za3tar

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.

From Sabbah’s Blog:

OK, it’s Eid holiday, so this is not politics-related, but it is a cool way to find out if you are a right-brain or left-brain dominant. Look at the dancer and decide which way she’s spinning.

Focus!

If you think she’s going clockwise, you’re apparently right-brain dominant (imaginative, philosophical, touchy-feely, impetuous); if you see her going counter-clockwise, you’re left-brain dominant (logical, practical, detail-oriented, safe).

The publisher claimed that “most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it,” but I see it only clockwise!

Huwara Checkpoint … a few hundred meters from the soldiers.

Coming back from visiting relatives, we were stuck with many others on Huwara (حوارة) checkpoint, which is set up by Israeli soldiers on the main road. We were stuck on that checkpoint for more than 75 minutes, even though it was not highly crowded (the Israeli soldiers were moving veeerrryyyy sloooowly).

The people crossing that checkpoint were of all ages and walks of life. Entire families dressed up and moving to visit families and loved ones for the Eid. One could not help but notice the different contradictory, yet inspiring, pictures seen there. Perhaps the most inspiring one i saw was that of a young little girl (13 ~ 14 yrs) all dressed up in a nice black and white dress/skirt and carrying a bouquet of red flowers.

This angelic young girl was walking on the rubble across the checkpoint, surrounded by cement blocks and security fences. She looked completely out of scene. Somehow, soldiers, machine guns, cement blocks, and security fences didn’t go well with her nice dress, red flowers, and innocent youth.

….. who knows …. maybe this contradictory scene would yield a short story (or at least a post) !