za3tar

For a while now, Google Maps has been displaying the names of towns and cities in the countries’ local languages when you pan over them. So for example, when you go over Japan, you’ll see the name of towns in Japanese with English subtext. This is similar for European and Arabian countries.

Interestingly enough however, Israel-Palestine has been mostly blank with only English written there. That made me curious because Google, like many other tech companies, tries to remain neutral when it comes to international political issues, and i wanted to see how they handle this one. So i kept on checking back often.

Today I noticed that they started to display Hebrew names in pre-1967 areas (which is politically safe). Interestingly however, the Hebrew words only appear when you are not zoomed in to see the individual city names.

Anyway, what is really funny is that they have hugely misspelled the Arabic name of Madaba. Here is a screenshot below:

Btw, I couldn’t find a link to report this mistranslation, otherwise i would have reported it.

A long time ago, when search engines were relatively primitive, the “meta keywords” section of your site/blog were used as a first heuristic for search engine optimization. All of us, of course, want search engines to find us; so when we created blogs back then, we would dump anything and everything that could be –even remotely– related to us or the topic of our blog into that meta keywords section (some blogging engines even asked you about that).

Nowadays, hardly any search engine looks at the meta keywords or meta description sections of your blog. So they are more or less useless (as far as i know). However, it is sometimes fun to look at these keywords to see what each blogger thinks of himself or his blog.

Just for reference, this is how the “meta keywords” tag would look like in an HTML file:

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword,another keyword ..." />

For a little entertainment, i checked out the meta keywords of some of the folks on QP. Not everybody had them, and mostly all who did included their names or misspells of their names. Here are some of the interesting keywords:

• AndFarAway: Jordan, Design, Art, Amman, Islam, Arab, Chat, Blog, Pictures … (ok this one kinda works out)
  
• KJ: UAE, Dubai, Moogle, Humor, Funny, Thoughts, Hani Obaid (huh ??), Sheep, Holidays, Adha, Turkey, Thanksgiving, Religion, Ambush, Grand Theft Auto, Lost and Found, Police, Eyelashes, James Bond, Nutcase, OCD, Psychology, Traffic, Women in Coma  (what ???), Photography, Blood, Scary, Video, Violence, Zombies …..(essentially KJ encompasses everything under the sun!! .. and then some! )

Now if KJ’s keywords didn’t catch you, then his meta description might lure you in:

• KJ’s meta description: Jar of Juice is your ultimate source for humor, randomness, and your occasional serious post! … (somebody is confident :-p … actually this one also kinda works out)

• Hani Obaid (who apparently also is a keyword for KJ): Jordan, Amman, Blog, Canada, Wordpress, Montreal, Blogger … (what ? no mention of KJ ?!! )
  
• Qwaider: Photography, Philosophy, Movies,  Jordan, Arab, Blog, Islam, Computers, Science and Technology … (ok this one also works out .. but what’s up with that “LutsToLove” email address in the meta text ?)
  
• Cinamon Zone: Animals, Arab World, Art, Blog about Jordan Day, Books and Literature, Children, Courage, Diaries, Fekra, Funny, Health, Science, Miscellaneous, Nakba, Palestine, Phobia, Pictures, Comments, Ramadan, Movies, Sports, Thoughts, Translation, TV, Videos, Women, Work, Zucchini … (also everything under the sun …. but what’s up with Zucchini as a keyword ?!! )

I only posted this for a little smile, no harm intended. I would have also posted my own meta keywords if i had them.

This song by the Palestinian comedian Asa’ad Sabah (أسعد صباح) was a hit during the mid 90s. It was released on a cassette tape along with many other jokes and comical songs. Almost any Palestinian growing up in the 90s would instantly recognize this song and its Hebron accent . For those who are interested, this song is poking fun at family fights, tribal reconciliation, and marjaleh.

Why am i posting this you ask ? Nothing, some random memory recollection that came up during a chat with some anonymous tipster

أنا مع قرفان، شلة المدونين العرب الأشاوس شكلهم زهقانين شوي . صراحتاً أنا حسي النكتي ماكل هوى مؤخراً، فما بعرف إزا كني الشخص المناسب لأُسأل عن نكته هلئ، ولكن جواباً للـ “تاج” تبعت قرفان، خذولكم هالنكتتين اللي سمعتهم لما كنت في الأردن الصيف الماضي:

- واحد مسطول دقوا على بابه دائرة الإحصاء وسألوه: (إنتَ من أهل البيت ؟) .. فرَد عليهم وقال: (لأ، أنا من كفار قريش).

- طفيلي بيقول لجماعته: صلوا وصوموا وزكوا، مش أروح عالجنة وألاقيها كلها كركية!

(ههههه .. طبعاً هلئ قرفان لما شاف بياختي حرم يسألني عن نكت من اليوم وطالع )

You get to read a lot of stupid comments on the Internet these days. On forums, YouTube, blogs ..etc, many idiots are getting to voice their “thoughts” and “ideas”. Of course there are also many clever and insightful comments as well, but stupid comments do tend to stand out.

For example, read this comment i just found on Aljazeera English’s Youtube channel:

You heard him ladies and gentlemen; Everybody, let’s get busy … we need to increase our “production” by more than 1,000% a day over the next 10 years!! So, drop whatever you’re doing, go home, and get down to business … from 43,000 to 500,000 A DAY !! LOL.. it is all part of his grand scheme.