Month: January 2004

Me, a Vegan (NOT !)

Well, yesterday, as i dragged my exhausted and extremely hungry self home from work, and as i was going into our building, i noticed we had something in the mail.
I thought it was either gonna be the greeting cards we’ve been waiting for ever since before New Years or Tunisie Telecom telling me that they’re coming to install my phone line.
Needless to say it was neither, instead i found a little PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) vegetarian starter kit, some sort of magazine that aims to convince me to become a vegan and give up eating meat.

I had ordered the starter kit a while ago out of curiosity and i was interested in seeing what would be in it and how they would try to convince me to quit meat-eating.

I’m sorry to say this, and i mean no offense to vegans, vegetarians or to PETA, but this whole thing is really nonsense.
Some of the reasons given for not eating this or that are so dumb and use a very twisted logic.

I’m totally for the protection of animals against all forms of bad treatment and i totally support the efforts to stop hunting down animals for furs, fun and other cruel reasons.
But i also think that some animals were created to produce things that we can use for our everyday life, things like: eggs, milk, silk, wool and even meat.

Anyway, after going through the whole kit, i am more of a meat-eater than ever before; there’s no way i’m gonna quit eating meat, drinking milk or whatever else these guys want me to quit for the reasons they wrote.
I’m not gonna go eat fake mock meat, soya whatever or tofu rubbish that tastes like shit when i can have a juicy steak, chicken tikka or a milk shake.

And to stress my point and my commitment to meat-eating, i went out last night for a good delicious meal at Baguette & Baguette, where i had a Chicken Burger and a Hamburger (actually Cow meat burger in muslim countries), and it was very very Yummy 😛

I also ate some really great french fries. But hey wait a sec ? Don’t vegetables have feelings ? They’re alive creatures too, aren’t they ?
Maybe someone should think of starting PETVF = People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables & Fruits 😛

Sleep Rescrewed

Don’t you just love it when you’re over-exhausted, just had a delicious dinner and finally get to your bed which is perfectly soft and warm and you’re already dreaming of the great sleep you have ahead of you ?

And don’t you just hate it when after all that, you end up waking in the middle of the night with this sudden weird case of insomnia ?
I mean, you’re so damn tired your body parts are about to fall apart, but you just can’t fall asleep again.

And wouldn’t you just hate it even more if when you were about to get over that insomnia and were about to drift into a sweet sleep, the damn neighbour’s alarm goes off so loud and keeps on beeping for over half an hour !!!

And at last, after the neighbour’s alarm stops and after going through another long pre-sleep period, you finally slip into this beautiful state of perfect slumber, but your shitty alarm goes off telling you that your time is over and it’s time to go to work again !!!
Aaaarrrrggghhhhh !!!

I hate alarms !!!
And i hate my upstairs neighbours !!!

2003 Web Design Fashion Trends

I just found this post about the 2003 Web Design Fashion Trends, and i find it quite interesting.
The trends are as follows:

  • The continuing spread of CSS layouts.
  • The use of alternate fonts within a limited choice.
  • Unordered lists are all the rage.
  • Fahrner Image Replacement.
  • The comeback of old fashioned fonts.
  • The comeback of the background image.
  • The humongous page banner.
  • The decline of web skinning.
  • The cluttered front page.
  • Restrained, pale color schemes.

For all the details and explanations of each trend, check the full post: 2003 Web Design Fashion Trends.

Sleep

Isn’t it beautiful when you’re lying in bed early in the morning, in the perfect and most comfortable position, with the bed at the perfect warmth, with the pillow at the perfect softness, with the air in the room at the perfect temperature, and the weather outside is cold and the wind is humming you lullaby after lullaby sending you to this magical place.
You feel you wanna stay like that forever and just sleep like there’s no tomorrow.

But then that damn alarm goes off, pissing you off, and telling you to leave all that comfort and beauty, leave that warmth, leave that soft bed, get up, get dressed and go out into the cold world outside to go work !!

I hate alarms !!!

Weblogs: A History and Perspective

I just came across this piece called Weblogs: A History and Perspective which, as it’s title suggests, talks about the history of weblogs and how the whole phenomenon started, how it developed and what it’s become.

The article is really interesting and worth reading.

I personally love blogging, and i would certainly love to see more and more people i know starting blogs of their own.

I feel that blogs really complement the web and put a more human touch to it by offering a wide collection of personal experiences and views.

Get The Facts on Windows and Linux

Microsoft has launched a direct attack on Linux through a new ad campaign they’ve started in the US that aims at companies considering Linux on servers.

The campaign directs information technology managers to “get the facts” about Linux before buying anything but Windows and points them to a website called Get The Facts on Windows and Linux that contains research on the cost benefits of licensing Microsoft’s Windows Server System instead of a Linux-based solution.
Of course, most of that research has been commissioned by Microsoft.

I’ve gone through some previously published research on this issue before, and i do agree that the claim that Linux is cheaper is false.
I also think the claims that Linux is more secure are false too. If Linux ever becomes as widely spread as Windows, you’d see how many bugs and security issues would come up.
I also think that the question of Product support is a very important one.
If you’re running critical business on your servers, you should be at least sure you’ll find someone to call when things go wrong, and that there’ll always be someone there working on that product guaranteeing continuity for you.
Anyway, Microsoft make more claims on their campaign’s site, and i think it’s worth reading.

I’m not pro-Microsoft or pro-Linux, i just believe in choosing the best solution for the case and the problem at hand.
Depending on the situation and the different parameters we have, the best choice could be Windows or Linux or why not even MacOS 😛

Anyway, this campaign, i think, is a bigger sign of how Linux is eating more and more into Microsoft’s share of Server systems, and how desperate Microsoft are becoming on shooting Linux down.

iPod mini

So Apple has finally gone on and released the iPod mini, which as you can see looks mostly like the iPod but smaller.

I have to hand it to them that Apple are great at designing their products and making the coolest looking gadgets and machines.
I’m not so keen on the hardware or software, but the looks are great.

This new iPod mini comes in a number of colours and costs $249.
The white and metalic colours are the best in my opinion.

One of the gadgets i’m certainly looking forward to getting is a portable mp3 player, but i still haven’t made up my mind on what product it will be exactly.
An iPod or iPod mini could be an option though 😉

I’m also interested in seeing the stuff that will get released by other manufacturers and that will be based on Microsoft’s Portable Media Player platform, previously called Media2Go.

Software Piracy

On his blog, Nick Bradbury, the Man behind TopStyle, HomeSite and FeedDemon tells his story of software piracy and how the little independent developer is affected.

It is very interesting and counters the claims by most people that they’re only stealing from rich mega-corporations that screw their customers, and shows that the people who are hurt the most by piracy are the small independent shareware developers.

Being a developer myself, i’ve often thought about this issue and about the effects it could have. And i totally agree that the people who really get hit hard are the small companies and independent developers who can’t afford to keep going in and out of courts filing lawsuits against wrong-doers.
A consequence of this is that more and more companies and developers will end up losing financially and will quit developing altogether, and so we’ll have both less innovation and creative programs as well as more and more jobless developers pulling down our wages and the economy alltogether.

World Around Us

Each and every one of us lives his life feeling that the world revolves around him, and that others are just rotating parts in his existence.
I think it’s due to the way we look at things and analyze them; we only care about things that are directly related to us or that affect our lives. We see things through our eyes only, and so the world to us is what those eyes see, what we build in our minds from our experiences and the images we collect.
That’s the world around us.

Of course, the world doesn’t revolve around any one of us, and the proof to that is that no one’s death ever stopped the world.
But, by someone’s death the world around that person, the world that person created in his mind, the world as he saw it, the world he believed to revolve around him does stop and end.

So ??
Well, my point is, of course we all live in this one same big world in the end of the day, but for all it matters we all live in our small little custom made worlds, we all have these tiny circles we move in.
So, basically, if we were to take anyone and their small little world and put them on Mars, there wouldn’t be any difference at all for them.
But then again, if there were any change, it wouldn’t matter because the main component in that world, which is the person, is still there and he would go on and create a new world around him again.

So, in a sense the world does revolve around each and everyone of us, not the big world, but our own custom world.
So, as long as we are the main player in our world, we might as well try and make it a good one and do our best to enjoy it. Maybe then, the big world that all our little worlds are a subset of can become a better place for us to live in.

For the time being, my world and the whole big world will continue to revolve around me and me only 😛

Corneille

As i mentioned before, the biggest discovery for me from the M6 Music Live concert last month was Corneille, a French RNB / Soul artist, who has a great voice and really beautiful music.

I bought his album “Parce Qu’On Vient De Loin” a few days ago, and i’ve been listening to it in the car these days, and it’s really cool.

He reminds me a lot of the kind of music that got me so into RNB & Soul back in the 90’s. It’s as if you put Silk, Shai, Blackstreet and Boyz II Men in a blender, mixed them, and then created one man with what you got out of that, and then switched the language to French instead of English, lol…

He’s actually the first true French RNB / Soul artist i’ve heard and liked.

In the concert he sang his hit song “Parce Qu’On Vient De Loin” and then a duet with Cheb Mami called “Du nord au Sud”, which is a very nice reggae like song.
And like all great artists, he’s so much better live than on recording.

I think he has a great future ahead of him and wish him a lot of luck 🙂
I hope he keeps coming out with great music for my ears to enjoy 🙂