Month: November 2006
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More ways to GPS Amman
My “Let’s GPS Amman ourselves” post from 2005 keeps drawing the attention of some interested readers. Here is one that I thought deserved a post on it own. It’s from a “Mr Wrangler”: How to Create Jordan Maps without Driving Around There is a much easier way of creating maps for Amman and Jordan than…
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Have you clicked the BIGGEST YELLOW BUTTON on the net?
A friend of mine has just emailed me a totally weird link. A site (called ikbis.com??!) is claiming to have “the biggest yellow button on the net”. Strange stuff happens when you click it. What the heck? Read these related posts on 360east: The mayhem caused by the Biggest Yellow Button on the Net, exclusively…
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Burning chicken and the Holocaust..
According to last Monday’s Al-Ghad (sorry no link available), a Jordanian cartoonist, Omar Abdallat, won one of the prizes of the Iranian competition soliciting cartoons about the Holocaust. Are we supposed to be proud? In my opinion, It is difficult to imagine a more primitive and misguided response to the prophet Muhammad cartoons than that…
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Know of any new free wifi hotspot in Amman/Jordan?
You know how much I love wifi (especially free wifi Actually, my list of wifi services in Amman (and the rest of Jordan) is apparently accessed by many people when they search for wifi hotspots in the country. That list has gotten a bit old.. So if you know of any new wifi services (especially…
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In Amman, even bakeries now provide Red Hat linux certification!
Look at the Reply-To field of this email promotion I got. Yummy Red Hat cake. You eat it and.. you’re instantly a Linux genius. Read these related posts on 360east: Jordan’s Linux User Group: a techno-social phenomena Time servers giving wrong time for Jordan? Open Source Opportunities Seminar | 26-27 July 2005 SYNTAX develops name…
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The Mac’s spy eye!
Picture from here. The built in camera on MacBooks is staring to cause some trouble for people How do you know that little camera on your laptop is not sending pictures of you in you pyjama (or worse) to the net for everyone (or someone) to see! Well, it’s not like the MacBook’s camera just…
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Steorn update: jury selection process completed News | Steorn
We haven’t heard much from Steorn lately. Yesterday they issued a press release with an update on the selection process of scientists, who are supposed to test the validity of the company’s ‘free energy’ technology: News | Steorn Dublin, 10th November 2006: Steorn, the technology development company, has announced that it has completed its selection…
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Out of the 13 ‘enemies of the internet’ countries, four are Arab
Congratulations: BBC NEWS | Technology | ‘Enemies of the internet’ named: A list of 13 “enemies of the internet” has been released by human rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF). For the first time, Egypt has been added to the list while Nepal, Libya and the Maldives have all been removed. Belarus Burma China Cuba…
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Looking back at Skype’s blocking/unblocking: a Jordanian communication problem?
Note: This is an article I’ve written for the Jordan Times after the Skype blocking crisis. It was published last week due to Eid holiday. The article might be a bit old by now, but the questions of why Skype was blocked still stands. The story of the temporary blocking of Skype in Jordan only…
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Argeeleh Express: Now your home can smell like Tche Tche too!
I’ve been getting this ad on the ‘Jordanian spam channel’ lately. Note: 2 heads and pre-lit coal. All you have to be is be a ‘sultan at home’. How convenient . Lots of flavors available too! And you can call them on both a Fastlink and Mobilecom numbers. Thoughtful entrepreneurs! What happens if, after 30…
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Twilight zone: testing Amman’s “anti-gravity” street
It’s 7:35 pm. It’s already dark. The air has a light chill to it in Amman’s early November. From afar, the lights of a few villas and apartment blocks at the edge of the city flicker. Off the main road, on a newly paved street, half a dozen cars are parked by the wayside. Among…
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Survey: Are Arabs ‘Pyjama People’?
A German friend of mine who has been observing Arab culture for over 35 years made the following observation this morning: Arabs have a special relationship with their pyjamas. Germans, she says, only wear their pyjamas in bed. For them, a pyjama is for sleeping. Arabs, she claims, seem to like to wear their pyjamas…