New Team Member

I m a new Team-Member @ InsideOrkut
So I wanted to Introduce myself. So here it goes my Introduction.
I m Fayyaz Malik from Pakistan. and I m a student of BS(Hons) Chemistry in Govt. College University Faisalabad.
I m 21 years old and I am Leo.

Note: Originally posted by Fayyaz, not Darnell.

Will The Real Orkut Media Please Stand Up?

I am not referring to the Official Orkut Media but rather the communities within discussing what is published on the media site.

Dr. Awkward over in the Orkut Media forum (will call this forum "A") claims that this community was formed after this Orkut Media site (will call this forum "B").

J. Modrow, the admin of forum A offers this explanation.

i create this community in wednesday 17, some hours before the second....ok? :] and i created the logo, and description....It explained?

Forum A boasts twice the membership over forum B. However forum B has one thing forum A lacks--Orkut Media writers!

John, who writes for Orkut Media (the official one) has dropped by within forum B in order to say "hi."

Forum B is owned by Surreptitiously who also claims that their forum is the first and original community.

Either way, there doesn't seem to be that much action in both forums, but I guess a coin toss would clarify which community is really number one.

A Muslim For A Month

In the Muslim Christian friendship forum, Ali shares with everyone an interesting video that he has discovered on Google Video.

(Warning: For my Muslim friends, a cartoon of Muhammad is shown, so please no scrap hating)

The video sparks some interesting discussion.

David is unhappy with the video as they selected a Christian who seems to enjoy alcohol too much (although his pork comments were very funny).

John also seemed to enjoy the video and suggests Muslims should allow women to date non-muslim men, something Ali doubts would be practical due to "family tension."

Ali however would like to see more exchanges of faith take place and has this to say:

I too believe that there is much ground needed to be made on both sides of fence in the mutual understanding game. I, for one, would be very curious to know what kinds of responses would be received when random Muslim citizens are asked what their first thought is when hearing the term "Christian", for example.

I concur. More of this is needed and I would be interested in doing something like this (perhaps even switching places with a Muslim for a month).

The video is approximately 45 minutes long so you may not want to view this unless you are at home or on a very long coffee break.

Update: Centered Video.

Quote From Orkut Founder?

I do not know if this is from the founder, but if not, it definitely is his line.

My goal of life is to try experience all the wildest things in life (defining "wild" is up to you) and never look back or regret about anything.

Sounds like a fun way to live. Unfortunately, if I experienced all of the "wildest things," I probably be dead (since stalking lions in the wild could be semi-dangerous).

London Muslims Protesting Against Terrorism?

(Hat Tip: Roberta)

There is chatter in the Islam Against Terrorism forum that London Muslims began protesting against terrorism. Now, if only we could have some more of this en masse. Here is an account from Roberta, with images below.

When I was driving home, in the afternoon, I passed through Park Lane, where there was a huge traffic... I did not know what was happening.

But then I saw a lot of muslims holding banners and ornaments, protesting in the streets!!

I was going to stop and complain, when I managed to read what their banners said. [...]

TERRORISM DESTROYS MUSLIM HERITAGE

TERRORISM IS NOT ISLAMIC. MUSLIMS ARE NOT TERRORISTS. WE CONDEMN TERRORISM...

I was SOOOOOO HAPPY to see that!!!!!! You cannot believe it!!!!!!!!!

Everyone in the forum seems to be excited by the news, especially Hagar, who is calling for a beer.

Roberta managed to take some photos as she was driving using her phone, although they are not exactly crystal clear.

I have not seen anything within several London communities, but hopefully somebody else was also there with some great photos of the event.

For those of you are may be shocked that Muslims do in fact condemn those who blow up buses and trains and human domains, Gateway Pundit has a surprise for you.

Daily Profile (Ujala Khan)

It's not every day you stumble upon an interesting person. I love her picture, but even more entertaining (in a good way) is here about me description. More from Ujala Khan:

My earliest memory is wearing tights in first grade and dancing as Santa's Little Helper in the school Christmas Play. Eversince then, I love Christmas and for people I love, I'm better than Santa's Little Helper.

I have the attention span of exactly three seconds, so you better make yourself heard before I ask you to make yourself scarce. I'm merciless in my decisions of company I choose to keep, so even though I am friendly with many people, I only have a handful of friends. I don't forgive and forget, so once you've crossed me over, you're scratched off my Good Book for good.

Sheesh! I hope I don't get on her bad side (although hopefully she is more forgiving as people often mistakes).

Anyways, Ujala seems to enjoy the show Friends, although she did mention X-Files (a personal favorite of mine until it went off air). She also likes various food items ranging from pizza to Manakeesh (what is it?) to "that Thai crab thing they have at Lemon Grass."

Ironically, Ujala (an Orkut lover) is from the UAE which recently blocked Orkut, something users within have confirmed, although that has not stopped them from chatting within the forums.

I would blab on, but then I would probably put everyone to sleep with her story on how she found her lover (very interesting).

If you enjoyed the story as much as I did, try visiting her scrapbook, or better yet, her weblog.

Discovering Faith (Osho)

If it were not for Google, I probably would have never come across this belief before. Osho, from what I gathered in the Osho forum, is a faith about nothing...literally.

Ravindran: Osho doesnt have anything to teach. All is non-teaching.

He will destroy your very urge to be someone, to follow someone...

Kaushal: OSHO verbally has no meaning and that is choosen because it represents nothingness. [...]
U can learn nothingness by knowing of OSHO. Only thing in the world is to get back yourself learn what r u?
Ur name,Ur attitute, Ur wife,Ur House Ur surroundings or Ur belongings which u have gathered from world.

Max gives a better understanding as to what Osho is by pointing towards this resource via Wikipedia.

Osho (Rajneesh) claimed that the greatest values in life are (in no specific order) love, meditation and laughter, and that the sole goal of human life was to reach spiritual enlightenment.

To me the belief comes across as a mix between Buddhism and Baha'i (with ten pounds of phlegmatic added in). I love the beanie that he is wearing, although I am still a bit mystified as what exactly Osho is...just a bit.

The Philosophy Of Life

One of the things I enjoy is learning about what other people believe in, regardless whether or not I agree with their way of thinking.

Angel posts over in the Philosophy forum about her beliefs, which inspires everyone else to share theirs.

• Trevor: Mine is based (more or less) on the words I heard in Ben Harpers song "Burn One Down", a song about marijuana [...]
  
  My choice is what I choose to do
  And if I'm causing no harm
  It shouldn't bother you
  Your choice is who you choose to be
  And if you're causin' no harm
  Then you'’re alright with me


• Sardar: Allah...My Religion...and a bit of Spirituality...I am one of those guys, who would look up at the sky and make a new way out to some situation...


• Saqib: My philosophy is to try to answer the unanswered questions and first to find and then to reveal the deep hidden secrets and to find the unknown force that controls us and our universe and to live after my 'death'!


• Sahil: Life is about living it each day. And such a way that your last day has the same vigour as your first day had.
  
  Life's all about waking up each day to discover something new, about meeting old people but making new conversation, walking through old roads but still feeling nice about it, realizing that you have grown a day older but still feeling young at heart, meeting busy schedules but still finding time for old friends, being nostalgic about the gone by but looking forward to better days.


• 100rabh: Life is a game of arguments ... the better arguments wins for the time therez no better argument...That is to say that there are no rights and no wrongs...its all in the argument

The last one sounds a bit confrontational, although it is one of the more interesting beliefs posted in this thread.

One thing that annoys me is to find people who do not know what they believe. When you ask them they simply shake their confused heads and smile at you, something my nephew is an expert at doing and he can barely talk.

What are my beliefs exactly? You are going to have to visit the forum in order to find out. ;)

Nike And Google Launch Social Network

(Hat Tip: iPlot)

I do not know what is more surprising--Nike getting into the "social networking" jungles or that Adidas did not develop this first. Either way, I am glad they at least chose Google.

(BusinessWeek) Nike and Google, hoping to take social networking to a new realm, have quietly launched the first invitation-only Web site for soccer-mad fans around the world. Joga.com went live late last week and will soon be running in 140 countries and 14 languages.

The two companies have been working on the site for the past eight months and are expected to publicly unveil it this week, BusinessWeek has learned. Nike is supplying the content, and Google is the technical partner. But the site looks similar to other social-networking outlets such as News Corp.'s MySpace.

I have already requested an invite inside of Joga.com, which is a social network soley dedicated to the topic of football (aka soccer for those in the US).

You may need a Google Account in order to gain access within...I wonder if the football/soccer forums are aware of this?

Wasting Your Time?

Yash has started a new word game that is bound to spread out through the rest of Orkut within a month, give or take 30 days.

Well People, this is d OR game, A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME..LOL
It goes like this: i leave two choices for the next person who will post..... it can be ANYTHING & then the person will have to leave another pair of ANYTHING for the next person. okay; here m giving u an example;

square OR circle

I choose circle

so...............

Love Or Life

Jehenzeb chooses life (although he has an "interesting" way of posting his answer) although he forgets to give two options later on. Sara picks up the slack.

Google Deletes Hitler Forum On Orkut

A popular forum whose main theme was discussing Adolf Hitler has been removed by Google's Orkut team. The site swelled to over 3100 members before being shut down by the Orkut moderators.



Upon heading towards the forum one receives this error:



I would not be surprised if Google is conducting "a spring cleaning" throughout the forums in order to make it more user friendly (which may be the reason they shut down yesterday).

Monitoring the forums for hate content within is not a fun job as any chat or forum administrator can probably testify. But unless fringe groups like these are systematically purged, sites like Orkut will lose their appeal to the general public.

Al Qaeda Is The Least Of Your Worries

Many of you have probably heard about Al Qaeda using Google's Orkut service, but for those of you who missed it, here is a snippet from USA Today.

(USA Today) Al-Qaeda sympathizers are using Orkut, a popular, worldwide Internet service owned by Google, to rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners, according to terrorism experts and a survey of the sites. [...]

The largest bin Laden community has more than 2,000 members, according to Orkut's tracking data, available on the site. It has a link to the site of the Islamic Army in Iraq, the group that claimed responsibility for and released a video of a bombing Dec. 2 that killed 10 Marines in Fallujah.

I came across these sites last year, although I would not be too surprised if Uncle Sam (that is the US government for the international readers) was already reading the posts as they are already wire tapping US citizens with terror ties.

But for those who think Al Qaeda's presence is "all threatening," I would personally consider these groups to be more dangerous--at least in cyberspace.

• Iraq Freedom fighters: Community dedicated to the Iraqi Resistence who bravely defy the huge american army fighting for the freedom of their country against the rotten american imperialism.


• Al Hamas: Come and join every Muslim. who hates the enemies of Islam
  And wanted to liberate AL QUDS SHARIF.
  Hamas is the most deadliest Muslim militant group has ever know Ned The 1st Fidai attack (suicide Attack) was also done ba that group By 1 of our sister LAILA KHALID
  
  Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Shaheed)
  Islam must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of Mujahideen and Tyrentz
  
  (Note: Don't forget their larger twin)


• Freedom fighters everywhere: for resistance movements everywhere! from the islands of jolo to the land of palestine to the fields of ireland to the jungles of south america. viva la resistance. A forum for discussion on weapons, tactics and warfare.


• Muslim Freedom Fighters!: To support all the Muslim freedom movements going on all over the world whether it be Palestine, Chechanya, Iraq, Afghanistan or Kashmir.

These sites generally represent the fringe groups of Islamic radicalism as most Muslims that I've encountered (both online and off) are generally friendly.

I know the last thing Google desires is to play "internet nanny," but if these groups are violating their terms of service then they should either be removed or warned, as the last thing Google wants is the NSA up their wazoo.

Orkut Is Down Again

This has happened before, but perhaps they will fix some of the errors or even purging Al Qaeda from the system.

More details when it comes back up.

Note: Ironcially it went down when I was about to introduce some of the new authors for this site. Oh well, more news tomorrow. ;)

How Do You Define Free Will?

That is the question Ann in the Free Will forum is asking.

I use to hate questions like these as it generally leads towards a billion answers (okay, more like a hundred) with half of the people denouncing free will and the other half acknowledging its existence. Anyways, here are some responses from the Orkutians.

• Samik: Free will is an intricate illusion that appears to a restricted consciousness.
  
  It appears in the belief that given all the parameters of a state in space-time, there never will be enough scientific laws discovered that will enable calculation of all the parameters of other states.


• Sarah: free will is actually a path with a designation already, which you chose yourself. there are always more than one or two ways of doing some thing.. now its up to you which path to chose and how..


• Nidhi: free will is what lets your mend and senses flow to unrestricted horizons, determined by your inner self, free of all inhibitions, and tells you who you actually are and what you want to be


• Ann (again): i believe there are cretain predestined paths which have been laid for us.
  its like an empty room with hundreds of doors and each door leads to another set of doors..
  all we can do is choose the door we wish to enter..

Interesting perspectives. Samik later on refers back to an old blog post discussing science, faith and the future (try not to get lost). I do wonder however that if the future is already written (as some say) then do we really have free will? Or is the statement an illusion? Hmm...

Discovering Faith (Baha'i)

I first came across Baha'i when I invited Leif inside Orkut. He later on helped network me with some Baha'i within my city, although that is another story to tell. ;)

Anyways, I visited the Baha'i forum and after asking what their faith was all about, David was kind enough to give me an answer.

One of the main things that makes the Faith real for me is the sense that it makes of the phenomenon of religion. What I mean is that there are so many different religious traditions, organizations, and practices out there, and if you talk for five minutes with people from any one of them you'll realize that all of them contain not only a great deal of truth but also the ability to transform people. [...]

The idea of progressive revelation, that God has a purpose for humanity that is expressed and realized through the progression of these religions, the ultimate reality of which are beyond human ability to put into doctrines or words, gives the Baha'i faith an approach to other religions that is at once deeply reverent of their essence and yet not bound to the limiting dogmatic formulae that have been plastered on them.

Baha'i (from what I am gathering) endorse the major emphasis of all major religions. They believe in Moses just as much as they believe in Muhammad, not to mention Jesus Christ, Buddha, etc.

My further conversations with Leif, have revealed that the Baha'i faith (like all other faiths) has their own set of holy scriptures, although their are over 100 volumes to read from so it may take you a while to go from "cover to cover."

A Real Western Woman?

It looks like Karimah has a question over in The Issues of Western Women forum.

I am just curious how someone who has never lived in the west or been closely involved with a westerner can decide what is relevant to us?

Robert says its because "Allah is all-seeing" while Selina contends that "Allah is not western."

Milt seems to have the best response of all by saying:

Sometimes, it is good to have people write their misconceptions. What better chance to inform them about what is really going on? My issue is that it is impossible to stereotype western women.

There are as many ways they dress, relate to others, perceive reality, view working as there are women in the western nations. [...]

I [think] the one thing we can say is that women are free to decide for themselves how to conduct their lives and the only way they are in danger of getting stoned is at a frat party.

Well said. Although the discussion later on begins to unravel, with Mish desiring to ban American soap opera's. Good luck.

(Upcoming) New Contributors

I'm in the process of adding two new contributors to this weblog, plus a third later on. An announcement will be made later on this week on who they are as well as a brief intro.

If anyone else is interested, please let me know. Submissions are still be accepted, but spots are filling quickly.

Major Look? Huh?

(Note: For all the lovers of Orkut, Blogger and personal opinions, this post is for you!)

Whether you've stumbled upon this site via Google Blog Search or have been scrapped by this author, this entry may "wet your tongue" a little.

I am in the process of launching Inside Orkut as a group blog and have already been talking to some interesting people interested in writing here.

Orkut is a universe within itself, and this weblog could use some extra flavor revealing what goes on in the deep blue forums.

If you are interested in being a contributor to this crazy weblog, post here or on my scrapbook.

All entries will be seriously considered and unless I've personally "tagged" you about this offer, you may want to make sure you meet the bare necessities in order to qualify (especially the "compensation" part).

Cheers!

Daily Profile (AK)

Yeah, work was busy for me, but I was able to stumble upon a user who simply goes by the name of "AK."

Giving a lot of thought as to discover exactly what is there to write about me, i figured that im a person who is somewhat egoistic, hyper, witty, rude,restless, clumsy and im still trying to figure out what my good qualities might be ;) .

I wouldnt call my self an extremiest on any account coz i believe that im just an every day kinda girl and so there aint much special stuff to mention about me.

Though to conclude it all i would best describe my self as a book whose real story can only be found IF u go through it.

Speaking of books, AK reads a ton! With the exception of Pride and Prejudice, and Great Expectations I've never even heard of most of these books. Run to the moon sounds interesting, although I wonder if it deals with romance rather than space travel? (yeah, I'm a "trekky." So what.)

AK seems to be into a sport I love, table tennis (that is ping pong for "us ghetto folks") and also watching Everybody Loves Raymond, a show I hate to miss (as it has replaced Seinfeld in my life).

AK seems to get a lot a traffic via her scrapbook (over 3700 posts and counting!) and I don't think she would mind if everybody added one more scrap to the list.

Trouble Shooting Orkut

It looks like the Google Team is trouble shooting Orkut.

orkut.com will be under construction on March 2nd.
We plan to do a site maintenance on March 2nd due to which orkut.com will be unavailable for a few hours starting at 11:00 am PST.

Stay beautiful,
-orkut team

I tried logging in, but all I received was the infamous donut error. Alas...see you in a few hours! (if I don't have to work that is!)

What's With The People Art?

I do not know if you can see it or not, but for the lucky few, you may have noticed this new design of the Communities section.



I love the people art work, although if this is the new design, I hope they keep the users my community link list, as it is easier to scroll through than the other version listed on your profile page.

If you don't see it, try refreshing your page a couple of times. It seems to come and go as it pleases. Strange.

Daily Profile (Robby Villegas)

Today's daily profile features Robby Villegas from the states who not only has a funny profile image but a description to go along with it.

I'm a creature of habit, though not wilfully so. Now and then I seek out, or just happen upon, something else, especially if it's a "Not Me" sort of thing: "Gee, I've never thought of myself as the type to do THAT". It cures silly inhibitions and opens the mind. Extending your self-image is good.

My free time is exactly that: free. Relaxed, not overly scheduled.

I like to be with people. But then I also like to get lost in myself, going deep under water, going almost non-verbal. And then come up for air, and then take a few more dives.
Deep focus is mind-cleansing.

Robby has what I call a "unique taste" of life, as his favorite movies range from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Little Big Man (never saw it) to An American Werewolf in London (never saw it, but I did enjoy the music video).

I'll forgive him for not mentioning Star Trek as one of his favorite shows, although he has listed Babylon 5 (another great space show).

Robby has some very interesting photos in his album (is that Dracula on ice?) and if you think those pictures are great, but sure to mention it on his scrapbook.

Are You Into Indian Art?

If so, Anish over in the Business in China forum has a proposition for you.

I am a business manager of IAP, India basically deals in selling paintings and arts of indian artists locally and oversees.. we are looking forward for expanding our business. Anyone interested in purchasing paintings and indian arts or for any kind of busienss dealing can mail me on

Note: Gmail signature added to thwart spammers.

Sounds pretty cool, although I wish he had some links displaying images of the art he intends to sell, as I have no clue what exactly is "Indian art."

Random thought: With all of the people selling items on Orkut, perhaps they should establish an "Ebay" like system in order to keep the server from dying periodically.