happened to my car other than a few scratches...

Catching up

2005-06-02T01:08:00--02:00

So I've been lazy about posting - not too surprised by that. Bunch of things happening.. my dear friend Samia is going to be a mother VERY soon ... AND my other dear friend Saba, just told us all that she is expecting :)... so babies all around.. pity I can't be there for either one of those births :(.. I went to Miami to visit Fardeen in the beginning of May - it was only for the weekend - but ahh the humidity and the 80 degree weather....I could live there... My Canon 20D is now pretty famous for having some focusing issues. A bunch of of people in a lot of forums have complained. I'm pissed because I can't really tell, without shooting in a sports/action kind of scenario. So any comments/opinions are welcome..