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هذا الخبر ليس جديد على الإطلاق، بل على الأغلب أنه أقدم من معظمنا، ولكني لم أكن أعرف به من قبل ولذا قررت مشاركتكم إياه.

هل تعلمون أن هناك رائدان فضاء عرب خرجوا في رحلات إلى الفضاء في الثمانينيات من القرن المنصرم لإجراء أعمال علمية (وليس للسياحة كما هي موضة الوقت الحالي)!! ورواد الفضاء هؤلاء ليسوا أمريكان أو أوروبيين من أصل عربي، بل هم عربٌ عرب.

رائد الفضاء العربي الأول كان السعودي سلطان بن عبد العزيز آل سعود والذي خرج إلى الفضاء في السابع عشر من حزيران عام 1985 كجزء من الفريق الدولي لتثبيت الستالايت عربسات 1B على متن الرحلة الأمريكية STS-51-G.

أما رائد الفضاء العربي الثاني فهو السوري محمد أحمد فارس والذي خرج إلى محطة الأبحاث الفضائية الروسية ميير (Mir) في شهر تموز من عام 1987 على متن الرحلة السوفيتية Soyuz TM-3.

الشيء الغريب في الموضوع أني لا أذكر أني وجدت ذكراً لأيهما في كتب العلوم المدرسية (وأنا درست على منهاج الضفة الغربية القديم والذي هو أساساً المنهاج الأردني). يعني على الأقل ذكر رواد الفضاء هؤلاء قد يعزز الطموح عند الأطفال الصغار للجد والعمل. هل صادف أحدكم هؤلاء الرواد في مناهجكم الدراسية (أو حتى الذكر عن طريق التلفاز) ؟

الصورة على اليمين هي لرائد الفضاء السعودي والصورة على الشمال هي لرائد الفضاء السوري.

أما الصورة التالية فهي تبيين دول العالم بتاريخ إخراج أول روادها الفضائيين … ههههه شكله هذه هي الشغلة الوحيدة اللي سبق فيها العرب إسرائيل :-).

I have complained previously about Ikbis not using the term Palestine in their countries list. At the suggestion of Qabbani, i sent them an email expressing my concern, and they promised to work on it soon. I checked back a couple of times since then, but nothing had changed.

When i checked back today however, i did find that the Ikbis folks were true to their words. They did in fact replace the “Palestinian Territories” with Palestine, and for that i sincerely and deeply thank them.

Thanks again Ikbis for your prompt response, for your great product, and for listening to your users.

And for now, i leave you with this funny April’s fool prank featured video

شوية نهفات خفيفة. طول الوحدة منها 15 - 30 ثانية موجودين هون وهون وهون. للأسف الفيديو بيشتغل أول ما تفتح الصفحة فما بقدر أحطهم هون … إزعاج

تنزيلات ؟! … آه قصدك ديسكاونت…. هاهاها رهيبة

The events of this little article by Ola probably happened over the course of 2~3 minutes. But it is really moving. You should definitely read it.

“This weather loves hot chocolate with marshmallows!” That was the message I sent my friend as I sat in the car waiting for my father, cuddled up in the warmest clothes I have and yet feeling my feet freezing.

Drifted away in thoughts, I was brought back to reality by the sight of a little boy, around 9 or 10, approaching a woman who was getting in to her car. The woman reached out to her purse and gave him some coins, although I didn’t see him begging. Obviously, he didn’t need to. He was wearing a jersey with no jacket on, the kind of attire that won’t make you warm enough for an average winter day. The jersey was soaked in the chilly melting ice, the sleeves pulled over his hands, his lips quivering and his eyes drooping in the cold.

Read more….

I believe that a user-friendly and reliable electronic replacement for paper is necessary. Take newspapers for example, they are daily consumed and wasted. Many people just take a quick glance at them and then just throw them away, big paper waste! In addition to that, since daily newspapers are targeted for the mass public audience, they have to include many different sections in each issue that do not necessarily fit the interests of every single reader. But you get these sections anyway because they do not know your individual interests. More paper waste!

An electronic version will not only save trees and be cheaper in the long run, but it will come with many added benefits. Easy archiving and quick searching is among the more obvious benefits. However, using PCs exclusively for this task is not an appropriate solution. While many of us spends alot of time infront of their laptop/desktop screens, most people are used to reading books and newspapers in a different manner. Reading habits that were formed and inherited through centuries of reliance on handwritten and printed press are not easily replaceable with the ~30 year-old invention that is the personal computer.

Lots of research has been done on producing electronic papers. Some companies have tried that before, but i really did not see anything usable to hit the mass market through big retailers. Until now. Amazon introduced an eBook reading device that is more of an ePaper to me. Hopefully this new product (named Amazon Kindle) will be better than its predecessors. The cool thing about Kindle in my opinion is its integration with the Amazon store. It is integrated with their Amazon store such that if you buy a book, you can have it as an eBook through Kindle. Amazon already scans every single book they sell in order to gather these statistics (regarding topics and most prominent words/places), so i assume they will be able to deliver all books in an electronic version (even those ones that are not currently available as eBooks). At least hopefully.

Although i am not affiliated with Amazon, and i have not tried Amazon Kindle for my self, i am deeply interested in this topic, and wish there would be a good solution soon.