Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Enjoying London

A big hello to everyone from London…
Yep, you read that right. Right now, I’m sitting in an internet cafe on Praed Street, not too far away from Paddington station. My feet and legs hurt like hell after a long day of walking all over central London.

I’m here for the Global Voices 2005 London Summit. Can’t wait to meet all the members of the team and get to know them all.

This is my first time to London and I’m loving every second of it. This is a great and fascinating city, and I’m truly have a blast taking it all in.
Eman came along with me, and she’s acting as a guide for me, as she’s already been here 3 or 4 times before; although with her feminine sense of direction kicking in, I end up guiding her some of the times 😛

We barely spend any time at the hotel, wanting to see and do as much as possible.

I’m taking loads of photos, so I expect my flickr account to be overloaded once I’m back. A good time I guess for someone to get generous and give me a pro account 😛

I’m sorry if I won’t be blogging as often as before during this week. You’ll hear a lot more from me once I’m back to Tunisia next Sunday.
I’d also like to say sorry to the people who read my SuperStar reviews here for not being able to cover this week’s episode, as I couldn’t see it myself. Hopefully next week we’ll be back to normal.

Thoughts, Here and There…

Sometimes in my everyday life, as I go through certain daily experiences, I get these ideas on how they could be enhanced to make our lives a lot easier and better. Some are good ones, some not so good, but well, here are some…

– Road Bumps: You know those shitty road bumps they put in the middle of the street to force you to slow your car down? Well now they have these signs that they either put in unviewable places, too close to the bump or just forget to put in the first place. A thought I had is that they could embed some sort of RFID transmittor in them so that coming cars could receive the signal and tell the driver to slow down before he gets to it.

– Shopping: I hate shopping and most men do too, but in the end of the day we sometimes have to go out with our wives when they’re shopping. We end up just hanging around the shop, walking all over the place, bored like hell, while our wives try half the clothes in the store. I think shops should try and make shopping a better experience for us too by providing places to sit, magazines, maybe even drinks. That way it’s not such a boring experience for us and we’d be more open to another shopping spree in the near future.

– On Demand TV: Your TV shows, when you want them. I think eventually we’ll be getting there, but why not speed things up a bit. I guess the main problem for TV networks is how do they make money? where do the ads go? what happens to their peak hours?
I guess the peak hours stay the same, it’s just that people choose what to watch in them. So advertisers can still buy ads in peak hours or they can buy ads with certain shows and the viewer sees them accordingly.

– eBooks: I’m not into ebooks. I’ve downloaded hundreds of ebooks online, and I’ve only read one. Why? The experience sucks, my eyes start burning, I have to carry a hot laptop around wherever I go, …etc.
The only thing ebooks are good for now is to search for something and find it directly, which is easier than in a printed book.
Anyway, the only way ebooks will become practical as an everyday reading medium is when good, high-res, ebook handheld reading devices become available at accessible prices.
So, if they’re able to create a $100 laptop, I think some sort of pda, customized for reading ebooks, could go for quite less. That could be interesting.

Love Molecule

Your heartbeat accelerates, you have butterflies in the stomach, you feel euphoric and a bit silly. It’s all part of falling passionately in love — and scientists now say the feeling won’t last more than a year.

The powerful emotions that bowl over new lovers are triggered by a molecule known as nerve growth factor (NGF), according to Pavia University researchers.

The Italian scientists found far higher levels of NGF in the blood of 58 people who had recently fallen madly in love than in that of a group of singles and people in long-term relationships.
But after a year with the same lover, the quantity of the ‘love molecule’ in their blood had fallen to the same level as that of the other groups.

The Italian researchers, publishing their study in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, said it was not clear how falling in love triggers higher levels of NGF, but the molecule clearly has an important role in the “social chemistry” between people at the start of a relationship.

I’m sure a lot of romantics out there will disagree, saying how their love will stand the test of time and last forever and ever, growing stronger and stronger…

I personally think this is both true and false at the same time. Love isn’t a constant unique definable thing, it changes, grows and morphs with time and has a different feeling and taste at every stage.
So it might be true that people don’t feel that same feeling they feel at the beginning of a relationship, but that’s only normal as they’re no longer at its beginning, they’re at a later stage and so they feel something quite different, which is equally beautiful.

Of course that is one nice possibility, the other is that they just wake up one day and stop loving each other 😛

[Source: Reuters]

links for 2005-11-30

Free Ad-supported PC

Free Ad-supported PC

AsiaTotal is offering free computers called IT PCs to the developing world, with a catch: the machines’ keyboards are lined with hotkeys that take their users to sponsors’ retail websites.

It’s a desktop design, and can only run on external power; it uses WindowsCE as its core operating system; it includes a variety of basic utility applications, but users cannot load new programs onto it; it has no hard drive, using instead smart cards to store user data, and a small 7″ flat screen; it has a modem for connecting to the Internet, and possibly an ethernet port (based on a photo on the site), but no wireless connection.

On their website they say: “It has been developed, designed and manufactured to be distributed free in order to enhance the lives of the millions of people in the world who – for economic reasons – are not connected to the Internet. A way to move them out of the digital underclass.”

I think ideas like this one and the $100 laptops are great ones. But I’m not sure that the business model behind this project is such a good one, especially the way they’re looking at it.
If this pc is aimed at people who, for economic reasons, are not connected to the internet, then those same economic reasons are most probably going to stand in the way of them buying anything online from those sponsors too.
Anyway, I guess we’ll just wait and see how it goes.

[Via: BoingBoing, WorldChanging]

Top 10 Things To Do During An Exam

1. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About five minutes into it, loudly say to the instructor, “I don’t understand any of this. I’ve been to every lecture all semester long! What’s the deal? And who are you? Where’s the regular guy?”

2. On the answer sheet (book, whatever) find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.

3. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say “They’ve found me, I have to leave the country” and run off.

4. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 minutes, put on a white mask and start yelling “I’m here, the phantom of the opera” until they drag you away.

5. Every five minutes, stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam.

6. Fifteen minutes into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out “Merry Christmas. “If you’re really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every fifteen minutes.

7. Bring a friend to give you a back massage the entire way through the exam. Insist this person is needed, because you have bad circulation.

8. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming “Andre, Andre, I’ve got the secret documents!!”

9. Make paper airplanes out of the exam. Aim them at the instructor’s left nostril.

10. Bring a Game Boy. Play with the volume at max level.

[Source: 50 Fun Things To Do During An Exam]

links for 2005-11-28

Mr. Miyagi, Pat Morita, Dies

miyagi.jpgActor Pat Morita, best known for helping teach a boy martial-arts mastery through household chores as the wise Mr. Miyagi in hit movie “The Karate Kid,” has died. He was 73.

There were conflicting reports about the cause of death. His daughter Aly Morita said he died Thursday of heart failure at a Las Vegas hospital; longtime manager Arnold Soloway said the actor died of kidney failure at a hospital while awaiting a transplant.

His role in the 1984 film defined his career. As Kesuke Miyagi, the mentor to Ralph Macchio’s “Daniel-san,” he taught karate while trying to catch flies with chopsticks and offering such advice as “wax on, wax off” to help Daniel improve his karate hand movements while doing his chores.

Karate Kid was one of my favourite movies growing up; I loved it and watched it over and over again. Mr. Miyagi was such an important character in the movie and to me too. Pat Morita brought so much charisma to the character and was so loveable in the role.
It makes me sad to hear about his death. It somehow feels like I lost an old friend.

[Source: ABC News]

Ten Tips For Effective Activism

These are ten useful tips for effective activisim no matter what the issue is; Health, peace, environment, anti-poverty…etc.

1. Know What You Want
2. Know Who To Ask
3. Know What You’re Talking About
4. Be Polite, Personal, Thoughtful, and Rational
5. Pick a Method of Communication that Works for You and Your Message
6. Know When to Ask
7. Don’t Underestimate the Value of Staff
8. Follow Up
9. Understand the Limitations of the System
10. Have fun!

[Details: SpeakOut]

Arabic Language Discovery Channel

An Arabic language “Discovery” channel will be launched soon according to Kuwait’s information minister, Anas Al-Rasheed, who announced the news in London this week while attending a conference about “Extremism and Terrorism”.

The objective of the channel, according to the minister, is to increase the Arabic public’s awareness and interest in science and culture in an effort to naturalize media outlets that support or incite extremism.

The announcement came during a panel discussion on the third day of the conference, which debated incitement in the “media” with regard to terrorism.

I agree that media play a big role in shaping the thoughts of the people and in making them more open to, or against, the ideas of extremism and terrorism.
Anyway I don’t see how Discovery Channel will solve the problem.
Ok it’s got all these cool programs that will raise scientific and cultural awareness for the people who will watch it, as well as do some minor brainwashing, but then they switch to a channel that is pushing destructive ideas at them and we’re back at zero.

I think this is a good idea for its own reasons, and maybe as an option to pull people away a bit from other channels, but it’s no big breakthrough solution.
The solution lies in a lot of different places that have to be touched upon simultaneously.

[Source: Asharq Alawsat]
[Via: Saudi Jeans]