Windows 7 and windows 8.1 not for sale anymore

It's official, no more new installs of windows 7 and 8.1... or at least no more new licenses for OEMS. Windows 7 is dead, long live windows 10 (well at least at least until the next version comes.

Maybe next version version of windows will combine windows 7 and windows 11... and will do a bit of everything so that they can call it windows seven eleven... with a little luck, it will come with an orange red green logo with a big 7... and before anyone says, no this won't happen, I would like to remind everyone there was a windows 3.11... Bizarrely there was no windows 3.14 ... but I digress... or does pi converge.... somebody good with math help me :p.

Maybe it's time to move on from windows to something else, like "doors"... opening a new perception or paradigm to computing... some sort of singularity... wait, that name is already taken... never mind.

Bob Dylan awarded Nobel prize

Bob Dylan was just awarded the Nobel prize for litterature. Though Bob Dylan has some awesome songs, I am not really sure he would be my first choice for a Nobel prize in literature. I am starting to think the Nobel committe sometimes gets high while coming up with a decision. I never thought I'd quote John Boehner, "not sure he would be my second or third choice either."

Some decisions, I definitely like Malala Yousafzai but there are times it feels like the igNobels, I feel the parody of the Nobel Prize for pointless research make more sense. The official answer from the spokesperson, that they have awarded the nobel prize to another song writer, Homer is kind of cheesy... putting them in the same category, in my humble opinion, is quite a stretch.

Why they would do this, nobody knows... maybe "the answer my friends, is blowing in the wind."

In 2016 Muslim and Jewish New year coincide

When you drop the H, Rosh Ashana becomes Ros Asana, the arabic equivalent for Rosh Ashana. Interestingly, this year both new years fall on the same day... As if it was the universe's way to highlight how close cultures are... that in the end, people are not that different. May that be a cue to global tolerance, mutual understanding and world peace. Happy 5777! Happy 1438!

111K for an MBA

I was just reading the Stanford was getting ready to pay 160k over two years to 3 students who were willing to relocate to the midwest after they graduate and though the story can be given a positive spin, one fact caught my eye: It would have cost them 111K to attend the school. It is official the cost of education have become insane.

Yes, I understand good education can be costly but when education costs rise 80 percent in 5 years, it is definitely not healthy. Though I understand some of it is due to inflation, the cost of college has been multiplied by ten over the last 30 years, that is 3 times inflation.

It definitely does not benefit the student as most of the additional profits are not really reinvested into providing better education. Profits are not even used to provide a better education as a lot of the profits go to admin costs.

Yes, there are some huge benefits to attending college. Is knowledge important? absolutely. The problem is more and more students graduate in debt. Many low paying jobs that did not require a degree now are now staffed by indebted students who will likely never be able to pay back their loans.

Behind every successful person...

There is a common saying that says, “behind every successful man there is a successful woman,” I would like to venture that this does only provide a limited vision of reality.

First, it should be gender neutral

For every successful person, there are phenomenal supportive people willing to help. As more women have entered the workforce, it is fair to say, supportive husbands contribute too. Further, as same sex couples gain more acceptance, it is not necessarily someone from the opposite sex. But it does not give credit to everyone else in the support system… friends who cheer for you, family who encourage you on from early on are not recognized

For every successful person, there is a surprised person

We all have our potential kryptonite: As we go through life, we encounter multiple people who will make us doubt, put us down... either on purpose or unaware of what they are doing. It is important to keep grounded, avoid those people if you can and when you can’t be strong enough to persist

For every successful person, there is a mountain of failure

though on rare occasion, we do get lucky and success can come overnight... it is the exception rather than the norm. Whether it is athletes, musicians or experts in any field... they all start from the ground up and fail multiple times. As a matter of fact, we start in life not even knowing how to talk or walk... It is only after failing multiple times that we can do something correctly

For every successful person there is a vision

Persisting is one thing but you have to know what you want, if you don’t know where you’re going... how do you know you’ve reached your goal? If you exert yourself, trying a different activity every day, all you’ll end up is frustrated that you are not getting anywhere... and in the end, failure will not really help.

For every successful person, the path to success is non linear

Not only is the path non linear... sometimes it seems as our path is guided by a GPS with the setting "follow the most complicated path possible." That said, as the saying goes, “you may not change the direction of the wind but you can adjust the direction of your sails.” In other words, Multiple events will push us un multiple directions directions and it is very easy to get off course... sometimes stay off track many years without even realizing it. It is important to stay the course and do what it takes to get there by leveraging events that could throw us of course to get closer to our long term goals

Whatever happens, the most important is to know what you want, persist and leverage life's side trips the same way space probes use gravity assists to accelerate counter-intuitively first in the opposite direction, keeping the end trajectory in mind to get where they want faster

Elon asks twitter about his exploding rocket

Elon Musk asking twitter for the reason his rocket exploded.

Obviously, we could blame it on last week's hurricane. I believe it was because someone forgot their samsung galaxy s7 ... those batteries are lethal :p .

Is he looking for an resident alien tweet back and say, oh that looks suspiciously similar to what happened to me on XORG 79b, with your primitive technology, I would suggest local earthian mechanic Knextrulb.

Maybe he is expecting a rocket scientist, an astro physicist or some sort of engineer to weigh in with his expertise? Even assuming one knows the answer, why would they answer. Is he expecting a freebie? I don't know what the reason is but it definitely does not sound good

Obama in a restaurant kitchen

On the accuracy of information on the web

Lesson on persistence from the iron nun

The Cat who thought he was a lion

New Look - more aerodynamic

Dad does not snore

Just came across this gem:"Dad does not snore, he ensures the security of the whole household by letting know potential intruders there is someone in the house from far away"

Who knew? I was ensuring the security of my own home all along

Machine Learning, AI and the Internet of things

Was browsing through a forbes article about how IOT will bring about revolutionary AI. Here are my 2 cents

The article does make some good points that by becoming more and more omnipresent IOT is providing more data points. With data science being the magic buzzword and learning behaviors becoming evermore omnipresent, we can indeed see more "smart appliances" which could, in theory in a connected grid coordinate more... but this is not really specific to IOT. However, if this means an all omniscient "electric dreams" type AI, with HAL at the helm... not really.

First learning systems are relatively limited and though they can do some pretty neat tricks, with some really useful... Even in the case of unsupervised learning, they can only give great results in the fields they were programmed for. And even then, it is important to validate results, make sure that they don't just generate some beautiful hype-worthy massive dataset that are basically useless.

Furthermore, I dont expect - at least in the short term - the actual devices themselves to be very smart. First, embedded systems don't really have that much power. Second, people have expectations of the objects they use... the reason I have a backpack is to carry things, not have a dialog about what shoul go in there. The primary reason to many devices we use is practical. Finally, there is cost and maintainability... those two factors make a great case for simplification of devices

Yes, data science is awesome, yes machine learning allows to make awesome discoveries and with internet of things around the corner some really cool applications could emerge but in the end, people should expect evolutionary features, nothing revolutionary... especially in the short term

Comparing apples and oranges

There we go, with all the lightning going around, it looks like Jupiter is either pissed or drunk.. or both at the same time. Last time he was that drunk, he made hercules compete in the first olympics.. oh wait, with all the games on TV, maybe he is feeling nostalgic or something. Maybe the weather is just celebrating Hussein Bolt? I don't know, I would really appreciate a weather expert to weigh in on this.

Maybe by making the parallel, it's like I am comparing apples and oranges. I don't know, maybe I should contact a fruit expert too while I am at it. I don't know much about apples and oranges but I would say never understimate the revolutionary power of influence of apples... Adam & Eve, William Tell, Isaac Newton & Steve jobs...

Never underestimate the power of fruit I say... I thought of getting myself some apples but then again with the rain and the olympians going mad (no pun intended), I probably should stay home for now.

I just looked in the fridge and saw I have peaches... maybe I should eat one and hope everything gets nice and peachy? I don't know. Where are experts when you need them.

Seagate announce 60TB drive

After I saw Seagate's announcement for a 60 Terabyte Hard drive, my initial thought was... what the heck would I do with 60 terabytes in a laptop sized drive... then I remembered I had a similar reaction when I got my first 20 mb hard drive. I can see people heavily downloading could fill up a drive like that today. Also, having filled up terabyte sized drives before, it is not far fetched to see data piling up. This is especially with the constantly growing graphic resolutions where an uncompressed 4k movie can take many gigabytes of data.

One thing that will have to increase is data transfer rates because as of today, transfer rates are way to low for such high capacities. We'll need faster controllers, faster and larger backup systems, stronger GPUS to handle increased resolutions... and who knows what kind of applications would come next.

Winners focus on winning and many other things

There is a quote going around that says “Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.” Somehow it rings false and goes against conventional wisdom. According to what I have learned, winners get to where they are by focusing both on winners and losers before they focus on themselves.

One of the best way to become successful is to study successful people and replicate their winning strategies. Learning from successful people helps people focus on the important points, learn from other people’s experience and have a role model that shows what they want to accomplish is possible.

Another way to improve the odds of winning is to look at losers and see where they went wrong. That helps avoid mistakes of others, makes people know the risks and even feel better about the sacrifices needed by knowing that others have been in the same situation.

Finally, “focusing on winning” is also an important aspect of success. In other words, one has to be willing to focus on one’s self as well, do all the efforts needed, have patience to go through all obstacles/milestones and persist until success becomes inevitable. As they say, an overnight success takes years to prepare for.

It can be argued that a lot of losers focus on themselves. A lot of self conscious arrogant people will ignore wisdom provided by others, focus on their own bubble without ever having a reality check… and though, on occasion it does let through a prodigy… in most cases, it is like playing the lottery… there are indeed winners but a lot losers think they got the right combination to success do fail as well.

The whole point to going to college, learning from “winners” or people who studied their field in depth is because in order to focus on winning, it is necessary to study winners. Otherwise, what would be the point in reading a book, talking to a mentor or even study failures to prevent them.

Finally, beyond looking at winners, losers and even one’s self, it is imperative to study the environment one is in, the rules you operate under and see how to best optimize one’s strategy on a path to success.

Keep a backup offline

According to an article I just read, the number of ransomware attacks has been multiplied 500 percent in the last year.

This brings about a significant interesting change in backup strategies: because ransomware tends to silently encrypt data gradually then erasing it at once, it is becoming important to keep an offline version of your backups that stays offline a bit longer.

With growing storage capacities and the ease of connected USB drives, I have seen many places have a backup strategy to keep multiple copies on multiple drives attached to the same computer. While this does indeed make it easier to automate backups, it also makes it easier to accidentally lose all data should a malicious software wipe out all backups at once.

Online backup definitely can help in the case of accidental deletion of a file but keeping a copy of your data that is a month old offline will allow to recover at least some of the files in case of either a ransomware or corrupted data.

In addition, every once in a while, backups should be restored and tested because if you are backing up corrupt data for multiple years, you end up with not only corrupt backup data but your efforts are useless too

Source code to apollo missions

The code used by the apollo missions to put people on the moon is up on github.

As a friend said, the thread on apollo 13 is Hilarious. With comments such as ""temporary... I hope i hope i hope", it sheds a new light on the missions. Some comments are also brilliant... considering they had no idea things would be shared at some point with the public. From quotes of Shakespeare to references to "burn, baby burn"... really awesome

http://qz.com/726338/the-code-that-took-america-to-the-moon-was-just-published-to-github-and-its-like-a-1960s-time-capsule/

On mint tea reducing apetite

Since Mint Tea is the national drink of Morocco, looked up their health benefits. Both have "reduced apetite" and increased metabolism listed.

Given how much we eat in a traditional meal, I am curious how large the meals would be if we did not drink mint tea... Probably, at the minimum we'd have 10 course meals

Never send an email while angry

the result of an interesting study in the Wall Street Journal show that you should never reply to an email while angry. Now only are people likely to amplify their anger through email but they won't even feel satisfied after the email is sent.

If you are ever in such a situation, relax, take a moment to cool down. And as the saying goes, sleep over it. It is a lot better to have a discussion after having thought things through

Security is not optional on public Facing Sites

Today I saw an interesting statistic on slashdot: Over 200000 database servers with no authentication, over one petabyte of data access. Earlier this year, there was a post about how many people accidentally post their aws keys to github without realizing they've just opened themselves to potential charges with automated network scanners. 

An increasing number of people put their servers online without any security and put passwords/keys online. A lot of hacks are a result of careless mistakes/ skipping security altogether.

Some would argue that the data on some servers is less confidential than others or a cloud server that will be up for a short time is not as much of an issue but as technology evolves, there are more and more money incentives to hacking systems, one should expect more intrusions and more sophisticated attacks.

Further, security is as strong as the weakest link in the chain and a compromise on an unimportant server that may seem harmless may end up costing much more than expected. For example, I have seen servers that were never meant to be online may end up opening wide open a whole secured network. Sometimes, temporary solutions end up lasting much longer than initially planned. As a result, since security was overlooked because the solution was never meant to last, the whole network is wide open.

Obviously, there can be no guarantees that a zero day exploit will expose a network to malicious attacks but if there is no security, it is even worse and consequences are potentially catastrophical.

Many guides to securing servers exist and this is obviously not meant as an depth security manual. As a matter of fact, the advice below should be common sense and already be in place but I have seen these basic rules ignored too many times, so here are things you should already be doing:

• Keep your server up to date - that includes os updates and software updates. This should be obvious but way too many times, I have seen servers that have not been updated for over a year for no good reason whatsoever
• Make sure authentication is turned on wherever it needs to be - that includes databases servers, smtp servers, no default users, restrict users to only the permissions they need (For example, if you have a wordpress website, there is no reason for it to use the root mysql credentials. A mongodb admin account that can be accessed from anywhere without a password is obviously a big no no as well)
• if a service is not necessary, don't have it on by default - The less services you have available, the smaller the network footprint and the less likely one of the services will be vulnerable - either because it is misconfigured or because of a zero day vulnerability.
• Make sure api key, credentials and sensitive information is not available publically on sites like github.  With many search engines crawling the web automatically on a daily basis, putting them on any directory that can be indexed is looking for trouble as well
• Make sure you have a backup of your data and do not hesitate to bring the server offline/ reinstall if necessary - if a server is compromised, simply changing the password and putting the server back online is not going to cut it. 
• Have sensible firewall rules - multiple times, I have seen firewalls disabled during development time and never turned back on.
• In any application, trust no input. This can avoid the most common vectors of attacks - sql injection, css injection, buffer overflows and abuses due to invalid input. This includes validating the input both in the backend and the frontend.
• If you are using linux, SELinux is your friend. Too many times, I have seen SELinux disabled just to save a little time in configuration. This will help mitigate damage even if a hacker gets in.
• Change passwords regularly and they should not be easily guessed. With brute force tools commonly available, many attacks start with a weak password.
• Have sensible monitoring of both your services and your logs. If you only have one server, then you could get by with manually auditing things but with multiple servers you'll need either a log ingestion engine or some way to automatically parse/filter relevant information

As I said earlier, there are plenty of more complete guides on securing servers but this is more of a reminder of what you should be already doing.

 

On the importance of Having Backup Plans

About a year ago, I saw a quote that did not sound right from Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, "The minute you have a backup plan, you've admitted you’re not going to succeed."

It sounded wrong then but with the recent news of her fortune recently wiped to Zero it puts things in a different perspective and I certainly hope she does have at least one backup plan.

People rarely succeed on the first try and I would argue that success is all about having backup plans... plans to get backup when a failure occurs - when, not if because failure is a part of success. When they asked Edison about failure, he said "I have not failed, I have just found 10000 ways that did not work."

Whether it is Michael Jordan being cut off from his basketball team, Walt Disney being fired for a lack of imagination, the beatles who were told they had no talent at their first recording session, ... all people face failure at some point in their life and how well they succeed is determine by how much efforts they put in finding a plan b, then a plan c until things work.

As they say, "if things do not work on the first try, remember... there are 25 more letters to the alphabet" and even then, you may have to use a different alphabet. Many times, it way more than 26 tries... Kernel Sanders, when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken was told no over a thousand times before he succeeded.

Einstein is often credited with saying, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Even if as we persist, repetition, we must adjust our sails, vary our strategies... move from Plan A to Z and sometimes plan 5 steps ahead.

Whether it is acquiring new skills to not become obsolete, trying different strategies to make sure success comes in the end, creating a new drug, making your data survives a disaster, a proper backup plan is key to success.

May everyone have many backup plans and persist all their way to resounding success, as in a way, finding flaws in your current strategy is one of the best ways to improve.

Coding In a startup environment

Sometimes coding in a startup environment feels like jungling a hundred balls that magically appear out of thin air at random places, some keep unexpectedly changing direction multiple times, other vanish occasionally and later reappear, others require reading a lengthy 1000 pages manual while you keep on juggling. All during that time, random people ask you to litterally drop other balls to handle their ball first and then wonder why other balls are on the ground. As balls move around, you realize that some balls are very fragile and they need a very long strip of scotch tape while others have impractical shapes so you have to trim them.

When you finally get a hang of things, someone points out you've been juggling with the wrong balls all along and you got to start completely from scratch and you only have got 30 seconds to all the new set of balls in the air or you get disqualified. All the while, you have to prepare powerpoint presentation about your progress juggling the balls, write documents explaining how to juggle balls, describing the size and shape of each individual ball, make sure your juggling strategy is optimal while reviewing other people's juggling strategy and that your juggling strategy is synchronized with your fellow neighbor juggler who seems to have a radically different approach to juggling. Meanwhile, someone will get a brilliant idea that maybe if you are having difficulties juggling, it is because you need a sense of rythm, so they decide to make everyone dance and turn off the light so that you can feel the rythm.

At that point, someone will point out that the reason you are not doing so good is that you have the wrong set of tools so as a result everyone is encouraged to juggle with pliers and a hammer. Someone will say that since those tools suck, we probably should try again with a gold screwdriver, a magnet and point to very interesting litterature about how powerful electro-magnets are in a port environment and suggest we magnetize the balls and write a program to control the magnetic field to assist you in juggling. He even postulates that with the right magnetic field, the balls may be able to juggle themselves

As a friend pointed out, the most awesome part though how somehow, things get done, shipped and everybody is happy

The Power Method

Most people agree that both success and self actualization are important. We all tend to put our own spin on the definition of a successful life. Whether we prioritize money, physical accomplishments, art, or even answering deep and thorny philosophical questions (but isn't the answer 42?).

Even if definitions of success vary, a common thread seems to emerge and this is my take; this is what I call the power method, where each letter stands for one of the following words:

• Purpose
• Optimization
• Widen Horizons
• Enjoy life
• Redefine limits

Purpose

How do you know you got there if you don't know where you are going? How do you know you have achieved success if you have not defined what you want to get out of life? Part of it involves setting goals in an iterative process, refining them as you go along and reevaluating which one moves to the top and which one is no longer relevant. However, that is only the first step and the most important part is following through… putting the efforts needed and persisting as long as it takes to get things done.

Optimize

No matter how hard you work, you only have 168 hours per week. If you remove the time you sleep, your commute time, taking care of basic needs, a huge chunk of that disappears. This is why it is important to optimize your life. This includes:

• Optimizing your time - As they say, time is money. Planning and tracking time spent will make sure you use that resource wisely and if there is a way to work smart, save time, make use of it.
• Optimize your space - For a long time, I was convinced that even in a mess, there could be a method to the madness... that is until I actually tried organizing myself. Making sure you don’t waste hours looking for things, making sure you are comfortable will go a long way to equip you with tools for success
• Optimize your mind - Though some will say this is not really optimization, I disagree. Come to peace with major events in your life, clear your head, sort all issues out. Only then can you focus on success, move on and shine.

Widen horizons

• A great way to foster success is to be a lifelong learner. By learning, you keep your mind sharp, you open yourself to new opportunities and you get ahead of the crowd
• Though they say curiosity killed the cat, without curiosity we would not have any inventor, our world would cease advancing and very few people would push the limits. For success, it is vital to try new things, experiment, think out of the box
• Keep an open mind - stereotypes and pre-made ideas limit one's view of the world. By keeping an open mind, it will make it easier to react when an opportunity comes up, it will prevent bigotry and open many different horizons while bringing positivity
• Listen - Though it is important to know what you want and be confident in your beliefs, it is very important to listen to others as well

Enjoy life

The importance of enjoying life seems so obvious. Yet, many people tend to overlook it when they look at the steps to success

• It boosts self esteem which in turn helps people want to attempt more fun/interesting challenges. It helps them persist when the going gets tough and get passed short term obstacles while keeping in mind longer term objectives.
• Many health related issues are related to stress and mood. By having fun, you are improving your health and improving your energy.
• By enjoying life, your mind is clearer, you can focus more and in the end are able to achieve more
• People who enjoy life are more likable and more people will want to help them when an obstacle comes up

Redefine limits

Limits are made to be redefined and in order to succeed, you have to innovate, be a trend setter, have a positive impact and improve things behind you. For me, this involves:

• over deliver - if you do that long enough, you will stick out of the crowd and naturally attract success
• work smart - sometimes, to over deliver, you don't necessarily have to work harder (though to be fair, many times you do)
• work out of your comfort zone - As they say, the "magic happens outside of your comfort zone." 

This is my definition of success, I am curious to hear what other people think.

New Year resolutions

Tu te fais des idées

On Superficiality

Money Tips

• It's obvious but it took me time to sink in. When buying shop many stores for price. Easier now with the web, from your chair
• Before you can save money, learn how you spend it. Get a notepad+just write for a month. Patterns will emerge & you'll see waste
• Eat at home. Yes, a bit more work but always cheaper. Plus, if careful, you can eat more healthy food.
• Exercise outdoors & at home. Gym are nice but you under use their equipment. As a bonus, outdoors you get a great view
• Pay your credit card debt in full by the end of the month. You can litterally save fortunes. If you can't, focus on the bills with the highest interest
• Avoid vending machines, resort shops & places where stuff is sold at a more expensive price because of location
• take vacation off season. Hotels & tickets are less expensive & less people = you can better enjoy the place
• If you feel Stuck, think outside the box. Wills break barriers/See what Jack white did when he needed a guitar http://youtu.be/xCFXeChXfcI
• Dont carry lots of money. It's harder to spend money you don't have. Obviously, here, credit cards count as money here
• Refill ink cartridges. costs can skyrocket fast if you print a lot. ensure you can refill your printer cartridge+do it
• ask for competent advice while filling your tax return. Sometimes a little difference may save you a great amount.
• buy a hybrid. They have a much higher mileage per gallon, make less noise & as an added bonus, you are more eco-friendly
• "If it ain't broke dont fix it" often wrong. repair early & you save. Sometimes can even avoid more expensive repairs
• Keep clothes slightly longer. Yes the latest fashion is nice but you save a lot if clothes are still in good condition
• Unplug unused appliances. Many appliances use energy even on standby mode such as computers.
• Use a bicycle: u can exercise while getting there+in cities may be faster than cars+no gas involved (unless you fart ;)
• Sell old stuff you do not use. It frees up storage space and brings in money
• many stores will give you discounts if you sign up for their membership program. If you use it often, it is worth it
• Dont put all eggs in 1 basket. Diversify investment. ie portfolio of stock better than just 1. Minimize risk+max return
• a dollar a day goes a long way. many wait nearing retirement & lose on compound interests. Start early+do it regularely
• Get others to purchase the same item as you & get a group discount... sometimes even free item. Example: gym membership
• Economies of scale often apply - Grouping purchases can yield cheaper per item price at wholesale stores like costco
• Buy used if applicable, ie not for underwear :). It save lots of money but make sure item is in good condition first
• Plan purchases - If purchase isn't urgent. Rather than pay interests, save money monthly+put it in savings account
• Not a tip but a #funny #quote: "Borrow from a pessimist, they don't expect it back" :)
• Outlet malls - They may be a little far off but they are worth the trip in savings
• it may be sound obvious, but we forget. Ask if you can get a discount/ it is the best price. It may be enough to get 1
• Get on shop's mailing list & look for coupons/sales days. Waiting 1 week or 2 to buy desired item can well be worth it

Marre de l'allergie a la gentillesse

On Being a green Hulk

Fun things to do in Casablanca

Once in a while, I get asked what to do in Casablanca by an enterprising tourist. Because I was asked half a dozen times, I just kept adding to the answer. To anyone from Casablanca... I know, there are other places... This is by no means intended to be a complete answer, but it is a good start and beats no answer... feel free to add other places as comments.

---

Up to recently, nothing was done to make Casablanca other than a business center. Lately, this has been changing and many hotels have been built.. and a huge Marina is about to come live within 2 years.

Some touristic things to do:

• La côte ain diab - with Tahiti beach as the trendy beach. However, other beaches are available, including Dar Bouazza 15 minutes away from Casablanca (but you need a car)
• Café at "Sqala" - the old fortification of casablanca... have among other a selection of moroccan pastries dishes
• restaurant al mouniaexpensive but good moroccan restaurant
• Habbous - like a mini medina with bazars with moroccan crafts.

However, you'll probably want to eat... so here are some restaurants:

• churrascaria - brazilian
• Kiotori, Kaiten, Kaizen, Kaiten - Sushi places
• Hipopotamus, Relais de paris - meat
• aux crevettes - a fish restaurant offering a view on the sea
• Four a bois, Luigi - italian
• Rick's Cafe is a nice restaurant with good food and a nice interior based on the movie. However, please keep in mind it was created after 2000 ... so it is definitely not a historical place.

At night, you might try these places to party:

from 8 - 1 : Bodega (spanish pub/restaurant/dance),

Etoile du plazza (if you want a moroccan gnawa band),

Churrascaria (brazilian restaurant with a band),

after 12:30 - Amstrong (live band, my favorite place), choc'late (club/dance)

Crocodile 101

I may not know much about crocodiles, but I know that much... if you ever go out of a bar, drunk and you see a crocodile, DON'T try to pet it... and definitely don't try to sit on it :)... It would seem like an obvious course of action, but, this article, this is apparently what happened to a drunk tourist, which got bitten, field testing that idea.

After the man tried to sit on the crocodile, it bit the man's leg... luckily for him, all is well that ends well as the crocodile did not seem hungry. It inexplicably let the man go and just left. This shows that some people can be exceptions to Darwin's law... but he certainly deserves a darwin award.

Thank you for the brave man, making sure crocodiles have not evolved into nice sweet friendly vegetarian people like creatures with feelings.

Village for Sale

I guess I didn't realize how bad the economy was... Apparently in new zealand, for sale, village with a pub & 40 inhabitants, only $715,000 (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65O4OM20100625)

Will that be cash or charge? Cash of course. and.. You want fries with that?

You know the economy is doing bad when you can buy several of these villages with the world's largest gold coin (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65O2S320100625) ... although a bit big for the pocket, it's still enough to buy the village at face value (1 million pounds)... but the real value is 3 million pounds... for just 1 coin.

It reminds me of a story I read as a kid... it'd be funny to walk up to a store and say, "you wouldn't happen to have change for 1 million pounds, would you?"

Quand les mots sont trop faibles

Quand tu m’as demandé       pourquoi donc je t’aimais,
J’ai dit, « aucune idée ».        Farce à part, j’exprimais
Ma grande frustration            face aux mots qui ­ rebelles ­
Snobent mes émotions          si tendres et si belles.
 
Je t’aime évidement,             même sans aucun mot.
Chacun de nos moments        est tel un chalumeau,
m’enflammant tendrement.     Mais comme des sumos,
Bien maladroitement,             les mots causent mes maux.
 
Accepte mon amour               tel quel, simplement…
Cuisant comme un four.         Je t’aime, énormément.
Oublie toutes les phrases        et ressens plutôt
A quel point je m’embrase      et sauras assez tôt.
 
Il était une fois,                     une clarté en moi
Bien belle, toutefois,              malgré un tendre émoi,
Personne ne la voit.              Evidement, c’est toi
Tu me laisses sans voix          car mon âme festoie
 
La terre est une étoile            et tout y brille un peu
Car telle une jolie toile           avec grâce, tu peux
Me montrer un chemin           de lumière sans feu
Juste en tenant la main.         On est bien, nous deux.
 
Lamartine, tout noir,              ralait. Sais-tu pourquoi?
Il ne pouvait te voir,              ça le rendait narquois.
Il ne pouvait t’avoir                et à son grand effroi
Enfoui dans son manoir,         tout paraissait plus froid.
 
Evidement, tu es                      jolie à  la folie
« Ma chérie m’a tuer »,            tu m’as enseveli
Dans tout une abondance        de charme. J’oublie
Tout. Sans cesser, je dance...  La joie s'établit.
 
Mais bien plus que cela,           c’est ton cœur noble et tendre
Qui rend, quand tu es là,         tout bien plus doux. T’entendre
Est une mélodie                        exquise et goulument
J'écoute, au paradis,               passant de bons moments.
 
Des milliers de raisons             m’emplissent les pensées
Et, tel un diapason                  au ton doux insensé,
Avec tant d’harmonie,             elles vibrent sans fin
D’un son indéfini                      jusqu’aux plus loin confins.

Il faut oser

52 Raisons pour etre motives

Pourquoi la question si a-t-elle une si mauvaise reputation?

What if Solar System was a network?

I guess I had a wild geek moment while I was reading a post on slashdot where a guy said, "If the solar system was a network, the system would be very fragile... if you take off the sun, the whole system collapses within 8 minutes"... which got me thinking, what if indeed the sun was a network...

Of course, we can think of ourselve as "the center of the universe" :)... I believe it's already been done... but I believe even the Vatican is not adamant about that these days. :)

The universe's backup system seems fine to me. Of course I'm not a Universe Backup Strategy Expert... but here's my take... I believe the universe is built in a redundant star topology system... with them often organized in clusters. Light emitted is sent as a continuous optic backup beam, in all directions, using a mega thermo cooled void serving as a conduit (think supra conductors) called the ether (the complete name being the ether - net).

It's not fiber optic, it's better than fiber.... at such distance collisions dont really matter because "information is emitted in all directions at all angles)... as matter of fact, gravity bends some of the rays so it can go through. The emission of data is made in all wavelength, using all possible particles in the dictionary (and not yet in the dictionary). Just the milky way could be thought of a raid 100,000 million system.

Who's to say black holes dont serve as a mega parabolic antenna, trapping all data flowing in its direction). Theoretically, with the proper sensing technology, the proper error correction algorithms, all the solar system could be recreated some place else.

the Dope Method

Camel FAQ part 1-25

Illegal Disclaimer: This page is not Y2K, if it turns you into a nuthead, makes your left ear itch, bores you to death, or even breaks your computer, go blame someone else. Your rights may vary from state to state, please consult your astrologer, your lawyers and whatever your common sense dictates you before you attempt anything.
o   Scream      About me      Computing	Youness El Andaloussi's   The Infamous Morocco FAQ 2000 Version 3.0+ gros béta If you find this information useful, and put it to comercial use, please know that you are a pathetic loser. If so, please send a registration fee 100,000 dirhams, dollars british pounds or even Euros) to Youness@ElAndaloussi.NET . I also accept additional questions, jokes, DIP'M (Desert International Payment Magic...) Introduction          Part 25          Part 50 Part 25 - questions on and after november 1999 What Happened to parts 2...24 and 26...49 The decimal system is unfortunately very not flexible, and if you want to insert a new part, you are forced to renumber all subsequent parts to ensure referential integrity. Therefore, this FAQ is organised using the Extremely Reliable and Redundant Ordinal Ranking system (Patent Pending), or ERROR System for people in the know. Rather than incrementing by one every time, I increment by 25... that way, when version 4.0 of the FAQ comes along, I can simply can put the most recent entries on top without being forced to renumber the rest of the document. You may ask... what happens when you have to add more than 24 parts to the original documents... that's a good question, but it is not a priority as the problem has not surfaced yet... by the time this happens, I will hopefully have come up with ERROR 2.0 Are the rumors of an Internet multimedia camels true? Rumors have been going for years now, but according to an unofficial source at Microsoft which prefers to remain nameless, that Windows CE, a product designed to open new markets for Microsoft was originally designed to assist camel navigation, hence the CE (Camel Edition). As development progressed, Microsoft saw new applications for its navigation system and saw it could help people navigate on the Internet too, therefore the product was renamed Component Edition... but be not mistaken, it is only a marketing decision... you have to admit the number of clients using a camel is much more limited. So when does the Microsoft Camel come out? That's a good question and if anyone has more information about it, please let me know. A good suggestion is to subscribe to Microsoft MSDN and as soon as the software is ready for release, you will receive it... please not that you will have to provide your own camel. Are camels vulnerable to trojans and virus As a general rule, plain food should not cause any harm. However, even though a camel's MIME (Mouth Ingestion Multipurpose Engine) is very versatile, it is strongly not recommended to give too unusual foods to a camel. That of course includes poisons but also plastics, clothes and others. If there is sufficient interest, I might put up a list of things not to give a camel. Camels are not vulnerable to trojans as horses are a different specie, besides they operate on a different geographical region and therefore the problem should not arise. As camels from their height have a broad outlook, it has been suspected for a while that they were vulnerable to the Melissa/ Outlook Virus... But after further studies, it has been demonstrated there is no camel named melissa and they are only vulnerable to the LOL virus (Lasts Only a Lifetime) virus. Are camels Y2K Compliant Y2K compliance is very important these days and it is important to know if camels will be able to run safely only days before the millenium. We are proud to announce that tests have shown their internal clock will not be disturbed that particular day and since camels themselves don't store any dates at all, there won't be upgrade your camel any time soon, unless you want to add multimedia capabilities to your camel, in which case we might suggest you look further into the Microsoft Camel (see previous question) What to do with a depressed camel living abroad? Camels are so cute that sometimes you just can't resist bringing back one home with you. Of course it is hard to bring a camel back to where you live and negociating to get a camel onboard the airplane is not an easy thing, but it is well worth the trouble. Camels are lovely animals which bring about so original stories The problem is, a camel was never designed to live in a big city, therefore it is vital to help the camel adapt to its new environment. The following rules will help you keep a healthy camel: _ Camels need space, it is not recommended to let the camel sleep with you in your room _ Put sand in a camel's room - He won't feel homesick as it will remind him of the desert _ Get him on the internet, he'll be able to talk to other camels around the world   You can go back to my home page or if you are really looking for the frequently asked questions about morocco, you can go the real Morocco FAQ but not by me though. This page was accessed a lot of times since oct. 16, 1995, don't ask me how many, I don't know how to count in pounds or feet Page Created: Oct 16, 1995 Updated in: Nov 11, 1996 Last Modified:Sept 18, 1999