I love Robot Chicken, I haven’t seen that much of it but everything I’ve seen from it is extremely funny. The reason I mention the show is because it is the first thing that came to my mind when I read this article from CNN.com -

Chinese scientists command pigeons via remote control

POSTED: 2:11 a.m. EST, February 27, 2007

Story Highlights

• Scientists send signals to pigeon’s brain via computer
• Chief scientist calls experiment unprecedented on pigeon in world, Xinhua reports
• Scientists have had similar success with mice, news agency reported

BEIJING, China (Reuters) — Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday.

Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong University of Science and Technology said their electrodes could command them to fly right or left or up or down, Xinhua news agency said.

“The implants stimulate different areas of the pigeon’s brain, according to signals sent by the scientists via computer and force the bird to comply with their commands,” Xinhua said.

“It’s the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world,” Xinhua quoted the center’s chief scientist, Su Xuecheng, as saying.

Su and his colleagues, who Xinhua said had had similar success with mice in 2005, were improving the devices used in the experiment and hoped that the technology could be put into practical use in future.

The report did not specify what practical uses the scientists saw for the remote-controlled pigeons.

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This all sounds cool and interesting, but its also very scary! What if they use these pigeons as suicide bombs?? Or even worse, implant these micro electrodes in human brains and have control over millions of soldiers who could act like killing machines with a press of a button!

Science-fiction is becoming a reality!! And Seth Green is a genius who predicted the future

Totally unrelated clips from Robot Chicken (both mature) -

Star Wars

Mario Bros at Vice City

My cousin is a movie aficionado and someone who has really good taste in movies. Every now and then, he sends me a link to some film or animation or commercial that he found, and they are always brilliant!

He sent me an email two days ago with a link to download a movie called “West Bank Story”, a very funny and smart combination of West Side Story and Romeo & Juliet. It is a story of two competing falafel stands in the West Bank.

The movie was nominated this year for an Oscar in the Best Short Film / Live Action category, and won!

To watch it, download it from these links (I hope it stays there) -

http://www.mediafire.com/?egnjmvkwyy1
http://www.mediafire.com/?fmwwmkmnlll
http://www.mediafire.com/?c5dm05q0uoy

Tell me what you think after you see it ..

Wishing the best to everyone in Kuwait and hopefully people will take this opportunity to think about what this beautiful country has given us …. and how we can make it a better place.

For this occassion, the top banner will change for the 25th and 26th of February, National and Liberation days. IT WILL BE BACK TO NORMAL on the 27th!

Today, for some strange reason that noone has been able to comprehend yet, our company decided to work.

Put in mind that I work in an investment company, and none of the local banks are open, none of the international banks are open, none of the other investment companies are open, and the stock market is also closed! More than half the staff has taken the day off, and today comes in between Thursday Friday weekend and a Sunday Monday public holiday.

So, I declare today, “catching up on blogs day“!

On the bright side, it took me less than 5 mins to get to work and I easily found the best parking spot available!

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Who came up with this name for a campaign??

Didn’t they think of the name in Arabic before launching??

Wataniya Telecom never cease to surprise me in how bad their marketing efforts are! Wataniya is probably the one company in Kuwait that has the potential to become a regional leader if only they only worked on their brand! Very poor in their marketing and continue to be so judging from this campaign!

I really wish they could pause for a minute and look at what MTC is doing (except for their latest e-go ads which are very very poor)!

From what I remember of their ads, their red carpet ad was nice, their ad a couple of years before that of the farawla guy in the supermarket was decent, and their Xpress cards ad with the two kids was OK, but none of them had ANYTHING to do with the other!! Add to that their stupid “look at the logo” campaign on the buses with the big boobs, and every other ad they have had in the past few years……NONE OF THEM HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE OTHER!!

If each ad was from a different company, they would all be decent ads, but the fact that all these ads come from the same company just shows how much of a mess they are and how unclear they are in their message to be delivered representing their brand!

Anyway, back to the point, why the hell would their product be called Diggly Tone in English and “دقلي تون” in Arabic?! Neither of the names makes any sense, and in Arabic it just sounds plain silly!

Last night, I was privileged to be invited with a distinguished group of bloggers to discuss the subject of blogs in general and how they affect us here in Kuwait. The show is called Diwaniyat Alisboo3 (ديوانية الأسبوع) and it is presented by Dr. Shafiq AlGhabra and airs on KTV. Last night’s episode was recorded to air at a later date, I think a month or two from now.

I knew everyone there personally except Mahmood, who flew in to Kuwait from Bahrain specifically for this show. The rest of the participants were Zaydoun, Shurouq, nibaq, kilama6goog, and a blogger who would rather remain anonymous.

The discussion in my opinion was excellent. It went very smoothly without jumping randomly between the many different subjects that could’ve been discussed, which is probably due to Dr. Shafiq’s ability to handle such a discussion. I only wish we had more time to continue the discussions, which were very enjoyable.

For more details about the episode, you can find a great summary (with some pics) at Mahmood’s blog.

One of the topics briefly discussed was anonymity. We had 7 participants in the discussion, 2 of whom have not been anonymous and have always used their real names, Shurouq Mudhaffar and Mahmood Al-Yousif. The other five were probably not as anonymous as we’d like to believe but we still never openly used our full names, until last night, where we all “came out”. It would be interesting to see how this would change our styles in writing and criticizing anything we want so freely! This applies to Zaydoun, kilama6goog, nibaq, and myself.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to the BBC radio on my way to work, and they were on their “India Week” (which actually lasted about a month)! Anyway, they were talking to an Indian businessman about the rise of India and what is making India grow so fast all of a sudden?

He gave them an answer that was excellent in my opinion. He told them that a few years ago, he was at the US, and was meeting with a Silicon Valley CEO, who told him that the difference between Silicon Valley and the rest of the world is -

Here, we don’t shoot people who make mistakes …. we shoot people who don’t try

The Indian guy says the difference between India now and India 10 years ago is this mentality! In the past, noone was willing to try anything new because it might lead to failure and mistakes, which everyone was afraid of, now in India, people are trying and pushing the limit in every field in an attempt to innovate and stay ahead to survive in this world of fierce competition!

Here in Kuwait, we live in an environment that does not embrace challenging ideas or creating something new. We live in an environment where people are much more worried about making mistakes than trying something new.

People are not rewarded for innovating, they are rewarded for keeping things as they are and avoiding any problems!! So many people are content with just keeping their job by doing the bare minimum of what is asked of them and nothing more! Anything more, any new idea, would mean that there is a chance that it might not work out, so many don’t even bother!

I couldn’t stop thinking of that quote. When I remember it, I realize how much I could be losing by not trying to take risks. Everyone should think about this and how it affects them personally at work and at a personal level! As a culture, we all know that this is unfortunately true in more than one way, and that as a culture, we cannot advance unless we change this environment of suppressing creativity!

Remember Armageddon? At least we had a sneak preview..

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Asteroid heading for Earth needs UN plan say scientists

On a cosmological scale, an asteroid called Apophis is small. However, if the 250 meter wide space rock hits Earth in 2036, as scientists say it may, the consequences would be catastrophic. According to the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), a professional association for astronauts and cosmonauts, the world needs to wake up to the danger or suffer a disaster that would dwarf the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004.

Former astronaut Rusty Schweickart, chairman of the ASE’s Committee on Near Earth Objects (NEO) and a member of the Apollo 9 lunar module crew, believes action needs to be taken under the auspices of the UN to minimize the threat from rogue asteroids heading our way.

“While such cosmic impacts between NEOs and the Earth are infrequent their magnitude is often far greater than any other natural disaster, with an upper bound resulting in global, rather than local or regional devastation. Historically the largest of such cosmic impacts have
led to the virtually instantaneous extinction of a majority of the species alive on the planet at the time of impact,” Schweickart and his fellow NEO committee members wrote in an open letter produced by the ASE in 2005.

Now Schweickart and his team are calling for a new global organization, which will have the responsibility of coordinating and dealing with such threats. According to ScienceNoW magazine, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), astronomers told the annual meeting of AAAS last week preventing a collision would require mounting a not-yet-planned space mission by a not-yet-identified governmental body.

While thousands of potentially dangerous NEOs have been identified by astronomers, Apophis has been singled out for attention because it is going to have two very close encounters with the Earth within a short space of time. The first on Friday April 13 2029 will see the asteroid pass within an uncomfortable 30,000 kilometers. However, it is the second pass seven years later that have scientists worried. They’re not sure whether the first pass will see Earth’s gravity drag Apophis into a direct impact trajectory in 2036.

The only modern documented case of a large space body impacting Earth was in 1908 when an object exploded in the air over the Tunguska region of Siberia. The resulting blast, equivalent to a 10 megaton nuclear bomb, flattened 2150 square kilometers of forrest. There is still conjecture as to whether the object was part of a comet made of ice and dust or a rocky asteroid similar to Apophis. If it was an asteroid, then scientists have calculated that it would have been about 60 meters in diameter, less than one quarter the size of Apophis.

Proposals being put forward to circumvent the threat posed by Apophis and other NEOs include have specially prepared spacecraft ready to launch which would impact the threatening asteroid and deflect it from its collision course. Another suggestion, is to deflect the asteroid’s course using the weak gravitational field of a spacecraft hovering nearby.

Scientists generally don’t favour the idea of hitting asteroids with nuclear missiles as they believe it creates the danger of the asteroid simply fragmenting into a number of smaller but still deadly Earthbound NEOs.

Link

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In a not related note…maybe..

Britney quit rehab o shaved everything off o had a tattoo -

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Ok if they tell you that your part of the world will be gone for sure at that time, and that you have to be moved quickly, where would you move yourself and your family to??

The other day I was discussing the issue of football with my wife. I was trying to explain to her the reason why I love the game. It got me thinking about this issue, and I reached an epiphany (heh, nice one).

What would make grown men act like children when a goal is scored? Why is it that when a player scores, he goes crazy running around and the fans also go crazy!

Personally, I’m a big fan of Arsenal and I almost never miss a game. A couple of weeks back, Arsenal came back to beat Manchester United 2-1, scoring 2 goals in the last 10 minutes including a last second goal! When Henry scored that goal, I actually jumped off my seat (more than once) from joy, as did the 60,000 fans in the stadium, and the players, and all the Arsenal supporters around the world!

I was thinking about the feeling of joy and happiness you get when that happens. I tried to think of anything else in the world that would make someone feel like that, and couldn’t think of a single thing! There is nothing that can make people that happy in that short amount of time!

That sudden surge of happiness or joy is shortlived but very very powerful! If we compare that feeling to another happy feeling, lets say a wife telling her husband that she’s pregnant, the happiness we get from that is much more powerful than a goal obviously, but the husband will not raise his arms in the air and run around like crazy from joy!

Why is that? Why is it that something so insignificant in the long run such as a goal scored can make a grown man run around like crazy while something so important like having a child will not!

The happiness from the child is long lasting and makes that person happy everytime he thinks about it, while the happiness from the goal is like an overdose injection of happiness that is temporary!

That thrill that sports fans get is something that people who dont like sports will never understand! That surge of adrenalin and sudden joy is incomparable with anything else (except maybe winning the lottery), but us sports fans get that feeling over and over during the course of the season!

So basically, my conclusion to why I love watching football and why it means so much to me is that I’m addicted to those feelings you get just like a drug, you keep wanting more of it! Plus there is a whole issue of belonging to that group of fans or team that probably need a whole different discussion

Examples of goal celebrations -

Good morning. Not so good for me though, I woke up half an hour late for work because my phone battery was dead, and I use its alarm to wake me. Got ready for work and left my place, got into my car, and it wouldn’t work because now the car’s battery was dead!!!

Not such an encouraging start for the day!

Anyway, remember my collection of old ads? I posted four ones before. Hilton, Pepsi Cola, Gulf Bank, and Commercial Bank.

This time I’ll post an ad for Kuwait Airways that I liked alot, when they first started their route to Paris back in 1965.

click on the image to enlarge