Month: April 2007

The Top 10 Nutrition Myths

10. Eating carbohydrates makes you fat.
9. Drink eight, 8-oz. glasses of water per day.
8. Brown grain products are whole grain products.
7. Eating eggs will raise your cholesterol.
6. All alcohol is bad for you.
5. Vitamin supplements are necessary for everyone.
4. Consuming extra protein is necessary to build muscle mass.
3. Eating fiber causes problems if you have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
2. Eating immediately after a workout will improve recovery.
1. Type 2 diabetes can be prevented by eating foods low on the glycemic index.

For more details, read the article: Dispelling The Top 10 Nutrition Myths.

[Via: LifeHack]

The Pursuit Of Happiness

… And it was at that time that I thought about Thomas Jefferson writing that Declaration of Independence. Him saying that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I thought about how he knew to put the ‘pursuit’ in there, like no one can actually have happiness. We can only pursue it.

— Christopher Gardner (The Pursuit Of Happyness)

Do you really think that no matter what we do, we can never really attain happiness; we can only pursue it?

Prison vs. Work

IN PRISON: You spend the majority of your time in a 10X10 cell.
AT WORK: You spend the majority of your time in an 8X8 cubicle.

IN PRISON: You get three meals a day.
AT WORK: You get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON: You get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK: You get more work for good behavior.

IN PRISON: The guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK: You must often carry a security card and open all the doors for yourself.

IN PRISON: You can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK: You could get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON: You get your own toilet.
AT WORK: You have to share the toilet with some people who pee on the seat.

IN PRISON: They allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK: You aren

100 Megabits At Home By 2015?

According to a post on GigaOm, FTTH Council is pushing the US government to adopt a 100 Megabit Nation policy with the goal of extending, through both private and public sector initiatives, affordable next-generation broadband (100-megabit-per-second connection) to a majority of Americans by 2010, with universal US availability by 2015.

Hmmm…
On the other hand, over here in Tunisia:
I had to wait for over 3 months for Tunisie Telecom to give me a crappy phone line…
During the first two years, my phone line worked only a quarter of the time…
I’ve been waiting for over 7 months to get a simple 256Kbps ADSL connection at home, and I expect the wait to go on for several more months…

Some of my friends already went through the waiting periods and got their ADSL connections, and a few of them are actually happy with their connections, but still we’re a long way behind, and it all affects how competitive we can be and limits our chances to innovate or become noticeable players on the world level.

I know that there are a lot of factors behind this, I also know that the Tunisian government gives a lot of importance to this, doing all its possible to extend access to faster connections, but we’re still trailing in this area, and maybe it’s time to try a new approach at this and open more doors for some big private players to enter the market and push the country forward in broadband access. It can only be of benefit to everyone: public entities, private companies and individuals.

The Long Tail (Chris Anderson)

A couple of days ago, I finished reading Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail“, which explains and advocates why the future of business is selling less of more.

Chris Anderson, who is editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, wrote an article called “The Long Tail” in Wired that became so popular and famous, he started a blog about it and then expanded it into a book.

In short the phrase “The Long Tail” is to describe certain business and economic models where products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough and the necessary filters are available to drive people to find these products. Examples of companies using such a model are Amazon, Netflix, iTunes and Google.

The book and the concept are very interesting, and with the evolution of the internet it’s easier than ever to cater to all tastes and provide all products: general best-sellers and niche products, increasing the scope of products available for sale, and obviously the opportunities to make more revenue.

If you’re selling products, marketing them or just interested in business: I recommend you read the article as well as the book; they’re really interesting and provide several examples and rich insight into how the business world and markets are changing.

Back In Tunisia, Back To Work…

I flew back to Tunisia yesterday… Alone; Eman and Adam will be staying another week in Jordan… And the same group of old people that were going to Omra on my flight to Jordan came back to Tunisia with me, what luck!

I’m back at work this morning with a ton of emails to go through, a bunch of stuff to do and some necessary meetings to get back on track and rolling again…

The last day of a vacation and the first day at work after it have to be the hardest and yuckiest days that can ever be… You know the vacation is over, yet you don’t want it to be, and you know you have to be back at work, yet you’re not quite ready to be…

My stay in Jordan was quite hectic this time and I didn’t get to meet as many people as I wished, nor go to as many places as I planned. I hope I’ll get to go back again soon and do all the things I wanted to do.
One thing I did do though is eat; I had every meal I wanted to eat, ending the food marathon with Msakhan, a great Palestinian delicacy. It’s a wonder how I didn’t gain any weight.
Another post will follow soon with some of my other thoughts from this trip to Jordan.

The Search (John Battelle)

I finally got around to reading John Battelle’s book “The Search“, which is about how Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture.

I heard a lot about this book, it’s a really interesting topic, and I also enjoy reading John’s searchblog quite often, so obviously it’s been on my reading list for quite a while.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and I went through it so quickly; It’s very well written and it handles the topic of search, its history, its players (mainly revolving around Google and its history though), how much it affects us and business, the future and the ideas search could evolve into so well.

As someone who witnessed the rise of the internet, the dot-com boom then bust and its later renaissance, it was a pleasure to read the history of search and remember all the companies that played a role in making it what it is today.

The company stories included give a lot of insight into the mindsets of the entrepreneurs behind them and their approaches to pushing their businesses forward and making them successful.

I recommend this book to everyone interested in search, it’s a really good read that covers the topic from all its sides.

300

A friend of mine and I went to see 300 at the cinema yesterday. I’ve heard many mixed reviews about this movie, a lot of people loved it, and many others said it was a waste of time, void of meaning or purpose.
Curiosity pushed me to go and see it for myself and then build my own opinion on whether it’s a good or bad movie.

I didn’t go in expecting much, which is good, because I generally get a good surprise with the movie turning out better than I expected; The same held in this case.

I have to say that I ended up enjoying the movie; it’s no great epic and it’ll be forgotten in no time, but still it’s an entertaining piece of action cinema. There’s no deep story behind the movie, it’s no actor’s movie, and it crams in so many clich

Seven Pillars of Middle East (Un)Reality

I just came across one of the most absurd articles I’ve read in a while, by a certain Kenneth Levin, a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a Princeton-trained historian, a commentator on Israeli politics and an author of a book I’m sure is full of more nonsense called “The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege”.

The article lists some so-called seven pillars of Middle East reality that he thinks stand in the way of peace with Israel.

Here are the seven points and what I think of each one:

Arab leaders have no interest in genuine peace with Israel
This can’t be more wrong; the Arab leaders wouldn’t want anything more than to have the whole Israel-Palestine problem solved, a peace established, the ability to move on and leave the whole thing behind them. In fact, a number of the Arab regimes, if not most of them, already have secret ties with Israel, and are just waiting for the chance to make them public and announce normalization. Plus more and more of these Arab regimes are coming to think that the only way to help solve the Palestinian problem is by building ties with Israel. All this might be against the will of their people, but the leaders and regimes would do anything to move on and put this problem behind them.

Israeli-Arab peace will come on the Arabs’ timetable
Israeli-Arab peace will come on both side’s timetables, just like any other peace agreement, and the proof is that the Arab leaders have proposed peace and normalization deals with Israel several times that ended up in the bin because Israel wasn’t willing to move from its side. If anyone, it’s Israel that’s setting its timetable, not the Arabs.

All minorities living within the Arab world are under siege
This is very very wrong, and a trip to any country in the Arab world where a religious minority exists can show that; Jews in countries like Tunisia and Morocco, Christians in countries like Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and the list continues; These people enjoy all their rights and freedoms, and live in peace alongside Muslims.

Continue reading Seven Pillars of Middle East (Un)Reality

One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

As usual, I’m using the extra free time I get on vacation to catch up on some reading. I just finished the book “One Hundred Years Of Solutide” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature.

The book tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family and its unforgettable men and women, their times, their struggles, their curse and damnation – the solitude that would finally destroy them and the universe that they created and inhabited.

This is one of the best works of fiction I have read in a long time, it feels so real and true, no matter how unreal some events seem, it’s as if the writer is telling the true history of a real town; I totally agree with the people who call Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s style as magical realism, it totally sums up the feeling you get when reading it.

I really recommend this book to everyone who is into a good story well told, that will bring the characters and places alive in your imagination, and give them a life of their own.

If you’re interested in reading this book, you can buy it here.