Imran Anwar, founder of Internet email, co-founder of .PK ccTLD, pioneer of credit card industry in Pakistan, comments on topics of interest to everyone. From timely news to timeless movies, elections to electronics, cloud computing to strategic marketing, and everything interesting in between. Read these sometimes serious, sometimes tongue in cheek opinions, add your comments. Click Like! on the FaceBook button. Share the post on FaceBook and Twitter.
Apollo Beach Boardwalk Beautiful Blue Bird - IMRAN™
A beautiful, almost blue-looking, Green Heron was casually walking on the boardwalk of the Symphony Isles Yacht Club Marina in late December 2024, when my neighbor and I were there. It was a mild, beautiful early Saturday morning in Apollo Beach.
I captured the heron’s beautiful sheen, even though the morning sun was at the wrong angle. The population of these birds is said to have declined by about 50% in the last half-century or so.
Sky Sharks, Meet Sharknado! Tech Innovation From Nikon! - IMRAN™
This news item caught my attention today. Even though I had not (and would not) see the movies Sky Sharks or Sharknado, the movie references came to mind immediately.
"Nikon unveils sharkskin-inspired riblet technology for aviation and power" ( https://lnkd.in/ebTXK9qW ). It basically is a biomimetic technology which mimics the amazing surface structure of shark skin. Nikon’s proprietary laser processing creates riblets which are artificial microstructures which resemble the fine scales on a shark’s skin. The materials have many applications from aviation to power generation.
What A Combo! How About “Hospital, ER, Trauma & Burn Unit Exit 161”? - IMRAN™
I saw the sign. What a combination! Where there’s “smoke(s)” {as in cigarettes}, there is fire… or at least an abundant supply of matchsticks and lighters to start one. How convenient that the next offering on the signboard is fireworks.
But wait! There’s more. If you really want to blow yourself up, along with anyone else nearby, we’ll also include a gas station nearby on the same sign. LOL.
This was on I-95 heading south in North Carolina. During my long two-day 1250-mile drive from my Long Island home back to Apollo Beach, Florida on Christmas Day and next, I saw and missed taking a picture of a sign just like this one a few miles earlier.
Since there were still several exits to go, I was pretty sure that there would be at least one more sign like that one. It gave me time to pick up the smart-glasses that were sitting on the console of the vehicle. I put them on.
When I saw this next sign showing up in the distance, I slowed down enough to be take a few pictures hands-free. It’s hard to be sure how accurate the framing of a picture from a pair of smart-glasses is going to be. As a precaution, I took three pictures from different distances. This was the one that shows the words most clearly.
Only in jest, it made me wonder. Should there be another sign that says “Hospital, ER, Trauma & Burn Unit Exit 161”!
Deadly Unsurvivable Christmas Day One-Car Fatal Accident Near JFK - IMRAN™
One look while approaching and passing the scene, and you can tell this was unsurvivable. It was a one-car high-speed crash into a tree. Bad on any day, the fatal accident occurred around noon on Christmas Day, 2024.
I was on my way to Florida on the Belt Parkway near New York’s JFK Airport. I captured the tragic scene hands-free with my smart glasses as traffic slowly moved past. I think this may have been an Audi A4.
Let’s always be grateful for being alive. Let’s make every minute and hour, every day and week, every month and year of our lives meaningful and lived to the fullest. Amen.
This was the last Sunday sunset of 2024. And it was magical.
Yes, my GSD K2 just HAD to go for a walk in this rain. It was a typical surreal random thunderstorm and torrential rain occurrence. Did you see the video earlier?
The colors of the sky — with sunset across the horizon and layers of an aerial river gushing past my blessed home — are so beautiful. I’m so grateful for everything.
They’re cute but they’re pests now. In my 30 years having this blessed home in Long Island in New York, the handful of fearful deer hiding in the phragmites have turned into marauding herds that have destroyed all our neighborhood flower beds. Even these little ones are least bothered by my being 10 feet from them next to my downstairs rear deck.
Some Cold Days I Just Want A Chicken Fajita Omelette - IMRAN™
I am not a breakfast person. But sometimes I just want a hearty, hot, cheesy, meaty, zesty omelette. New Year’s Day was a cold windy one at my East Patchogue, New York home.
After running some errands (spending money at stores like Lowe’s that were open to appreciate them) I felt the need to have a chicken fajita omelette.
That is primarily the thing that makes me drive to an IHOP, for example to Brandon, FL (because there wasn’t one close to Apollo Beach. There hadn’t one in Patchogue for ages so I decided to go to the only nearby option in Ronkonkoma.
To ensure they were open on New Year, I asked my Copilot to call the nearest IHOP. It was about 6:30 pm (on New Year’s Day as I mentioned). As the person answered the call with the usual IHOP greeting and said they were open, I almost missed something.
I asked, “Did you say IHOP Patchogue? Is this a new location?”
He said, yes, they had just opened at Thanksgiving.
So, I was happy to drive to this new place literally a mile from where I had made the call from. Brand new. Clean. Bright. Spacious. Cheerful servers.
Usual decent omelette and freshly squeezed orange juice (although the $7 price was a surprise). They weren’t even listed in Yelp yet, so that was my addition to their database too.
No Sleep All-Nighter Dawn New Year’s Eve Selfie Heading Go New York New Year’s - IMRAN™
All my life I have been a late night person. When it gets very late at night, and I have to be awake very early the next morning, I find it easier to just keep going for a full 36 hours.
Having to do this after a long 2-day drive from New York to Florida, then having to head back there for a dawn flight on New Year’s Eve Day made it a little tougher.
But, eternally grateful to the Almighty, I managed to get New York City on New Year’s Eve. It marked the start of my 36th Happy New Year as a grateful American.
D&D: Facebook AI Wants To Be Dumber Than Dumb Apple “Intelligence” - IMRAN™
I know ChatGPT & Copilot are not perfect. No AI is. Yet. But some are worse than others.
As if to prove it is dumber than so-called Apple Intelligence branding (see earlier post for examples I posted), here’s Facebook’s “AI” trying to be “clever” and “helpful”.
It thinks years mentioned in a comment are phone numbers — just because there’s a hyphen in there.
I ❤️ NY! Manhattan, Empire State Building, UN, NYC On NYE On 37 Years Anniversary Of Xmas 1987 Arrival - IMRAN™
Manhattan — my forever American hometown since I first arrived in autumn 1987. I had then visited Canada, and returned for Christmas & New Year winter holidays shopping 37 years ago.
Marking that new chapter in my life, I flew into NYC on NYE December 31, 2024 to kickoff 2025. My personal symbols, the twin towers of the original World Trade Center are long gone. But the Empire State Building, midtown, and other landmarks — captured through the window of a Delta flight from TPA to LGA — have been my home for nearly 4 decades.
Pakistani Indian Lamb Shank Entree In Red Bank New Jersey - IMRAN™
I met up with my childhood friend Ian for a wonderful “desi” (ethnic Indian Pakistani) dinner in Red Bank, NJ. I was there to speak at a great AI-related event. He lives about half an hour away and drove up for to grab a bite to eat before I headed home on a frigid night with snow showers.
Why? Why This Spot In Massive Empty Lowe’s Parking Lot? - IMRAN™
Surely this is some sort of mental health issue that some people have. The entire massive parking lot of Lowe’s is empty. I specifically parked further away from the entrance to not have other cars parked next to mine.
I come back out and this is what I see. Why?
Weren’t all the other empty spots visible in this photo — and four times more behind me (closer to the store) — somehow not the right color or texture for this person? Share examples in comments if you too experience this as much as I do.
Sailboat On Tampa Bay Blue Water Against Gold Sky At Apollo Beach Summer Weekend Sunset - IMRAN™
I captured this moment in mid September. My home region in Apollo Beach on Tampa Bay, Florida had not yet been hit by two hurricanes. The golden sunset on a summer Saturday was all about serenity. A sailboat in the distance caught my attention. It was captured with the iPhone 15 Pro Max telephoto lens.
Talk about useless and inaccurate alerts, it was funny to get The Weather Channel’s faux-accuracy-implying alert. It says that snow would start at “08:41 am”… Hmmm. Sounds so specific and accurate, right?
This photo of the message was taken right when the alert arrived at 08:30 am. It clearly shows that it had already been snowing for quite a while before the “alert” arrived.
Facebook notified me when a lovely darling friend just “poked” me. Poke was the decades old early social media equivalent of an innocent “Hey!” But it often confused people back then because of the sexual connotations of the word. Do you remember those days?
The feature is still around but buried in the FB interface. Checking on the notification, it showed me that I may have been a little slow to poke people back. 😂 Late as in almost by a dozen years it seems. So, in addition to the 1000 friends that didn’t respond to all this time, “Poke *.*” … meaning “Hey, EVERYONE!”
Pakistani Indian Appetizer “Papri Chaat” In Red Bank New Jersey - IMRAN™
I met up with my childhood friend Ian for a wonderful “desi” (ethnic Indian Pakistani) dinner in Red Bank, NJ. I was there to speak at a great AI-related event. He lives about half an hour away and drove up for to grab a bite to eat before I headed home on a frigid night with snow showers.
Blending Joker & Purple Haze - Unusual Reflection Selfie Through Color Gradient Wall & Tinted Glass At Times Square Manhattan Office - IMRAN™
I expected some surreal effects when I took this picture. It was an experimental selfie at the Times Square Manhattan office in a recent visit. I was sitting on a couch with stripes and zigzag patterns of different colors.
The wall behind me was painted like a Photoshop diagonal gradient from yellow to red or something. I was sitting facing an empty tinted-glass-walled meeting space. The solid wall on the other side of the glass had a different color.
The combined effect from that dual reflection made my dark blue shirt look almost maroon-purple, yet the white undershirt didn’t change color. If you look closer, you’ll see the weird way the color gradient’s edge/line crossed over my lips. It gave me a little smirk like The Joker!
Actually, even though I say so myself, the story of my selfie is more interesting and exciting than the dumbest movie I’ve suffered seeing in years….. Joker: Folie à Deux. Did you watch that?
Indirect Selfie From iPhone Preview Of Ray-Ban Meta Sunset Photography- IMRAN™
It’s a terrible triple-chin angle for an indirect selfie on the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max screen while I was testing taking a sunset photo with the not-bad Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. This was taken on the latest cold Saturday at my home beach on Long Island, New York.
Design-wise the shades are the least attractive of my one dozen Ray-Ban sunglasses, which are mostly in the Aviator style. But these are not bad as gadgets.
Winter Begins Its Inexorable Subjugation Of Autumn - IMRAN™
What do you see?
A simple fallen dead leaf from Autumn — lying on the grass past the perimeter of the tennis court at my blessed home on Long Island, New York — tells so many stories.
Tennis, the traditional Summer activity on Long Island, and the green grass around the courts, surrender to the shortening days and chills of Autumn. The fallen leaves bear witness to that transition.
And then just like that, while walking the dog in the early morning light, even though it’s still late Autumn, I see Winter start enforcing its will. The mountains of ice and snow are yet to come — but the morning dew turns into tiny icicles on the dead leaf.
It shows the inexorable subjugation of Autumn at the initially-tiny hands of ice crystals of Winter. The still-green grass lays silently still in dread of being buried alive under snow for months — but quietly holds on to the promise and anticipation of rebirth in Spring.
Those are the stories I see in this moment. Those are the seasons we live. Those are the circles of life, death, and rebirth, even when we — like the fallen leaf — are long gone and absorbed into the holy ground and spirited air of our planet.
Sometimes people think a dog owner can make their dog sit in a way that evokes a particular feeling or projects some specific personality.
My beloved, precious, rescued German Shepherd Dog Kennedy came into my life at the start of 2019. He was initially so afraid of the water—likely from traumatic experiences—that he would sit by the barbecue grill twenty feet away even if I went into the swimming pool.
I had not heard him bark even once, nor go into any kind of water. To get him into the water, I waded into Tampa Bay and tempted him to join me.
That was six months after his coming to his forever home with me. It was so funny to see him come up the water and run off to avoid getting wet.
It was also the first time he barked… and his bark was incredible! Ironically, he barked at me, as if saying, “Come out on to land and play like a real master!”
But then he got bolder and walked closer to me. I could see his expression of “WooTooF!” when he felt the strange sensation of water buoyancy on his body.
Within a few minutes, his natural ability to swim kicked in, literally. And just like that, in one experience, he transformed into a sea dog.
He literally HAD to go into Tampa Bay water every chance he got, regardless of the weather. He even started wading into the pool and grudgingly would even swim.
But I did not have to ever pose him to show the sea had became a part of him. You can see this in almost all his photos by the seaside.
This picture is actually a panorama of six handheld iPhone photos taken on April 28, 2022. Kennedy sat absolutely still overlooking Tampa Bay so it looks like a single shot image.
We were at my Symphony Isles neighborhood. I captured it from several hundred feet away while playing with then-2-year-old K2 on one side of the empty lot.
You can see Kennedy sitting at the far end, casually gazing at the bay. The sea was in his soul. Kennedy and his love of the sea were real. Best Dog Ever!
The Timeless Symphony Of Music & Technology - IMRAN™ Timelessness of music and technology... playing ~220 years old Symphony # 5 by Beethoven, off a ~60 years old vinyl record, on a 12 hours old modern Bluetooth enabled Sony turntable (not Yamaha as I accidentally call it in the livestream), via a then-latest now dozen-years old Yamaha Music Corporation Aventage RX-A3020.....
44F Florida Positively Balmy Compared To 20F New York Home - IMRAN™
My Florida friends complaining about the frigid weather in Florida when it’s a little below 50 Fahrenheit should think about how it feels to be at my Long Island New York home.
Even relatively “freezing” Florida weather is warmer than the daytime high temps in NY! The actual temperature was 20 Fahrenheit here last night — and felt even colder with the wind when I was walking my dog on the beach here. And it’s still only autumn!
Is That a Cursive “I” for My Sig or “-9” for Temps During K2’s Nightly Midnight 1-Mile Walk? - IMRAN™
Can you guess the symbology in this image? Here’s the funny reality behind the aerial view of my place on the Atlantic Ocean side of Long Island, which was being built exactly 30 years ago in 1994.
One of the reasons I didn’t get a dog for the first 25 years of living at this blessed home was the dread of walking it in the middle of winter—trudging through snow to scoop dog poop from 18 inches of snow! Talk about a literally “steaming pile of dog $#
