People love hyped-up controversies, show downs, epic battles, clashes of titans (but not the movie :-p). In today’s world with thousands upon thousands of blogs, it seems that those with the most explosive titles win. So, people often do not hesitate to manufacture show downs where none exist.

Nowadays you can’t open any news reader without being bombarded with iPad vs Kindle comparisons. True, it would seem to be that these two devices are targeting an overlapping market segment. But i do not think there is a show down. The real money maker in the e-books market (where the said show down is located) is in book sales and distribution. Ultimately, that is the real money maker for outlet stores like Amazon and Apple Bookstore (/iTunes/iBooks/whatever it’s called).

But if Amazon can release a Kindle application for the iPad, as it already has for the iPhone, then where is the beef? Those who are loyal to Amazon will still drift to Amazon and those who are not will go to Apple’s distribution center. Now, the real show down is perhaps not in the physical device itself but in the deals with publishing houses. Amazon and iBooks have different business models and might be courting different exclusive publishing deals. That is far more important than what device you use to read those e-Books, because it will ultimately determine where is the content available and for how much.

Just my thoughts on this topic that has been clobbering my Google News reader for months now.

…. Or, Re: Mhd Badi Latest Mac Post.

Apple fanboys are annoying. This is a mouthful to say for a guy who really hates generalizing. Yes, I hate generalization and I hate blind prejudice, but I’ll talk about that in a later post.

This ranting post was triggered by Mohammad Badi‘s recent post, however it is directed at all Apple fanboys (and girls). I don’t mean to pick on Mohammad, he is a really nice guy and I enjoy his blog (he actually did say that an OS is a matter of personal choice, and I agree with him).

For the record, I have used Windows, Mac, and Linux. Right now, I use Linux. More specifically, I use openSuSE Linux and I have been using it as my main OS for the past 4.5 years. Also, to be more upfront about this, I am a computer science graduate student. That means that I write code and documents by profession. Before anybody accuses me of such, I am not a hacker. Repeat: I am not a hacker. Not by a long shot. I have not written kernel code and I do not plan to do that anytime in the near future (unless my advisor forces me to ). However, I am a power user. That is, I like (and prefer) to use the command line shell, I automate many things, I mess with and write configuration files, and I have repeatedly messed with drivers and configs to crash (and sometimes even recover) my machine. I also like nice aesthetics . I like my operating system to look good. Actually, I initially only switched to Linux because it looks good. I use a persona on my firefox, and a theme on my Google chrome.

Again, I am replying to Badi’s post here, but I think this applies in general.

Alright, done with the prelude. Onto the main event:

Mohammad,

Almost every time I open your blog you have a different theme. It has gotten to the point that today I opened your blog to find a theme different than yesterday’s, then when I left a comment the theme changed again! Pick a theme man! Every time I come to your blog I have to check if I am at the right site because it looks different. And these are not small or subtle changes, when you change theme you change big! All the power to you, I like change, it’s the spice of life. But everything within limits, create a distinct look for your blog that let’s people recognize it. However, for the record, I admire your passion for customization.

What does your blog theme have to do with Mac? For a man who really likes to continuously customize his theme, isn’t it a bit odd that you so madly love an operating system that does not even let you customize it beyond what saint Jobs has decreed? Tell me, how many options do you have for changing the windows decoration (title bar and such) in Mac? two? Even crummy old Win95 allowed you to choose any colors you want. What about that menu bar at the top, can you remove it? How many coloring options do you have for that? two? three? Praise Jebus! (and here).

You said that Windows is not that powerful. Excuse me, was there something you wanted to do there that it didn’t allow you to? Have you encountered the elusive “oops, that is beyond my power” error message? I already know what you are going to say next: freezes, crashes, bsod, blah blah blah. Here is the truth. Windows does crash (more specifically, the versions of Windows that i tried do crash). But more than 90% of the time it is not because of Windows but because of faulty (nay, shitty) drivers. Here is the thing, Windows runs on other people’s machines. Each of these machines will use a different set of drivers. Microsoft says, ok, if you want to run Windows on your machine, you should write a driver that tells Windows how to use your proprietary hardware. People write these drivers, but don’t write them well, and that causes the machine to crash. But why can a driver crash the machine? Easy! Because they have to run in kernel mode, so they can do pretty much whatever they want. Apple on the other hand controls everything. They sell you the machine and the software running on it. Thus they have a limited number of hardware vendors and drivers to deal with. As you can see, this allows them to centrally reject shitty drivers. Each approach has its advantages, but I personally prefer openness because I believe in choice & competition.

I don’t deny that Apple makes fine products. No doubt about that. They pay attention to details and the hardware is generally of great quality. But it is important here to distinguish between software and hardware. It is also important to distinguish between the Operating System, the hardware, and the rest of the software application stack that runs on your computer.

You say that Linux’s design is poor. I assume you are talking about the graphical aspects right? If so I challenge you to see one of the well polished distros. Check out KDE on openSuSE or Gnome one LinuxMint. Here is one the main things I love about Linux: It gives me choice. If I wake up today feeling like using KDE, I do that. If I feel like Gnome, that’s fine. If I want to geek-it-out and use Fluxbox or Rat-poison, that’s fine too. Not only that, but I love that it is highly customizable. It tries as much as it can to fit you rather than the other way around. In Linux there are a million ways to do anything. In Mac OS or Windows there is only one way. Their way or the high way. For example, on my machine I have at least 3 file managers. I use which ever I feel like. I can customize my system just the way I like it. I can have as many (or as little) panels floating on my desktop as I want. I can have my kickoff menu be where ever I want it to be. On my desktop I can show the files of any folder that I want, or any combination of folders (not just the files from the “Desktop” folder). On my Linux machine I can customize any shortcut for anything I want and I do mean anything. I bet when you switched to Mac you had to learn their shortcuts for doing things, right? For example, AFAIK, you have to use a different shortcut to switch between windows of different applications than that for the same application. What if I want a shortcut to maximize a window vertically only? or horizontally only? or move a window to a certain area with just key press? Can i do that? While we’re at it, If i want to truly customize my Mac and get rid of the menu bar on top, can i do that?  No!

Notice that all my examples above were only about superficial user interface issues. At the core, I think all three OSes are superb. However, here is the point Mohammad, I think machines have to adapt to us, and not us adapting to machines. I feel Linux has that mentality. The default settings in Linux are merely a suggestion, but everybody customizes it the way they want. That is why people race to post screenshots of their Linux desktops, and that is why you have so many linux distributions.

In this rant I have defended Microsoft, praised Apple, and explained why I love and use Linux. Personally, I think all 3 of these operating systems are fine, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. After all, (and this is something that I totally agree with you on), this is a matter of personal choice. You think Mac is superior, I respectfully disagree and think that Linux is a better option.

Update: Just to drive home the point that Linux has nice GUI, check out this video introducing KDE 4.3 (a Linux desktop environment):

Computer simulation and modeling are amazing disciplines. They are used all over the place. Examples include predicting weather (weather models & earth simulations), testing engineering designs (simulating the design and operations), simulating physical phenomena (testing physical, chemical, and biological models before running experiments), and simulating networks to test things such as computer networks or even human networks to study the spread of  diseases (e.g. how will a new flu outbreak spread through the world). In short, simulation is awesome.

So here is the thing, I argue that if you build a big enough model, a big enough computer, and a good enough simulator, you can probably simulate the universe in its entirety. I think this is possible because I currently think that there is no fundamental random process in the universe (i.e. if you can account for everything, you can predict anything). Actually, there is still argument amongst physicists of whether properties in quantum mechanics appear random because of unknown hidden variables (i.e. randomness does not exist) or because there exists something that is fundamentally random in the universe. .. but let’s skip this for now.

Anyway, let’s get to the cool part.

Imagine that we can build a *huge* simulator that can account for everything and predict (read: compute) anything.  This simulator would be able to replay everything from the moment of the big bang, to the formation of Earth, to the rise of human beings, to the conversations you have with your friends, to me typing this post now. Surely this is an amazing simulator.

Now imagine that you have access to this simulator. Not only that, but being the curious person you are, you use it to fast-forward and play events in the future. So the simulator will tell you what events will happen in the future. So you look at the simulator and it will tell you what I will eat tomorrow, what will life look like in the future, where will your children, .. everything. It will tell you everything. Again, this is an awesome possum simulator.

Now the mind-bending part.

If you look at that simulator to see you future, will your future moves happen because you want to do them or because the simulator told you to do them? For example, if the simulator told me to eat pizza tomorrow, will I eat pizza tomorrow because I want to, or because the simulator told me to? Remember, I can’t trick that program because it would have already accounted for me trying to trick it. So the minute you look at your future you don’t know whether you would have acted that way because you wanted to or because the program told you to.

For example, assume you have been a good person all your life, but the simulator told you that you will become a thief. Would that happen because you would have “naturally” became a thief, or because the simulator told you so?

Luckily (and unfortunately) it currently doesn’t look like we can ever build such a simulator because it has to also account for itself as part of the universe, so it has to be as big as itself plus the universe in which it resides (you see the problem).

For the computer scientists in the crowd, would such a simulator be able to solve the halting problem?

Human life is sacred. I think we all agree on that. So certainly one is saddened at any one’s death. But still, one can’t help but wonder. Usually the way something is conveyed is at least as important what is being conveyed.

Today an attacker in Tel-Aviv opened fire at a club for gay teen Isralis killing at least two people and wounding many. In the AP video report, the police chief says that he doesn’t know if the attack was carried out by a gunman or a terrorist but the evidence leans more towards it being a gunman. What is the difference you say  ? If the event is the same and the victims are the same and the attacker is the same, how can the event be a terrorist attack or a just an act of a gunman.  You would think that it all has to do with a motive. An gunman has his lone sick mentality that caused him to commit his act, while a terrorist does his act insited by other people and in order to strike fear in the general population.

True. But, not always. In Israel any Arab attacker is a terrorist, and any Jewish attacker is a gunman. Regardless of the motive. Yes, I have proof. Remember a few months back, a 19 year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem proposed to his lover and she rejected him, while he was driving back his car got off the road and veered towards some pedistrians, one of the pedistrians immediately shot the driver dead without attempting to do anything else. The Israeli police said that the boy was carrying a terrorist attack, while his family says that he probably just lost control of the car since that boy had no political interest or affiliation. What was interesting in that piece is that the boy was immediately judged to be a terrorist by the Israelis (and thus his family’s home had to be demolished) without any minute of investigation into his background. Simply the fact that he was Arab!

So yes. The words by which you convey an event are often just as important as the event itself.

God! I hate people who display a “big effort” while they are eating or chewing. I hate it when some people chew gum with open mouths or loudly. It is so freaking annoying! I hate it when people breathe heavily or make “internal grunting sounds” that you would associate with hard physical labour or terrible illness yet they have done nothing and are totally fine! And I specially hate it when the person right next to me does that for half an hour straight!

Pfft!

I am almost halfway through my summer internship in this new town. One thing that I am glad about is that there is an Arabic/Middle-Eastern street in town with a bunch of Arabic shops, turkish restaurants, and some coffee-shops, something I deeply miss in my collegetown.

I’ve been diligent to eat my fair share (and a bit more) of falafel, shawirma, kifta, and your other normal Arabic restaurant food. Perhaps I am preparing for the upcoming drought I’ll experience when the internship ends and I’m back at my small isolated campus.

Today after going to the gym (yes I am surprised too) I went for my daily dose of falafel at a nice Turkish restaurant. On my way back I noticed a cafe called “rotana” with the smell of m3assel spilling out of the door seams. I immediately thought “trix & tarneeb”, something I haven’t had properly for almost two years now.

I walked inside and the owner recognized I was new. He insisted to treat me to a cup of tea even though it was late and mentioned I had to leave. Typical Arab . We were 3 Arab men; sitting in an Arabic coffee-shop with argeeleh, tea, cocktails, and cards served, a tv stood in the corner and nobody was lokng at it. The talk undoubtedly turned into politics even though we just met. Ahh how I missed hanging out with the guys in the 2ahawee. I haven’t had the chance to play tarneeb yet, there was no fourth! But I am happy, maybe because it reminds me of back home.

At first she was cute and fun to hang around with. Then as i got to know her i realized that woman had only two modes: off and crazy. The latter was more prominent than the former. I have had enough. My problem is that i can’t just switch off, i tend to overthink it. I hate to impose, so i keep my thoughts to myself, and just try to understand why would a person behave in her way.

But now i’ve decided. Enough is enough. I must disengage. Let the demons clear out of my head. Let me sleep the night again.

… each of us is insignificant, but we are all important.

-OR-

… we are all insignificant.

.. and not a moment too soon. I am finally starting to see a few trees blooming. Vivid colors here and there. More moderate temperatures. And frisbees being thrown around. … Ahhh i love spring!

ماذا سيحدث إذا أخذت مجموعة من الناس وبنيت لهم منازل إسكان ممتازة في منطقة نائية وليست ضمن مدينة مكتملة. وقدمت لهم هذه المنازل مجاناً بشرط أنهم لا يستطيعون أن يبيعوا تلك المنازل وعليهم أن يسكنوا فيها. بالتأكيد هؤلاء السكان سيحتاجون لخدمات تمكنهم من الحياة. سيحتاجون إلى خبز ومواد غذائية وإستهلاكية، وسيحتاجون إلى خدمات إجتماعية كمدارس ومشافي لأطفالهم وغيرها من مرافق الحياة المختلفة. هذا سيحفز مجموعة أخرى من الناس إلى الإنتقال إلى تلك المنطقة لتوفير هذه الخدمات، وهؤلاء القادمين الجدد سيزيدون من الطلب على بعض الخدمات (مدارس أكثر ومحلات تجارية أكثر) وهذا سيحفز المزيد من الناس على الإنتقال والعمل هناك. .. يمكن أن يستمر الأمر على هذا الموال وقبل أن تدري، ستكون قد وفرت عملاً لمجموعة كبيرة من العاطلين على العمل وخففت الضغط السكاني في المدن الكبرى. وربما أهم من ذلك، ممكن أن يؤدي هذا إلى تحريك الإقتصاد قليلاً والتحسين من مستوى حياة شريحة من الناس (الناس التي كانت الفرصة المتاحة لهم في المدينة الجديدة أفضل مما كان لديهم في المدينة القديمة).

أمن الممكن لمثل هذه الفكرة أن تنجح ؟

Indeed. You don’t need magic to do most of the things that you want to do. All you need is time (which is given to all) and a smart way to use it. Honestly, there are few people that i know that really use their time well, and they can really do all that they want. I wish i can be like that. I really wish i can be better at time management. It could flip my life upside down.

Really, if you think about it, time is the only thing that you can never get back. Once it is spent it is spent. There is no magic undo button (although i often wish there was). By managing your time correctly you can control the only resource that doesn’t wait for you.

I really suck at time management.

I don’t get it. It is not a revolutionary technology, it is not a revolutionary concept, so why is there so much talk in the media about Twitter lately ? I understand YouTube’s success, it made sharing videos genuinely easier. I understand the blogging boom, it allowed people to publish articles periodically freely and without much effort. The social network bubble makes less sense, but it is still understandable, it connected friends (although people were able to do that before). However, why in the world is there so much hype about Twitter ? It’s not like it would allow anyone to really share ideas or thoughts with other people. I understand it could be useful in some situations to update your friend about your status, but every social networking site does that. So why is there so much fuss about Twitter ?

Honestly, this is very puzzling. And it is not like it happened gradually. No, Twitter was actually sort of considered like most non-revolutionary web startups, occasionally mentioned but not too much. Then all of a sudden you can’t escape it. Everybody on TV is talking about it. It is mentioned in TV shows, talk shows, and even news programs. And it hasn’t been mentioned casually as “hey, there is something called Twiiter” .. no .. it is repeatedly mentioned on TV as if it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Every news reporter in almost every single news hour mentions twitter (“hey i’ve been twittering ..etc”) … this is just too much.

I don’t think this is natural growth of a technology, specially that Twitter hasn’t been making any money yet. What i honestly think has happened is that the investors in Twitter have probably paid several TV shows and personalities to start talking about Twitter constantly so that it becomes hype du jour and raise its value in preparation to sell it to some company.

Don’t get me wrong, i think there is some benefit to Twitter (and it is starting to be utilized correctly by some networks to interact with their audiences easily). However, i really don’t see the big deal about it. And it really feels sleazy that we are being bombarded about Twitter as if it is the next thing since sliced bread. The reason i am convinced that they must have paid these people to talk about it is because it never happens that politicians, celebrities, and news programs start adopting a relatively technology relatively all at once without some financial incentive.

I have come to the belief that i operate in a sinusoidal pattern of eagerness and laziness. I am now in my laziness period of this sine curve and boy does it suck. I hate the feeling of having to do something but not wanting to do anything. I hate sitting there like a waste of air and space contributing nothing to nothing. But alas this mental recession is almost over. I can feel days of more energy coming up ahead; or so i hope.

Note: Just to let you know how lazy i am getting, i thought about writing more in this post, but i am too lazy to do so.

It turns out i am still alive . This has been such a hectic period full of deadlines, assignments, teaching, presentations, projects, and finally some sickness. I have been peering on QP every now and then, but not as much as i should/(would like to).

Ahh, so what’s new ? we got a series of really cold days that really made me look forward to spring time. Luckily, it hasn’t snowed much, and whatever few traces of sunshine we get were sufficient to melt most of the snow off the ground which is good.

I have been contemplating building a web service to track what are my favorite bloggers up to (besides their posts), but whenever i get excited about it i start thinking that nobody else would find it useful so i continue to put it on hold (probably i might never get around to actually doing it ).

It seems that Hani Obaid has either gone offline or started to blog anonymously. I was saddened to see that because i used to enjoy his insightful comments on things (although i wasn’t a fan of his last move requiring people to sign in to be able to comment on his articles). Tooteh seems to have blocked her site, i hope no body has been bothering her. Garfan has changed his theme and somehow now i can’t comment on his blog. Finally, Nizar has been breaking into these intense theological discussions with everyone else (which i frankly don’t see the point behind). I could extrapolate this and say that QP is disintegrating without me, but i know that people are just fine and i’m not that important .

What else, what else … Ahh … i cooked Bamyeh a few weeks back which turned out to be superb . Funny enough, when i googled for some recipes online, Qwaider’s page come up among the top results. I found it amusing that his page and other recipe sites all used feminine narrative in their writing. I understand why would that be the case, however to be honest i felt it was a bit sexist. Yet still .. i guess you are bound to have this problem if you are dealing with a language in which everything is either masculine or feminine. I don’t read French, but i wonder how are these things written in French.

Oh .. this was pretty amazing … our college campus has been mostly dormant about the events in Gaza .. until suddenly one of the Islamic student groups surprised everyone with a huge, symbolic, and very civilized display to remind everyone with the human cost (on both sides) of the latest round of violence. This must have caught the pro-Israeli groups off guard because they started acting immaturely and started attacking and vandalizing the display. It was so refreshing to see the It was really refreshing to see the Muslim and Arab groups acting in a very organized and civilized way for once.

Finally, as my last update, .. i am currently under the belief that there is nothing random in life and you can explain and simulate everything (more about it here)… this has changed my outlook on life .. i think i have become much more mellow since then .. i don’t know if this is good or bad.

P.S. i didn’t take a second look on this post .. i am just finishing the writing now and will press publish immediately … so i guess i am sorry about the nonsensical writing.

I found this to be one of the best lines of Obama’s inauguration speech. I found it very applicable to our situation in the Arab world.

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

It seems that we often forget that our shortcomings are of our own doing. We all have an obligation to build our own countries and enhance our lives and the lives of all their citizens. Instead of blaming all our downfalls on others, we have to take building a bright future for ourselves into our own hands. Instead of giving up, we have to take it upon ourselves to create opportunities in our homelands were they are missing.

Other than that, i really liked the gesture shown by Obama by directly mentioning the Muslim world and how there are common interests between the Muslim world and America, and how that both can work at them in a civilized and peaceful way. Hopefully his administration will be much better than its predecessor in dealing with the Middle East and the Arab & Muslim worlds in general.

[full transcripts of Obama's inaugural speech here]

We often account for randomness or variance in our life whether we are aware of it or not. For example one might describe any of these events as random: will you wake up happy and in a good mood tomorrow? how will a piece of fruit taste when you eat it? if you flip a coin will it come up heads or tails? will you bump into somebody you know on the street today? what will your favorite blogger blog about next? and when? …etc. However randomness is not only used to talk about the future, it is also used to explain the past. For example, evolutionary steps have been explained in terms of random genetic mutations that were deemed beneficiary for survival.

We all incorporate randomness into our thinking. May be it is our way of saying “this is too complex to calculate, let’s assume it could be anything”. However, does randomness really exist ? Is there such a thing as a truly random event ? This question can be expanded into the more profound “is there any uncertainty in the future ? can we predict the future accurately ?”. Certainly, if there is no randomness in life then predicting the future is possible. Otherwise it is not because a small random event can trigger a chain of bigger events; which in Chaos theory is known as the Butterfly Effect.

So the question is, can we model things in life accurately ? For example, my outlook on life is influenced by my parents behaviors, my teachers at school, my classmates, the people i meet in the street, what i see on tv, what i read on the Internet, and how i have behaved in the past …etc. So if we built a model to include all of this, will it predict what i will do in the future ?

Let us expand this a bit. You may be feeling happy right now. You are feeling happy because the events of this day from the moment you woke up until now have resulted in you feeling happy. Actually, you are feeling happy because the events from the day you were born have resulted in you being happy at this moment. Actually, you are feeling happy because the events from the moment the universe was created have resulted in you feeling happy at this moment. This is similar for what you will feel next, eat next, think next ..etc. Think of it this way, what you wore today, and what you will have for lunch are the results of everything that ever happened in the universe up until the moment you woke up !!

If we built a model to encompass everything in existence; If we modeled everything at the sub-atomic level and up, on earth and in space, will it justify what happened in the past and what will happen in the future ? Will it model how people feel and think ? Will it model how your ancestors looked and how will your children look ? Will it model what will you do next ? what will you eat for lunch ? and how you will feel about it ? Will it model whether a coin flip will result in heads or tails ? will it predict whether you will ever come across this article ? whether you will read or not ? and at what point will you stop reading ?

The big bang theory proclaims that the universe came into existence from a point of singularity. Before the bang there was nothing. Absolute nothing. After the big bang, things started coming to existence. Not only tangible things such as planets, stars, and galaxies; but also things such as light, gravitational force, and electro-magnetic force ..etc. If you were able to model everything from that point of ‘bang’ until now, wouldn’t you know everything that ever happened in life, and everything that will ever happen ?

From a control theory point of view, life has been a feedback-based system with no external input. As far as we know, nothing after the big bang has been a result of external input from something outside the universe. This means that we can conceptually build a mathematical model to correctly simulate what happened from the point of big bang up to today and even further into the future. Isn’t that amazing ?!! You may find it trivial, but i found it truly profound.

This means that whatever you thought and did in the past, and whatever you will think and do in the future is all accounted for. I have previously struggled with understanding the principle of qada2 and qadar (القضاء والقدر) .. after all, how can you be self-determined and still have your fate and actions predicted. Now my understanding is that all of our lives are a result of a mathematical system that controlled everything from the point of inception. We may still choose to do whatever we want, but that model already accounts for what we think and how we choose and will thus choose the same thing as we did.

All of mankind’s forays into science are just uncovering small aspects of this big model that combines all of us. At this point, i don’t believe that there is anything truly random, i.e. there is nothing that given the same exact circumstances could be executed twice and result in different outcomes. I am starting to believe that whatever we assume is random is really predictable given enough time and computing resources. However, maybe i am thinking about it in the wrong way, and maybe i have been doing too much work simulating networks than i am starting to think everything can be simulated.

Anyway, here is a brain dump for you. You might have found it extremely trivial and well known. But to me it came as a profound and pleasant surprise. In any case, the next time you put on a sweater, know that the actions of the entire universe have resulted in you wearing that sweater in that day.

By now it is semi-confirmed that Hillary Clinton will be appointed to the Secretary of State position in the upcoming Obama administration in the USA. The secretary of state (foreign minister) is the face of the USA’s foreign policy and helps shape major international events. We can all recall Colin Powell in front of the UN with a white tube trying to make the case for the Iraqi war, and Condoleezza Rice’s trips to the Middle East in the Bush administrations’ final (almost weak) efforts to push for some progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict. For this reason i have been anxiously anticipating the appointment of secretary of state for the upcoming administration to see if there is any hope of pushing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward.

I am uncomfortable with the picking Clinton for this position. She does not strike me as a moderate or neutral democrate on the issues regarding the Middle East. She is a staunch supporter of Israel, and did not advocate for a diplomatic resolution ot the Iranian situation during her presidential bid. Although it was almost unrealistic to expect a secretary of state (or even an administration) that is nuetral regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, i was hoping that the next secretary of state would be less “in the bag” for Israel.

Yes yes yes, it was very clear during the campaign that whatever the outcome of this past election, the US’s position will not be anything less of “we are 110% with Israel”. But i was still hoping that this new administration will at least be more peaceful and really try to work harder to push the peace process forward.

I still say we should not judge the book by its cover. Let’s wait and see what this new administration does. I still hope things will be different in the upcoming 4 years.

*** Update: The Washington Post has an excellent editorial article about this here ***

Chances are that you have heard, read, or watched something about the current American presidential campaign. Of course, the candidates are pandering to the public and promising to work on many of America’s pressing issues. The current economic and health crises are focusing most of the talking points on domestic issues –such as taxes, health plans, economy, energy, reform ..etc– with the occasional mention of foreign policy.

Yet, unsurprisingly, Israel was mentioned in every single presidential debate, in the vice presidential debate, in most of the rally speeches, and in most of the interviews. It is almost a domestic issue.The candidates agree on this one: Israel is America’s closest ally in the Middle East; America will always have unwavering support of Israel; America will ensure Israel’s security ..etc. Sarah Palin repeated three times in one of her interviews that “[the USA] should never second guess Israel” [video here]. Heck, even Joe the Plumber is stumping for Israel expressing his worries if Obama becomes the president. Really ? It made its way to the speech of Joe the Plumber ?!!

But don’t be discouraged my friends. Today the Palestinians got their first mention in this campaign since the AIPAC speeches in the democratic primaries. Nonetheless, it came as a form of an attack from the Good Ol’ Party. Woooo, Obama has ties to the “radical Palestinian” Rashid Khalidi.

I haven’t heard of Khalidi before today. But from what i could gather online about him, he is an American born in New York of Palestinian decent. He studied at Yale and Oxford universities, and he is a professor and the current director of the Middle East Institute at the prestigious Columbia University. He is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Palestine-Israel Journal, and frequently publishes scholarly articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The “controversy” about him in the American medium stems from him sometimes criticizing the actions of Israel and expressing differing views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the difficulties in realizing the two-state solution. Now he is being (apparently falsely) tied to the PLO and then to Obama! This thing came to light because of an LA Times newspaper article saying that there exists a tape of Obama in a dinner which Khalidi attended, but the paper refuses to release that tape because it would violate source confidentiality or whatever. What grabbed my attention is this response quote from McCain:

“I Guarantee you, if there was a tape with me and Sarah Palin and some Neo-Nazi or one of those you think that tape would be made public ?”

So let me get this straight, criticizing some of Israel’s actions or having differing views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the acceptable American-Israeli view is now equatable with neo-Nazism !!!

Cheer up American-Palestinians and Palestinians around the world, here is your first mention in the American presidential campaign. You have become an attack piece that Palin will probably go touting around. And remember please, don’t you ever dare to criticize any action of Israel or show anything but complete support of Israel’s view of the conflict, or else, you will be a neo-Nazi!

Anyway, to show you how information technology is being used in this campaign, I did some Googling to learn about this Khalidi character, and i saw this ad:

(try this yourself)

To know why this ad is important, check out the trend of people searching for Khalidi and notice the recent spike:

So … yeah … we finally got a mention in this race .. yaay!!

It was William Shakespeare who wondered What’s in a name ? I don’t think i ever gave much importance to which name people called me with. Be it my real name or a catchy nick; if you called upon me, i would respond and be quick. But it was an early September, as far as i remember, that i left my home country some five years back. I came here to learn, in a small community college my path began. I was young and with no skill, but i still had to pay the bill. I worked at McDonald’s, BK, gas stations, and as a tech consultant too.

There I saw Arabs with many a background, whom to their names were no longer bound: Mohammed became Moe, Hosam became Sam, and he was called Al instead of A’laa’. My name was too Arab i was told. My tags were always printed with a shortened americanized version of my name. “We don’t want to scare people off, or else our goods will never be sold”

Then it started to annoy me, when will i be called by my name. My real name. Two years later, i learned, grew older, and to a big diverse university i set my path. People were more than happy to pronounce my name. Two semesters later, i had my first internship at a big reputable company. Across my desk, there stood a tag, it had my full name with the Abu’s and the Al-s. That was the end, and i never looked back. My name was my name, and i had it back.

So what’s in a name ? I’ll let you answer that.

P.S.: Ok, i have to confess .. i watched V for Vendetta (clip here) last night, and some parts were rhyming in my head. Obviously that turned out to be horrible .. sorry about that.

Ahh .. finally! My first big research project is done! The last period was mostly occupied by it. Ramadan came and went, Eid came and went, and now it is finally over. I was telling my friends how i spent 20 hours of my eid day in the office working on this, the other 4 were spent sleeping. I’m glad that is over with. During my testing we accidentally broke 3 testbeds with hundreds of computers in the East, Midwest, and Western parts of the United States (luckily they are all back up now). .. hey, you gotta break things to learn things

Perhaps this took so much of my time and focus because it was my first attempt to submit work to a major technical conference. Whether it’ll get accepted or not is still unknown .. but we did our part.

Today and tomorrow i’ll relax a little bit. Then i have to start catching up on the things that i missed during this period.

Anyway, it really feels like i am getting “back to life” now Ahh .. i need to shave and get groomed up a bit .. i am starting to look like a caveman

See you around.

I guess i have been silent for a while. It is not like I have nothing to say, but none of the bits and pieces in mind grew enough to constitute a legitimate post. Finally, i decided to lump them all together and dump them in one post.

I was chatting with one Jar of Juice the other day discussing the status and needs of our corner of the blogosphere. We concluded that there is too much chaos and anarchy and that the true voice of singlehood has been muffled by the recent wave of “lovey dovey” romanticism. Following the example of Barney Stinson‘s Bro Code, and to deliver the final verdict on the dealings of bloggers on the internets, we started drafting the rules of the Bloggers’ Bro Code.

• Rule #1: All Bro Bloggers are inherently cooler than “Bloggerettes”.
• Rule #2: Only a few cool Bloggerettes are considered cool and have been given honorary Bro status.
• Rule #120: The use of the lbs, inches, feet, and miles (or other English Units) is illegal and might strip you of your Bro title. Only Metric and SI units are acceptable.
• Rule #150: Wara2 Dawali is cool. Wara2 Malfoof is just as cool as well. (amendment motioned by Hani)
• Rule #151: Any Bro cooking wara2 dawali must notify at least three other Bros in his vicinity at least 24 hours in advance to give them a chance to come mooch off of him.
• Rule #152: If a Bro is invited for some wara2 dawali, he can bring with him another bro blogger; The approval of the host is irrelevant and not required.
• Rule #170: A few things in life are awesome. Wara2 Dawali & Wara2 Malfoof are Awesome!
• Rule #200: Bro bloggers are single by nature. Romantic posts are permitted at a maximum rate of one post per month.
• Rule #217: When referring to your spouse on your blog, the following terms are prohibited: sweety, honey, 3omri, 7ayaty, 7abeeb albi. The only acceptable reference is: “to2borni wliy 3ala amti shu rijjaaaal eben 3ammi”. Update: the term “husbandy” is prohibited as well. (amendment motioned by Hani)
• Rule #230: l33t is dead. You are not a haxor. And Bro Bloggers with aliases of the type: xtra_kool, hot_ice ..etc will be stripped of their Brohood.
• Rule #250: Blogs with more than 3 shades of pink are not cool.
• Rule #251: Blogs that use the orange color correctly are cool.
• Rule #255: Each Bro Blogger can have at most one imaginary friend. Imaginary characters are not entitled to their own imaginary friends.

I can not explain the logic of guys like this (you should at least read the title). Their complete and utter stupidity is beyond comprehension, and they really do give faith and the rest of us a bad name.

Last week before Ramadan, my advisor invited our group to his lake house for some barbecue and fun; and it was alot of fun! It was a beautiful sunny day, we had some good food, and nice chats. The lake was warm and calm. I was encouraged to try kayaking, and i did. It was my first time, and it was AMAZING! Ahh .. it is so great to have a nice boss/advisor.

The view from his lake house.

Maybe it is my Palestinian & Arab genes; but i am addicted to news and politics. So naturally over the past weeks i followed the developments in Russia/Georgia, and the American Democratic and Republican conventions. It became clear to me that facts don’t matter quite alot. At some level, i knew this already, but the idealist in me tried to deny it. I have always tried to convince my self that substance rather than presentation is what matters most. Not true!

You can get away with the most ridiculous statement ever if you present it correctly. Sometimes you don’t even have to even present it elegantly. All you have to do is just repeat it over and over and it becomes fact. Isn’t it amazing ?! You can promote propaganda to facts just like that !!

The most recent events in American politics give you all the examples you need. I do not have deep favoring for one party over the other. All i really want is somebody to push the Middle East Peace Process forward. Currently it seems that Obama is more likely to do that than McCain. It has been interesting to see the Republicans attack Obama on experience and then have to justify picking Palin as the VP candidate. All of a sudden this unknown person is being promoted as the champion of the common man. Her words and speeches say one thing, and her record says another. Yet the Republican pundits are sitting on TV shows distorting the truth very severely. I guess the Democrats might do the same thing. But the extent to which it is being done by the Republican party is just ridiculous. How dumb do they think people are ? Anyway, this satirical segment sums it up pretty nicely.

So Google introduced this new browser, and the world is buzzing. Part of this buzz is that which surrounds every Google product release. The part of this world-wide buzz is because this is one of the company’s few ventures to the world of the desktops, and this product could develop into something more serious. The company that is known for making web applications wants to provide a solid platform for its applications to run on.

I didn’t see a huge technological breakthrough in Google’s browser. They use the WebKit rendering engine which is supposed to be good. I really liked the idea of encapsulating each tab in a separate process. However, this is not totally new, and has been introduced a couple of years ago by some researchers at the University of Washington. I haven’t played much with this since it is for Windows only at this time. But i sure will try it when it is made available for Linux.

I am not sure whether this will trigger a new browser war or not. After all, Firefox 3.1 is on its way and it is claiming an even faster rendering engine and a very very fast JavaScript interpreter. All three major rendering engines (Trident, Gecko, and WebKit) are sticking more and more to standards.

Regardless of what will happen. This sure is a good boost for web application development. We sure are at the beginning of a new phase of web applications. My hunch it is all about interactivity, performance, and storing application data on the client browser side.

As i am surfing YouTube for some videos, i come across the following entry discussing the behavior of US media when former US president Carter said that Israel has nuclear weapons (Fox News’ reaction made me laugh ). The commentator in this video is a very calm Indian journalist; While discussing the history of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, he mentions that there have been many proposals that were pushed to the UN Security Council to make the Middle East a zone free of nuclear weapons (in ’74 by Iran, ’85 by Egypt, ’89 by Syria, and ’03 by Syria).

This is weird. If the United States and other nations are worried about the volatility of the region, why don’t they approve such proposals ? After all, the US and other nations can come to the rescue if any country breaks that agreement. Well, i am not that naive, i know the reason. But, how can people in the US or UK live with such contradiction ? If their countries are truly committed to stabilizing that region, why don’t they push for such resolutions ?

Anyway, here is an article about an even more recent push for such treaty.

It is perplexing to me that the US and other countries can continuously claim rightousness and moral superiority publicly then do a ton of dirty work under the hood without the majority of the public turning against them.

Scientists have created material which could cover objects and render them invisible. They have been able to cloak two-dimensional objects before, but now they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects for the first time, bringing them one step closer to actual, working, invisibility cloths. (Read more about it here).

I like how the article tries to dilute the objective of such discovery by saying:

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, *including military ones*.

I can hardly imagine any uses for such technology except for military ones. Sure, i guess companies could use them to hide ugly fixtures in residential areas, or they could be used in magical and entertainment shows. But, let’s face it, this technology is created for the military.

I feel very uneasy about this advancement. Because what is even worse than an enemy that you can see, is an enemy that you can’t see. So, if this technology fell into the wrong hands, it could really wreak some havoc on the population. Imagine a serial killer roaming the streets invisibly killing people. Imagine a gang of mad men invisibly hiding out and pouncing on innocent civilians to deliver lethal blows! People who are already paranoid will become super-duper ultra paranoid!!

Although this technology is super cool, it could really do a lot of harm if it fell into the wrong hands.Personally i wish it won’t be developed (or at least not commercialized without a good antidote), What do you think ?

We have been blessed to live in the same time as the great poet Mahmoud Darwish. We have been lucky to see him express our concerns and convey our message to the world. But alas, he is a mortal, and yesterday he departed us and left us in this cold world of ours.

We have lost a great poet, a great Palestinian, a great Arab, a great human being.
We might have lost the poet, but his work is eternal. Poetry is immortal.

Rest in peace Mahmoud Darwish. May God bless your soul.

Note: The following pages have nice brief accounts for his life. In English here, In Arabic here and here.

This is absolutely disgusting! Another “muslim“ terrorist group has come out with a video calling for destruction, this time in China. Where do these people get the nerve to call themselves Muslims and file their acts under Islam ??! Islam was never about violence and terrorism. Islam even explicitly forbade killing innocent people. Even our greeting is that of peace. So why do they pollute Islam’s name in their very unislamic and inhumane acts ? Perhaps the most disturbing sentence in this report is the: “call to the global Muslim nation”.

I have always wondered why do they inject Islam into their acts ? They can’t possibly hope to invite people to Islam through their hideous deeds, so why do they call themselves “muslim“ groups and shoot videos in front of Islamic banners ? Also, why do many idiots portray their wacky ideas under the banner of Islam ? (Like this guy who is calling for people to procreate like rabbits for the sake of Islam).

The only explanation i could find is that religion in general buys them sympathy. Religion, in my opinion, expands the audience of these people beyond their vicinity to people around the world because religion is global. Religion also appeals to more basic instincts in people: All major religions require people to believe in some stuff faithfully, and so these hijackers play on that cord.

This is not specific to Islam, but could be seen in other religions as well; the crusades rallied people from all over Europe and were carried out in the name of Christianity while it was mostly about territory and securing routes for movement and trade. Similarly Baruch Goldstein killed 48 Muslims in the name of Judaism while they were praying in Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi (Cave of the Patriarchs). None of these acts are indicative of Christianity and Judaism, and similarly these terrorist acts are not indicative of Islam. But, injecting religion into this does buy the perpetrators sympathy and understanding from their denominational audience.

I do not deny that there are many Muslims around the world who have been treated unjustly. I also do not deny that there are legitimate and true Muslim groups that are working and even fighting to bring about justice. But the few loud lunatics are overshadowing the majority of Muslims and are not doing us or Islam any good.

There are 1.6 billion Muslims like me around the world, and the actions of these very few idiots are ruining it for all of us Muslims, and indeed for all of us citizens of the world.