November 30, 2004
After revolutionizing the way encyclopedias are built and maintained, the team behind Wikipedia is attempting to apply its collaborative information-gathering model to journalism. Through a new effort, Wikinews, members of the open-source community who write and edit Wikipedia's encyclopedia entries are encouraged to test their skills as journalists and report the news on a wide variety of current events. The news site follows a similar set of rules as the encyclopedia, which allows anyone to edit and post corrections to entries, so long as each change is recorded. The current rendition of Wikinews is an experimental version that, according to...
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Posted on November 30, 2004 01:37 PM under:
Tunisia
This morning, on my way to work, I drove through a street I've driven through almost everyday of the past 2.5 years, but today I noticed something different in it. Before, it was called the "Environment Street", but today I noticed a big sign that says "Boulevard du Leader Yasser Arafat", or in English "Leader Yasser Arafat Street". I heard that a street was named after him here after his death, but I had no idea which one and where. And true to it's old name, it's all green and full of flowers on the sides and in the middle....
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November 29, 2004
It's estimated that between one and four languages are lost every year, the result of the only remaining speakers dying off. Linguists estimate that there are 6,809 "living" languages in the world today, but 90 per cent of them are spoken by fewer than 100,000 people, and some languages are even rarer – 46 are known to have just one native speaker. "There are 357 languages with under 50 speakers. Rare languages are more likely to show evidence of decline than commoner ones," Professor Sutherland said. Linguists also estimate that half of the more than 6,000 languages currently spoken in...
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Vancouver legal experts join movement to rule the U.S. president a violator of Geneva and U.N. conventions. When George W. Bush visits Canada this week, he's sure to get an earful from demonstrators who see him more as a "war crimes president" than a "war president." Gail Davidson, a Vancouver lawyer, says the prime minister should rescind his invitation to Bush, because the president is a "major war criminal." Prominent jurists have echoed Davidson's claims. Most recently, Louise Arbour, the former war crimes prosecutor and current United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called for an investigation into crimes...
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Posted on November 29, 2004 10:52 AM under:
Tunisia
Yesterday, and at last, we visited the Medina Mediterranea in Yasmine Hammamet and took a full tour inside it. We actually attended a concert there last year, but most of it was still under construction and not open to the public. The Medina Mediterranea is a new touristic project that embodies a whole old-style Tunisian city recently built in the touristic station of Yasmine Hammamet to be a living memory of our old Tunisian and mediterranean heritage and life. Some sort of a trip into the past and how cities and life were. Anyway, I've taken a bunch of...
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Before, the US army PR department used to distribute nice pictures showing how culturally sensitive they are. The US administration said, at that time, that they were very careful in dealing with mosques. But now, things are different. The smiley face mask fell off. New pictures are either showing mosques under attack, or US soldiers using a mosque like a lounge. Entering with their shoes on, and sleeping on the floors, etc... This does outrage Muslims... [Via: Raed In The Middle, Je Blog, Jalan-Jalan]...
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November 27, 2004
NBC television network will broadcast a never-before-seen video tape of Diana, Princess of Wales, next week in which she says she suspects a member of her staff with whom she fell in love was "bumped off." Earlier this year NBC aired audio tapes Diana secretly recorded for a 1992 book that exposed the turmoil of her marriage to Prince Charles, whom she divorced in 1996. The princess was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997. The two-hour special is to be broadcast in two parts, on November 29 and December 6. "This unusual tape, recorded in Diana's living...
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November 26, 2004
Posted on November 26, 2004 06:02 PM under:
Cinema
Prominent Egyptian actor Nour El Sharif has announced that he plans on presenting the life story of the late Palestinian President, whom he was very good friends with, in a new film. Nour revealed that he video taped the funeral ceremony held for the President in Egypt and Ramallah in order to use them in the film, which he will begin work on once the mourning period is over. Nour stressed that he will seek a good scenarist to write the script of the film once he completes collecting all the needed research on the President’s life. It was added...
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An Indian soldier who used tomato ketchup to fake his claim for a bravery medal has been dismissed from service. Colonel H.S. Kohli, who commanded an artillery regiment in Assam, tried to present photographs of civilians splashed with ketchup as 'enemy casualties'. But the fraud came to light while authorities were processing his claims for an award. The army officer was tried and found guilty in a court martial while a major who connived with him in the fake encounter, faces a five-year suspension. How pathetic, lol... [Via: Ananova]...
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"I have a right to my anger, and I don't want anybody telling me I shouldn't be, that it's not nice to be, and that something's wrong with me because I get angry." -- Maxine Waters, in Brian Lanker, I Dream a World, 1989...
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November 25, 2004
Posted on November 25, 2004 12:20 PM under:
Music
My favorite female singer Tina Arena has gone on and released what must be one of the best songs of the year. An infectious tune, beautiful lyrics and Tina’s amazing voice make Italian Love Song one of her greatest songs. Starting with her last studio album Just Me, Tina started exploring new styles of music and chose to move away a bit from her ballads, even though she kept belting them out on a couple of the tracks. Italian Love Song follows along Tina’s path of exploration. Written by Paul Manners, Francesco De Benedittis, Davide Esposito and Tina herself, this...
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Well, for you people who move a lot yet still want to read this blog, there now is a mobile version of this blog. So, from now on, you can point your mobiles at Subzero Blue Mobile. (http://winksite.com/subzeroblue/moblog)...
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November 24, 2004
One of the sites I love passing by every once in a while is Space Imaging. Their gallery section is just awesome, the satellite images they've got in there are so beautiful. They give you a perfect bird's eye view of the places and so much detail to enjoy. It's truly amazing what kind of high quality photos they can shoot from outer space and how much they can zoom in on a place. I mean, here I am looking at a photo of Dubai and I can see the "Burj Al Arab" hotel, houses, highways, small streets, cars and...
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November 23, 2004
Posted on November 23, 2004 01:33 PM under:
Everyday Me
To the nerds within you who read this blog through an aggregator or feed reader, I've added a new enhanced feed that contains posts from this blog spliced with photos I've posted on flickr spliced with interesting stuff I've posted on my linklog. So, it's sort of an all-in-one feed, and you can find it here. Enjoy ;)...
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Here are some of the basic weblog ethics: 1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true. 2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it. 3. Publicly correct any misinformation. 4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry. 5. Disclose any conflict of interest. 6. Note questionable and biased sources. I totally agree that all bloggers should try to stick to these ethics when blogging. [More Detail: Rebecca's Pocket]...
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Posted on November 23, 2004 12:46 PM under:
Everyday Me
Yesterday, I was chatting to Jordan on chatango (in my blog's right column), and as one subject led to another, I joked about how I was somewhat of a conservative liberal. Now, it may seem funny, weird and contradictory as the way those two words are defined politically makes them opposites. Some of the definitions of Liberal are: 1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas. 2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. 3. One who favors greater freedom...
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November 22, 2004
On the 41st anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Glasgow video game company Traffic has released JFK Reloaded. A reconstruction of the scene and events around the Texas School Book Depository that tragic day, the game puts Oswald's rifle in the hands of players. From a Boston Herald article and Traffic's press release: "We've created the game with the belief that Oswald was the only person that fired the shots on that day, although this recreation proves how immensely difficult his task was,'' (Traffic's Kirk) Ewing said. This is so insensitive and disrespectful! I can't believe some people have gone...
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In a move that marks the beginning of the end for a hugely successful chapter in technology history, Britain's biggest high street electronics retailer Dixons has announced that it's taking VCRs off its shelves for good. All over the world, the revolutionary VHS (video home system)--which let people record and watch television programs when they wanted rather than at the whim of broadcasters--is in headlong retreat as the DVD (digital versatile disc) takes over. To add insult to injury, police grudgingly admit that in Britain at least, home burglars don't even bother to take VHS players because new ones now...
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Posted on November 22, 2004 01:52 PM under:
Music
One of the albums I've been pretty much addicted to recently is Songs About Jane by Maroon 5. It's a great and fun album from the opening note to the very end. It's hard to choose any song or two as the highlights of the album because each song is beautiful in it's own right from "This Love" to "She Will Be Loved" to "Sunday Morning" to "Sweetest Goodbye", this album simply rocks! Maroon 5 are certainly the best pop/rock band out there in the music scene today and their debut album is one of the best albums I've heard...
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November 19, 2004
So, what do you know. After infesting our tvs, radios, magazines, streets, websites, pringles chips, skies and even space, advertisers might start advertising on the human body too. For example, for only $20 anyone can rent Chris Pirillo's chest for their brand or blog advertising. Or you could be paid a lot of money for getting a tatoo of some company's logo on your body through TatAD. I can't believe advertising has actually gone this far. You can't help but ask, what next? or to be more precise, where next? [Via: Loic Le Meur]...
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Posted on November 19, 2004 11:12 AM under:
Everyday Me
While surfing through some new blogs, I came across this new service called Chatango. It's some sort of a chat thingie that bloggers can integrate into their blogs so that visitors can directly and privately have a live chat with them. So, I'm trying it out. It's on the right bar under the Quote. So, if you're on here, see that I'm online and you're interested in a little chat, that's the way to go :)...
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Posted on November 19, 2004 08:32 AM under:
Cinema
Walt Disney Studios is actively proceeding with a second sequel to Pixar's "Toy Story" franchise on their own. Disney is in the process of setting up a digital animation facility in Glendale -- not far from their bitter rivals DreamWorks Animation -- that will be used for the production of "Toy Story 3." While Disney has the rights to do sequels to "Toy Story," it has held off from doing so in the past because the guys at Pixar haven't wanted to lose control of the characters. But with Pixar announcing earlier this year that it would end its distribution...
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November 18, 2004
Google have launched a new service called Google Scholar. Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Using it you'll be able to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Just as with Google Web Search, Google Scholar orders search results by how relevant they are to your query. In short, Google simply rules search!...
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Posted on November 18, 2004 04:09 PM under:
Music
Anyone checking out the plethora of Arabic music channels, that keep popping up on every satellite frequency possible, and having the courage to go through the experience of watching some of the videos they play will most probably catch the name Jad Choueiri on their screen quite often. Jad Choueiri is a Lebanese singer, producer and video director. He and the people he's working with are riding the wave of sexually crazed music and videos that are playing on Arabic music channels. From Tina to Maria to his own material and others, this guy is the driving force behind the...
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It seems McDonalds Japan have fired the dumb old clown Ronald McDonalds and brought in this chick instead. She appears in the ad for a new burger they're promoting there. Check out the ad video here. (Wait a little while for the video to load. It's in WMV format btw.) It's about time someone dumped him. He's been sticking to the same hairdo, makeup and clothes for decades now, lol... Change is always good ;)...
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Posted on November 18, 2004 08:28 AM under:
Everyday Me
I've uploaded a batch of new photos to the photolog, so if you're interested check them out at the Subzero Blue Photolog. The photos are mainly ones I've taken around the suburbs of Tunis and are mostly focused on nature and places. Let me know what you think :)...
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November 17, 2004
One wise man once said: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. In light of the injustices committed by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, concerned members of the advertising and media community in Jordan have produced a media campaign (Palestine. Dying to Live.) to mobilize public opinion, to open the world’s eyes to the various violations of basic human rights, in an effort to bring forth the plight of the Palestinians to the Western world, in a language they understand. Check out the website and the campaign gallery....
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We all know that prolonged computer use can cause RSI, back trouble, high blood pressure and steam to vent from both ears, but it appears that's the least of our worries, because we'll soon all be blind and that will be an end to it. According to a Japanese study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, watching a computer screen for nine or more hours a day may contribute to the onset of glaucoma - a nasty disease which progressively damages the optic nerve and eventually leads to blindness. The researchers - led by Dr Masayuki Tatemichi...
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Margaret Hassan, a kidnapped aid worker in Iraq, was believed murdered after Al Jazeera television said last night it had received a video showing a hooded militant shooting a blindfolded woman in the head. Hassan, Irish-born and with dual British and Iraqi nationality, was seized by gunmen on her way to work in western Baghdad early in the morning. She headed CARE International's operations in Iraq and had lived with her husband in the country for 30 years. Hassan's family in London said they believed she was the victim in the video, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said analysis...
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Posted on November 17, 2004 11:22 AM under:
Everyday Me
Last night, while watching Rocky 2 on Channel 2, I sat down with my laptop and started writing what I intended to be a blog post for today. Anyway, as I started writing, ideas started popping up in my head, some old and some new, and I went on writing and writing. So, I dumped the idea of writing a blog post and moved on to the thought of writing a short story. I don't know if it'll grow even more than that though. It all depends on the characters I've just started creating and what happens to them. I've...
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November 16, 2004
An American TV crew, correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC television has filmed a US Marine shooting dead an unarmed Iraqi as he was lying on the floor of a Fallujah mosque. A reporter at the scene said the marine shot ibn the head the Iraqi - apparently wounded - after saying he was “faking” death. If the man had posed no threat to US troops, his death would be in breach of the US-led coalition’s rules of engagement, CNN commented. The footage, part of a television pool report by NBC, was not aired entirely because of its graphic pictures of...
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Apparently a lot of Americans frustrated with Bush's re-election are starting to think that the grass is greener north of the border, Canada. The Canadian immigration Web site had 115,000 hits the day after the election -- from the U.S. alone. Usually, they only get 20,000 hits. There was so much interest that a Vancouver-based Internet company, Communicopia, set up a new Web site this month -- www.canadianalternative.com -- to suggest Canada as a viable option for its American clients, including anyone concerned about constitutional bans on gay marriage passed in 11 U.S. states this month. Another Web site urges...
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Posted on November 16, 2004 07:28 AM under:
Everyday Me
Well, time has flown by as it usually does and Ramadan with all it's holiness and glory has come to an end. The Eid in Tunisia was on Sunday, so we also got Monday off from work. I didn't get a chance to blog in the weekend, so although this is a bit late I wish all of you had a great Eid. Eid Mubarak :)...
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November 12, 2004
Posted on November 12, 2004 02:17 PM under:
Music
Upon popular request, here are the lyrics for Sami Yusuf's song "Al Mu'allim" (The Teacher). Al-Mu'allim We once had a Teacher The Teacher of teachers, He changed the world for the better And made us better creatures, Oh Allah we’ve shamed ourselves We’ve strayed from Al-Mu'allim, Surely we’ve wronged ourselves What will we say in front him? Oh Mu'allim......
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Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each: 1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism 2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights 3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause 4. Supremacy of the Military 5. Rampant Sexism 6. Controlled Mass Media 7. Obsession with National Security 8. Religion and Government are Intertwined 9. Corporate Power is Protected 10. Labor Power is Suppressed 11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts 12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment 13. Rampant Cronyism...
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November 11, 2004
After Google opened up their AdSense program to bloggers, MSN seems to be following in it's footsteps. Susan Mernit blogs that MSN Network GM told Mark Glaser how Microsoft might work with bloggers in the future... "If you're a blogger, MSN might come to you and say, 'We want to distribute you. We'll send you traffic and we want you to run these ads on your site, and you'll get a share of revenues on that. That's probably an offer that many bloggers are going to be interested in because they don't want to have to invest in creating that...
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Over the next several weeks, Google will be introducing POP access to GMail users. This means that GMail users will be able to download their emails from Gmail's servers onto their own computers so they can access them anytime with a program like Microsoft Outlook Express or Netscape Mail, even when they aren’t connected to the Internet. It's a real cool feature for a lot of people I'm sure, although I'm not so sure I'll be using it. The whole point behind me using Gmail is to have a big mailbox online where I can have all the emails I...
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The singer once known as Cat Stevens -- branded by the United States as a potential terrorist risk -- has been awarded a peace prize in Rome for his humanitarian work. Mikhail Gorbachev presented Yusuf Islam with the "Man for Peace" award at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. The former Soviet leader kissed the singer on the cheeks and praised him for standing by his convictions despite personal hardships. [...] The British musician was expelled from the United States in September after authorities diverted his London-to-Washington flight to Maine to remove him, saying he was...
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Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Authority President and leader who fought for his people's cause for decades has died in a French hospital after a lingering illness. He was 75. Secretary-general of the Palestinian presidency, Tayib Abd al-Rahim, confirmed the death. His body will be flown to Cairo for a ceremony on Friday and then to the West Bank city of Ramallah for burial the same day. The speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Rawhi Fattuh, will be sworn in as Palestinian Authority president on an interim basis until elections are held after 60 days. Yasser Arafat was a great leader, a...
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November 10, 2004
Posted on November 10, 2004 11:44 AM under:
Music
These past couple of days i've been listening to Lara Fabian's second english album A Wonderful Life, and WOW, it's simply breathtaking. Lara's voice is one of the best female voices out there, and she's been belting out the most amazing ballads and songs in both English and French. I became a fan ever since the first song I heard by her, which was "Je T'Aime". She has perfect control over her powerful voice and a beautiful taste in music. This album is another masterpiece in her collection of great works, a true musical delight for the ear. My favourites...
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Anyone who wants to follow in the shoes of Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites) and win the next big space prize will have to build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the Earth at that altitude. Then they have to repeat that accomplishment within 60 days. While the first flight must demonstrate only the ability to carry five crew members, the winner will have to take at least five people up on the second flight. And one more thing. They have to do...
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November 09, 2004
Anyone who thought Bush's second term would mean a moderation of the neoconservative agenda of perpetual war was bound to be bitterly disappointed – and the bad news is already confirmed. The moderates are out – the radicals are in. They're talking about Paul Wolfowitz – the intellectual architect of the Iraq war – as the new National Security Advisor. Rumsfeld will stay – and Colin Powell, the lone voice of moderation in the top foreign policy councils of this administration, is rumored to be on the way out. Bereft of restraint, or common sense, this ideology-driven administration is determined...
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Finally, version 1.0 of the Firefox browser was released today. After playing around with all it's releases, I officially moved to Firefox as my browser of choice over a month ago and have been enjoying it fully ever since. It sticks to the standards, offers all needed features and accepts skins and extensions which extend it far beyond a browser. My installation currently notifies me when I get an email in my GMail account, it gives me the weather forecast for Tunis for the next 3 days, has a built-in ftp client, feed reader, calendar and web developer kit. It's...
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November 08, 2004
Midwest Airlines canceled a flight ready to take off for San Francisco after a passenger found Arabic-style handwriting in the company's in-flight magazine and alerted the crew. The plane, carrying 118 passengers and five crew members, had already pulled away from the gate at Mitchell International Airport on Sunday evening. It returned to the gate, the passengers got off, security authorities were notified, all luggage was checked and the aircraft was inspected. Nothing was found. The passengers were put up in nearby hotels and booked on a Monday morning flight. The writing was in Farsi, the language used in...
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