Last night, we watched Spanglish, a movie featuring Adam Sandler, T
Month: April 2005
links for 2005-04-29
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A fashion use for spam. This is cool.
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Put a donkey and a zebra together, and you get a baby “zonkey”.
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Photographic Gallery inspired by Pakistan’s decorated vehicles. This reminds me my visits there.
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The movie poster weblog.
Human Nature / Animal Instinct
A thought that crossed my mind a while ago is: Where is the thin line between what’s human nature and what is actually animal instinct drawn in us people?
Even though I do believe in some aspects of the theory of evolution, especially when it comes to the evolution of some creatures into different breeds of the same creature depending on different factors such as the environment they’re in, and even though I do believe that we humans have actually evolved over time, I don’t really believe that we humans evolved from monkeys.
Anyway, I also believe that a lot of the things we regard as human nature can be classified as animal instinct too. For example, the need to exist in groups, the bond between a mother and her children, the attraction to the opposite sex, self defense and preservation …etc. These are all things that are in every living creature.
What I’m saying is that what we call human nature isn’t in fact just that, a lot of it is animal instinct, that we share with all members of the animal kingdom. And what comes on top of that is what is really human nature and what actually makes us special.
So my question is where does animal instinct end and human nature begin?
Is it just at the brain level and how we process things in a more advanced way?
Is it in our ability to follow logic?
Or is there this whole set of feelings that only we feel?
Where exactly is it?
A lot of people, when frustrated, describe others as animals. And sometimes others say it when they’re disgusted by something someone is doing.
How true are their accusations?
Is there really something that, if lost in a person, strips them of their superiority to animals?
I wonder…
URL ABCs
This is an interesting meme started by Defective Yeti.
The following are the first urls that come up in my browser’s address bar for every letter in the alphabet.
A is for aquacool.blogspot.com – Of course, my wife’s great blog 🙂
B is for blogdex.net – The best blog diffusion index out there.
C is for chanadbahrain.blogspot.com – A great Bahraini blogger.
D is for del.icio.us/subzeroblue – My del.icio.us page.
E is for edition.cnn.com – CNN International edition for news and stuff.
F is for flickr.com – The amazing flickr.
G is for google.com – Duh!
H is for hamoudy.com – A Lebanese blogger in the US.
I is for imdb.com – The greatest source of information on movies.
J is for jordanplanet.net – The Jordanian blogger aggregator.
K is for kuwaitblogs.com/users/nibaq – A great Kuwaiti blogger.
L is for lafayettestory.blogspot.com – Newest Tunisian blogger.
M is for mail.yahoo.com – To check my Yahoo mail every once in a while.
N is for news.google.com – Google again, this time for news…
O is for omars2cents.blogspot.com – Syrian blogger in Canada.
P is for ping.net – Service to add a fan faceroll to your blog.
Q is for quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/03/ajax_promise_or.html – Article: Ajax, promise or hype?
R is for rundom.com/houssein – A great Tunisian blogger in Canada.
S is for subzeroblue.com – My blog, of course 🙂
T is for technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=subzeroblue.com – My Technorati
U is for upcoming.org – Cool social event calendar.
V is for veer.com/ideas/wallpaper/ – Some really cool wallpapers.
W is for whispers.hautetfort.com – A Tunisian blogger.
X is for xanga.com/skin.asp?user=Sociopath – A friend blogger from the US.
Y is for yahoo.com – They’re becoming cool again.
Z is for zizoufromdjerba.blogspot.com – Another new Tunisian blogger.
links for 2005-04-28
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Girls should pay more attention to the quiet geeks and nerds 😛
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Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe.
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The Best of Google on one searchable page.
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Play chess against the computer & watch it think. Wow, Amazing stuff.
Driving in Slow Lanes
Why is it that when driving in rush hour you always end up in the slowest lane?!!
And then to make things worse some car ahead of you breaks down?!
And then an accident happens?!
And then you switch to another lane, only to see the lane you were in start moving faster, and the one you’re in becomes the slowest?!!
Why? Why? Why?!!!
Daylight Saving Time
So after a number of years of not changing time, Tunisia is back to applying daylight saving time starting this year.
Clocks will be advanced by one hour on midnight this coming Sunday, May 1st.
This comes as a move by the government to try and promote saving of energy in the wake of the ever-rising cost of fuel in the world market.
Doesn’t bother me at all.
In fact it adds an extra hour of daylight to the summer days, so one more hour of summer fun 😉
Ski Dubai
Dubai desert gives way to ski resort…
Ski Dubai is a formidable engineering feat, an incongruous 25-storey structure rising from the Gulf emirate’s sands as some 1000 labourers work round the clock building the Middle East’s only indoor ski resort and the world’s third largest.
The brainchild of Majid al-Futtaim, the mountain-themed resort is being built within his group’s billion-dollar Mall of the Emirates, partly to lure people to what will be the third largest shopping centre in the world, and to make it different.
[Source: Al Jazeera]
Man!! Dubai is becoming more and more like a wonderland / amazement park. Unbelievable projects are popping up there everyday, and although they’re all really exciting and wonderful, I wonder why they’re being done?
What is behind this obsession to always build bigger, higher, cooler stuff?
I guess it’s the urge to go the extra step and do things that have never been done before and the beautiful feelings that are felt when they are done.
But how far will this go?
What’s next I wonder?!
links for 2005-04-26
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Some fascinating and unique photos.
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Guess what Google search term would return the shown images.
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Turn off TV, Turn on Life…
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Good thing I didn’t know this as a kid, i’d have burnt the whole neighbourhood down.
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Test your ability to tell which images are real, and which are computer generated.
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Ski Dubai in Mall of the Emirates, third largest shopping center in the world.
Bahraini Websites Must Register
Register or face legal action…
Webmasters face prosecution if they defy new rules announced by Bahraini authorities. All Bahraini websites set up here or abroad must register with the Information Ministry or face legal action, it was declared yesterday.
A six-month campaign is being launched next Monday to register all Bahraini websites, under orders from Information Minister and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar.
…websites would face similar laws to newspapers, related to libel, public decency and ethics.
Just as a newspaper editor-in-chief is held responsible for what he publishes, so will the webmasters be…
[Source: Gulf Daily News]
Well even though this could have been great news if the goal behind it was to empower bloggers and give them more rights, it’s actually really bad news.
The purpose behind this move is an obvious attempt by the Bahraini government to keep a leash on Bahraini bloggers, track everyone and hold them accountable for their opinions.
We’ve already seen the kind of rights the people who were found out got.
It’s really a shame to see something like this happening. And what’s even worse is that we could see moves like this propagating across the Arab world.
Mahmood is proposing a plan of action against these rules.
I totally support the Bahraini bloggers’ cause and wish them the best of luck in putting an end to this madness. It’s a common cause for us all.
[Via: Mahmood’s Den, Savior Machine]