2008-04-25

What does Google think of your city?

Google has a variant of its search engine, that gives suggestion after you type a few words listing out the most popular search terms. You can find it as Google Suggest.

I tried, just for fun, a few cities and see what people where looking for in these cities. Here are a few results.

Starting with Kuwait:

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Five air travel related sites, seems like a lot of people want to leave and / or come to Kuwait.

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Riyadh has a lot of people looking for the latest news followed by banks and commerce.

Dubai

Dubai is really becoming a second home with people looking up properties and holidays there.

Baghdad

Baghdad is not very appealing with Baghdad burning one of the top searches, with green zone and curfew coming close.

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Paris, well known as the City of Love, has got paris je t'aime as one of the most popular searches. Other results include museums and Paris by night.

San Francisco

San Francisco with silicon valley right next door, has its state university listed, and the public library also. Lots of smart people there.

Here are a few other search results, or try your own on Google Suggest to see what google thinks.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

2008-04-24

MAC PC

MAC PC

Matt Farrell: You just killed a helicopter with a car!

John McClane: I was out of bullets.

2008-04-18

Crack Cocaine Corporation

Here is a 22 minute video by Steven Levitt, famed economist and author of Freakonomics. He talks about the economics of being in a crack cocaine gang and, surprisingly, it is very similar to being in a regular corporation. If you see the full video, you will understand why the big boys are paid so much, compensating differential and marketing concepts very quickly.

2008-04-17

Election Time – Money Time

Elections for the Kuwait Parliament are scheduled in a month’s time. The candidates are out in full force. Even though they have been allowed only two campaign headquarters, they are busy renting tents, organizing their campaigns, ordering sumptuous buffets and advertising any which way they can to capture the confused voters. The serious candidate needs to invest between one to two million Kuwaiti Dinars if he is to have a significant presence in the election. Kuwaiti voters are allowed four votes for the four parliament members they want in their respective district.


There is also an underworld of vote buying from some morally challenged candidates. These candidates have perfected vote buying from the voters into an art form. A vote at today’s price is one thousand Kuwait Dinars.

You are approached by the candidate’s representatives and paid KD 1,000 for your vote. Some business minded candidates will also buy your remaining three votes which the candidate will use to barter for additional votes from other candidates. Some nascent entrepreneurs are also buying votes in bulk and approaching different candidates with these collected votes selling them to the highest bidder.

A lot of intellectuals might think of this as a problem and will result in candidates going to parliament on the strength of their wallets rather than their beliefs. I see this as an opportunity.

Vote buying should be legalized and taxed with the shiny silver sticker stamps that the government loves to use in all the government transactions. Voters will receive around four thousand KD to vote for the different candidates who paid them, helping alleviate their debt and salary problems that they have been crying about for so long. The government can charge 200 KD per vote and get some income also.

Once the Members of Parliament are elected and life is back to normal, it will be business as usual, passing laws and grillings for the ministers as soon as one MP disagrees with one of the Ministers. The government, to avoid embarrassment can dissolve parliament and have elections all over again.

There will again be more vote buying, more money for the people, more income for the government, more side business like tent rentals, advertising and restaurants. Everybody is happy. Once again, parliament is in session and ministers will be called for questioning. Once again parliament will be dissolved. In one year we could have five elections and five different parliaments. The Kuwaiti voters will end up making around an average of twenty thousand KD.


At the end of this fun election year most of the corrupt candidates would have gone broke after spending over 10 Million KD for five consecutive elections. The candidates who will survive are the ones who got votes on their vision and convictions for Kuwait. The voters would have made money and we will end up with a clean serious work oriented parliament.

Everyone is a winner.

2008-04-16

Two strikes you are out

According to Gulf Daily News:


Kuwait to deport expats for second traffic offence

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait is to get tough with expatriates who fail to respect the rules of the road and will even deport repeat offenders.

"The interior minister (Sheikh Jaber Khaled Al Sabah) has ordered that expatriates who jump a red light and have a previous conviction for a traffic offence should be deported," a senior interior ministry official said yesterday. He said his department will implement the order strictly in a bid to promote road safety.


Please don't apply these rules, not because we do not want to lose our guest workers but because the roads are already slow because of overcautious expat drivers driving at the speed of snails and holding the traffic back behind them. Put more cameras instead and make more money from the exorbitant fines.

2008-04-15

How Much Money Does Kuwait Have ?

Money

According to the CIA, link here, Kuwait has $ 51,490,000,000 as part of its current account. I don't know if this number represents money sitting in the bank or a total of Kuwait's liquid assets. We are number 9 in the list. China is the first in the list and has 7 times more cash than us. Japan follows next with 3.8 times more cash than Kuwait. Among Arab countries, Kuwait is second to Saudi Arabia with the Saudis having 1.73 times more money than Kuwait. Out of 164 countries, 103 countries have negative balances and 61 have positive balances. The United States has a deficit of $747,100,000,000.

Flight of the Bumble Bee

Performed in an amazing way, watch you will understand:

2008-04-09

I should be a bodyguard.

I just read something about an ex-bodyguard suing Lindsay Lohan because she did not pay him.

The bodyguard says he was not paid $55,000 which works out to be around KD 14,584 for 19 weeks of work. Hmm, 19 weeks, this means KD 14,584 / 19 weeks = 767 KD per week, meaning around 108 KD a day.

I don't see much risk in being a bodyguard for an actress, unless she is attacked by critics. Usually critics attack in columns and web sites and do not use guns. The Bodyguard says "his duties included protecting Lohan from fans and the paparazzi, accompanying her to industry events and obtaining VIP tables at clubs and concerts.".

So the work involves pushing a few camera faces around and making reservations.

I make more than him but I work long hours and get lots of stress which I solve by drinking bucket loads of coffee. I have a big built and I can look very threatening. Maybe I have the wrong job.

2008-04-08

Top 25 Blogs according to Time.com

Marzouq of Z District put up a list with links of Time.com's 25 top blogs.

Because Marzouq listed them all as URL's. I opened most of these sites and captured their feeds in my google reader. I put them all together in a conveneient page for your reading pleasure. You can find the top 25 blogs here. Happy Reading.

PS

I included Safat out of respect and my blog don-veto out of bigheadedness among the top 25 blogs.

2008-04-06

Please answer the Poll

I put up a poll on the left side here

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Please answer it. It is simple and painless and only needs a few mouse moves. I will keep for a while. I would love to hear from all of you.

2008-04-05

2008-04-03

Mini Rants

I don't get upset easily. Usually I find those situations funny. So these are not really rants, more like small bothersome events that make the day more interesting.

Don't you just hate when you go to Starbucks / Columbus / Costa / (insert your favorite coffee shop name) etc. and you order coffee and some muffin or sandwich, you pass the cashier a bill and then they ask for change? Excuse me Mr. Cashier, I only have a wallet and try not to carry coins in my pocket so I don't sound like a piggy bank, you are the one standing behind a cash machine stuffed with cash from selling over priced coffee, also if you don't have change, stop pricing your coffee at 1 Dinar and 457 fils. Give it nice round numbers and you will not have a change problem.

I got a call this morning from an Egyptian lady, she called my mobile and knew my name. I wonder who is giving away my mobile number. She said they had a special offer for house water filters, they will send an Engineer over for free and check my water filter and even check the parfor. I asked, what is a parfor she said it is part of the water filter, so I asked again, what is it specifically? She hmmmed, and she aaahhed for a few minutes then she said she had no idea, she was just told to call this list of numbers and to tell the victims on the list about the free engineer visit. OK, I thanked her and said I will call them and closed the phone.

I got a call from Kentucky Fried Chicken later today, they had good news for me. They have selected 50 lucky people in Kuwait and I was one of them. I won a free order of chicken if I ordered one order, I would get the second one for free. So I told the chicken guy I just had dinner and if I could possibly call him tomorrow when I was more hungry, he put me on hold, then came back and said he got special permission from his manager and they will extend that offer just for me. I just needed to call Kentucky tomorrow at the same time and ask for Mamdooh Hanafi and he will save that offer just for me. I am so fortunate, but I don't feel like eating hormone pumped chemically preserved oil soaked chicken tomorrow so I think I will pass on that offer.

Now for something completely unrelated, here is David Bowie with Heroes: