UAH ! I missed you

I missed my school; 12 years ago I left the University of Alabama in Huntsville after 6 years of peaceful and happy life with my family, where I received my M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. As a space grant college, UAH has always been granted generous support from NASA, SDI, DARPA, Boeing and many other high tech organizations and institutions.

The picture shows UAH undergraduate students float in a microgravity environment aboard a NASA DC-9 aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico. UAH is one of a handful of universities that sends student teams to conduct experiments in a zero gravity environment. The plane performs parabolic maneuvers at 35,000 feet above sea level, creating 20 or 25 seconds of weightlessness.

Moussa Castle (Click)

Moussa (known as the architect) is a success story; the now 74 years old man (with a hat) from Deir El Qamar, th seat of the Lebanon governer in the past, had a dream of building a castle and his fellow student made fun of him and so did a girl he loved; he was a poor kid while she was born to a man of wealth. He took the challenge and built the castle by himself in 41 years, and his effort had the UNESCO list his site as an international heritage. A museum inside the castle displays the life in Lebanon in that era (1960's). The pictures below show a teacher giving a lesson (what a lesson ? !), and a men and women carry normal daily activities. Click the title to visit the website of Moussa. (Google Earth: Lat 33.7006 and Lon 35.5835)

3 Years Blog

I have started blogging around 3 years ago as a proof of life; i.e. to make a presence only. I thought of it then as a way to help pass some new tech stuff to my students. Now, it is my way of speaking loud; I say my word regarding things and events around us, like the 10 lives worth phone.

I receive only few comments (silly, most of the time) because I have never wanted that; no labels, no hidden keywords or anything that promotes the site. But I have to admit it; it bugs me to the bone to see a silly blog making a big fuss. After all, blogging is a footprint that everyone should try to make as wide as possible, to raise awareness regarding serious issues of our life.

An iPhone (Click)

This is a real iPhone, but with prince cut diamond; original price is 400 USD and the diamond is for just 176,000 USD more; a total 176,400 USD.
A hungry human (or huwoman) in Africa needs only 30 USD per month to survive; this phone is worth the life of 10 persons (African class of course). I don't buy such a phone, even for a 50% discount. Luckily, there is a cheap alternative; the Motorola phones with diamons are sold for only 10,000 USD; designed with the poor rich in mind.

The Power of 0.9 (Click)

The C8051F9xx is a new low cost low power 8-bit MCUs operated at 0.9 V, with 64 Kbytes of flash, 4 Kbytes of SRAM housed in 4mmx4mm package t. This means a true single-cell battery solution. The device has a typical sleep-mode current of less than 50 nA and active-mode current is as low as 170 µA/MHz and total of 65 mW of power consumption.

Also have a 10-bit 300-ksample/s A/D converter, a smart RTC, and hardware enhanced UART, SPI and SMBus serial ports, and cost only 2 USD when buying 10,000 pieces. At 25 MHz operating frequency, it can deliver up to 25 MIPS due to the novel pipelined architecture. Click the title for a chance to win a development kit.

Languages ...

All we need from languages, is a way to communicate with others, and theoretically one is good enough. However, largely dispersed nations of the ancient times has resulted in more and more dialects and languages, to the degree they are so numerous now. On the other hand, as the nations are getting closer to each other, languages are facing a risk; Over 50% of the world's 6000 languages are endangered, and one language disappears on average every two weeks.

The UNESCO reports show that 96% of the world's 6000 languages are spoken by 4% of the world's population, and 90% of the world's languages are not represented on the Internet. Many of these languages are not well established; numbers show that 80% of the African languages have no orthography.

The UNESCO decided to promote and safeguard endangered languages and linguistic diversity as an essential part of the living heritage of humanity, through its Endangered Languages Program. But I believe, with all respect to the nations heritage, that focusing on fewer languages, and promoting learning these languages is far better, and will get nations closer to each other and provide better communication through the Internet and future technologies. The question is: who will give up his language for the sake of others to stay?, and the answer is simply another question: should the English or Arabic disappear to promote a poor language spoken by few thousands and had no literature ?

1500 years ago ...

The world's most important and blessed event has already happened; that was 1500 years ago, when prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) was born in Mecca. Now, nearly 1.5 Billion followers is the count and it's rising by the will of Allah. Those who don't join are absolutelty the losers as we consider the iternal life. Muslims look weak and behind today, but will one day be stronger as they were once, and will have true Omar, Ali, Othman, Khalid, Mo'tasim and Salah, just to name few ... . Peace & Prayers be upon you our prophet as we observe your birthday Thursday 20/3/2008

Tower & Power (Click)

A tower and a well placed set of mirrors to focus the light energy on the tower top, where a steam turbin generates electricity. Spain and Abu Dhabi are the places for this rare technology, click to read more

Gaza? Call later (Link Removed)

If you care about human being, regardless of their skin color, gender, religion, nationality, .... then check out this link, to see what the "the state of Israel" is doing to people who can hardly afford basic life, and yet they claim that they possess weapons and rockets, while only some of them could get primitive weapons (some are home made) to defend themselves and their dignity ...

Gazzans ... we are sleeping now, please call later ! or call Al Nasir Salah Edeen, Al Mo'tasim, Khalid Bin Alwaleed ... for emergency. Click the title for more, a website in many languages tells true stories, not the media polished stuff

CeBIT Tech Raid (Click)

Thank God we don't make any products here in Jordan; 51 gadgets vendors were caught in patent rights violation raid at the CeBIT Tech Fair in Hanover-Germany.

I have been to this world class fair in the 1987 ...
there was no raid at that time (because there were no MP3, MP4, Cell Phones, ... at that time); as reports says 180 policeman and custom officials carried out the raid, and out of the 51 patent violating vendors 24 from China, 12 from Taiwan, 3 from Hong Kong ....and of course not even a single one from the Arab world, we always stay on the safe side and don't risk our future by trying the manufacturing business. Read the AP reports ....

New Autos

A concept car for the future, especially in Jordan where the fuel prices has reached the skies ...
Unfortunately, there is only one color ... the red, which possibly hides the risk of even higher taxes ....
It is like saying: wherever you go ... we are with you !