Year: 2004

Web creator Tim Berners-Lee knighted

This must have been blogged on other blogs, i’m sure, but well i’m gonna blog it too anyways because i find it very interesting.

Tim Berners-Lee, who combined HTML with URLs and came up with the World Wide Web, has been knighted.

Sir Tim said the honor, announced Tuesday by Buckingham Palace as part of the New Year honours list, is an acknowledgement that the Net is becoming globally powerful and isn’t just a passing trend.

The article i read about this on cnet’s news.com is really cool and offers an insight into the history of the creation of the World Wide Web.
So, check it out here.

Something i didn’t know before is how Apple could have leaded the way into this whole thing, but were stupid enough to not know what to do with it…

I also liked what Tim said about the dream behind the web:

“The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information,” wrote Berners-Lee. “Its universality is essential: The fact that a hypertext link can point to anything; be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished.”

But there was a second part of the dream, too, Berners-Lee said, and this was dependent on the Web being so generally used “that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize.” Once the state of our interactions was online, Berners-Lee said, we could then use computers to help us analyze it, and help us make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together.

I totally agree with Tim and i think that not only is the web becoming a mirror of how we work, play and socialize but also a mirror of what we think about, know, do and live.
So, the web is more and more like a snapshot of the world at any given time including the smallest details of the individual mindset, and i think that is totally awesome.

Change of Eyeglasses

Well, i’m planning to change my glasses very soon, and i’m already wondering how the change will affect my life this time around.

Now, maybe most people’s lifes don’t really change a lot when they change their glasses, but well my life did the last time i changed mine.
I’ll tell you the story 😉

When i went to Jordan back in 1996 to study at the University of Jordan, i was really happy that i would be living alone and free to do whatever i wanted with my looks, life, home, …etc.
It was all the freedom i could ever ask for, and i got it all at once.

When it comes to looks, i used the fact that almost no one knew me, and took the freedom and pleasure of changing my look as often as i wished for, going from normal short hair to long hair to bald to spiky hair to all the weird hairstyles i wanted to try. And in clothes, i tried all sorts of weird combinations and looks.
And well, nobody noticed, because nobody knew me.

Some other background info: I always thought i was quite good looking, but then again who doesn’t think that of themselves ? But i was a bit of a nerd. Yep, always among the top 3 students in the class, not so good with girls, and so into computers, i was always in the computer lab writing some new program. So you can imagine how i’d pass totally unnoticed 😛
In fact, throughout my whole life before that, i only knew of 2 or 3 girls who ever had a crush on me, lol. Pretty good for a nerd like me 😛 (Although i was later shocked to know there were more.)

Anyways, in the summer of 1998, i went home to Tunisia for the vacations (after the summer course), and while i was at it, i changed my glasses, and finally chose a certain MMM look 😉

When i went back to Jordan with my new look, suddenly everything changed and i was no longer that invisible nerd no one knew. All of a sudden, everyone knew me, everyone noticed me, and everyone wanted to be friends with me. Yep, i was the new hot thing on campus, loool…
To add to that, i was introduced to some girls from the faculty of arts then others from the faculty of business (known to have the best looking girls in the university) and started hanging out with them, giving me an even cooler reputation 😉
And so, from being someone who was a total disaster with girls, i became known as the ladies’ man 😛 And from being a complete unknown, almost everybody knew me 😉

But being the nice guy i am, i didn’t abuse my newly found popularity, and just went on as usual with my life.

Anyway, thanks to that popularity and the people i got to know, i was able to get introduced to the greatest and most beautiful girl in all of Jordan, who is now my lovely wife 🙂

So, i think that now it’s obvious why i’m wondering what my next change of glasses will bring along 😉
And, hey, you too, be careful when you’re out there choosing your next pair of glasses, they could flip your whole world around 😛

Are You A Blogaholic?

I just took this little quiz called Are You A Blogaholic ?.

And well, my score was 64/100.

They say:
64 points is in the 51 through 80 percent
You are a dedicated weblogger. You post frequently because you enjoy weblogging a lot, yet you still manage to have a social life. You’re the best kind of weblogger. Way to go!

Cool 😉

Al Qaeda Threatens to Nuke New York on February 2

Now this is weird and pretty stupid:

The banner headline spread across the front page of Il Giornale, the respected Milan daily reads:

“Al Qaeda: We will destroy New York within 35 days. Threat on the Internet. Countdown begins.”

[via DEBKAfile]

If anyone was planning a terrorist act as big as that, and they were actually able to do it, do you think they’d be publicly stating it online like that ?
I don’t think anyone is that dumb !

2004 Bloggies

So, the 2004 Weblog Awards have started and they’re accepting nominations.

So please pass by their site and nominate my blog 🙂
You can choose to nominate it for whatever category you want, but the main categories i’m aiming for are: best african or middle eastern weblog, best new weblog and maybe weblog of the year ;).
So please nominate me there at least.

Here’s the link: 2004 Bloggies.

The name of this blog is: Subzero Blue
and the address of course is: http://www.rundom.com/subzeroblue/

Thanks in advance 🙂

New Year’s Eve & Day

So, as planned, we went to the one-man-show by Lamine El Nahdi on New Year’s Eve, and it was great 🙂
This guy is just so damn hilarious.

After that, we went home and watched a movie called Down With Love starring Ewan McGregor & Ren