Month: July 2004

PHP 5 Released

So the long-awaited PHP5 is finally out. I can’t wait to play around with this baby when I find time for it.

Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:

  • A better Zend Engine II
  • Better XML support focused around the excellent libxml2 library.
  • SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as PHP objects.
  • A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web Services.
  • SQLite has been bundled with PHP. (After all MySQL sold out and went commercial on them)
  • Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access low-level socket operations on streams.

Obviously, like all other programming languages, PHP is moving more and more towards the whole web services model and making it easier to use PHP for such stuff.

[More: PHP.net]

Reform, Democracy and the Media

A media conference held by Al-Jazeera TV channel in Qatar this week tackled the thorny issue of what role, if any, the broadcaster should play in spreading political reform throughout the Arab world.

There are different views on this from people arguing that all media has an obligation to be involved in politics, to others who think that media should just inform and not reform, while other people would just like to see the channel translate its audience growth into income (obivously management, “I don’t care what you do! Just show me the money.”).

Anyway, I think this is a very interesting and important issue.

Al-Jazeera has access to over 35 million viewers who trust it and believe what it tells them. I don’t know of any political party in the Arab world that enjoys that kind of privilege.

So should it take advantage of this to push reforms?
Or should it just keep itself to informing people and opening their eyes to the truth?
And if media chooses to interfere with politics, where is the limit?

I think that Al-Jazeera have been a good source of non-propaganda news and a great forum for different people to express their opinions over the past years. That in itself reformed Arab media in a way and pushed for more transparency.

They can’t play the role of a political party because they’re not but they can contribute to and push forward the reform process by offering different opinions, showing what the truth really is and breaking the old limits of speech freedom.

The media can challenge and pressure governments putting them in a position where they have to be transparent, change and listen.

Still, having media interfere with politics isn’t always good because of the media’s power to sway public opinion according to it’s ideas or interests sometimes.

So, yes for media contributing to reform, no to media controlling it.

Oldest forward in my inbox

I don’t know how or why this popped through my mind.
I just thought: Go to the oldest non-personal, non-legally-dangerous forward in your email inbox, copy it and paste it in your blog.

So here it is, the oldest forward in my inbox on my laptop (I’m sure I have ones that are a lot older on my pc):

DEAR RECEIVER,

You have just received a SYRIAN virus. Since we are not so technologically
advanced in SYRIA, this is a MANUAL virus. Please delete all the files on
your hard disk yourself and send this mail to everyone you know.

Thank you very much for helping me.

FATTOUM
Hacker

> Date: 11/12/1998

lol…

And maybe, just maybe, this could start a meme.
Or maybe not.

My Wishlist

If you qualify as one of the following:

  1. You have this weird itching desire to buy me something.
  2. You have certain “issues” or mental problems and you want to prove to the whole world that you’re the nicest person ever.
  3. You are one cheap ass who wants to buy someone something and keep boasting about it and reminding them of it all their life.
  4. You’re stalking me and you want to keep sending me things to haunt me.

Then, I think you’d be interested in knowing that I’ve just created my wishlist on Amazon, and you can find it here.

Just kidding 😛
I know nobody’s going to buy me anything. But well, it’s good for me to keep track of all the stuff I want to buy. I always forget.

Tunisian Weddings

It’s summertime in Tunisia, the season of the sea, beaches, parties, clubs, coffee shops but most importantly weddings.
Yep, there’s certainly a lot of love in the air this time of the year.

As soon as the summer starts, invitations start floating around the country, and wherever you go, whoever you visit, there seems to be an invitation waiting for you for the wedding of the brother of the cousin of your grandmother’s half sister’s distant relative. In short, someone you never knew existed.
And wait, you’re actually expected to show up.

So, what should you expect at a Tunisian wedding?
Oh, a lot really. It’s like there’s this secret competition only people who are organizing weddings know about, in which by the end of the summer people are going to vote which wedding had the most money spent on it, which was the noisiest and loudest one, which had the ultimately worst singer, which served the sweetest sweets and which one featured the most barely dressed girls.
But that’s on the long term, on the short term you should primarily expect a headache, a stomachache and most probably diabetes.

Weddings are also an opportunity to get ready for the next wedding season and fill up it’s schedule, so girls put on all the makeup they have, wear as little clothes as possible, show as much cleavage and thighs as they can and dance until they drop in an attempt to hookup with one of the single (or married but ripe for divorce) perverts at the wedding.

Weddings aren’t all about celebration though, they’re also a war between the two families to prove who is classier and better.
And behind all that loud music, there often are a number of little fights going on because someone got served before the other or because someone sat closer to the bride and groom.

Ah…
There’s nothing quite like a Tunisian wedding.
Beneath all the madness, chaos and noise there lies a bit of the great and unique Tunisian culture that I love so much.
It’s Amazing…

World Court: Israeli Wall is Illegal

Yesterday the International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) at the Hague published its Advisory Opinion on Israel’s West Bank Wall. The court ruled in favor of the Palestinians, condemning those parts of the barrier that effectively annex Palestinian land, and calling for its dismantling in the Occupied Territories.

The opinion also found that Israel was obligated to return confiscated land or make reparations for any destruction or damage to homes, businesses and farms caused by the barrier’s construction.

The ruling was the second against the barrier in the past two weeks. Israel’s high court ruled June 30 that a section of the barrier under construction must be rerouted to avoid infringing on the lives of 35,000 Palestinians.

Of course Israel is refusing this ruling and saying that it’s non-binding and that they don’t have to comply with it even though it indicates that Israel is in violation of international law and of international legitimacy.

Israel is claiming that the wall was built to bring them security and that since the barrier was built less and less attacks were happening against their people.
But wait, shouldn’t a wall built for Israel’s security actually have been built between Israeli and Palestinian land, not between Palestinians and their fields, schools, jobs, medical service, and family members?!

There is talk that sanctions could be seeked against Israel to force it to comply with this ruling. But obviously, the US would veto that without thinking.

Anyway, even though this ruling won’t really mean that the wall will be brought down, it still is an important step for the Palestinians. It will help put pressure on the people who defened Israel no matter what it does and it will give Palestinians more international support, something they really need.
It also comes an important expression of solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are suffering the effects of the illegal barrier, and with the thousands of Palestinians and Israelis who have been peacefully protesting against it over the past months.

So much for democracy

Seventeen months after the Anglo-American invasion in which President George Bush promised to bring democracy to Iraq, the country’s American-approved Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, yesterday introduced legislation allowing the Iraqi authorities to impose martial law, curfews, a ban on demonstrations, the restriction of movement, phone-tapping, the opening of mail and the freezing of bank accounts.

[…]

Iraq therefore entered into another fatal chapter of its history yesterday, and it didn’t look much like democracy.

Robert Fisk

[Via Je Blog]

Satin Rouge

Yesterday I finally got to see Satin Rouge by Raja Ammari, a Tunisian movie that got a lot of great reviews when it was released back in 2002.

I heard and read so much about it, and have been wanting to see it for a long time, but never really got around to it.

Anyway, after seeing it, I understand why it got all the great reviews. It’s a really nice and well done movie. Maybe one of the best Tunisian movies yet.

It’s the story of a widow who’s raising her adolescent daughter on her own and who’s leading a pretty boring and depressing life. It’s like her life stopped when her husband died and she’s just there to take care of her daughter now.

Circumstances later drive her to a cabaret in search of her daughter where she discovers this whole new night life of dance and pleasures. It excites and attracts her but also worries her.
Nevertheless she is sucked in slowly as she builds a friendship with one of the belly dancers there and starts frequenting the place more only to become a dancer herself too.

She ends up caught in the middle of being a perfect mom that she no longer is and a belly dancer that she still isn’t yet.

Of course there are other events I don’t want to get into so as to not spoil it for anyone who’s going to see it. But what I can say is that it’s really worth the watch.

The directing, cinematography and photography is really good too. I truly enjoyed the shots that were taken, the angles, …etc.

I give it a 8/10 as a movie.
You should really see it.

Kill Bill 3

So, it seems like there’ll be a third part to Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga.
But don’t get too excited. It won’t be out for another 15 years.

Quentin Tarantino said Monday he plans to shoot a third part of the Kill Bill vengeance series.

“I have plans, actually not right away, but like in 15 years from now, I’ll do a third version of this saga,” the director said at a news conference to promote “Kill Bill” Vol. 2, which opens in Spain next month.

Tarantino said part three would focus on the daughter of a hired killer that Uma Thurman’s character bumps off early in her revenge spree.

Now this is real cool…
It’s a shame we have to wait so long for it…