Michael Jackson in Seef Mall - Bahrain

I don't know if this is the real Michael or one of his many lookalike fans, but this is definitely Seef Mall in Bahrain.

Computer Storage Story

In these days of giga storage, does anyone remember punch cards?

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, actually it was here on planet earth 45 years ago, punch cards where used to input your software into a huge mainframe computer, the output would come out the next day on accordion computer paper.



Each card would hold one line of software code. If you had a 200 line program, you would have 200 cards stacked together in a batch. You would submit this batch to the people maintaining the mainframe behemoth. These days, you might sometimes hear somebody say that he had a batch job running, meaning he was running his software overnight or in the background.

Technology improved, people got smarter or where tired of carrying heavy batches of cards for their software. IBM invented the 8 inch floppy with an amazing capacity of 242,000 bytes or characters.



The floppy was a a circle of plastic with a magnetic coat. It was enveloped by a plastic protective case. It was bendable, hence the term floppy disc. Although you could lose your data if you bent your floppy.

Later on the 5 inch floppy came out. That was basically the same except now it was 5 inches in diameter. More improvements came with the last innovation being double sided double density meaning you could write data on both sides of the floppy and the magnetic coating could carry more data. The first floppies for PCs where 150k, followed by 360k.



The IBM AT had 5 inch floppy drives with a massive capacity of 1.2 MB.

Back to the present, you have 80GB storage as standard, and your file size would be measured in megabytes. There is no way you are going to store these on 1.2 MB floppies.



Flash drives where invented that you connect to your PC / Laptop through the USB port. The latest model I saw could carry 2GB of data. Thats a lot!

Now I am waiting for someone to invent a flash drive that does not protrude from your laptop like a small diving board and slides into your computer without fear of damage because you move your laptop around and risk breaking your expensive laptop if you put it down somewhere.

We interupt this blog to give you the latest weather report

Today's weather report in Kuwait is:


Dusty with more and more dust, visibility is little to none, stay indoors, watch television, surf the net, and cruise the malls, do not try walking outside,

Who owns the world?

Have a look at this, it lists out all the Multinational companies, institutions and the different people running them. It shows you the connection between them, hmm it is too complicated to explain, just try it out, you will see what I mean:

They rule.

Dust in Kuwait

We like dust over here in Kuwait. If helps lower the temperature from 49C to 42C.

my fridge - a work of art

Fridge:

cold store, freezer, freezer locker, frigidarium, frozen-food locker, locker, cooler, cool, art, masterpiece, louvres, rembrant, mona lisa, 8th wonder of the world, my fridge.


I was in my my kitchen this morning and I noticed my fridge. Not that I never noticed it before, but this time I really looked at it. I like buying these magnet thingies that you stick to your fridge, and I just stick them on my fridge door. Well, it looked really artistic, Picasso couldn't do better. So I took a few pictures to share the beauty of my fridge with all of you.

Build a Ferrari from your Acura NSX

Amazing series of pictures.

That will be my next project.

Acura to Ferrari. Takes a long time to load but worth the wait.

Elevator Blues

I spend ages waiting for elevators, or going up and down an elevator and have it stop at every floor. Well some smart hacker has discovered an elevator hack that will solve all my problems. At least, the elevator related problems. Check it out.

My Humor Style

I took a test about my humor style. I don't believe much in tests but still fun to do, here are my results:

the Ham (43% dark, 65% spontaneous, 33% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | LIGHT Your style's mostly goofy, innocent and feel-good. Perfect for parties and for the dads who chaperone them. You can actually get away with corny jokes, and I bet your sense of humor is a guilty pleasure for your friends. People of your type are often the most approachable and popular people in their circle. Your simple & silly good-naturedness is immediately recognizable, and it sets you apart in this sarcastic world. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Will Ferrell - Will Smith

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 66% on dark You scored higher than 83% on spontaneous You scored higher than 33% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

Nigerian 419 Scam

A long long time ago, pre-internet, pre-email, I received a letter from the daughter of Jean-Bédel Bokassa. She told me that after the overthrow of her father, he had hoarded many millions through Uranium sales to France and other countries. She needed my help to get this money out since all this money was hidden in secret accounts. She had $75,000,000 worth of money and she promised me 25% of that. All I needed to do was send her details of my bank acoounts and blank pieces of paper with my signature on it. I can expect the money within a few days.

I am not so smart or wise but any offer of easy money immediately has my bullshit detector light up, and now it was lighting up. I did not respond because it looked like a scam but I felt real proud I was considered scam material, it means I am worthy of a scammer's attention. I felt like I joined the Forbes World's Billionaires list - scammer version.

Now that I was on the scam inc. mailing list, I started getting at least 3 or 4 letters every year. I had the oppurtunity to help different African ex rulers, Malaysian Magnates, Russian Oligarchs and many other rich people that needed my personal help. I felt honoured and priviliged.

Scammers then discovered the internet and my email address. A recent appeal for help was from Saddam Hussein's Niece that needed help in getting her billions out of a Dubai bank. It was really nice of her to consider me and asking for help from a Kuwaiti like me. Maybe she felt sorry for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and wanted to personally enrich me by sharing her wealth. Let bygones be bygones.

These scams are known as the Nigerian 419 Scam after section 4-1-9 of the Nigerian Penal code wich relates to this scheme. It seems just like Henry Ford created Mass Production, some Nigerian Entrepreneurs perfected this scam into a whole industry.

Well one 419 scamstress was caught recently.

Amaka Anajemba,the scamstress has been sentenced to two and a half years in jail. She must also return $48.5million to a Brazilian bank which she also scammed, another $5million to the government, and pay a $15,000 fine. The scams in which Anajemba was involved, along with two others, totalled more than $242 million.

Wow, $242 million!, thats better than winning the lottery. Maybe some clever scammer can write a letter on Amaka's behalf and say that she managed to stash a few millions from her 419 enterprise and needed my help in getting that money out.

A recursive scam. That would be fun to see.