Well a few of these just hit me today in the shower. I've always found the shower to be an inspirational place, no idea why, but many of my great ideas are brewed in the shower. Well alright there aren't that many great ideas of mine, that was a bit of a stretch.
It maybe worth mentioning that these are again a pastime. Maybe I'll include the disclaimer somewhere on the blog's homepage once and for all :).
Here they go:
1. Why does the word "yesterday" have day in it while "tomorrow" doesn't. Both are days.
2. Why do we have a word for that period of the day that is only 1 second long (if your watch's resolution is seconds) or 1 minute long (if you're using the clock in your mobile). The period in question is noon.
The only use we get out of the "noon" word is the "afternoon" which is the part of the day between noon and sunset. If I were making the language I would have ditched "noon" altogether and assign the name to the "afternoon" period instead. It seems it's the part we care about anyway.
3. In a very similar vein to an old wondering brought up by Kareem Mostafa I believe about why Donald Duck throws a towel around his waist when coming out of the shower while he actually never wears any pants/shorts. This was brought up while discussing the above mentioned touchy subject with Helal. He referred to the fact that Mickey mouse actually does wear "lower body" wear. So how come? Does this mean Mickey mouse had stuff to hide while Donald duck didn't? :)
4. In Arabic how do you differentiate between snow and ice? I don't know of two different words for those things.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
Home Improvement
So last weekend Helal and I decide to invest a full day in home improvement efforts. We really did need it. The living room was a mess and we'd gotten lots of furniture only to leave it unassembled. The major motivation though was the arrival of the kick-ass home theater system whose powers had yet to be unleashed.
We spent the day hammering and screwing our way through seemingly endless pieces of IKEA furniture, and then later scanning through a pile of cartons, paper and plastic bags that contained stuff we'd packed during our move from temp housing. Stuff that we'd forgotten even existed in the first place. But the results have been really worth the effort.
A few days earlier we'd gotten professional help for wall mounting the plasma TV.
Wall mounting stuff turned out to be quite a tricky job around here mainly because walls are not made of brick and concrete, but rather something called sheet rock, a white-powderish thing.
I found out the hard way when I tried to bolt on a few book shelves in my bedroom. I fixed the shelves using a few screws and then with a proud move patted the shelves saying "Now I got shelves for my books", only for the shelves to fall off the wall as if they were fixed by scotch tape.
Of course after that incident I decided I am not willing to take my chances with mounting the plasma TV.
I will spare you the technicalities of how to mount a TV on such a wall, maybe for a later post. For now I'd rather present you with a few photos of how the results now look like. The living room is still missing more than a few things, but the shots will be focused mainly on the complete part. Here goes:
We spent the day hammering and screwing our way through seemingly endless pieces of IKEA furniture, and then later scanning through a pile of cartons, paper and plastic bags that contained stuff we'd packed during our move from temp housing. Stuff that we'd forgotten even existed in the first place. But the results have been really worth the effort.
A few days earlier we'd gotten professional help for wall mounting the plasma TV.
Wall mounting stuff turned out to be quite a tricky job around here mainly because walls are not made of brick and concrete, but rather something called sheet rock, a white-powderish thing.
I found out the hard way when I tried to bolt on a few book shelves in my bedroom. I fixed the shelves using a few screws and then with a proud move patted the shelves saying "Now I got shelves for my books", only for the shelves to fall off the wall as if they were fixed by scotch tape.
Of course after that incident I decided I am not willing to take my chances with mounting the plasma TV.
I will spare you the technicalities of how to mount a TV on such a wall, maybe for a later post. For now I'd rather present you with a few photos of how the results now look like. The living room is still missing more than a few things, but the shots will be focused mainly on the complete part. Here goes:
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Random
Oh well, nothing very important. It's just that I don't really have the time or the mindset to post a very serious hmmmm oh well, post.
So here goes, a few random observations that I took notice of during the past couple months. Most if not all of them is about MS or the US. Some might find them amusing, some will find them boring, and in any case if you have something more important to do then go do it. This is just a pastime for a few minutes :).
So here goes:
1.Well it maybe stating the obvious, but many americans (at least in my experience) are indeed unilingual. I can't really blame them, maybe if most of the world spoke arabic as 2nd language we would've been like that. And it usually impresses to tell an American that you can speak 2 languages fluently and a 3rd fairly well so I can't complain. Some even guessed we speak English in Egypt when they find us using it comfortably.
2. This is really useless, I have no idea how it came to my mind but pocket handkerchief packs around here are usually 15 2-ply tissues, instead of the ones in Egypt with 10 3-ply tissues. Ultimately the same number of plies but I think the US version makes better use of the resources :)
3. All conference rooms and offices at Microsoft have motion sensors that would turn off the lights when no motion is detected for a few minutes to save energy. Pretty cool idea. I have yet to find out the exact timeout for those though. Someday I'm gonna perform my own experiment and find out.
4. I just noticed today what seemed to me like tiny braille writings on the restroom signs at MS that seem to identify men's/women's restrooms. Very thoughtful.
5. It does indeed rain a lot in the Seattle area. Again stating the obvious, but what most people who never lived in similar weather probably don't know is that it's always warmer when it rains. On the non rainy days we get -4 degrees celsius weather. It can never go below 6 degrees celsius when it's raining on the other hand.
6. You hardly ever need to carry cash around here if you have an ATM/credit card. You even pay tips at restaurants/cafes by writing the amount on the store's copy of the visa receipt. I find myself usually carrying zero cash, not something you can get away with in Cairo at all. Another side effect is that I have yet to get used to the banknote and coin shapes. I still have to stare and read to know a given US banknote/coin's value.
7. I'd probably wasted enough of your (and my) time by now :) So I'm wraping this up. Merry Christmas for the folks in Egypt, and Kol sana wento tayebeen for everyone celebrating 3eed El Ad7a everywhere!
See ya
So here goes, a few random observations that I took notice of during the past couple months. Most if not all of them is about MS or the US. Some might find them amusing, some will find them boring, and in any case if you have something more important to do then go do it. This is just a pastime for a few minutes :).
So here goes:
1.Well it maybe stating the obvious, but many americans (at least in my experience) are indeed unilingual. I can't really blame them, maybe if most of the world spoke arabic as 2nd language we would've been like that. And it usually impresses to tell an American that you can speak 2 languages fluently and a 3rd fairly well so I can't complain. Some even guessed we speak English in Egypt when they find us using it comfortably.
2. This is really useless, I have no idea how it came to my mind but pocket handkerchief packs around here are usually 15 2-ply tissues, instead of the ones in Egypt with 10 3-ply tissues. Ultimately the same number of plies but I think the US version makes better use of the resources :)
3. All conference rooms and offices at Microsoft have motion sensors that would turn off the lights when no motion is detected for a few minutes to save energy. Pretty cool idea. I have yet to find out the exact timeout for those though. Someday I'm gonna perform my own experiment and find out.
4. I just noticed today what seemed to me like tiny braille writings on the restroom signs at MS that seem to identify men's/women's restrooms. Very thoughtful.
5. It does indeed rain a lot in the Seattle area. Again stating the obvious, but what most people who never lived in similar weather probably don't know is that it's always warmer when it rains. On the non rainy days we get -4 degrees celsius weather. It can never go below 6 degrees celsius when it's raining on the other hand.
6. You hardly ever need to carry cash around here if you have an ATM/credit card. You even pay tips at restaurants/cafes by writing the amount on the store's copy of the visa receipt. I find myself usually carrying zero cash, not something you can get away with in Cairo at all. Another side effect is that I have yet to get used to the banknote and coin shapes. I still have to stare and read to know a given US banknote/coin's value.
7. I'd probably wasted enough of your (and my) time by now :) So I'm wraping this up. Merry Christmas for the folks in Egypt, and Kol sana wento tayebeen for everyone celebrating 3eed El Ad7a everywhere!
See ya
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Christmas in the US
Well, today marks Christmas in the US. It's an experience, my first christmas abroad. Egyptian christians are mostly orthodox and they celebrate Christmas on January 7th though.
It's actually quite interesting the story of how the whole thing of dec 25th vs jan 7th Christmas began. Because actually when you think about it, Christmas should have been Jan 1st, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ and the calendar widely in use today is based on the same event. So it only makes sense for Christmas to be on Jan 1st.
However, It seems that at some point in time people thought we had a slight glitch in the calendar system and that the calendar year did not accurately represent what a year should be. They then started calculating the time difference to compensate for it and "move" Christmas. Everybody agreed the error was around 7 days, weirdly enough, they could not then decide on whether to add or subtract those days. They calculated miniscule difference in the calendar year, and added them up across centuries, but they couldn't determing the "sign" of the magnitude. One would think they knew what they were doing doing all those calculations, but one would be wrong.
So some ended up adding those days and some ended up subtracting them. That's supposed to be how the whole December 25th vs Jan 7th started, and that's how they are equidistant from Jan 1st. Kinda funny.
So, back to Christmas here. It's been totally commercialized of course. It's almost all about holiday shopping and then gathering with family and friends and opening up the presents. It is still kinda nice to see the festivities everywhere. Huge Christmas trees, lights on the houses.
One thing I'd noticed is that people at stores, restaurants, etc. make sure they are politically correct. They never tell you "Merry Christmas", rather "Happy Holidays", and you make out of that what you may :)
I also got the best Christmas present. Helal, Mostafa, and Khalid got me this super nice shelf stereo unit. Plays mp3, audio cds, and FM. Helal knew I liked this unit since we saw it together at Best Buy, so I came back home last night (Christmas Eve) to find it neatly wrapped and placed right in front of the door. It was awesome, and I have no idea how they managed to keep it as a suprise since we're together 99% of the time :) Thanks guys, you made my Christmas, you're the best!
It's actually quite interesting the story of how the whole thing of dec 25th vs jan 7th Christmas began. Because actually when you think about it, Christmas should have been Jan 1st, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ and the calendar widely in use today is based on the same event. So it only makes sense for Christmas to be on Jan 1st.
However, It seems that at some point in time people thought we had a slight glitch in the calendar system and that the calendar year did not accurately represent what a year should be. They then started calculating the time difference to compensate for it and "move" Christmas. Everybody agreed the error was around 7 days, weirdly enough, they could not then decide on whether to add or subtract those days. They calculated miniscule difference in the calendar year, and added them up across centuries, but they couldn't determing the "sign" of the magnitude. One would think they knew what they were doing doing all those calculations, but one would be wrong.
So some ended up adding those days and some ended up subtracting them. That's supposed to be how the whole December 25th vs Jan 7th started, and that's how they are equidistant from Jan 1st. Kinda funny.
So, back to Christmas here. It's been totally commercialized of course. It's almost all about holiday shopping and then gathering with family and friends and opening up the presents. It is still kinda nice to see the festivities everywhere. Huge Christmas trees, lights on the houses.
One thing I'd noticed is that people at stores, restaurants, etc. make sure they are politically correct. They never tell you "Merry Christmas", rather "Happy Holidays", and you make out of that what you may :)
I also got the best Christmas present. Helal, Mostafa, and Khalid got me this super nice shelf stereo unit. Plays mp3, audio cds, and FM. Helal knew I liked this unit since we saw it together at Best Buy, so I came back home last night (Christmas Eve) to find it neatly wrapped and placed right in front of the door. It was awesome, and I have no idea how they managed to keep it as a suprise since we're together 99% of the time :) Thanks guys, you made my Christmas, you're the best!
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Morality And Economics
I just started a new book called freakonomics. I have no recollection of how it came to my attention but it's been sitting in my amazon shopping cart for a few weeks now and then I discovered it was available at the MS library. I have no recollection of how I discovered this either but it just happened.
So I checked out the book, and I'd just laid it down right now after reading the table of contents and introduction.
Of course, I do not mean this as a book review because obviously I hadn't read enough of it yet and secondly I will probably suck at writing a review.
There is however this phrase that really caught my attention:
Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work--whereas economics represents how it actually _does_ work
Now how about that as food for thought....
So I checked out the book, and I'd just laid it down right now after reading the table of contents and introduction.
Of course, I do not mean this as a book review because obviously I hadn't read enough of it yet and secondly I will probably suck at writing a review.
There is however this phrase that really caught my attention:
Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work--whereas economics represents how it actually _does_ work
Now how about that as food for thought....
Saturday, December 03, 2005
The Ultimate Adrenaline Rush
So, I guess now that you know the mystery of slow updates I'm entitled to do them more often :P
So well, home improvement efforts were kinda hard the past few days. It's getting better now, I almost have a decent bedroom. That's for another post though.
Today it's gonna be about the ultimate adrenaline rush. Even though the past few days have been packed with fun (it snowed for the first time in Redmond), including 270 degree spins with my car in the snow (nothing to worry about) today I had the ultimate adrenaline rush. _THE_ ultimate.
I'm in Canada right now with the Microsoft shipping party. Having loads of fun and will post more about that later. For now I'll just leave you with a first for me and the blog.
Below you'll find a link for a video that you can stream to watch what the ultimate adrenaline rush is. I am just hoping it's not too prohibitive bandwidth wise for you guys. Tell me if it is and I'll disclose more information verbally :)
For now, enjoy the vid here :)
P.S.
Mom, I know you might freak out when you see this. It's totally OK, just remember I lived to post it ;). I'm doing great and having loads of fun.
So well, home improvement efforts were kinda hard the past few days. It's getting better now, I almost have a decent bedroom. That's for another post though.
Today it's gonna be about the ultimate adrenaline rush. Even though the past few days have been packed with fun (it snowed for the first time in Redmond), including 270 degree spins with my car in the snow (nothing to worry about) today I had the ultimate adrenaline rush. _THE_ ultimate.
I'm in Canada right now with the Microsoft shipping party. Having loads of fun and will post more about that later. For now I'll just leave you with a first for me and the blog.
Below you'll find a link for a video that you can stream to watch what the ultimate adrenaline rush is. I am just hoping it's not too prohibitive bandwidth wise for you guys. Tell me if it is and I'll disclose more information verbally :)
For now, enjoy the vid here :)
P.S.
Mom, I know you might freak out when you see this. It's totally OK, just remember I lived to post it ;). I'm doing great and having loads of fun.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The mystery of the slow updates
No, not SQL stuff in case you were wondering. Now you can relax.
I can read your mind though, Chris doesn't update his blog all that much these days. I know I'm not blogging as much as I would like to these days. And it's not about suffering a "blogger's block" either.
It's just that so much is happening and I have so many things to attend to. The main highlight would be the move to the new apartment.
Now unfurnished rental apartments here come a bit more equipped than in Egypt, because in Egypt you get pretty much nothing but a floor and some walls whereas here you get a fridge, dishwasher, washer, dryer, stove, and sometimes even a microwave (not in my case). This should make things easier right? Well a bit easier maybe, but not easy enough.
Since my Microsoft temp housing term will end on November 21st, I thought I should get the basic things first, you know, at least to be able to sleep in the apartment. So I went shopping for a mattress. And I was in for a real surprise.
In theory, shopping for a mattress should be easy enough. At least that's what I thought. I mean, I got my laptop in 10 minutes online so how hard could it be to get a mattress.
Wrong wrong wrong.
My shopping trip began with the only place I'd heard of during my stay, through ads and stuff. Sleep country. I was under the impression that mattresses typically cost a couple hundred dollars and I was willing to pamper myself and maybe spend up to a ridiculous $500 for a mattress, because, you know, I'm a spendthrift and stuff. It's true that I had no real evidence or data to get me "under" this impression. But the fact remains that I was under it.
I enter sleep country and I'm greeted by a nice salesman. I tell him I'm looking for a mattress and that I'm completely clueless about the sizes/types (yes there are many types of mattresses in case you are as mattress-ignorant as I am (or was) ) etc.
He was trying to ask me about my preference of whether I like firm mattresses vs. plush ones, I just kept staring blankly at him. He probably thought I just landed from the moon. Heck, even _I_ felt as if I just landed from the moon.
So anyway, he asks me to "test drive" a few mattresses to find out more about my "sleeping preferences". Good enough. I try a few ones (a few as in 5 or 6) and he tells me that I seem to prefer the less firm mattresses.I had no idea I did.
The guy then takes me to try another "type" of mattresses. The ones I've been trying were Sealy, a well known brand of mattresses here. The other type was called BeautyRest, which features different "technology" if you will.
The man then goes on to explain that a BeautyRest mattress uses "individual coil springs" rather than Sealy's "interconnected coil springs" This causes the mattress to have more controlled vibrations and the end result is that each part is more free to move independently which supposedly provides for better back support and the added "feature" that you don't feel it as much when someone else is getting on the bed on the other side.
Now I'm 100% positive you don't really care about mattress technology, but neither do I. I just have to recreate the atmosphere for you to live the experience just as I did.
So anyway, I am kinda impressed with the BeautyRest and proceed to ask about prices. And then my jaw drops to the floor. A queen mattress set would be around the $1300 mark. I probably need to explain a bit before I go on.
Queen is the size of the mattress, mattress sizes have their own names here. Queen is generally bought by couples because it's wide enough to fit two. You probably know I am not a couple and so wonder why I need one.
Problem is that the master mattress architect who invented those sizes here seems ot have been under the impression that couples are usually much taller than single individuals. And hence for some (weird and unknown as Nag would say) reason decided to make sizes grow in both width and height simultaneously. In short, if you get a smaller size you get a narrower as well as shorter mattress. So to sleep alone I need to cut off a significant part of my feet, which I'm really not too excited about doing right now.
The really observant amongst you would have noticed the word "set" in "A queen mattress set" too, you don't usually buy just a mattress. Instead you want to get a mattress set, which is the mattress plus a box spring. A box spring is what you put a mattress on, it comes in normal and low profile versions and serves as support for the mattresses. This is probably the equivalent of "el molla" in Egypt, but beds are designed here just as frames (and an *optional* head board) so you need this to support the mattress and rest on the bed frame.
If you feel you're not entirely confused and/or bored by now I would encourage you to visit this where you could "learn" about the mattress jargon. It should do it.
And you thought computers were complicated.
So anyway, to cut a long story short. I didn't get a mattress. I decided I need to "research" the matter a bit more, seeing that mattresses seem to go anywhere from $700 to $6300, it is now an investment. So I'm taking my time researching brands, types, technologies (there is more than just the two technologies described earlier, msnsearch (not google! ;) ) for memory foam mattress if you're still awake), and prices.
Sleeping on the floor is not off the table either :)
May you never need to buy a mattress ever.
I can read your mind though, Chris doesn't update his blog all that much these days. I know I'm not blogging as much as I would like to these days. And it's not about suffering a "blogger's block" either.
It's just that so much is happening and I have so many things to attend to. The main highlight would be the move to the new apartment.
Now unfurnished rental apartments here come a bit more equipped than in Egypt, because in Egypt you get pretty much nothing but a floor and some walls whereas here you get a fridge, dishwasher, washer, dryer, stove, and sometimes even a microwave (not in my case). This should make things easier right? Well a bit easier maybe, but not easy enough.
Since my Microsoft temp housing term will end on November 21st, I thought I should get the basic things first, you know, at least to be able to sleep in the apartment. So I went shopping for a mattress. And I was in for a real surprise.
In theory, shopping for a mattress should be easy enough. At least that's what I thought. I mean, I got my laptop in 10 minutes online so how hard could it be to get a mattress.
Wrong wrong wrong.
My shopping trip began with the only place I'd heard of during my stay, through ads and stuff. Sleep country. I was under the impression that mattresses typically cost a couple hundred dollars and I was willing to pamper myself and maybe spend up to a ridiculous $500 for a mattress, because, you know, I'm a spendthrift and stuff. It's true that I had no real evidence or data to get me "under" this impression. But the fact remains that I was under it.
I enter sleep country and I'm greeted by a nice salesman. I tell him I'm looking for a mattress and that I'm completely clueless about the sizes/types (yes there are many types of mattresses in case you are as mattress-ignorant as I am (or was) ) etc.
He was trying to ask me about my preference of whether I like firm mattresses vs. plush ones, I just kept staring blankly at him. He probably thought I just landed from the moon. Heck, even _I_ felt as if I just landed from the moon.
So anyway, he asks me to "test drive" a few mattresses to find out more about my "sleeping preferences". Good enough. I try a few ones (a few as in 5 or 6) and he tells me that I seem to prefer the less firm mattresses.I had no idea I did.
The guy then takes me to try another "type" of mattresses. The ones I've been trying were Sealy, a well known brand of mattresses here. The other type was called BeautyRest, which features different "technology" if you will.
The man then goes on to explain that a BeautyRest mattress uses "individual coil springs" rather than Sealy's "interconnected coil springs" This causes the mattress to have more controlled vibrations and the end result is that each part is more free to move independently which supposedly provides for better back support and the added "feature" that you don't feel it as much when someone else is getting on the bed on the other side.
Now I'm 100% positive you don't really care about mattress technology, but neither do I. I just have to recreate the atmosphere for you to live the experience just as I did.
So anyway, I am kinda impressed with the BeautyRest and proceed to ask about prices. And then my jaw drops to the floor. A queen mattress set would be around the $1300 mark. I probably need to explain a bit before I go on.
Queen is the size of the mattress, mattress sizes have their own names here. Queen is generally bought by couples because it's wide enough to fit two. You probably know I am not a couple and so wonder why I need one.
Problem is that the master mattress architect who invented those sizes here seems ot have been under the impression that couples are usually much taller than single individuals. And hence for some (weird and unknown as Nag would say) reason decided to make sizes grow in both width and height simultaneously. In short, if you get a smaller size you get a narrower as well as shorter mattress. So to sleep alone I need to cut off a significant part of my feet, which I'm really not too excited about doing right now.
The really observant amongst you would have noticed the word "set" in "A queen mattress set" too, you don't usually buy just a mattress. Instead you want to get a mattress set, which is the mattress plus a box spring. A box spring is what you put a mattress on, it comes in normal and low profile versions and serves as support for the mattresses. This is probably the equivalent of "el molla" in Egypt, but beds are designed here just as frames (and an *optional* head board) so you need this to support the mattress and rest on the bed frame.
If you feel you're not entirely confused and/or bored by now I would encourage you to visit this where you could "learn" about the mattress jargon. It should do it.
And you thought computers were complicated.
So anyway, to cut a long story short. I didn't get a mattress. I decided I need to "research" the matter a bit more, seeing that mattresses seem to go anywhere from $700 to $6300, it is now an investment. So I'm taking my time researching brands, types, technologies (there is more than just the two technologies described earlier, msnsearch (not google! ;) ) for memory foam mattress if you're still awake), and prices.
Sleeping on the floor is not off the table either :)
May you never need to buy a mattress ever.
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